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

Levi Lascsak goes back to the beginning of his story talking about why and how he got into real estate business. Levi describes how he decided to start his youtube channel and make his way into the business that way. Next, Levi talks about how he built his YouTube channel and what kind of content he provides there. Levi and D.J. discuss the power of video. Last, Levi talks about passive prospecting and the book they are working on and will be published soon. Please check out and subscribe to Levi’s YouTube channel here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does an agent with no prior YouTube experience generate 164 closed sales transactions in one year, all from YouTube? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking to top producer and YouTuber Levi lassic. Before we get to leave, I just a couple of quick reminders. Please help support us by supporting our sponsors. They are the reason we can keep doing these episodes, and we greatly appreciate them. So check out their products and services. And second, please tell another agent about the show. The more listeners we have, the more people we can reach and help so let them know by shooting them over to our website keeping it real pod.com They can listen to every episode we’ve ever done, we have over 430 there or if they are a regular podcast listener of other shows, just have them pull up their podcast app of choice and search for keeping it real and click that subscribe button. Alright, enough from me let’s get to the main event my conversation with Levi lassen. Today on the show, we have Levi lassic, who released his first YouTube video on December 5 2020. As a I really want you guys to listen to this biography because what I’m about to tell you is going to sound almost impossible. So I’m going to start this over. Just so that if anyone was just passively listening, I want you to actively listen for about the next 20 seconds. So leaving Levi lassic released his first YouTube video on December 5 2020 as a brand new real estate agent and he had not sold a home in 2020, or the first quarter of 2021. So again, he started his first YouTube video in December of 2020 hadn’t sold a home that entire year. And the first quarter of 2021. Also no home sold. Levi partnered with Travis plumb and they closed their first two transactions from the YouTube channel. In other words, leads they received from their video in April of 2021. Now that’s the second quarter of 2021 over now, here’s the incredible part. Over the next year, they generated 164 transactions, which equaled 90 million in production. And then this just makes me cry because I want I wish this was my story and not Levi’s 2.7 million in commissions with an this is the really incredible part even with all of that being said, zero ad spend. So they now own the fastest growing and most viewed real estate YouTube channel in Dallas, Texas. And they generate no joke three to five qualified inbound leads every single day. Now you guys gotta check this out. I want you to do two things. I want you to go first to get hooked on Levis content because he has amazing content for you the agent, which is passive prospecting.com He’s got a book, we’re going to talk about that and he really wants you to take a look and also why I want you to watch what he’s doing on YouTube, which is also passive prospecting search for that channel. We will have links to both those books will have both those links in the show notes. Levi, welcome to the show. Levi Lascsak 4:58Thanks for having me. D.J. Paris 5:00reach. I don’t know that I don’t know that the 430 episodes or whatever we’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever interrupted myself in the middle of a reading someone’s bio. But I was like, No, I have to make a big deal about this, because you’re not the first person we’ve had on the show that has really built a solid hyperlocal brand on YouTube. But you’re the one who’s had probably the most success so quickly. And it’s just, I’m just I am like, tongue tied? I’m not sure exactly. You know what to even ask you because this is even blowing me away. So, but let’s get let’s start at the very beginning of the story. Before we get into sort of how you did all this. How and why did you get into real estate? Levi Lascsak 5:42reluctantly. That’s why I’ve got a friend Michael Reese. Do you know, Michael, have you ever met Michael Reese? I don’t think so. Okay. Well, I’ve known him for 20 years, and he got licensed in 2002. And we actually sold gym memberships together, Bally total fitness. So he, that’s a rough job, by the way, oh, hey, we work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And that was literally so that’s and I did that whenever I was like 2021 years old. So I just got out of military and I needed a job. And that’s the thing is, is Michael, first of all, he sold me the most expensive membership there on a three year contract, which I couldn’t afford at all whatsoever. And then he eventually just recruited me because I ended up I had this $8 An hour job. And, and that was it. I was doing labor work and and I lost that job. And then he recruited me, which was great, because I couldn’t pay for my gym membership. I think I went up there to tell him, I needed to cancel it somehow and get me out of my three year contract and blah, blah, blah. And he’s like, Well just come work for me, you know, and I was like, okay, cool. And then we started working 12 hours a day, seven days a week making phone calls, literally, we would phone call 10 hours a day. Yeah, to try to get five appointments the next day, that was the whole goal. You were not you were not allowed to stop calling until you had five appointments the next day. And if you got your five appointments next day, they’re like, we’ll go ahead and start on the day after, you know, anyways, just call for 10 hours straight. Because we would start at 10am, the shift was literally 10am to 10pm. But we couldn’t call after 8pm. So we had a 10 hour window that we had to call and literally get in there at 10am. And start just hammering smiling and dialing. Yeah. And then the whole goal was course was to have five people in the gym to tour them around to sell possibly two or three memberships a day. So it was it was brutal. But I didn’t care. You know, the thing was, is that Michael was a Sales Machine who and you know, and I just looked up to him and was like a lot. If he can do it, I got to do better than him. That’s all I’ve ever said, I have a very simple formula for success, which is who’s at the top? How did they get there? You know, can I model that? Can I adjust it fit my personality? And then can I do better than them? Very simple. And that’s what I learned from the very beginning was Michael’s like, Well, look, here’s what I’m doing, I’m making all these phone calls, here’s what you can do. Actually, they gave me the only book they gave me the binder of all the old leads that everybody had already called 500 times and didn’t want to call anymore. And so I just started calling them. And then what happened was, is within three weeks, I became the top salesperson there and started to even beat Michael and I just figured out a better way to do it, and more creative ways. And then Michael took me to my first Brian Tracy, it was my first time I’d ever been exposed to personal education, you know, or self education and, and he’s like, Hey, I’m gonna see this guy, Brian Tracy talk. I was like, okay, cool, didn’t know who it was. Or it wasn’t even thinking about that sort of thing. And Brian Tracy, and toured the country spoke for free put on free events, of course to sell all of his courses and CDs and everything at the back of the room. And I remember I just had a $300 credit card is my first credit card had a $300 limit. And it was supposed to be for emergencies. And that day, I saw Brian Tracy speak and I went to the back of the room and I bought as many programs as I could and maxed out that $300 credit card. And I remember I bought I believe six different programs. So I bought like the psychology of selling the psychology of mindset, you know, I don’t know, he just had all these programs, and they were CDs. So they were the books with like six CDs and yeah, and the cool thing was is I had this really crappy Oh, it was really crappy but it was a Volkswagen Jetta. But the one thing it had was a six CD changer. So all six CDs in my six CD changer which was in the trunk by the way. Yeah. They open up the trunk and put it in there. And I would listen to the psychology of selling you know, driving back and forth to the gym and anywhere I went. I never listened to A music really in my 20s I believe everybody asked me about the new bands and what did who did I like? And I’d be like, I don’t know, I don’t know who you’re talking about really. Because I just, I just bought into that from the beginning and I just it just changed my perspective. And I just started consuming as much as possible. Now the thing was, is I was in the Reserves, still. And in 2002, I remember the day Michael came back from meeting a guy named Jay Kinder at the lake. And he came back onto Bally’s on Monday, I was like, I’m getting into real estate, you know, he’s like that screw this. So he’s like, I’m getting into real estate. I was like, okay, cool. All right. Good luck, you know, and he was like, No, you got to come with me. Well, he got licensed 2002 finally talked me into it in 2004. So I did get licensed in 2004. But what happened was, is as soon as I completed my training, I had my license for I think about a week, and I got called up, because I was still in the reserves, and they get you know, I got a call from the military and said, You’re being reactivated, you’re about to deploy and you’re gonna be gone for 18 months. And so and so that was it. So I literally and they gave me I think four days, it was like a four day notice. You know, this was this was 2004. So this was right in the height, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. And so literally, I remember getting that phone call. And they said, You got four days to report to Fort Hood, you know, in Texas, and when that was it, so four days to say goodbyes pack my bags, you know, and that was it. And so I never, I never practice real estate, I never did it. And the thing was, is I was gone for 18 months, and ended up spending a year of that over and Iraq. And and whenever I got home in 2006, then I knew over that timeframe, what I over, I knew I didn’t want to be a real estate agent, I realized, you know, being gone for 18 months, Michael just talked me into it, I really didn’t want to be a real estate agent in the beginning, I got licensed just because he told me to. And then when I got deployed, I thought maybe this is divine intervention. So whenever I came back, I didn’t even you know, the license expired, I didn’t renew it. And I didn’t become an agent. And so I went I went on my own path from there now Michael and I have stayed friends over the last 20 years, watch each other grow and you know, succeed and, and dip in all, you know, all this kind of thing. But But yeah, it was really 2020 When my my financial services business, I had contracts with Dallas ISD, I worked with all the teachers on their retirement planning. And I’ve been doing that for the last five years. very lucrative, very successful at that. And then, you know, April of 2020, all the schools shut down. And whenever all the schools shut down, everything I built up over five years, just kind of was gone overnight. And you know, I’m sitting there at 41 years old asking myself, Okay, well, what just happened? How did I end up in this position? And how do I start over without starting over? So you know, it was it was an interesting time, because I was sitting there thinking, all right, is when school going to come back? When is the world going to reopen? I mean, what’s going to happen? Nobody knew, right? And so I couldn’t meet with people. I used to meet with all the teachers on campus, of course, all the schools were shut down. None of the teachers knew how to work zoom. So nobody was trying to invest. They were all calling me to pull out money from their retirement. Sure. And I was just thinking, Alright, well, what am I going to do now? And and here comes Michael. Okay, now’s the best time to get into real estate. And I was like, bro, I don’t want to be a real estate agent, you know? And, and he’s like, but I’m telling you, man. And the thing is, is with Michael is Michael has always seen the potential and everybody that he and he knows how to also pull that out of people as well. And I think you know, Michael just knows me as a person in general, ever since we sold gym memberships, we spent a lot of time together and watching each other over the years. He knows who I am. He knows my work ethic. He knows what I’m capable of. And I think that’s why he just never gave up on trying to get me in the business and always wanted to work with me again, as I’ve always wanted to work with him. But I just never wanted to be the real estate agent. So I said, well, as long as you’re an agent, I’m probably we’re probably not going to work together. Just because I had no desire to do that. I was interested in investing. I like investing and I flipped a few properties here and there. I’ve had rentals, you know, so I’ve done transactions. And I enjoyed that part of it. But I was I was a part time. You know, I was a part time investor. So I did one or two fixer flips a year. I did have seven rentals at one time. So but I always worked with an agent. So even during that time, I never renewed my license because I just again, to me, it wasn’t worth it to try to make a little extra commission. I’d rather just work with somebody that could handle that, build it into the price and just be done with it. Sure, so, so that was it. So over 2020 He was he was like, Hey, man, now’s the best time to get into real estate. And, and and as I looked at everything over the summer of 2020, every industry was going down the tank, except for real estate, it was probably one of the only industries other than online shopping that started to increase during 2020. Sure. And so I thought, well, you know, if I’m gonna make the move, maybe this is the time to do it. However, I was, I was literally scared to death, you know, because I was, first of all, I’m 41 years old at that time, and I’m 43 now, but I was 41 going okay, how do you again, how do you start over without starting over? I mean, how do I how do I get into a new industry a new business? And is there a way to, to jumpstart that is how am i How am I going to compete with every agent in Dallas that’s been in the business for 510 1530 years, when one of the most competitive markets? How am I going to position myself? How am I going to have to go out there and shake hands and kiss babies and you know, go to all these neighborhood events and start and that I was just not really interested in either, you know, nothing wrong with that at all. But I was just thinking, I’m at a different point in my life. You know, I love the movie, the boiler room, but I’m just not into all the phone calls anymore. Like, D.J. Paris 16:20you already did your time on the phone. Yeah, Levi Lascsak 16:23I mean, I can do it. I just didn’t want to do it. And I was just thinking, Okay, well, one thing that Michael said to me that always resonated was, and I and I heard him speak, you know, to other groups and do trainings. And, you know, one thing he said that always stood out to me was, he said, he said, it’s not the best real estate agent that wins. It’s the best marketer. And so as I thought about that more, I was just thinking, well, if I move into real estate, instead of getting into real estate, and then trying to figure out a plan, I just thought, let me figure out a plan. And if I can figure out a plan, maybe I’ll get into real estate, if I can see a viable option for myself. And if it if the best marketer wins, and I need a good marketing plan, and I need to find a way to attract business and how can I bring people to me, versus me having to go out there pounding the pavement, shake hands, kiss babies, try to build a brand from scratch, to be known and compete with every Joe Bob and Susie out there selling real estate. Is there a gap to I was like, Is there a gap in the market? Is there an actual gap in Dallas real estate that I could slip into somehow, and attract business and bring people to me, so that you know the traffic is inbound? Well, there’s only really I think the way to do that this day and age quickly is through social media. And so I knew that and so I was like, Okay, it’s likely going to be social media, because I also knew I didn’t want to start a postcard campaign. And I didn’t want to start a magazine and a billboard and start spending a ton of money, especially in the middle of a pandemic, where who knows what was going to happen? Anyways, and even going out and meeting people or events, all that stuff was still very questionable even for Texas. I mean, I’m in Dallas, Texas, and we we were open faster than anybody other than Florida. So but still, people were still a little on the fence about events and things like that. So. So I was just thinking, okay, social media. All right. Well, so I started looking at at people, you know, agents that that Michael knew, and everyone was like, okay, Instagram, tick tock Facebook, especially tick tock. I mean, every agent seemed like in 2020, woke up with 10,000 Tick Tock followers, you know, and so everyone was going, you got to be on tick tock, right, tick tock, where it’s at. And I’m like, Well, how much business did you get from that? Well, you know, I get a lot of inquiries. A lot of people say, hey, I’m interested, you know, but I didn’t I didn’t hear a lot of people turning over business, and I didn’t really hear people. I know people are successful on these platforms, nothing to take away from them either. I just didn’t hear anybody like driving primary business. Like I didn’t hear people saying, Man, I’ve done 100 deals from Instagram. I’ve done 50 deals from Facebook, I’ve done 75 deals from Tik Tok. I just wasn’t hearing that. I know people generate business, but it was more like supplementing their their primary business, a lot of agents that have been in the business for 510 or 15 years. And so they have marketing plans, they have sphere of influence, they have referrals coming in. So the social media, yeah, they do 1020 30 deals, but not where I really want it to be. And over my, you know, career. I’ve been in three major industries. And I’ve always been successful from the start, because again, I followed my simple model of success, which was who’s at the top, how did they get there? What are they doing? Can I model it? Can I adjusted to fit my personality, and can I do better than them? And so every time I did something else, or made a transition, that’s what I did. And so I thought, well, who can I? Who can I do that in in Real Estate you know, but I didn’t really want to be on Tik Tok or Instagram or Facebook either. I have not really been on social media that much because I’m at that was at that 41 year old age range. And if you’re like me, and you’re at that 40 age range and above, you probably have a love hate relationship with social media. D.J. Paris 20:17I am I am with you. And yes. Levi Lascsak 20:20So, you know, we didn’t grow up with it. It wasn’t there in high school, wasn’t there in college came around in our late 20s, early 30s. We felt like it’s just people bragging, posting cat videos and talking about their lunch. And yeah, it was my dinner. Yeah. And we’re like, okay, that’s stupid. But then, but then we started to see the 20 and 30 year olds make some money, and we’re going, Okay, well, maybe there’s something to this social media thing. But then, you know, nobody ever really digs into it. And so I knew going in, I was like, Well, I also knew I wanted to pick one platform, because the last thing I wanted to do was do what everybody was telling me to do as well, you got to be on five different platforms. Well, I just think if you start out that way, you’re gonna put a 20% effort into five different platforms, and you’ll never truly master one. And you’ll never truly generate business from any of them, because you’re dabbling in all of them. And they’re all so different. Yeah. extremely different. And so I thought, well, I want to choose one platform, because I want to go all in on one platform, I want to focus on that platform. And then if I can build some business or something from that platform, it’ll be much easier to branch out to the other ones than it is to try to cover all five at once. So I just started doing research and started looking into, you know, Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok. First, because that’s what everybody told me to do. And when I studied that more, and got deeper in those rabbit holes, I realized I really don’t like those platforms. For me. Nothing I was really interested in, I didn’t see anything there as far as a path that fit my personality. So I started to so then I started to think, well, I don’t know, YouTube, I actually what I did was I stopped and I started to look at people at our brokerage, like you mentioned, go go, Michael Reese, there’s another guy named Kyle handy. You know, Ricky Carruth, a couple of these people, I started working, and they were some of the top agents in in exp. And so when I looked at them, I started to say, what’s their commonality? And what I what I saw was, well, they’ve got a pretty strong YouTube presence, you know, not really in building a real estate business, but they had a YouTube business, you know, or they had YouTube, they’re talking to other agents, attracting agents, things like that. So I thought, well, and what did I do? I looked at all their YouTube channels, and they were talking about their time in production. Right, you know, Ricky’s known for, like, being one of the best cold callers, you know, Kyle’s known for being really good at SEO and blog writing and doing open houses. And gogo has her, you know, social media bootcamp. And then, you know, Michael, does his, you know, different funnels, you know, so, but they talked about their business, how they generated that, and they’re doing it on YouTube. And so that’s kind of interesting. What if I just did that for real estate clients, you know, started to find out and I started to research on YouTube. And what I soon found out was that YouTube is a search engine, not a social media platform, D.J. Paris 23:21right. In fact, I think it’s the number two search engine online, I believe, at least in this country. Levi Lascsak 23:26Yeah. Yes. Number two behind Google. So I started to see that YouTube was a search engine. And whenever I realized, Oh, it’s a search engine, and wondered if people are searching, you know, suburbs of Dallas. And so I started to look at okay, Plano, Texas, for example, went onto Google, on Google Plano gets about 90,500 searches per month, not bad at all. But whenever you find that search volume on YouTube, it’s 834,000 searches per month, it’s 10 times search volume on YouTube than it is on Google. So that immediately told me that while people are searching 10 times the amount on YouTube over Google, they want to see these places. And then it made me realize, well, you know what, I think the reason those other platforms didn’t resonate with me is because what I saw was a bunch of seasoned agents that had been in the business 510 15 years, telling their telling stories about their experiences and their clients and how to do this on a home and how to watch out for this and look out for this and look out for that. And I hadn’t even sold a home yet. So I was thinking okay, well, I could I could read about a VA loan and then regurgitate that on a 62nd video on Tik Tok, but it just didn’t seem authentic to me. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t really just that animal. I don’t want to be that guy. Start it. Yeah, D.J. Paris 24:47it doesn’t provide any particularly new value. It’s not a terrible idea. But maybe there’s a better idea, which is what you’re headed to. Levi Lascsak 24:57Yeah, yep. So yeah, so Just as I dug into YouTube a little bit more than I, what I realized was, okay, well if people are searching information about, you know, Dallas, Texas and Plano, Texas and Frisco, Texas and all the suburbs, well, I know everything about Dallas, or mostly everything about Dallas, maybe I can just talk about Dallas not even have to talk about real estate in general or talk about contracts and escrow and title and the different types of loans. What if I just talked about the suburbs and, and so that’s where I started to really dig in and build out a plan, I built out a business plan. And this is something I think nobody does whenever they start on social platforms, is treating YouTube, like a business. And what I love to say now is that if you treat YouTube like a hobby, it’ll pay you like a hobby. And if you treat YouTube, like a business, it’ll pay you like a business. And so what I did was I just started to research every possible thing I could on YouTube, and YouTube marketing, and videos and how to make videos and then, you know, look at all these different real estate channels. And then I just started to build out a plan of what I thought may do well, as far as what people are searching, and then I had the search volume that helped me as well. So it wasn’t me just guessing on Oh, my should I make this video it was no, I could actually go in and see what were people searching on D.J. Paris 26:19your note, you know, your potential audience size before you ever start recording? Because you have an idea of what that search volume traffic could be. And and then of course, you have people you’re competing with in that space to which you also, I imagine did research on? Levi Lascsak 26:36Yep. Well, the thing was, there wasn’t really a lot in Dallas, surprisingly. And that’s the thing is, is whenever Yeah, looking for a gap there was there was about five agents, maybe five agents that I found in Dallas that were mostly consistent. And one of them, the top channel had 7000 subscribers the second to top had 5000 subscribers. So and and the next one had four and the next one had three and right. I was starting to zero and I thought okay, well, the top one has 7000. So that’s the that’s my person, right? That’s the goal. D.J. Paris 27:11That’s the benchmark. Yeah. Levi Lascsak 27:13But yeah, we we passed everybody up about six months ago. So D.J. Paris 27:18and we should we should let people know sort of when we’re talking about you know, doing research, I’m gonna I’m gonna throw a few ideas you tell me if, if these are, you know, worthy. And again, you’re basing these based on search volume. So you’re taking a look, you’re doing the research, and so we’re saying okay, what, what kind of content are we talking about? So let’s say somebody’s moving to play now you could do a video on if there’s enough traffic best schools in Plano or reasons to move to Plano or here’s the nightlife in Plano, or here’s the here are the neighborhoods that you know are most what whatever, you know, it could be anything. Here’s, here’s the best restaurants and we’re playing our it could be top 10 reasons to move or so I’m just throwing these out there this is this the kind of content that we’re talking about? Yeah, all of those not even real estate necessarily related, but just related to people wanting information about living in Plano. Levi Lascsak 28:10Yep. Yeah, they want to see it. I mean, anybody can go on plane or look, go on an ibuyer platform and look at homes all day in Plano. But Zillow does it way better than we’ll ever do it right? Yeah. But they, the Zillow doesn’t show him the home across the street, the home or the playground, the community center, the community pool, the HOA pool, you know, it doesn’t show him that Chipotle around the corner doesn’t show you that stuff. So yeah, we can we actually take them out in neighborhoods and show them that. Yeah, pros and cons video, people want to know what’s the good and the bad of living in an area PROs video, you could talk about all the good things in your area, you could talk about all the bad things are actually our number one video is you know what we hate about Dallas. D.J. Paris 28:53That’s funny. You know, it’s funny, I was thinking about this, as you were talking, I apologized in Europe union first, by the way before, I meant to say this about 20 minutes ago, and I escaped me, but thank you, of course, for your service. Because without the safety of, of our citizens, you know, we can’t do much of anything. And so I just, you know, you said that very quickly, and I just want to, you know, force pause and admire you for dedicating service to to our country to help all of us stay safe. And so thank you for that. And also wanted to, to you know, I was just thinking about this I was in I went on a father son trip to Ireland with my dad i three or four years ago, and my dad had already been a couple of times and so he was pretty familiar with a lot of the little towns and and all the sights but we were trying a few cities that he had never been to was my first time there. And so we’re driving across, you know, all over the country, which is what everyone does when they go to Ireland, and every single night because we visit about two to three cities a day, the very first you’re so absolutely right about this because the Yes, I had the you know, Rick Steves travel Ireland book that was in our car. But we were driving a lot and my dad doesn’t like to read in the car, I was driving and it’s everything’s backwards. So it takes a lot of concentration, I can certainly look up things in the book, while I’m driving stick shift, you know, these little tiny roads in Ireland hoping I don’t get killed, because I’m driving the wrong way. But what we would do the night before is we would literally just go to YouTube and say best things to do in x. And then what we would do is we would download the video, and then we would play it in the car, you know, that next day on the way to those places. And that was the best possible education I got, because you’re right, the books are great, and they were helpful, but they didn’t really give me a sense of what it was like to go to some of these attractions and these events. So we would download it and watch it or listen to it on the way to that place and and I think a lot of people do this when they go visit places they haven’t they let go. best things to do. Right. And so, I mean that in and of itself is a is kind of the blueprint for what we’re talking about is find things that people are already searching for and just create the best possible video for that topic. Is that is that my understanding? Absolutely. I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. 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But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Don’t you wish it was more complicated than that? It would sort of be like, oh, what let’s talk about this though, how how. So you’re a guy who you’re you didn’t grow up wanting to be a broadcaster, you didn’t want to be a streamer. You didn’t want to be a personality online, necessarily. You just knew that you were modeling some of these, some of these people that have come before you and trying to figure out a gap in the market. And you know, it’s funny because you were talking about Brian Tracy, I one of my favorite Brian Tracy quotes is something like well, he says sale solve all problems. And we would just maybe reframe, reframe that to leads solve all problems, because they really do, right. I mean, this is a business of leads. And of course, it’s a business of service and all the other things too, but leads are what keep the engine running. And you know, leads can come from a lot of different sources. But you basically saw your idea was I don’t want to go out into the public that much. That’s not really what I’m best at. You know, I’m not the guy on the billboard or you know, racing around all these different events. You know, I want to be the guy you know, people are doing all this searching online, I want to be the guy they go to for that. And you know, when you started making videos, you talked about reading about it learning production. How difficult was it for you to did you did you have a I need these videos to look perfect. Or were you willing to to experiment and try different methods because I know a lot of listeners are like, I don’t know anything about video production. That’s not what I do. So how complicated are your video shoots? Levi Lascsak 34:18Pretty basic. So I don’t think I’ve ever the only videos I’ve ever re recorded are the ones that I didn’t record audio or something whenever I made it but that’s only been a couple of times. I think for me, it was no I wasn’t seeking this out to me I am a will do what it takes to get things done type of person. So really the thing is, is I grew up in a pretty neutral environment. I would say that my parents as much as I love them, they never encouraged me to do anything with my life. They were they were just kind of like really they their mindset was is the the most thing I heard ever come from my mom was we can’t afford that. So We grew up with a very poor mentality with the same same thing as far as, you’re never gonna go to college. I mean, literally, it wasn’t my parents weren’t like, hey, let’s figure out a way you can get to college. It was like, well, we didn’t go to college or two older brothers didn’t go to college, and you’re not. In your future. Yeah. Because we’re, we can’t afford it. And that’s all they saw. They like, I don’t even think they understood about scholarships, dude. Yeah, yeah. Because they never said, Levi, get good grades, get a scholarship, you know, none of that. I mean, it was just, it was not in their, in their, in their window, you know, and so yeah, so that was the thing is that and they never, I remember, like, in a second grade, I wanted to be an astronaut, but they never bought me a Popular Mechanics magazine, or, you know, encouraged that in any way there. And so, I think I was always a little lost. And so whenever I met someone like Michael, and he was like, hey, just sell some gym memberships with me. I was like, okay, cool, you know, and then seeing someone like Brian Tracy, who talked about, oh, if you read I mean, it, whatever you want to do, you can go out there and read about it and learn it and apply it and take action. And that was like, Oh, brilliant. Genius. Okay, okay, I can do that. And, you know, and then I got deployed. Well, when I got deployed, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do whenever I came back. And really, I wanted to get into real estate investing, but I didn’t, I just got a job selling cellphones. But I knew from learning from Michael as like, I want to be the best at selling cell phones. And so what did I do? I went to the best salesperson, Hey, what are you doing? How did you do that? How did you get there? Take some little tips. And then I was like, How do I adjust it to fit my personality? How can I do better. And of course, I beat them at their own game and became the best? Well, from there, I got recruited to a pharmaceutical company. The first thing I did in the pharma company, was, as I said, Who’s the best salesperson, which you can see them at the top of the charts. And he happened to be living in Oklahoma, it’s three hours from Dallas, I asked my manager, hey, you know, Can I can I? Can I do all my calls Monday through Thursday? And can I go Friday? Can I go drive up to Oklahoma and spend the day with his top salesperson and he was blown away? Nobody had ever asked them. In the years and years and years. You’ve been amazing. Yeah, yeah. And so I got up, you know, and that salesperson was starting at like eight in the morning. So I had to get up drive three hours to Oklahoma, meet him by 8am. And then I spent the whole day with them and drove back. But that was the things I was willing to do to just to try to try to be the best. And it took, it took within 12 months. I was I never got to number one. But I got to number four out of 160 sales reps nationwide. But I did that in less than 12 months. And that’s easy to do in the pharmaceutical world. Well, from there, I transitioned into financial services. And whenever I got licensed for that and got into that business, the first thing I did was went to the best person I knew, and learn from them, and then figured out how to do it better. And I blew past them. Their production, you know, like they told me, their their best production was 1.3 million the first year. And that’s a lot whenever you’re talking about just getting up monthly accounts built up for teachers. Well, I did 1.5 the firt my first year. And so, you know, when I was making that transition into real estate, that’s why I was really scared to death, because I had not heard a you know, you hear about all the failures, more than you hear the successes. D.J. Paris 38:39Well, there’s a lot more, there’s a lot more failures than successes in real estate. Levi Lascsak 38:43Oh, yeah. And, and if you hit 100,000, in your first year in real estate, you’re a major success. You are a super superstar. Yeah. So but I was like, I’m not good with 100,000. You know, and, and also, what I just saw people doing was this the same traditional ways, right? And, and, and so that’s what scared me to death because I was like, I still