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

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

Caroline Hobbs a coach from Saint Jose Broker at Reward Realty talks about her experience in real estate as a third generation in the business. Caroline discusses how easy it was to be driven by this legacy. Next, Caroline discusses how helpful it is working with a top agent and learning from them. Caroline also discusses the importance of having a mentor. Last, she emphasizes the impact of a leading platform that she and her team are working on and how it will help agents in their business. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Caroline Hobbs can be reached at caroline@rewardrealty.org. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re going to talk about the importance of mentorship. And by the way, almost everyone I’ve ever had on my show, which are top 1%. Producers have all had mentors. Let’s talk about it 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 in 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 in just a moment, we’re gonna be speaking with top producer and also software developer Caroline Hobbs. This is a really cool one, you’re going to want to listen to all of it, because there’s lots of great stuff here. Anyway, before we get to Caroline, one thing that you can do to help our show out two things actually is leave us a review. So you might be listening to us on Apple podcasts or any other podcast app. Please let us know what you think of the show helps us improve and obviously meet your needs more effectively. And please also tell a friend about the show. Think of just one other agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Caroline and let them know about the show. We appreciate it. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Caroline hops. Today on the show, our guest is Caroline Hobbs. She is a broker and owner of reward Realty in San Jose, California, which is the heart of Silicon Valley. Let me tell you more about Caroline. Now, Caroline, if there’s anyone who understands the stress of uprooting one’s life, and finding the best place to raise a family, it’s Caroline. She’s the Tao mother of two’s career kicked off with Keller Williams in Palo Alto, where she learned everything that she knows from some of the world’s leading agents, some of them have even been on our show. Using her knowledge and intrinsic passion for helping clients achieve their goals. Carolyn built reward Realty from the ground up. As the team lead and head broker Caroline’s spends her days turning mundane listings into irresistible opportunities for local homebuyers and investors. When you work with Carolina, you can be rest assured that you’ll feel heard supported and respected by somebody with decades of experience. Now to learn more about Caroline’s brokerage, please visit reward realty.org again reward realty.org We will have a link to that in the show notes. And she is currently working on a new tech product specifically for realtors. We’re going to be talking about that at some point in the show today as well. And we’ll give you some information on how to learn more there. Caroline, welcome to the show. Caroline Hobbs 3:57Hi, thank you so much for having me. D.J. Paris 3:59I am so excited to chat with you. And I don’t get a chance to talk to as many broker owners as I would like. So this is kind of a treat for me, because you really are wearing a lot of hats. Not only are you running your brokerage and your own personal business within the brokerage, and managing agents and doing all of the all of the hats that owners do that were and also working on a tech product at the same time. So I’m excited to talk about that. But why I always like to start off the show learning more about our guests. So tell us how you got into real estate. Caroline Hobbs 4:35So I’m actually a third generation real estate professional. My grandfather was a contractor who had his real estate license. My mother has been in the lending industry for over 40 years and is just getting ready to retire. And so while I was in college, I was introduced to a real estate agent who was number one in Keller Williams international and started working for her as her open house host and assistant. D.J. Paris 5:06Yeah, what’s it like to work for the number one, I just recently had the number one REMAX agent who happens also in the world who happens to be in California, not not in your neck of the woods down in downtown Los Angeles. But it was interesting talking to like the number one person in the world and he really hearing how somebody at the very tippy top of the mountain does it, not just the people who are just slightly underneath them who are also superstars, but the person at the very top you got you got that experience. So tell us about what you learned from working with some I mean, what a gift that is, I imagine 100% Caroline Hobbs 5:41I, honestly, I don’t think I would have figured out my strengths as an agent. Even in tech, without my start working with that agent, I had open houses to host and get face to face connections with clients very, very early, like before I was licensed. So from the get go, she used to joke that I posted more open houses than anybody else in Silicon Valley, because I hosted them every single weekend for years. So learning how to convert clients, talk to them, understand their concerns, hear them out, that was all super invaluable. But in all honesty for running a business, I think I learned a lot because this agent had not only her real estate license, but she also had an MBA, and what is a certified accountant. So she she was like the ultimate business person. So I like to say I stole all the knowledge that I could. I worked with her for six and a half years, and got to see the ins and outs of how she runs her business. How she conducts it, how she talks to clients how she closes the deal. But even more so I was in charge of running her database, which this is in 2008 2007, she had over 10,000 people in her database. Amazing. So this is way before most people even had a database most people were working off of, you know, a notepad, maybe an Excel sheet if you were advanced. Right. D.J. Paris 7:15And we should also mention that this is right at the most challenging time to be a real estate agent. This is when the market crashed. We had all those subprime loans were really brought the housing market down, by the way that is not happening now. Thank goodness. But you were you hurt getting doing this in a very difficult time? Caroline Hobbs 7:36Absolutely. Also, with the area that we are selling in our office, we’re with Keller Williams, and our office was in downtown Palo Alto, which is actually the number one office in the country as well. A lot of times, it’s just because of the price points that we’re at, you know, they’re at a much higher level, most people need to sell 510 20 houses to equate the same kind of price range. But just being surrounded by those agents who are really a lot more business minded than I find a lot of realtors to be was really inspiring the other person that was at the office at the same time with me, well known agent who started his own brokerage called Dalian Realty. You know, back when we were at Keller Williams together, he sold the most expensive home in America, which was over in Woodside for about $100 million. And he took that and reinvested it back into himself starting his company. So I like to think that I kind of learned from those around me. And that’s the path I ended up choosing as well. It’s D.J. Paris 8:43really, it’s really, again, such a gift, it’s a good reminder to our audience that if you currently don’t have a mentor, or you don’t have open houses to sit on weekends, beg anyone in your office as much as you can to go ahead and sit those open houses, you’re doing the seller a favor. And clearly you’re doing yourself a favor by not only learning how to talk about real estate to people that walk in off the street, but also possibly get some leads as well. And hopefully, you know, show those people other homes to buy. So this I cannot encourage people to do this. More. I think it’s it’s so critical. And everyone who’s listening probably already knows. Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to, you know, sit open houses. But I can’t think of an example. We’ve done about 500 episodes. I’m sure there’s one person that never said an open house on a 500. But that’s about it. Yeah. And I only talked to the top top agents in the country so and the very top agent at Keller Williams was like, oh, yeah, by the way, sit open houses. So yeah. Yeah. So even if you read Gary Keller’s book, it’ll tell you to sit open houses. So anyway, that that is just a good quick reminder. So when did you decide to sort of break off so you learned all this great information from your mentor and got to read really see a lot of high end sort of transactions and sort of the white glove approach, which is absolutely needed for you know, those kinds of transactions. And you were able to take that synthesize what you learned, and then build your own brokerage. Tell us about that. Caroline Hobbs 10:15Yeah. So my adventure with reward Realty started about 10 years ago, April was our 10 year anniversary of being in business. So I started this in 2013. And my goal was, I at the time, there was really, really high splits with the the major players. And as a newer agent at the time, well, not new, but like, I was a young agent. So I didn’t have a whole lot of resources. A lot of sweat equity went into it. But I wanted to create a place where agents could come, they could keep more of their commission, they could have access to the best tools, and really find themselves like a home. I very much am very involved with all of my agents at my brokerage. Today, as we’re recording this, this is Wednesday, we call it party day in our office. So we have our local broker tour that we go on. We all go to the meeting together, I actually sit on the board for our Real Estate Association. And we come back to the office, I have my agents in the other room right now kicking off the 100 days, to 100k with Tom Ferry, all the printed out books ready to go for them. So they’re listening to that while we record this right now. But we also do we do lunch, we we invite lenders and we roleplay. So really trying to you know, hone those skills, make sure that my every agent at our office is a beacon of information for all of their clients. D.J. Paris 12:04You know, it’s so funny because you say that, you know, this idea of having this once a week, sort of tour, you know, you call it part party day, and you get to go out and see some listings, you get, everyone gets the experience of walking through, there’s information that’s being shared. And then you come back and digest it all and then actually do some additional work with the Tom Ferry program, as well as role playing, which is I think one of the most invaluable exercises. Of course, this is awesome. I I’m thinking here we’re in Chicago, there are hundreds of brokerages here. I am sure that maybe one of them does that I’m sure. I’m just guessing. I don’t know of any personally that do that weekly. Again, I’m sure there are. And I’ll probably get some emails from people afterwards saying, Yeah, we do this, but it is very rare. And so I will, I will really honor you for that. And by the way, I always forget to say this until the end, if anyone is in the San Jose area, and would like that sort of experience as they’re growing their business to learn from somebody who learned from the very best. And also, practices at every single weekend literally teaches you and shows you how to do that. Check out reward Realty against reward realty.org. And by the way, no franchise fee. So how exciting is that? So you don’t have to pay that like mysterious 5% to the mothership, because there was no mothership. It’s just Caroline and her team. So that’s awesome. I love I love this idea of really building the skills of your agents, which is, I think I’ve seen a trend. I’m curious to get your take on this. I’ve seen a trend where managing brokers, people who are in charge of all of the agents, you’re I’m assuming you’re the managing broker as well, that yeah, so you have you wear a lot of different hats. And what I’ve seen over the last probably 10 years is this trend of the managing brokers are now being asked to do more recruiting because it’s getting more competitive, people are moving around a bit. And especially now, and they’re not they don’t have as much time to train. And so I think a lot of the training initiatives are being pushed off to teams, which I guess sort of makes sense in in a way. But I like the idea of joining a brokerage who actually the brokerage itself has amazing training. So I applaud you for continuing to support your agents in that way. Let’s talk about let’s talk about your your other venture because you were a little bit dissatisfied with database stuff. You wanted to do more. You’re right in the part of the country that loves tech, and it all of our tech, you know, sort of breakthroughs you come from your part of the country. So tell us a little bit about what you’re working on. This is actually really cool. Yeah, Caroline Hobbs 14:53absolutely. So we are essentially tied to Other some of the leading platforms follow up boss and open to close and building our own customized client portal, which will be client facing. So between the follow up boss and the open to close, we’ve actually created full cross functional usage of it. So currently they’ll link during Zapier, but we have a much more robust way of doing this, essentially allowing agents to solely work out of follow up boss, admins and transaction coordinators to solely work out of open to close and have everything sync all of the information showing up in the client portal to be accessible to your clients. And also be able to invite agents from the other side of the transaction to access the documents and things like that. So we can do an AI transaction management, kind of scanning the documents, reducing risk by by making sure that there’s not any kind of missing signatures missing, you know, questions skipped anything like that. And really having everybody worked together to get that file completed without a whole lot of trouble going back and forth. D.J. Paris 16:10So let me see if I understand because I think I do although I am a little bit under the weather. So I may just be making this up in my head, and you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I understand. So the problem you’re solving is, hey, clients oftentimes don’t really know where they are in in a, in a transaction. There’s no real portal for a client to go in and say, Oh, this is exactly where we are. Currently, they’re waiting for communication from their broker, their agent. And maybe their agent is good at doing that. Maybe they aren’t. But there isn’t a place where they can just go and see a snapshot of here’s everything that’s currently going on. So you built that solution. It was really actually, I don’t know that that solution. Does that solution exists before yours? Because no, you shaking your head? No, no. That is a brilliant idea. Because I was thinking about this, I bought a place a few years ago, and I hadn’t bought a place in a long time. So I sort of forgot the process. And now with like getting a loan and dealing with lender stuff, it was all that way, it was all online, they would they would ping me, I need this, this this but it was all through a portal, it made perfect sense. And then I could see the status of it, as well as the updates as they rolled in. I love that you’re doing this, this is really, really smart. So it’s a client centric approach to really keep them in the loop. And then also utilize existing systems that agents are already enjoying. Caroline Hobbs 17:34Yes, so that is definitely a major portion of it is I felt like there was always a client version or like a client facing part of this that was missing. Also, another thing that inspired me to do this, especially on the listing side, is a lot of times when homes are sitting on the market for a little while and not moving, they want to see like a whole tracklist of what you’ve done to market their home. So this allows you to make those notes in their follow up boss and have them sink directly into the client portal, where they can see every single action that you’re taking at each step. But furthermore, and I think this is where an agents will be a little bit more interesting is that all of your follow ups, all of those special touches, whether it’s gifting, marketing, all of that is going is a custom build out that we do for you and your follow up boss account and you’re open to closed account. So let’s say that a new company starts up for home valuations. And they have an open API and you want to incorporate it into your account and your client of ours, you’ll tell us open your account, we’ll set it up for you, we’ll help you know test it out to make sure that we’re using it at the highest and best level and help you get all of the Automate nations set up so that way it is just incorporated, you’re not going to another place to go make a change another place to go send out postcards, another place to go, you know, create your Commission’s or anything like that. D.J. Paris 19:05So there’s really there’s really two components here, there’s the client, the client facing side, which is going to give them updates, they can see your activity, they can stay in the loop and get notified when there’s when there’s new activity. And then on the other side, there’s the the agent facing side, which is going to link up with many different tools all in one so that you’re not logging in and out of all these different systems. And I don’t think anyone’s built that either. I guess Salesforce would be the closest thing to that. But it Salesforce is a giant massive tool that isn’t specifically real estate focused. So you’re basically taking existing tools and really hyper focusing them to the real estate agent experience. Yeah, Caroline Hobbs 19:46if you can imagine a tool that combines like disclosure IO, but for both sides of the transaction and compresses all of those files together for the most complete one and marking what’s missing. That’s kind of that’s the workflow that we’re, we’re building towards. D.J. Paris 20:07Awesome. When do you anticipate? Is it in beta testing now? Or how far is it ready for for Caroline Hobbs 20:13development. We have partnered with Bara agency, which is the number one real estate development company. There are CTOs. For this, we have evolved, who is helping us with our onboarding, Jackie, is a superstar and well known among a lot of the execs in real in real estate technology companies. And then, you know, so we really have partnered with some of the best of the best, we have regular meetings with open close and follow up boss, to make sure we’re all building alongside one another, to really create a super system. And I think a lot of our vendors are really seeing the value in what we’re doing. Being able to extend their client lifecycles, because they’re actually utilizing the tools that they’re paying for. D.J. Paris 21:00Right. And the reality of it is, and we all know this, who are practicing Realtors is there’s just too much to do in any given day, to really manage your entire business as an individual, it’s just too much. It really is. And so you need to leverage tools. And the problem with CRMs is I mean, certain CRMs are wonderful, but you really have to, if this is the era of integration, so we’re going to start to see tools combining lonewolf is doing this a lot. If people are following lone wolf, they’re purchasing lots of little tech companies and trying to create some sort of eco sphere to sort of suck you and Caroline is doing the same thing. And she’s she’s doing it with some of the biggest players in the space. So because it’s not, it’s still in development, you guys are working on it. Now, if somebody wants to sort of be informed of the updates, and you know, once it’s ready, where should they should I should they go to reward realty.org send you an email just to put on a list, that Caroline Hobbs 22:01would be fine, or use the link below to just go ahead and book a 30 minute consultation with me, we are getting ready to start onboarding people onto our open to close and follow up boss built out system. So basically all the action plans, all the touch points, all of that gets customized to the user, all the verbage we give you video scripts to go and record to put into your transaction emails, as far as updates go, and then those will sync to the client portal, we are expecting to we’re expecting we’re hoping to finish the client portal by end of q1 and 2024. So for anybody that is already on our platforms, they will automatically get you know first dibs and likely some beta testing on it. And then we will be selling it as a part of the tech stack that we’ve developed, as well as an individual product that people can access and use on their own transactions. D.J. Paris 23:03I love it. So stay tuned, but get on the mailing list. So we are I forgot Caroline mentioned that there is a link. So if you’re a brokerage if you’re a team, if you’re an individual that has many systems you want to integrate, you can schedule in the description below, you’ll see a link to schedule time with Caroline and her team to learn more. Also, you can also go to reward realty.org and shoot her message. I want to talk a little bit about the state of the market. Because of course this is a different year than last year we have our interest rates are different. Our inventory demand is different. And and I don’t know what it’s like in in the San Jose area, but I suspect it’s it’s similar to what we’re experiencing in other parts of the country. So basically, what I’m saying is the vast majority of agents, I talked to their businesses down. Occasionally I run into somebody who’s crushing it. But that’s an anomaly. It’s not as common as anyone would like. So how are you keeping your agents motivated? Obviously, I love the party Wednesday idea of going out and doing skill building. What else are you telling your agents to do right now to help you know, keep their business rolling. Caroline Hobbs 24:17Um, we do a number of things. So we do a lot of online marketing. So we do have new leads that come in every single day through several different programs. In addition to that, I do have all of my buyer’s agents, because I do run a small team within the brokerage as well. They host all of my open houses. I have built up a pretty strong stream of listings and reputation in the area. So fortunately, we’ve been able to keep business coming in and and you know, focusing on that way, but really we’re leveraging our systems to help differentiate ourselves be the first to contact And then with the roleplay, making sure that we make every single conversation count. You know, it’s fine in a busy market when you’ve got 100 leads coming in a day to, you know, mess up on a couple, but this is the roleplay. And we want to capitalize on every single opportunity. And so we want to make sure that our agents are ready to go. The second opportunity arises and that they’re able to have that persuasive conversation and help their clients understand what a good time it actually is to purchase. D.J. Paris 25:36Yeah, and let’s, let’s talk about rates. So interest rates are higher than than anyone would prefer currently, although historically not that high, but it feels high. I think now, even though it’s, you know, it doesn’t really, if you look at the numbers, I don’t think it’s too awful. Just it’s awful in comparison to 3%, which was an anomaly as well, a couple of years ago. So but it is an interesting conversation, because I think I’ve some friends that are lenders that I’m probably I’m getting the statistic wrong, but it’s something like 85% of us homeowners have less than a 4% mortgage. So we’ve, I don’t know, really created a challenge for realtors now to unless you have to move, it’s tough to ask somebody to give up their 3% rate for possibly, you know, a 7% rate. So are you? Are you coaching your agents on how to handle that particular conversation? And what would you recommend in those cases. Caroline Hobbs 26:33So there’s a few different things. Regarding the market here in Silicon Valley, we’re seeing a lot of cash offers come through. And I realized that it’s just because we get a lot of money from investors, and we’ve got engineers with RSU money and things like that. But what that indicates to me is there’s blood in the water. And if you’ve been in real estate long enough, you know that prices, home prices and interest rates have an inverse relationship. So what some of our partner lenders have been doing is they have programs where if you purchase now, they in six months, they’ll refinance you for free, no cost at all, very patient, but there’s always going to be I think that this reaction to the interest rates is a little bit of a generational thing. It’s less so with the move down clients, which is a lot of the people that we’ve served this year, I think younger buyers and their 30s, which is the majority of people buying and selling right now as people starting to have families and moving up in their careers and starting to move into a home that they might stay in for a little bit longer. They’re not going to stay in a townhouse. Because that’s what they could afford when they’re 2030 years old. And when they have two kids and need a backyard, no matter what their interest rate is, right now, will they hold on to it as an investment property and turn it into an investment property. That’s not a bad idea. But I kind of stand by the fact that there’s always going to be a reason to buy and sell. And in California, we are seeing a lot of people. Again, not as interested about the interest rates, but like acknowledging that the cost of living is so high here and moving out of state. D.J. Paris 28:29Yeah, that makes sense. And you said something very powerful. About the good thing to remember I sort of had forgotten this, that interest rates and home price is they have like a negative correlation like as one one goes up the other goes down so that that is a conversation to have with with buyers right now and sellers just say hey, yeah, you know, and there’s other other options too. With mortgages you could do buy downs. So by the way, if anyone’s not familiar with a Biden listen to our we do a monthly episode with Joel from guaranteed rate he talks a lot about Biden’s those are very common right now to help ease some of that, you know, that sticker shock of seeing the larger number on on that monthly payment. So but there are solutions, but I think you brought up a really good point is let’s talk about home pricing. Because at the end of the day, if pricing is coming down, because rates are high will ultimately that could be a good thing for both sides. But the math needs to be there right? So people agents need to I think do a little bit more math these days than perhaps they had to do before when when rates were so low that it and let’s also remember to when rates were in the threes and even the twos a little bit. Think about how many buyers flooded the market and how much how people were overpaying for some of these, you know these homes, so this is a time where there’s less buyers. So in a way that’s less competition, that’s good. And now you know, you might get a discount on the price. Caroline Hobbs 29:58Well I think that’s very true in other markets. Here’s the problem. Buyers and sellers in Silicon Valley are very spoiled. So it’s, I mean, can you imagine being an engineer you make, you know, $500,000 a year, including your stock income, and somebody tells you, no, you can’t have that house because somebody’s been $50,000. Warren, well, let us $50,000 equate to 200 bucks a month, 300 bucks a month. So they’re not gonna go out to dinner two times, you know. And so I think that’s one of the reasons why we see our prices go up at such a rapid rate. We are seeing multiple offers still. So there’s homes in San Jose, especially, that will have three, four or five offers after a week on the market. South County like Gilroy and Morgan Hill, there’s are expanding neighborhoods that are kind of hit or miss on the multiple offers, but we aren’t really seeing as much of a dip in pricing. But people are a little bit more conservative. So it just it makes pricing that much more important. So what I always say like, if you have tours going on for your area, put it on tour, get the feedback from other local agents and see what they think. I know when we put our I put every single listing of mine on tour, we usually have anywhere from 55 to 75 agents come through on that day. Wow. Which is amazing. Because you really get good feedback. Everybody in the area knows about your listing, they’ve walked it. And one of the things I encourage my team to do as we’re doing the tours is take pictures, it’s a great opportunity to make content, talk about what’s going on in the market that week. You know, people love video. So getting out in front of your audience and your sphere is amazing. Yeah, D.J. Paris 32:02let’s let’s talk about the role of video. Because I think you know, agents are going on tours, they’re going to broker open opens, they’re obviously doing showings with their clients and whatever listings they may have. So there, if you’re in a home, you have the opportunity to make a video even if it’s 60 seconds short form video, by the way, has, by about a foot I just did a presentation on this. So it depends on what stat you believe, but about a four to five times multiple. I think that’s the right way to say it four or five times more, maybe it’s not a multiple then even image posts and short and long form video. So actually people aren’t I mean, we look tick tock, this is a crazy statistic, just to show you the importance of of short form video and I know tick tock skews to a younger audience. But this is a crazy statistic 1.6 7 billion users Tiktok has, there’s only 8.1 billion people in the world, they have one out of every eight people going there at 1.1 billion of the 1.6 7 billion go there every single month. And it’s probably even more often than that. Because if you’re on Tik Tok, you’re not just going once a month, you’re going every single day. So short form, video is key. And it’s the easiest type of content to create, because it’s the shortest amount and it’s what people want to see. So I think there’s, you’re right, I think there’s so much opportunity going in anytime you go to a listing or any sort of property and just doing a quick little, it doesn’t just have to be showing your audience that you went to the gym this morning. And you know, you’re committed. And that’s fine, too. But yeah, create this great real estate content, just simply by going to a listing and saying, Oh, look at this cool thing in this house. I want to show you. Caroline Hobbs 33:42Yep, totally. And, you know, you really should be doing that. Even when you’re taking buyers out on tours, take pictures of cool things get on front while they’re upstairs living in the master bed, bathroom, and just be like, hey, when I just came by this listing, this is amazing. Come and take a look scheduled showing with me now. D.J. Paris 34:03Yeah, even if you’re with a client, what here’s what I would recommend because obviously you want to support that client, you don’t want to be doing other work while you’re doing that. But if you have a few moments, take a video of something cool in the house. Don’t say anything. You can always add your your commentary in later. But get that video so that way the client doesn’t necessarily know that you’re creating content for something else. But but create like just just even if it’s 10 seconds, show something and then you can always do a voiceover it’s a huge missed opportunity for agents and then posting Caroline Hobbs 34:37100% D.J. Paris 34:41let’s um, I want to talk to about about new agents because we do have a lot of new agents that listen to our show and are want to hear from top producers about what they should be doing right now. Well, we already talked about open houses. That’s an absolute no brainer. Aside from open houses, how should somebody be working their sphere of influence, especially if they’re new? What are the things that you would recommend to a new agent to make sure that the sphere of influence starts to now associate the new agent with being an agent and not you know, the person that used to work in tech, for example, and now he’s doing real estate and people still think of you as the tech guy. So how do you really begin to condition the people in your life to know that now I’m the real estate person. Caroline Hobbs 35:30First off, real easy. There’s a lot of tools like this like home bot, there’s a new one called fellow which I really like a lot. And I’m going to be integrating into our systems. These automated value tools. Get everyone you know, your whole Christmas card list, get them every single person on one of these AMV tools, you will immediately be associated with good news about their house. And you know, they’ll get a monthly email with updates on their home value, and they’ll know that you’re the person to go and talk to about it. D.J. Paris 36:06That is funny. It is funny. I’m sorry to interrupt. I was gonna say I love getting that Zillow email once a month. And look, don’t don’t kill me, everyone. I know not everybody who listens to this love Zillow. And I’m not saying this is a love Zillow thing. But you know what is cool about Zillow is that little Zestimate email once a month to tell me how if my home is appreciated or depreciated, whether it’s accurate or not another question, but just getting that it’s kind of like getting your FICO score every month for the credit, because it’s like, even though it doesn’t really matter. For me, I like knowing if my score went up or down or if my home price went up or down. And this is something that you can do to anybody whether they’re a client of yours or not. And odds are their own agent isn’t doing that. Caroline Hobbs 36:48Let me give you an idea to just go over the top. And for all the new agents listening, this is what you want to hear is go on to Zillow, screenshot your friend’s address with there’s the estimate, perfect love, shoot him a text and be like, hey, look how much your home is worth. Values are still up, people are still moving. Do you know anyone who’s in the market? I love it. It’s easy. It takes you three seconds. And it’s it’s one of the things that’s included in the 100k and 100 days for the Tom Ferry program is a Z estimate printout and you can mail these to people as well, you know, circle the price interested in actual value because we all joke, you know, it’s or off depending on the area. D.J. Paris 37:35But now, I will tell you by the way I got a chance to to spend some time with Zillow this year. And last year, I was very fortunate to be able to spend time with their senior leadership. And their their data engineers and their economists will tell you with with absolute honesty, I believe unless they’re unless they’re not being honest. But I believe they’re being honest, that that they’re within you know, 3%, give or take plus or minus, right. So they will say we actually check our data. And we are now so close that word about a 3%. One way there. Now I know everyone out there might feel differently. It’s Caroline Hobbs 38:12funny that you mentioned that. If you go on to Zillow into the agent toolkit, this is one of the things you’ll see there’s a Z estimate section and they have a graph, which shows exactly what you’re talking about based on. I don’t know, there’s probably about 26 cities listed. The thing about that, and some are there are some that are very close. And I think it really just depends on the market. You know, how much is the average? You know, at like over asking kind of price? Because really it comes down to like how are people bidding 5000 over are they bidding 200,000 over? So one thing I noticed on their chart is cities like San Jose are missing? Sure, because it’s just their numbers are not going to be anywhere as close since you have more of that emotional factor that comes into play with our buyers and their pricing decisions. D.J. Paris 39:11Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So so the the Z estimate is is going to be contingent on the area. But the good news is it’s probably better that it’s off than it’s, you know, I talked to somebody at Zillow once and this is many, many years ago when it wasn’t as accurate it is now and the guy goes, agents should be thanking us that it’s not that accurate because we’re making we’re making you more important because and so what Caroline is saying is is actually absolutely of such a great idea. Everybody in your database, especially if you’re new. Hey, I just noticed Zillow was saying your homes that circle it. I think I can I want to I want to double check those numbers. I want to see would you be interested in getting a more accurate quote or a more updated quote? That is a great who wouldn’t? And it’s going to give you the opportunity to really understand how and values. If you do enough of those, you know, you’re just going to start start to get what’s going on in your marketplace. And everybody always wants to know what their home is worth, whether they’re moving or not. We all want to know it. What are possibly our largest asset for most people is the largest asset. What that if it’s appreciating or depreciating? I love that idea. Well, Caroline Hobbs 40:19it also creates, I think, earlier in the call, you’re asking me about how I’m helping my newer agents stay busy. It creates conversations. So for internet leads, the average are, you know, you’ll typically sell maybe 5%. If you’re, if you’re good at converting on the low side, it’s like two to 3%. So what that tells me is that I need to have more conversations in order to produce more transactions. And sometimes, you know, internet leads are not the best. So you have to go outside the box. Circle dialing can work with the Z estimates as well. D.J. Paris 41:02What is circle dialing? Can you explain that to our audience? Yeah, circle Caroline Hobbs 41:05dialing is choosing a farm area. A lot of people do this with postcards, and mail marketing. Circles dialing is essentially taking that physical mail farm that you’re used to reaching out to and calling their phones. So there’s many different companies out there that will give you access to the phone numbers like red X Vulcan seven. And then there’s other companies that will link in and you can actually do like voicemail drops. Hey, this is Caroline Hobbs, your lantana Wisteria neighborhood realtor just wanted to give you a call this home just closed escrow and I thought you might be interested, they received multiple offers, give me a call if you’re curious and want to learn more. By the D.J. Paris 41:52way, this is such a great idea. I got very excited, I was waiting for her to finish, which is not what you’re supposed to do as an interviewer because I’m so excited. This is such a brilliant idea. Because think about this, you sell a home in a in a subdivision or neighborhood, right? And you want to you want to blanket the neighborhood by saying hey, by the way, it just sold so and so’s home. I’d love to chat with you. That’s that’s challenging to do unless you’re knocking door to door and I don’t even think people really appreciate that. Mostly, I mean, it’s pens, I guess where you live and make it the worst. That’s true, too. But if you have the fortitude to Dornoch, I applaud you. I just I think that that’s going the way of the dodo. So one thing that you can do is start to call but you know, maybe there’s 100 homes in that subdivision and yeah, you know, that’s kind of a lot of work to call 100 people using something like Sly dial where it’s going to drop right into their voicemail, you know, just say, hey, you know, and you wouldn’t say their first name, of course, because you would just record at once. But hey, this home just sold down the street wanted to, you know, suggest, you know, exactly, we actually Carolyn said it much better, and I won’t try to do what she said. But it’s such a brilliant idea, because everybody is interested also in their neighbor’s properties, because that’s gonna affect their properties, you know, that activity. So. And the other thing for open houses, you can do this with open houses, too. You can start, you know, schedule an open house and then blanket the neighborhood a couple of days before. Yeah, because everybody’s nosy. They want to see what’s inside of their neighbor’s home. Caroline Hobbs 43:19Well, you know, it’s funny, and it happens all the time. I get realtors that come or not realtors, but I get neighborhood homeowners that come in. And they’re like, we just wanted to creep on the house and see what it looks like inside. We’re not really in the market. We’re just or it’s like somebody will text me. Do you know what this sold for? I was creeping on Zillow and I see that it’s pending. Just don’t know those are like my star people. And now they have my phone number from the voicemail drops, and they know that I’m the person with the information about sales in the neighborhood. D.J. Paris 43:54Absolutely. It’s such a great idea and I actually think this is a great place to wrap up because you just gave our audience a really amazing couple of suggestions for how to stay busy. I mean guys, let’s just recap some of them number one if you’re not doing open houses, beg beg everyone in your office who has a listing Can I please please please come sit in open house for you Saturday, Sunday, whatever, and do as many of those as possible because not not only will it get you familiar with talking to buyers, it will also possibly get you some leads as well and just a lot of experience so that’s that’s a no brainer. We all know that. Now this idea of the Zestimate or as Caroline says the Z estimate I it’s too much work for me to say the estimate so I’m going to say is estimate I’m under the weather so I’m going to try to conserve my energy but but anyway, her idea is an amazing one. So if you’re new everybody you know just you know if you’d if you don’t know if they own or rent call them and say hey, do you do on your property? I’m, I’m you know, I just got my license can I I want to practice on on you and I want to, I’m going to send you something, you know, again, this is we want to condition these, these, these, your sphere to know that this is what you do. And by the way, it’s great experience as well to learn about pricing, learn about what Zillow sends out there. So that as an agent, because we know the number one place, consumers are going to see their value of their home is Zillow, like that’s where they’re going. So it’s a real good idea for you to know what theirs estimate is so that they don’t call you and say, just notice my homes at like 500 grand, you know, what I would do, I would put everybody’s address in there. And I as an agent, all my clients, everyone in my sphere, so that I get alerts for their homes, so that I could be the one to contact them and say, Oh, I just saw Zillow updated their estimate for your home, I want to take a closer look at that myself and see if it’s right. Brilliant idea. And we also talked about, you know, doing things with inside of neighborhoods, you can get these phone numbers, circle marketing, you can get these these phone numbers, and you can, you don’t have to call everyone if you don’t like cold calling, nobody likes cold calling, you could do a slide I’ll drop it in, hey, we got an open house coming up, or I just sold the home down the street. If you’re and we had multiple offers, and it sold for above listing, if you’re interested in seeing what your home might be worth right now, give me a ring not are you looking to sell? Because they’re they’re looking to sell or they’re not. But would you be interested in finding out what your home value is worth? Who wouldn’t say yes to and you know what? I’ve lived in a new development for two and a half years. And yeah, I’m in the business. But I’m not a practicing realtor. So I don’t think anybody thinks of me as a realtor, because I’m really not. Not one agent has ever called me to go, Hey, I know you bought a couple years ago, would you like to know what it’s worth right now? Now I know because I look at Zillow or whatever. But most of my construction Caroline Hobbs 46:43are like my hidden. Yes, like hidden source for new seller leads. You know, most people are going to move between years two and four in a new home development, and then it starts to kind of trickle and become more random. But you’re 100% right. D.J. Paris 47:02Not even one postcard not a full mile, not a postcard, it is wild. So and we have 45,000 agents here in Chicago, not one of them is doing it. So or at least it made my development. So great, great stuff from Caroline. And by the way, guys, she has leads. And that’s not the reason to go to her firm, because that is never a good reason to go to a firm, it is a nice thing that she does have leads now. So definitely reach out if but I think more importantly, is the skill building. And she actually does that every single week with her agents, she learned from the best. So why not learn from her, and she’s crushing it as well. So please, everyone go visit, especially if you’re in the San Jose area, reward realty.org see if you might be a good fit for Caroline and her brokerage. And for those of you that were really interested in some of the tech stuff she’s doing, where she’s integrating a client portal, and an agent portal with all systems sort of talking to each other, so that you don’t have to go in and out of various solutions to do your work. Reach out to her as well. And there’s a link in our show notes where you can schedule time to chat with her about whether this would be a good fit for your team, your brokerage, or just yourself. So Caroline, thank you so much for being on the show You were amazing. I really appreciate your your insight. And the advice you gave to our listeners was incredible. So we on behalf of the listeners I thank you for coming on the show on behalf of Carolina and myself we think our listeners to you guys are the reason we continue to do this, please we ask you to do just one thing, but I’m going to ask for actually two things. One, the most important thing is telephoned think of one other agent that you know isn’t maybe doing as well this year. By the way, that’s just about everybody. Maybe they’re a little dejected, a little down maybe they’re not at a firm like Caroline’s where they’re not getting as much skill training as possible. Shoot them a link to this. It’s gonna give him a couple of great ideas to stay busy. Please do that for us that will help us get in front of more more realtors. And also leave us a review that whatever app you’re listening to us on, let us know what you think of the show. We appreciate that as well. Caroline, thank you so much. You’re amazing. And I’m excited to hear more about the tech development as it goes. And maybe we’ll have you back when it launches and we’ll do a demo and have some fun. So thanks. Thanks. And everyone else we’ll see on the next episode. Thanks guys. Awesome.