wanted to come in and be successful and just be the best at real estate. I was like, and that’s what held me back for so long to because I never had the desire to do it. And I thought you know, if I do move into that, I want to do this as fast as possible. I don’t know if that’s possible. But you know, could I get to two or 300? Now that’s what I was really thinking I get to two or three or 400,000 in my first year, because then I would feel like I made an impact. I’m off to a good start. And D.J. Paris 39:36that’s and and by that time if you can do that you’ve clearly cracked some code. Right? It’s not just hey, I got lucky because I grew up here and all my friends still live here and they just happen to all need to buy a condo or sell a condo this year. This is a whole different thing that nobody locally had even done right so yes, you there’s there’s YouTube channels with seven 1000, which is very meager, really? I mean, it’s not really if you’re doing it, that could be enough to generate tons of tons of business. But I’m guessing those other channels probably weren’t generating a ton of business. So you didn’t even have a really amazing blueprint. You did what you did were kind of placing a bet. Levi Lascsak 40:18Well, going back to the the, your question, as far as the thing, what I understood was, in my research was that what I realized was, here’s why I was at the position I was at, because over my career sells gym memberships, cell phones, pharmaceuticals and retirement plans. It was always me, that was one to one selling. And so every time I stopped, or when I transitioned from cell phones to pharmaceuticals, I had nothing to show except a bunch of trophies from selling cell phones. When I went from Sitacles to financial services, I had all the trophies from pharmaceuticals, but nothing came with me know in what plus D.J. Paris 40:59and plus it’s not, it’s not as scalable, right? Like you, it was you it was you that was that was making all the sales and there wasn’t an avenue, like YouTube for real estate, because you couldn’t reach is easily a vast number of prospects in those other surfaces. Yep, Levi Lascsak 41:18yeah. So and they were and they were jobs, of course, you can’t really scale your job, you know. And when I went into financial services, that was one of the first time I started my own business. And I could bring on other reps and expand, and I did a, I did that I brought on a couple of people. But the thing is, is that the margins were small that I, you know, I had to cut into their cut, you know, if I wanted to make the overrides, and so I bring on a few people. And I just never felt right to me, I just thought, man, nobody is going to make a serious living, because I know that I’m a rare breed as well. And I’m confident in my sales ability. And I know, I know, I’m a good salesperson, and I know I’m in the top 1%. And I’ve proven that in four different industries. And I know that not everybody’s that good of a salesperson. So in the financial services, I was going to be very difficult to find somebody like me that could sell as well as me, but then it’s hard to duplicate you. Yeah, they didn’t do that. If they didn’t do that they weren’t going to make a good living either. So it never sat well with me. So I never scaled that accordingly. Because that was more of a just a personal conflict with myself, because I didn’t feel like I could get somebody on full time that could could, you know, earn a full time living so. So that’s what those are the questions I asked myself over the summer, because that’s what kept me from getting into real estate. Because I did not want to go into one to one selling again, I didn’t want to be the one shaking hands kissing babies doing the transactions. And, and so are making the calls. Because you know, as soon as you hang up the phone, your lead generation stops. And so I wanted to build something that was scalable, something that that I could do, I wasn’t a factor, you know, and so that way, if a pain or illness or you know, economy or something like that took me out of the picture, whether temporarily or permanent, I could still have a business running on the back end. So that’s just all the questions that I had to ask myself. So that’s the other part of why we’ve grown so quickly. Oh, and so going back to your original question, as far as camera presence, it wasn’t hard for me, because what I learned, what I realized was all video is is communication and sales at scale. And so I was like, well shoot, if I can make videos, I can have the conversation once with that camera. But now I’m giving the autofill once one. But 100 1050 1000 People can see that conversation. And so this is what I tell agents now is like, you do this every day. If I went to your neighborhood right now to buy a home, you could take me around all day long. Tell me everything I needed to know about that neighborhood, the schools the fun things to do. You could tell me all of that. But when I leave, it’s gone. It’s done, that conversation is dead forever. It’ll never be resurrected. So stop doing that have that exact conversation you’d have with me and have it on camera. And now you can tell 1000s of people and give them the opportunity to see that that’s passive prospecting. That is that is doing the sales pitch once and letting something else do all the work for you. Everybody loves the idea of passive income. But what do you have to do you have to do the work upfront and put a system a process in place so that it constantly works for you on the back end, right? Because no matter what anybody says passive income still takes a little bit of tweaks here and there, right? You gotta Yeah, look at it. But all video is is passive prospecting. It’s the same concept. We’re taking the time, energy and effort to make that video but once I’ve done that, it’s done and it’s going to work. Not just 24/7. But in a compound effect of time, because making video does not take time, it makes you time. And not only does it make you time, it compounds time, so that is always prospecting. And that’s why I don’t feel bad now about traveling, taking the days off, taking the weekends off, going to conferences going on vacation, because videos still get published and leads still come in no matter what I’m doing. D.J. Paris 45:25It’s Yes, everything you’ve said, is apps. You know, it’s funny, I, this is how this is an embarrassing thing. I’ll admit, that really speaks to everything you just said. So I recruit realtors, so I’m a bit different, because I’m not a producing agent. I recruit for our company. And I’m doing it the same way. I’ve been doing it since 2010, which is we have well we have people that make calls and say, Hey, would you like to talk about switching firms, and then they set up an appointment? And then I scheduled a 30 minute meeting, and I do my pitch. And 95% of the conversation is me explaining everything that we offer, because that’s why people are scheduling the appointment. You know, I’ll do five minutes of like, Hey, tell me about you. What are you looking for? What are you having problems that you’re existing for blah, blah, blah, find make sure I know what they want. But then I got a present for 25 minutes, because that’s what they’re there to hear. And I’ve been doing that the exact same way for a while for 12 years now. And this whole time I’m going why don’t I have a video that does most of this, like maybe it doesn’t do the full 25 minutes, but it was like 20 minutes of it. And prior to the meeting, I go, Hey, you know, just to save you time, Mr. And Mrs. prospect, I’d like you to watch this video. Because honestly, you know, you can learn most everything we do. And then I’m going to call you at the time that we have scheduled. And we’re going to have a better conversation because now you’ll know kind of what we offer. I can have sort of next level conversations with you. And you can you know, it’ll just be better. I don’t know why I haven’t done that yet. And you just reminded me that what I’m doing isn’t scalable, and it’s no different really, then, you know, somebody’s meeting with a buyer for the first time which by the way, if you’re doing that one to one, awesome good. I’m not here to tell you that that’s a bad idea. But what if you had a video with somebody? I mean, we’re now we’re sort of getting into a different realm. But if we had a video that said hey, Mister missus first time homebuyer before we meet in person, I’d like you to watch this 15 minute video, it’ll help prepare for the meeting. Blah, blah, blah. But anyway, this will save time for the agent. So it you know, YouTube? And again, I’m sorry. So that was just a no, Levi Lascsak 47:31no to thank you. Please. Two very important things about that. Number one, I do the exact same thing. So what’s your brokerage called kale D.J. Paris 47:39like the vegetable? Okay, Levi Lascsak 47:41so um, you know, I’m with EXP and we you know, we do agent attraction. The thing is, is that I’ve never explained exp business model to anybody, if they book a partner call with me. What happens is, as soon as they book that call, I have an automation that sends them the EXP explained video, because and I say in the message, hey, by the way, since we’re going to be chatting about exp, it’s best you watch this video about the brokerage model so that you have all the context you need and can ask the right questions when we get on the call. And so instead of them asking me, okay, what’s D.J. Paris 48:13the split? What’s the right, which is what I deal with all the time? Yeah, Levi Lascsak 48:17that you know what, you guys are done. You know, they’re number one every time I get on a call now, what their number one question is? No, how does this work? How do I how do I move away? How do I move over? Yeah, so it’s the logistics of it. That’s what their question is about. And then, and then we just chit chat, we kind of like, oh, so where did you grow up? You know, and then we just kind of go back and forth. So that that’s done the heavy lifting for me. Now, to your other point on the real estate side. The video builds the relationship for you see, the thing is, is that nobody hardly watches one video and calls us they end up watching 510 1520 videos. So whenever they come to us, number one, the the relationship is already there on their side, they already feel like they know like and trust, right. And they, when they call us, they’ve already made the decision that they want to work with us. And so and D.J. Paris 49:10and they feel like they know you well, yeah, because it will this this is the thing that that people don’t realize it actually builds it and maybe it’s artificial, in a sense, but it’s irrelevant, because it works. It builds a connection between you and the audience because you are speaking one to one even though that video is reaching 10s of 1000s of people possibly it is a one to one relationship each time somebody pushes play. Yep, absolutely. So how often do they feel like they know you? They’re like, it’s probably I’ve talked to other YouTubers who say it’s kind of funny in a way because people will talk to me as if they’re already my friend, because they’re so used to watching my content. They’re so hooked on my content. They’re like, I got to work with this guy. And by the time you end up talking to them, I imagine you’re right you’re not they know they at least know unlike you and hopefully trust you by then, but they know they like you because they’re calling you or they’re not contacting and we’re reaching out, and they know you know what you’re talking about because you’ve demonstrated that value through these videos. Yep. Levi Lascsak 50:09Yeah. And I mean people that, you know, get recognized around town. It’s funny because I was in I was actually at the airport the other day and the TSA line. And somebody started tugging on my sleeve. And I looked over and I didn’t see anybody and then I looked down, and it was this like, 85 year old forefoot lady. And she’s just looking up at me. And I was like, I said, Hello. And she goes, she goes, Are you the YouTube real estate guy? D.J. Paris 50:34I loved your 10 things to hate about playing a video. Levi Lascsak 50:37That was like, yeah, so yeah, that’s mean, she’s like, like, love your videos. And then she just walked on by you know, and that’s, and it’s funny. It’s happened in, in clothing stores and coffee shops, and coming in and out of my office. It’s like, people are like, hey, hey, you know, I was getting food the other day. And the guy standing next to me in line is sitting there staring at me. And I’m just like, hey, and he goes, because don’t you make YouTube videos? And like, yeah, yeah. He’s like, Oh, cool, you know, and it’s just funny. And so you are building that up. And it’s around this whole, you know, that’s the thing is, is right now, especially in this market, I believe the most visible agents going to win. So now, that doesn’t mean you have to be on video. But if you’re a postcard person, you should probably send more postcards. If you’re an email person, you should probably send more emails, if you’re a phone call person, you need to make more phone calls, you can be visible on the phone, when you’re actually having conversations with people. So if you’re, if you’re a caller, you need to call more people in this market. And so right now, D.J. Paris 51:33I want to pause for a second because because I want to make a pretty strong point is that I think I think you’ll agree with this. You talked about you just talked about postcards, email, you know, phone calls, those are all you reaching out to the customer. People don’t like emails, right? I mean, and again, I’m just generalizing. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with sending emails, but generally speaking, we don’t we don’t love unwanted emails, or certainly too many of them. We don’t want too many phone calls. We don’t want too many posts. I mean, postcards are pretty innocuous. But what you’re doing is they’re coming to you because they’re searching for the content they want. There’s no resistance at that point. There’s no like, Who’s this guy calling me it’s, Oh, this guy’s providing me content. I found him he didn’t find me. Levi Lascsak 52:20So we call that and actually we talked about that that’s I believe that’s the first chapter in passive prospecting is interruption versus intentional marketing. So what you just described as interruption marketing, it’s what we we’ve been conditioned to be a part of and conduct as as business people our whole lives. That’s TV commercials, billboards, magazine ads, postcards, cold calling door knocking, that is interrupting they say right now we get exposed to eight to 10,000 ads per day. Okay, credible. Now, we’re not buying that many products, which, which means we’re completely ignoring them, right? So, but they’re interrupting you. And the thing is, is that you could see a dog food commercial 10 times a day doesn’t mean you’re gonna go buy dog food, right? I don’t care how many times you see Jake from State Farm, you’re not gonna go run out and buy insurance. But the second you have a kid and you need, you need a new life policy, or you need to update it, or you run out, let’s say you run out of dog food. You do not need any marketing or advertising, to convince you to go do that you now have intention. And now Now you’re on the hunt. Now you’re out there looking and guess what? People are intentional about buying or selling real estate. But most real estate agents chase after everybody else saying that they’re in the relationship business, trying to build relationships, when all they’re doing is really interrupting people nonstop. So hopefully, one day when they’re finally in the market, they’ll actually think of them and buy or sell a home with them. And then they end up buying a home from Uncle Bob because he’s over at their house drinking beer on a Sunday afternoon. And you’re like, I’ve been chasing you down for 18 months. And they’re like, well, sorry, Uncle Bob was over at my house. And you know, I just listed with him. So intentional means people are intentional about buying and selling real estate. But what if you’re the person that’s in front of them, whenever they’re, they’re now searching for that information? When people go to research on YouTube, and they search Dallas, guess what, they’re gonna get hit with all of our videos, because we pop up everywhere, they can’t avoid us. And so now they and then they just start watching the content, guess what, it’s immediate value add. We don’t sell them on the fact that we’re real estate agents. We don’t, you know, tell them about, here’s the tips to sell your home. It’s like here’s all the information about Dallas what they’re actually searching for. And so we just become their agent by default, because they end up consuming so much content that they you know, they just can’t help themselves then like Well, I’m gonna go call this guy. D.J. Paris 54:43Yeah, yes. Yes. And and again, you haven’t created resistance, because you’re not pitching them directly. I mean, maybe at the end of the videos, oh, hey, by the way, if you you know, you know that there may be some of that and that’s that’s fine, but they already found you. You didn’t find them. You didn’t pitch them first. So, and that is that is just beyond beyond huge. So tell us about passive prospecting.com. Levi Lascsak 55:06Yeah, it’s our website. I mean, the main thing we’re doing right there is directing people to sign up to be the first to know when we released the new book. So we have written the book passive prospecting it’s in. It’s in process right now, the publisher that we’re working with, has told us probably a February timeframe, as far as release. So right now, if you go to pass a prospecting.com, you’ll see on the homepage, you can just sign up and so that way, we’ll notify you as soon as the book releases. Because we do want to create some some emphasis and some push around whenever that launches, it’s going to be awesome, but it’s it’s 14 chapters, I mean, and so it’s, it’s a, it’s a lot, it’s a lot of information. And and we tell you, we talk about all the principles in the first half of the book, and the second half of the book is how to apply them, and how to build your own channel. So it’s really going to be really, I think, everything you need. Now the thing is, is you’ll be missing the visual component, which I think, you know, like, like we walk through people through a digital course, when we help them learn YouTube, which they can see. And it’s very easy. But the book, I mean, that some people learn from reading and writing, and so we walk them through everything that they need to get through that. And so we just talked about that. And and the cool thing is, is we got the foreword, the foreword was written by Ryan serhant. D.J. Paris 56:29Oh, wonderful. Well, that’s, that’s certainly some nice social proof, to help help help sell some books. And yeah, I need to get I need to see if I can get him on our show. We’ve, yeah, I just I haven’t talked for all the years I need to. But yes, but that’s amazing. Congratulations on that he’s not an easy get, we actually have had him booked a couple of times over the years, and then it just fell through. So that is really impressive. And I again, I just want to sort of wrap this up with, you don’t have to be, you know, you don’t have to have a special hook. You don’t have to be, you know, the TIC tock dancing family. Although, if that’s your hook, great. But what we’re all you all you can, you know, all you really need to do is focus on your expertise, which is hyperlocal real estate, think of the questions your current your clients ask you, when they move in or move out, think of the things they need the thing, and then you can pad there’s a million tools to look up search volume, take a look. And again, just the biggest mind shift, change that I’m making in this in this conversation is YouTube is not a place to watch videos, it’s a search engine, it’s a search engine first that happens to show you videos. And if I think of it that way, then it becomes a research and development tool. Versus and also, you know, you know, fun thing if I want to screw around on YouTube, but I can actually use it for research and development. Whereas Instagram, Facebook, and even Tik Tok, you’re at the mercy of either the people you already know, or in tic TOCs, you know, case a little bit differently, you know, they have a sort of a different algorithm set. But you know, Facebook is people you know, for the most part, maybe some people find you here and there through referrals, Instagrams essentially the same way. So all you’re really do and there’s nothing wrong with creating content for your your followers. But it’s not easy to sort of branch outside of those followers in those platforms. It’s really tough, because that’s just not what those platforms are for. Instagram tries to be a search engine. I don’t think it does that all that successfully. But certainly YouTube has as the cream of the crop, that’s where everyone goes to learn how to do and how to do something, or how or about something. You know, my my dad was like, he just, you know, he goes around and fixes things all over the house. He checks everything on YouTube first, like, like a lot of us do. So I absolutely love this. And we all have essentially 4k phones with incredible resolution, incredible clarity. You don’t even have to have necessarily really amazing equipment, what you do have to have is really amazing content, which is what you have if you’re a real estate agent who cares and actually works on their craft. You just take the information you already have and and apply it and make videos. Well, just real quickly, what’s the what have you found to be an optimal length or for your videos to before the or the audience stays engaged? Or do you find it’s kind of all over the board? Levi Lascsak 59:35videos need to be as long as they need to be. So give the information that’s needed to create the video. Don’t keep talking just to keep talking. So if the video is 12 minutes and 19 seconds, let it be that if it’s 15 minutes and 18 seconds. I mean I’ve I’ve even done an hour video on on the channel as an experiment. And it’s one of the most viewed and most watched videos on the channel. So the thing is, is again, when your audience is researching you, you have their attention because you know their intention. So when you know their intention, you will have their attention. And so longer form video, that’s what they’re there for. And that’s what gets people dialed in and builds that relationship for you. Because they watch more and more content, the longer they watch it, the more of the relationship they develop and deepen with you. So, so yeah, I mean, the shortest, maybe 10 minutes, the longest, I’ve done an hour and everything in between. So I, I make videos. And the thing is, I didn’t intentionally make an hour video, but I knew it was going to be a lot because I was going to cover a lot. And at the end of it, it was like, oh, that’s an hour. So, you know, it is what it is. And I thought, Well, we’ll see what happens. But again, still one of the most popular one the most viewed videos. So it just told me that okay, people are are dialed in when they’re researching. I mean, making a move is a big decision for a lot of people. And people do research that but think about how do they actually research that from before. I mean, we’ve also helped people move from Japan, from Belgium, from the Philippines, from Australia, from the UK, from South Africa, where what else would they have found us other than YouTube? I mean, do you think those people would have just randomly discovered our website? Or our Facebook profile? No, no, they they’re going to search Dallas first, because they’re moving here because of a job because of a better opportunity because of a transfer this or that, you know, and, and so they’re saying, well, um, what’s Dallas? Like, let’s go on YouTube and take a look, let’s see what Dallas looks like. And then guess what, all of our videos pop up over and over and over again. And so they’re like, hey, moving from Belgium, which we just got that email two weeks ago. And that’s what the lady said, used to live in Florida, lived in Belgium, the last six years now we’re getting transferred to Dallas. So D.J. Paris 1:02:00So So again, in essentially, one year, we’re talking 164 transactions, 90 million in production, almost 3 million in commissions. These results speak for themselves, I don’t need to say anything other than I want to read that book. So the best place and by the way, everybody needs to read this book, because even if you’re not a YouTuber, even if you’re not somebody that thinks this is a viable path, I am guessing that with the rate rates have have, you know, essentially doubled since since then I don’t like to even say rates have doubled, because they were such low, of course, they were going to double but regardless, it’s still a tricky time to generate leads. So if you’re doing the traditional methods, then you know, you’re going to just have a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, there’s only a certain percentage of your sphere of influence that are going to be buying or selling in the next 12 months. And you’re probably a little stressed about it right now, I know all of our agents are, this provides you even if you’re like, that’s not really what I I’m not really a online personality, it doesn’t, you don’t need to necessarily be an online personality, what you need to do, I mean, I don’t care who does, I watched the video last night, I had to replace a switch, I have like a smart switch, light switch, essentially. And it has a dimmer and whatever. So anyway, I had to switch it and I was like, I better just double check that I’ve got these wires, you know, connected correctly, or I’m gonna you know, blow up my whole home. And, and I watched a one minute video, it was a guy who was not a YouTube personality. But he had the most views for this particular, you know, wiring for outlet, it had like, 3 million views. And this was a one minute video, this guy could not have been less personable. And yet his content was good. And it was quick, and it works. And so even if you’re not somebody who’s like, Oh, I’m not as dynamic, maybe I’m more introverted, it doesn’t matter. You just have to have incredible content. And yes, you should learn how to make things look good and sound good. And you should be really intentional about, you know, the way you’re speaking. And there’s a lot to learn. But regardless, I just watched a video last night this guy basically saved my life. And he is not dynamic. So I just want to make that point that if you’re thinking about, you know, another way to generate income, because like, like Levi was saying, you can create a really great piece of content, it lives forever, it might generate traffic for a very long time, or even forever, I guess it could be. And so you have this opportunity to create something that last social media is very digestible, it’s very, it’s very transient, it comes and goes we do the infinite scroll it but YouTube stuff kind of lasts forever. Now something better might come along and replace you and then you can create another video to replace that person you know, so you know that can happen. But essentially, if it’s good, it lasts and I see this all the time like this video about replacing the electrical wiring. He made it like 10 years ago and it’s still the best video 10 years yours as you would think some electrician has got a better personality is more dynamic can make it I mean, this guy literally was literally it was just his webcam, he was holding it up, there was no production, and 10 You know, like 10 million views or something. So anyway, let’s let’s all visit passive prospecting.com Sign up to find out when the book is going to be released so that you can buy a copy. This is the year to learn how to generate content online. Let’s let’s do it. If you’re tired of just posting just listed and just sold things on Instagram that honestly nobody cares. You know, it’s nice, it’s cute, it’s fine. But you can actually provide real value to people on places like you know, different mediums like, like YouTube. So go to passive prospecting.com. Also subscribe to passive prospecting, watch what Levi is doing, you know, his own admission, hey, when he goes into a new industry, he seeks out the top. And then he goes, Hey, I wonder what that guy’s or that woman is doing. You can do the same thing with him, go to his YouTube channel, we’ll have links to both. As soon as the book is released, we’re going to be promoting it, of course, because we want our audience to have another stream of income, or sorry, another stream of leads, which I guess technically is another stream of income for 2023. And this is the year guys, I’m going to do it. So if I’m going to do it, you guys should do it too. We can do it together. Levi is is a guy to model and look and watch and follow. And he’s just a heck of a nice guy. And he served our country. So let’s let’s do let’s do him a solid, let’s follow him let’s let’s walk walk out for his book. And gosh, I can’t imagine there’s any of our listeners who wouldn’t love to have another, you know, 160 transactions like Levi has got from YouTube. So, guys, let’s do this. Levi, on behalf of everyone who is listening to our show right now, we thank you for not only your service to the country, but also your service to this industry. And being on this podcast is of service. This doesn’t benefit Levi. He’s just a nice guy who’s willing to share his secrets. And yes, of course, he has a book to promote because you should all buy it, because I’m gonna buy it. But we thank you for taking the time to tell us exactly what you do being as transparent as you are. You’re just really, really refreshing. Also, on behalf of Levi and myself, we want to thank everyone who’s listening or watching right now. We appreciate you. You’re the reason we keep doing these episodes. And please let’s support our guests go to passive prospecting.com. And the only thing we ever ask of you, aside from making sure our guests are taken care of is let’s help take care of the podcast. Just tell one other realtor about our show. One other realtor that needs to hear this episode with Levi, I know you know somebody in your office that could use this, send this to him, send him over our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from there or just pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it. Levi, thank you so much. This was wonderful, really great content a good reminder to me to change my tactics and my strategy. And we’re excited to chat with you in the future. So thank you. Levi Lascsak 1:08:07Thank you for having me. It was a it was a lot of fun. Appreciate you

Vickey Barron goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Vickey describes how honesty played a very important role in the process of getting her first clients. Next, Vickey extensively talks about the importance of authenticity and honesty. Vickey also shares her tips and advise she gives to newer agents. Vickey also talks about how she keeps in touch with old clients and the importance she gives to this part of her job. Last, Vickey talks about the biggest mistake she’s made in her career that she would change if given the chance. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Vickey Barron can be reached at 646-960-6183 and vbarron@compass.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00We know that honesty is the best policy, but how can honesty become your very best marketing tool? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide, and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top 1% Producer Vicki Baron. Before we get to Vicki, just a couple of quick reminders. First, thank you for continuing to support our show. If you want to help us grow. The best ways you can do that is first by telling a friend to think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing these episodes and send them a link over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever produced can be streamed right from a browser, no podcast app required. And of course, we’re also on all the podcast apps so feel, feel free to subscribe if you haven’t done that already. And also, please support our amazing sponsors theory they are the reason we can keep paying the bills and keep the staff happy and keep everything running. So please check out their products and services. Consider investing in them. I promise the products and services that are talked about on the show will help take your business to the next level. Okay, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Vicki Baron. Today on the show, we have Vicki Baron compass in New York City. Let me tell you more about Vicki. Now when Vicki Baron talks the real estate world listens she has earned the respect and admiration of her fellow brokers, along with an impressive base of buyers and sellers. Vicki has been featured in leading trade press articles and network TV shows including Wall Street Journal, the real deal, New York Times HGTV selling New York she’s also played a key role in the dramatic growth of the new development market in New York City by commanding and achieving record breaking sales prices, some marvel at how she is able to get it all done. Her answer is if you want something done, give it to a busy person I could not agree more. And by the way, Vicki’s super humble. She’s also been one of the top agents in New York City by volume, probably she is already as well. She’s been doing that before also in the country. She’s been one of the top agents, she is a very, very big deal. And we are so honored to have Vicki on the show. Vicki, welcome. Vickey Barron 3:56Thank you. And thank you for having me. And that’s a very nice introduction. And I just truly believe that if we all come together and just share, I tend to get involved a lot in our local board and helping agents. Some of them are new, some have been around for a long time, but kind of stumbling trying to figure out what to do and how to pivot. So anytime I’m invited to where we can have a candid conversation, because it’s not an easy business. But it can be a fun business if you don’t take yourself so seriously. And you just keep your eye on the ball and and remember that whatever you do, it’s all going to be fine. I just think there are too many people that end up with too much stress because ego gets in the way and a lot of pressure and I think that slows them down. So if I can do anything today is we’ll have a conversation and Share kind of how not to get into that trap, and a authentic and just have fun. And there’s a I’m a believer of abundance. So there’s enough business to go around, you just have to figure out what part of that business makes sense for you. D.J. Paris 5:18Well said, and I also want to just peel back the curtain for our listeners for a moment when I was chatting with Vicki just before we started, the very first thing she said, which, which is just really indicative of your character and, and, and your motivation, you were like, I just want to provide value to your audience and maybe help them I, I enjoy helping other realtors learn to do better. And obviously, you just said a version of that right now. And it is not always the case that when I have these types of interviews that I that I that people are as willing to to be helpful. So I think that is probably not a coincidence why you’re so successful. This act of like givers get to kind of kind of philosophy. So. And we should also mention, too, that Vicki is in the process of writing a book. And it’s not out yet. But I would encourage all of our listeners to make sure that when Vicki’s book does come out, we will be promoting it on our show, we’ll be promoting it on our Facebook group. And we will also anyone that’s interested can reach out to Vicki. And I’m sure she can put you on a list or or at least make you aware when the book is available. Because she is she is somebody who instructs agents. And so this this should be a very, very interesting and exciting book. So we’re happy to promote that once that happens. But Vicki, I’d like to start all the way at the back at the beginning to hear about how you got into real estate and why? Vickey Barron 6:45Well, when I was 2021 years old, I was not in real estate. But I did buy a very, very small piece of real estate in Southern California, because I realized, you know, why rent if you could buy. And to this day, I’m kind of confused why Bank of America gave me a mortgage, but they fortunately did. So I was able to put down a little down payment and and and got started and I bought it and I fixed it up, lived there for 10 months sold, it made a decent profit, I think I paid 59,000 and sold it for 79,000. So D.J. Paris 7:32like, Oh, that’s a nice return for 10 months Vickey Barron 7:35or so. And then I bought another one. And I kind of kept doing that. And people in California say you should get into real estate, you know, I just love looking at a property and seeing the potential. So I moved a lot, because this is kind of my hobby, so to speak. But I never really got into real estate, I worked in health care until I moved to New York City 22 years ago. And I thought I was coming to New York for two years. And I wanted to get to know the city. And I thought wait a minute, if I’m going to be in New York for two years, what better way to get to know the city than to get a real estate license and literally get to know the city. So I went and interviewed, my resume was not so impressive because no one wanted to hire me. And my favorite is a very large firm. The manager said to me, we don’t have a desk, call us back in a year. And I said, Wow, that’s so exciting that you don’t have a desk, you must be doing really well. And I’m thrilled to hear that. I have one question for you. She said, What’s that? I said, it’s very important for me to really find the right match the right house, if you will. So if you would be so kind to give me 10 minutes out of your day just to have an idea. I sit down quick chat, because if it’s the right fit, I’m willing to wait. And if it’s not, then I’ll accept a desk somewhere else. Does that make sense to you? She said yes. She invited me in. And when I sat in front of her. I seriously had a lot of questions because I had no idea. I didn’t know my way around New York. I didn’t have friends in New York. I didn’t have I mean, I used to come to New York, I worked in healthcare. So I would come for a lot of medical conferences, but I didn’t know anyone in New York. So I didn’t understand the lay of the land, period or real estate. So I said to her like, I have a question. You said you don’t have a desk but as I look around, I see a lot of empty desks. So where are these agents? Are they out selling Are they sleeping in or they will like can you help me understand how it works? And I must have had 20 different questions for her because I was really curious about how it all worked. And then I asked her, describe to me the top five agents in this office, who are they? What makes him tick? How do they function? And she answered it. And then I said, Now talk to me about the five agents that you’re contemplating getting rid of that a desk may open up that someday I’ll get to have, tell me about them. And she’s just started laughing. She said, You are hilarious. Like, you. You just first of all, she asked me if I had a resume. I said, don’t have a resume, you don’t have a desk. I thought, We’re doing an eyeball thing I didn’t, I wasn’t coming in for an interview, because you didn’t have a desk. I just wanted to meet you and say, Hello. So anyway, she offered me the position and I got started. And in that interview, I felt kind of bad. Like I tricked her because she offered me a desk after she said she didn’t have one. So I said, I should probably disclose it. I do not have any connections in New York, never sold real estate. I don’t. And Harriet on Park Avenue is not going to call me to sell her seven room. She said, Well, how are you going to get business? And I said, that is a very good question. And, honestly, I wish I had a good answer for you, but I don’t. But what I can tell you is I do understand people, and I understand business, and I’m confident I’ll figure something out. So fortunately, that really stupid answer, still got me a desk, because it didn’t sound very smart. Like I’m over here. No idea. Oh, D.J. Paris 11:25I want to jump in for a second. I actually do think it’s incredibly smart for one particular reason is it was it was honest. And I think this is an industry especially around the recruiting realtors or interviewing part where honesty doesn’t always flow both ways. And it doesn’t even flow one way sometimes. And I think I recruit realtors. And so I was just trying to put myself in the position of the woman that you were referencing. And I was thinking, I would love to have somebody come in with those with those kinds of questions. I would love it if people were asking, and that and being that honest, going out. Yeah, I don’t have in here’s what I don’t have. But I’m confident that I can get it figured out. So I actually think those were amazed. I mean, clearly they weren’t good answers in the sense that, you know, they wanted you on the team. But yeah, I know, you were sort of joking by saying they’re stupid answers. But I just I think those were great answers personally. Vickey Barron 12:18Well, thank you. But you know, what you just touched on that’s very important, is what I’m about to share with you next was truly the cracking the code, if you will, because so one would ask all right, so you got your desk, then what? Why was in a training class and I was sent home to do homework by calling three for sale by owners. And I procrastinated. I had an 11 year old at the time, and I was nine o’clock at night I went, Oh my word. I forgot my homework. And I can’t go in the class and lie and say I did it if I didn’t. And it’ll look disrespectful if I don’t do it. So I do quickly hop on a phone. And I got machines answer machines. And it was a woman that said, this is John and Mary. We’re not home right now, if you’re calling about the apartment, no brokers be. So I just instinctively I just wanted to get through my homework. I wasn’t trying to sell her apartment. I was like two hours in the business. So I said to her, Mary, hi, it’s me, Vicki. And here. Here’s the truth. I heard the part about no brokers, and I am an agent, but don’t hang up. Because the truth is, I just simply have a quick answer. I mean, quick question for you. And if you would be kind enough to call me back tomorrow before preferably before two o’clock. I promise it’ll be painless. Here’s my number look forward to the call. So then I went through and did my other two calls. And when I got in the class, they called upon me, how’d it go? I told them what happened. The whole class laughed. They said, you’re from California. This is New York, they’re gonna eat you a lie. You don’t leave a message. She’s never calling you back. And I kind of sunk in my seat. And I thought, Why is she not calling back? I was really kind on the phone. I think she’ll call me back. So it was so long ago, we really didn’t even have cell phones. And so I went back to my desk at lunchtime and the little red light was on. And sure enough, it was Mary. And when I called her back, she wasn’t so kind. She said you had you have a question? What is it? Well, I didn’t kind of think it through so I wasn’t sure what my question was. So I had to quickly I had to quickly come up with a question. So I just started asking her questions about her apartment. And I realized instantly she loved talking about her apartment. Like she just lit up like this lady’s went from Maine to nice and in a flat second. So then when she went on here, come To your point, the honesty, she said to me, I suppose you’re gonna tell me now you have a buyer for my apartment. And I said, Mary, honestly, with the windowed kitchen, the South views, the granite the subzero, I honestly wish I could tell you, I haven’t buyer for your apartment. But the honest truth is I, I’m thinking, I don’t even have a business card lady. I’m more or less a buyer. But I said, I don’t. I do not have a buyer for your apartment today. But Mary, doesn’t mean I won’t have one tomorrow. But I have to ask you one more question. She said, What is it? I said, You have been so generous with your time and so kind with your description of the apartment. First of all, I’m confused that it’s not sold. But that’s another story. I have one other question. Do you mind if I just poked my head in? I just want to see that kitchen with the window and that Southern view. I promise I won’t bother you. I just want to quickly look at it that way. If I come across a buyer, at least I can say I’ve seen it. She said okay, sure come by at 430. And when I went by all I had was a tablet and a pin. I mean, again, I was now maybe eight hours in the business. So I walked through her apartment, and I just had an honest conversation and I didn’t try to sell her I in fact I encouraged her I’m like you are going to sell this winter, next open house, how’d you get your pricing? And do you mind if I give you a few tips and I took notes about the apartment and then I gave her a few tips, open your blinds, pick up that pile of stuff and you marry you are going to have to So next week, I gotta go. And she called me within two weeks. And she woke up and said, I have I don’t want to be a realtor and I want to hire someone and you were so kind and so honest, that my husband, I would like to meet with you. So that’s how it started. It was I got started through the for sale by owners. And then one would refer another refer another and then I just kept calling fizz bows. And that’s how I started. D.J. Paris 17:10So it’s really an incredible story for a lot of different reasons. But again, that authentic honesty, all radical honesty, maybe we’ll call it although I just think honesty would suffice. I know there’s a new term radical honesty, I think, what does regular mean? If not, if not fully honest, but but that’s a perfect example of telling the truth, and really appealing to somebody from a non sales perspective, which I think not, the vast majority of people, myself included, do not like to be sold, I like to be explained, I like information, I like to also make my own decisions. And I don’t like to feel pressure. Now there is a certain subset of the population that likes to be persuaded. And that’s fine. But I don’t think that’s the majority of people. So I actually think that is a great approach for all arrow all of our listeners to consider and clearly it worked for you. And so from there, you you, you got your license, you started finding clients, and and then, you know, you continued to grow and you didn’t just grow in a small way you grow in a very, very, very, very big way. So why do you think it was that that you got to be one of one of the very top producing agents in New York City when there’s 1000s upon 1000s? What do you think it is that maybe you did differently than, than the other brokers or agents that you know? Vickey Barron 18:33Well, I think what I really think about it, which I have putting this book together, you know it, it’s the best therapy ever, because you you take the time to reflect and try to, you know, look at where you were, where you’re at and where you’re going. And when I really think about it, I think for me, it was almost a breath of fresh air because the people responded well, to just someone that saw them and cared about them. And I was curious about so much that. I mean, I really didn’t know what I was doing. So there was no ego because how can you have an ego when I truly note when I think back and I’m like how did I even do? And I say this not Not to brag only to encourage anybody because I swear to you if I can do it, anybody can do it. So I think I did like 20 deals in my first nine or 10 months and credible and it was you know, they were all lower price because most for sale by owners are not, you know, $5 million. So they were all you know, I think when I got started, they were three four or $500,000 and I just kept going and going and I worked really hard. But I loved every moment of it. Because each opportunity, I believed in my heart, that they would be better off. And I do believe this for for sale by owners, they think it’s better to sell on their own. And I really believe they will make more money if they identify the right agent to partner with. Because that agent, if they do what I know they’re capable of doing, when it’s time to close, whatever that commission check is, will be less. If you get the right agent to partner with you, I really do believe that I don’t think they make more money trying to sell on their own. So I believe that and I think they just learned to trust in me. And that’s I started to get 96% of my business, all referrals. So I am not the agent doing I don’t do postcard mailers, I don’t do I sometimes I think I’m a little lazy, because maybe I should be doing that. But I don’t, there are only so many hours in the day. And I feel that if I take the time to really care about someone and take care of them and go the extra mile, then they will tell their friends and their neighbors and and then the phone will ring and then I can take care of that next person. So that’s been my model, although I do have colleagues that are very successful on the marketing campaign that do mass mailers. So I applaud them and everyone has to find the lane that makes sense for them. D.J. Paris 21:38Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. I was thinking while you were saying that about demonstrating care, I always think that’s maybe maybe the most one of the most important parts of the job is demonstrating empathy and also managing not managing your clients, fears or anxieties, but But understanding them and being able to counsel them through large financial decisions buying selling maybe the largest financial decision they’ve ever made, certainly one that comes with with a lot of a lot of unfortunate stress, even in the best possible two types of transactions. It’s still stressful. And I’m I’m curious because you are such a student of human nature and just people how you went about trying to make sure your clients were as comfortable as possible throughout the process? Because of course there are ups and downs and most transactions if not all, and there are going to be times when when the clients, you know, dealing with some some undue stress or just freaking out. But how do you how do you do that? Because I suspect you do that better than a lot of other agents? Vickey Barron 22:48Well, first of all, that’s a great question. Because the truth is, and I say this many times agents, you can have seller A is a banker, seller B is an artist and seller C is a widow that never had a day job. If your conversation is exactly the same with all three of them, you may get lucky and hit one. But you have to in an authentic way. And I tell people this when I’m on Park Avenue selling a $12 million listing or I’m in the village selling a really cool fifth floor walk up. I’m still Vicki present at both of them. But one may be an artist, one may be a banker. My choice, you know, the power of words is one of the classes I love teaching that you have to know how to communicate with someone and what their needs are and how they’re going to hear you. And it’s always good to ask people how do you like to be communicated with? What is your and here’s another thing talk about honesty. There was a pretty big listing and a woman said to me, Vicki, I have I shouldn’t be admitting this, but it’s the truth. She said fishy. I’ve noticed that the other two agents for interviewing when I emailed them, they respond like that. And when I email you, you take a really long time to get back to me. And I said to her Oh, Nancy, you know what, it’s honestly the truth. What you’re saying? And I would love to tell you right now, like if you hire me that that’s going to change but it may not change. So she looked shocked. And I said like can I explain why? And she said Why? And I said you know I’ve been in your living room for 45 minutes. I haven’t looked at my phone once. I said so when I’m with you. You have me 100% And when I’m with a buyer they have me 100% When I’m showing someone through your apartment I’m not Looking at my Instagram, I’m not looking at my email. I’m looking at them. I’m listening to them, I’m answering their questions, and they have me. So unfortunately, some people, maybe I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, I’m not good at that. I just can’t do it. It’s not my forte. But if you ever need me, I have someone at the office, you can call they know how to get a hold of me. But please know that I’m here and I care. But I’m not going to win the contest of getting back so quickly on that email. And she hired me, but it was the truth. It was just, you know, and another one talk about truth. I was on a townhouse listing. And this is actually funny, the woman said to me, you know, Vicki, I really, really in my heart, I’d like to hire you. But I think I’m gonna hire this other agent. And I said, Okay, well, if you feel that that’s the right fit for you, then I’m sure. You know, I’m sure that they will do a great job. She said, Because the other agent specializes in townhouses. And I and she pointed out to me that on your website, you have things for sale for $350,000, like studios and stuff like that. And she only has really expensive townhouses. And that’s what he specializes in. He’s a vice president, and you’re whatever I was at the time, D.J. Paris 26:26what are you associate or whatever? Yeah. Vickey Barron 26:30And I said, Oh, I am. So you know what you just made my day? She said, I did. I said, Yes. I feel so good. Right now you have no idea. She said, why I said, Because I said to myself, when I entered the business, I never want to become that person that feels that there’s so important that they, they forget about everyone, because everyone needs a place to live. And I want to be able, if you call me and your knees once that fifth floor studio apartment, I want to be able to take care of them. So I hope 20 years from now, you’ll see a low end apartment for sale, which today, if you get on mine, I’m sure I have one right now. So I said, it just means a lot to me. But thank you so much for sharing that. Well, then I went back to my office and I told my manager what happened? And he said, Vicki, you’re a senior vice president. I said, I am. He said, your numbers, you don’t have that on your website. I said, What does it even mean? I don’t understand what are these titles? And he said, No, you’re a senior vice president. So I call the woman back. And I said, Listen, I just wanted to tell you, I not only do I appreciate your comment about the lower end apartment on my listing, but then that whole scene, apparently I’m a senior vice president. And so I didn’t even know that his titles are rotten. Not really that important to me. But apparently they are to some people. And thank you so much for bringing, so she called me and hired me. D.J. Paris 28:00Hilarious. That is and and I think there’s there’s sort of two, two lessons to learn here, which is number one, to have an answer. Ready. That’s an authentic well, to have an answer ready. If somebody were to say something like that, like, oh, this other agent, you know, thought maybe they’d be a better fit because they thought you specialized in this and we really have that and maybe you’re not. And your answer was was beautiful, and also honest. And I think again, that sort of ego less approach, and that full honest approach really resonates with people who don’t want to be sold. And also, you know, like, it’s funny, my my title is President of Sales and Marketing. And people go, Ooh, that sounds impressive. Like I made that up. Like, it’s not a real thing. It’s, you know, I guess if you say it long enough people think it’s something but but but it’s it is it is true. Like every lender is a vice president, every loan officer right now is vice president. And so yeah, but but it’s a really good point. And I think it’s also a lesson of playing nice in the sandbox, this idea of putting other firms down or other agents down whether it’s, you know, subtly like maybe this person did which was which you know, really rubs me the wrong way when people people do that. But there are people out there who will and so I appreciate that and I’m sure you know you teach agents to to be their authentic selves and to not and like you said there is no competition so there’s enough business for everyone there’s there’s the right fit for anyone. And And I’m curious on you know what you’ve what you’ve seen new agents do because you had pretty immediate success with no sphere of influence, no understanding of the New York market, limited understanding of real estate, you know, you did your own buys and sells which is amazing. And that is that is legitimate experience of course. But doesn’t necessarily translate to helping other homeowners as easily as Oh, look at my resume of all these beautiful homes I’ve listed and sold. But I’m curious on on what you tell agents who are entering the business who, you know, really want to have, you know, quicker success. there any tips or advice that you might give them? Vickey Barron 30:21Yes. Here’s, I feel very strong about this. I see a lot of agents that have analysis paralysis, you know, they, they, they look great. They come in the office, they sit there there, but they don’t move like what are you doing? I walked by, what are you doing? They’re thinking and they’re paralyzed of not making a move, because they’re afraid they’re gonna do something wrong, not to a right. And they also go after the other thing I say, here are things that I see that I wish I could say just stop that. One. They don’t shoot for the moon, like, why are you been in the business a month, and you’re going after 10 $15 million listings? Like your why just go sell 10 In a price point that you probably don’t have a better chance getting because those 10 15 million are going to have agents with a resume on arm or street long. So why would you put that pressure on yourself? Number one, number two, no, get to know property. Go look at every property. So when I was relatively new, the manager that didn’t have a desk that hired me, asked me to give a tour. She said, Vicki, we have a van, we’re going to go out and look at like 10 properties. And I just think you would be really good at giving the tour. So I have a problem saying no. Like I had zero what? I don’t know why she asked me but I just said yes. So on the tour. We were going I said, ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to go to 103 is 73rd Street and it was built in 1929. And you’re gonna see that, you know, 40% of the apartments have double height ceiling. And what I love the most is the bay windows and what and the doorman is amazing. And the tile in the lobby is gorgeous. After that, we’re going to have the opportunity to see bah, bah, bah, that was built 1960. And people said, what firm did you work for before you worked here? I said I didn’t work at any firm. They said how do you know that? I said because I would walk up and down the streets. And I look at the buildings I talked to the doorman then I go back and I’d ask how many apartments are in there? When was it built? So I tell agents start if you’re going to get one listing. Let’s say it’s a one bedroom, prewar apartment, you should know as the the if a buyer is out there today looking for the one bedroom, if there are 10 available, you should go visit every one of them. And today, if you can’t physically get in, at least get online and study your competition, study those apartments, so you should know them inside now. So I was actually successful at converting. When I’d have a listing buyers would come in, and they’d be without an agent. And I’d watched them walk around and I’d ask them questions I’d say talk to me. I have a question for you. How long have you been looking? Has it been two months? Six months? Are you ready to jump? Or where are you at? Oh, no, we just started. Well, how many apartments have you seen today? Three. Interesting. Have you seen the one on 79th? Street? They said yes. They said Don’t you love that view out of the back? Was that not special? Love that. And the herringbone floors? Love that. So then what else? Have you seen? No, we wouldn’t saw this other one. What did you like about it? Well, we like this, what did you hate about it? I like you have a conversation. And they know that you know, the lay of the land. But I have agents that when you go to show an apartment, they don’t even know the building and the they’re selling an apartment, but they don’t even know the answers to simple questions. So you have to do your homework. And you have to be interested enough to know you have to be knowledgeable. D.J. Paris 34:28I have a I have a yes, I have a question with respect to showing a property to a buyer. And I know this isn’t always going to be the case where you as the buyer’s agent will be able to see the property ahead of time but how often do you say hey, I’m bringing a buyer here tomorrow I want to get a lay of the land. I want to come in and see the property so that when I my buyer does show up, I have a better understanding of what is the is that I don’t know how common that practice is for Go ahead Vickey Barron 35:00I’m gonna another, you ask really good questions. See? Why, okay, I told you I didn’t know my way around New York, I had a buyer came into a place I had listed. And he this had never happened. And it’s never happened since. But he asked me to go to his office, he wanted to interview me. Now normally you get interviewed for if you’re going to be the listing agent not to work with the buyer. But he wanted to interview me because he wanted to find the right agent to help he and his wife buy an apartment. So I’m sitting in Midtown. And he said, you know, my wife and I are kind of thinking about Tribeca. Now I was maybe four months in the business. I Tribeca, I heard of it, but I never sold in Tribeca. D.J. Paris 35:50Was there a film festival there that? Vickey Barron 35:53He said, I’d like to go out next week and look at places in Tribeca. Are you for? Or have you? What did he say? Are you familiar? Have you sold in Tribeca? You don’t need to lie. But there’s a way to answer a question with confidence. I said, Oh, I love that idea of Tribeca. Love that idea of Tribeca, I didn’t say I had sold in Tribeca, I didn’t know say I knew were Tribeca was I said I love the idea of Tribeca and let’s plan on Saturday. So what I did is I did the search, I went out early the day before went to as many of them that I could. And then what I did is I hired a driver, because in Tribeca, it’s not like Midtown, where it’s all numbers. Like I thought, I’m gonna look foolish when I walk out of one building, not know if I should turn left or right. D.J. Paris 36:52So yeah, that’s a great point. Vickey Barron 36:55And then if he starts asking me questions about where the local grocery store is, I don’t know I don’t just my first time there. So I hired a driver that knew Tribeca, like the back of his hand. And I said to him, here’s the drill this what’s going to happen, I’m gonna have a buyer in here. And he or his wife may ask questions about Tribeca. And when those questions come up on you, and you’re gonna be answering them, get it, he’s like, good. I gave him a high five. I’m like, we’re gonna have fun. So when we got in the car, we went to the first lesson I said, Now the first listing, I love the lobby, you’re gonna love them mosaic floor, and I introduced myself to the doorman the day before. So when he saw me, it was like a familiar face. So when we walked in, we showed the apartment, you just do your homework and spend the time without being, you have to be honest, but you it’s okay. If you’re new, they’re not asking no one asked me, How long have you been in the business ever? Well, no, that’s not true. Actually. Someone asked me when I got a listing, why would I give $2 million to someone that’s been in the business for 14 days? did ask me that? And I said, D.J. Paris 38:12which which I think is a reasonable question. Vickey Barron 38:14Yeah. I said for three very good reasons. He said, he said, why? I said, Well, number one, I I’m on, you’re under a good umbrella, meaning the firm, we we have all the tools in the tool box that you need. Number two, I am willing, because I knew he was insecure about me. So I said, I am willing to bring on the number three agent in my office for you as insurance. And number three, I will be holding that umbrella and I simply bring magic. And he said, You didn’t even blink. And I lean forward and I said nor did you and he gave me the listing. So sometimes you just have to have confidence. And if he doesn’t hire me, I’m not going to die. Like nothing bad happens. And when I’m changing listings, why can’t you celebrate them? Like send him a note and say I’m so happy for you that you got that Listen, you’re gonna knock it out of the ballpark. D.J. Paris 39:20I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests? 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So you can try it risk free, but only if you use this special link, visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, yes, boy, I’m just reeling from that. I was thinking if you wrote that scene into a script in Hollywood, they’d write back especially with the neither did you blink. I think they’d go well, that’s not realistic. So we’re not gonna It’s too dramatic. But that’s but but but it is. It is. That’s what happened. And and I wanted to ask you, because the, a lot of times agents I think get caught in that. You know, they don’t know how to respond to a question like that. Do you rehearse in your mind answers to objections? I don’t even want to call them objections, questions. We’ll just call them questions. Vickey Barron 41:20Never. Never. In fact, an agent had invited me on a pitch, which I was confused about also, because I wasn’t sure I didn’t know what I was doing. But she said, I think you should come with me. I’m trying to get this listen, I think you will help. I said that. So kind of you grave. Tomorrow, we’ll go. So tomorrow came, we get in the elevator, and she was really nervous. Like I could tell she was really nervous. So she said to me, are you nervous? And I said, No. But why do you ask? She said, Well, I always get nervous before I go on a pitch. And she said, Did you rehearse? So then I said, rehearse what? She said, Well, did you rehearse your pitch? Well, I didn’t know. That’s a thing, like rehearse a pitch. So I said to her, Well, no, rehearse a pitch. So then she looked even more nervous, like he or she invited me on and I didn’t rehearse. So I said, I was serious. I said, you rehearsed a pitch. She said, Yeah. I said, How could you possibly do that? She said, How could you not? I said, Well, how do I know what I’m going to say? If I don’t know who’s behind the door? Like I don’t? I don’t understand that. I said, I mean, I look at comps, but don’t rehearse, like what I’m going to say because I don’t know, when she opens the door. How do I know? How do I? So then I got nervous, because I thought if this is what I’m gonna have to do like to be in the business. I’m not sure. Like, I cannot memorize a script or I would, it would be horrible. So anyway, when we went in, the woman opened the door. And she had a storyboard from the Micronesia Island, which I had worked for many years. And I was familiar with it. So it was unbelievable. Like the door opened up. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, is that from the Micronesia and D.J. Paris 43:20I know what that is. Yeah. Storyboard. So started the conversation. Vickey Barron 43:23And then there was a book on the shelf that I we started talking about that. And then we left the woman said, you, you never really did a pitch. And I said, Well, I asked her, I asked her a lot of questions like why are you selling what’s important to you? Talk to me, have you gone through the process before? And she just felt comfortable? And she hired us, but I didn’t do No, I don’t rehearse? D.J. Paris 43:49Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s really true. So you, you would you go in and meet someone for the first time. You’re just looking to get a better sense of who they are, maybe by scanning kind of the room scanning, who they are paying attention to what they say, how they talk about and then just asking a ton of questions. And it is, it really is, I think the biggest compliment you can give someone by is by asking them about themselves. Not everyone. Now, some people are more closed and are want to just do business, and that’s fine. But I think the vast majority of us, especially this time, as we’re now sort of being able to get back together in person over the last year. I think people are hungry for you know, interaction, and we I don’t think we asked each other as much about our lives anymore, because social media sort of taken that part of it away where we now if I want to know if my friends been on a vacation, I don’t have to ask him I can just look on Instagram or Facebook assuming that they posted and I think that it’s taken away some of that. Some of the inquisitiveness that that We used to have about each other. And I think that that’s that that’s a really an important skill to to cultivate, if you’re an agent is, you know, really being curious about who that person is, how they, how they tick, what’s what’s, you know, important to them. And and, and it seems like that’s something that you really sort of plant your flag firmly in the ground, if it’s like, I want to get to know you. And that seems to be very effective for you. Vickey Barron 45:25And also, I think when agents go in to do a presentation, I think it’s so unfortunate that they spend the majority of their time doing an infomercial, they spend the majority of their time wanting to talk about how great they are, and what their numbers are, and why they’re the best and why they need to hire them. And instead of taking that precious time to really understand who this person is, and what their needs are, and, and are you the right fit for them. Because sometimes we’re not, like there’s sometimes like they, they shouldn’t hire me like it is not the right fit. And why not just say that? You know how powerful that is. If you say to someone say, You know what, I? I’ve heard you today, and it’s and then repeat. This is what? And I have to tell you, as much as I’d like to do this, I’m not sure if I were in your shoes, I’d hire me I actually, I have someone in mind, I’m gonna have you, you should call them. They’re like blown away by like, yeah, what is that, but I think I’m not gonna have fun on this assignment. We don’t connect. I don’t like your apartment, and I don’t understand it. And why did you buy it in the first place is what I’m thinking, but they have to sell it, but I don’t want to be the one selling it. Because it’s, it’s, there’s someone else that could sell it, that might be a better fit. D.J. Paris 46:52I almost wonder if you’ve ever turned down and a listing or a buyer and had them. So because again, I think back to the times where I’ve worked with salespeople or service people who are vying for business. And the number of times somebody has said, I’m not the right fit for you. But I know someone else is a one maybe one time in my life, but probably zero. I can’t think of any instance. But it is it is such an important again, it goes back to this honesty thing. I was like Sorry. My question was going to be I wonder if you’ve ever turned someone down who has then gone on to refer business to you even though you didn’t necessarily help them. I? If that hasn’t happened? I’m sure it will happen at some point. Vickey Barron 47:35Yes. And you know, what else happened that I think could be helpful for any listeners is there was a for sale by owner not willing to pay a fee at all, he was not going to pay $1. But my neighbor wanted to see the apartment. So I said to him, do you mind? Can my neighbor come tonight at seven o’clock after work to see your apartment? He said Do you understand? Let me repeat this again, you are not going to get paid $1 I am not paying any commission to any agent. I said, I have heard you loud and clear. Do you mind if I just bring her in at seven o’clock? He said why would you do this? And I said Well, number one, she’s asked to see it. Number two, she wants my opinion. And number three, if she buys it, you will never forget me. Yeah, good point. And he so I went in and met them. And my neighbor called me she worked at McGraw Hill. And she said she was like 45 minutes late. And I called her and she said I’m so sorry, I had a client come in, I’m not gonna be able to make it. Well, you know what, that forsale better? D.J. Paris 48:49Sure I know what you’re doing. I see what you’re doing. Vickey Barron 48:53I was mortified. mortified. So I made her get on the phone with him. I’m like, Okay, you need to talk to him right now because he’s gonna think I made you up. So they talked so then he he left a message on my phone that night at midnight. And he said, We want to give you the listing. I was shocked. And I said, Why would you do that? He said you were so brutally honest. Like you i We couldn’t believe how honest you were that he? And I said, Well, the truth is so then my neighbor got mad that I got the listing. I said, Don’t worry, I carved your name out if you buy it. You don’t have to pay me a penny. But she didn’t buy it and we sold it. And there was another example with him paying us our fee. He still made more money. So I really do believe for sale by owners should call every one of you on this call. D.J. Paris 49:46I love that because those are expireds for sale by owners. Those are tough calls and you do deal with some abuse when you make those phone calls and but I think that’s also a good thing to go go through, just to get some battle wounds because you realize, oh, that didn’t kill me, somebody yelled at me told me to eff off or whatever they may have said, they may just hang up, or I said, No agents or whatever it happens, and then you realize, oh, I survived that it’s okay. And, you know, I authentically tried to help this person they weren’t interested, not the end of the world. And what most for sale by owners do is they inflate as you know, I’m not telling this to you, of course, but to our listeners, for anyone that is scared for sale by owners tend to inflate their their property price without realizing that they don’t know they’re doing it. They think it’s worth X. And by the way, we all do this, I think even realtors can do this. And they, they’re probably not going to sell it because they’ve inflated the price. So at some point, I think the stats aren’t they don’t have them in