Nicole Hajdu with Hajdu Group Dream Town talks about her experience and how she got into the real estate business. Nicole discussed how she got influenced by her father to get her real estate license and how she began thinking about business. Next, Nicole emphasizes the importance of marketing and how it impacts the real estate business. Last, Nicole discusses the importance of sending personalized letters to clients and how this helps maintain the relationship with them. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Nicole Hajdu can be reached at (773) 727-2199 and nhajdu@dreamtown.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today you’re going to learn my favorite tip of all time for creating amazing real estate newsletters. Oh add a lot of other great stuff to 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. 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 this show. In just a moment we’re going to be speaking with top producer, Nicole Heidi but before we get to Nicole, just a couple of quick reminders please tell a friend about this podcast. Think of one other agent that maybe could use some tips from top producers like Nicole or maybe somebody who is already a top producer but is struggling a little bit and wants to hear from other top producers I’m sure you we all know other agents out there who are struggling. It is 2023 and it is a tough year for agents let’s help them out. Tell them about our show. That helps us out we thank you for that. Also leave us a review we really appreciate that whatever podcast app you’re checking us out on let us know what you think of the show. And you know what let’s just get right to the main event my conversation with a friend of mine and one of my favorite people in this industry. Nicole Hi do. K today on the show we have Nicole Hi do from the high do group with Dream town here in Chicago. Let me tell you more about Nicole. With over a decade of real estate experience under her belt Nicole’s unmatched local expertise and dedication to our clients is evident in every real estate transaction. She provides her clients with highly personalized, collaborative and stress free stress free real estate experience. Nicole takes the time to listen to the needs of her clients and help them navigate the real estate process with ease. She is a highly driven individual and attributes her real estate success with her passion for learning and development. Nicole has also been named a Chicago Association of Realtors top producer and a dream town top producer every single year since 2016. And most recently was awarded at the five star professional. She’s I’m sorry, she’s a five star Professional Award winner and member of the Forbes 500 list as the founder of the high new group. Nicole and her team are proud to offer clients the best in class experience and strategies that they deserve. The height of group brings together the art and science of real estate relying on the tried and true methodologies to achieve success while elevating this process for clients. Please, everyone follow Nicole at the high do group real estate and I will that is spelled H A J D you but I will have a link to that in the show notes. So you don’t have to type it in. Because you would probably not get it through the way I’m pronouncing it. But also follow a goat please visit our website the how to group.com Again, that’s H AJJDUHAJD. You Nicole, welcome to the show. Nicole Hajdu 4:25Thank you, JJ. Thanks for having me. D.J. Paris 4:28I would like before we get started just to say what a fantastic person Nicole is, at least to me, because this is just what a giver she has. And I don’t know that anyone will even care about the story but it meant something to me. So I’m going to share it. So Nicole is somebody I did not know we had no interaction I believe up until I somehow started receiving some emails from her. I probably signed up for it somewhere. And I started getting these really cool emails that I was very impressed by that she was sending out to her sphere of influence, and just on an off chance that she might want to chat with me or maybe even know who I am. I assume she didn’t. I sent her a message, I think on her email saying, I’m so impressed with this. Could I call you I just have a few quick questions. And she was like, Oh, my God, totally. So I called her she was in the middle of a conference, I think, with Tom Ferry, and like, somewhere in the southwest part of the country. And she just immediately picked up and we were talking like we had known each other for a long time. And here we are today, getting to speak to each other on the show. I’m a huge, huge fan of Nicole. She’s lovely, sweet person. And I’m glad to have you here. So Nicole, welcome. Nicole Hajdu 5:38Thank you. And I do remember that I remember, like yesterday, because you’re a bit of a celebrity in my eyes. It was a nice day. D.J. Paris 5:46I don’t have any awards, you have lots of awards, you’re the celebrity. Nicole Hajdu 5:52But I do remember that. Yeah, D.J. Paris 5:54actually, it’s funny, they make up awards for podcasters. And we’ve gotten about 20 different ones, or more than that. And they’re like, they’re not, they’re not really awards. They’re just, you know, somebody makes stuff up, and you know, whatever, but, but you get real awards that you’ve earned in one. So I am very impressed. But let’s, um, let’s, I don’t really know your story. So I’d love to hear how you got into real estate and why and, and, you know, sort of what keeps you going, Nicole Hajdu 6:21Okay, well, I got into real estate in 2007, when everybody was getting out of real estate, because it was the crash, right? And everybody was getting out, I got in and I didn’t think twice about it. I took I got my my license when my kids were four and three years old. And I remember that like yesterday, too, because I’d have to put them to bed and study and, and get my highlighter out and do fun stuff to pass that test. And I actually had three different jobs. I had my own business, I had a little print business, I was running, I worked in remodeling. And I was I was starting to do a little bit, you know, just getting into the real estate, right? So I was I was running around like crazy with these two kids. And my my then husband was in the police department and he worked opposite shifts. So it was me alone with the two kids and studying and got my license that way my dad was really influential me getting my license because he had his broker’s license. And but the year before he passed away, he said, get your license, you really need to do this, you need to either get your license become an agent, or you maybe own your own brokerage do something with it, because I’ve always wanted to own my own business. My dad was small business owner had a second generation plumbing contractor, commercial plumbing contractor. So being an old school Sicilian owning a plumbing company from 1929, you can imagine he put me to work when I was 11 years old, doing payroll. And you might remember this payroll was done on a ledger with a ruler, right. And I hate that somebody’s doing that 11 So I was working for him from 11 years old. And it really, really taught me a lot about business, integrity, you know, showing up when I needed to and structure and business planning because I got to live that life for so long. So he’s the one who influenced me into real estate, I got my license. And shortly after that, I had my daughter and about a year after that I ended up getting divorced. So I had three kids that a one year old, you know, a five and six year old and ended up winning my remodeling gay guy was there because I was in corporate and I went to Loyola University and I studied creative writing and photography, nothing nothing used for my career directly. But it was a good legal Critical Thinking type of major I had and gave me the ability to pretty much do anything I wanted in my life, which I’m grateful for, for having that education. But you know, being on my own and I’m glad my dad told me to do that and and get my license, but being on my own and having to have that flexible schedule. Because I needed to pick up my kids, I couldn’t have a nine to five. So it was pretty much baptism by fire. And I did that in 2007 Getting into market when nobody was getting in. I really was getting out so I really had to hustle, learn everything I could possibly learn through not podcasts then but through just training, Googling everything I can classes and I really just immerse myself in everything just to learn so I can be on my own with the with the three small kids. So it took me a few years, a few years to get to that point. But that’s how but that’s how I got started. So D.J. Paris 9:58it’s fine. I love the expression, if you want something done, give it to a busy mother or just give it to a mother, because it’ll get done. And I always find, you know, I’ve had a lot of moms on the show who started their career while they had children, like you did. And you know, you just think about how challenging that must be. And yet, people do it. So I always I applaud the mothers who take this as a career because I, I am a single person who does not have children, and doesn’t have a lot of responsibilities that I’m absolutely tied to. And I find it much harder to even, you know, stay on track myself, but boy, moms are really impressive, with, of course, everything they do. And so also, I was thinking too, that you got in the business 22,007, right, when things were not looking good. After the height of the market, like 22,005, and then 22,008, everything started to crash, maybe even 2007 A bit. And that is a very challenging time, at least, a lot of our agents today, or a lot of our listeners rather, they may be feeling a similar sort of way. Because of course, the market is a little challenging. Right now we know, interest rates are gosh, I was seeing today, like 7.2 is the average for a 30 year fixed, which obviously is much higher than anyone would would like. But it’s just a tough time right now, there’s a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, not a lot of listings, as well. So I think this is a really good timing for to have you on because we can talk about how you sort of persevered through a very difficult several years. So how did you start prospecting? Once you were, you know, getting into this career? What worked for you then? And how did you sort of start finding clients? Nicole Hajdu 11:50Well, I had to really think about how I wanted to do this and get the word out. And why would people trust me, especially with selling their home? Like buyers? Sometimes when you’re starting out, we all get more buyers than we do? listings, right? It just the net, just human nature for people to trust you maybe to drive them around and purchase a property more so than just that. So I’ve really kind of dug into, okay, what are my skill sets? What do I do? Well, what would make a difference in this industry? I always knew that I wanted to own a business, run a business and act like a business and not just have it be maybe like a you know, like a hobby. And I think people sometimes forget that in real estate, and forget that they have to run a business. So it was it was something I was doing at the same time like okay, business mind, and what are my skill sets and I looked at, okay, my college education. I started my own businesses from when I was younger, different little things I was doing. But I also worked in corporate. So I worked in TV production, I worked in advertising. We had big clients like Pillsbury, and Air Transat. And then I, and then I worked in. So I was first a print company, they knew a lot about print, then I worked into advertising, and then I went into TV production. So it was all aspects of marketing. So I took my background in marketing, and business development in terms of like project management. And I moved into real estate. So I wanted to get that out there. Yes, I know a lot about marketing, and I can market your home. And there’s I know about print and I know what quality is. And I started elevating that and reaching out to people through really just meetings like my neighbor. My neighbor told me that was my first deal with my neighbor. He’s like, we’re gonna look at building a home. I said, Listen, I’m getting my license right now. Please, please do not list with anybody. I’m going to list your house and sell your house. And every day I saw her I might almost I’m getting my license give me like two more weeks, two more weeks. And she was my first client. And she ended up we ended up selling to a really wonderful couple who I’m still friends with to this day. And that was 2007 was my first my first deal. And then I started marketing to my blog. Okay, well people know that I’m here. They know that I’m in real estate, or they heard that I’m in real estate because I’m telling them. We had black parties had mentioned that. I would send out postcards around the block. I would make phone calls. And I know right now I’m at Dream town. Uvalde Danny, who is the founder of dream town, he is really, really big on pick up the phone. If you just pick up the phone and call people. You never know it’s such a great opportunity to hear what they’re saying. Talk to them about whatever how’s the kids now we have we have access now to people’s lives that we never had before in 2007, right? Like I can See what you’re doing. I could see anything about your life and people could see about my life and pick up the phone and call and ask, right. And sometimes it leads to the best conversations or a connection. Or, hey, you know what I was just thinking about selling my house or my mom needs to sell our house, whatever it may be, it’s usually just organically happens if you reach out. So that’s what I started doing. I just started putting myself in opportunity in the way of opportunity. And I think people forget that too. You got to get out there and put yourself in that space to receive some opportunity. D.J. Paris 15:36You said a lot there. And a lot of great things to unpack. One of the things that I wanted to touch on was the phone that you mentioned, being that you and I are in a in the same generation. So we grew up with the phone, you and I grew up talking on the phone to friends, you were probably asked out on your first date via telephone, or at least that’s how it worked for where I grew up. And it was it was a lot of phone phones were really, really important. And of course to people today, anyone under 30, or even probably under 35 even, just don’t, they didn’t grow up using the phone. It wasn’t it wasn’t significant to them. And so as a result, they’re not really in that habit. However, I find that people are often very impressed with getting phone calls, as long as they’re, you know, not salesy, and whatever. But it just isn’t that common anymore. So I’m a huge fan of that to even talking to younger people even having, you know, the Gen, the Gen X Gen Z, people who aren’t really big on the phone curious to if you still are doing as much phone calling as you as you were before. Nicole Hajdu 16:46I am in fact, I’m doing more of it. Because I’m really big into coaching, I love coaching, I’ve hired coaches, and they all say the same thing, personal notes, send out the marketing, the postcards, newsletters, or personal notes and phone calls, I think those make the most difference in, in our business. There’s, I’ve been receiving a personal personal note in the mail, I feel like it’s a lost art. D.J. Paris 17:16And it’s it’s one of the right, it’s one of the greatest feelings. And it only happens to me, I actually have one right here that I just got that was like, from the or the association, they wrote me a nice, thank you, I get maybe two or three of those a year maybe. So it does, it really makes makes me feel good at least. Nicole Hajdu 17:38And I’ll write them you know, like, I know, Ninja says, you know, get out there and write five note cards three to five a week. Different coaching programs have different recommendations. But I started that maybe 12 years ago when I was doing Buffini. And in sometimes I get off schedule on that. And I just have to sit, you just have to sit down and prep yourself, you have to have your note cards there and know what your routine is every day and do the time blocking and the scheduling. I mean, it’s really all hands on deck when you think about marketing, because marketing is everything in business. And you know, it’s like gets your name out there. D.J. Paris 18:15100%. And also, you were creative writing major, or that’s what you studied in college. And that too, is not obviously not everyone has that kind of background or that skill set. But if you have the ability to write, and you know, you’re somebody that that has, you know, that is an avid reader or an avid writer, and you sort of have an awareness of of, of how to construct sentences, you can really make yourself stand apart even just in your listing descriptions. And for anyone listening who’s like, I’m not a good writer, that’s not what I’m good at chat. GBT is here to help, and they can you just throw in your existing listing and say, make this more emotionally appealing. And they’re gonna it does a pretty good job, you know, people like you and I have to, we would always do that manually. And that was something that that you know, you and I are skilled at. And then other people now can sort of catch up a little bit. So that’s just a little little tip for anyone out there who doesn’t feel like maybe there is skilled at that. But you really do. You are an excellent marketer. And I want to just highlight one of your things. And I’ve talked to you about this ad nauseam, I’m sure and, but to the audience, they don’t know this. So I want to just to talk about this one thing that you do, and I know you do a million other things, too. So I just want to focus on this because this is how I got really impressed with you and and I should mention, like my role here at our firm is I recruit realtors, and I I’ve never thought for a second that I would be able to recruit Nicole because it’s just not the kind of realtors that we really recruit. She’s a total superstar and we don’t oftentimes get you know superstars like that. But I was so impressed with this. I thought man this is this is so wonderful that I wanted to mention it just because I don’t think anyone’s ever talked about it. I on my show, in the six years I’ve had it. So I know it’s just one thing that you do. But can you talk about your email newsletter that you do every week, and sometimes even more than once a week, I feel like you do other things. But let us tell our audience what you do and why you do it. Nicole Hajdu 20:15Sure. So I do I do a, a postcard version, and then like a newsletter version. So the postcard version that I send out, which is an E blast, it is what things to do in the city, and things to do in the suburbs. And I send it to, I send a suburban one once a week, and the city one wants in or certain one, once a month in the city one once a week. Because people want to know, hey, especially if they have kids, family, people visiting, they want to know what to do in the city. And it’s something of value. So I want to be at top of mind all the time, I want them to think of me as their go to real estate person. So in order to do that, you have to touch them so many times a year. And part of that touch strategy, or is or campaign, if you will, is to do these newsletters, you know, let them know what’s going on in the neighborhood, what we’re doing as a team. And we’re even revising our newsletters and sending out letters now, handwritten sign letters, that state you know, what we’ve been doing as a team, what we’re looking to do in events. And we’re also going to then make that into the newsletter that we send out once a month. And we have a great marketing team that puts it together. And it’s very professional, and it goes to our out to our sphere. So we have multiple touches a month, throughout the year, where people will not forget that okay, Nicole Hyde, who does real estate, let’s call him the call. He’s that are you know, finger on the pulse, she listed this, she’s in our neighborhood, she’s doing this, her team is doing that. You know, and, and we talk about how our team is growing. And for people who are just starting out, you started out, you know, you start out, however you can, I mean, I I remember I lost a listing, pretty big listing early on. And the woman had a quick fact sheet. And the the seller said it was between you and this other person. But she had all her information on a quick fact sheet that just had bullet points, right, of what she’s doing, and what she’s accomplished and her credentials. And I’m like, Oh my god. So I started that, you know what, I only had like three things on it. At the time, it was very sparse of a quick fact sheet. But over the years it grew and grew. And now it’s over a page, right? And I use it all the time. And it’s the same thing. Just start it. Even if you don’t have a lot to put in an E blast or a newsletter, just start it and it will naturally just unfold and and create into something beautiful, that you can use and be a value. Totally D.J. Paris 23:01agree. And I want to spend a few moments on the what to do this weekend newsletter five things to do this weekend. Because this is a decision that literally, I’m just making this up every human being pretty much on the planet who has, you know, their weekends free is thinking about at some point during the week, oftentimes not until Thursday night or Friday night. Oh my god, what are what am I doing this weekend, at least that’s how I oftentimes feel. And what’s really amazing is it’s a decision or it’s something I have to think about every single week. So the genius of this to me is that you are basically filling the need. So she sends out this newsletter with the things to do in the city. And if you live in the suburbs, she sent you the suburb one. This is so easy to put together while it takes work, of course, but it’s so easy because we can just go to there’s websites that accumulate this and Nicole actually has a tough, difficult job. Because here in Chicago, we have hundreds of things going on every single weekend. She picks five things that she thinks is really interesting for the city. And it’s it’s so useful. And it condenses because there’s hundreds of things going on, I can see what she thinks are the top things to look at this weekend. And I use this and I think this is so brilliant. Because I get to look at this ever. I have always been somebody who thinks, gosh, I just want more suggestions in my life. Like I just want people to say you should go do this or you should like I did this with the US Open. I’m a tennis player, but I don’t watch tennis on TV. Well enough people over the years said if you ever get the chance to go to the US Open you should do that. I was like okay, I don’t I wouldn’t normally think to do that. And I just did it and because people told me to because it was a suggested to me so this is exactly right in that wheelhouse. Well, but people do this every single week. So they have to make these decisions for their family for themselves. what was gonna happen on the weekend our Realtors we don’t often think about the weekends because realtors are working oftentimes during the weekend but everyone else is trying to figure out what they want to do socially. So this is such a great idea. Hey, guys, I’m so impressed with Nicole, and she never miss it. She never misses it, she always gets it out. And it’s just something you and I’m sort of hooked on it. Like, now I’m hooked on it. I would, it would be strange for me to not see it once a week. And I might even think, Oh, I wonder if something’s wrong if she didn’t send it. So that’s really what you want is you want people hooked on your content, so that they’re waiting for it and anticipating it. And I just really applaud you for that as a really smart idea. And I don’t it takes it takes consistency, of course to do it. But over time, people just I’m sure you get a lot of feedback from people saying, Wow, that that’s so great. Nicole Hajdu 25:37We do it, we get feedback saying hey, listen, can you can you send me the magnet, I send them the magnets, they have it on their fridge when you walk into the house. And and I’ll go to events and people will say oh, thanks for sending its thank you for sending me what to do this weekend, I always look forward to it. Because I never know what to do. And the suggestions are right there or you forget you forget the date you forget the festivals going on or whatever it is, you’re not going to you just people just want easy, they want the easy button. And it’s just an easy way to provide value and, and let people know like, Hey, I’m here for you, you know, I got your back on what to do this weekend. D.J. Paris 26:12It’s really, it’s, it seems so simple. And I guess it is a simple idea. But it is a very important one to consider doing something that people are going to consistently need even between transactions, because you know, people are only buying or selling a home, I don’t know, every 710 years, whatever the stat is. So of course, they’re not going to really probably need your real estate newsletter every single month. Although it’s nice to do that, and certainly not a bad idea. But if you also can send them something that they do need every single week with like, if I was a mother, for example, or if I had small children, and I had a lot of people in my sphere of influence that had children, I might do a thing for kids, you know, here’s some cool kids events or whatever. And Nicole does things like that, which I think is so so smart. So there’s there’s that. And I also, this is Oh, we should mention too, that if anyone is listening, who is an agent who is looking to maybe join a team or maybe move from their existing brokerage or just explore other opportunities. This is the year we’re seeing a lot of agents move around to from offices. And it’s a great time to consider what other options exist. So Nicole, not only is Nicole a coach, and she really enjoys coaching, and she coaches her team, she also is coached herself. So I always think the best coaches have coaches. So Nicole and her team can do that. So if anyone out there thinks they might be a good asset to Nicole’s team or really is looking for more of that coaching. From you know that they’re not getting at their current firm to call what’s what’s the best way that an agent should reach out to you? Nicole Hajdu 27:48Either phones 773-727-2199, or my email, which is n hi, do H A J? Do you add drink? town.com? D.J. Paris 28:00Awesome. Did I did I spell that incorrectly? Any? Right? It’s a wonderful Hungarian name. So yes, let’s talk about this year. So let’s talk about the challenges of this year. And love to hear kind of what your team is how you’re keeping your team motivated, what you’re sort of having them do today, or while things are a little more challenging to just stay productive and stay moving forward. Nicole Hajdu 28:33Sure. So this year is different, very different than the last two to three years, right. I mean, I always say the last two to three years were just a complete anomaly. And they gave us momentum and more clients to build on. But yet very, very hard to look at the last two, three years in terms of numbers and think that that’s going to be just as easy to replicate going forward. It really I mean, I’ve never been busier than I was in the last couple years. I’ve done more real estate, hired and fired and hired new people and people laughed and just you know, a lot of changes a lot of changes in everybody’s lives. And now we’re up against another change. But you’ve been doing real estate for a while, you know, every year it changes no year is ever, ever the same. And I think when people first get into real estate, they don’t realize that I don’t think I even realized that that every year is different. There’s so many challenges there’s so many things in and economics that change politics, you know, depending on whether or not it’s a a year for office, it just there’s so much that goes on where it’s human nature for people to pay attention to these things and then react with everybody else reacting to if everybody else is holding off. Well, there must be a reason I’m scared. I don’t want to make that change. Right. So Oh, during COVID? Nope, we just stopped. I don’t think I mean, I didn’t list properties I say for probably about four weeks, right and COVID started. But I was still working. And I was reaching out to people. And I said, this is a great time to catch up on everything that I wasn’t doing. Making my phone calls, sending my letters, doing social media, thinking out of the box about, okay, how am I going to survive during this? Because we don’t know what’s going to happen? And are we going to have a job in two months, right, three months next year. So what did I do, I listed my house in the first four weeks at COVID. I said, if I’m going to tell everybody else to do this, I gotta do it. So I listed my house figured out how I was going to manage photography during COVID, how he’s going to manage staging, how he’s going to manage the entire transaction showings everything. And if I could do it, and successfully do it, I could tell my clients to do it, right, if that’s what they desired, because there was a great opportunity there, for people who were saving and ready to move, jump on it, get that low rate. So and that’s what I did. And then over the years, as things change, I knew things were going to change too, wasn’t always going to be just low hanging fruit. So now we’re into that change. And due to rates, rates are kind of putting a little bit of a hold on the market. There’s not as many people we’re listing properties, but there’s not as many people looking and there’s not as many offers, the offers aren’t, sometimes aren’t coming in where we want them to come in. So it’s it’s a shift in our thinking, a shift in our marketing shift and our pricing. And our team has seen it, we see it, we hear it on the news, we you know, podcasts that we listened to like everybody’s talking about it, it’s a change. So the team, it’s really important to keep up with the coaching and the training and educating yourself. But with my team, we’re constantly talking about what can we do to add value to our clients? What can we do to be there for our clients, and keep getting better at what we’re doing and know the market and know what’s happening and be able to guide our clients in a way where they understand that they can still get to their goal. Maybe it’s now maybe it’s in you know, six months or a year from now, but we’re here to help them. And we’re doing it by still showing our properties that we’re listing and selling, sending out the postcard sending out the newsletter, the five things to do this weekend. events, events are a really nice thing that you can do to your, for your clients, and get people together and have that community. Especially for people who want to get to know you more get to know what you do, or maybe a buyer seminar, there’s so many things that we can put out there. And we’re looking at putting it out there monthly, and quarterly and then once a year or two. So I think that really helps in a changing market, you have to be super creative, willing to spend money, when you don’t know if money is going to be coming in at the same rate. Or if you’re just starting, you got to spend the money to make money. And I think people forget that too in a business because so many businesses are brick and mortar and you have to get a business loan, we don’t have that it’s credit card, put on your credit card, write a check, we have to invest in ourselves. So I keep telling the team and myself like I need to sit down I need to invest in myself. And to give back do volunteer work get involved in things that you like, I do volunteer work for Maryville, I love it. And it’s something that I take time away from real estate in my family to do to give back. But it’s that experience that motivates you to do more in your business and more in your personal life and, and share things with the people around you. So I think it’s just, there’s a lot of things that go into being successful during a changing market. And I think you have to touch on all those things and really sit down and think about what do you want? What is the message you want? What kind of branding Do you want? Who’s your ideal client? That’s a big one too. And when that always changes? I remember I worked with six week for six weeks with a coach just having me write down my ideal client. Because at first you’re not getting your ideal client. You’re like, oh my god, do you want it? Sure. Yeah, let’s go out 700 times to go look at a house because your first deal right? And have it go south like three times before you close down. That’s how real estate ends up and then you know it starts off. So I think there’s just a lot that goes into it. And as you do this longer and longer you learn that it’s not just marketing. It’s getting yourself out there for events and being creative and giving back to your clients and giving back to the community and doing things at the school promoting. I have a big banner in the school I’m part of the faster Okay, on the school website, I mean, that was consistent for like eight years, and I get a lot of my business from the kids school. So it’s, it’s reputation, it’s doing the best that you can and keeping your being into it and having integrity. So then people can pass on your name and trust you, right? Oh, no, I have somebody for you, I have somebody for you. Because 90% of my business is by referral. And I think that’s what we really need to do and focus on building those relationships. So every year that the market changes, you got to analyze it and look at okay, what do I want? Do I want higher price point? Do I want more people? What kind of people do I want? And how am I going to do that, through marketing through events, they’re getting out there in the community, you can do all of it. And, and what you do now happens, you get you see the reward and about three months. D.J. Paris 35:52Interesting. So I want to say that so you see the reward in about three months, can you just say a little bit more about that? Nicole Hajdu 36:00Whatever we do now takes about three months to show the results. So if I make a phone call right now, and I have my list of phone calls to make, but make a phone call, I might not see that listing or that closing for about three months, that’s the timespan from speaking to somebody to actually having something come in place. Now it’s a numbers game, you got to talk to maybe 100 people to have X amount of deals. But it’s about three months. D.J. Paris 36:33Yeah, I agree. And I guess, really, what I’m hearing you say is a lot of just consistency and making sure that you’re not too heavily influenced by sort of what’s out there in the ether or in news media about how challenging this market could be, or even other agents talking about it. That is obviously a big topic. When I talk to other agents, when I see them socially or at events, I, you know, people just they’re struggling, it’s, it’s it’s a tough market right now. So it’s easy to, to think, Well, gosh, everyone’s struggling. And when we feel that way, oftentimes, that’s going to decrease motivation to continue doing the sort of normal building business building activities that that we should be doing. And I think it’s really important to know what’s going on, of course, in in the, in the industry and in the market, but also to not be too influenced by it. Because like you said, you know, yeah, today might be a day that isn’t great because of rates and but in three months, we don’t know. And we’re going to start to see people, you know, the results of our of our things. So you really, I always think it’s like you’re just doing your future self a favor, like whatever you do today, you’re doing us a favor for your future self. And, you know, the good news is, it can be a really crappy day today, because it’s not going to matter. In three months, we’re gonna have a different set of challenges and a different set of opportunities. And if I can just continue working today that’s going to bear fruit, you know, here in the near near future, not even a year from now, two years from now. So I think that’s a really important thing for people to think about today is know what’s going on, but don’t get too caught up in it. Because what you’re doing today isn’t about today anyway, it’s about three months from now. That’s right, or, Nicole Hajdu 38:24yeah, and it’s a numbers game. That’s why you have to write notes and call people because you have to reach out to as many people as you possibly can daily to, to be to be making a living when the market takes a step back, right? Because it always does. It’s always up and down, up and down. And if you look at the statistics over the last, you know, 75 years, you could see it going like this all the time. So it’s just timing. And I’ve been doing this long enough where the timing just was perfect during COVID for me to move, and for me to really start getting my name out there. It was