front of me is that the vast majority of for sale by owners end up hiring someone anyway at some point, and it ends up selling for more if they hire a good agent. So that’s not really a great pitch. I think I don’t think somebody would be receptive to saying those kinds of things on on the phones. Did you know that if you hire me, you’re actually going to sell it for more, they’re not going to believe you. But if this idea of Radical Honesty is Oh, my gosh, that’s I just I just love it. I I’m curious if you’re willing to share any of the book that you’re currently working on? Because now I’m super interested in, in what this book is going to be? Do you mind just giving our audience a little taste of what’s coming? Vickey Barron 51:27It’s it’s really just a it’s no surprise? Yes, it is. I don’t even i i Sometimes I think why am I doing this because I’m just telling stories from early on my my life journey, if you will. And what I do hope that a reader gathers after reading it, is you start to see I’m very consistent. So what I did when I was 14 2240s 50s, I It’s hasn’t changed, like the recipe is pretty consistent. And it doesn’t matter where you are in life. It’s just caring about the other person, and being brave enough to ask the question, and also being aware of your weaknesses, because we’re all not super man or super women, you know, we’re just, we’re just people, and we’re flawed. And we’re not so special. And we’re not, you know, it’s, it’s okay, like, just accept who you are, and, and do the best you can, and try to be the best version of you, but care about other people. And you don’t need to bump them and step on them to make yourself feel better and get ahead. And if you actually don’t do that, somehow you you end up in a better spot. D.J. Paris 53:00Yeah, well, I agree with all that I have three final questions for you, I think three things I wanted to get to, but forgot. And so I just remembered. So want to get a get your perspective on these. You are very active in, in, in the in the community, you you participate, you give back, you volunteer at the local level. I don’t know if you also do the state or the national level, I suspect those opportunities come your way as well. How so? I’m going to preface before I get to my question by saying I avoided really being part of our local association and giving back in that way for for many, many years I’ve been doing. I’ve been in this industry since 2011. Or Yeah, somewhere around there. And anyway, I, I thought to be sort of bit honest, myself, I thought, well, if I do get involved, and I serve on some committees, well, you know, I’ll be doing good. And that’s a good thing. And I’ll be contributing and that’s good. But also, you know, maybe more people will know heard or hear about our firm just by nature of me being part of this, you know, committee and maybe that would ultimately help me indirectly in recruiting. Not that that was the primary reason. Well, I’ve been participating at the local level for about three years now. It really has not helped me in recruiting because but I continue to do it and now I’m even getting more and more involved. For one reason and I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. Which is that I have tried I get a lot of fulfillment from participating at the local level being part of the industry being being in community with with other agents that are trying to make things better. And even if it never results in somebody coming to our firm going oh I know you from the association I should join your firm which by the way has never happened and probably never will. But I I am so happy to be around other realtors who are all trying to you know to do the best they can and do the best for other realtors and I’m curious if you get a tremendous amount of fulfillment in the same way that I just mentioned for being part of giving back to the local associations. Vickey Barron 55:06I do I you can probably tell I’m a storyteller. I love stories. I think that when stories are being shared and told, there’s value in those stories, so when I’m able to get agents up on stage to do role playing, by the way, some if we could film them, we could have a sitcom because some of them are hilarious. And one of my favorite, which I’m going to share, because I don’t want anyone on this call doing some of this is hilarious. I said to someone, what do you take, if you’re invited into someone’s home there? You’ve never met them before. And you made a cold call for an example. And they invited you in? What do you take with you? And here’s some of the answers I’ve gotten. One said, I take flowers. So flowers Interesting, okay, flowers, someone else said, a bottle of wine. Okay, you take a bottle of wine. Someone else said candy. Someone else said a pitch packet. So I get them all. And then I get to come up on stage. And I say, Let’s roleplay this. So you’ve never met this person. You knock on the door, you ring the bell, they open it, and you say, here’s some flowers, or here’s a bottle of wine. It’s like it. It’s It’s awkward. They don’t awkward. Why are you bringing them these? They don’t know you? You know, it’s it’s just now personally, this may be shocking, but I do not give closing gifts. Never. I feel that’s awkward. I do not. I feel like I just sold an apartment. And you know, you can get a good size check. And I’m going to give them a bowl, or a keychain awkward. Like I don’t do it. I know a lot of people do and good luck. And I think it’s fantastic. Keep doing it. I’m not suggesting that you don’t. But for me, it doesn’t feel right. However, they get stuff from me for 10 years in a row like we’ve closed on the apartment. And I am known for sending handmade cards and unique gifts. But I don’t go to Tiffany’s and buy 200 Anything. I think if I sold your house and your pianists in fact, this happened, a woman was a pianist and I found a vintage scarf with piano keys on it. And I bought it and wrote a note and sent it to her. So you have to really another one’s a golfer and I found a bronze little golf statue and it’s on his fireplace. So I’m thoughtful in stay once I sell you something you don’t get rid of me. So you will hear from me consistently throughout the years. D.J. Paris 58:01I’m curious, how do you stay in touch with with clients in between transactions so that they don’t forget about how wonderful you are? Vickey Barron 58:12I that’s probably my it’s what I do like the like Halloween was just here. So I went through my list. And I’m like, All right, let me look who has kids between the age of two and 12. And this year, I had custom cookies made and mailed them to the kids. And all I write on the card by the way is boo, there’s no compass, like call me for, you know, if you D.J. Paris 58:43best compliment is your referrals. Vickey Barron 58:47None of that ever, ever, ever. So another year on Halloween, I had custom little pumpkins may with the child’s name embroidered on it so they could put the candy in it. And then I get photos of their kids with the cookies or the basket. And you know, it’s it just I I find small businesses and I like to smart support small businesses. There’s a peanut butter company that has and I had custom boxes made and put the peanut butter in there. And I said the markets nuts spread the love and a little handwritten note, but never like call me for free market analysis. By the way, I think I want to start charging for market analysis. D.J. Paris 59:27Don’t you think that’d be interesting. Vickey Barron 59:29I like that. Like everyone’s like here call me for a free market analysis. I might send a mail around say for $1,000. I’ll tell you what your apartments were. When That’d be funny. I wonder if it’s legal? D.J. Paris 59:42I don’t know. It’s an interesting idea. I know that people don’t value free things like they do things they pay for I mean that’s but I picked up on something that I’m sure audience picked up on is you said and this is such a great a great, small thing that I want to make sure it doesn’t get overlooked by our audience, you said, I think, you know, our Halloween came was coming up. So I went through my CRM or my database. And I wanted to find out who has children that are between the ages of two and 12. I wonder what percentage of agents even have that information? And I’ll bet you it’s under 2% of the of the realtors out there have that information on their clients. And that is important critical information to be able to think of a reason to stay in touch, right? If you’re just going, Wow, they sold their home four years ago, maybe they’re in the market to maybe I should reach out and see what their plans are. Okay, fine. But what are you going to do year two, year three, where you’re like they’re not moving, you have to have reasons to reach out. And the more opera, the more data you have, the more information you have, allows you to think be fun and creative and go, Oh, it’s back to school time. Maybe I’ll put some a little, you know, kids who are entering, you know, grade school, I know that. So maybe I’ll be able to, you know, put a little care package or whatever it could be anything. Knowing knowing what holidays people celebrate, right? If you’re going to be doing things for the December holidays, there’s several of them. You know, and of course, in New York City, there’s so many different cultures melding together, you can’t just blanket send out a Hanukkah card or a Christmas card. I mean, you need to know these things. Vickey Barron 1:01:19Okay, you just struck something. So here, there are two categories, you’re absolutely 100% Correct. If just like you need to really study that, that building, like if you’re at a cocktail party, and they bring it that address, you should say built 1927 46 units, majority, two bedroom, blah, blah, blah, when you have your buyers, I learned this when I took a acting class years ago, the the teacher asked me a question. They said, you know, the character, was she a vegan? Like, and I’m thinking myself going through the plate and talk about that. And he said, You need to know everything about that person, you need to know where they shop at Kmart or where they shop at Bergdorf? Would they ride a bike? Or would they get? Would they get a private car? Would they go hiking? Would they go to the theater? You need to and that’s what I do with my clients. So if I meet a client, I think to myself, I’m, I’m asking questions and learning who they are. And what’s important to them. I watch if they drink coffee or tea if they don’t you go out? No, no, they only drink tea. You don’t send them coffee. If they have pets, write the pet’s names down. I one year, I had custom things done with the painting of their animal on it and in the name and sent that out. So whatever it is, like you, you listen, you know, I had one client that was allergic to nuts, well, don’t send them the peanut butter. Right? So you’re D.J. Paris 1:02:51sending them, send them an epi pen, but send them a peanut butter on top of Vickey Barron 1:02:56medicine. So anyway, it is important to even here’s another thing, my cards, I have different cards. They’re like there’s let’s say a war. Warhol, you’re not, that’s not I may not send that to a certain group, I may send a foil stamp beautiful, elegant stationery to one and a really artsy to another, they don’t get the same thing. My clients do not get the same stuff. Because they’re different people. D.J. Paris 1:03:30Because you know enough about them to be able to compartmentalize them into or individual individualize them, I guess it’s better the better way to say it to say, Okay, this person’s into this and everybody. Everybody wants to feel special. Everyone wants to feel like a celebrated individual. And it sounds like that’s, that’s part of part of how you operate your business. Boy, you’ve said so much. I just have one final question. I was going to ask you about 2023. But I actually, I don’t want to do that because I want to I have a different question I wanted to ask, which is what mistake What’s the biggest mistake you made in your career? Not necessarily the biggest, you know, maybe you lost a listing or I’m not talking about that, but what what, what’s something that if you could go back to your earlier self as they, as you started in real estate, what’s advice that you would have given yourself that maybe you didn’t know back then Vickey Barron 1:04:22I allowed my business to drive me instead of me driving my business. And what I mean by that is I got I mentioned to you the volume early on with the fizz bows. And I didn’t stop to really plan and pivot earlier on I could have gotten to a certain point earlier on. If I had taken the time to methodically think about where I wanted to be. Instead I was kind of buried in weeds in the in the trenches. And I just kept plugging along plugging along without stopping to make adjustments. So D.J. Paris 1:05:11working working in the business versus working on the business kind of scenario, right? Vickey Barron 1:05:15Correct. That’s what I’d say. If I had to do over again, I would have done. I could have, I could have done that better. D.J. Paris 1:05:27And I think it’s a really what’s a wonderful answer for the time of year we’re at. Because I think this is a time when often sort of activity slows down transactions slow down holidays are here, they’re taking a lot of our attention. And it’s a good time to reflect, I think, on sort of where we want to go for 2023 and beyond. But just to sort of, I think that’s a great point, for anyone out there that’s immersed in their business, make sure that you carve some time out every so often to really reflect on because you are running your own business. Vickey Barron 1:06:00Right? And here, can I give a couple other tips, please, you’re running your own business. So one invest in the business, I find agents don’t want to spend money investing in their business, that’s crazy. What kind of business doesn’t like put money in capital up? Number two, everyone on this call, especially with 2023 Coming, save money, save, save, save your money, because what happens is when the market gets tough, the agents that were able to prepare and have a nest egg, have less pressure when those deals fall apart. And buyers walk. They don’t freak out. You know, so many agents, I always say like you see them and sellers and buyers, they need a grounded person, they don’t need someone on the edge that’s worried about paying their rent or their mortgage, and they can’t make they’re so focused on the commission, that it kills deals and you will lose the trust if if you’re not prepared. And you should never be thinking about the commission check. In fact, I t’s agents. That is probably you can see it. It’s almost like their commission check is on the forehead. And all they care about is money, stop caring about the money and care about the assignment. Just you know, I see the end before the beginning. So when I’m working on something, I keep my eye on the end result. And I’m I visualize a lot. And the other tip I’ll give an agent is decide where you want to go visualize what you where you’re going to be, and then work backwards. How are you going to get there? So for an example, one day, I woke up and said, I want to be a townhouse specialist why and sold any townhouses. But I walked in the office, I said, we’re going to be townhouse specialists. Okay, how are we gonna do that? Well, let’s just do something different and be creative with it. So I ended up doing little books that told stories about the townhouse. And it caught on and within a period of time, I was getting some listings and townhouses. And then but I again dove in and studied and became kind of a specialist in that pocket. So you have to put the time in. D.J. Paris 1:08:22Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really great point, we’re talking about sort of proactive thought about where you want to be, irrespective of where you are today, right? Because today, we’ll be going back in your history. But today that one day, you weren’t the townhouse specialist. And you said, but I’d like to be so i You didn’t wait for townhouses to come to you, you you figured out a way to actually build that skill set. And, and that’s, it’s, it’s being proactive, and we live in such a reactive world now where our phones are demanding our attention every few seconds with notifications, and our clients are demanding it every, every so often with texts and emails. And it’s easy to not be as proactive and to be really good at being reactive. And that’s good, too. But then to be able to step back and say, Who do I want to be? Where do I want to be? How many people do I want to help? What kind of people do I want to help? And then you know, we’re like you were saying working backwards? Boy, I could Vicki I could talk to you all day. And I wish I could be and I know that you are busier than me. So I am going to let you get on with all of your busyness because and by the way, this is how this again, speaks out. I’ll book end of this with with another thing about Vicki’s character. If you go to her compass page, you see a list of accomplishments that are really it’s about a mile long of just incredible feats. She has not mentioned one of the most today because I don’t I suspect not that important to her and also just not who she is and I just I really risk back that I have, I have interviewed people on the show who do have some pretty impressive credits as well who love for other people to know about those credits. And I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with that either. But I really love the fact that you have this, you have a tremendous track record. And that you don’t feel the need to share that which is again, probably goes to your success, as well. So anyway, Vicki, on behalf of our audience, we want to thank you for being on our show, you gave so many unbelievable tips and advice I, I was almost thinking during and I’m like, boy, if I could, if I could have Vicki on like once a month giving these tips, that would be amazing. But regardless, even in this episode, you provided so much value. So on behalf of the audience, we say thank you. And also on behalf of Vicki and myself, we want to thank all the listeners. And our viewers this is, you know, we are so grateful that you made it to the end of the show. We’re hope that this was helpful. I know that it was but let Vicki know, you know what’s Vicki, if anyone out there wants to share their appreciation, what’s the best way that another agent might be able to say thanks, Vickey Barron 1:11:05probably email me at v baron@compass.com. D.J. Paris 1:11:10We’ll put that in the show notes too. So if you want to say hi to Vicki and say thanks. And I really encourage people to do that. Because she she spoke from the heart today. She is an incredible again, I didn’t really read her credits, which are unbelievable. If I were to read them, you you would be paying attention to every single word she says because she is a very, very important person in the New York industry for real estate. So Vicki, thank you. And we will oh one last thing, we ask all of our listeners and viewers just to do one thing, which will help us continue to grow because we don’t spend money, too much on marketing. Pretty much no marketing money. But the best way you can help tell us help us rather is by telling a friend. So think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this unbelievably candid and authentic interview with Vicki and somebody that just needs to hear a couple tips that might turn their business around, or get them to the next level 2023 It’s going to be a difficult time for all of us. So let’s, let’s share Let’s share the good here and send this over to Vicki. The best way you could do that is just gonna have sent him over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every one of our episodes can be streamed right from the website. They don’t even have to be a podcast person. Or of course, they can always subscribe to the podcast, but tell a friend that would really they would be one good deed of the day. And it would really make make me happy because then we can reach more people. So thank you in advance for that. Vicki. Thanks for being on the show. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Vickey Barron 1:12:37Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for all the time I appreciate it. Bye bye

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com. Chris Linsell from TheClose.com offers an overview of the real estate market over the last years. Chris discusses where agents should shift their attention now that the market has slowed down. Chris gives tips on how should agents talks to their clients about the equity of their home. Last, Chris emphasizes the importance of transforming the transactional relationship with your clients into a recurring value relationship. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Where should you be focused in 2023 to keep your business thriving? 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 Paris I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the closed.com No, this is a partnership between keeping it real in the clothes and let me tell you more about the clothes. Now the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e just like it sounds.com And subscribe to their newsletters get notified every time they publish an article with us as always is Chris Lynn sell senior staff writer and real estate coach for the close. And Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s also a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. And he’s been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Chris Welcome once again to keeping it real, we’re excited to have you Chris Linsell 2:48here. Thanks for having me back. Always a pleasure looking forward to digging into it today. D.J. Paris 2:53Always a pleasure to so I wanted to start with with something that I get a zillo report every, every every month as a consumer, just because I’m always interested in what Zillow sends to the public. That is my address. And they tell me you know what they believe my home to be worth. And you know, it’s a pretty depressing number. I saw it today, it’s actually gone down in the last 30 days, quite substantially. However, I am not in the market of selling. But I was thinking about sellers, because I also have a very low interest rate. So I’m at around a 3% rate. And so if I were to sell right now, which again, I’m not looking to do, I would be, you know, I would feel it, at least at first glance that I’m getting a pretty bad deal because my home is, you know, worth less than what I paid for it. And I’m still net equity positive, but not by a whole lot. And then also I would be giving up that 3% rate to you know, most likely a six plus percent rate in the new home that I were to purchase. So I was just thinking, this has got to be on the minds of a lot of homeowners right now who probably would like to buy, but maybe are seeing those rates and maybe seeing their value of their home, you know, go down in the last couple years as those rates have gone up. So just kind of curious to get your thoughts on the psychology of, of the consumer or the homeowner, and what realtors can do in 2023 to sort of adjust for that. Chris Linsell 4:23Yeah, it’s a great question. Because we are reaching an interesting kind of Crossroads as far as the overall consumer mindset and set of experiences that are driving their behavior. Right. I think it’s fair to say there have been I would say three, three recent relatively recent, honestly relatively recent sets of kind of eras for buyers and sellers of real estate in the United States, right we had the pre COVID era when we have Add a relatively short inventory, relative to demand, but they weren’t writing stories in the Washington Post about inventory. Then COVID came, and everybody kind of freaked out. And we needed to kind of get our heads around what that meant. In the real estate effects that happened were, you know, a lot of folks decided they were going to move from cities out into more suburban or rural areas, we saw a very high demand for housing turnover, especially for single family homes. And we also had an economy that warranted the need of kind of some kickstart programs, to give us a chance to make sure that we we could continue to function economically as a country, whether or not those were necessary or viable solutions, I’m gonna leave that up to somebody else to debate. But one of the kind of downstream results of that were extraordinarily low interest rates, as you mentioned before, for purchasers of real estate in the COVID, or the very, you know, like the current COVID, or the very post COVID. Time. So then that leads us to where we are now, interest rates, high inventory, still a bit of a challenge, and a lot of places still competitive markets in a lot of places, and real estate professionals looking to be planning their strategies for 2023. And a lot of questions are being asked about how do we reach sellers? We’ve got sellers who are unlikely to want to sell their home, because where are they going to go? They don’t have got a lot of great inventory options. They don’t have a lot of great interest rate options. What’s the benefit to sell? And I want to put forward a couple of different ideas here. The first is you talked about what’s the psychology and the mindset of sellers, I want to start by setting the tone in that we have to remember, the psychology and mindset of sellers is not a single point of light, it is a significant gradation of various perspectives and viewpoints. We have to remember that, yes, a lot of real estate was purchased in the COVID. And immediately post COVID, if you can call it that era at low interest rates. But that does not make up the majority of homeownership right now, by any stretch of the imagination. We have a good chunk of folks who owned their home long before COVID was even a thing have an incredible amount of equity in their home right now. That is likely unrealized, we have a good chunk of folks who didn’t refinance, who are sitting on even a post refinance are still sitting on a good chunk of equity. And where we find ourselves as real estate professionals is a place we haven’t found ourselves in a long time, which is the number one priority for a lot of real estate professionals when it comes to listings and sellers and their psychology and mindset is one of education, not of immediate opportunity. We are not answering calls from people saying, Hey, I heard it’s great time to sell my house, what options do I have? Real estate professionals should consider those calls to be on hold for quite a while, maybe a year, maybe two years, frankly, we are needing to now shift our strategies to education and awareness. Because a lot of owners right now, either don’t know their options, or think they know their options when they don’t really which is frankly worse. So to answer your, your mindset question, my initial response is most mindsets right now are either unaware or ignorant. And these are places where yes, it makes things challenging. But for real estate professionals who can shift their strategies, that’s a huge opportunity to D.J. Paris 9:16it’s such it’s such an interesting play this equity question, I think this is something that isn’t typically although I’m just thinking of myself, and I might not be representative of the John Q Public, because I’m in the real estate business. So I probably look, I’m probably not the right sort of viewpoint here. But this idea of thinking about equity, I just don’t think most homeowners are think about their equity unless they’re in the process of selling right? I think it’s they look at the appreciation. They look at the the amount they cut to the mortgage bank, the lender every month, they probably know their interest rate or there abouts. So I think those are kind of the Three key metrics is what’s my home worth? What am I paying every month? What’s my, what’s my actual rates? I don’t know, and what my home’s even worth, I think is oftentimes not really thought about all that much. But I think this idea of equity would be a real. So I think that’s a really interesting ideas like maybe being maybe thinking about from an agent perspective, what would what do you think about an agent doing an evaluation? Not just what’s your home worth? Because of course, we can do automate those through CMAs. And there’s a million tools to do that. But what if an agent in 2023 said, Hey, I know you might not be thinking of selling right now. But you did buy like seven years ago, and you’ve probably refinanced. I’m sure you have a really low right now. But let’s take a look at the equity and see if that would actually influence your decision in being able to move maybe that even trumps the interest rate that’s currently out there, because we can look at equity, we can look at, you know, pricing now has come down. So I’m just curious what you think of having that conversation with a homeowner? I don’t think anyone really has those conversations. Outside of real estate, like I don’t even think a financial adviser necessarily would say let’s talk about the equity in your home. Because I think typically, financial advisors don’t look at that as asset until you actually cash it out. Well, yeah. Unknown Speaker 11:25Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. No, no, D.J. Paris 11:27that was my point was I think this is kind of an interesting opportunity for agents who really want to separate themselves is almost doing like a financial review of the home as opposed to just do you sell? Do you want a bigger place? Do Chris Linsell 11:40you? I don’t know. Yeah. 100%. In fact, I this is actually it’s funny, you mentioned this, because this was one of the topics I talked about. Last couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks via when we’re recording this. I was a presenter at the triple play conference in Atlantic City for New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania realtors. And one of the things I chatted about in one of my sessions there was I challenged folks a challenge real estate professionals who attended there to answer the following question. When you are representing a buyer in the purchase of real estate, when you finish at the closing table, and the last signature is at the bottom of the final page, your clients, do they automatically magically, somehow supernaturally get endowed with the expertise and knowledge necessary to understand not just what they’ve purchased, but the value of their home as an investment? The answer, of course, is no signing, closing paperwork does not give you the insight to understand the value of your investment. And I keep saying investment, even if you’re just buying a single family home, to live in and to raise your kids in. You and I were talking earlier, before we started recording this real estate is one of those unique purchases, that as an investment, it doesn’t matter whether you’re buying this as income producing or not. When you purchase real estate, you’re making an investment and it can turn out good or it could turn out bad, you get to be in control of that. And your control is significantly more fine tuned when you’re aware of the ins and outs of your investment. So when I challenged folks, what I challenged folks to do at triple play was to remember, when somebody buys a home, they do not automatically become a real estate expert, and an expert in terms of their home’s value in the market, their home’s value in terms of the equity that they’ve collected, and their home’s value in terms of how competitive it could be for other home options. And so I challenged Realtors there to set a schedule to become their buyers, pro bono, real estate financial advisor, every year, set a meeting where you offer to say, Hey, I’d love to do an analysis of your investment. Let’s find out how much it’s worth. Let’s find out how much equity you have in it. Let’s find out how competitive your rates are. I don’t need to charge you for this. I don’t want to charge you for this. I only want to arm you with the information you need to make good decisions about your home. Those folks are going to not just become your client. They’re going to become your client for life by offering those services and for all those real estate professionals who are listening to this and say, Well, I don’t have this big buyer client pool to draw from. You have an unlimited set of people to draw from because there are millions 10s of millions of homeowners in this country. Whose selling agent, they are no longer in contract with, who need and deserve this information and who you could start offering it to, and by de facto become their agent. So start reaching out to folks who offer this financial analysis offer completely free. So I just want to arm you with the information that you need to make a good decision about your home, these folks are going to become your clients by virtue of offering the service and when it is time to sell and when you can demonstrate that they have a strategic advantage they’re gonna sell with you because you are the one that clearly is demonstrating that you know, the market. D.J. Paris 15:42Yeah, this is a consultant perspective. And I like the idea of not mentioning when you when you’re reaching out to to owners, and again, they don’t have to be past clients, they can be really anyone who owns a property. And this idea of not saying hey, I want to run a CMA, I want to run comps for you, which again, there are lots of homeowners that understand that term, or I’ve heard that term before. But the term they probably haven’t heard is I want to evaluate your investment. And this idea of it being now they hear that from their financial advisors, if they have one once a year, usually, they’ll say hey, we need to read your look at the investments, see how they did it stacked up against the the indexes or your overall you know, financial goals, and let’s make sure we’re on track to retire or whatever the you know, send the kids to college or whatever it might be. This is a very interesting alternative way to really do a CMA, but not just the CMA. So you’re saying, you know, yeah, they can get a CMA from anybody. comps are pretty easy. You can even just get them online without talking to a realtor. But this is more of a what a financial adviser would do. They’d sit down and say, let’s let’s go over all the numbers, not about all their other investments, like a financial advisor would do, but about just their home and thinking of it like an investment. Because while you were doing that, while you were talking, I was thinking what I did when I was ready to buy the property that I have now, I was very nervous, because it’s obviously it was sizable purchase. Anyone who buys a home understands the nervousness there. And everyone listening knows what it’s like for their clients. And I called a bunch of top Realtors in my area, about five of them just to go, am I making a mistake here? Because I was nervous, and I wanted to get their advice. And I reached out to people that I knew and said, Is this a good idea? Because it was new construction, I was a little nervous. Is this overpriced? And I got really good advice that way. And so I did a version of that by talking to other realtors. Most people aren’t going to do that. But I guess the point was, I wanted somebody to tell me, it’s a good time to buy. Yes, I give it my stamp of approval. And I don’t know that I would always. Yeah, I think that that’s something that a lot of people want to know, is totally agree. And I don’t know that they always trust the realtor to give them that information. I think realtors are often seen as salespeople, and salespeople are trying to sell. And so whether or not the real estate agent has the best interest of the client in mind, I think there there does have to be a little bit of change work around the language that’s used when you call like, I want to talk about your home as an investment. And I want to talk about where that investment sits right now. So that you can think about the future and think about if there’s any plans that will change as a result of you really understanding where things are. I just think that’s a powerful reframe. And a really, really like unique approach. Chris Linsell 18:36Well, you know, the interesting thing too, is that the reef or the the other kind of extension of this reframing the conversation gets into the way that our clients define their relationship with us. So if I asked you, you know, if I asked you, if I’d say I was new to Chicago, and I said, DJ, I’d really need some suggestions. I need a good doctor. I need a dentist, I need an accountant. I need a chiropractor. The people that you would refer to me or refer me to, you would say oh, yeah, you should definitely check out my chiropractor is down on the down on the street. Oh, you need an accountant. My accountant. I’ve been working with him for years. Great guy you you’d love this guy. Oh, you need a doctor. The doctor I’ve been going to she’s great. You know, a bunch of my family we all see her. You just those those referrals totally natural language. Every single one of them was a you got to see my doctor, my chiropractor, my dentist or a car accountant or whatever. But when it comes to real estate professionals, when you say Oh, I’m looking to move to Chicago, I need a good real estate professional. You would probably that I mean I think the default for most folks is I know a realtor. Yeah. Or I know a bunch of Realtors Yeah, I’ve, you know, I’ve worked with three different realtors in town, I can give you all of their names if you want. But I know our realtor in town, or I know a ton of Realtors, or there are a ton of Realtors, we don’t have this, my professional relationships in the real estate space. But that comes from the fact that you see your chiropractor on a regular basis, you see your accountant on a regular basis, you see your doctor, we see our real estate professional once in a blue moon. Because our relationship is completely transaction oriented with those people it’s not Care and Keeping oriented. What you can adjust in 2023, not to make our chiropractor pun here. But what you can adjust in 2023 is the way that you pursue that relationship with folks to say, Listen, I want to be your realtor, or your your broker your agent. So here’s how we can do this. And, you know, you can start by fostering these relationships with people you already are connected to. But that doesn’t have to be the case. This is, you know, you start further back, you know, closer to zero if you’re going, you know it trying to prospect with people who you don’t have a current relationship with. But imagine just for a second, this value, let’s say you say hey, you know, I’d love to help you understand the value of your home help you understand when it’s a great time to buy and sell. Somebody says yeah, sure, that’d be great. You can pull somebody, anybody you can, you can request from your bank, a mortgage statement, these are on demand, if you have an online portal, you can get it instantly, it will tell you all the details, how much your loan was for, what your current balance is, what your equity is, and what your rate is. Now, as a savvy real estate professional, I can also tell you, banks don’t typically do home equity loans, if you have less than 20% equity. But if you have more than 20% equity, a bank will often lend you money against your equity. So if you sit down with me and you say, okay, through our analysis, I can see that you, you have $200,000 left on your mortgage, you have about $150,000 in equity on this property. So you could qualify for a refinance, you could pull some of this equity out and do a project in the house, you want a brand new kitchen, this would pay for it, you could sell right now, if you sold right now, even after fees, you’d still be walking away with somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 $115,000 in your pocket. What could we do with that people aren’t gonna look at you providing this value and options as all the evidence that they need, that you have their best interest at heart and not yours, it is no longer a transactional relationship. It is a nurturing, recurring value relationship, just like those other professionals that I named earlier, this is really a chance to set the tone for how you want to operate your business and 2023. I know a lot of realtors are nervous about this, frankly, this is an opportunity. This is the time to put your foot on the gas, not get back on your heels, it’s time to get on your toes. D.J. Paris 23:23Yeah, and I think I think your boy, you just said so many things that I couldn’t agree more with, I think this is the opportunity to develop that annual, you know, touch that’s not just a Hey, it’s your birthday, it’s the holidays. Thanks for you know, this is your home anniversary card for when you bought or sold. All those things good, too. But this idea of actually providing real value once a year. And the real value that I think the average homeowner is thinking about is or the the average the question that they’re thinking about is should I buy or sell right now? Should I move? Right? Should I move right now, I think is usually the main question. And, you know, there’s obviously pressures that, you know, job changes, and there’s reasons that people move that have nothing to do with an annual review from a from a realtor, but boy, I would love a service like that. I would pay for a service like that. I pay up 100 or 200 bucks a year for somebody to come in and say okay, I looked at every I mean, I pay a financial advisor, I pay an accountant, I pay, you know, I would actually pay. So this is something that you can do that’s very valuable, that I think people would pay for I don’t know that you should charge people for it. And maybe in some states, you probably could charge but regardless, I think it’s it’s your right, this is the value add that is going to ensure that two things, one that they’re going to work with you in the future, but to and this goes back to your Hey, you got to talk to my hairstylist or my accountant, this this is going to get people talking, I think and I think you could even tell them that when you’re when you’re doing these reviews to say hey You know, this is something I do, and it’s just my way of providing service. But if you have other friends that are thinking, Should I buy? Should I? So is it a good time rates are up low inventories. Now, I would love to do the same analysis for them. And you could, you know, I think this could be a huge marketing strategy for people, Chris Linsell 25:17Big time, big time. And you know, let’s like call a spade a spade here, too. This is advantageous to real estate professionals, not just in the fact that you have the opportunity to create a more stable repeat business, which is certainly a huge upside. But let’s also not discount the fact that if you can get the sort of relationship locked in, you then have a platform to give the sort of advice that includes things like, hey, you know how, like, there are 12, there’s 12 months in the year. But if you decided that you’re going to make one extra payment a month, you can cut down on your interest costs over the course of you know, X number of years, and increase your equity by X percentage over X number of years. This is really great for you. This sounds like good advice. It is good advice to homeowners. But the other thing it does is you are setting yourself up to have distant and near future clients who are more qualified, who have higher budgets, who are more educated about real estate and the process. I mean, imagine the difference between a listing where your seller, not only did they know the real market value of their home before the listing appointment, because you’ve already educated them on this. But they also are realistic about what the next steps entail, your workload goes from 100 to five in that instant. Now, granted, you’re doing that work on the front end, but you’re establishing it’s kind of it has a slow drip of education and awareness in a way that other professionals have to kind of mainline all at once on the front end, sellers feel overwhelmed, they’re often miss the details that are necessary to take those shortcuts. I mean, this is a selfish strategy to you’re going to develop regular, a book of business from this strategy, but you’re also going to develop more qualified better informed and frankly, clients with bigger budgets as a result, which is going to affect positively our bottom lines as well. D.J. Paris 27:37I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episodes sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, it’s really it’s really interesting. It’s funny, I’ve done 430 Whatever episodes of this podcast where I’ve interviewed a lot of the very top producers in the country. And I don’t know that anyone’s ever shared with me this idea of doing an annual people have talked about doing an annual review, but they haven’t really gotten as granular about it as what you’ve mentioned. And so if we were just to recap the steps. So the idea is you would call people that are either past clients, or you could say hey, I’m trying I’m you could even tell people that weren’t your past client. And maybe you could even test it with people who might never use you. But people who you could sort of try this approach with and say, Hey, I’m, I really want to bring more value to my clients the next in this upcoming year. And I have found that my clients are constantly wondering what’s going on in the market. Is it a good time for me to move should I sell should I buy and you know, oftentimes, they are not totally sure how to make sense of that answer. And so I want to come in and just kind of evaluate what What, you know, your current position, your current home, your investment, how it’s doing, how it’s doing relative to other homes in the area. And if you were thinking about moving, you know, here’s, here’s kind of what you might be looking at. So we can we’re gonna take a look at the full financial picture of that, and give you a give you a recommendation. I think I gosh, I think that’s I mean, you know, look, if I’ve ever been to an attorney, the end of the day, I’m like, What’s the recommend? Should I do this or not, you know, or an accountant should I declare this or not, like, I just want people’s advice. And I think the, the realtors really should move away as far as they can from being labeled a salesperson, as to a service professional, or consultants. I know consultants, you have to check with your state licensing to make sure that you can call yourself other things, you definitely don’t want to call yourself something that you’re not supposed to. But this idea of acting as if you are a consultant, whether or not you use that word, acting as if you would hire somebody to come in and say, How do I fix my business? And they go, Well, I just looked at everything, here’s what you need to do? Chris Linsell 31:07Well, you know, I’m gonna give you the one, this is the kind of a dollop of Chris secret sauce to get this conversation started with people who you don’t know you’re like cold approaching on this. Here’s the line. And I guarantee it works, because I’ve used it many times. So if you’re listening to this, and I’ve used this on you, sorry. But here it is. When you are cold approaching somebody and you say, I was just doing a CMA for a neighbor of yours, and I used your property as a marker for value for the neighborhood. I wanted to reach out to let you to let you know that I was just looking at values there, I have a very good understanding of what your home is worth. And would love to know if you’re interested in this overall financial picture. No obligation, no cost. I’ve already got the work done. These are all the key phrases. That’s a great one. I’ve already got the work done allows people to say yes without feeling like they’re inconveniencing you or putting themselves in your debt. That’s a reason a lot of people say no to free things, because they’re like, oh, then I’m going to owe this person something, say I’ve already got the work done, then they have are free to say yes, without the feeling of true or implied obligation. Say I was doing a CMA for a neighbor of yours. This shows that you are active that you have experience that other people trust you. These are true. key phrases that are going to activate those parts in our brain were like, okay, there is real value that I’m recognizing here. I’m not being sold a gimmick. I’ve got somebody who’s providing real value in places that I trust in ways that I don’t feel obligated, I can say yes to this, you’re gonna get in the doors, if you use these lines, I promise. D.J. Paris 32:57Yeah, you can you can even say something like, I know, this seems like a sales tactic. But the reality of it is actually did this for your for your neighbor. And I just already have the data done. So I’m happy to share it with you. Yeah, what’s in it for me is maybe down the road, maybe you would think about me if you ever needed to find a professional but But what I wanted to share with you is actually just something I did for your neighbor anyway, you probably wouldn’t even have to say it that way. But the point is, is you could you could explain it and and be totally forthright about it and still likely get very little resistance. So this is a great, great place to wrap up. So I really want want everyone to think about 2023. And I know there’s a lot of nervous energy in the agent world. I know our agents are scared. I know, broker owners are have some fear about 2023. And what we’re trying to find is opportunities that can keep you focused, and active, and this idea of doing annual reviews, and not just what’s your home worth and what’s you know, what are the home’s near your worth, but actually looking at equity, looking at rates, looking at reef refi, looking at all of all of the things that people don’t usually look at, in one overarching sort of view, right? They look at little things like the rates that and my home is worth this over here. And it’s not really a cohesive picture. And you could provide that picture to them. And you could even if you really wanted to get granular just want to hear their ideas, you could talk to their financial advisor to you could say hey, if you have and by the way, that’s another great person to network with because of course those opportunities are pretty obvious. But you could even say hey, I want to run this by your financial advisor and just make sure I get their sign off on it which then if they liked their financial advisor and maybe you’re not their current realtor, provide some social proof where they might consider using you in the future. So you can even go that further step of saying, hey, I want to talk to your your financial advisor about this if you’re not, you know, so anyway, but Chris, um let’s talk about the clothes in the last minute and then we’ll we’ll let you go. So tell us for anyone that isn’t a current clothes reader. What is the clothes? Chris Linsell 34:58The clothes it is The internet’s leading publication for advice, strategy, resources, everything that real estate professionals need to level up their business and create the life through work that they want the clothes.com super easy to find us, th e c l o s e.com. Everything on the close is aimed at creating shortcuts towards the success that real estate professionals deserve. We have everything from lead generation marketing, tech reviews, education, continuing ed, things on certification, certifications and designations, we have things on every we have content on every imaginable sort of marketing strategy, social media content, lead generation platforms, you name it, we’ve got it, I’m in charge of making sure that the close has the best answers to the old questions that we’ve been asking for a long time. What we offer is free, just come to the website, read sign up for our email list, get regular updates for the new content we’re creating. Our goal is to provide the best strategies that real real estate professionals can use to, like I said, create the business that they want. We do offer a paid product called the close Pro, if you do want to level up your close experience. But frankly, that’s a small portion of what we offer on the close, it’s not even something that I really push. Because 99% of the value we offer here is completely free. We just want to help. Our goal here is to live this mantra of you can do it, the clothes can help, we have the tools that you need to be successful. So come on over the clothes.com Follow us on social, you can connect with me and all of the rest of the editorial team on the close. And that’s the last thing I’ll say is that those of us who are creating content at the close, this is not farmed out to generalists or to freelancers, or to people who have never set foot inside a home for sale or operated in open house. Anyone who’s creating content on the close is a bona fide real estate professional with real transactions under their belt. They’re speaking from experience, and that’s experienced that you can learn from. D.J. Paris 37:15Yeah, and just as a quick example of an article that I got really excited about they updated the clothes updated their best real estate CRM list in the last week or so for 2023. I don’t know if it’s on the homepage yet. But it is an amazing article, because every realtor I know is like am I using the right CRM. And by the way, they have another article about the best free CRM. So if you’re new to the business and don’t want to spend money, they have that article. But they also have best paid CRMs. And they’re not in bed with these companies, right? They may earn affiliate deals if you end up signing up, but their whole thing is is legitimate journalist journalistic integrity and the reviews are amazing. And they’re about the only place I trust for reviews. So, you know, in a way, I mean, I’m sure there’s other reputable, you know, real estate tech review services, or websites, I just haven’t found them, the close is the place I go, because I know I’m gonna get a deep dive into products and services that I as an agent want to or may want to consider. So guys go in there. Really, it’s stuff. It’s amazing. These are long form articles. They’re really well written. And Chris is at the helm and making sure the content is is top notch. And it is. So go to the clothes.com definitely get on their mailing list. And you know, check out the clothes pros. Well, if you want that extra 1% of just really really amazing information that’s behind their paywall. It’s like, what $1 A day maybe total. It’s ridiculously inexpensive if you want to subscribe, but you don’t ever have to you can just read their content for free as well. All right, Chris, thank you. I know we went over time, so we will let you go get on with your busy day. But on behalf of all of our listeners, we want to thank Chris give them a shout out Chris What if they want to chat with you on Twitter now that Twitter has made a resurgence? I know you’re a Twitter guy. What’s the best way they should reach on Twitter? You can argue with Chris on Twitter, Chris Linsell 39:05you can definitely argue with me. You would not be the first nor the last to troll me on Twitter. Uncle Elon has not shut down my account yet. So if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find it and find me at Lynn cell Chris. Maybe we can tag that in the show notes. I’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Atlin cell Chris. I’m also pretty active on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, just add my name Chris Lynn Zell, Senior Content Strategist and real estate writer at the close. Yeah, come connect with me on social media. I love interacting with folks. I love answering questions, love providing feedback, and always open to criticism. So please feel free to come and tell me how I got things wrong because, you know, that’s only happening about a dozen times a day. And I’d love to add your voice to the chorus or to the chorus of of support. So, you know, just here to help pass along what I know about building real estate businesses where We’re all in this together. Awesome. And then for everyone else listening, please just tell one friend about this episode. D.J. Paris 40:06Everybody scared about 2023. Chris just gave a really great strategy for how anyone can stay busy and 2023 Do something the other realtors aren’t doing these annual financial reviews, investment reviews, as Chris called it, and send them a link. This should go to everybody in your office not because I’m so great. I’m not and not even because Chris is so great, although he is. But the just because nobody else is really talking about this. So please send a link. Go to our website, keeping it real pod.com introduce other agents to us. It’s free. Please help us out. We really appreciate it. We’ll keep doing more episodes. All right, Chris. Thank you so much. We’ll see everybody on the next one. Chris Linsell 40:45Thanks, DJ. See you soon.

Kelly Parker the founder of Chicago Home Collective goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Kelly emphasizes the importance she and her team gives to making the home-buying process enjoyable to their clients. Next, Kelly discusses why she doesn’t set up goals for her business but aims in building a relationship-based business and how that’s helped in growing her business. Kelly also discusses the importance of sharing your WHY with your clients and how that helped her find her niche. Kelly also talks about how come she’s not worried about 2023 and how she plans in navigating it. Last, Kelly discusses the importance of celebrating your achievements. Please follow Kelly on Instagram here or check Chicago Home Collective’s Instagram account here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Kelly Parker can be reached here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Are you nervous about 2023? Well don’t be because today we’re talking to a top producer, and she’s going to explain exactly how she’s going to stay busy and thriving, so you can 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 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. 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 in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Kelly Parker. Before we get to Kelly, just a couple of quick reminders. Number one, please help us continue to grow. By supporting our sponsors. They are the reason that we have such an amazing team. They keep us in business, and we want you to keep them in business. So please check out their products and services and support them because they support us. And the second part is the other way you can help us is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that needs to hear what you’re about to hear with my conversation with Kelly and send them a link either over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com or to any podcast app, they just search for keeping it real. And they hit that subscribe button and if you haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe as well. And if you also want to leave us a review, let us know what you think of the show. We would also greatly appreciate that Okay, let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Kelly Parker. Today on the show we have Kelly Parker with Chicago home collective with compass here in Chicago. Let me tell you more about Kelly Kelly has over 13 years of residential real estate experience and her expert guidance professionalism and passion for mentorship has allowed Kelly to grow Chicago home collective into a top 1% team across the entire country. Now this was a business that was born during the 2009 housing crash and has since transverse transversed many real estate markets serving she served over 500 clients she has generated over 250 million in production, and recently grew into a coaching platform for other female realtors. To learn more about Kelly and her team, please visit Chicago home collective.com also follow her team on Instagram, which is Chicago home collective. And also follow Kelly, personally on Instagram, which is Kelly underscore e underscore Parker, all of those links will be in our show notes so you don’t have to type them in. Kelly, welcome to the show. Kelly Parker 4:01Hi, thanks for having me. So nice to be here. D.J. Paris 4:05Yeah, I am really grateful that you’ve come on. You’re very, very popular person here in Chicago in the realtor community and we’ve never had you on the show. And I know I see you at events and I am really grateful to finally have you on after all these years. Because you’ve really built an incredible team. I’ve actually had some of your team members on the show before I’ve had Emily on and I really would love to talk to you about what you think is happening right now what’s happening was maybe will happen 2023 What agents can do to get prepared. But let’s go all the way back to the beginning because I always think it’s fun to hear about how you got into real estate so do you mind sharing with our audience you know why real estate and how you got it? Kelly Parker 4:53Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I got in in 2009 the worst time according to some to get into The industry. But truthfully, it was like perfectly timed for me, I got in, because I was watching what was happening, I watched, you know, the housing market come to a screeching halt and essentially crash. And I have always been someone who really, truly like value, the power of home and what it can mean for you and your life. And I just could not understand how people could lose their homes. Like how could you have a foreclosure? How did Why were you having to do a short sale, and I really like it. It really broke my heart to watch this happening for people. And essentially quit the job that I was doing. I was in fashion merchandising, quit that and jumped in full time into real estate in the like spring summer of 2009. And truthfully never looked back since. So it’s it’s been a journey, but that my reason at the time. And it still is the reason today is that I just truly wanted to help people who were experiencing so much so many feelings around something that to me is just so important, which is your home. So D.J. Paris 6:08yeah, I think that’s I think that’s very right. Odd with respect to the fact that making a home buying or selling decision is it’s an incredibly big decision for most people. And I mean, even for me, when I bought my second condo, I mean, not a second, I only have one condo, but my second time purchasing a condo, I was surprised at how stressful it was for me. And I’m in the industry. And I have a lot of resources at my disposal. And I had a lot of people to ask to go, did I’m making a horrible mistake, or is this a good investment? And even with all of that, it was still like really, really scary. And I’m curious how, you know, one of the things that I’ve always admired about you is I feel like you and your team are really good at understanding your client’s needs and concerns and stress and anxiety. Do you think that’s Is that an accurate description? Kelly Parker 7:10Absolutely. You know, I think one of our like taglines for Chicago home Collective is the journey is just as dares the destination. And it’s because we really believe that your whole experience leading you up to actually closing on your home and moving into your home, you carry that experience with you into your new home. And so to me, it was it’s so important that you enjoy that process that you enjoy the journey of it, and that your home not be marked like one of your initial memories of your home is drama or stress, or, you know, there’s already usually a lot of life stuff already happening around a new home, you know, marriage, children, our new job or a, you know, a breakup, like there’s always something else that tends to accompany a transition to a new home. And so to us, we’ve really made it our personal responsibility that you enjoy that process because you carry that energy, you carry that memory into the new home. And so yeah, I mean, particularly in 2009. And that’s why I’m saying like, that’s why I got in was I just felt like we could do so much more, I can’t change the circumstances, I couldn’t change that people were having to short sale their homes and make these choices. But I could at least help that transition out of a home feel a lot more enjoyable, the best that it could, and then also carried that into educating those who are going to start buying in that market. And, and also enjoying that process. So yeah, I think you nailed it spot on. I mean, that’s really what we stand for in Chicago home Collective is enjoying the journey. D.J. Paris 8:46And you have a all female led team. And Is that intentional or in? I’m curious, tell us about your team? Kelly Parker 8:56Yeah, oh my gosh, where do I start? They’re the most fabulous humans in I’ve ever known. Like, seriously, they’re such an extension of my own family. Now, it would be wild to not have them, um, I, you know, started Chicago home collective eight years ago. And it wasn’t because I wanted a team. It’s just because I was growing. And I didn’t need support. But I was like, if I’m gonna have support, I’d rather do it in a mentorship form. And so I started mentoring Emily, who you’ve had on the show, and you know, that sort of birth Chicago home collective, I was like, Well, I guess I gotta give this thing a name. And it’s not the Kelly Parker team, because it was never it’s not about me. And this is what we also say at Chicago home Collective is not about us. It’s about our clients. There’s no real hierarchy within this team. We are all collaborating. We are all collectively working towards the same end goal. And so it started with with Emily and then over the years has multiplied and now there’s a total of eight of us. We are it is all female. You know, I think at first, I wouldn’t say it was intentional. I would say this, I don’t recruit people come and ask to speak to me and to join the team. And I, I’m not surprised that it’s women, because a lot of how I speak and what I stand for, I think is, is, you know, specific to females and a little bit different than some of the unusual narrative in the industry. So it’s now we are very proud all female team, and we will definitely be staying an all female team. D.J. Paris 10:31I love it. Well, you know, it’s we’re getting so by the time this episode airs will be in December, it’ll be basically the end of the 2022, you know, business season. Where we’re at currently is, you know, a lot of agents are thinking about 2023, trying to figure out what am I going to do differently in 2023? What are, you know, what skills do I want to develop? What goals do I want to set? You know, how many homes might I want to sell? What does my production want to look like? You have a very unique approach to thinking about sort of objectives. And I’d love to sort of dive into that. So how do you think about, you know, you’re a business owner? You have a team? How are you thinking about next year? Kelly Parker 11:18Wow, I think, you know, if I were to just speak to like, goal setting, specifically, I will say that I don’t set goals, I don’t have production goals, or financial goals. And I know for some people that makes them crazy. And they’re like, well, then you don’t have a business plan if you don’t have a goal. And I just don’t operate like that. Like, truthfully, I believe that it changes the way you do things, the reason you do things changes the way you do things. So if I am doing things to reach a goal, and that is my focus, I truly believe it changes the way you do things, and often disconnects us from, what our passion is why we’re really doing this. And from there is where we derive a lot of our inspiration and our drive from. And so I think that I don’t have a goal because it it also then starts to feel very transactional. Right? Like, I always use the example of cold calling, right? People are like, Well, if you cold call 10 people and you got two people to answer and then you get one of them as a client. It’s the same sort of thing, feeling of this highly transactional and removes this human to human sort of like co creation, if you will, of the work that we’re doing, I run a very relationship based business, I have I am referral based, it was intentional, it’s how I built my business from the beginning. Because I also believe that whoever controls the leads, you know, controls, the market controls the business, as I’m sure you’ve heard 1000 times and in having that relationship, then this isn’t a transaction. These are not, we cannot just reduce this to transactions and production. And so if I’m only measuring based on a production or financial goal, I missing a lot of the other, you know, opportunities for growth, I’m missing a lot of the other successes that we’re seeing, we were kind of mentioning prior to even I think recording, like success is actually very different and looks very different than just production at times. And so I really feel like the key to a lot of my success is that I didn’t I don’t have these goals. Now I measure at the end, I measure at the end of the year, and I say okay, like, yeah, how much production do we do? Let’s celebrate that because that is valuable, and it tells us something. But I use it as an after the fact measurement and not a you know, carrot that’s sort of like being dangled out in front of you. To kind of Yeah, for for all those reasons that I stated. But D.J. Paris 14:00you just you said a lot right there. And I want to just sort of unpack a little bit that because I think this could be really helpful for our audience. And you reminded me of and this is funny because I know nothing about sports. But there was a famous NCAA coach named John Wooden and he was it was the UNLV or UCLA I’m sorry, UCLA. He was the winningest coach in NCAA history. I think he still is I think he won like seven NCAA Tournaments in a row. I think he won like nine out of 13 or something ultimately in his career, but anyway, he’s a big deal. And he never looked at the scoreboard and so you reminded me of him? And he would say and and and reporters and people that studied him and he was literally the winningest coach in NCAA history. And they would say What do you mean you don’t look at the scoreboard How do you not look at the scoreboard? He goes because he said the scoreboard is not really an accurate representation of the performance of my team. He said something times things like luck just falls your way, sometimes luck doesn’t fall your way, the numbers up on the scoreboard may or may not be reflective of like the actual effort that was put in. And he also had said, There’s times when we’ll win a game, because the score, we’ve scored more than the other team. But we actually lost because we didn’t actually play that well. And he’s like, you can walk off the off the court. And even though we technically won, if you didn’t play your best, so and so team member, you’re going to feel crappy about yourself. And as you walk off the field, you’re off the court, you’re going to not feel good, even though you technically won. And vice versa. There’s times when, when you know, you lose technically, but you played your best and you still feel okay about it, I’m sort of getting that vibe from you. It’s sort of like, let’s, let’s just do our best and kind of let the chips fall where they may. And while that may seem a bit risky, or non traditional, you are a top 1%. Producer. So it does actually Kelly Parker 16:03it works. It works. Here’s the thing, I do have parameters, and I do have standards. And I think this is what’s important is like I do set out the year thinking how do I want to grow? How do I need to align my actions to where I want to go? What how can I make my process and my experience for my clients? Even better? How can I be more knowledgeable and more experienced? Like I have things that I’m working towards? That I know if they keep those is my focus, right? Then those will result in more clients and more transactions and ultimately, the production. So then at the end of the year, when we’re measuring, you know, what was the production? If we feel like, if I feel like dang, I really I could have maybe gone further, it then tells me, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do to be able to hold $50 million in business, you know, and it starts to inform a whole other set of actions beyond just, you know, the traditional tactics, if you will, of like, how to get clients and how to market yourself. I’m really way more focused on myself and also my team about our personal growth or personal development, raising our standards. And I know as we do that, right, the business comes. D.J. Paris 17:22It’s a lot of it’s, it’s, you’re basically taking things on faith, I mean, really, what we’re talking about is this belief that if I do the actions, that I’m pretty confident, or if I continue to develop skills, that I’m pretty confident, are skills that my clients deserve, and need and want. If I can develop those in myself, my business will, I’ll be able to offer more to my age or to mark to my clients, and therefore I’ll attract more clients, because I’ll be able to give more, and I’ll do better, and then they’ll refer more is that essentially the philosophy? Kelly Parker 17:59Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I if I were to reduce it down to one thing, I would say that it’s personal power, I have a lot of personal power around my success. And what I’m able to create, my success does not is not predicated on the circumstances, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the market. It doesn’t matter what’s going on with interest rates. It doesn’t it doesn’t matter because I’m focused on myself and investing in myself and honing this skill and this expertise. And as long as I continue to, to prioritize that great the rest the rest follows D.J. Paris 18:36I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episodes sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. 