just perfect timing. And there’s nothing I could control about that except my, my everyday actions. And it just hit that level of that opportunity. Just hit at the right time for me, and for my team. So and I mean like you like you just, you didn’t all of a sudden just start interviewing 20 people a week. That didn’t happen you it was hey, I have this idea. Everything is an idea. Got to get it out of your head and implement it somehow. And yeah, you gotta remember to be you too. D.J. Paris 39:37That’s it and, you know, clients do really like to see the agents doing things that seem authentic to that agent, and seem that you know, is is doing something of value. So I agree it’s I always like when people ask me like, boy, what’s your do right now. And like, I don’t think it really matters, just do, you know two or three things every day that are, you know, specific to getting your name out there in a way that’s comfortable for you. Like, for me, I’m, I’m not somebody, I’m not a practicing agent. So I don’t have just listed just sold kind of experiences in my life because I don’t do that. But, but there’s other things I do that I want to highlight on social media. So you know, depending on everyone’s whose listings personality, what you’re willing to share what you’re willing not to share, what we do know for sure is that your, your sphere of influence, and clients want to see you doing something that you enjoy, whether it’s being a realtor, or even maybe being being a mom, or just being a good citizen, or doing something that that is, you know, not a hey, look how great I am. Look at how much I contribute. But more of a just, this is what I’m really into, like when you started talking about the school, like you got a little bit excited, you were like, I like doing that. And, and, and I like participating. And I like giving back and you know with Maryville, you’ve dimensioned. And so, those those things are you, as soon as Nicole said that, if you’re watching it, you can see her face lit up, and that I feel the same way about some of the things that I’m involved with, and you can see it. And so that’s the kind of stuff that you want your clients to see as well, that like, you know, I have passion for the industry. And you know, here’s a little bit more about what you know what I’m into outside of the industry as well. And here’s how I help the community because real estate is hyperlocal. And we need to think about the community. I also wanted to ask you about, about, gosh, I just I just lost what I was going to ask you, but I will ask you about coaching. Because I know that is obviously something very important to you. You’re a top producer, you have a coach, and you also coach, your team, and maybe even other agents. Tell us a little bit about how important coaching is to you today, and how you like what you go to your coach for what does the top producer bring to their coach. So Nicole Hajdu 42:03interests so the coaching has developed over the years, I’ve got my first coach when I was getting divorced, I had no idea if I was making the right decision how to navigate it. So I hired a coach. I said this is I need to know this. I don’t know what I don’t know, right? So I put it on my credit card. I still remember it’s $3,000. And I was like, oh my god, I’m getting divorced. I have these two, three kids, not D.J. Paris 42:27the time to spend $3,000 $3,000 Nicole Hajdu 42:29in a horrible market. So I did it though, and I was hooked. I’m like this woman is telling me and giving me information that I didn’t know I didn’t even know about this stuff. Like she’s putting things into my head and telling me I can she’s motivated me and giving me the support and, and making me courageous and telling me I’m I’m doing the right thing. And and then you’re like No, I am doing the right thing. This feels good. And I liked this. And I liked the information I’m getting. And I ended up getting divorced, and being able to be the breadwinner. And my family said to get remarried again. And I because because we didn’t have kids together. It’s just my three children. But I’m able to put them through private schools and have buy my own house and do all these things with this real estate career. And I owe a lot of it to the people who’ve helped me. So you’ve all helped me in my career. He’s owner and founder of dream town, he helped me quite a bit. He gave me so much opportunity. But he gave me opportunity because he saw that I showed up. And I showed up because I had the coaches behind me and information and the motivation there. And I was seeking help to become better. Because there’s I have blind spots. I can’t see everything I sometimes I do things and I don’t know that maybe that was not correct or wrong or not the best way to do it. And so I started with blue Feeny, then I then I went into the core coaching, then I did I’ve ninja done ninja, and back to core again and then I just got my coaching certificate. So I can eventually step into coaching to on a full time basis as I get older and don’t want to run around so much showing homes. But that’s not for another like 1015 years, but I’m preparing so I’m preparing for my future by getting my coaching certificate now and kind of dabbling with it and at least having a door open and be able to take that on. So with coaching I asked my my coaches that you know, you got to be upfront and honest and open. And you got to pretty much lay it all out there. Like they had a look at what I was spending and they’re like, Oh no, no, no, no. No, like, what are you doing? Because I like to spend money and I like to give money away and like donate and do all these things. And they’re like, whoa, you need to have some better business practices. And I knew that too. I just didn’t know like, Well, how do you do that? How do you do that? Show me how you do it. What do you do that works? What do you what am I doing? That’s not working? Tell me I want if you just told me, I will do it. And I think a lot of us just need that. Just tell me like what you’re saying. Just tell me make it easy. And I will go do it. And let me know what works and doesn’t work. I don’t want to find out and take five years to figure something out. That could take me three days with coaching. So I and as I started getting more and more coaching, I learned about what I needed from a coach. So I was able to ask for Tom Ferry, like it’s a Tom Ferry coaching when we talked. And I asked for a very specific coach, because I knew where I where my deficit was, what did I need help with? I needed help with time management, and I needed help with like, organizing, what am I spending per listing? What am I spending per buy? Where’s my money going? Those are the things I needed help with. And I had to ask for that specific coach. But to ask for a specific coach, you have to prove yourself and do the work prior to have that, you know, to have that luxury to do so. So I love coaching, it’s helped me greatly, and it helps my and there’s a lot of stuff I learned that I pass on to my team, and they don’t even have to pay for it. They just get it because they’re on my team. Right? Yeah. And I love sharing and they love hearing it. And they take some of it and some they don’t it depends on what you’re ready for. And when you’re ready for it. D.J. Paris 46:44Yeah, I agree. I wanted to ask I remember now what I had forgotten earlier, which is I want to just really quickly touch on open houses, I feel like newer agents, maybe aren’t as familiar with the importance of those. I’m curious to get your opinion on open houses, for new agents, and really, for any agent, but specifically newer agents who might be listening. You know, so we’re gonna have people of course, who are listening, who maybe are newer, who don’t have listings, they don’t have open houses to do for them their own clients. But what you know, but you you know, you can always ask other agents in your office, if you can sit for some of their open houses. Are you seeing open houses still having success for your team? And if so? Or if so, or not? What would you recommend instead? Nicole Hajdu 47:34Oh, open houses for for newer agents and seasoned agents. Definitely open houses, Tom Ferry is big on Mega open houses, where you invite a whole block or two to the open house, there’s so many things you can do to be creative and make it a big, a big deal and, and really get your name out there and also meet other people. And you have to learn about how to communicate with people when they come in. Because I think it’s a little bit of a trial and error thing. If you’re newer on you know, you don’t want to be like, Hey, are you approved? Are you this? Are you interested in this house like you there’s a way of doing it, right. And that takes practice. So there’s a lot of opportunity open houses. So we just brought on my son who’s at not him, but his friend. And he was amazing go getter going to college, he would do open houses, and he just sent me he’s like, I’m going to college tomorrow. But I just got this lead from a $2 million open house, I was sitting at his team. And he just closed his first deal in the first 30 days because he I sent him on showings rental showings, he could literally called every single followed up with every single person that came through for the rentals and got his first deal. So the open houses are a huge opportunity. If you you just have to put yourself in the place to receive those gifts. And you got to get out there. And it’s a great opportunity my entire team does it. D.J. Paris 49:03Yes, agreed. And thank you for that. And okay, so let’s I’m curious when you because people, I think oftentimes, I mean, we do this with people who are at a certain what we believe to be a higher status than we are with respect to maybe they’re at a different stage of their career. They’re, you know, bigger producer or maybe, you know, they’re just have some skills that that you feel that we don’t currently have. We looked at these people like I was at the US Open, I’m watching these, some of the very best tennis players in the entire world. And I’m like, well, it’s so easy for them. And of course it isn’t, and they’re putting in the work to get to that level. But it’s important to remember that even top producers have challenges as well. So when you find yourself unmotivated, maybe you’re maybe maybe even you have a little bit of sadness or fear or depression or whatever anxiety whatever you know is is is preventing you from being at your best? You know, how do you find the motivation to continue on despite, you know, because we all know that life gets in the way and life has challenges. So when challenges hit you, how do you persevere through them? Like, what what do you do to continue? So you’re not, you know, holed up in bed in the fetal position for weeks at a time which, and again, I’m not I’m not here to criticize anyone who is in that position, I have a lot of empathy for people that struggle that way. But when you’re feeling down, I really should be asking this question more often in my interviews, because I think it’s it’s really interesting, like, how do you stay motivated when when times are tough? Nicole Hajdu 50:42Wow. And I’ve been in that position, actually, when I was getting divorced with three little kids and had no money and was figuring out how the heck am I going to do this going from? D.J. Paris 50:51That’s a pretty depressing position. Yes, Nicole Hajdu 50:53it was pretty bad. There are a lot of not getting out of bed days. But I had to because for me, and I know, this isn’t for everybody. But I had three kids that were relying on me, so I had to get up and I had to pull myself together. And I think, to be in this business, you have to be a little bit outgoing. And maybe you’re an extroverted introvert, like me, I like to like my alone time. But I also like to be out there and talk to people and be social. So I think this could go for everybody who’s listening to, to this right now. That if you’re you are in this business, you’re going to be social. And that’s probably where you get a lot of your energy from. And just remember that if you’re going through a tough time, and it seems hard right now, get yourself out there go to events, I just went to a chase event last night, it was great made a new friend, talk to people we had a lot in common with. It just felt good to get out. And I remembered that’s how I also built my career was going to events, car events, the the coaching events, the seminars, just getting out there, and it kind of motivates you and pumps you up. And then you make those connections are like, oh, wait a minute, those connections, are you gonna feed my business later? Getting out there and meeting new agents and looking and hearing other people’s stories. Because everybody has a story. Every house has a story, every agent has a story. Everybody started from here, you know, to get to what we’re talking about now, especially the ones who share their stories. And I think that helps motivate people. I listen to audiobooks. So I’m on Audible on time driving in the car, I listen to so many people tell their stories about how things were not great. But guess what, when things are not great, that’s who makes you who you are. That’s what, that’s where you prove yourself to yourself, you know, your self worth you, you start to learn about a lot about yourself when things are bad. D.J. Paris 52:51And so I didn’t mean they’re up, but I was gonna say also you build resiliency during during challenging times, and you actually become stronger by facing, not necessarily conquering like things that are challenges because we can’t conquer our challenge all of our challenges. In fact, we can’t even conquer most of them. But we can learn how to cope with our challenges. So that they don’t completely, you know, remove us from what we know is going to be beneficial to you know, our actions. And you said something very, very powerful. I just want to say this, if anyone out there right now is struggling with you know, the markets tough and you know, everything’s about this year is a little bit more challenging, and you’re feeling demotivated or unmotivated. Rather, you said something very, very important, which is be sociable. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, you know, if it’s an introvert, if you’re more introverted, you maybe are just going to go out with the people that you’re closest with, that you’re most comfortable with, that aren’t going to zap your energy. But getting out of the house and being around other people that you enjoy, which is another great reason to give back and volunteer. Because if it’s something you’re passionate about, you’ll find like minded individuals. And I have the same philosophy. I have a goal every week of doing at least two but hopefully three social events a week. Now I’m a single guy, it’s easier for me to do that. I don’t have three children, which of course would would prohibit that, but if I did, I’d say okay, I want to just do one social event a week. And that could be going out with a friend, it could be going to an event hanging out with other realtors maybe volunteering something where I’m literally out of the house because I know for me, I’ve done enough social activities and other things out I know if I’m in my apartment, or in my condo, I will I can I can. I can start chasing my own tail, I can start ruminating I can start really getting into you know, the just feeling down and that’s fine. It’s okay to do that. But if you have scheduled activities where you’re forced to get out of the house and go be social, I scheduled them because I have to. I won’t be motivated to schedule them when I’m down. So I scheduled them when I’m not done. And so I try to like every week say, Okay, I got it, I want to go out and do something with somebody this week. And then, which is just how it works for me, and I always feel better. When I’m coming back from from those activities. I’m like, Oh, I’m so glad I’m not alone, you don’t have to suffer alone, I guess that’s the point is being around other people. And this is such a business where I think most Realtors do work in a silo, you know, we’re most aren’t even working in offices anymore, they’re working from home. So it’s, it’s really easy to just get trapped in your own thoughts and not realize that like, you know, there’s, there’s a sort of other world out there that can really help give you some of that motivation to then, you know, give you that extra energy to maybe even, you know, go through some of those harder times. Nicole Hajdu 55:44Well, yeah, you’re not alone, nobody is alone. In this, we all, when people are really truthful, you find out that we all are very alike, and suffer from the same things and, and, and get down. And if you’re social, and you’re out there, and you’re you’re gonna learn like, oh, wait, this person was feeling like I was and, and now look at them, and they got through it. And you do build resiliency through it, which we need in this business, because you’re like, sometimes it’s a really rough in this business, you get what D.J. Paris 56:13and there’s so much that there’s so much that happens in every transaction, there’s some something unexpected is going to happen in almost every real estate transaction. And usually, it’s going to be something that you news you don’t want to hear, because that’s just kind of how these things go. So you’re going to have these speed bumps, you know, life is going to throw these these challenges at you. And, and yeah, I think you’re right, like don’t don’t suffer in silence, you know, get out there, talk to other agents have people that you can call, because, you know, one of the things that really bothers me is is the you got this, you know, thing, and it’s like, no, you don’t always have this, and it’s okay to not have this. And that’s when you lean on other people. And you’re like, I don’t have it today. Like, I just need somebody to give me a hug, or I need somebody to tell me that I’m a worthy person, or, you know, to sort of, or I just want to go hang out with somebody and take my mind off my challenges, or I want to go to a or I want to hang out with a realtor who’s who’s crushing it right now and maybe learn a few things. You know, there’s lots of different options. But for me, I have to I have to get out of my my condo, I have to go somewhere. And I have to be very intentional about that. And I have to sort of force myself to do it. But it always works for me. So if anyone out there, we’re getting a lot of a lot of fan mail recently about people feeling depressed and alone. And I encourage you to really make those connections in the industry. Because number one, your realtor, every other realtor is probably going through similar things. And you can, you know, you can work together to keep each other to keep each other spirits up if you don’t, for example, have a coach currently. But Nicole, I think that it’s really a great place to kind of wrap because you gave so many amazing suggestions and tips. And I am such a fan of yours. And I know you have a busy team to manage and a busy business to run as well. So I want to for anyone listening out there who is really, really sort of captured by by what Nicole’s philosophies are and how she runs her team and her business. And if you think Boy, that sounds like I would like more of that. And you think that you might be a good addition to her team. Or maybe you’re an agent and another part of the country who has clients that move in and out of Chicago, you know, maybe they have you know, they’re transferring here for business. And maybe you’d want to, you know, have a referral agent that you trust. Obviously, Nicole is an excellent agent, you can chat with her about that. But if you’re local here, and you’re not getting the coaching that you deserve from your firm, and guess what, guys, most firms aren’t doing a great job of coaching, not because they it’s just firms, it’s just a difficult thing for most firms to be able to provide. Even though every firm says they do it. Most firms really struggle with that. So a lot of times now, the teams are taking over those responsibilities from the firm itself, to you know, then free up time for the firm to do other things. So Nicole is that person at her company? She works for great company as well. But you know, a lot of times let people flocked to teams just to get more individual attention. So if that is you or you just think you want to join a really great team, Nicole and hydro team would love the opportunity to chat with you again, Nicole, best way for anyone to reach out to you. Nicole Hajdu 59:26Sell 773-727-2199 or my email, which is n hi, do ha J Do you edrington.com Awesome. D.J. Paris 59:36Well, Nicole, thank you so much for your time. Today I am I’ve said this a number of times. I’m a huge fan. And I’m really really always loving what you do with marketing to so by the way guys get on her mailing list, even just to see what she’s doing. So that maybe you are in a different part of the country and you could sort of take that as inspiration to do similar marketing out firts so go to her website, you can sign up for her newsletter there as well, or reach out to her but follow her on Instagram, the Heidi group real estate, again, H A J. D, you will have links to her website, Instagram and all of her social stuff in the show notes. But check her out. She does cool stuff. And I’m a huge fan and, and even though she’ll probably never be one of our agents, I love the fact that she is doing what she’s doing at her firm. And I’m I’m going to always continue to support and follow you. So please, everyone, let’s, let’s do Oh, I’m going to ask our audience for one quick favor, please tell a friend about this episode. Think of one, one agent that could really benefit from some of the things that Nicole mentioned today. Again, staying motivated, understanding that, you know, life has its challenges too. And but what you do today is going to bear fruit here in the next quarter. So let’s let’s definitely a telephoned about the show, because it might be just what they need to get motivated today. So we appreciate that. And also one other thing, leave us a review. We really appreciate the reviews, whatever app you’re listening to us on, just let us know what you think of the show good and bad. You know, we want to hear you know everything so we can keep improving. So anyway, Nicole, thank you so much. Amazing. Hi, do group. And thank you. So glad to finally have you on the show. And we will say on behalf of the audience. Thank you to Nicole and on behalf of Nicole and myself, thank you to the audience for sticking around to the very end and supporting our show. Also check out our sponsors. We love our sponsors. Thank you, Nicole, and we will see everybody on the next Yeah, we’ll see everyone our next episode. Thanks. Thank you

Welcome to another episode of Video Boot Camp for Real Estate Professionals with Kim Rittberg. Wondering what to buy to make amazing videos to grow your real estate business? Award-winning Real Estate Video Coach Kim Rittberg is here with tips on what to buy and what not to buy! 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 we’re going to be talking about the three tools you’re going to need to make the most amazing real estate videos. 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 1:29I am super excited to be here with you. I am going to teach you today the three tools you need to become the go to real estate expert in your area. With video. I’m really excited I love teaching real estate agents how to grow their business. My name is Kim Rydberg I help real estate agents become thought leaders and become the go to agent in their area using video and podcasts. How do I know how to do this such a good question. I spent 15 years in big media Netflix Us Weekly inside edition. I actually launched the video unit for Us Weekly. And now I teach real estate agents from coast to coast I spoke at the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices convention spoke at the Women’s Real Estate Investment Summit. And I teach a lot of agents. I do one on one and group coaching. And I hear from them a lot of times, their first question is what equipment should I buy? And I’m like, nothing. I don’t think you actually need nothing. But the truth is you need very little. So let’s get into it. What are the three tools you need to grow your real estate business? I am not talking about the people who are filming real estate tours, who are videographers whose business is to is to film real estate tours. I feel very strongly and not just I feel strongly my professional opinion and knowledge is that as a real estate agent, you need to become the expert in your field. And just listed and just sold will not get you there. So I’m not necessarily talking about how to film a better home tour. Because I don’t think that our home tour is going to grow your business. I am talking about how to film so that you stand out you as a person, because that is the differentiator I see with my agents, the ones that I’m working with, that are showing up consistently, are getting referrals. They’re getting leads, they’re getting cold listings directly from social media, it used to be like, Oh, well, maybe that’ll happen down the line. I recently had someone in my video bootcamp, her second video posted, she got two people for discovery calls. So it happens all the time. Another agent of mine kept showing up and he got a co listing for a multi million dollar new development. And it’s because they’re showing up consistently. It’s not the home tours that they got. It is them showing up. Because when you’re putting yourself out there, your job is to establish yourself as the go to person, the most knowledgeable person, their local expert, their best friend. And so that’s what I’m teaching you today about what tools we need. So I’m jumping right into it. The very first thing you need is a tripod with a ring light. These are so inexpensive, so easy going to Amazon, if you email me, I will tell you which ones to buy in Ringly. And a tripod is so important because you need to have a steady video. If you’re holding your hand holding hands Holding, holding my hand a video when you’re talking for a long time, it’s gonna get wobbly. I do a lot of handheld videos, I think those are fine. But in general, as you’re going to film a lot more content, it’s super efficient to set up a tripod. Your your phone won’t move a lot. The ring light that is so amazing why it lights you you’re going to look like on a list movie star. The thing about a ring light is it creates an even glow on your face. If you’ll notice you’re ever on a zoom call. You’ll look at yourself and you’re like, Oh, I look at them in a cave. That’s because you’re not getting good lighting and it’s hard to get good lighting. A lot of buildings that lighting is overhead so it’s casting a shadow. Oftentimes I see people sitting with a window behind them. That’s a big no no. The point is you want to bring light that’s gonna give you even lighting. So this tripod and ring light you can get a desktop one or you can get one if you Have the room in your actual room, the floor one, I personally use a floor tripod with a ring light, and it has a little connector, I can also make it become a desktop. So that way sometimes if I’m actually filming, like sitting on my desk on my computer, I can just use the ring light. If I want to look great for a Zoom meeting, like I do zoom meetings with clients or someone’s considering me for a speaking engagement, I want to look really good. So I’ll use that red light. So that’s my first thing, a ring light, and a tripod. So I know a lot of agents are out in the field, you know, you’re you’re out and you’re busy. One of my agents actually from my course, or my group coaching course, my video boot camp, she likes using a battery operated ring light. So you don’t always have to worry about finding a place to plug in, and you can set it up no matter where you are. I think that’s an awesome idea. In terms of handheld, if you want to, you can use a selfie stick, so you’re not so so so close. People ask me about all this other crazy equipment, but I’ll be totally honest with you. Unless you’re really into technology. It’s just gonna sit in your house collecting dust. I can’t tell you how many things I bought that I never used. You know why I don’t love filming. I don’t love editing. I like writing I like coming up with the ideas. I like directing. So I keep it simple. And I teach you to keep it simple, because your main job is to sell houses, or rent houses or apartments, whatever. And it’s not to be a cinematographer. It’s not to be an editor. So I want to arm you with the skills that I have, that regular people can use and take advantage of. Alright, so we went over tripods and relights. People ask me about steady filming, there are some tools you can buy about filming. To make it steadier, you hold your hands on the side, it helps you be steadier, there’s a thing called a gimbal. If you don’t want to tap don’t buy that stuff. I’ve tried to use these I use one once I found my own house for when I sold my own house, don’t hate, don’t hate me Don’t hate me. It kept spinning around and frustrated me after the first time I loved it the second time I hated it. So if you don’t love technology, don’t buy that stuff. It does help obviously make smoother shots. But if you don’t want the technology, don’t use it. One thing to get a steadier shot as you’re filming, is use a steady stance. So lean up against a wall, stand in a firm stance like your legs apart and kind of keep your body even, that’s a really great way to ensure you’re shooting in a steady way. And if you’re having a move, like if you’re panning across a venue, I’m not going to talk about how story you know how I feel about how stories are not going to make you rich. Let’s say you’re filming in a restaurant, a local restaurant in your area, you’re going to hold your camera and shoot really slowly move it very, very slowly. Alright, the next one I’m talking about is editing equipment. I am not going to tell you to get editing equipment that Hollywood editors use. Unless you love technology, don’t get it. So editing go with the simplest editing tools. If you really do not like editing and do not love technology, edit it inside the apps. So Instagram has tools in the app, these are made to be very, very user friendly. If you do not love editing and you do not love technology, I would say that is the simplest way to do it. If you’re okay with editing or Okay, the technology, there’s very simple apps called in shot I use that a lot of people use cap cut. And again, you put a video in it, and you edit it very simply. I’ll be honest with you, I have taken at least three different editing courses. And I’ve asked my editor friends to sit down and teach me I compensated them many different times because I was a TV producer. And I did need to learn to edit because I worked with editors. And now I edit myself because I’ve taken so many classes in the past, but I still don’t love editing. So if you don’t love editing and you really hate the technology aspect of it, outsource, hire someone hire a videographer, hire an editor, have a social media manager do it for you, Teacher Assistant, or come to my video bootcamp and I will teach you how to do it. All of these things you have to do in the way that works for your business. For example, I am okay with filming I’m fine with filming on my iPhone. I’m, I’m alright editor. I don’t love it. When I have a lot of editing to do I outsource it is not my greatest skill. It is not my biggest moneymaker. Right? If I’m spending three hours editing something to bad use of my time, it’s a bad use of your time too. So think about that, in terms of time is money. If it’s taking a really long time to edit one video, consider outsourcing it. Tools, other tools. So we’re talking about editing, there’s lots of apps that can make your videos a little more fun. So you see those big words appearing on the screen as people talk. People use the captions app for that that’s a super simple app to use. There are other ones people use descript these are very simple and user friendly apps they’re made for everyone they’re not made for experts are not made for movie or TV producers. Another one that I do like using depending on the level that you’re Using it out, there’s just like all these different user friendly videos, different apps that can help with editing. Alright, the last tool I’m gonna give you, I’m gonna make you have, I’ve been very strict about this confidence, confidence and the right mindset. That is truly the most important thing. So, a lot of times people come to me and they’re like, really asking about the equipment. And I’m like, before we get to the equipment, are you showing up on camera? Do you feel good about being on camera? Do you watch yourself back? Are you working on videos, and then every few months, you’re like trying to level up your videos with more education? Or you’re sort of analyzing what’s working, what’s not working? You really have to start with the right mindset. Getting on camera is always the first thing. So I love my agents. i The keeping it real people are a little blast. They always like connect with me on social media, and we’re friends then. So connect with me on Instagram, at Kim Rydberg or LinkedIn, wherever you’re at Facebook, send me you on camera, show up, you could show up on Instagram Stories, you can just show up and just tell someone what you’re about to do today. I’m gonna say, Hey, I’m Kim. Today I’m walking around Brooklyn, New York to show everybody this cool new art gallery. Right? Do you love art? And you can put a poll yes or no? Do you love art? Yes or no? So it’s very, very, very important to start putting yourself on camera. And the reason why that is, is because people hire people, right? And it’s not just one home you’re selling, you’re always selling yourself when you’re on camera. And every time you pop up in that video, it’s a time to rekindle old relationships and build new ones. And I think that we all feel that it’s like, Am I really going to make a new relationship with a stranger on social media? And the answer is, absolutely. My agents across the country are having that happen. Sometimes it’s an old relationship, someone you knew from two years ago, seven years ago, 15 years ago, popping back up, because they’re seeing you show up. Other times it’s brand new relationships, new refers, that’s what I’m seeing from my clients. Both ends, some people are having new refers directly popping into their social media, Hey, I saw what you’re posting, I really liked that I have a buyer in my state looking for a home in yours. Let’s connect. I’ve had that happen to my agents recently. So it is happening and it happens all the time. So you do though have to be on camera. These are my gauges that are on camera. Not all of them will be on camera. One of them I had to pull teeth, she came to one of my big speaking engagements where I taught like hundreds of agents, and she didn’t even show up she had never been showing up. She was feeling really weird about it and really insecure. And she came and she did a video bootcamp. We push through that let’s show up on camera. And then we went into what are we making now that we’re on camera? What are we making. And she got two calls within the first week. So it happens all the time, you have to have that right mindset of it is important for me to be on camera. If I’m feeling that negative voices, I’m turning those down, and I’m getting on camera. So to wrap it up. You’re not a filmmaker, that’s no problem, you can still grow your business with video, not just you can still grow your business with video, you don’t even need those skills. I will say you don’t need any of those skills. You just need to learn how to use the basic skills and how to understand the strategy of it. And I can help you do that. Of course I do one on one plans. I do. group coaching video bootcamp, I do those where we all learn together, how to show up with confidence and how to make really good strategy, strategic videos that grow your business. I love doing that. It’s been really, really fun. So again, you can find me on Instagram at Kim Richburg r i t t b e RG and I have a free download make sure to connect with me I have a free download on how to make awesome videos and how to be confident on camera. And to wrap it up the three tools are you need that tripod and ring light and get one for your floor or one for your desktop. That is to get great even lighting and to have a steady steady video. The second tool you need it is an editing app. You can use a very simple one like cap cut or in shot or you can you can edit inside the social media app. They are made for regular people. So play around with them. I have tutorials you can message me and I’ll send you to my tutorials. I have lots of amazing how to videos on how to use that if you follow me on social you will see them and then lastly, the tool you need confidence, confidence. You need to have the right mindset to be on camera. Alright, thanks so much. It was great. Make sure to drop me a line on social and tag me when you show up on camera.