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So you can try it risk free but only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, it’s it’s really it’s really impressive actually. Really, it’s sort of the way that most of us, I think, think about goal setting is we start at the end, if we were talking about this before we started today was, you sort of start with an end goal in mind, I want to, you know, I want to earn a certain amount of money, or I want to close a certain number of homes or I want to weigh a certain amount of pounds, or I want to make a certain amount of money or you know, whatever it might be. And, and then we try to figure out a way to get from from here to there. And without real, and you’re right, it can think of it can become transactional, because if you break it down to its smallest component, then you’re like, Okay, well, in order for me to get to $50 million dollars in production, I need to make 25 phone calls a day, and I need to have an end those and that may, in fact, work. I I’m not here to say that it doesn’t totally, yeah. Another way to go about it would be I want to develop skills, which would allow me to give more, to be more to do more, which is a different approach, a little bit of a different approach, actually. And I actually, I personally like that approach better in some ways. Because I also believe that there’s always more to learn, there’s always more. And I think what consumers really one is competence. I think more than anything, buyers, sellers, they just want somebody who knows what they’re talking about. And that is going to take time. And it’s an ongoing process of continuous learning. And I suspect that your clients know that about you, that you’re constantly learning, evolving, developing new skills, and therefore, you know, again, if you sort of work from a bottom up approach as a as more, as opposed to like a top down, like top down might be okay, we want to get to $100 million in production. Bottom up might be hey, here are all the skills we need to develop to get to 100 million in production, we’re gonna focus on the skills. That’s really interesting. makes all the sense in the world. Kelly Parker 21:55Yeah, cuz it really, it’s reducing everything down to this means to an end, like you said, right? Like, if your top and then bottom, there’s automatically a huge separation, which like you were saying, it forces your brain to be like, well, then what do I need to do to get from here to here? And it that you lose something in that process? And so when people have asked me like, how do you have the success you have? It’s like, I’ve stayed really like connected to not just the like act of doing things like mailing postcards, or sending open houses, but like, what is what is right for me? How do I develop myself and then show up in a way that’s authentic and aligned for me? And in doing so that draws in clients who liked my style, who appreciate what I’m doing? Who, you know, are connected to even my why, like, I share my why why do I do what I do? as sort of like a leading message with my clients? Because people want that connection? You know, and then they’re happy to refer me and the circle just continues. So yeah, D.J. Paris 23:01do you mind sharing your why with us? What is your why? Kelly Parker 23:04Oh, yeah, I mean, the why is I just have such a deep, I really, truly believe our homes provide a place where we can be free to be our full authentic selves. And there’s not other than our four walls and a roof, right? When we go outside, we not always are that way, we’re dressing for a certain reason, or we’re talking in a certain way, or we’re doing certain actions for a certain outcome. But our home is like the safest place that hopefully you can be right. And I just value the power of it for how it allows us to show up in our lives. That to be a play a role in people, you know, starting that chapter and creating that mark in their life is just feels so special to me, and and then again, like the further Why is like also just making sure they enjoy that process, because I understand just how powerful it can be so staying sane connected to that, I think has been one of the biggest, biggest things for myself, but also even my team as new agents come on, like sharing with them like, Okay, how do I market myself? How do I get clients? I’m gonna share your Why. Why do you do this? Because people want to know like, because if not, they’re gonna make up. This is what I’ve learned. If you don’t tell people why you do something, they will make up why you do it. We all tell stories, we all create stories about other people. So tell people why you do it. And it’s the quickest way to diffuse something feeling like a transaction is like Emily right. We use Emily’s example, but like she really wanted to help her peers who were coming out of college who didn’t have you know, advocates when it came to finding their Chicago home and and it’s true, that’s a good truth for her. But she has shared that and people resonate with that and then choose to use her because of it and So I think that if there’s one takeaway just be be vocal about your why I think I kind of took us off course is what we were talking about. D.J. Paris 25:07No, I don’t think it took us off course at all, I think this is all absolutely relevant, because what we’re really talking about is finding your tribe, I think and understanding that there’s going to be a certain subset of the home buying or selling population that resonates with your particular style. So you might as well be, the way I’m hearing you is you might as well be yourself. Because, you know, you got to be yourself anyway. And they’re assuming you’re authentic. And you know, you have the qualities that you know, that are helpful to people looking to buy or sell homes, you should have a pretty reasonable career, but you shouldn’t necessarily be afraid to say, here’s why I do what I do. And in fact, I think people connect more with understanding someone’s why than then maybe even their actual skills. I think we want to know why somebody does some something. I think the fact that they’re competent at it is first most important, but then we want to know like, why do you do this? What what’s in it for you and you just eloquently shared, why you do it, and why it’s important for you so that somebody can be their full, authentic self in their home. And you said it in a much better way than I just expressed it. But I think that’s really powerful. Because if you if you can have that conversation with clients and go, the reason why I do this is I want you to be full feel fully safe and authentic in your house. I think, you know, I had never thought of that until you would set it and as soon as you set it, I was like, that’s absolutely right. I feel the same way I want to feel safe and authentic in my home. And it’s it’s this is kind of an intangible thing that might even sound a little or new agey or whatever, but it’s really true feelings are real in the sense of, they’re important. And we want to we’re going to be staying in this this physical space for, you know, a good chunk of our lives every single day. So and they Kelly Parker 27:08transmit those transcend markets to your feeling about your home doesn’t matter what’s happening in the market, right, and your desire for a new home or needing to move out of another one. So I know it does. It does sound New Agey, but it’s to me, it’s like the heart of what this can do. And I think particularly if you’re an agent looking to grow your business, and you’re not sure how to market yourself, or what to do, it provides like to me provides like a core element of like, why do I do it? So based on why I’m doing it, then who are my clients? Who am I speaking to, you know, if it’s like Emily, it’s like, Well, why do I do this? I want to help my peers, okay, then those your clients, that’s who we market to. That’s your niche. You know, now you just have to tell them what you do and how you do it. And you’ll and then you start to see the clients come in like they had D.J. Paris 28:02Yeah, it Yeah, I love that. I so so it seems like what you’re saying is to find your passion, in in, in your industry in this industry of what really moves the needle for you as the realtor like what, what gets you the most excited about the process, sort of digging in leaning into that and then continuing to develop skills around whatever that passion might be. Maybe it’s first time homebuyer, maybe it’s maybe it’s maybe it’s even being with somebody all along their apartment journey until they’re ready to buy their first home. Maybe it’s being there to guide them or maybe it’s I don’t like working with those people. I only like working with sellers or condos or, or co ops or whatever it might be single family homes, or people moving from another state I guess whatever it is that that you sort of get lit up the most about is probably an indicator of like, Oh, I really liked doing real clothes or you know, I really liked doing you know, or maybe you’re one of those rare people who likes calling expires or fizz bows like people Kelly Parker 29:09think like it works for people but it’s not what they’re doing it’s it’s the energy behind what they’re doing it with so if you really love Calling Strangers in cold calling fizz bows and you’re like I could do this all day, then it is your indicator that that is your lane and go go crush it you know and so I think that’s where we get a little bit scrambled of like we think that there’s a certain ways that we have to get business and and then we force ourselves to show up in these ways and I’m like I don’t really want to do that I don’t really want to cold call I don’t really want to sit in open house that feels weird to me or whatever. we force ourselves and then we wonder why we’re not getting business. And is it because we can do that. And now I’m really gonna sound new age but like the frequency of that precedes you precedes your words precedes your action. So if something lights you up, double down on that, do that. And let that that excitement and that joy drive, what you do after that, and then the steps and the choices you start to make and how you show up in your business. D.J. Paris 30:16I think that’s really good advice. So before we started talking today, or absorbed before we started turned on the recording where I was asking you about 2023, because we have I have we have 800 agents or close to 800 agents in our firm, you’ve got a lot of agents, obviously, compasses, Kelly’s a compass, they have 1000s of agents here in Chicago. Kelly is around a lot of agents. I’m around a lot of agents. And I’m certainly getting a sense that there’s a low level of stress. That’s that’s, that’s present right now, although I feel like there’s always stress, being a realtor, but particularly right now it’s the end of the year, it’s the holiday season, we’re of course, we know where rates are, we know inventory is where it is. And I know there’s a lot of concern about 2023 as I’m hearing it in the ether from other agents, but you don’t you’re not worried about it at all. And I really, I’m bringing this up, because you’re the first person I’ve talked to who doesn’t who didn’t even break a sweat when I mentioned it. So why are you not worried about 2023? Kelly Parker 31:23Well, I think for some as some of the reasons I’ve mentioned, right, I think that I’ve never let my success be dictated on the circumstances. You know, I really, truly believe that the success that I’ve seen in my business is because of what I’ve, who I am and what I’ve done and the skills that I have developed. And I think that’s where we get a little bit hung up. A lot of times when people are stressed, it’s because they have made their success circumstantial on a low interest rate market or a pandemic. And I think some people, like there’s elements, there’s Is there a percentage of my business that was up because of the circumstances? Sure. But would I have still been successful and still done what I’ve done because of my own sort of, like personal power in my, my, myself and my belief and all that? Absolutely. So I’ve truly believe that, because I have that outlook, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the market. And, and so I’m not worried. But I’m also like, I’m weirdly excited, I think it’s great. I think this is the market where we get the ability, we have the opportunity to make the biggest moves and the biggest growth and secure the most market share. And, and I fully know that i i have the skill set, and I have the knowledge and i i have the inspiration to make sure that I’m able to to operate as I want to during this time. So I think that, ya D.J. Paris 32:58know, it’s so interesting, it’s just not even, you’re not too worried about circumstance, you’re not worried about sort of the conditions because number one, he can’t control them. So you have to deal with them anyway. And number two, you started in a down market, right? So you started at, you know, 2008 to 2010 was not the time to get into real estate. And but it was probably such a great time for you because you only knew a difficult challenge. And so and you got through it. And so then you see maybe maybe the mountain looks a little steeper this next year for a number of reasons outside of our control. But you’re just are you just going to pivot if need be and make adjustments and changes. And, you know, you’re you’re telling me what you’re thinking about? Kelly Parker 33:49Well, I think that like I mean, I’m curious what you mean by pivot. But I think that one thing that I talk to my team a lot about is like being aware of the context that we hold our business, right, like looking at just next year, to me is a very small context, I have a 13 year career, right, there’s going to be chapters. And even if you’ve had a three year career, this is a chapter of the greater story of the career that you are writing. And so if you’re so hyper focused on you know, the next six months or the next 12 months, again, it kind of goes back to like you start to inform how you behave and how you show up and it’s gonna change it if you can just keep a broader context of like, we might have a down year next year. Sure, possibly, yes. Do I need to be a responsible business owner and start to make some modifications to like our spend and make sure that we’re not you know, that I’m being smart? Absolutely. I can do those things. You know, and then we see what happens and we we don’t pull back on investing. I still invest in the spirit in in the support that we need and this stuff that we know works for us. But I think that I have a broader context, if you will, for, for what this will mean and the greater story. And so I know everyone’s talking about 2023. But I think in my mind, I’m already in like 2025. Because I can see how this will play in the next few years. D.J. Paris 35:21It’s, it’s a really important point, because I think I think you just said something really, really big, which was, I’m thinking about 2025, because 2025 is going to come. And we’re only thinking about 2023, like you were saying, a lot of us are just focused on, you know, we might be in survival mode, or we might be just nervous about. But regardless, it’s going to come and go, and we’re going to need to adapt, and also there, right there, there are cycles, and there are ups and downs, and life isn’t linear business isn’t linear. And that’s, that’s the challenge. I think, for some of us when we get into the business, and we have our first five years, and it just looks like this linear graph up into the right, because we sell more homes every year than we did previously. And then maybe all of a sudden the market, you know, has a correction or, you know, the there’s other factors at play that that affect our ability to to keep that trajectory going. And it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of our business. It just means that you know, in the natural cycle of life, there’s ups and downs and things that happen. But it’s it’s about really weathering the storm. So you were saying like, yeah, of course, as a business owner, I’m going to make responsible decisions, I’m going to keep my spending in check. And I’m going to make sure that you know, my team is getting the resources that they need. But we’re going to we’re going to make it through because I’m already thinking of 2025 I think that’s really interesting. I don’t know how many people think that way. And I think that comes with experience, which is, which is what you have? Kelly Parker 36:55Yeah, I think so, you know, I think I’ve always had a unique outlook, just in general on what we’re doing here. Which is why I tend to just kind of keep my head down, and I kind of just do my own thing, because I don’t, I don’t want to get too influenced, if you will, by you know, by by narratives and opinions and things like that. I think that what you touched on, about being linear, really takes us full circle back to like the whole production and goals and success. Because we think that like if we do these things, we’ll get this end result. And we can contain it into a whole year, when the truth is stuff that you’re going to do in 2023 is actually going to pay you in 2025. But we don’t let ourselves accept that or see that or measure that because it’s not this like tangible thing in front of us right now. And so I always like kind of low this time of year. I mean, we’re speaking it’s November, it’s like everyone should be so excited right now about what they did in 2022. And celebrating and go on vacation. And don’t worry, and just like live your life, because everyone has worked so hard the last couple of years. But I’m watching agents not do it. Because they’re starting to freak out about next year, and thinking they have to pull back and and they’re just like automatically bypassing to me what is the most important component to continued success, which is honoring what you’ve accomplished, celebrating it, sharing it, like sitting in it. And knowing that it doesn’t end January one it carries it carries with you and there’s going to be stuff you did this year, you never saw the production for that will show up next year, or maybe in 2024 2025. Like we don’t know. And so I think if I can just share one thing, as someone who’s been in this business as long as I have now it’s like it’s never contained to a year ever. It always bleeds over into each other. So let’s not let’s not be so linear and how we measure and and where we begin and end these chapters of the story. D.J. Paris 39:01Yeah, I agree. I, I want to talk about celebration because I that’s not something I’ve really delved into too much in this show. And I think it’s something that’s worth worthwhile to talk about because I think since so many realtors are individual practitioners or maybe they are on a team and there is some sort of recognition about, you know, milestones or certain types of activity gets noticed or appreciated. But I do think that it would likely be a good idea for people individually to learn how to celebrate their own achievement and it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to a goal that that got hit could be a skill that was learned it could be the way that you know somebody improved their customer service could be a way in which you know, something got better or or or something new was was brought in Here’s how do you recommend to people to celebrate their success? Because I think we don’t we do a lot of it on social media, right? There’s a lot of like, look at me, I just sold this home. I don’t, I’m not talking about that I’m talking about internally, processing, feeling actually good about something that you accomplish, because the reason I’m making such a big deal of this, and I’m going to, in a moment, just turn it over to you, is I think that can help get us through the hard times, if we can remember what it feels like. So what are your thoughts on that? Kelly Parker 40:32Absolutely. I love this question. And specifically, like the this, the separation to the external, right, like, social media is a tricky beast. And, and I think that a lot of people think that they have to celebrate as a form of validation. And so there’s a little bit in my mind too much ego that gets attached. And I think this is what we’ve all felt, right, we see the celebration, and you’re like, that kind of feels, feels like it’s a little bit loaded, right. And it’s, it’s, and it’s okay, we’re humans, we all have egos, there’s that moment of wanting to like wave the flag of what you’ve done and what you’ve accomplished in a tangible material form. But I think that, it’s it cause that seeing other people do that there’s a certain sort of subset of people who, like myself, who are so turned off from that, that I’ve actually held off on celebrating, because I didn’t want to come off as a certain way. And I didn’t want it to feel a certain way. Because, again, why I do what I do is so heartfelt, and like heart led, that the dollars and the goals and or the, the celebrations will never really capture all of that, right. But it I have learned that celebrating is truly the biggest form of expressing your gratitude. And I’m, I’m really, I’m in I have my own mentor. And that came in light of a conversation I had with her about how, how that’s really what it is like, it can be done behind closed doors, it can be done with your team. It’s like what you’re asking. And so we do a lot of closed doors, celebrations, like, you know, we and our a lot of our goals, same thing, our personal and production and whatever. So we’re never just celebrating the metal achieved, were celebrating the whole human. And so I do think it’s incredibly important to anchor that in for the reason that you said, it’s something that creates a tangible, you know, feeling inside of you, or recognition for what you’ve done, I would say that I celebrate myself and my accomplishments and in several different ways. I think, what you were saying, for even for me, right now, this year, one of my biggest accomplishments is that I got to spend more time with my daughter, and nothing was sacrificed to do it. And that has been something I had to learn the hard way, and I worked really hard to get out. So, you know, do I have like extra production to show for something No, but I have these memories and these experiences with her. And, and that’s something right and, and so I as I’m living life, I think being very present in my moments, and recognizing that I don’t have to wait until the end of the year to celebrate that a lot of the time we are we are our goals and our dreams are actually being asked are actualized in everyday moments, but we’re just not present enough to see them. So I think I have a sense of presence out of just sort of like reverence for celebration in general. But um, I do like to travel that’s kind of always been my thing that I feel like traveling gives you this sense of experience. And I it’s like, sort of hard for me to explain without over talking. But like it, there’s something that really helps me anchor a feeling around a celebration. And so I actually tend to use use that. But again, I noticed that a lot I want to encourage people to celebrate because I think that seeing others celebrate helps to give people examples of what’s possible. And if you’re looking for a way to ground yourself in a celebration, so it doesn’t feel so showy. And looking at me. I always just go to the place of kindness provide an example to another female in the industry about what’s possible, you know, five years in your business eight years in your business, you know, and and kind of be mindful I guess of the narrative. That’s what you’re approaching it but D.J. Paris 44:39yeah, the idea of celebration, you you really got me thinking I was I was thinking it got me thinking about the, for anyone who’s ever looked into relationship stuff you probably you know, if you have a significant other and you’re trying to get along better with them and have a better relationship, you probably will stumble Across the Gottman, the Gottman, who are who are kind of the world experts and researchers on how people can can coexist and cohabitate and they’ve written a million books, and they’re a married couple out of, I think, out of Oregon or Washington anyway. But anyway, they have, they have this ratio that they’ve proven that for a healthy interpersonal relationship, you know, romantic relationship, the golden ratio is five affirming things. For every one sort of negative thing, a very critical thing, one critical thing. So if I want to say, oh, you know, you’re doing the dishes the wrong way, or whatever, or you didn’t do the dishes, or whatever, whatever the criticism might be, if you can, if you can have five affirming things, but here’s all here are the things you did right away, you know, you would sprinkle those throughout the day. That’s what a healthy relationship and a happy relationship looks like. It’s five affirming things to everyone. One sort of non affirming thing. And what you were saying is really important, because you’re talking about celebration. And I was thinking about that. And I was thinking, How often do I celebrate myself? For the things that I may have accomplished, or, in our listeners ears, what you have accomplished today? You definitely did some things well, today, and I did some things well, and I did some things that maybe I could improve on. But how often am I even celebrating those little milestones? And I used to think you had to get to the end of the goal before you could celebrate, but I’ve learned and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I’ve learned that celebrating along the way. It actually keeps keeps the engine running for me. It doesn’t actually stop the motivation, like, oh, I accomplished it, I’m good. No, because that was kind of my fears. I can’t I can’t celebrate until I get to the end. And I think that’s a mistake. Because we’re talking about celebrating throughout the journey. And I think there’s a lot of, you know, you hear about, like gratitude groups. I don’t think we have a gratitude problem. I think we have a celebration problem. I think we’re all I think we’re all grateful, or if you’re not whatever, there’s there’s there’s lots of ways to become grateful. But I think the bigger issue is around celebrating one’s own, you know, Power Agency success. curious to get your thoughts on that. Kelly Parker 47:15Yeah, no, I would agree. I think that the celebration somewhere along the way got tainted. Right. And, and to your point, it’s like, if we just bring it back to the gratitude, and you just can focus on that, then then it helps clear the air for a lot of other people to step into their own gratitude. So I think we’ve tangled celebration and gratitude. So it’s like people aren’t even taking a moment to be grateful for what they’ve done or accomplish. Because it feels gross. And it feels showy, or they have we’re very tangled in that. And so I yeah, I would agree, I think we have more of a celebration problem. And to your to your point of, you know, I think a lot of people wait until the end of the year, they wait till they hit the goal. But the truth is the goalpost literally moves every time. Like, okay, I want to do $20 million, I did $20 million. And I was like, We did it like okay, like it. And then the next without, if you’re not conscious, and you’re not aware, it’s automatically 25 Before you even like get 20 out of your mouth, and then it’s 30 and then it’s 35. And all of a sudden, you’re living your life towards this end goal. And you’re missing all of the moments in between all of the beautiful things that have compounded and compounded that are worth celebrating on the way to this, you know, this goal. And and I also think being present in those moments of yourself and celebrating yourself really helps this to not feel like a winner or lose. Right? If you have a goal and you don’t make it then it means you lost. If you have a goal and you made it then it means you succeeded. And I think that diametrically I don’t know if that’s the right word. That’s the word I want to use. But like that, that sort of like two dimensional, like you win or you lose mentality is what keeps so many people from celebrating because like why didn’t hit my goal? Well, that wasn’t the definition of success. Did you show up every day? Have you grown? Have you changed? Did you help someone? You know, that’s what we should be celebrating? D.J. Paris 49:28Well, I think that’s a wonderful place to sort of wrap up because this idea of celebration, it is the time of year to celebrate, you know, we’re the holiday season. This is time to reflect, to be thankful, and also to think to the future and you’re already doing that. But I think it’s to your point about being increasing the celebration there. I think it would be really neat to almost even start like a celebration accountability partner, where every week, instead of just talking about what you accomplished, well, in addition to holding each other accountable for things that you want to accomplish, which I think is a good idea, also having some sort of celebration, even if it’s just one to one, one person to another Hey, man, great job this week. Hey, so and so, you know, you even if you didn’t necessarily achieve your goal, you’re still on target. You’re you’re still trying, you’re still, you know, this, this idea of encouragement. Really just gets everyone through the hard times. And I think I think we’re coming up on some some more difficult. Well, it’s been difficult to be a realtor in the last couple of years. I mean, I also want to say, just because rates were lower, didn’t make it any easier to be a realtor. In fact, if you I mean, I wasn’t out there in the trenches with like you and your team. I mean, it was hard to be a realtor last couple years, Kelly Parker 50:51it was hard. And I think that’s why my outlook for the next year is very different is because I think that, yeah, it’s it was hard. And it was, there was a lot of other things we were having to navigate. And a lot of certain clients in the market for different reasons. And I think that we, again, we’re gonna get to decide what this means. And I think I’m making this mean that it’ll be at a pace that’s more sustainable. It’ll be with, you know, slightly more favorable outcomes for all clients. I think it was very skewed the last, you know, couple years. So again, it’s just sort of that perspective shift on what we make these markets mean. But yeah, they haven’t. They haven’t been easy. And so I really hope that everybody does celebrate. I love what you said actually about an accountability partner, because something I’ve been thinking about, and we try to do this we could be better at it is celebrating agents that you don’t actually like, aren’t maybe even in your team. I see so many women, particularly in these magazines, who who accomplish amazing things. And I’m like DMing them, why isn’t this on your Instagram? Why didn’t you talk about this, like we’re celebrating you, I think we though, we can lead by example, and celebrate each other, and congratulate each other without prompt, because it really helps, I think us all feel a little bit more seen and accepted and encouraged to celebrate ourselves. So D.J. Paris 52:21I think that’s a great point. You know, for everyone listening, pay attention to the milestones that other people might be hitting people that you like, that you respect, reach out to them, when those milestones happen, it might be exactly what they need to hear and they may just be more like Kelly, who’s like, I don’t really want to put that out there because maybe I’d seen his show offy and, and put it out there for them. Be proud of the people that are in your community and watch what happens. You’re not going to do it for this boomerang reason that it’s going to come back to you but it probably will come back to you to this idea of of lifting other other people up, you know, in their successes. It’s worked well for me I’ve had a similar mentality when I’ve when I see things that happen to people that are very impressive to me, I’ll often I’ll reach out to them and just say congratulations on such and such, even people I don’t know. And and I found that in many cases, they will say things like you’re the only person that reached out to me it doesn’t make me a great guy. It just makes me the one person who did it. And anybody can do that. And what I think well what comes with that is a lot of times a lot of opportunity ends up coming from that because people will go wow, well that’s nice that so and so thought about me. I’m going to take a closer look at this, this particular individual it’s almost very similar to what you do for clients this idea of giving to give and give give give authentically and then you know you sort of hope that things come back and they do but we should also talk about your team your team is growing you know 2023 is not a scary year for you. So if there are any anyone who thinks that they would love to work with someone like Kelly and maybe join Chicago home collective and learn more about what they offer Kelly what’s the best way that our listeners can reach out if they think they’d be a fit. Kelly Parker 54:15DM us on Instagram we are in the final stages of a new website that is been a labor of love and it’s not quite done yet it will be done in the new year so don’t judge my website it’s a solid eight years old at this point. But go on our Instagram you can send me a DM on there you can follow you can you can go on my personal account you can you can message me either location. That’s how most people end up finding us. D.J. Paris 54:41But here are the links we got Chicago home collective.com Which again is going to get a refresh although I think it looks quite lovely even now. And then also follow Kelly on Instagram the two Instagram accounts are Chicago home collective, and Kelly underscore e underscore Parker to learn more about Kelly, I mean, if you if anyone is out there, looking at 2023, and thinking about making the shift, and saying, you know, I really want to sort of hitch my, my, my horse to, to a dip or hitch my wagon to a different horse, I don’t want to, I don’t want to I don’t want to be the horse do with being a horse. But the metaphor is, I think, okay. But I just had to think about that I was like, anyway, if you want to connect with somebody who’s who’s really got an interesting philosophy, who’s been successful, and kind of approaches her success a little bit differently, but in a way, I think that makes just all the sense in the world. You know, those Chicago home collective might be the team for you. So check out Chicago home collective.com, reach out to Kelly slide into her DMs as the young people say, although I think I think that might be like a dating reference. So don’t do that unless you more maybe do that if you want. But reach out to Kelly in any way that you want to. She is easy to find. And she would love to chat with you and see if you might be a good match to help them grow into 2023. So, and 2025 Because Kelly, many many years out. Kelly, thank you on behalf of our audience, this is a really fun conversation. For me personally, I appreciate you for being on our show I’ve always wanted to have you on and I’m so glad we finally did get you here. And hope we can continue to to get you back on the show from time to time to get your philosophies and thoughts about you know, growing a team and sort of navigating some some difficult times in the business. Thank you on behalf of the audience. On behalf of Kelly and myself to the audience. We want to also say thank you. Please remember to tell a friend that’s the only thing we will ask of you is just tell one other realtor about this episode. Send them a link over to our website, keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from their website, or this pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. We would appreciate it. Kelly, thank you. Thank you and AJ Kelly Parker 57:01Thank you. It’s a great conversation. I appreciate it. D.J. Paris 57:05I do I do as well and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Terrence Murphy talks about his football career in the NFL and how he transitioned to his real estate career. Terrence describes how he scaled his personal business to a team that brokered $1B in less than 10 years. Next, Terrence focuses on his holistic approach into being successful in his business. Terrence introduces his podcast, Real Estate Entrepreneur, and describes what it offers to the listeners. Terrence also talks about how he’s able to focus on all his businesses and endeavors and be successful at all of them and what is he telling his agents to do in order to have a successful 2023. Last Terrence discusses the importance of failure and how that leads you towards success. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Terrence Murphy can be reached at 979.703.1979 This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does someone grow their real estate practice from zero to 1 billion in production in just 10 years? We’re going to talk about 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 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 Paris I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with NFL player turned real estate billion dollar producer Terrence Murphy but before we get to Terrance just a couple of quick reminders the best ways that you can help us continue to produce these episodes and reach more audience. Number one, tell a friend to think of just one other realtor that needs to hear what Terrance for example, you’re about to hear what Terrence is saying and send another agent, a link to our show, you can always find us at keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be streamed right there or via any podcast app. And the second part is that you can help us is by please supporting our sponsors. They’re the reason that we can continue to do these shows and let them know how much love you have for them by checking out their products and services. Alright guys, enough about that. Let’s get to the main event my conversation with Terence Murphy. Today on the show we have Murphy from exp in Texas. Let me tell you all about Terrance. Now Terrence was a second round NFL draft pick by the Green Bay Packers after graduating from Texas a&m University as a three time Academic All big 12 student athlete. Now Terrance, this is amazing has brokered if that that wasn’t amazing enough, Terrence has brokered 1.1 billion in sales volume over the last 10 years. He currently owns 20 companies actually more than 20 companies under the Terrence Murphy company’s brand and Terrance is an investor in more than 30 companies as a venture capitalist. Now investing in real estate is one of the things he is most passionate about, as he currently owns over 400 beds of residential real estate and commercial properties all over the US. Terrence is also a two time winner of Inc. Five 5000 award for America’s fastest growing privately owned businesses and also is a three time recipient of the Texas a&m Mays Business School Aggie 100. For 100 fastest growing businesses in the world. Terrance possesses the same traits that he portrayed on the football field which is integrity, passion, hard work, dedication, loyalty, desire to succeed and excellence all of which help his business continue his businesses continue to grow and his clients to receive superior service to learn all about territory by the way, he has a podcast that he just launched as well because of course he does he does everything but I want you to learn all about Terrence at his website which is Terrence Murphy I’m going to spell Terrence because it can be spelled many different ways. It’s and by the way, we’re also gonna have a link to this in the show notes. So you don’t have to type this in just go to the show notes and click but if you are typing, it’s Terence t e r r e n c e murphy.com. And you can see all of the cool things that Terrance does and you can also follow him on Instagram, which is at Terrence again te r r e n c e realtor also a link to that will be in our show notes. Terrence, welcome to the show, Terrence Murphy 4:48man appreciate it, man. Sorry about the long intro my team sent you. But at the same time, they always laugh because they’re like, Well, hell, you’re doing so much we have to make the intro and sighs So it’s fun, man. Thank you. Great job. D.J. Paris 4:58Thank you. No, thank you. Oh, and I love reading long intros like that. Or sometimes people it is funny sometimes people we interview will send us things that we have to pare down because we’re like, okay, nobody cares about this. And that everything that you guys sent over was things I’m like, I have to talk about all of this. Because this, I think it was very concise. You just, you just do a lot. And I think that I’d love to talk to you about, you know, the fact that you run so many different businesses, you have so many different interests. You’re a busy, busy guy, and at the same time running the successful real estate practice. But before we get to sort of where you are today, I’d love to learn a little bit more about how you got to where you are today. So I’d love our audience to hear about, you know, sort of your football career and then how you transitioned into real estate. Terrence Murphy 5:46Yeah, and so born and raised in East Texas, I grew up with a single mom. And so for all the kids that grew up with single moms, and for all you real estate agents that are single moms, I love you, and I’m proud of you. And so yeah, I just grew up with a single mom, she put a lot into me and encouraged me, pushed me and was very hard on me. And that’s the way that I’ve become who I am as an entrepreneur and as a student athlete, and as a professional athlete. And then just having the heart to help, right, because I’ve lived that life where we went, not having everything. And so I just have the mentality to try to help him like we talked about earlier, DJ. Life is like a boomerang, right? What you put out, you get back. And not only do you get it back, you get it back with precision. And so for many years, I’ve encouraged real estate agents, I’ve, I’ve coached him, I push them, I’ve given them tools. And now I’ve been able to see the benefits from those seeds that I said, as people are starting to join my organization at exp, like crazy. So it’s been cool. But yeah, that’s I grew up there, went to Texas a&m football scholarship, got drafted by the Green Bay Packers with Aaron Rodgers. And back to back end and film EPS as my roommate, my bro. And he’s killing the game. And then I retired and moved into real estate, and just grew and grew passion for it. And to start off as a developer and an investor got my license with the Keller Williams for a year, which we all do. started an independent brokers team and five, I told people I was going to scale. My independent startup brokerage. This was in my early 20s. But no experience. I did seven transactions when I started to evolve. And I said, I’m gonna scale it to a billion in sales in 10 years, I actually did it in a way and people were like, there’s no way you’re in a small town. It’s not possible, you need a franchise. And we did. And that’s that’s how I got into real estate after retirement. And D.J. Paris 7:39it’s, it’s incredible. And I know you’re skipping over about a million steps along the way. But I love the fact that here you are. And this idea of scaling is so, so important, especially now where I see agents flocking to teams, or teams have become more and more important, more and more prevalent, more more and more attractive, I think over the years, and we’re seeing this flocked to teams, and I’m hearing well, I’m interviewing a lot of people for the show, and also just here for our brokerage in Chicago that are struggling with scaling, trying to figure out how do I go from being like an individual producer to running a team than to scaling the team? And, and those are different skill sets? And was that difficult for you to get from? You know, well, you said you, you were just done seven transactions, you’re like I’m building a team. I’m gonna I’m gonna scale this thing up to a billion. Well, let me ask you a different question. What gave you the confidence to think that that was possible within 10 years? Because it really shouldn’t be possible, at least, you know, to the sort of my logical mind, right? This that shouldn’t be possible yet. You did it. And you did it faster than you thought. So what gave you the confidence and the courage to do that when really all signs were pointing to? It’s going to take longer than that? Terrence Murphy 8:56Yeah. Or even be possible at all right? I think for me, that goes back to just that background of, you know, I tell people when I was five years old, I remember having a picture of me, my mom bought me like one of those little uniforms. And that was my Christmas gift. And I remember telling people that fine, I’m gonna make it to the NFL. And so can you imagine from five to 22, for 17 years, you’re telling people something that is nearly impossible? If you look at the numbers? Absolutely. I mean, it literally is no way. Just from a number standpoint, you should make it to the NFL. And so not only to make it but to make it in the first two rounds. So I had already been there before, right holding on to a dream that coaches opponents, family members, teammates, whoever tried to talk you out of like, Hey, that’s not possible. It’s not real. You might want to do something different. And you just keep fighting for it, man, you keep holding on to it because you know, within your heart as possible. So when I achieved that dream at 22 I tell people I’m okay with playing the long game. It took me 17 years to achieve a dream. Right, right. And when I tell people one day, like I said, Hey, I’m gonna go do one in college football. Well, at that time, this is crazy DJ. My sophomore year, I was the only sophomore varsity. We went, Oh, and team. We didn’t win one day. My junior year, we wouldn’t want a nine. So going into my senior year, we were one and 19. Yeah, we hadn’t signed a D one recruit in 10 years. And I’m telling people, I’m gonna go do you want? And I ended up leaving my high school with 20 Do you want offers. And then I actually had about seven foreign academic offers to like Rice University, and UNC places like that. So I’ve been there before. So in my mind, when I feel it, and I pray about it, I’m like, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t even think about the other option of not doing it. And I would say put me in a desert, I’ll find my way to the water. That’s just the way I’m wired. And I think that’s what people are seeing now as I’m growing one of the fastest organizations in history now. VXp is because I’m giving people the roadmap to get there and get there with the right tools. Yeah, D.J. Paris 11:08boy, that is you just said so much in such a short period of time there. Because really, he talked about perseverance. He talked about singularly focused like, almost like, horse was happy when they put the blinders on. It’s like, Hey, I’m going to achieve this. And, you know, there’s certain things that are outside of that were really outside of your control. Right. You talked about the the, you know, the record in high school, like not great, not not your record, but just the overall team record. There was no history of of D one players, you know, any recent history from that school, and yet you did it. And I’m guessing because you were singularly focused. I imagine if you hadn’t have been drafted second round, I imagine that really wouldn’t have changed much for you anyway, because you would have just pivoted, and pointed your Northstar at something else, and made that successful. So I imagine is perseverance. How important is that to you? I mean, I imagine it’s gotta be pretty important. Terrence Murphy 12:08Perseverance is very important. But what I will tell you is, you know, the great thing about athletics, the great thing of growing up with a single mom, the great thing with my background is day in and day out, you have to get up and you have to work. Yeah. And, you know, I have successful businesses as an entrepreneur in middle school. Like when I was 12 years old, I had, like, different businesses that I was running. And so just the mentality of, I don’t wake up with the Oh, it’s not possible. I’ll wake up with. Okay, how am I getting there? Like, right now? What steps do I have to take day in and day out? Like, there’s a great book atomic habits, right? It’s just love atomic habits. Oh, man. And so I think the reason why, you know, I’ve been coaching real estate agent now for 10 years. And two things I’ve always said no to is people would ask me to come train their agents. And I would say, I can’t do it. I don’t have a coaching business, or can I invest in your real estate projects, I didn’t raise money, and I didn’t have time to teach. So I would just teach my agents. But as I’ve now started expanding my coaching services, people are blown away, but the athlete in me and the coaching me, I can give you very practical tools, that it doesn’t sound like man, I got to do all of that to get there. It’s like, no, just do this for the next 30 days. And once we get to 5 million in volume over the next year, and here’s how you get to 10 million. And here’s how you get to 18. One of the things I took pride in is I’m real big on studying statistics. And once I see statistics, and then I say, okay, the average agent closes seven to 10 deals a year per year. How do I five extent with my team and my brokerage. And so, for the 10 years that I ran an independent brokerage, we ever started on point five transactions per person. So our per person production was at 40 deals per person. It’s amazing. So we were so focused on just everybody being very successful versus just growing the numbers. Wow. D.J. Paris 14:04I mean, it’s, it’s, it is truly incredible. And you’re right, this idea of seeing what is possible, because there are people that do this, right, like, You’re not the first guy to 5x You know, a team’s productions, although you’re probably one of the first people to do it. But you’re probably not the first there’s other people that have done this, you can study some of their habits, oftentimes, you could just reach out to these people and ask, that’s what I do on the show. I’m reaching out to you right now to share, you know, your secrets with with our audience. So it is incredible. How important was it? You know, you’ve been you’ve had coaches, you know, throughout your entire academic life, you know, starting from as early as when he really got into athletics as a young man, and then all the way through, you know, high school, college professional, professional athlete athletics, and then how important is it to be coachable? Because of course, you have the perseverance you’ve got the discipline, but Having a coach, how important is Terrence Murphy 15:01that? I think the biggest misnomer about coaches that really shocked me, because when we squat I’m 15 years old on I kind of got removed from the world. Right? Like when we were on campus at Texas a&m Like we they like had us like overheated, like a wager. Your day is planned out. And when you get to the NFL like you see us playing, but no one really gets to personally interact with you. So when I got introduced back into the world at 22 years old, or 23, Once I retired, I was just blown away at the unwillingness to be passionate about what people do every day. It was like, where am I at right now life, because we have the best doctors, the best marketing people, the best publicists, the best everything the best nutritionists. So I just miss being around greatness. And that’s what I wanted to create. And I think the biggest misnomer with that, is that all coaches are all mentors have the right playbook. Sure, because there’s a lot of broker owners, and that’s what blew me away, they became broker owners because they were not good real estate agents. That’s true. It’s like, let me hide behind the desk and say, I don’t want to sell real estate, I just want to be a broker where you are not selling a lot of real estate anyway. And so it blows me away. And it’s like, hey, after the new year, we want to lose 10 pounds, and we show up and our trainers out of shape, well, then I got the wrong trainer. So I’m always telling people, man, when you look at getting a broker or a mentor or a team leader, our sponsor at exp, really make sure they have the successful track record. And that they can communicate it in bite sized pieces to you to follow the breadcrumbs to success. And that’s one of the things that I take a lot of pride in building out the processes and procedures to help people have the same or more success than I’ve had. D.J. Paris 16:47Yeah, I think that’s right, and you’re a coach, do you also still continue to get coached I’m sure people would love to, to hear that. If you do or not. Terrence Murphy 16:55I don’t it’s but but here’s where I find my, my, my my coaching and my wisdom, you know, in my Bible. And then I’m a book, I’m a book guy. I love tangible books. And and then I just got into podcasts. So that’s really where my books is like my lifeline. Like I read my books, I’m doing a 52 week challenge right now with my organization at exp. So we’re reading one book a week, every week. Wow. And then we meet in a room five days a week, because I do everything by five. We meet in room five days a week and clubhouse and we go over that book. So there’s a lot of accountability there. And it’s been really good man. So they’re digesting so much information at a rapid pace. And that’s been life changing for us. Do you have so far D.J. Paris 17:43has there been one book? And I know you’re reading so many that I’m sure they’re all valuable in certain ways, as there have been one, you know, you mentioned atomic habits before? Has there been one in the last, you know, however long you’ve been doing the 52 week challenge where you read a book once a week, that’s really sort of risen to the top of like that one spoke to me more than more than the other so far. Terrence Murphy 18:02I’ll give you one, but then I gotta give you five. Is that cool? Right? So the one I would tell every human being that they need to read is untethered. So Oh, yes. Until Oh my gosh. And then he’s got a new version of it. I think living an untethered life. But Untethered Soul really gave me for your, you know, because as athletes as real estate entrepreneurs, as these successful people, right, these brokers, these team leaders, these owners, we have to walk around with our chests out at all times. We got to be peacocks at all times. But some of us are broken, right. And some of us really need to be able to be in a safe place to communicate what we’re going through mentally. But you don’t you got to put this mask on every day, right? And until the soul really breaks that down. And that book is life changing to where you realize, like you need to be breathing, doing breathing exercises every day. You know, we talk about hydration and sleep and all that, oh, no one’s talking about breathing, how important it is. No one’s talking about the mental aspect of life, to be able to meditate and step away from this nauseous world of information and slow the brain down. D.J. Paris 19:12It reminds me of that expression. It’s an old musical expression, which is it’s not the notes that make the melody. It’s not the notes that actually create the song. It’s the space in between the notes that it’s like, oh, yeah, of course. It’s the space in between notes. Otherwise, it’s just one continual note. And that’s the silence that we don’t often give ourselves I find, you know, we have a device in our pocket. I was thinking about this this weekend. I’m not the first person to think about this. It’s not a brilliant thought. But it’s almost like a magic. It’s almost like magic. We have magic in our pocket 24/7 And we can use that to summon up whatever we desire. And you have to be really careful because it’s super addictive and it takes time away from being able to sit alone quietly and think and reflect. Do you make meditation or reflection? In a regular practice for you, Terrence Murphy 20:02I have, you know, we were taught to visualize as athletes, but we were never taught to meditate and breathe. And I think it talked about, you know, in the US, we are the worst at breathing, right? Our posture is terrible. Look at me right now I need to sit up now. And I’m thinking about it right. And we just don’t breathe, we don’t breathe. Well. We’re continually throughout the day, taking short breaths. And we’re not taking deep, long, continual breaths, we’re rushing to the next meeting. And I always tell everybody, that’s why I started this whole movement, we have to become real estate entrepreneurs. We can’t just be realtors, we can’t just be brokers. We can’t just be team leaders. We have to be real estate entrepreneurs. And when we become real estate entrepreneurs, we’re creating multiple income streams. We’re thinking about legacy, right? We’re not just We’re not just building a business for today, we’re building a business that will give back to our kids kids, right? We’re thinking about other people. And we’re thinking about our mental health, we’re thinking about the impact we want to leave. That’s the real estate entrepreneur piece that I’ve really like went all in on man. Like we even had a day, call rejuvenate day, I brought in all my agents. And we brought in a nutritionist, we brought in a trainer, we brought in a psychologist, like we brought in Enneagram coaches, we brought in massage therapist, a yoga instructor, we started off with yoga, and it was a beautiful day, just like really just putting them outside the box in this place of uncomfortableness, to force them to think about these things. And man, I have so many my agents, it still takes me, man, I’m still using some of the things I learned that rejuvenate days. So that’s really what I’m focused on. D.J. Paris 21:39I love that it’s a holistic approach to being successful at business, because you’re you’re really talking about being successful in every area of life. Because if we think of our life as a as a, you know, as a circle, or a wheel, you know, it’s we got to make sure that we’re pretty smooth, smooth, you know, around the edges, we got to make sure that, you know, our family life isn’t in the toilet, if we’re expected to do you know, but our business life is going great, it’s like it all has to be working pretty pretty well not that we don’t have ups and downs because of course, every single person does, regardless of their level of success. We all go through things, but this idea of treating not just the business side of it, treating the human side. And you know, the breathing thing is so, so interesting, because we all know this, like we’ve all heard this a million times we need to slow down or press we need to take deep diaphragmatic breaths we need to you know, and yet, I never really realize the benefit until I read some studies on on breathing, where, you know, I I am I have a lot of anxiety. It’s just kind of, you know, part of my DNA or whatever how I was raised or whatever. But regardless, there are breathing exercises that have been proven to reduce anxiety. And I’m like, Oh, this is so great. I don’t have to think my way out of it. I could do these deep breathing exercises that are super simple. And it’s like, wait two minutes, and then oh my god, I feel better. So it is it is remarkable. But you’re right, taking short breaths throughout the day, nobody talks about this in real estate, at least. It is really a big, big deal. And athletes are taught how to take deeper, longer breaths because of course, you’re also in peak physical condition, which helps. But beyond just working out, you can do this at your desk, you can do this throughout the day. And it really does center. I mean, it’s it’s the basis of meditation, right as breath. So boy, you’re you’re you’re saying you’re saying a lot of really, really great things that I’ve had done a lot of these episodes that people don’t talk about. I mean, sir, certainly we talked about being physically fit and you know, drinking enough water and eating right, but this idea of breathing and meditating and reflecting I think we’re such we’re in such a stimulus response world. And again, the phone in our pocket is going to try to grab our attention every few seconds. This is a way to to shut that out. So yeah, let’s before we get let’s talk about your podcasts. I know this is new real estate entrepreneur with tangents Murphy, so tell us about it. Terrence Murphy 24:00Yeah, before we go there, I want to make sure that I’m following up for your audience because I tell them I give them five books and I’m real big. Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. More books. Yeah. So untethered. So why the rich get richer by Robert Kiyosaki great book. A time atomic habits which we talked about earlier, traction by Gino Wakeman. So you got those four, and then good degree, those would be the five I would have people read. And as we pivot to the podcast, I think more than anything. People realize that they need more, especially real estate agents. And you’ve been through a downturn, I would say, a recessive market or a shifting market. I think people will start realizing that again that they need more. And one of the things that I teach my agents and sweat equity versus check equity, truly building a business with the right foundation versus just buying leads right when we saw Open Door Zillow. Redfin, So people were just was buying those leads, they’re in these contracts, real estate agents are stuck in these contracts. They’re paying 2500 a month, 3000 a month and I’m not getting the same. D.J. Paris 25:09And even beyond that, what happens if and when Zillow is like, you know, we’re just going to be our own thing. We’re going to have our own agents, we’re going to do our own thing. We’re good. We’re no longer selling leads to agents that day. And this, this is just a gasp, that day is coming. So, so I’m sorry, go right ahead. I interrupted you. Terrence Murphy 25:26No, no, you got the same passion for it as I do. They take our information from us and and sell it back to us. So I’m always trying to empower real estate agents, I have a very, very soft heart in a sense that I’ve seen so many of my friends. I worked with agents at Cohen’s. When I started, I was 23. And they were in their late 70s and 80s still selling real estate. And that’s why I would say, when have you been to a real estate agents retirement party, either get out of the industry, or they sell real estate until they don’t know what else to do. And that’s what I’m creating. I’m creating the real estate entrepreneur movement, where, like, I’ll take about on a normal real estate transaction is about 20 to 22. Companies that make money, title, mortgage survey, Home Warranty, I can keep going D.J. Paris 26:15right inspection appraisal, yeah, etc. Yeah, it keeps Terrence Murphy 26:17going. So I’m teaching my people in my world how to buy those businesses and get owner distributions. I’m teaching them how to invest in real estate, how to start their first investment portfolio because my wife and I bought commercial strip centers, we bought multifamily. We’ve done neighborhoods, we’re developing neighborhoods alongside Jack Nicklaus right now. And so we’ve done and we’re teaching people those exact steps on how to create multiple income streams. D.J. Paris 26:44I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. 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Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, it really is the way to go as as somebody who I’m not a broker owner myself, although I work hand in hand with with our owner here. And he and I have created several ancillary companies to do exactly what you’re talking about, you know, because for people who might not be realizing, especially people who want to start their own firm, what you might not realize, at least on the residential side, is brokerage is a very low margin business on its own, and to really make a nice business that might be sellable one day, you need to have these ancillary lines. And also, they’re just great ways to increase the bottom line in getting involved in Title maybe lending depending on you know, what state you might be in, you know, again, commission advance, there’s a lot of title, you know, like you were saying, lots of different lines. You’re absolutely so right, because I think people oftentimes want to want to get in, be their own managing broker have their own business, and they don’t realize what the margins actually look like. And then they’re like, oh, wow, this is not the This isn’t like I just broke free from a Keller Williams, which is a great company, but now I’m on my own, I get to keep everything. And it’s like, oh, and now I have all these other expenses as well. So it becomes tricky and and but I think you’re right, this idea of an entrepreneur is Robert Kiyosaki is sort of the guy who really made this as popular as it is, is this idea of residual income and creating streams of income that are more predictable, because as we know, real estate is transactional. It’s so odd to me that no one has figured out how to make it a fee based business like what financial advisors have done, financial advisors, the smartest thing ever, which basically said we’re not stockbrokers anymore. We’re not earning commissions, where you’re going to pay us 1% Or whatever the percent, you know, of all the assets under management. Real Estate hasn’t figured out how to do that. Maybe they never will. So real estate does become very transactional. You need these other businesses just so that you can not freak out on the first of the month, every month, right? Terrence Murphy 29:59You and hit a wall, right? You know, it’s like this. I’m gonna draw, I’m gonna create an image one day, I may even create a t shirt. But it’s got these paths, right? And they all have a hamster wheel at the end. But they make you think that this path is better than that path. So it’s like you’re a real estate agent. You’re a brand new agent. Now you become a top producer. Now you lead a team. Now you own the brokerage? Yeah, you’ve made it when in reality, most of the brokers I talk to are the ones that are broke. It’s called broker for a reason, right? And the margins are based, you know, I ran a mastermind of the top broker owners in the world at one point or in the USSR. And, and I ran it in the shadows, and no one even knew I started this group, but I told him to one rule I have is well to if you’re not going to be here, let me know. And two is we can’t talk about this in any public forum. So I was running a mastermind for some of the top brokers in the United States for like three years. No one ever knew about this, uh, we and man we, I mean, you had Keller Williams, you had REMAX you had Coldwell Banker Sotheby’s independent brokers in that room, and I coached him every week. And everybody was saying the same stuff no matter what model they was in, they were in so. And I think that’s why exp is the fastest growing brokerage in the world because it’s figured out how to give agents shares and stock. It’s figured out how to give them new income streams. And it’s a beautiful model. But I know we’re going to talk about the podcasts. I wanted to go back and hit those books. D.J. Paris 31:27Oh, yeah. No, and thank you for that. And before we get to the podcast, I think you know what, what exp did is really it’s beyond remarkable because they the way I interpreted is they basically took the Keller Williams model and said it wasn’t quite exactly fully realized in the way that Keller Williams and I’m not picking on Keller Williams, obviously, they’re amazing company, of course. But basically people left Keller Williams and said, We think there’s a better way to do the same sort of thing with, you know, giving people more agency more ownership. And so they figured it out. And holy crap, did they figure it out? They are. I mean, it’s it’s like the results speak for themselves. And anyway, so yeah, let’s talk about the podcast. Terrence Murphy 32:06Yeah. Last thing on that I always tell people when they asked me, What’s the difference? And and I know Gary, personally, we actually met years ago, we got introduced by Tim how, because a friend of mine from college, one of their top agents, great friend, great guy. And we were supposed to meet for five minutes, and three and a half hours later. Me and Gary and Josh team, my wife was in the room, it was just us for she checked out. She was like y’all go with it. And as you can see how my mind works. I mean, we were just me and Gary, were just on the whiteboards going at it for three hours. And, man, he’s an amazing dude, sharp guy, genius. Respect for him, man. He’s a genius. And so I always respect him. And he said, Dude, I have 100. And at the time, 80,000 agencies like, You’re different. You’re special. I want to be a part of your story. Anything I can do to help you and Erica, let me know. So always will respect Gary on that. I will say on the model. I will say you explained it this way profit share if you take a p&l statement, whereas profits on the bottom. Yeah, right. And so this person gotta be paid, this person got to be paid, this person’s got to be paid. And finally, we’ll share the profit with the agents where usually there’s not a lot left, right, where exp flipped it upside down and say what’s on the top of will pay at the top? Yeah, yeah, it’s revenue. Yeah. So that’s the difference. But they figured D.J. Paris 33:19out how to do it. No one else had figured out how to do that. Now there’s a bit a few copycats that are coming along. Because they’re like, hey, this, this idea of this rev share model works really, really well. So it’s it is it is truly incredible. Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about real estate entrepreneur, what’s the goal of the podcast? Who were you speaking to? And by the way, everyone should check it out. We’re gonna have a link to this directly in the show notes as well. So you can subscribe right from from the show notes. But tell us about it. Terrence Murphy 33:45Yeah, so when I was thinking about a podcast, my wife has really been on to me about celebrating. The overachiever in me, Chief stuff. I don’t even stop to smell the roses. I’m on to like the next one, right? I’m just. And one day, she said you got to celebrate. I said, okay, cool. So we achieved the goal in our 20s that we wanted to achieve, which was buying a strip center, we bought a script center in North Carolina in Nashville. It’s Buffalo Wild Wings, Starbucks and different tenants. So we took a picture in front of it, and I posted it. And like a week later, it had like, a million shares. And I was like, what just happened? You know, like, wow, and people were just so inspired by the story that we tell the piece that I posted. And that’s when I realized, like, what I’m doing and how I’m doing it can help a lot of people. So people started messaging me message me on Instagram, Facebook, and I could not obviously keep up with all the messages. Do you have any book? Do you have a book? Do you have a coaching course? Do you have a podcast? And you know, the crazy thing is at the time, I realized I told my wife and said we don’t have any of these. Like, we have no way to help these people. So that’s when I said alright, let’s start this podcast. And so instead of naming it real estate realtor or builder or broker, real estate entrepreneur kind of embody everything that I’m doing. But the goal is to go after realtors to go after brokers to graph the builders, go after investors and just let them know, these are the fundamental things you need to be learning and reading about and putting in place in order to scale your business. Because the one thing I’m passionate about is scalability. I know how to scale things, and I know how to grow things. And that’s something I’m passionate about doing. So that’s what the podcast is real estate entrepreneur with tears Murphy. And I’m just bringing in people to talk about that. D.J. Paris 35:30Yeah, scalability is is really its own skill set, it requires the willingness to probably step away from individual production or to step outside of the constraints of individual production, and which you know, it for anyone who’s a real estate agent is probably hyper focused on their own personal production or their team’s production. And then trying to say, Okay, how do I, how do I want X 2x 510 exes, and which require a whole set of systems, so your systems, your data and systems guy really at heart, Terrence Murphy 36:05process and people’s what we say in our organizations, because people always ask me, How do you own 20 companies and you’re invested in another 30 process and be in the cradle? Go ahead, go for Dejan. D.J. Paris 36:17So I have a question that I’m sure every single person on this podcast is thinking, how does this guy accomplish and do so much? This isn’t me giving you a compliment, although it is a great compliment, but it’s really, how are you able to to be a podcaster an entrepreneur, run a brokerage all your you you own bought prop lots of properties, you have a team? How is there enough time in the day? So this probably goes back to scalability, but how are you able to sort of keep it all running when most of us, you know, are focused in one or two things and we’re struggling? How are you able to maintain that focus with all the different you know, sort of adventures that you’re into, and oh, and you’re a VC. So we can keep going you do a lot, you can do it all, you know, Terrence Murphy 37:05I believe everything we go through in life is to to be a part of your story. And when I was 16, my mom had a heart attack. And so at that moment in time, she made it through for a couple more years after but I was working two jobs in high school, I was the team captain on the football team, I was an honor society with a 3.8 GPA. So I’d already been learning these tools. And when you are 16, I drove myself to school, I fed myself like I literally was at home by myself. And so you just kind of became an adult an early age, I didn’t understand why I was going through that. Like, why was it so hard. But looking back, like those experiences happen for a reason. Same thing with my NFL career, I worked my butt off to get to get there. And I got paralyzed. I mean, I got paralyzed from the neck down. I had a really bad neck injury. And just working my way back from something of that. Oh, man, trauma, right, just learning how to use your arms again to walk again. You know, I had neck surgery. And I’m like, why am I going through this? But it’s not why. It’s how can you use it to inspire other people? And how can you use it to be a better version of yourself. That’s what I tell everybody in my work. You are competing with you, I want you to be the best version of DJ, everybody else has already taken so be the best version of you. And in that my capacity grew. My, my passion for entrepreneurship and real estate grew my one prayer to God when I was in the middle of depression, I mean, deep in depression at 22 years of my dream was shaken when I can’t walk, I’m in a wheelchair, I’m trying to figure this stuff out. It’s just given me a passion. God gave me something that I could be passionate about. And when he gave me real estate, that’s when I knew, Okay, so that’s why when people when they hear me speak, or they listen to me, they’re like, do you just speak with his different conviction? Because when you’re praying to God in the middle of depression, and you paralyze thy God, give me a passion, and he shows it to you. There’s no way I can speak with conviction. So as I think through how we are trying to scale, I’m always challenging myself. The foundation of scalability is number one, you are you operating with the best version