Susan Santoro from Susan Santoro team with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty talks about her experience as a realtor, and discusses how she was motivated to get into this business by her husband who is a real estate developer. Susan discusses what is her drive to keep going and being successful as she believes that it’s important to believe on your decisions because in the real estate business you wake up every day unemployed. Last, Susan emphasizes that every agent should be very confident in their job and learn how to sell themselves. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Susan Santoro can be reached at +1 203 605 5297 and ssantoro@wpsir.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today’s a special episode of Keeping it real as we get to speak with an agent who has been practicing for 39 years. Does she have some wisdom to share? Oh boy, does she 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 39 year real estate veteran Susan Santoro. Before we get to Susan, just a couple of quick reminders. Please, as always support our sponsors. We love our sponsors. They help pay the bills for us and help us keep producing episodes. So check out their services and products and consider investing in them. And then second, please tell a friend about the show. Think of one other realtor that could use the wisdom that you’re about to hear from Susan and share this episode with another agent so send it over. Also leave us a review. I guess I asked for three things. Oh well. Thank you for everyone. We love you. We love our audience our listeners. We appreciate you but let’s get to the main event my conversation with Susan Santoro. All right, today on the show our guest is Susan Santoro from the Susan Santoro team with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty in New Haven County in Connecticut. Now let me tell you more about Susan. As since 1985 Susan Santoro has held a prominent position as one of the most distinguished agents within the greater New Haven shoreline region. As the foremost agent in sales at William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty is Guilford brokerage, she has garnered a reputation as an unparalleled performers securing the number one agent title and claiming the number three spot across the entire company. operating as a cohesive unit Susan leads the Susan Centauro team, which is a dedicated assembly of accomplished full time realtors, whose excellence earn them the distinguished top real estate award from Inman based on sales, amassing over 73 million in transactions just last year. Now year after year. Her achievements are underscored by multiple awards including the prestigious Connecticut magazine five star real estate agent Award. She secured the highest ranking for overall satisfaction. That’s a client award distinction showcased in Connecticut magazine. In addition to that she’s super into philanthropy and giving back she’s actively engaged with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a testament to her unwavering dedication to fundraising and also is involved with the Ronald McDonald House trees of hope. And we are just so honored to have Susan on the show before I bring up before Susan comes on. want everybody to follow her at Sue’s Instagram, so go to Instagram Susan Santoro underscore realtor. Now we will have a link to that in the show notes as well as Susan’s website. Susan, welcome to the show. Susan Santoro 4:35Thank you. Nice introduction. Thank you. D.J. Paris 4:38Thank you. Now the last time I was for anyone who isn’t I’m going to interrupt myself now twice as getting through this. Anyone who isn’t familiar with New Haven, New Haven is just outside of New York. It’s right on the basically right on the shore, and it is known for a number of things. Most probably most notably, people of New Haven will tell you and they will tell you with a straight face that they invented pizza. Now, I don’t know if that’s technically true or not. And that is a debatable topic and I am not here to be the final authority on whether it was in Naples, Italy, or New Haven, but New Haven people are very, very proud of their pizza. And I have eaten New Haven pizza and I’ve eaten the very famous Pepys clam pizza, which sounds really gross for a lot of you listening, but it is delicious. So Susan, I am a big pizza fan. And I love the fact that I’m talking to a New Haven person because I love your pizza. Susan Santoro 5:36I look forward to treating you to it when you come, but it’s between puppies and Sally’s. We have these pizza wars all the time, and everybody has their favorite. in Wooster street. There are plenty of other places in New Haven also. And the pizzas good everywhere. I D.J. Paris 5:51went to chat GBT for the official answer. And again, chat, GBT. It’s not exactly the oracle at Delphi, but it’s a it’s close to accurate. And I said, Where was pizza originated? And it said, while people of New Haven will tell you that it’s originated there, we believe it actually is from is from Naples. But it’s still not totally clear. So we’ll go with new cars. Susan Santoro 6:15And you can get New Haven style pizza in your hometown too. D.J. Paris 6:18Yeah. So for any Chicago people, if you are familiar with piece, which is always on the top, Chicago pizza places list, it’s not Chicago style, which is the deep dish stuff, but it is it’s thin crust, more of a tavern II sort of style. But But no, not tavern, but thin and big. And just delicious. I am a huge fan of of New Haven style. So anyway, we are talking about, I can talk about pizza. I will. But we want to talk about Susan and all of her amazing real estate accomplishments. Now, Susan, you’ve been in the industry nearly 40 years, which is so amazing and impressive. And you are still crushing it all these years later, I would love to start at the very beginning of your journey, like how did you get into real estate and why? So it Susan Santoro 7:13was kind of an accident. My husband is a real estate developer and kind of ran out of land needed a place to build. And I was like, why don’t you get your real estate license and go and look for some land for me to build on. So that’s how it started. And then I thought, Oh, we’re gonna have a family, I’m going to be a stay at home mom. And then, you know, once you have a couple of good sales under your belt, you’re either born with it, or you’re not that adrenaline, that fire in your belly, you can’t wait to make the next sale. And then it becomes addicting. And so by the time my daughter was born, five years later, it was a major career. And I still wake up every single day with that fire, and I can’t wait to see what the next deal is gonna be. D.J. Paris 7:58That’s amazing. And it is it is fun. I would like to ask you, what is the what what fuels that fire like inside of you? I never really asked this question. But I think it’s a good one. Like, what do you do? Are you aware of what it is inside of you that is just so eager to keep going forward? Is there certain goals you’re looking to hit? Is it just a feeling of satisfaction? Is it about helping? What is it? Susan Santoro 8:23So it’s a lot of the above except that I except for the goal part? I am not believe it or not most successful people always say, Oh, I’ve got this, you know, board or this, you know, the goals of my year. I don’t like goals. I just like to keep on going keep on going. And you know, not many people have asked me you know, kind of like, what is your why? But the truth is, is I dropped out of college after my first year, I was never meant to go to college. My mom was not happy and told me that, you know, if you want to be successful in life, you have to have that opportunity and go to college and get a degree. So and my dad who ran a major corporation was CEO of a major corporation also didn’t finish college. So why think it was one of those things like I’m going to show her and now we just you know we laugh about it every time I get an award I send it to my mom and I say no let me know when I’m going to become something so that was kind of my why it makes my dad super happy still checks in on me weekly wants to know my sales. And you know it gets a big smile on his face. So I think I think he remains my why he wrote a wonderful book called pilot your life. It sits on my desk and it’s my motivational Bible. It’s a great motivational book for people in business and he’s definitely my why. D.J. Paris 9:50Well let’s Yeah, let’s give a plug for that books say the title one more time and Father’s Day life. Susan Santoro 9:54Pilot your life. My dad is Ronald Shaw. He was the CEO of the pilot and corporations? D.J. Paris 10:00Oh, well, we certainly know who they are. In fact, I have they have offices here in Chicago. And I have I have friends that work at pilot, oddly enough, I have one friend that works at pi or did. I don’t know if she’s still there. But oh, that is wild. Oh, my gosh, yes. That is a big company. Wow. And isn’t it amazing, not not an MBA, not a college grad. And he was a CEO. Incredible. Susan Santoro 10:26Yes. And a lot of the book kind of talks about that, you know, and it’s just that that competence level, you know, I raised my daughter saying, you know, make a decision, believe in it, own it, it’s yours, and then just follow it. And that’s just sort of a simple way of life, whether you’re making a decision on going to a party or not, or whether you’re making a decision on a business transaction, I think it’s all the same. Once you own that, you believe in it, you just keep going. And that’s how I feel about my business. And I tell my team and other agents who asked me all the time, how do you still do these hours, you know, it’s 6070 hours, sometimes a week, how do you still do this, after all these years is you wake up unemployed every single day in our business, and you have to go out and look your best. You know, if you wear makeup, put on your makeup, put on, you know, get dressed, just go out and present yourself the best way possible, and you will be a success, you’ll be confident and it’ll show. And with that comes success. D.J. Paris 11:32You wake up unemployed every day, you know, that is so true. And it is, you know, I know there would be people to say, well, that’s a negative way to look at it. But you know, what, I have found that having that thought of, you know, it’s something that’s pushing against me versus something I’m running towards, like, the idea that I’m unemployed, oh, my god, I gotta pay my bills. That is, I think, a more powerful motivator than like, for example, if I was, if I was being chased by somebody with a knife, I think I’d run faster than if I was running towards a million dollars, I bet I would run faster with the guy chased me with a knife. So even though I would like not to be motivated by by pain, the reality of it is it’s true. We are as agents, we are unemployed every single morning when we wake up. And it’s an opportunity to not only find business, but to keep the business that we do have, and really treasure it, because it can go away at a moment’s notice. That is a really great lesson, we’ll Susan Santoro 12:34come up to you at parties, people come up to the grocery store. Everybody wants to know how the market is tell me about real estate or asking you about a particular property. And so that’s where again, you’re selling yourself constantly. D.J. Paris 12:47How when, how important is it for you to have that information about the local market? On hand ready to talk? It may be, you know, to varying degrees of detail, I’m sure. But how important is it when you’re at the grocery store? And someone’s like, Hey, Susan, you’ve been doing this forever? What’s the market? Like? How do you typically address a question like that? Susan Santoro 13:08So it’s very important, and I am a statistics person. So I do look at the numbers every day, whether it’s against, you know, me, my, I don’t want to call them competitors, but it just associates other associates. But I always kind of know what’s going on. I look at percentages in, you know, I just wrote an offer, for instance, in Fairfield County, and I usually based just out of New Haven County, but because Yale New Haven Hospital has bought up a hospital down in Fairfield County, we now have a lot of our doctors that are going that way as well. So I was just down there, and their business is done very differently than ours. But before I went down, I went and I looked at kind of where the numbers are. And I’m seeing that things are going approximately 13% over asking. So it was such an important tool for me to be able to share with my clients. We crafted a great offer the first time they didn’t want to go that high over and and they didn’t get the first house and the second one, they listened to me we crafted a perfect offer the sellers could not say no to and it went approximately 12.5% over asking, but our offer got signed. You know, so I think knowing the numbers is very important knowing your market. And then of course, you know, you can always, you know, tell someone you know what, I’m going to get back to you later, I’m going to look this up for you and good reason to make a phone call back to that person. Absolutely. You’ve captured them. It’s like being stuck in an elevator. And you know, D.J. Paris 14:43I love what one of I just want to go back to one thing that you said that for me was was pretty rough. It’s something that I can’t remember another one of our guests saying in all the episodes we’ve done, so I just want to step on it a little bit because I think it’s is really, really a great idea. So what Susan said, and she said it very quickly, and I just want to make sure that everyone heard it. She said, You know, when she was about to produce an offer, she looked at, you know, obviously comparable places, she looked at list price, and then sales price, and just did the quick math on what you know, that percentage over was, that way she can bring that data back to her clients say, here’s why we should consider this type of offer based on you know, other other comps, I don’t know that a lot of agents do that. And that is, you know, a lot of agents are like, Okay, Mr. or Mrs. Buyer, how much do you want to spend? Okay, maybe we can go a little bit over. And it’s more of just like finessing like the feeling of the of the buyer, but not actually bringing the hard data saying we should offer X based on I think that is a really great idea for anyone who’s working with offers, do Susan Santoro 15:51your homework, you know, before you go to do an open house, and I tell the agents on my team. And I always remind them, pull up a circle on MLS, as to everything around the area that you’re doing the open house at, know your statistics, know what else is out there, that house might not be right for them, you can easily get in the car after open house and take them to look at your the other listings around the area. So just do your homework. D.J. Paris 16:18And you probably also in in the county that you serve. And I know you work, you know a lot of places in Connecticut. But I imagine you know what neighborhoods people like our starter neighborhoods, you know, where they they graduate to when you know, you know where the best schools are, all of this is we’re talking really about knowing the community, knowing the inventory, knowing kind of what’s happening. How much time do you think you spend every day, sort of checking in on those stats. Susan Santoro 16:51I do it every night. So I am Luckily, I was born with not needing a lot of sleep, which works great. In my personal practice, I when the world gets quiet, you know, 11 to 2am, I’m on a computer, I’m just checking numbers, I’m checking towns, seeing what’s new seeing, you know, sales, that’s when I work the best. So I would say I do it every single night. But in the beginning of my career, I did two open houses every single Sunday. Did that for years. That’s how I built my, you know, my list of clientele. And, and I always always went on back then, you know, we had a book that we used to flip through and see what the listings were around the area and know and know the sales, so I was able to hopefully answer a question that may have come up in an open house. So I think it’s a good practice. If you get out of the practice. That’s not good. Yeah, get D.J. Paris 17:53back in. It’s, yeah, doing open houses. It’s it’s it just is the thing to do. And it’s always the thing to do. And technology has not really changed it too much to where open houses seem to be still very effective. Have it probably drives you crazy when you see newer agents not wanting to sit open houses on the weekends. I think if I was a new agent that I would beg other agents to let me come to their open house, I would sweat egg about Susan Santoro 18:26right I tell them all the time here I’m giving it to you. I mean, people are the people that are walking in the door, I some are just doing this as a hobby, right, they just want to go and see a nice house. But most of them are coming because they have an interest in buying a piece of real estate. It might not be that piece of real estate. But you now have their information, you hopefully have a conversation and get up a you know, repertoire with them. And they’ll call you when they’re ready to buy real estate or you can be in touch with them. And I think the technology today, you get their email, you just drip on them and drip on them eventually, when they’re ready to buy real estate. What was that Realtors name I met and it’s going to be right on the top of their you know their head. So I think it’s really important to put yourself out there. And whether that open house gym, the grocery store, you know, my family makes fun of me, but I never I’ll never walk out the door not in a matching outfit or having my hair look good or whatever. Because you’re always selling yourself. So and branding, branding, branding, you know, put your name, put your name everywhere that you’re you know that that’s allowed. So yeah, D.J. Paris 19:38totally, totally agree. I think those are all amazing ideas and things I agree with personally as well. So sort of the irony of you, not being you know, a college grad, but being ultra successful in real estate is you actually work a lot with Yale, which is in New Haven as well. So you know you work with a lot of the doctors at Yale you work, I think with faculty as well. So let’s, you know, this is something that I don’t think we’ve ever talked to anyone about is, you know, being sort of a friend to the university where you get, you know, sort of known amongst, you know, the the management there, that you’re a person that can help when professors come in and leave or when physicians come and leave at the hospital. So can you talk a little bit about how do you build? How did you build those relationships? And how, and how does that how does that work for you? Susan Santoro 20:31So you know, it’s become a niche. You know, as I think I’ve mentioned to you that one in one of my clients years ago, named me realtor to the docks, and that becomes my, my hashtag realtor to the docks. And it’s not only it’s not the only people that I work with, clearly, but it was kind of an accident, it was probably about 25 years ago, sold a house to a chief of a department that was coming in. And it was going to be a struggle, they were willing him from Harvard. So it took a while negotiations take a while it was probably a good year, that every time they’d come to town, I’d show them houses, show them around, get to know the area took them for pizza. And we obviously finally got into contract. And he said to me, like, I promise you, I’m going to be building a very big department here. And that department, I’ve moved my it’s, I’ve moved my 49th Doctor into that department from him in 25 years. Now, obviously, those those sales turn into they multiply, because then one of those doctors has someone coming from UCLA, they just came from, let’s say, and from another department, and then they give my name to that department, and then that starts spreading around to department. So right now I have three departments that I really get fed a lot of business from, from the Chiefs directly. Now, that’s it’s a lot of work. It’s not just oh, here’s a doctor, and they you go out and you show them a house, it’s, I get them sometimes on their second interview here. And they still have maybe four interviews to go. They want to see if they can afford to live in Connecticut. So I’ll take them in the car, I’ll spend a day and you know, it’s kind of a, you know, driving them around and educating them on the areas and drive them by house. And so you know, here’s approximately what this one would go for. So I really give them a full education out of maybe 10 doctors that I’ll take in my car that they’ve given me, maybe one or two, if I’m lucky, it will take the position. D.J. Paris 22:38So, so it’s a lot of time. Yeah, it’s a Susan Santoro 22:42lot of time, but it pays off. Because like I said they what I find is that, you know, I’m educating these very brilliant people on such a different level, right? I’m not, I’m certainly not saving lives, but I’m changing lives, and they don’t have a lot of time. So they come to me, kind of I’m a very good listener, because I have to be, they tell me what they’re looking for. And then if there’s something obviously not on the market now, but when they’re ready, I’ll use my resources. I don’t love cold calling. But I’ll do it. A lot of times, I’ll call my list of clients that I’ve amassed over 39 years and say, you know, do you know anybody who’s looking to sell in your neighborhood, I have this great couple coming to Yale, they’d be perfect. I do a lot of letter writing personal letter writing and just sometimes get an open listing, just say, you know, just let me just show it to this one client. And a lot of people don’t want their house on the market. And they’re thrilled to do it. And it just becomes a smooth transaction. And but I think it’s I think it’s interesting, you know, kind of niche I kind of call it where healthcare, you know, meats and real estate merge, right. It’s that Yeah. And I just like I said, it’s, you know, I think teaching them they’re so brilliant, but they don’t know anything about real estate. She don’t know what a septic tank is. Their eyes light up when they realize like, what actually goes into a septic tank. You know, they don’t understand financing. They know what they make, they know they can afford what they can afford, but they don’t understand, you know, 15 year versus a 30 year, you know, a fixed rate versus an arm. So I love teaching them and then, you know, like I said, we kind of changed their lives quickly and I have to do it efficiently and move on. So D.J. Paris 24:45what I want to go I want to go back to the open house or sorry, the open listing idea, because this was something that that stuck out as you were mentioning, so walk us through that because I don’t know that everyone listening is going to understand what that means. So, Susan Santoro 25:00you know, they’re in other areas not here. You know, they kind of pocket listings right there. Yeah, sort of the same thing. Except that, you know, I will literally call someone in a neighborhood that I think it’s perfect that their house is perfect for, and ask them that, you know, would you be interested in selling, here’s what I think I could get you. And you don’t have to put your house on the market, you don’t have to clean it, you don’t have to, you know, pick your socks up off the floor. Here’s when they’re going to be your let me bring them in. And, and it’s simple. And with COVID, that that was, that was a gift to a lot of people who especially, you know, some of my doctors who obviously, you know, couldn’t get sick, and we just bring them into one house, it was perfect, great, we make the deal. They’re not as picky as someone that may have, you know, a no timeline, you know, they just they want, they figure out what school system they want. I always send them to like, Great schools.org, I let them do their own homework. Never steer anybody towards a school system, because it’s different for everybody. You know, somebody might be looking for a kid that’s really strong in theater, or really strong in math. So, you know, I steer them to great schools.org, and then let them make their decision, and then kind of pick out three towns and run. D.J. Paris 26:25That’s a great tip, the that website for the pushing that whole conversation off, you know, for ethics, obviously, we can’t really steer somebody towards a particular school, but you can steer them towards the website and say, Do your own research I have found in I just LinkedIn just told me, I’ve been doing this for six years, which I didn’t realize. And I feel actually a little bit like God, it’s been six years, maybe maybe I need to hang it up. But I’m having too much fun doing it. But the reason I’m bringing that up is Gosh, I don’t know, I just lost my train of thought, oh, no, it was it was about what I was reflecting on over the last six years. Sorry. So over the last six years, I was thinking a lot about when I saw that I had been doing this six years, I was like, Okay, what are some of the common elements of some of these top producers? And you just said something that I think is incredibly important. And I think for someone like you, it’s kind of just like, that’s what you do. But I think a lot of realtors don’t do this. What Susan basically just said was that she goes and finds her own inventory for her buying clients. Right? She’s not just scouring the MLS, which of course she is doing that too. She’s like, you know, I’m going to just lob a call over to so and so down the street, because that’s the perfect house for my client. And I’m going to see if they would be willing to so I find that that is something that top Realtors often will do. And other agents just don’t even occur to them. They just look at the MLS that’s what’s there. If it’s not on there, sorry, can’t help you. I love that. So you are literally Susan Santoro 28:06it depends. I think it also depends on the age, the the Gen Z’s that don’t like to make phone calls. I’ve been hung up on a lot in my career, right, a lot of doors get shut in your face. Keep going, right, just keep going. The next door is open and and just don’t don’t let it stop you. Yeah, D.J. Paris 28:26I think it’s so important because people either you can wait for them to get ready to sell their home, or you can proactively go to them and say, here’s what I think I can get you if you’re interested. And I know that everyone’s got a price, everyone’s got a price for their home, that they would be willing to move even if it’s there for ever home. So, you know, if I you know, I might think I’m in my forever place now. But if you came to me with 100% Return offer like that I would make 100% on that’s not my forever home anymore, I’m gonna find something else. So that is such a Susan Santoro 29:04smart opening line for that is fill in the blank. If I could get you X. Yes, you would sell your house right? And fill in the blank and see what D.J. Paris 29:16love that you Susan Santoro 29:17might you might be thinking that they’re thinking here when they’re really just thinking here. Yeah. So, you know, on a good example of that is I had somebody call me once for a donation. And they asked me if I would at night. It was an organization who was important to me, but I’d given to them before. And I was planning on giving more that year, that particular year. And they called me and said, just wondering if you would match your donation from last year. Dom So I matched my donation. They could have gotten double from me if their approach was different. D.J. Paris 29:55Yeah, that is really absent Loli Susan Santoro 30:00saw in the presentation, all in D.J. Paris 30:03the presentation, thank you for it. That is such a great, great tip. I love that let’s let’s talk about presentation. When you go into a listing presentation, let’s say for example, and let’s say it’s not a instant slam dunk, it’s not a past client, it’s your you’re in competition, maybe with another agent. How do you approach listing presentations, and because obviously, you win a lot of them. So tell us about what you do in a listing presentation that you think maybe is a little different. So Susan Santoro 30:36interesting that you say that, because the thing that you said that really stands out, is what people think, right? Oh, this is a slam dunk. What I tell anybody who will listen to me, nothing is a slam dunk. If you’re going on a listing presentation of your brother’s house, be prepared. Everybody is a client, everybody deserves to get the best to make, you know, hopefully make a profit. But everyone deserves to be treated exactly the same. And I’ll go back to that in a second. Just saying that, you know, I, I think a common thread when I read some of my, you know, hundreds and hundreds of Google reviews, is when people come back and they say, you know, she treated us like we were her only client. And I think that’s really important is that you give whether they’re spending 100,000 or 100 million, it doesn’t matter treat everybody the same because their house is their castle. And so I try to do I like to do a two step program. Not everyone will tell you, it’s the best way to do it. But I like to go out the first time, if I don’t know the people, I don’t know the house, give me a tour. And I’d take notes, tell me what you’ve done. Tell me what you love about living here. And then I’ll come back, you know, Tom, I have to do my homework. Because I don’t care how good you are, you can’t go out and tell someone a price of a house without seeing it. It’s impossible. So D.J. Paris 32:01to what by the way, I want to pause you for a second because it I want you to keep going with this. But this is what a consultant does a consultant goes into a company and says, Tell me about the company. And then they go, I’m gonna come back and give you my findings. So this is what we’re talking about with a two step process, you’re doing it very much like a consultant, Susan Santoro 32:19right? Do your home, you know, go back, do your homework, and then come back and show them nuts. You know, sometimes I’ll talk about a little bit of my marketing on that first interview, you know, kind of what I do, you know, very quick, they’re always like, well, you know, what’s your commission, you know, what, we’re gonna go over everything when I come back, because there’s so much more to tell you about what I’m going to do for you. And it’s always about what you’re going to do for them, you know, and not for yourself. And so I don’t go in prepared to you know, sign right here on the dotted line, I may lose some, I have gone out on a few in my career. And we’re I’m called back, you know, the next day and they say, Oh, we signed with someone to meet they that person was maybe just buying the listing, they told them a really high number that sure, you know, that they wanted to hear and get him to sign on the dotted line. I’d like to be realistic, and otherwise they’re gonna call me every single day, why hasn’t my house sold? So I like to do my homework and give them real facts. And I’ll never take more than 48 hours before I go back. But I like to be prepared. D.J. Paris 33:33You know, it’s so funny, because I’ve been talking to top producers, I guess for six years now. And they pretty much everyone, you know, has a similar sort of answer. Like, like you were saying, you know, well, not the two step approach always but, but doing your homework, going in with, you know, information, having a presentation, and really having it very well practiced. I suspect that is missing from a lot of realtor training. I think a lot of agents don’t get that sort of training of listing presentation buyer presentation. You know, how do you you know, how are you extracting information how are you collecting that information? And then how are you using that information to you know, hopefully get the deal it is it is something that is a real art and a science I believe and something that that you’re obviously part of so you’re when you first go out there you’re on like a more of a fact finding mission, you’re like, tell me about the home. Tell me about all the things that that you want or that you’ve done to the home and you collect all this information and then you go back you process it you put it through some some different metrics. And then you’re like, Okay, here’s what just like a consultant, here’s my report. Here’s what we’re going to do. And Susan Santoro 34:46I come back with a nice bound book and it is not just statistics about you know William Pitt Sotheby’s but you know about me and what I’ve done but the marketing I bring them you know, actual, you know, for Photos and show them the difference of your cell phone photo versus my professional photographer. I have, I’m not a good photographer. So just because of that, I’ve used a professional photographer for 20 years. So that’s important. I think that people need to see it, touch it, feel it, and I bring them this book show them, here’s what I’m going to do for you. Show them the advertising, I show them, you know, where their house is going to appear, how it’s going to appear, and then give them real facts. Here’s the house that sold, you know, within your neighborhood, a Walden, why isn’t my house worth that much? Well, because they have a brand new kitchen. And you know, yours is from the 1970s. I mean, I don’t say that, but, you know, I try to give them the reasons as to why I think their house is worth what I think it’s worth. And then we talk about just the kind of the art of pricing, right, not just that 99 cent pricing, you know, the ending with the 99. Sure. But I have always sort of said, you know, it’s really important to let the buyer perceive a value, you, to me, You cast a wider net, the wider your net, the more people that come in, the more people that come in, the more offers you’re going to get, the more offers you’re going to get, the higher your price is going to be. So I think it’s coming on, you know, right? Here’s your market value, let’s come on under your market value, let’s cast that wider net. And you know, you’re kind of like, walk into a department store, right, that loss leader at the end of the aisle, it got you to cut into the store, and then you’re going to spend more, that’s what we want, we want more people to walk in, we need the traffic to get your price up. So I think it’s just important to tell them at all aspects about marketing. D.J. Paris 36:46I think so too. And there is this psychological principle called escalation of commitment. So what Susan’s basically saying is, hey, maybe it’s smarter to price it slightly under under market value, so that we have more people competing. And the reason why that’s significant for human beings is we are wired to as we agree to something as we want to continue to agree to something. So that’s what’s called escalation of commitment, you guys can Google it, but it’s basically a psychological principle, it says the, the more as you sit, continue to say yes to something, you you become more and more committed, it’s harder, actually to pull out. So in other words, if you’re going back and forth with somebody on pricing, you know, there’s multiple offers there’s bids, it’s actually more likely that those two people will continue to battle it out versus one person saying I’m leaving. So it’s actually a really smart play, because it plays into our human nature of wanting something and wanting to compete, and win and achieve, which is, is built into us. So that’s a really smart idea is get a lot of people interested in the property, and then you can have them all battle it out. Susan Santoro 37:58Right, exactly. And I think also back to that kind of to stuff, I think that the other idea behind it is it gives you time, if you don’t know the people give you time to maybe, maybe make a connection, right now you you can go down a rabbit hole, certainly on social media, and figure out who they might know or, you know, find out oh, they used to work for this company. You know, oh, did you do work with so and so. And, you know, it’s about fo Gosh, 35 years ago, I think, had a marketing company. Look at all these notes I had received in the five years I had been in business, a beautiful thank you notes from my clients. And they came up with a tagline. And it’s real trust, real care, in real estate. And that’s what they came up with. After looking at all of that I care about people, I really, I really truly care about them. I have a baby shower of an old client, I’m going to in a couple of weeks, I’ve been invited to weddings and bar mitzvahs and barbecues. And that’s a testament to me just fostering my relationships with people. But I, like my physicians, maybe I’m just, you know, I should have been a doctor and my other life if I ever wanted to go to college. I love medicine, I’m fascinated by it. And making them my friends has not only you know, it’s been great because I get to learn. But obviously, it’s helped in my career because they just continue to refer me and refer me. And it’s all this business if you want to stay in it long term. It’s just all about relationships. And I have a team that I started about 10 years ago, only two people on it, I don’t want more. It’s very different team. I kind of you know, I say it’s like one plus one plus one equals three. You know, putting our ideas and thoughts together and also putting our volume together just makes us greater, you know, it’s small team. But number one small team in Connecticut means a lot more More than just an individual person, and absolutely unique people, you know, everyone’s different, again, fostering relationships. One of the girls has been with me about 10 years, she’s a marathon runner, great connections, right? She’s out there selling herself all of the time. Obviously, we’ve made up a t shirt. So it says the Susan Santoro team, but then in the back in big letters down her backs as realtor, let someone come up and ask her a question while she’s out running or at the end of a marathon. Tap into that, right, one of the other girls has been with me about four years, she’s a mom of three kids, that is your perfect audience. Get involved with their sports get involved with their, you know, PTA. So, you know, I love to be able to problem solve with them love to be able to teach them how to tap into their resources and go through your index cards and call people. q4. I said, I’m not a goal setter in the beginning. q4 is my very favorite quarter. Because I like to look and see how much I could actually accomplish in q4. So I go through my address book, and I reach out to as many clients as I possibly can in a week. D.J. Paris 41:17What’s amazing, you know, that is a great idea. Because most people step off the gas and q4, you know, we have the holidays, we have family stuff, the best. But you you step on the gas. Susan Santoro 41:30Absolutely. It’s my it’s my very favorite time. And and I like to see like what can I accomplish between now and then. So, and again, I don’t set myself a number goal. But you know, sometimes it’s just as simple as an email, you know, hey, drove by your house today love the new color of your front door. Or you know, pick up a phone, you know, was thinking about you know, or look on look on Facebook, right? See how old their kids are now have a reason to call them. fostering relationships is key. If you want to stay long term in this business, it’s definitely the key to my success. D.J. Paris 42:07And thank God for social media in the sense that we now do get information about our clients, if we’re following them. And we get to enjoy their lives as they post about it. And it like Susan, like you just said, I get to call, Hey, I just saw you went on a trip to Cancun hope it was great. It’s the perfect reason to pick up the phone and not have to do a sales pitch on oh, by the way, you know, I you know, because that can always come up naturally as well. But I want to I want to go back to something you said that I think is really critical. And I think it comes through is care and trust, what you’re really doing because I believe that care and trust are earned, not automatically given and you have a huge an amazing history of constantly demonstrating care and trust. And therefore that when you know, it’s funny that your niche, one of your niches is doctors. Because I think I think the same way when I choose a doctor for myself a physician, I the only thing I really, really that’s most important to me is do I think this physician cares about me even just a little bit. If they care about me, I’m good. If I feel that they don’t care about me, then I’m going to look for another doctor. So I use that same principle. When I’m when I’m going to see a doctor I want I want I want them to actually care about me. People want the same thing, obviously, in a realtor in any in any service position. So I think that is such an important thing is demonstrating care and trust is really should be if people are going to set goals. I think that’s a heck of a good goal to set is I want every one of my clients to go. You know, Susan cares about me, or DJ cares about me or whatever that that is worth its weight in gold. Absolutely. Now, what are you what do you do to stay in touch with clients in between transactions? Because of course, people you know, buy their home and maybe they don’t move forever or for 10 years or what are we doing to stay in touch and make sure they don’t forget about you? Anniversary Susan Santoro 44:22cards? Happy anniversary, right? Some people are like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this house seven years because you forget right you forget how long you’ve been in it. So I’ll always write in the card how long sometimes I’ll you know, write little personal notes. Thanksgiving. I don’t do Christmas. I don’t do Hanukkah. I don’t sometimes I’ll do New Year’s Thanksgiving Thanksgiving card. It’s a great time to say thank you. You just does exactly what you’re saying. Thank you for your referrals, even if they’ve never given you one. They may have thought that they’ve mentioned your name. It may not have panned out but you’re thinking Am I do send a gift, I can’t talk about, you know what it is because you’re not supposed to. But I do send a gift to every client who does give me a referral, after closing, and, and they’re so appreciative of it and very surprised when they get it. And then they liked the idea of getting this gift. And so then they try to give you more. So one of my departments at Yale, there’s two girls who are in competition to see who can they keep calling me who’s given you more referrals this year. So it’s actually become like this very funny game. But I then I, like I said, I do that q4, I do spend a lot of time I have an old fashion, right, I have an index box with all of my clients names on an individual card. And then each month of when they bought it makes it easy. I obviously have it on computer also. But sure, I’m visual. So we’ll go through that card box. And we’ll start calling, you know, just checking in sending a note, like I said, send an email, there’s so many things that you can do, you do get hit up, I’m not going to tell you don’t for donations, you know, kids, add books, or you know, when you buy a pie or buy a candy I do I always buy anybody that comes to me and says they weren’t, you know, trying to sell food, I buy it and bring it down to the Ronald McDonald House, because it’s a very, unfortunately, a full house all the time. So I’ll always drop stuff there. But so yeah, you do get hit up, you do have to go out for drinks or dinner or lunch once in a while. I don’t mind it. Again, I love to learn things from people. So it just goes back to that being a good listener. And you just, if you just quiet for a minute and just listen to somebody else, you’re going to gain something that’s going to be momentous for you, it’s just going to change things for you, they might not realize that they’re telling you about their neighbor, who is going into a retirement home, they just might mention that not thinking about business. I heard that, go back to my office, I look up that neighbor’s name. And I write that neighbor letter. And I keep in touch and I keep sending letters until that neighbor calls me for a listing appointment. So good listening, just be a good listener. D.J. Paris 47:32Be a good listener and be inquisitive, like ask lots of questions about someone else’s life, right? Like, know what is going on. Because home and life is connected, right? We’re, they’re intricate, they’re obviously interchangeable. You know, your life and your home is really one thing. And so being in touch with what is going on in your clients lives. And listening, as you mentioned, allows you to just learn about what other opportunities may exist that they might not have even thought as an opportunity for you. They’re just sharing, you know, parts of their life. Susan Santoro 48:10Right. And I think you know, the other thing is, don’t make it about yourself. Very simply, just coming to mind quickly. You sent me an email two days ago, and I had a nutty day, and actually was traveling back from Chicago visiting my family and and then had a crazy day just hit the ground running. So instead of writing you an email saying, you know, I’m sorry, right? I’m sorry, is about me. You probably don’t realize this, but I wrote you and just said, Thanks for your patience. Now I’ve made it about you. Yes. It’s very important to realize, none of this is about me, me, me. You know, there’s lots of agents out there who are going to post every day. You know, I’m the best. I’m the greatest and there. There’s enough business to go around that. Some people want to deal with people like that, that’s fine. But I try to I want to make it about you make it about the client, what can I do for you? Not what it’s going to do for me and make me number one that will come just make it about make it about your client. D.J. Paris 49:18Yeah, demonstrate care and trust. It just it all it all goes back to that this this accountability thing to is, is acknowledging thank you for your patience. You know if you know we’re delayed on a response or an email, thank you so much for your patience. Here’s the answer that you’re looking for. Absolutely brilliant. versus saying, I’m sorry, DJ. Sorry, DJ. It’s not about DJ it’s about telling the client Hey, Susan Santoro 49:48there’s time waiting, right? Yeah, D.J. Paris 49:50I kept you waiting. Yes, I am. Sorry about that. But I acknowledged what you have. Yeah, that’s a really smart, smart idea. As we all Susan Santoro 50:00care, real trust in real estate, it’s my tagline. Actually, I should, if I, you know, want it someday, maybe I’ll get it tattooed someday. But, but it is, it’s a motto that I live by how important D.J. Paris 50:13is it to have a niche to read? Whether it’s, you know, your your, you know, you work with doctors you work with, with faculty at Yale, obviously, you have, you know, other clients as well. But how important is it to have a specialty, like, just like doctors have specialties? Susan Santoro 50:29I think nowadays, I guess if I was to get into the business again, you know, if that was new, I would try to focus more on that, I think there’s a lot of people who have made that really their success, you know, where it’s, you know, the, the waterfront specialist, or the this specialist, I think, you know, I can’t really called being a realtor to the docks by my niche. But I guess it’s just what I sell, you know, myself, and it’s just the time that I can dedicate to them, right, sometimes they don’t even realize what time it is, especially the ones in training, you know, they’re doing the residency here. They’re in surgery, they get out to in the morning, and they’re sitting down, and they might be looking online, to see all of the stuff that I you know, sent to them to look at today, all the new listings, and they don’t even think twice, they’ll start texting me. Yeah. And sometimes I’ll surprise them and answer them at 230 or three in the morning. You know, other times, I won’t and you know, try to say, okay, I get a little respect of time. But, but I think that that’s, you know, really important, I pay attention to them. And so I think that that’s sort of the niche thing, again, came about kind of by accident like that, but that’s when people come to me, and they say, Oh, Dr. So and So recommended you, I’m going to be you know, I’m coming in, in the neurology department. Great, you know, and that’s it. Yeah. And I was told that you never sleep. So it’s like, it’s become a joke, but they love that, that I can dedicate so much time to them, a lot of times people are, they’re texting or calling me even on WhatsApp, because they’re coming from another country. And I’m able to, you know, talk to them at crazy hours. So I think depending on what your your niche is, you can really hone in on it. I just interviewed with another department at Yale and not gonna mention him by name. And the chief sent me a nice note the other day and said, you know, we’d like to take you on as, as our realtor, if you don’t mind, we’re interviewing, you don’t mind. We’re interviewing a few people next week, you know, that we’re going to have you take out terrific. So you know, it’s another department. So, again, it’s, no one’s paying me to do this. So you don’t get paid until you’re sitting at a closing. And I think that goes back to that drive of waking up unemployed every day. You know, we don’t make a dime till you’re sitting at a closing. And don’t forget that. If the deal doesn’t end, when you write the contract, and it gets accepted. There’s so much more to it. You. You want to be able to give somebody PD, my kid fell out of a tree today. Oh, you know, we’re new in the area. We don’t know anybody. You know, do you have a pediatric pediatric ortho you can give us? Sure. You know, that’s what you want. You want that you want to be that person that they come to for the name of a restaurant, anything. So I think that that’s really important that just don’t let the deal and after you write the contract, yeah, D.J. Paris 53:40yeah, it’s so you, boy, you said you said a lot. Just there and a lot of really, really great stuff. I could not agree with you more, I think it’s super imperative that people think about, you know, the kind of relationships they want to have with their clients and to think well, what do I have to do to earn that relationship? What do I have to do to earn somebody saying something like, oh, this person cares about me and my realtor likes actually is is invested, you know, in my happiness, like, if they can say that, they’re gonna sing your names, the, you know, they’re gonna sing it from the mountaintops, to everyone else. The other thing too, is, you know, thinking about niches and you were talking about working with physicians, is you probably just by being around them, you’ve studied kind of what physicians are like, what their needs are, you know, obviously every everybody’s different, but they have commonality, I’m sure there’s certainly needs and you have just been a student of, of, you know, whatever departments you’ve worked in to where I suspect you’re almost thinking you almost think of yourself almost as an employee even if some of these you know other depart Let’s, Susan Santoro 55:00and some of the doctors that do come in think I am, you know, and they think I’m working for the hospital or the university. And, you know, sometimes I have to, if I if comes off, you know, explain that I’m not. And you know, here’s how I got, here’s how you got to me. But you know, it’s again, it’s just relationship building and caring, caring, caring. So I’m today, in fact, I’m just as I’m talking to you, I just got a, an alert just popped up on my computer, a client who I sold a house to three years ago, in the military, and was given my name from another realtor who follows me online, sold them a house, you know, not too far from here, they’ve been doing a lot of work to the house, they reached out to me, do you have a plumber or an electrician? So they sent me a note last week and said, you know, we’d love to have you over to show you what we’ve done to the house. And most realtors to be like, if they’re not selling, you know, I’m not gonna go over. And it is going to take up an hour and a half of my time today. And they my alarm just went off just reminding me that that’s where I’m going today at four o’clock. So you know, yes, it’s, it’s 45 minutes there, it’s 45 minutes back, I’ll probably sit there and visit with them for an hour and a half. Okay, but three hours of time, if their neighbor decides to sell their house, who’s going to be on the top of their head? Yeah. So you’ve got to just take the time to do stuff like that. And I’m excited to see what they’ve done to the house. And I really, truly do care. But D.J. Paris 56:36that’s, that’s the whole point is that you are happy to it’s not always easy to drive 45 minutes each way. It’s not easy, but you’re excited to do it. And it’s what ultimately demonstrates care and compassion. And I I’m in this I’m a professional, and I want to see this all the way through. Susan, this has been such a such a fun episode, you have given our audience an incredible amount of strategies and techniques and tips. And you know, from your 39 years in the business, is just incredible. Your motor is still revved up and ready to go every morning. I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to adopt the I am unemployed every morning idea. I love that. I think that is it’s not not to depress somebody not to make somebody feel no. But to have a bit of urgency, a bit of like, what am I going to do today? Where am I going to go? Who am I going to talk to right? And Susan Santoro 57:37you have to create you have to create your own interview, right? Create your own job interview every day, and get and also are you going to get up and, you know, brush your hair. If you’re going to go out and interview Yes, then don’t walk out of your house without doing that. So, you know, just always be ready to sell yourself. Because everyone out there is interested in real estate everybody. I don’t care who it is, whether it’s they’re making money or they want to be an investor. They want to ask you questions, so be ready and look your best. D.J. Paris 58:08Love it. Well, for every thing, Susan, please follow her on Instagram as Susan Santoro underscore REALTOR at Instagram. She also has a website at William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty we’ll post a link to that because Susan is just outside of New York City. She has a lot of people that are you know, moving in moving out. She works you know with with universities there so if anyone out there has clients that may be moving in or out and wants to network Susan with you what’s the best way they should reach out to you? Susan Santoro 58:46They can reach out to me they’re on social media. You said that you know the Instagram. Also this isn’t Santoro team is on both Instagram and Facebook. My email Susan Santoro 11 at gmail 11 is my lucky number. So Susan Santoro eleven@gmail.com. My phone number is all out there, they can Google me and they’re gonna find out everything about me. But yeah, I do a lot of a huge referral network and I’m always looking for agents in different areas and I love keeping in touch with them. And eventually I’m going to probably have eight or nine referral checks that will be coming in soon of referrals I’ve given in all different states. And again, a comes from I was talking to a physician that I went to on an appointment and he mentioned to me that his mother is going to be putting her condo up for sale in Florida. Really okay on the East Coast. Oh great. Where and we just start talking again. It was just conversation. I have a great realtor there. Oh, I didn’t necessarily have a great Realtor in his mother’s town. But I have enough of a network that I can go to and say, who’s the best in that town. And then I called that doctor that night on he gave me his personal cell phone number, called him that night, gave him this, this person already spoke to that agent. I have a chat coming in now. So you know, use every opportunity out there to talk about real estate. So I think I’ve probably given away all of my secrets now, but, but again, I love to teach. And I’m happy for anyone to reach out to me with any questions. D.J. Paris 1:00:31Well, Susan, you have been super generous to us on the show. We, we thank you on behalf of the audience, thank you for your time today and, and good luck at your, your your 45 minutes each way. Plus our our meet with with your your clients there. And just on behalf of everyone. Thank you. And on behalf of Susan and myself, we want to thank the audience for making it to the end of the episode. We just ask that everybody do two quick things. One, tell a friend think of one other realtor that is struggling right now that could use a little boost maybe a few fresh ideas to help them finish this year strong. Send them a link to this episode, we would appreciate it. And also leave us a review. Tell us what you think of the show. Let us know what you like and what we could do to improve this show is for you, and we want to continually make it better. So tell us what to do. Everyone go follow Susan on Instagram, Susan Santoro, underscore realtor link to that in the show notes as well as her website. Susan is a class act and is just an amazing, amazing realtor. Please reach out to her learn from her. And hopefully everybody can you know start to have more success in the way that Susan does, which is a lot about being professional, knowing your your data and staying in touch and caring about people it’s it’s really it’s just a lot of hard work. It’s what it is. It’s Susan Santoro 1:01:59a lot of hard work. You know that little thing on my desk that you know the old Chinese proverb you know, fall down seven times, but stand up eight. Keep going. Don’t give up. It’s a great career. Just it’s a lot of work. D.J. Paris 1:02:12It reminds me of that old Zen saying which says Before enlightenment chop wood carry water after enlightenment chop wood carry water. Susan Santoro 1:02:23Just keep going doing it right. Absolutely. We’ll see every great. Thank you so much. D.J. Paris 1:02:28Thank you so much, Susan. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Susan.

Cathy LaMon with The LaMon Team talks about her experience in real estate and how she switched from working in IBM to building her business in real estate. Cathy discusses the importance of having great communication with clients and the role phone calls and voicemails play in that regard. Last, Cathy discusses how important it is for new agents to not stop learning and trying to find what path best suits them in this business. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Cathy LaMon can be reached at (404) 805-2273 and cathy@lamonteam.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00survey show that the number one quality that buyers and sellers want in an agent is great communication. Today we’re going to show you how to do that. 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. 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, by the way, we just celebrated the only reason I know this is LinkedIn told me, but we just celebrated our sixth year doing this podcast. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone listening right now. And of course everyone that has ever listened to our show, we have millions of downloads 10s of 1000s of regular listeners and we could not be more grateful to all of you. When I started this six years ago, I had like three listeners and they were you know my family. So I am glad that it has spread beyond that and we are about to be speaking with Kathy Limon top producer. But before we get to Kathy please help us continue to grow let’s go another six years, but I want to reach twice as many agents as we have. There’s 1.5 million realtors out there not all of them know about this show. So please help us out let it let other agents know about the show. Everybody wants to learn from top producers. So let’s let them know that this exists and it’s free. And also please support our sponsors. They are paying the bills and we love our sponsors so please check them out, buy their products and services and tell other people about them as well. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event happy sixth birthday to all of us and our birthday, I guess anniversary whatever. Happy six to all of us listening and let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Kathy Lamont. Today on the show we have Kathleen Lemond with Keller Williams in Atlanta. And let me tell you more about Kathy. Now Kathy Lemond began selling real estate in 1992. After leaving the corporate world of IBM sales, where they were offering incentives to downsize their workforce. Kathy took advantage of that and joined a locally owned brokerage with about 500 agents and set to learn all that she could by attending trainings and conferences all over the country. In 2001. She was given the opportunity to invest in a new Keller Williams office in Buckhead where she has been ever since. And she has a small team consisting of herself, her husband, and a full time licensed Operations Manager. And their goal this year is to help 42 families build a life they love. And her average price point is about $750,000. And she works her and her team work predominantly by referral. I want everybody to visit Cathy’s website because not only is she our guest than we should always support our guests but she has a really beautiful looking website, Lemond team.com, L A m o n team.com. You can also find links to all of her social channels there. We will post links to that in our show notes as well. But Lemond team.com is where you go to learn about Kathy and her team. Kathy, welcome to the show. Cathy Lamon 4:39Thank you DJ and glad to be here. D.J. Paris 4:41Thanks. We’re glad you’re here at well as well. i It’s funny when you were I was when we were thinking about your bio and I actually was in Buckhead in 2001 with Anheuser Busch. I was they were having their conference in Atlanta and they had rented out a good a number of the bucks. had bars for this conference. The conference was at the CNN Center, or I don’t know what it’s technically called. But over there downtown, and then in Buckhead was they had all these fun nighttime activities. And then I went back and visited Buckhead, men probably, I don’t know, five or six years later, and it had really blossomed. And even now it’s obviously blossomed even further. But what a fun area to have an office you picked a great location Cathy Lamon 5:27is fun, fun things to do a lot of good restaurants, great people. And never a dull moment in Buckhead. D.J. Paris 5:37Lots of fun to be had. And it is really a fun place to visit. So if you haven’t, if you ever ever been to Atlanta, go to the world of coke, and go visit but Cathy Lamon 5:48yeah, I think it’s called World of coke. Yeah, it is. It is. There’s a beautiful Georgia Aquarium right next door to that. So it’s a great place to bring families and good place to visit. D.J. Paris 6:01Yeah, well, I love Atlanta. So Kathy, I would, you know, I understand you were in really the IT world. You were in sales before when you were at IBM. And and I understand you had an opportunity to take a nice exit package and then decide to switch to careers. Why did you decide to switch careers to real estate? Cathy Lamon 6:19Well, at the time, I had little kids and thought, oh, real estate, you know, you can kind of set your own hours do your own thing. I’ll try real estate. Well, anybody that’s in the business knows that, yes, you’re very flexible, unless you have a client and especially an out of town client, and then your time is their time. But it did work out well to just be able to pick up my daughter’s a little bit more often. And just give me the opportunity to be a mom a little bit more often. So it was it was a good move. And I, you know, I loved IBM, it was a great place to learn, it was a great place to start my career I came I went with them right out of college. And what I’ve realized about real estate is there’s even so much more growth opportunity, both personally in terms of training and growth opportunities there, as well as income, IBM kept me, I was on commission. But if you sold too much too early in the year, they would just raise your quota and you’d be back making the same money. So it was it was very tightly controlled and real estate in the US people say the sky’s the limit, and there is no ceiling and no floor. But it’s a great business. D.J. Paris 7:44It is. And I also to want to put this in perspective, because when you started the world, I mean, obviously the world changes every year. But it really has changed since when you started you were pre internet. So we’re talking 1992. I mean, technically the internet was sort of around but not Yeah, certainly wasn’t adopted by the by the public. And I remember I went to college in 1994. And that was the first time that we started seeing web browsers, and the ability to sort of and it still wasn’t widely used. So you were I’m guessing we were on the phone a lot with people who did not grow up pre 1994. They don’t know how to use the phone, they don’t use the phone today, they don’t communicate that way with their friends, I still think the phone is a really great way to communicate with people. And it’s kind of a bit of a lost art now. But I do think that and even though people may not be as accustomed to being on the phone as they once were, I think we have this yearning to actually interact of voice to voice. Obviously, we could do FaceTime. And there’s ways to do voice and picture at the same time. But I imagine you probably still pick up the phone quite a bit is that is that Cathy Lamon 8:58I do. As a matter of fact, I’d set a goal to make 10 calls every day. And a lot of those end up being voicemail and you know, there’s always this question, Should I leave a voicemail? Should I not and I just choose to leave the voicemail. I think if someone does take the time, it’s nice for them to hear my voice and maybe it’s a little more personal. I also I use text a lot too, though, you know? Yeah, there is D.J. Paris 9:27something to be said about a phone call. And that’s also one of the nice things about being on the phone these days is you are going to get a lot of voicemails because, you know, you get to choose now who you want to speak to and, and it’s it’s really I think made the phone a lot easier to use as because you’re like, well I’m probably gonna get a voicemail and then you get to leave the lovely message and my thought and Kathy, I know you’re right. It’s like are they even going to hear the message? I think most people listen. I don’t know. I mean, I’d be curious to see stats on this because maybe I be wrong, but I Oh, it depends on the age range, I think, yeah, well, if you’re listening to our podcast, you’re a realtor, you should be listening to your voicemails because there may be some business in there. But I understand the idea of like, God, am I just wasting my time leaving voicemails? I don’t think so. Because, for example, Kathy, if you called me on my birthday, to wish me a happy birthday, for example, you just came up in your CRM, I probably wouldn’t answer the phone, not because I don’t like you. But because it’s my birthday. And I probably don’t want to answer the phone. But maybe the next day or later on that day, when I go back to listen, I would I would very much go. That was sweet of her. That was Yeah. So for those that are like, Ooh, I’m a little nervous talking, most people aren’t going to pick up but you can still leave them a nice, thoughtful message. Cathy Lamon 10:43Well, what I realized to DJ is, when I do get people, I find out things that otherwise I would never have found out, you know, somebody has been sick in their family, or they’ve just gotten some kind of news. It’s, it’s amazing. And, you know, that’s one call, maybe out of 20. But if I hadn’t made the call, I would never know. So I’m always like, Oh, I’m so glad I made that call today. D.J. Paris 11:11Well, it’s true, too. Because a lot of times, you know, we think Well, how else do we get our news about people in our lives? While we might look on social media, and you know, when things are maybe not going well, for a family, or they’re going through some sort of, you know, difficult time, maybe they’re not posting about that on Facebook, some people do, a lot of people don’t. And so you might not know, unless you picked up the phone and reached out. So let’s talk about how you did get started. Free Internet, right, like you still had to go out and prospect. And obviously, you know, we’re talking about a long time ago, but I think, you know, a lot of the ways in which you probably prospected or built your business, then still are applicable today. Because I think fundamentals typically don’t change. So I’m just curious, you know, back in, in the early 90s, when you were starting this new career, how did you grow your business, where you didn’t have a background of being in real estate? Cathy Lamon 12:05Well, that’s one of the first things I did when I got into the business. Even before I got in, I had an IBM discount to buy a laptop, and I bought a laptop, and I loaded everybody that I knew into a database. So just you know, that’s the bare fundamentals. And that has not changed today. If people that’s how you get started as you build a database, so I did that, you know, we, we had computers that would access. So I, when I started, I called expired, listings for sale by owners, those were out on a computer, you had to go to the office to get it, you know, to key it in, and you could see the listings that are coming up, but you had to go into the office to do it. So that that is very different. But a lot of it was the same same old, same old, get on the phone and call those expireds. I eventually got to the point where I decided that really wasn’t what I wanted to where I wanted to live. And that expired for sale by owner world. So I ended up doing much more of a referral based business once I got a little traction going. D.J. Paris 13:14Yeah, I have. But I think even though you’re like oh, the expireds and for sale by owners aren’t for me. And I think most agents probably have a similar experience with for sale by owners, you have to be a special kind of personality, I think to be able to withstand some of the difficulties of calling expireds. And, and for sale by owners. They are tough calls, or they can be tough for us. But certainly the Kinder are students and kinder I’m sorry, the gentler approach is the working by referral, made, you know, famous, made famous by a lot of people. But in the real estate industry, Brian Buffini is sort of associated with working by referral live the easy life is one of his slogans. I know you’re a fan of Buffini systems, I am as well. And you’ve not just worked with the Feeny and his company, but other other systems too. But how important was it because I know you really dove into this, probably I’m guessing, getting the training at IBM where training is so important. And there’s such a white glove firm, that you probably sort of thought I gotta I gotta get my knowledge up. And so talk about going to conferences and the importance of that for you in those early days. Cathy Lamon 14:29In the company that I was with had good basic training, in terms of you know, when you’re getting started, and what’s the contract and what do you need to know. But for anything more advanced, I found I had to travel somewhere and learn and that suited my personality. So well. I I’m very learning based. I love learning new things. I think if if I didn’t if I stop learning in this business, I would not want to do it anymore. But even after all these years, I feel like I learned something new every day. A but I would go to conferences I went to there was a guy named Howard Britton that assembled all these top agents from all over the country and I went to that I went to the Feeny I went to some other trainers as well, just learning and trying to figure out what fit me and what felt right. And then my style now is a mixture of a lot of different trainers that I’ve heard over the years, my core is Buffini that just working by referral, that’s the core and I still love that system. And, you know, you can add on top of that, add the videos add add all the fun things, but at the core, it really needs to be in my opinion, it needs to be about a relationship. And digging deeper and going deeper with with people serving them at its deeper level as we can. D.J. Paris 15:56I could not agree with you more. I apologize our internet, it may be a little choppy. So if anyone’s if I’m chopping anyone, I apologize, but I absolutely agree with you, Kathy. You know, I was thinking about Brian Buffini, when what I liked about what I liked about Brian Buffini is he came up the idea basically it and there’s a lot of different principles of his teachings. But I’ve always loved the idea of sending an item he calls them item items of value, right. And he he says basically, you know, you really should be giving your your prospects or clients something of value, every single month, or whatever the time commitment is or the duration is. But it’s really important because you really always want to be sort of giving people things where they’re like that was thoughtful, that was helpful that that really is something information or something I can use. And he was a little bit ahead of the curve on that because now we know that like social media is all about providing content use, you know, it’s all about sorry, all about providing value through content. And like, you know, if we expect people to watch our videos on Facebook or Tik Tok, or wherever they may be, they better be pretty, at least nothing else entertaining. But better than that, hopefully providing some actual information that people can use. And Buffini was was one of the first people I saw a sales trainer that was like, this is the way to people’s hearts. Obviously, there’s more to it than just that. But I have always been a huge fan of that. I’m curious to get your thoughts on the items of value. Cathy Lamon 17:29Yeah, I mean, I think now most of us have transitioned into more of an email and or, as you pointed out social media, video messages. He still provides monthly mailers, things you can mail out. Yeah. So you know, that can be layered. It’s a bunch of layering. I think, you know, you never know what, what works for certain people. So D.J. Paris 17:58will you have built a referral based business and everyone now, I shouldn’t say everyone, I would say most agents I have spoken to during my career in this industry, about 13 or 14 years. Almost everyone I meet says they want a referral based business. So that is obviously a common goal for a lot of agents. How long did it take you to do that? And what were some of the ways in which you began to transition away from making the cold calls to how do I get other people to market for me? Cathy Lamon 18:31Again, I think it goes back to building relationships. When someone knows and trusts another person they are, if they have an opportunity, they will, you’ll be the one that they recommend to their friends. So I think it it it’s nothing magic about it. It’s just getting in front of people. To this day, we still do a lot of lunches. I have lunch with someone almost every day of the week. Coffees, just you know, just being in relationship with people. And when D.J. Paris 19:05let me drill down on that. I apologize. Kathy, this is real. This is really great. Because having lunch every day with somebody is something that all the hundreds of episodes I’ve done, I think you may be the first to talk about that specific, specific sort of strategy. And can you talk a little bit about who you choose to take to lunch what you talk about, because this this would be super helpful to our audience. Yeah, Cathy Lamon 19:27yeah. So I would say those that falls into two camps number one is past clients or prospects somebody that I’m working with or or have worked with so that that is one whole group that’s a pretty easy group because what do you talk about? You talk about their life, their their families, you know, the old Ford Family, Occupation, Recreation and dreams, you know, it’s all about getting to know them better. So that’s, that’s one bucket. The other bucket is trusted advisors. and this has been a focus of mine over the last few years to try to get to know more estate attorneys, more Wealth Advisors, CPAs divorce attorneys, so those people have the opportunity to refer multiple people. So to the extent that I can build a relationship there, the the opportunity is just much greater than, than an individual who might have a friend who needs to buy or sell real estate. So I really do a lot of both. The Trusted Advisor is a really fun thing to do, once you kind of get your feet wet with it, and they, they get my same marketing that I’m sent to everybody else. At first, I was like, Okay, I’ve got to send something just for them. And yeah, just for them, that’s real, you know, that’s real professional or real business. Not fun. But they like fun things too. So I kind of had to get over that. Next, it’s just too much work to do two different things. When I meet with them, I may bring something more professional, some statistics or questions for them on on their business. But the basic, the basic marketing is the same. So that’s been fun, I’m actually getting ready to start something I’m really excited about, I’m starting a group of women, who are what I would call trusted advisors. And I’m hoping we’re having our first meeting coming up. But I’m hoping to meet once a quarter with this group, and really build strong bonds. There’s a there’s a financial advisor, there’s a high end insurance broker, a state attorney, CPA, so there, it’s I think it has a lot of potential and recommend anybody could do that. Whether it’s women or men, or both. D.J. Paris 22:00Those are all amazing professions to consider to add to to your professional, you know, sort of services or professional network, I should say, because you’re absolutely right. Those are people that are oftentimes dealing with life events, which typically may result in a transition of home, people moving in people moving out selling buying. divorce attorneys are the most obvious example of that. And but you know, you’re right estate planning attorneys, as you mentioned, Cathy Lamon 22:30some of my best business in the last year has been from estate attorneys. So D.J. Paris 22:34such a smart idea and oftentimes a overlooked specialty for realtors, we think divorce, divorce, divorce, yes, and estate planning attorneys as well, because of course, those are and you know, you could also too, I think possibly, there’s just a weird idea that maybe isn’t a good one. But people who work in mergers and acquisitions as well may, if it’s they work locally, they may be having companies that are moving in moving out. So there’s maybe some opportunities there as well. But I agree that having that professional network is awesome, because you can basically share clients and refer and say, I’ve got a great estate planning attorney. And by the way, everybody needs a great estate planning attorney. It’s a really important thing. You know, and and when somebody’s going through a family change, having a good divorce attorney, obviously is important as well, and a good accountant and all of these things. So Kathy is so this is such a great point. I’m sort of sticking on it for a moment because I really wanted to sink in. Kathy, thank you for that. I really everyone out there. Yes. Have lunch with your clients and your prospects. And yes, yes, yes, always do that. And let’s add in some professional people where you can actually help their business. And I think the best way to have those conversations is say, Hey, I would like to learn more about your business, Mr. or Mrs. Estate Planning Attorney. What can I do I have clients, here’s what my clients are like, here’s what they do. Would they be of benefit to you? What can I provide to you first, and then hopefully, it becomes a reciprocal scenario. Exactly. Cathy Lamon 24:08Yep. Yep. D.J. Paris 24:09What else? What else did you do too? So we talked, we talked about sort of this networking, staying in touch with your sphere, taking them out, seeing them face to face, also doing the same creating this networking group that you have, and also just these trusted advisors. What I want to ask because we talk about this a lot and I know this isn’t there isn’t a probably a really easy answer for this. So I’m going to give you a little bit of a tougher question only just to see what you might answer because we talk about in real estate we hear this phrase a lot people who know like and trust us are the ones most likely to work with us. This is working by referral know like and trust. We hear that over and over again. But I also think that I believe that trust is earned. So I’m curious on Yes, you have to earn the know like and trust part. How are you cuz you obviously do earn it and you have earned it. What do you do during when you’re working with a client that would eventually get them to say, not just, you know, hey, I had a good transaction to closed, etc. But I really, really like Kathy, I really felt she did a good job for me. I imagine you have certain standards in your business that lead to the know, like and trust, I’m guessing. Cathy Lamon 25:24Yes, I know that we do. And we’re always working on trying to improve that. I mean, it’s boiled to me, a lot of it just is so basic, it’s communication, D.J. Paris 25:36and pick up the phone when it rings. Cathy Lamon 25:38Yeah, it’s being in touch, it’s making sure that the client needs are answered. And my husband and I work together, he works with buyers and I work with sellers and I do most of the lead generation, he is incredible about being patient. And spending, I hear him spending hours and hours on the phone with people explaining things in the inspection or explaining, you know, the appraisal issues or you know, whatever it is, it’s that taking the time with them. And he’s, honestly, he’s much more patient than I am. So he’s in a good role. But I think that that’s what people need. And it’s not, it’s not necessarily the first time buyers, some of the high end buyers need just as much as anybody else. So I think that that’s part of it, just taking time and building building that trust and doing what you say you’re going to do I have a great assistant who is there in the she ever dropped the ball, do I ever drop the ball, of course, occasionally, but for the most part, we do what we say we’re going to do. And then we love to stay in touch with people afterwards, too. And I think that’s really a lot of times where you build referrals is you know, it’s not just one and done. And you know, you’re you’re on to the next you’re, you’re calling them and checking on them and making sure we we, we love to stay in touch with people on an ongoing basis. I always say, you know, once you get in our web, you can’t get out D.J. Paris 27:19until you until you say stop. Exactly, exactly. And nobody probably ever does that. Because I never has. Yeah, of course, of course, if you don’t, it’s really important to you said something very profound now, which again, it’s back to a fundamental of in between the sales, what are we doing in between sales to stay in touch with that client, because they’re probably not moving for another, I don’t know, seven years, five, seven years, whatever. You’re more and, and but we want to make sure that when they are ready, and we won’t know when that is necessarily we want to make sure we’re top of mind. And so this idea of reaching out in between is is really it’s I think it’s a lot simpler than people make it because it could be as easy as somebody bought a home from you call them a month in Hey, how did the move and go How was everything you’re good? Any problems? Just want to be Call me if you have any, if you need anything, I’ve got a network of people I can connect you to it really that could be almost the call every year if nothing else you want to talk about is how’s the home? How’s everything going? What’s going on with the family? Everything good? It just, it could just be a check in really? And really Yep. I used to I remember I this is I’ll make this story very short. I will tell you this sounds really silly. But it made me feel very special. When I was in high school, I had a friend who had an older brother who went to MIT for college. He was like the genius of all of our friends. He was anyway, so he went to MIT and he says, Oh, I’m taking a class by Dr. Amar or Amir Bose the guy who created Bose sound. So Bose speakers, and he said, If you want to buy any Bose speakers, we get a discount. So anyway, because he was in the class, so I bought some speakers through my friend and whatever cheap speakers I mean, great speakers, but inexpensive. It wasn’t like a big purchase couple 100 bucks, whatever. And every year after that for five years, Bose would call me once a year and say just checking in, how are the speakers performing? And I was like, it blew my mind. Amazing doing it. Amazing right now I’m sure probably because it was purchased through his class. Maybe I got put in a special category of like, make sure to take care of these people. But it sounds silly, but it really made me feel important. I don’t I have never met another company that does that. And that was 1993 Maybe so so anyway, it’s this point back to call. Yeah. Lying about the house, all you have to do is contact how’s everything going? What’s going somewhat simple, but But you said I’m so okay. So in between sales. We want to stay in touch. When you’re working with a client when you’re in a transit Action, let’s say nothing’s happening. You get no activity on a listing, let’s just say as an example, no new interest, let’s say a week goes by, what are you doing? Are you doing anything to talk to the seller to say, Okay, here’s what’s happening, or, or what is your philosophy around that? Cathy Lamon 30:18DJ, that is the worst. That is the worst time when nothing’s happening in Atlanta, the market has been so good that we haven’t, we’re still not experiencing that. But I believe me, I’ve been through that I’m sure lived through it lived through the recession. So you know, I think that in normal times be before too many days go by, you’re getting a message from the market, the market, I always say the market will talk back, if we’re not getting showings, if we’re not getting offers interest, then the market is telling something telling us something. So I think just planting the seed obvious, maybe this isn’t obvious, but it goes without saying that, okay, here’s what I have been doing. You know, what, here’s where your listing has been, how many hits you’ve had on the website, etc. So a report to them. But then I think even after a week, we start planting the seeds for pricing, a pricing adjustment, unless it’s just like the recession or something like that. I think that normally, if a house isn’t getting any activity, it’s that’s that’s the message we need to be getting to the client. That makes sense. D.J. Paris 31:38It does it makes perfect sense. And are I know that there can be some call reluctance, or reluctance to pick up the phone? When nothing is happening? Even, you know, a few days, maybe we’re nothing’s happening. What are you doing to keep the buyer or seller informed, even when there’s not much to report? Because I know a lot of agents don’t maybe aren’t as proactive when things aren’t happening. I once asked a top producer here in Chicago. So silly, but I said, Why do you think she’s number two in all of Chicago? And I said, Why do you think out of 40,000 agents, you’re number two, and she goes, I call my clients every week and tell them what’s going on? I said, well, and she goes, that’s that’s kind of it. She goes DJ, you’d be surprised very few agents do that. Really. Cathy Lamon 32:30And I would not claim to be perfect at that by any means. But again, just picking up the phone and touching base. And even even when things are happening, I think that people just want to hear from you. I listed a new house yesterday. And you know, we’ve got some showings lined up and I plan to just touch bases with them and say, you know, they’re out of town actually. So they don’t know precisely what’s going on. But just to just to say you know, we’ve we’ve had these showings this first one said they weren’t interested but we know we’ve got some more lined up for the weekend. Just Just stop communication and honestly, I’m not always the best at it. But it’s a goal to to be more in communication and I think people appreciate it they they never mind when they when you’ve got their house on the market or a house for them under contract. I don’t think you can call them too often. I don’t think you can over overdo it. Or they’ll D.J. Paris 33:29let you know if you’re overdoing it odds are you’re probably not going to say stop communicating with me about this transaction. Cathy Lamon 33:37And so that brings up a point that you know, the best thing to start off with is to ask how you want to be communicated with I want to see you want to have a phone call Do you want me to text you do you want me to email you? So then the person who says I want you to call me they’re not gonna mind if you’re calling so we need to we need to continue to do that we kind of come in with sometimes we kind of forget on that but D.J. Paris 34:04you know what I love about top producers is they say these really profound things but to them it’s like like that question said something incredibly important, which was ask your clients how do you prefer to be communicated? Would you like a phone call? Would you rather have a text you know, is it okay if I leave a voicemail you know, what, what are the hours you want me to call you? When do you not want me to bother you? These important of the just this is what she knows, but a lot of agents don’t know this. So remember the problem. There’s the golden rule, which is the way you want to be treated. The Platinum Rule is like others how they want to be treated. That’s, you have to ask questions to get that. So Kathy, again, seems like a small thing you said maybe to you, but really, really profound. Don’t just assume everyone communicates in the same manner because they don’t. What? What are we doing to celebrate our What are you in your? Oh, I’m sorry, I wanted to mention this other thing you said that was really, really important because Kathy, is very self aware. She said at the beginning, you know, there’s certain things I’m not as strong at, which is why her husband spills in those, those challenges. So she talked to Kathy had mentioned, she maybe isn’t the most patient person with, and that’s not a negative, that’s just part of your personality, you’re good at some things and other things you’re you’re weaker at and maybe patients isn’t always something that you can just learn to be more patient. So a Kathy says, instead of just well, I’m going to fight against this and do it, I’m gonna get somebody who’s really, really good at that, because it is important that I have somebody that’s super patient, and she has her husband step in. So what is the lesson from this? Well, we know that teams are on the rise. And look, the truth is, you just can’t do everything, you just can’t, you’re not going to be good at everything. So I love the fact that you have I mean, your husband, Great Good Thing that his his skill set is different than yours. Because you guys can then complement each other and you go, Oh, you know, this person is gonna need some patients, you know, husband, you take care of this one, and, and it works works really well. And then that client gets everything they want. Cathy Lamon 36:33Right? And we intentionally when he joined me in the business a few years ago, and I never wanted there to be a situation where we would be like, Oh, you said you were going to call them? No, you said you were going to call them and nobody’s called them. So we have a very, very clear definition. Bob works with buyers, I work with the sellers. And occasionally we still are talking about our clients. And we know what’s going on. And occasionally, we’ll we’ll be involved in in the other side. But for the most part, it’s very well done, delineated. And that has worked very well for us. And I’m fortunate that he loves doing the bonfire. Not everybody does. D.J. Paris 37:20Well, and typically people who who are working agents that are working with buyers typically do need more patience, because those transactions tend to take longer. And obviously, there’s a lot more that can go wrong. On the buy side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it is it is great, though, that you do have somebody your husband, of course, in this case, that’s able to step in and and help out in that way. And make make it so that you don’t say, Well, I’m not really a buyer’s agent. No, I’ve my husband, he’s, he’s the buyer’s agent, and he’ll take awesome care of you. What, what are you do you do any client appreciation events? I’m curious if you’ve started doing that, or if you’re working on that, or if those in your business, Cathy Lamon 38:03we love parties. My husband says that we are a an event company posing as a real estate company. D.J. Paris 38:15You know, it’s funny, I asked that question. I was like, I hope she’s doing client appreciation, right? She’s gonna be like, Yeah, we we don’t do that. Because I had no knowledge. I’m like, I she has to do this. And so I’m so glad. We love it. Cathy Lamon 38:25We love it. And we do all kinds of things. We We love having dinner parties, we love having six people around the table and just breaking bread. That’s really where you get to know people and and we like mixing people up that don’t know each other. And sometimes we’ll have people that know each other. So we do all kinds of things. We’ll do some medium sized parties where maybe we’ll have 20 people over for drinks or something. And then a few times a year, we have a big event. We’re planning right now, a big pizza party. We have a person that a company that comes with this big wood, wood fired grill and they grill the pizzas. They’re delicious. We’ll have wine and beer. This year. I’ve got a gelato company coming to serve gelato, and we have a DJ and it’s all in our driveway. So it’s we’re praying for good weather, but um, it’s, it’s lots of fun. We’ve done a few we’ve done it several times before and it’s always a fun party. So that’s one of our biggest parties. We will probably have 200 people here altogether and my husband doesn’t know that yet. So don’t tell him but you know, we do pies. We do a pie party at Thanksgiving and we’ve done movie parties. We’ve done a little bit of everything. We love to travel and when we get back from a trip say to France for example, we will last year we had a French wine and cheese party so you know some things like that, D.J. Paris 40:01that’s a great idea. So you go on a trip, and I wasn’t sure where you’re going with that. So that’s amazing. You go on a trip, you know, you experience the culture of another country, and then you bring that culture back with you. That is, I have never heard of anyone doing that. That is a very, Cathy Lamon 40:16it’s very fun. Yeah. Oh my D.J. Paris 40:18gosh, brilliant. What a great, what a great. I always love these. It’s always I’ve been doing this for five or six years. Anytime I hear something new. And I know it’s not new. It’s not like you’re the first person to ever do that. I just have never heard of it. And so it’s new to me. And I love it. So that it’s a lot about activity, right? It’s it’s just like you were saying, I make 10 phone calls every day. I bet most Realtors don’t even do that. And I’m not here to criticize everyone. I’m just here to challenge people to realize this is what top producers do they pick up the phone or some version of that. Are you? Are you doing a lot on social media? Or is that something that you know, you’re not as connected to? Cathy Lamon 41:00So almost two years ago, I hired a marketing gal who was helping me and she is guiding me. She does, she actually does most of the posts. I’ll do I’ll do some myself just personal ones, but she’s doing the business ones. And I originally came to you through camera Berg. And Kim is helping me with video trying to get me we’re going to work on messaging this fall and really trying to create messages that resonate. And that going back to your original point of value. It’s not just about nothing, it’s about something that hopefully will, no message is going to appeal to everyone all the time that if we can just make it something that’s, that’s interesting and informative to a number of people. I think I’m really excited about that to try to kind of take it to the next level. D.J. Paris 42:02I also think too, and by the way, I plug for Kim Rydberg she has a her own series on our podcast. We love Kim. She’s our social media expert. And I didn’t realize that you were you came through by way of her so I am so excited because Kim is one of my favorite people I think I’ve just about ever met. So I am I just absolutely adore her and I encourage everyone to listen to her series on our show. Just look for Kim’s Kim’s episodes, she is a real gem. And it Yeah, you’re talking about value I think because I know there’s this. A lot of us in this industry have a perfectionist mindset. We want our headshots to look perfect or we want our by the way, I’m going to divert from my what I was saying I was just a zillo conference of the last two days I showing time, which is owned by basically by Zillow. I was at a conference for them, I was fortunate enough to get to go. And they said they showed a statistic that is so interesting speaking of headshots, and it just came to me I totally forgot. This is amazing. And I wish I could show people this, although it’s a podcast, so wouldn’t most people wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. But they showed some data that suggests that headshots are done. Nobody wants to see headshots anymore what they want to see as a still a professional photo. But what they actually want to see is you being captured, doing something that you enjoy something that is a passion for you, whether it’s real estate, maybe you play guitar, or maybe you’re into whatever, maybe you just want to you know, you’re a great mom or whatever you’re into. They actually people they had data to support this. They said, Nobody wants to see the perfect airbrushed photo anymore. They want to see you in action, which makes sense because we follow people on social media and we see them doing what they do. So for anyone out there who’s thinking about getting a new headshot, guess get a new headshot, obviously get that and get some shots of you doing other things. And people actually find that to be more inviting and more real and more authentic. So just a little little plug from something I learned from from Zillow last couple days but Kathy, sorry to Cathy Lamon 44:14interrupt you’re really interesting. Really interesting. Yeah. D.J. Paris 44:18Oh, here’s another one real quick. Sorry, just because it’s coming to me use white linens if you can, on your listing presentations for the master bedroom or I’m sorry for the primary bedroom. Use white linens if possible because Zillow has found that by using a white like a do they are white you know comforter 30% more clicks versus a colored different color than white. I mean, crazy weird thing. So if I was an agent, I might just buy like a king size comforter, keep it in my trunk. So anyway, okay, back to Kathy. I’m so sorry. I just I got Cathy Lamon 44:57I got loaded up with ideas, your ideas D.J. Paris 44:59I think well, I need to learn from you because you’re you’re really, so much further along the path. And I’m Kathy, what? Let’s talk about boundaries. In the sense of, you know, we know that mother’s parents know this as well as Realtors know this, if we don’t set some sort of boundaries for our, you know, for our people in our lives, especially if we have children, they may challenge those boundaries. Clients can do the same thing. How do you handle a 10 o’clock? And then that not everyone? Do you set certain expectations for your clients so that they know what to expect? If they reach out at like an odd hour? Cathy Lamon 45:45I wouldn’t say that I typically say okay, you can call me for between eight and six. I don’t have that. I know agents have some agents have that on their voicemail and all that. But honestly, I usually got to bed around 10. And I’m not answering the phone after that. Yeah. You know, and but I do think that it it’s for me and my husband, it’s it’s more event or situation driven. I answered the phone last night because I just got a contract worked out at like eight o’clock. And the guy had a question. So I answered the phone at quarter of 10. And my now my husband has been up to midnight with people going, you know, when there’s a deadline on inspection or something like that. So we I wouldn’t say we have any hard and fast. Okay, these are our business hours. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing that. We’re at a point in life when we don’t have any kids at home. So it really takes the pressure off of sure of that. And we are working on no phones at the dinner. You know, that kind of thing. That’s that’s sort of basic but D.J. Paris 46:56but if if a message comes in late at night that you don’t want to handle you’ve been a realtor for a very long time. Can we tell the rest of our audience that in most cases, it can wait, it can wait till the morning? Cathy Lamon 47:12Yeah. Oh, yeah. There’s nothing wrong with voicemail. You get it tomorrow? D.J. Paris 47:16That’s absolutely right. And the problem with text messages is there’s no end to a text message conversation, right? Yes. Phone calls have a start. And yeah, text messages haven’t started. They don’t happen yet. Yeah. Cathy Lamon 47:27That’s a very good point. I never thought about that. But yeah, if you start it, unless you say, I’m sorry, I’m going to bed no, no night. D.J. Paris 47:36Yes. Which by the way, is it absolutely reasonable thing if the person is expecting some sort of response, you can just say, Oh, I’m I’m headed to bed first thing in the morning, I got it or whatever. What who can who can you know, argue with that? Um, Kevin, we should also mention, too, that, you know, our show is an a show for agents by agents listened to by agents as well. So you know, we also want to promote referrals. And we know that Kathy works in downtown Atlanta. She is in the nearby surrounding suburbs as well. But Atlanta is a hotbed for people moving in and out. Lots of big companies are there. And if anyone does have people moving into Atlanta, in particular, the metro area and the close suburbs, you know, Kathy is a great resource. So Kathy, if there are agents out there that either maybe want to connect with you, because you might have people that are moving from Atlanta, like Florida, or wherever they may be retiring to. Yep. So what’s the best way if somebody wants to connect with you that they can reach out? Cathy Lamon 48:38My website is just simple Lemond team.com, Li Mo n dot, hope sorry, la mo n team.com. I’m Cathy at Lemond teen.com on. I’m on Facebook, Insta, all those all those good places. And I think you said you’re gonna put it in the show notes to say, Well, D.J. Paris 48:58absolutely. But we I really, you know, Kathy, it’s funny. I was just sort of reflecting on what we’ve talked about today. And there are lots of great tips here that Kathy provided. So on behalf of our audience, I mean, really, this was a chock full episode of actionable strategies by somebody who’s been in real estate for over 30 years now. Congratulations, by the way, they do the math right on that. Yes. Yeah. That is That is impressive. And not and Kathy has seen oh, by the way, Kathy, you’ve been through some ups and downs. Last question. Are, are we worried right now about the market at all? Are we worried about interest rates? Or are we like we’ve seen this before, it’s going to be fine. Cathy Lamon 49:41We are going to be fine. And as you’ve pointed out, I’m a big follower of Brian Buffini. He is very optimistic about what’s going to happen with the rates and the market. His message right now is to focus on listings we need to be listing listing listing and learn You know, if you don’t have listings, go to a class and learn how to do them better. So just invest in yourself, invest in your people. And really, he says, we’re going to have a great 2024. So good things ahead. D.J. Paris 50:16And for anyone out there who’s like, how do I get more listings? There’s a million ways to do it. But one way that I think would be particularly applicable today is and Kathy can tell me if I’m not wrong, because I might be, but Well, I’m definitely not. But I’m also I may be wrong. That’s for sure. I’m definitely crazy. But, you know, people are always interested to know what their home value is, right? This is why Zillow became Zillow. It was the Zestimate it wasn’t the home search, it was actually the Zestimate. And this estimate then gave birth really to their home search. So you know, people, whether what, whatever we think of the Zestimate people like to see the Zestimate, whatever, however accurate we think it is or not, this is a great opportunity to take a lesson from Zillow playbook and maybe reach out to people who, whether they were your client or not. Hey, I thought I would show you what I believe your home is approximately worth right now. Would you be interested in seeing that? I mean, I would always be interested in seeing that. So I don’t know if you do CMAs for your clients. I’m sure Cathy Lamon 51:20I did one yesterday, as a matter of fact, yes. D.J. Paris 51:23And by the way, as much as I love, I think Silla is a great company. And I like so a lot of agents do not I understand and respect that as well. But if I’m looking for an actual CMA, I don’t, I don’t use best I use estimate as like a starting point, like, okay, that’s what Zillow thinks, but I want somebody like Kathy showing me exactly what she thinks after 30 years of business because she knows the market better than, you know, an algorithm likely could. So um, this is a great opportunity guys to exercise your your experience, and you know, show people hey, this is what I think right now. Great opportunity there. But on behalf of our audience for all the great tips and advice that Kathy provided, we say thank you to Kathy and her her, her team and her husband’s not on the call. But we we say thank you to him as well, for some of the tips that you mentioned that he has. And on behalf of Kathy and myself, we’d be remiss if we didn’t say thanks to the audience. Thanks for listening. Thanks for making me to be Thank you. And thanks for making it to the end of the episode we just asked everybody do two quick things for us. I know it’s a lot to ask. But just tell one thing, tell a friend. Think of one other realtor that could benefit. This is a great episode, send it to people that are struggling right now. agents that are like, What do I do? It’s a tough, yes, send this to them. They’ll get some great ideas. And also, please leave us a review. Wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Let us know what you think of the show. Construct constructive criticism is always important to us. We write we do this episodes, we do the show for you. So please let us know how we can improve it and also what you like as well. Kathy, thank you so much. We are so honored to have you. You’re a big deal. And you didn’t have time to do this. And you found time. So thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you. Oh, well thank you visit Lemond team.com L A m o n team.com Links to all of Cathy’s websites and email and social media in the show notes reach out to us she’s a lovely things she has wisdom guys learn from people who have been in the business 30 years. That’s the one thing they have that new agents just don’t they don’t have wisdom yet you don’t have it. That’s something that comes with time and people like Kathy, I don’t want to make you sound like you’re older Cathy that is not what I’m saying. I don’t think you’re older. But just being in the business this long is really a treasure and it’s no surprise that Cathy’s a top producer. Cathy Lamon 53:40So most people in this business love to share so absolutely reach out with questions I’d be happy to to have a dialogue. D.J. Paris 53:49Awesome. Lemond team.com is where you learn all things Kathy and her team. Kathy, thank you and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you, DJ

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 first episode, Ali describes how she breaks apart her process working with buyers into 6 different segments. 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 and welcome to a very special 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. Why Is today a special episode? Well, in just a moment, I’m going to be turning it over to Ali gar said Ally’s actually been on our show, actually recently. And she had such a great reaction from our listeners and fans, that we asked her to come back to do a couple of special episodes for just for you guys. And so today, she is going to be going step by step through her buyer checklist. And this is probably the best buyer checklist presentation I have ever seen. So guys, this is a literally step by step instruction to help level up your buyer checklist process. So without further ado, and by the way, we’re going to do more of these from some of our guests like Ali, please let us know if you want more of this because I think this is really really cool stuff. So I hope you guys enjoy it. Let us know your feedback. And now let’s turn it over to my friend Ali gar said also follow her on Instagram, Ali, the agent, its ally underscore the underscore agent. So we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. But let’s turn it over to ally. 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 Ali Garced 2:40Hey everyone, it’s Aligarh set again or ally the agents on all social media that spelled a Li and I am back with my first segment of the buyer checklist. I promised DJ that I would share everything in my checklist. So originally, you know the checklists were the buyer’s checklists, the seller checklist, the investor checklists, the onboarding checklist. Originally everything was for my just for my downline, but I really want to I really hope that this helps just better the industry altogether. So I am giving away my buyer checklists, my seller checklists, my 200 Step onboarding checklist for agents, no matter what level or like level they’re at is still just for my downline, but I am giving away my homebuyer checklist and my seller one so this is part one of maybe two or three for the buyer side. We’ll see how it goes. And then I’m also going to have a two part buyer or two part for the seller checklists. So I am on Trello. And I am going to be walking through how I have everything set up on Trello. If you want to follow along, watch this on YouTube because I am sharing my screen. And if you can’t, that’s okay, I’m going to make it I’m going to vocalize as much as I can. So in that way, it’s as if you are following along. So I’ll start with what is even Trello right Trello is a free project management system. You could use your CRM, but I started using Trello because it was free. And I kind of just stuck with that. So I’m going to show you and vocalize how I have this laid out. Starting from the very left side, I have a whole section for sellers and then a whole section for buyers and then a section for referrals as well. And what I do for those in my downline is I give them access straight to this Trello checklist they can copy and paste it but for those that are outside of my downline, I will be sending you a link to it. So that way you can have access to but not the full access that I have given that I’ve poured my heart and soul into for my downline specifically. So on the left hand side here I have it I have sellers and buyers broken into three different columns. So one is like far out sellers and I’m calling like see sellers be sellers is you know, three to six months out, again to make sure that you’re hitting everyone on that specific tempo, then I have the third column is a seller’s getting ready to list, you know, you need to go on an appointment today and meet with them. Then I have one week before going live. The next column is once they are live on the market. The next column is once they’re under contract. Because again, as you start getting more and more, you know, properties under contract and working with more buyers and sellers to scale, you’re gonna get overwhelmed. So you need to have this organization in the beginning. So as if you’ve never used Trello, you can like drag and drop little cards. So you can you know, as soon as someone’s under contract, and then they’re they’re out a week out from closing, just drag and drop the card. Now, you know the numbers change for how many are about a week out from closing. Then the next column is the size of for sellers, then on the buyer side, which I will be focusing on today is how I work through my buyers. So again, see buyers about a year out but be buyers about six months out ish. And then a buyers, hot buyers or hot leads talk to them today. Then, of course under contract has its own column one week out from closing, once they’re closed for 2023, or whatever year we’re in, when you’re listening to this, then an archived one close but in the past, you know, before are further out than a year ago, if that makes sense. And then I also have a dead lead column as well. And then I go into the referrals. I have everything consolidated onto this Trello board. Again, this was for this is for the downline so they can just see how I organize things, I will show you mine, he is crazy. It has the same exact thing. But in order to make this as clear and easy for you to follow along. And for the agents to follow along. In my crew, I made it as simple as possible. So this is a template. So let’s start. Let’s open up this Trello checklist. And in the beginning here is the source. That’s the first thing you need to be tracking is who is giving you business where’s your business coming from because that is what you want to replicate double down on, you know if it’s all coming from Zillow, then double down on Zillow, if it’s all coming from a couple people that you know that consistently give you business, you show them some love, give them some gifts. And, and say thank you. So you need to know you need to track X I’m such a huge proponent of tracking everything, a track where your leads are coming from. So then, of course, I have like just the typical questions of of what you’re going to be asking what you need to know once you’re starting to work with the buyer. I have some attachments here, they might not apply to everyone because this is a buyer broker specifically for our area. critical dates list. Of course, this might not apply to you, but that’s okay. You can include your own attachments. And then buyer initiation. This is the first portion of the checklist. So I have my checklists, sorted into different segments and segments. So when we first start talking to a buyer, first thing is add them to your calendar, add them to your CRM. So that way, you know to follow up at what tempo what are the notes of what you previous previously said. The second for the second portion here is take the intake from the Calendly. And this is what I used to have as buyer email number one. For my buyers, I have buyer emails one through six, it’s canned, it’s template, it’s evergreen. So I just copy and paste all I do is just change this who the recipient is for, but I used to have this as buyer email number one. Now what I do is I send all buyers to my Calendly Calendly is a paid service. It’s about $160 a year, I highly recommend you sign up for it in case you haven’t already. But and if you want to follow along there too, with whether you’re looking at the screen or not. I you can go on mine and copy the exact questions that I have. It’s open to the public. So if you go on calendly.com/guard said Realty that’s spelled G AR C Ed Realty slash buyer will see exactly what my buyers are filling out before they meet with me. So I’ll show you here. Go as if you’re going to be booking an appointment. I’m getting their name, email number, I have a next up is the box that says you know, will you be selling another home before during this this next purchase? Yes or No? If yes, what’s that address what the zip code of the home you’ll be selling? Because when we meet at the time that they scheduled for, I’ll be asking if they want are a realtor in that area to help them sell their home before they purchase with us? What’s the reason that you’re buying and selling? Then I also have I also ask, what are the top three must haves? Very important, as you all know, what are the top three wants? What are the top three deal breakers? And the catch all? Is there anything else that you’d like me to know to be better prepared for our meeting? So this they might come out with something out of left field better that they put it in this Calendly now before your appointment with them, instead of you know, on the fly, where you might not know the answer, and you could have researched it beforehand. And this last section is for them to send text messages for calendaring to send text to the whoever’s booking the call. What this is only portion one, right I’m not, I’m not going to go into Calendly. Today, although I can on a on a next meeting, if you guys wish. But in the back end of Calendly, I also go into the work flows tab, because I want to make sure that I’m not going to be stood up. So I have the automatic email and texts sent out to the buyers or sent out to anyone who books with me saying thanks for you know, confirming you know we’re on for XYZ you scheduled this, this specific type of meeting. And then I also have a 24 hour out meeting in case they book out more than a day out. And then I also have the hour before it sends them a text it sends them an email saying hey, we look forward to seeing you in one hour for the home buying consultation. So let’s go back to my Trello checklist. That is what I have all the buyers fill out this is what used to be in my buyer email number one, so I will not be covering Berryman number one because instead now I have Calendly save so much time. So you take the information of what they put in the buyer appointment, and you start looking you know, you already start thinking about what kind of homes are looking at, who’s going to be in the meeting, etc. So then going down this checklist here, ask the buyers before going under contract with them. This is while you’re meeting with them over zoom, and I meet with everyone over zoom. Because a lot of my a lot of my meat and potatoes clients are actually out of state. So because I do have a military background. So a lot of them our PCs thing is what they call moving in the military. So but then I got used to that. And I figured that that was such a better time spent, even if they are local in the area. Nobody wants to drive to an office, nobody want this was a power move, I think. So save the time for them. And for you meet over zoom. And that is where you go over a couple of questions, even more questions, because Calendly only allows 10 questions. So that’s where you ask them? How often do you expect to hear from me? What how can I be the best agent for you? And a lot of agents have issues with that question because it kind of like shifts the power dynamics, if they if you want to call it that. But don’t forget that not only are they interviewing you as an agent, you are interviewing them as clients do not work with someone that doesn’t make you feel good. You know, there’s so much business to be had, especially now that so many realtors are leaving the business, scoop up the rest of the business. Don’t Don’t be afraid to say no, because they’re every single client that you take on, I’m probably preaching to the choir here. But every single client that you take on, that you don’t feel good about, you know, you have like that. Like those bad butterflies in your stomach, whenever they call you or text you that is a sure sign that you are not meant to be working together. And that is okay, let them go. Because all the time that you’re spending with them is time that you could be spending with other clients that make you feel good. So anyway, then also ask them what’s the best method of communication? Of course, because some people only like phone calls. Of course, as you guys know, I don’t, I don’t like phone calls. But if they do, guess what I’m doing phone calls, text, email, whatever it is, what I like about Trello is I can add these notes to the very, very top. So as your Trello board gets busier as you’re adding other clients here you can easily you know, see, say Emma buyer in this city, this type of property, text or call, so that way you don’t have to remember who does MLA tax. Let me look at that calendar and let me see that email that came in. No, it says right there, Emma likes text messages. Then add them to your CRM over here. I have KB core and I love KB core. I didn’t in the beginning but wow. Like I really really like I only know about 30% of what it handles and I’m actually testing this out too. So if if you want a copy of this checklist and you haven’t already reached out to me on on social media, text the word checklist to Oh 520-341-2552 more than happy to send it to you. Then of course, you want to contact the lender or connect them to a lender, I usually do like a group chat with the lender, then of course, set them up on a search. Next on the Trello checklist is check in three days after setting them up on the search. And this is I also have setup on my CRM. So as I add each client into the CRM, in Cavey, core specifically, and I’m sure others do the same thing. I add tasks. So in three days from when we met, I’m going to add a task to notify me to reach out to the client saying, Hey, did you like everything on the on the search? Is there anything I could switch super easy for us to do? So just let us know want to make sure we’re not sending you trash? So then, here, as you can tell, next step is I had to send buyer emails one and two. Now, of course, by email number one no longer exists. So let me know let me change that right here. Send Email number two. Let me show you email. Number two, what does buyer email number two have? Ally? Well, let me show you. I use superhuman, it’s a way to do a lot of shortcuts. But you can do the same thing. With just saving this as a template on either Gmail or Outlook, whatever you use, but templated emails, do not be copying, or do not be writing the same email over and over again, that’s not a way to scale. And you want to be able to scale I imagine if you’re listening to this. So right here in two seconds, I pulled up buyer email number two. And it’s the title is we’re excited to work with you. Because what buyer email number two is, is the confirmation that you and I are working together exclusively, you’re not going to be using another realtor. So therefore, buyer email number two is very important for me, because this is the mean potatoes, everything I poured my heart and soul into this email, and to everything really that I do checklists, everything. And this has this is the way ahead, I show them the eggs, I show them everything of what buying a home is like in this market. So I started off with a video this video is evergreen, it’s not specific to I don’t say any names. I don’t say any specific information because I want this video to be evergreen and used for every single buyer email number two, in this in this video, you’ll see that I actually all I do is go over all of the words in the email. Because if buyers are to get an email like this, nobody likes reading anymore. So even if you make a video of you reading what you are sending them, they will watch that better, you know, they will watch that they will feel better. Instead of giving them homework, hey, read this whole long email. And you know that’s it. So I go over in this video what exactly I’m relaying to them in words of that email. Starting with number one what to do right now I give them homework, you know, buyers want to be told what to do, even even if they are investors that have you know, purchase multiple properties before they want to know think about it as a buyer. What is the next step? What do you want for me? What do I need to do? And what’s next? Always think about that, like what do they need to be hearing from me a lot of agents are too scared to add their to assigning them homework and I tell them straight up buyers, this is your homework. So what to do now is complete the buyer or open the complete buyer client PDF. This contains the entire step by step on how to purchase a property and boy does it you’ll see number two before I open an l open all the attachments at the end. Number two is message me if you’ve already had other agents show your properties we do not overstep or steal clients because if they have that if for some reason they really don’t like them, then I want to reach out to that agent and make sure because that agent might not even know and a lot of agents are too scared to do this. I don’t care. I do not steal clients. I tell everyone in my crew like we do we do. There’s so much shady madness that happens in this industry. Don’t make it worse. If you are working with another agent, excellent. Then work with that agent. We are going to focus our time on other clients that only want to work with us and I have no issue saying that and believe it or not at all. I’ve only ever lost to clients because of that and that’s okay. Number three is walkthrough, the purchase contract was which is attached. And with this video that I made for you this needs to be reviewed before we place offers. Number four is check your junk folder in case the listings that we send to you through the through our website through the MLS is sent to your junk. Number five is review the seven ways to make your offer stand out video. Number six review the buyer advisory on due diligence best practices and numbers Seven send us your pre approval or proof of funds, we cannot take the next steps without that. And then following us email here I have once again, whenever you have a property that you like, based off the emails that we send you please do the following. This is what you do. Once you find a property that you like, one, make sure it’s in a location where you’d like it to be, I cannot talk about you know, as as you know, realtors cannot talk about what area is safe. So instead, what we can do is give you the resources for you to figure that out on your own. So this is a list of schools, for you to do your research, if schools are important, is a spotcrime.com maps.google.com dropped a little yo guy walk the neighborhood virtually in case you’re not already there, make sure it’s within your pre approval amount, ensure your spouse or all other buying parties approved. And sure the numbers work for you. Let’s connect it with your lender. That’s why I do a group text with the lender. And if you’re serious about it enough to make an offer, and I tell this over the Zoom call with my buyers, if it’s a level seven or above out of 10, like 10, is you really want that property, if you want to make an offer on it, that’s when you send it to us, that’s when we start taking a look. So otherwise, there’s no point of seeing a house that you only halfway are interested in anything under seven, don’t send it then I told them that. Then number six, I’ll look up all of the agent notes, I’ll send all the information to you any attachments that they have read it over. That’s number seven, and number eight, let’s get you in there ASAP. I tried to kill the deal before it even starts if you can’t tell, because there’s no point of seeing a house of contacting the listing agent. If the buyer is a VA loan, and they’re not even accepting VA loans. Of course, you’re going to ask Hey, was that was this a fluke? Was this a typo? But I tried to kill the deal before it starts, save your time save your sanity. Then as again, I reiterate it, there’s no point of driving to view a property that’s out of your budget and an area you don’t like. So make sure it is a hill. Yes. And the purpose of this video is to make sure is because I wish I had more information when I was a buyer. So I want to send you as much information as I can. Hopefully not talking too fast. Then, of course, in every single email that I have, I have a way ahead. This is what to expect next. That’s always what clients questions are, what to expect next. So next expect next by your email number three, which will be sent as we get closer to drafting your offer. I have 1234566 attachments in this buyer email number two, that might sound like a lot. But again, I’d rather I’d rather send them all the information now. So that way they have it and they can review at their own leisure as opposed to later on when they’re rushed. Let’s start with the beefiest one buyer client PDF. Now, as you can tell, if you’re following along here, this took a lot of work. I did not make this PDF, I hired somebody to do it because I am not digitally creative like this. But it’s in in pretty in prettier format. You know, there’s colors on here, it’s a little photo of me what I’m about that I used to be the military i inverse, these are some podcasts that I’ve been on in case you want to just learn a little bit more about me. Then I have another video on page two, page three of just a welcome introduction. This is me, I’m excited to work with you. Page four is what you can expect what the buyer can expect from me. Communication guidance, local knowledge, market expertise. Number five, page five is what I could expect from them submit a prequel, you know, before viewing properties, we cannot do that until I have your pre qual. And it’s you know up to date, that I also expect that they drive the neighborhood if they’re in a local area. Before we view that property that on the inside, I expect that they see the property on the outside. A lot of people might think oh, you know, you’re you’re telling the buyer to do too much. Trust me. I’ve only ever gotten positive feedback about this, like, oh, wow, no one’s ever told me to do that. That’s a good idea. It is. It’s a great idea. I got that from my dad, because I’m an investor as well. So I want to know what’s going on at 11pm on a Friday. And I tell them hey if you want to go extra credit if you go at at midnight on a Saturday night to see if you’re actually comfortable in that area that you’re interested in. So of course you can follow you can win if you text me again, the key word is going to be text training for a copy of everything here 25203412552 So following along general information, my work hours, this is how you know we’re going to be communicating then the real process starts where I have video after video three videos per page on talking them through the whole buying process, buyer client expectations home buying process. But what it’s like to buy a mark to buy a house in this market shopping for a lender. It’s exactly what I do when I shop for a lender Purchase Contract Overview and what is the specific market well Right now, then four steps that buyers forget to make when placing offers. And guess what, guess where I thought of these four steps, my own personal mistakes, so don’t make the mistakes I was making. So make sure that that your buyers see this seven ways to make your offer stand out. Now I should probably be up late update this one because this last one had the love letters which I do not do anymore do not recommend. And then under contract, I’m under contract. Now what? That’s always a question, right. And then at the bottom, you know, follow me on my socials. I’m telling the buyers these I’m not telling you this, although you can if you want to it’s ally, the agents. So that’s the BPS attachment. Next is the word doc, which I think my computer might freeze if I open so but what I have here is the what you can expect from me. Now what do I have here, it’s a video that is already on the buyer client PDF, that PDF has everything in a video series of what the buyer needs to make, to make an offer and to work with me. So the what you can expect from me attachment. The second attachment is exactly what I have already mentioned previously, it’s just been a Word doc, so they can follow along my work hours, you know, this is what I expect. Then the other two attachments are specific to this local area, it’s the purchase contract or in some states, I offered a purchase. But whatever the purchase contract is in your area, I attach that I attach them via email number two, but really, it’s their first email that they’re getting. So that way right off the bat, they see how formal it is. Then I also attach the additional clause in case they need to do anything outside of the original contract. So for example, waive the appraisal or anything like that. Then I also have the buyers roadmap, which is just a one pager color, you know, pretty looking thing. It’s a wheel that just walks the buyers through the purchase contract or through the whole home buying process. Then I have the buyer advisory my TC also sends this, but I would rather them my buyers have this immediately. So that way because this is lengthy, right? According to your to your MLS, this is going to be a pretty beefy one. And it helps out a lot common physical conditions in the property that a buyer should investigate. I want them to know that. And I don’t want them to only hear it from me and my videos, I want them to see, oh, this is you know, a statewide thing. Maybe I should get a sewer scope? Yes, you should. So that is that’s all the attachments that I have in via email number two, and I think I’m going to leave it here. So again, I there’s no way I can go through every single item on this just this first segment segment of my Trello checklist. But again, if you text training to 520341252 it takes you through every single thing. Now, I don’t have all scripts on here, but I have a couple of just questions to ask to not forget everyone in my exp downline, they have access to a lot more information than this. I have a two almost 200 page real estate Bible google doc which has everything that I know about real estate sales, and I mean everything, but that is exclusive to them. However, the most important portions, some of the most important portions of it is they’re all on the on the checklist that I’m sharing with you today. So if you’d like more you know what to do you know what to text. If you have any questions or I don’t know like want to schedule a one on one. I’m here for that. It’s calendly.com/garside Realty. I super hope this helps the next. The next training is going to be on the part two of working with a buyer will go over emails number three and four. Look forward to seeing you then. Bye

Welcome to the August episode of Learn with a Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate! In this episode, Joel discusses why educating new agents in real estate business is crucial and how growing positivity will help them handle stress. Joel also talks about work ethics and the importance of having consistency, setting priorities and discipline and how they lead agents to good relationships with their clients. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Joel can be reached at joel@rate.com and 773.654.2049. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00We’re approaching our 500th episode. And I just wanted to say that the number one characteristic that I’ve learned from all of the agents that we’ve had on our show of top producers has been consistency. We’re going to dive into that 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. Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Harris, I am your guide and host through the show today once again is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. He’s got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. In fact, last year alone, Joe gave back over $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, there’s actually 400,000 loan officers in this in the United States. And Joel is currently ranked number 137. Now this year alone, he’s closed. Oh my gosh, I just screwed something up. Joel. My numbers just got screwy. So could you please tell us your numbers? I apologize. My eye numbers are screwy too. It’s crazy. I know. Yeah, right now, I mean, we’re lucky enough to be just under $75 million close DJ for the year in purchase. And that’s 170 closed transactions year to date so far. Yeah, amazing. That really is amazing. It is a tough year, a lot of our audiences probably, you know, feeling the challenges right now in the market. But what we do know is that consistency, hard work and discipline really pays off, it might just feel a little bit trickier today. But everything that people can do today is going to actually, you know, result in some bear some fruit here in the near future. So while it may feel I just want to address this because I run into a lot of realtors. So on my show, when this podcast when I talk to top producers, I’m speaking to the audience here for I just want to make a quick point that I hope resonates with everyone. So when I speak the top 1% producers, they get to where they’ve got by by tolerating market cycles, right? So they’ve been through UPS, they’ve been through downs, especially if they’ve been around, you know, since or the early 2000s. They’ve been through a few of these cycles. And they seem to understand the cycle. And so what I encourage anyone who hasn’t been through some of these cycles, and it’s feeling maybe a little tougher right now is, you know, seek refuge in some of these agents who have been around longer than you talk to them, ask them for the wisdom that they gained through these challenging times in the past, because they’ll give you all sorts of ideas of Oh, I wish I would have done this, you know, from 2008 to 2010, when the market was really, really struggling. And now you know, they’re able to do some of that today. And so if this is your first time going through a tricky market cycle, don’t don’t despair. It’s all part of part of the normal cycle of business. But we want to keep you motivated and encouraged to continue growing your business, which I know can be a little trickier. So Joel and I are going to focus on some things today that we really want to keep you engaged with your business even though you know right now, inventories low rates aren’t exactly where we want them to be. Yeah, that’s the rial Woody, and there’s things you can do to stay on top of it. So anyway, I apologize for that little rambling monologue there. But I did want to, I did want to make that point because we know it’s tough. And if you listen to my show, you know, we talked to these top one percenters. They’re like, everything’s great. This is so awesome. And it is great, because they’ve been through some of these hard times before, and they know how to navigate through them. So if you’re struggling, don’t you’re not alone. But we’re going to try to help you through that on this on this episode a little bit. And Joel has been around for a long, long time in this business. And he’s seen what top producers do throughout their time in practice to help you as well. So Joel, welcome once again to the show. Well, I love that you’re talking about this. I love the tangent, you call it a rant. But I mean, it’s true. It’s really what we’re doing here is literally educating agents. Because if the negative news is all around, you surround yourself with positivity, I work with agents that right now can tell you what they would have done if they had all the time in the world, right? So if it’s, if it’s slow for you, right, think about what you could do to actually grow the business, right? Because these agents, if you’ve been around for years, we recall when we didn’t have any extra time on our hands. So if you’re sitting there saying, I have all the extra time on my hands, because I don’t have 20 deals closing a month, right? What do you do? Surround yourself, listen to these podcasts, right? Grow your database, right? Make sure that people know that you’re in the business. And so we’re gonna go through a lot of stuff today that will absolutely help you get even one more deal. Maybe it’s a new buyer, maybe it’s a new listing. But by tuning in, you’re really going to grow. So we applaud you for that. I’m going to start with one that that I just heard, because I’ll forget in the next few seconds if I don’t say it now that I just heard from a former guest of of keeping it real. Also Joel, you know this person as well. He was a 30, under 30, National Association of realtor award winner, Jordan Pyle, he’s a local Chicago agent. He’s a, he’s a lovely, lovely guy. And I was talking to him recently, and he was telling me that one of the things he’s been doing with the extra time, as you mentioned, that he has now because he’s not closing 20 deals a month, is it in the sounds kind of it’s actually a really fun one, I think, at least it would be for me. And what he’s doing is he’s spending an hour every day. And that’s a lot of time. So if you have an hour, great if you don’t, you know, maybe you do a half an hour, and he literally is just replying to Facebook posts and Instagram posts for the people in his database. And he’s doing it in an authentic way. And what he’s doing is he’s looking at his his feed, I want to get really specific about this. He’s looking at his feed, when he sees a friend of his or somebody that is in his database, you know, goes on vacation, or maybe has some life event or just you know, goes out to a nice dinner and takes a picture of it. He comments on it. And he says it has to be authentic. He’s not just like, you know, it looks awesome. He he thinks about like a nice comment. He writes it and he goes, I want people to know that I care about their lives. And now I have time to demonstrate that through replying. And he goes, I do. I can’t remember if he does 30 or 50. I think it want to say he does 30 to 50 comments a day, and not not to the same people every day, of course. But and when I heard that, I said, What is that dude, he goes well, he goes, it generates a lot of goodwill. It generates a lot of people going wow, Jordan thought about me. And so that was my little suggestion. Sure, it’s number one, we talk a lot on the show DJ about things that you can do that cost money. And the number one thing here, it’s not the number one thing, but this is one thing that you can do as an agent, if you stay consistent with it. So what is this rule? What is this, putting it into practice taking what Jordan Pyle did, and actually do it for yourself? Really, it costs no money, and your name consistently stays out there. And it’s not like you said, just that looks great. I did that for years, when I looked at listings, and I said, I really liked that color blue in the kitchen. That’s so amazing. Marcia, keep up the great work. And you just do this consistently. People know that you’re in the business, then you’re a realtor, right? If you’re listening to this, you could make sure that you’re out there doing the exact same thing. And how much does that cost? DJ? Zero, it just costs time. All it costs us a little bit of time. And even if it doesn’t, even if it isn’t real estate related, what we’re talking about is building intimacy. We’re building relationships, you know, in the way that you build relationships beyond a sale is you care about somebody and what’s going on in their lives. And you show that you demonstrate that because I think intimacy has to be earned. And the way that you do that is by showing up. Well, you’re exactly right. I mean, we kicked off the show talking about closing over 20 units a month, you know, different homes and I speak to agents daily that are saying I’d like to get to 20 closings in a year right. So if you’re doing 20 20 or 30 closings every single month? How do you have time to do any of this and you can kind of prioritize. So if you’re not at that level yet, and most people truly are, you do have extra time. And it’s all about what you set for your priorities. Right. So number one, that’s an easy thing to do. And the other one that I wanted to touch base on, of course, is making sure that you have a good database and adding people in refining it, and then doing small reach outs to everybody that’s there. If it’s a postcard, if it’s a pop by things that you can do, because this is still a people business DJ, right until the robots replace us, there’s still going to be somebody that needs to go out and show the homes. And they’re still going to need to be people on the lending, Attorney side title. So there’s real relationships that need to be built here. And it’s just getting back down to basics if you’re not extremely busy right now. Yeah, this is the time to focus back on the fundamentals. When’s the last time that you’ve gone through and pruned? Not so much to remove people from your database? pruned isn’t the right word. When’s the last time you updated your database with information? Like, do you know your your? I won’t say clients necessarily, but but clients and prospects? Do you know their wedding anniversary? Why would you want to know that? Well, because then you can give them a call on their wedding anniversary every year and say, I’m thinking about you grats on year number 17. How many how many service providers are even thinking about that probably very few in there, that client’s life or that prospects life, you know that these are little things you can do that when you have time, you find out the soft parts of someone’s life that are tangentially related to business. You know, I think one of the one of the best ways another little suggestion, if you know where your clients work, or at least you have in your database of their employer, you can set up Google alerts for that employer for the news section. So what this would do is actually send you in real time when Google notices oh, let’s say you have a client who works at Boeing. And you know, some Boeing gets some major contract or something’s and that’s a big huge company. So maybe that’s not the best example. But but you get the ideas. Anytime you know, somebody’s employer is in the news, you then gives you another two, hey, just saw your your employer did this. Cool. Congratulations. Yeah, I love that. That really is true. And one of the things that I’ve been doing for like three or four years now is setting up reminders for clients birthdays, and instead of a phone call or a text, I started doing videos years ago, okay, so I don’t know if you ever saw that website cameo, right? We’ve talked about this offline, right? And so you get celebrities to send a video on on your behalf, right? And so, who’s the bigger celebrity right now, if somebody is getting ready to buy a home Leonardo DiCaprio or you the realtor, you’re more important. Okay, maybe, maybe Leo or one of these top persons are but think about the power of you actually doing just a 15 second video, say happy birthday. And I make mine fun and silly. So I literally start yelling and screaming Happy Birthday and spinning around in the chair and just being real. Instead of being like, that’s just who I am. So I like to have fun with it. And I sing off key and I say it’s a very special birthday message from your favorite lender, Joel shop. And it gets such great replies. So do what’s authentic to you. If it’s heartfelt, do that. If it’s funny do that. But doing something that’s different. I tell you, there’s not a lot of people sending video messages to people on their birthday. And you just set it up every morning, I look at my phone. And I can do it right through Facebook to see how many birthdays are today. And it doesn’t take but more than a few seconds and I shoot the videos and send them out. And it’s a it’s been a big hit. You know, these are the people skills we’re really talking about. I also wanted to touch on the actual hard skills, the hard realtor skills that I don’t say hard meaning difficult, but the important skills I you know, I had a call today, we have a holding company, which is for agents that aren’t actively practicing but want to keep their license active but they’re basically out of the business. They just have a license and are not practicing. And I got a call from one of our holding company agents today’s asking me to run a CMA for comparable market analysis for her particular property. And I said oh, okay, you know, and I she goes, Well, we’re just trying to figure out if we should sell it and I don’t she said I don’t really trust this estimate the Zillow Zestimate. So I wanted to get, you know, DJ, can you run me a CMA? And I said, Well, I’m not particularly good at it, but but I’ll do my best. And, and again, I think this is another huge opportunity for everyone who has a database of people that own homes, whether you are their realtor or not, when they purchased you have the ability to say, Hey, I was going to I’m practicing my CMAs or I’m just running you know, I do this for all for everyone in my database once or twice a year, whatever you however you want to market it and say hi, I was wondering if I You shouldn’t even ask you should just do it. Hey, I have a market analysis for you. I just wanted to give you an updated thing of what I think your home was worth whether you’re moving or not irrelevant. I just wanted to show this to you. Because most of my clients like to know what their home is worth, you know, every so often. That’s a huge opportunity. And it’s if you’re a skilled realtor, you can knock these out in probably 30 seconds or a minute each. So it’s not that they’re not that challenging to put together. But they are really helpful because I think every homeowner, whether they’re selling or buying, always likes to know what their homes worth. And it sharpens your skill. So think of this. I love what you said there. But I’m going to take it one step further for agents that probably haven’t done a lot of CMAs. Who are they going to go do these for DJ, right? They don’t have a long database of people to do it for, you can still run CMAs for people that weren’t your clients that have bought with another agent, right? With values being upright now, it’s not good enough just to trust the Zestimate. And even if they’re not interested in selling, now you’ve given somebody something. So now taking that database, people that you know that know you doing some work for them. It’s not only going to keep you top of mind and when the time does come for them to sell. But it helps strengthen the skills that you’re going to need when somebody actually does need you. Right? Yes, I love it. I agree. That’s, that’s, it’s, it’s excellent. And I also want to just to make one other suggestion. So if you haven’t, if our listeners haven’t yet fully embraced chat, GBT, don’t worry, whether it comes for our jobs or not as is up to the gods. But for now, it hasn’t totally taken over. But you can actually do some really fun things to keep you well actually, I’m going to give you a couple ideas here. First thing I want you to do this is not chat GBT, this is for for you that Joel, this is a Joel thing I want you to reach out to Joel and and subscribe to his newsletter which comes out in the middle of the week, usually. And it is for realtors to understand what’s going on in the lending world so that they can effectively you can effectively communicate with buyers and sellers about what’s going on without having to, you know, sit through hours long lectures about what’s going on in lending. So they sent out this newsletter, I want to do give a plug for that real quickly because it is so helpful. Guys, this gives you reasons to pick up the phone reasons to talk to people and it makes you sound intelligent, because of course it’s information that’s current and up to date, Joel, if somebody everybody should do this, just do it. Trust me, it’s going to be super helpful. What’s the best way that they should email you to get on your mailing list? Well, I call my little nuggets, right. So it’s a weekly digestible newsletter that actually gives you talking points without sounding too smart or too dumb. That’s me. I’m like right down the middle. And that’s the way I like it. Right? Email, it’s so simple, literally, you could just send me an email saying please add me to your newsletter. And it’s Joel JOE l@rate.com Ra t.com. And the subject line could simply be add me to your newsletter. And in the inside, please add me or thank you or I heard you on the show. One sentence, you’ll get added. And then every single week, you’ll get one or two things that you can absolutely use to grow your business, pick up another buyer help a seller in ways that is not so nuanced that you feel like I’m just reading paragraph after paragraph really good stuff. So yes, everybody please send an email to joel@radio.com asked to be added to the newsletter, trust me, it will help you in your business when you’re communicating with with buyers and sellers, and you won’t have to seek this information out because Joel is gonna send it right to your inbox. So I was asked to be on a radio show recently. And they asked me to prepare some some information. And the back to this is back to our chat GBT thing. And so I this is for homebuyers and sellers. And so I thought, Oh, this will be interesting. So I went to chat GBT and I said give me five reasons why it is a perfect time to buy or sell a property here in Chicago because it was a Chicago radio. And then I said give me five reasons why it’s not a perfect time. And the reason why I wanted both sides is because I wanted to be able to understand both perspectives and I wanted to see the data for both perspectives. And and this is really, really an important thing to understand. I have learned from interviewing hundreds of top Realtors across the country, that one of their skills that is really a really difficult skill to to learn. But once you have it really puts you in an upper echelon is understanding all sides of an argument, especially around buying and selling this will help you in your negotiating, it will help you understand the motivations of sellers and buyers. So what I like to do is as chat GBT, now you have to make sure that you’re getting current data and chat GBT is not necessarily always accurate. So um, you do your own research too. But I love this and I was able to go into this radio station with pros for buying and cons just in case it came up where somebody says it’s not a good time to buy a home right now I could say, Okay, I understand sort of why they might think that. And then I was able to go to the other side and say, but here’s some reasons why it might be a good time. And vice versa. You can do this for yourself every single day, you could say, you know, give me some some data about why it’s a great time to buy a condo in my in my, you know, my market area, or it’s a bad time to buy kind of these are good good things to know. So that you can, you know, be seen as as really, really knowledgeable and you don’t have to search on Google and go through everything anymore. Chat, GBT is going to search on Google for you and bring you those stats. Knowing both sides of it. It’s what makes me a great husband to think about this. Knowing both sides and understanding things right makes you a better partner makes you a better human. And But all joking aside, yes, you can always make an argument for either side, right? And so I tell people all the time, you’re not in the right position to buy, like with the last lender said, the last letter wanting to commission. Right? Everyone’s focused on number one, right? But if you actually step back and talk to a buyer and say, this actually right now isn’t the right time for you, we should actually do X, Y, and Z. Boy, do you help people boy to people come back to you, right. So it’s hard if you don’t have a lot of transactions, but it takes time, once you have so many people, you can actually just be real with them, right? And try to help them. So I love the idea of using the chat GPT to go through and just get more information I’ve been digging in, I’ve read two books on it now. And it is not as cumbersome as you think, Boy, it can really help you do things. So if you haven’t done it, dive right in the trial version, of course, is free, there is an upgraded version at $20 a month as well. But you don’t need to don’t pay any money go in test. And it’ll help you be a better agent, for sure. You know, you just said something really profound. And I think the ultimate, the ultimate skill that I or rather, there’s not one, one of the ultimate skills that top Realtors seem to, you know, have in their arsenal. And I understand this is going to take time. But this is where having a mentor or having people you could ask who are in that upper echelon can be very helpful. This is around under gosh, I just lost I apologize. I just lost my train of thought. It’ll come to me in a second. But the idea is that, you know, once, boy, I completely forgot, Joel, I know you’re talking about this offline. I know exactly what you’re going with here. So the idea of like working, refining the skill about how you can write the right offer, right, this is weird. Thank you. So let’s just go through it right. If you’re an agent, right now, it’s pretty true that the top 90% of agents are winning most deals right, like so the same 90% of people, which means so many people are not winning deals. So if you’re out there, and you’re submitting offers and not winning, believe me, a lot of people are but the same agents are winning, what are they doing? Right? So they’re writing offers that are designed to win. So I just wanted to walk through the three things that I think make the most sense, and this is what we were talking about before. So when you’re submitting an offer, just keep it simple, right? That’s the number one thing a seller is looking for. So you’re trying to determine what would you want if you were actually accepting the offer? So although we talk about rate by downs and escalation clauses, at the end of the day, simplicity wins. So it’s not always the highest offer? It’s, there’s two words there, right, DJ, its highest and best. Yep. Which one’s the best doesn’t have to be the highest offer, right? So learning ways, what worked before and don’t complicate it, right? So that’s one, working with the right inspector always ends up either helping your deal or killing your deal, right? We got to keep deals together, if we’re lucky enough to win and get under contract, having an inspector that spooking the buyer, right? There’s always going to be a problem with some homes, right? Put it this way, there’s probably going to be some problem with every home, it’s just can you work with somebody that can describe it correctly, because if you go under contract and the buyer cancels over a minor inspection issue, we’re back to square one, right? And then three, it seems self serving, but work with a good lender, right? Work with the right partner that actually knows how to make the process simple. So that the buyer can get clear to close as soon as possible, and go through those steps so that they can actually refer more business back. Ok. So submitting the right offer, working with the right inspector and having a good lender or two in your pocket that you can call on. Those are the things that keep deals on track right now. Because when you’re submitting Aw, thank you, Joe. Those are great. Three great things. And I want to also say aesthetically, this is just an aesthetic issue. When you’re submitting an offer, make it super easy to read, put the important stuff in bold, make sure it’s so obvious that they can look at it and fives, I saw an offer letter yesterday, I don’t know why. Maybe I’m have a negative opinion of this. And it’s not actually a negative thing. But I saw an offer letter that was made to look like a certificate, and it was kind of cute, whatever. And it was like visually, it was kind of cool, because it looked like a little certificate, like they won some sort of award. Okay, but it was really hard to read. And I was like, Okay, I guess it’s cute and whatever. But like, I had a hard time even looking and understanding what it was. And I was like, Okay, points for making it cute. But points taken away. Because you’ve made it harder for me to actually see this, I see what you’re trying to do. And if you didn’t, you’ve probably seen a million things like this. handwriting, I’m still against this. I mean, I see people scribbling in with a pencil, right? type these up, ladies and gentlemen, type up, type it up. Okay, if you’re not typing it up, then write legibly. I mean, you shouldn’t be writing in the year 2023. We shouldn’t be using a pencil to write a purchase contract, we shouldn’t actually be signing pretty soon, we’re gonna get past that with all the digital signatures. For now. The idea that you’re writing these offers, and there’s missing blanks and you don’t have it complete, and you’re writing and pen or pencil. I know I’m gonna offend a lot of people here who are old school and they write but I bet you they have better penmanship than half of these doctors that are writing these up. It’s like the old saying that you can’t even read the prescription notes, right? So just simple things. If you if you don’t have good handwriting, let’s let’s start typing. Okay, can we get on the bandwagon like that? The last thing I wanted to mention, yes, and absolutely. The last thing I want to mention is about having an opinion, I think this is one of the most important skills that that top realtors have is they have opinions that they share with their clients, a lot of realtors are afraid to share an opinion because they might think I don’t want to I don’t want to quell the deal. I don’t want I don’t want the deal to fall apart, I’m just going to be Switzerland, I’m gonna stay on the fence, I’m going to just play nice, and let’s get this deal closed. And yes, that’s part of the job too. And I for me, I will pay extra for any service provider in my life that has an opinion that I value, I will pay a premium for that I will I would pay a premium to a realtor who’s like I charge 7% or 8%, or whatever the highest amount is because but here’s why I charge more. Because I actually know if this is a good idea for you or not, or I believe I know if it’s a good idea for you or not. Now that takes time it takes experience, it takes skill, it takes a lot to get to a place where you can actually say this is a good buy, this is not a good buy good sale, not a good sale. This is really what I think separates the wheat from the chaff right like this. These are the agents that are at the very top they’re willing to say, just like you were saying, Joel, this is not a good decision for you, Mr. or Mrs. buyer or seller, I am advising you against this, that is worth its weight in gold. Most realtors are I believe, are really not willing to do that. And so the ones that are willing to sort of say, based on my experience, my knowledge, here’s what I actually think you should or should not do. Really, I think those are the agents that all that are successful. It’s all boils down to why are you different, right? We’re commoditized, right? Agents, lenders, etc. Right? So you gotta be different in the beginning. I’ll challenge you and say it’s hard to take a position, right? You want to cater to everybody. So if you’re listening, brand new, that’s scary. It really is. What if I offend somebody? I need that deal? Right? What if, you know, what if they’re on the wrong side of the aisle? What if it’s, you know, you try to do that, but until you know why you’re different. Okay, it is hard to do that. So why are you different? What can you do and refine it so that you know it? In the lending business? For years, I’ve been the guy who gives back part of my commission on every transaction. And that changes the conversation from Hi, what is your interest rate? To I’ve heard all about you. In rates across the board. Most banks to be frank are the same. It’s a gimmick thinking like one banks drastically different than the next right? There might be somebody that’s a few dollars higher or a few dollars lower an interest rate. But there’s not too many people that consistently are willing to give part of their commission back. So I described that in great detail. And when they’re interviewing three lenders, nobody’s talking about that. They’re just saying I can go get you the best rate. We’re the cheapest. It’s it’s not true, right? So I stand with confidence. And I say, over the last 17 years I’ve given back back hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year to clients just like you, I’m going to get you the best rate I can. But I’m also going to do something a lot of other people won’t. And that’s how we win the business. Okay, so I challenge you as an agent to figure out what it is that you want to do, what are you doing that’s different? Or what would you like to do that’s different, and not be afraid to go out and say that on every single appointment? And it takes some time. But you’ll get there and it has to be authentic and from the heart. Yeah, and so, you know, this is a great thing to think about as an agent is what are your clients consistently asking you for? And that’s a great place to start to think about, oh, how could I differentiate myself seems like my clients asked me a lot about certain topics or certain positions, this is where you can then start to build your knowledge base, and start learning more about X, Y, and Z so that you can, in fact, bring some of that to the table. You know, in Joe’s right, you know, the real reason why Joel is successful outside of all the great marketing, he does, to make sure that everyone knows about, you know, what he provides, is when it comes down to the actual work, Joel and his team are literally like the best I’ve ever worked with. So the reality of it is, is like, you have to be really super skilled. Because like Joe was saying, you know, yeah, there’s, there’s always going to be a realtor that charges a lower rate or a loan, a lending company that charges a lower interest rate, there’s always going to be lower cost providers out there. But if you can really have a good sense of like, know, when you work with me, we’re going to make this thing as smooth as we can. And that is worth a lot. That’s actually worth a lot of money, even though it’s not. It’s, it’s not it’s an invisible sort of savings. But it is a it’s a real savings. Because if you can get through a transaction smooth, it’s kind of like this. I haven’t I have a mechanic who I trust implicitly, I don’t go to another mechanic, I don’t get a second opinion. So he could be ripping me off. And I wouldn’t know, I trust that he’s not because he has demonstrated such incredible skill that I just go, I don’t have time to go and talk to other mechanics. And we can all relate to this. We all know how tricky it is we’re like, do we trust this mechanic or not? I finally found a guy. And I’m like, You know what, you’ve got my business. So if you if you’re, if you’re going to start ripping me off, I won’t even know. But I hope you don’t. And I’m sure he’s not. But my God, I love the fact that I don’t have to think about this anymore. And it just is. And I pay a premium for it, I’m sure. But it’s worth it. Be that for your agents, right? If you’re an agent, right now you want to go out. And that’s how you’re building clientele. Right? Everything can be a race to the bottom, if you’re the cheapest person here, all that I realized years ago that I couldn’t control the market. I couldn’t control rates. But I could control how much I gave right? In the beginning, before I was at the level that I’m at now I gave my time. And I gave my knowledge and I gave my expertise later on. It took time to get the expertise, right. And so in the beginning, figure out what you can give, the more you give, the more you’re going to get. Okay, so if you can’t give back in terms of discounting your commission, right, because it’s just not works. Maybe not right now, if you can’t give back in terms of throwing large parties and spending money, right? Figure out what you can do to give back. Right? You can give back like we talked in wrap up here and go back to social media and make sure that you’re adding value in comments. Why do people make posts to read the comments? Right? Who’s seeing what I posted? We all are guilty of it? Right? Totally. So if you can put really poignant post comments down and people start seeing that you’re a genuine person, you’re just gonna grow your business right? So in in years past you couldn’t control the market you still can’t today but you can control how much you give and find ways that you can do things to give back you’re definitely going to grow Yeah, the market is a lot like the weather it just is whatever it is, it is and we can we can have a feeling about the weather or the market and we can have that affect us and Okay, fine. And then we can also make additional choices to to move beyond what is uncontrollable, the weather the market. And so I think today, we just gave a tremendous number of opportunities for you to stay engaged, stay busy. And by the way, guys, another chat GBT suggestion if you just need to be motivated every day as chat GBT every morning. Can you motivate me today with with some you know, I don’t know. You could ask anybody to do anything. But start thinking about you know, if you need a little boost in your day as to LGBT for a little boost, like what can you tell me to get me motivated? I bet you had to come up with some pretty interesting ideas. But the point is, is you don’t have to do this alone. There’s lots of help out there. There’s podcasts like this. There’s people like Joel who will actually help you grow your real estate business as well. Oh, so this is another good opportunity. If you have extra time, maybe it’s a good time to evaluate your ello your loan officer and determine maybe there’s a better partnership out there for you. And Joel does partner with agents. So first thing, obviously get on his email marketing, or start his email newsletter, which comes out as nugget list every week, which specifically says, here’s what’s going on that Realtors need to know about how to communicate with lending rates and interest rates. You know, go to Joel Asare, send him an email joel@rate.com. And he will add you to that. But also, if you think that you would like to partner with Joel maybe doing some events, you know, just working together to get deals closed, Joel and his team are on your side. So reach out to him joel@rate.com and ask him for some partnership opportunities you guys possibly could work together as well. It’s a great time to start evaluating, you know, your your ancillary partners in real estate since you have extra time. Yeah, DJ above and beyond the newsletter, I get people all the time saying I know you have a lender introduction template where you do waive the fees, I have a buyer that I want to refer to you How do I do that. And it’s the same thing, it’s joel@rate.com. And you can say, please send me your lender, introduction template email, and it’s already written out for you. So that you can introduce the buyer with the direct link to the online application, where when they complete it, they get a $1,500 closing cost credit. So now they’re working with a top lender in the United States where they’re actually not paying any underwriting fees. They’re not paying any appraisal not paying any points. And it’s gonna be a completely different setup for them compared to if they just call their bank, or the broker that they’re working with right now. So that’s an email joel@rate.com Send me the lender introduction template. And people always call to, they’re shocked to hear that I’m actually answering the phone, right. So it’s 773-744-1968. You can call if you get me live, it’s crazy the number of conversations, I’ve had DJ with agents all across the United States because of the show, and you’re just doing something really great here. So I love every single time I come on, and there’s a lot to be positive about guys, this is a really good reminder that the sky isn’t falling, there’s deals to be had stick with it. This is one of the defining years. If you can make it through this year, there’s greater sites ahead, okay, this is gonna be a big one. So stick with it. Absolutely, the sky is not falling. And I’m not even seeing any indicators that that there is major tragedy ahead of us. Obviously, anything can happen. I can’t. It’s like the weather, anything can happen. But what we can control is our own effort. Reach out to Joel, he’s fantastic. His team is fantastic. He truly wants to help you. And, you know, just reach out to joel@rate.com. Also, everyone please tell a friend help our podcast grow by telling one other agent that you know about our show. We’re trying to keep agents engaged, interested and positively motivated throughout this. And by the way, guys, it’s not that bad right now it can feel that way. But it really isn’t historically, we are not in a terrible spot, but it can feel that way. But podcasts like this, we are trying to get you out of the doldrums into action. So tell you know there’s gotta be somebody you know, that’s a little bit bummed out who’s a realtor right now send them a link to this episode. Maybe this will kickstart them and have them help. You know, the real estate community at large. Let’s send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com Or they can just find us on any anywhere podcasts are served, keeping it real podcast, please hit that subscribe and like button and also, you know, support our sponsors too. We are so grateful to have sponsors. They’re the reason that we can continue to pay our staff and do these episodes. So please check out their products and services as well. Joel, thank you so much. Once again, you’ve been with me five plus years on the show since almost the very very beginning. And we are so grateful for your your contributions to the show on behalf of the audience. Thank you. On behalf of Joel and myself thank you to the audience reach out to Joel get on his newsletter joel@rate.com reach out to him for any partnership opportunities that you may be able to to do withdrawal oh and by the way, even if you’re not here in Chicago, Joel’s company guaranteed rate they are in every single state so reach out to Joel no matter where you are. Guaranteed Rate is the bomb. So Alright guys, thank you so much, Joel. Thank you. We will see everybody on the next episode.