of your time I call it TBS, where’s my time best spent on a day to day basis? So I literally meet with my team probably every other week about my schedule with people that think well, you kind of create it and leave it right. Interesting. I mean, and I refined my schedule every two to three weeks, and no one will tell you that because no one’s doing it right. But when people ask me, Well, how did you learn that? Well, I learned it from okay, if I’m a wire receiver, and at practice, I’m running this route, right and I dropped the ball. Well, right after practice, I go right in and I put the tape on I’m like, Okay, if I were to just put my foot here and what this way it would have made it easier. So I took that all I did His take life experiences. And I translated it into real estate entrepreneurship. So that’s why when people are trying to study me, they can’t figure me out. I’m an enigma. Because I’m pulling from life experiences I’m pulling from books, I’m pulling from things that no one it’s I’ve taken, I’ve taken the ingredients of my life and made it into a recipe. And now I’m able to listen to you, I can interview your DJ. And the first thing if you were going to work and be a part of my team, I would want to know your story. I want to know those those points. And I can help you take those ingredients in your life and create it into a successful recipes to scale. So that was a long answer to say, everybody’s recipe will be different. But it starts with time blocking. And then once we understand where we’re putting our time and how we’re managing our time, then it’s processing. And so D.J. Paris 40:52you know, it’s so funny, because we do want to make this more complicated. We want as individuals to think, oh, my gosh, my life is so complicated. And yes, it can feel that way. And absolutely, I’m not here to say that, you know, my life is harder than anyone else’s are more complicated, because of course, everybody’s their own unique individual has their own challenges. But you’re absolutely right about this idea that what we have to do is, is constantly evaluate in not in a I’m worthless way, not in a denigrating way, but in a Where is my time best spent today? Where was my time best spent yesterday? Where did I you know, where was I not super effective. What’s another skill I can learn, just trying to keep the tools actually not even sharpen. But adding more tools and more sharp tools to the quiver. You know, this idea of reading 52 books a year, if, if every realtor read five books here, just five books, in fact, read the five that that Terence recommended, but if they just did that there would be massive change, because all it takes is one or two good ideas. And the fact that you’re doing 52 books a year is going to scale you up even faster with that knowledge. So it’s but it’s also but there’s also a limit to how much time there is so I’m curious on so you talked about time best spent TBS this idea of here’s here’s where I can leverage the the most growth within the shortest amount of time. How and, and I also want to go all the way back to your story of you know, you had to be an become an adult much earlier than a lot of us right because of your situation growing up. That’s not an easy thing for a child to have to have to do or teenager you did it you stayed focused, you achieved you know your your professional goals up until you know, and then your life was a lot of it your physical body was taken away from you really, just because that happens, things happen. And it’s it’s awful. And yet, here you are, you’re walking, you’re you’re you’re in shape, you’re you’re now running these successful businesses. And and but you also said depression is part of my story too. Like, yes, I am not a Superman, like even when you know, your whole career gets taken away. That’s going to put anyone in a massive depression. So I’m curious and wanted to ask about one thing about support group, having a support group. And I don’t mean necessarily a building that you go into and sit in a circle with other people, though, that is a version of that. It could be friends, family could be colleagues, how important is it for you to have people in your life that you can share intimately invulnerable, be vulnerable with and say, Hey, guys, I am going through something right now. I am depressed. And yet I’m still I’m still productive. I’m still getting my life together. But this is going on. And this is real. How important is it to have those relationships? And does that help you through the tougher times? Terrence Murphy 43:52Wow, that’s good, bro. Man, this is a really good podcast. If people aren’t listening, they need to rewind this episode. I’m gonna go back and listen to it multiple times. So I think it’s really cool man. You know, the cool thing about it is I tell people all the time. I don’t have a brokerage anymore. I don’t really have a team. I have a tribe. Man and I always say Your vibe attracts your tribe. Yeah, being you the authentic you. Not someone else. Man, like that’s gonna attract the right people, the energy and the realness not fake positivity. Like I don’t want to be in the locker room who’s not going to play a snap walking around hooting and hollering like, just day in and day out. We see tears get up at five in the morning and hit it and we see him at the office and we see him in the weight room or whatever wherever you guys are at and you’re just day in and they are just getting up and doing the work. But when you hit a wall because we all hit a wall, you can be vulnerable to and that’s what a true leader and a true because to me when you are able to be vulnerable with right people. And so that’s why I say, man having the right tribe around you, and protecting that energy. Like we’re at a place now we literally call it the zero tolerance rule. You can bring me any problem in the real estate team or organization, but it better have a solution attached. Because if not, then you’re just complaining. And no one is allowed to bring any negative energy into our space. And if you do, we’re gonna call you out unless you have a solution attached. And just creating an atmosphere like that an ecosystem like that, where there’s a lot of successful people, but and I tell everybody leave your pride at the door. No one can come into this space. And when somebody has feedback to help you have ears to hear, and not just ears to reply, because in so many times, everybody just wants to reply, they’re just ready to say something bad, versus slowing down and truly hearing what the person is saying. And I think that’s what we’re so focused on right now. And in those situations, vulnerability, and authenticity, authenticity, and real conversations, we can have a place where we can say, hey, you know what, DJ, thanks for pushing me a couple of weeks ago, and really getting on my ass. I know I can do better. But now let’s have this conversation. Man, I got a lot going on. Man. This is what I got going on. Yeah, D.J. Paris 46:22that’s what yeah, this ability, this ability to be honest, and to be vulnerable is, is really I found very helpful when things get tough. Having people around who who care, and that, that you care about it really helps keep it but you’re right about this idea of problems and solutions. I want to just to go back to that for a second. Because that is you just challenged me because I’m well, I’m like most people, I’m a complainer, of course. And there’s always things to complain about, you know, nothing’s perfect. There’s always, you know, I can complain about myself too, which is also not very helpful. But this idea of complaining is only helpful if you’re like, and I think I can figure out a way around, or I could ask somebody who’s been there before me. You know, like I have, I have a personal trainer, you were talking about about being in the gym with a trainer. It’s like, I have a trainer because I don’t want to hurt myself in the gym. And also, I’m not a professional athlete, and I don’t know what I’m doing. So I’ve had a trainer for I’ll probably have a trainer the rest of my life, honestly. And it’s not. It’s because I need somebody who’s like, Do this, do this, do this. That’s their expertise. I pay them for their expertise, and I get the results. If I tried to do I tried to do it all myself my whole life. I never got to the gym. Rarely went sometimes I go sometimes I didn’t. It wasn’t. It wasn’t just something I was able to do myself. So I had to, I had to find leverage. I had to say, Okay, well, if I want to hire if I need to hire a trainer, I need to make enough money to hire a trainer, which means I need to scale up my business. So I totally understand this idea of looking for solution. And and it’s not always easy solutions are not always well, they’re not always right in front of you. But if you have a good circle of people around, you know, sometimes other people can help you with your solutions, too. And this idea of masterminding, we do this. I do the same thing with brokerages, we mastermind with other brokerages that are kind of similar to us all over the country are like hey, what are you guys doing right now? Like, where are you? Where are you guys struggling? What’s working, just doing that alone has helped I get so many ideas. And I’m sort of shocked that so many real estate agents operate in a silo, they sort of operate in their own little world, they work from home, which I get, they’re not really around other agents and less sort of showing or something. And they don’t often know like, there’s lots of great ideas out there. And all you have to do is connect with other other realtors, what, how important is having, having sort of people that you look up to having idols not idle in the religious sense. But just having people that you respect having people that you know, obviously you’re a reader. And you know, you hung out with Gary Keller for three and a half hours. Like, that’s pretty cool. How important is it for you to get access to these people? And how much time has it saved you by reading something, learning something having a conversation so that you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel? Yeah, I Terrence Murphy 49:17think at this point, if you’re a real estate agent, and you don’t have someone who’s achieved what you’ve achieved, because always say it’s one thing to get inspiration, right? Like LeBron James did a dunk the other night. I was like, Wow, that’s awesome. I’m inspired by Yeah, but how is that actually helping me, right? So the one thing I’ve tried to become is I don’t want to just be an inspiration to anybody anymore. I want to be an inspiration that inspires you. But then I want to give you the breadcrumbs and the tools and the roadmap to go achieve the success that you want to achieve. So that other piece of puzzle is what I’m building out right now. To truly give people the tools. So now they’re inspired, but then I sell and then I’m inspired but now I plug in. Boom. And then I think That’s been the great thing. Now, because of running an independent brokerage, you kind of feel like you’re on an island somewhere now, like, you know, that was the thing. I remember going to Cabo my first exp event, and it says, making real estate fun again. And I get there. And every step I took, I knew a broker from being an independent broker, I just didn’t know they were at exp. So like, every step, I took them, like, Whoa, you’re here, you’re like a class reunion. I’m like, Oh, this is cool. And so yeah, it’s just been one of those things where, you know, when you get to a place where everybody is successful, it’s like flying with the Eagles. No one’s really like, forwarding the information. They’re not like trying to hold back, they’re just free with it. And then it creates that atmosphere. So I love kind of being in that atmosphere where we’re all gonna succeed. But it’s like, alright, let’s just put all of our tools in the middle of the table, and then you grab out of what you want to grab on. And then like, you know, like a potluck, right? D.J. Paris 50:58Absolutely, like a potluck. And you’re a competitive guy, but I suspect you don’t view any other realtors or brokerages as competition at all. I suspect you won’t. You said this earlier, I compete with myself, I want to be the best version of me. Obviously, you’re paying attention to what other firms are doing, of course, because why wouldn’t you? And you want to keep you know, introducing, you know, more and more skills and you know, different avenues of verticals to your business. But you’re not you don’t see the other agencies as as competitors, Terrence Murphy 51:30I’m guessing. No, not really, because my value proposition is so unique. You know, I’m teaching real estate agents how to create multiple income streams. I’m teaching them how to build other businesses, I’m teaching them how to invest. You know, I just closed a $45 million apartment 240 units a couple of weeks ago. So I’m doing stuff where I can show these guys and I started off my first investment was 270 $5,000 duplexes. So you can scale that’s why I say I went from that 10 years ago to a 40 $50 million deal. $70 million deal, the 50 million. There’s, there’s just following a system and the process and the breadcrumbs. But like at exp they rank, they rank, the personal attractors, and out of 87,000 agents, and I’ve been at exp now 16 months, I’m number 30. I’m in the top 30. Already, it’s been some people have been there 12 or 13 years or longer. And in the first year and a half or under two years, I’m already in the top 30 Personal attractors. But I don’t really get caught up in being anybody else other than myself. And any goal that I set, it’s gonna be well beyond any what anybody can write down for me anyway. D.J. Paris 52:33Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else could. And I suspect that is a huge reason. You just embrace your standards, your standards are up here. And they didn’t start up here necessarily. They start where everyone starts, and you just kept inching your way up to where you’re like, hey, I can run multiple things at the same time by scaling to two final questions for you. And then I’ll let you get back to running your empire and I do I do consider it an empire because I don’t say that as as just a nice thing to say, although it is like so nice thing to say. But it’s really true. I mean, you’re doing a lot of different things successfully. Which any one of those things is difficult and the fact that you do them all simultaneously with with a lot of help, of course, is is just truly remarkable. Two questions one is every every agent I know again, focused on on the present in the near future is freaking out about 2023 Right we’re like okay, rates are where they are. This is This is bad. Now I’m not I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying this is this is what the mentality is a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of sort of parent paralyzed agents going i Oh, next year, it’s gonna really be rough. What are you telling? What are you coaching your agents to think about? Because we can’t control rates? We can’t control inventory, we just can’t. But there are things that are within our control. What are what are you telling people to do to focus to have a successful 2023? Terrence Murphy 54:03Yeah, it’s really cool. Like I said, I’m an I’m an enigma man, people can’t figure me out. I’m just, you know, I got my real estate license in the middle of the downturn in investment company in 2008. So the worst D.J. Paris 54:17time to start an investment company and we’ve did it Terrence Murphy 54:20the worst, especially and start a brokerage. So I look at this just like Warren Buffett says, he says real estate recession or stock market downturn or what is D.J. Paris 54:34recession proof? Terrence Murphy 54:35Yeah, well, the real estate market not a bear market, but a bull market. Bull Market There we go. Sorry, I couldn’t get it out. He says it’s the only time that when something’s on sale, people don’t run to buy I know it’s funny you know what I mean? So like but if it’s a First Friday or what is it Black Friday, you can’t even you get trampled get. So I tell people, you got to switch the mindset and they always start With the mindset, right when I win everything, and that’s what I’m always evaluating is my mindset where it needs to be in order for me to go to that next level, because you can have all the processes you want. But if you don’t have the mindset to receive, going to a billion dollars in sales, or having 500 people in your organization, or whatever it is, it’s not going to be sustainable. You may get there, but you’re gonna go backwards. So what I’m telling my real estate agents, is look at the opportunity that’s in here, study your own hyperlocal market. Is it Arios? Is it new builders, because builders were fine when they were getting 18 offers, but now their agents might have gotten lazy, but they have to still keep selling houses. I picked up five builders in the 2012 13 range, just because I was doing what their agents had gotten tired of doing. Man, I started having these builders hired me, man, that’s when I started scaling, do you get 40 houses per builder or 20? Houses 30 houses? And so you just got to think about looking at your hyperlocal market and find those opportunities? Is it expired? Is it orphan listings, right? An orphan listings, just to listen to goes past 90 days, it’s been expired, people have forgotten about it, you know, and then you just create a value proposition to second to none. And you pick up that market share, because the market share is not going away. It’s just going to trade hands. So if we have the hunter mentality, that we’re gonna go hunt, and we’re gonna go create a value proposition is second to none. And a brand is second to none. That’s when we will take that market share, and it’s just a mentality shift. Right. D.J. Paris 56:30And last year, you’re not worried about 2023 at all, you’re just pivoting, pivoting, pivoting. And I only wanted to say that because you’re the only person I’ve talked to thus far, who is like not legitimately freaked out? And I think what you said made absolute perfect sense. Yes, we’ll just change well, we’ll look over here as opposed to over here. And we’ll make it work. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Terrence Murphy 56:55No, you hit it on the head, you picked up on it, because truth stands the test of time when you hit true. Well, there it is. Right, like, Whoa, there it is. And so I think once again, when people resonate with my message is because it’s not a woe is me. It’s not I’m scared, I don’t operate out of fear. I operate out of solutions. And at the end of the day, I’m going excited to be truthfully honest, I think there’s a lot of people who have not been coached, right. And when they realize they need the right coaching, they’re going to come to people like me, and I’m going to give them the confidence and the tools to be a competent agent, I call it the three seeds. Competence creates confidence. But if you got an industry in 16 1718, whatever, and you’re getting 17 offers, you never really sat down and created the competence. But now you gotta go create the competence. D.J. Paris 57:48Yeah, and nobody likes a confident person who isn’t competent. In fact, we all laugh at those people, we dislike them. Confidence needs to be earned through competence. And I think I think so here’s my last question. My final question. And this is this will be a tough a tougher one, maybe, or maybe not. I, what would you say, to your 22 year old self, or 23 year old self, you know, as you’re exiting your your football career? What do you wish you would have known then that you didn’t know but you but you do know now? Terrence Murphy 58:22Think even bigger than I thought. And I was a pretty big dreamer and think, yeah, you’re D.J. Paris 58:28already a big thinker. And yet you’re thinking too small back then is what you’re saying? Terrence Murphy 58:32Yeah, I remember hitting them came to me going my junior year. And I remember them talking to my parents about a Heisman campaign. Like I was really playing that well, at the time, Reggie Bush was doing really well. And Darren Sproles, and if you look at our numbers, my numbers are just as good as some of his numbers. He was winning the Heisman. And I remember hitting him was talking about at some point coming to my parents about Heisman campaign, and in my mind, I was like me, Heisman winner receiver at Texas a&m. And so I still beat myself up about that, because I’m like, You shouldn’t accept that. And be like, Yes, I am. I am a Heisman. I can’t be one of the I am one of the best players in the nation. And those of us those moments in life that I pull on now or now when I think about an idea of like, it’s possible. And whatever it is five exit in your mind and then go for that. D.J. Paris 59:23Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s as simple as that as not, it’s not easy, but it’s simple, right? Like, I guess that’s the point. It’s hard but simple. This idea of being able to, to think bigger, allows you it expands your capability. Right? It’s it’s a it’s a simple idea, think bigger, and then then the hard work comes in of trying to figure out a way through it, but you’re absolutely right. We are and we all know this. We’re limited by our beliefs. You know that there’s that old joke of like, what is BS stands for belief systems because it is it is Whatever. It’s an old joke, but But it’s true. We’re all wrapped up in our own BS our own belief systems. And when then you meet somebody like you who’s who seemingly doing things outside of what we believe is capable, but you’ve been doing that your whole life. And so you have this track record of like, oh, yeah, I got paralyzed. Yeah, that was it. I mean, I got through it. First, you know, I got into, you know, I got into college, I got into, you know, playing a pro sports, you did all the things that were already impossible. So I imagine when challenges come your way, it probably doesn’t decimate you like maybe it would somebody who hasn’t had some of those, those challenges along the way. One final question, how important is failure? And what I mean failure, I don’t mean, you know, I just mean not achieving the goal you set out for and how important because I have I have I have a theory, or at least I’ve talked to a lot of agents who say they love failure, because most of the things they do don’t end up working out. But it just takes, it just carries them over to the next thing that eventually gets them closer to working out. So how often you seem like a guy who never fails at anything. I would love to know, what role does failure play in your life? And how do you think about failure? Terrence Murphy 1:01:14Man, it’s a good question. It’s a great final question. I think as I think about failure, I always say it’s wins and lessons. There are no wins and losses. It’s only a loss if you quit. Yep. So I mean, they’re gonna win. I’m a learning lesson. Yeah, I’m only win and I’m gonna lose if I quit. And so as long as you keep going, there was a Martin Luther King quote, I know I’m gonna butcher it but he says, If you can’t fly, then run if you can’t run then walk. If you can’t walk then crawl. But by all means, keep going. There Yeah, D.J. Paris 1:01:52it boy, I’m not going to do better than Dr. Martin Luther King. So I’m gonna leave it there. One of the greatest thinkers of all time and you perfectly summed some that up I think that’s absolutely right. And also the scoreboard of life or on the field is is only the scoreboard it even if you’re victorious, it doesn’t necessarily mean you played your best right? And I’m sure you probably had games where you lost but you played your best and yes, it’s it’s no fun to lose. But to know that I did my best is is really all that ever really ultimately matters or at least in my opinion, that’s what I found is that you know, you can you could win on the scoreboard but if you didn’t play your best you just don’t feel that good about that victory. Right? So this idea of of of showing up like you’ve said, be your best self I know it’s said a lot in our society, but actually measuring what does it mean to be at my best, what does that actually look like? Boy, Terrance, you gave so much great wisdom on this episode, I need to get you back to where you need to get back to running your empire and I have taken up too much of your time. So thank you for spending as much time on our show talking to our A took not our agents, but our listeners who are agents about what it takes to be successful. Anyone wants to jump aboard the Terrance Murphy train. And you know what if you’re gonna hit your your, your horse to a wagon, it’s a pretty good wagon to hitch to check out all the stuff he does, because he is incredible, and an amazing guy and just a just a great, great guy. So check out Terrence murphy.com. Everything Terrence related is on there, you can learn about his coaching, you can learn about his brokerage, you can learn about his podcast, and of course, his story along the way and all the entrepreneurial efforts he is involved in. And if you’re an agent looking to you know, get coached by somebody, boy Terrence would be right at the top of my list. So definitely check him out Terrence murphy.com. Again, that’s t e r r e n c e murphy.com. Also follow him on Instagram, which is Terrence realtor. So at Terrence realtor, we’ll have links to all of that in our show notes. And Terence, I am super so, so grateful to you for coming on our show. I know our audience got a lot of value out of this. So on behalf of the audience, we thank you. We know how busy you are. We know you don’t have time to do this. And yet you found time for us. Thank you. On behalf of Terence and myself, we also want to thank the audience for continuing to support our show to make it all the way to the end. And we ask everybody to just do one thing. Once you after you visit Terrence Murphy’s website Terrence murphy.com. Tell a friend about this episode. Just tell one other real estate agent about this episode, maybe somebody who’s struggling or maybe somebody that’s looking for the some sort of answer or suggestion to help get them through the end of this year and into next year and shoot them a link over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every one of our episodes can be streamed there or just anywhere you can find podcasts. We are there as well. Also subscribe to Terrance pod Terrance his podcast real estate entrepreneur with Terence Murphy link to that in the show notes Terrance thank you sir you are an inspiration. I am grateful to you for coming on our show. You are The busiest man I know and you made time for us and so thank you. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Terrence Murphy 1:05:07Terrance. Appreciate you brother. I’m here if you need me on anything, man, God bless everybody keep your hands up, keep pushing, and the scorecard is measuring how many people you can impact in a positive way. Thanks, bro.

Skye Michiels the National Head of Agent Development at Compass and DJ discuss how photos give you a better chance to connect with people and how to use this tool. Skye goes back to the beginning of his career in real estate how he got into Compass and became the head of agent development there. Skye describes how he started the 6amers and built a community around it. Next, Skye discusses how to nurture and deepen your relationships with your past clients. Skye also talks about what he expects 2023 will look like and how agents can talk to their clients about the rates at the moment. Please check out and subscribe to Skye’s the6amers Podcast here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Skye Michiels can be reached at info@skyemichiels.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:002023 is the year that you should deepen relationships with your sphere. But how do you do that? We’re going to 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 Paris, I am your guide and host through the show in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Sky Michaels before we get to sky. Just a quick reminder that the best way that you can help our podcast well a couple of ways, actually two ways. So there are two best ways. One is to of course support our sponsors who are nice enough to help us continue funding our show. So we love our sponsors, please, we hope you love them to check out their products and services. And then the second best way you can help us grow is also by telling a friend, our goal is to reach as many real estate agents as possible. There’s 1.7 million of them in the United States right now. And I don’t think all of them are listeners, although we would love it if they all were so help us get one more follower or one more listener and turn somebody else on to our show, send them over to our website, keeping it real pod.com. And guys, that’s enough for me. Let’s get to the main event my conversation with Skye Michaels. Today on the show we have sky Michaels from Compass and let me tell you more about Scott. Scott Michaels is here to connect, empower and cultivate kindness. He’s a dad and entrepreneur. He’s an award winning real estate professional and a national motivational speaker. Now Currently he is serving as the National Head of agent development at Compass and Sky is currently creating a national agent training curriculum based on the principle that real estate is more about creating connection and caring for people than it is about selling houses could not agree more. By the way. Sky is also the founder and host of the popular motivation and accountability group, the 6am errs, which brings together 1000s of agents across the country in the early hours every week to learn frameworks for developing a healthy mindset, reaching their goals and achieving their own happiness. I’m going to give you guys two websites that I want you to go check out about Skye first is his personal website, which is Sky michaels.com. Michaels is spelled a little differently. So there’s a link to that in our show notes. But it is M I C H I E L s.com. So sky with an E, Michael’s anyway, just click on the link in the show notes, but also want you to check out his 6am ers accountability group and podcast. You can find that anywhere podcasts are served, but go to his website, the 6am ers, and it’s the number 6am ers.com. Google it, you’ll find it. I’ll also have a link to that in the show notes. Skye, welcome to the show. Skye Michiels 4:14Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be on I wanted D.J. Paris 4:17to very quickly before we get into your story, I’m sort of going to take over for just a moment, which is like super rude and not great. Not not not great etiquette. But I wanted I saw something that really stopped me in my tracks and forced me but not forced me encouraged me and immediately captivated me to learn more about you. So we do obviously prep for the show. Although today I didn’t do my prep that early. And so I was like oh my gosh, I have to learn about sky. And I went to his website, which is Sky michaels.com And he does something that I’ve yet to see any other person in the real estate industry do and I’m sure other people have done this but this is the first time I’ve seen it in five years of looking at other agent websites. For people that are on our show, after 400, some episodes, this is super cool. If you go to his website and you go to his About Us page, he is got something called big moments. And what he’s basically showing you here is different major events in his life that are important to him or significant to his development or about his personal life. And, boy, I love this. And I just wanted to say, I literally got to learn all about your life, not necessarily by reading a bio, which, you know, I get lost after a while when I read somebody’s bio, especially if it’s really long, but I loved this because I could see pictures of each event in your life. And then if I hover over, I can read more about it. And I was like, wow, I really feel like I know this guy. And I thought, What a great idea for other realtors to do this. So please, everyone, go to his website, Sky michaels.com, go to his About Us page and just check out how he really gets intimate and vulnerable. And says, here’s the here’s what’s been most important to me in my life. I think it is super cool. So I just wanted to give you some, some kudos before we before you started. Skye Michiels 6:01Yeah, well, I think it ties back into the philosophy that I have around real estate too, that real estate is about people. And you know how many, every realtor that you you’ve seen or that you go and you go to their about page, it’s words and words and words. The reality is like, no client looking at me, it wants to read all that, right. But when they see a visual, and they see a picture of like, divorced, you know what I’m doing what I’m doing, right, there is a, um, I’m explaining who I am as a person. In addition, I’m also creating potential connection with the person like, oh, wow, like, if they had read paragraph and paragraph and paragraph, you know, eventually maybe they get to it. But the visual of that in, you know, the visual, my children are the visual of me rowing in college, or whatever it might be it you connect a lot easier, our brains are wired to connect visually, much quicker than we are connect when we read something. So that was sort of the mindset around it was a really one in a very, very quick situation illustrate who I am as a person, mainly because I want to connect with you as a person as well. D.J. Paris 7:11Yeah, it almost felt like I was, it was almost almost like a mini Instagram. Most important moments of your life in a weird way. It’s just, it’s like I don’t have to infinitely scroll through, you know, a million of your Instagram posts, I can literally just see the top 12 things that have happened that are significant. And you you really do talk about everything on there, which I think is is courageous, and a great, a great example of leadership, the ability to, you know, say, hey, not everything in my life has been easy and perfect. And here are some of the challenges and here’s how I overcame them. And I just I’m really impressed by that. And it encourages me to want to be more forthright, you know, with with my own story as well. And by the way, I’m a divorced guy, too. And it’s and as soon as I saw that, I was like, Okay, I feel good. I did, I did, I felt a little drag to do tonight. I don’t have children you do. So I wasn’t able to connect in that way. But But I was like, Oh, I’m a divorced guy that that’s, you know, it’s not really something we like, when we go around bragging about in a way or like announcing, but of course, half the people in this country are. And so even even things like that I thought was really, really Skye Michiels 8:21well. And I really think it goes back into owning your story. Right? The best. Realtors are authentic. And authenticity is the most powerful thing we have in real estate. It’s Be your authentic self. And when you own your story, you’re showing up as your authentic self. And, and very similar. Like, when someone is looking at you online. You don’t know what they’re going to connect with. I don’t I didn’t know if you were divorced. But now we have a course in connection. And imagine if I was showing up to a listing appointment at your house, you already feel like you know me a little bit and you have we have a connection and maybe it was the college rowing or maybe it was the children or maybe it was the we don’t know. But now I’m putting my story out there I’m saying this is who I am as a person. And now you it allows you to connect in your terms rather than me trying to force my turns on you. I don’t know if that makes sense. D.J. Paris 9:14It makes perfect sense. And also this this idea of vulnerability is is really the gateway to connection and you are vulnerable on this and and I like that because so so many people are desperate for connection and but it’s scary to get vulnerable. It’s scary to put your story out there because of course you know people can judge you for it or people can have a reaction that isn’t what you want. But you’re saying it’s my story. This is what it is i and and but people love that I love it. I love the anyway so we’ll move on from that because I could talk about that all day. But I think that is such a great example of who you are. Is is the the willingness to put something like that out there I think is a really great indicator of your character and and also where you’re at in life. But let’s start all the way at the beginning of your story because I really want to hear about how you got to where you are now. So how did you get started in real estate? Skye Michiels 10:09So I was a teacher. So I graduated from Syracuse University, I knew from a very early age, I wanted to be a teacher, like, I love that, you know. And I was inspired by some of my teachers, like most teachers are. And I got into I graduated in 2000, with my master’s degree, and I became a high school history teacher. And unfortunately, I realized very quickly, I was poor, as a teacher, so I needed a side business. And all most teachers have a little side thing, they paint their movers or they coach or whatever it might be. And I had a conversation with a teacher who was just about to retire. And he said, If I could go back and do it all over again, I would get my real estate license and sell real estate part time and then teach full time you get the best of both worlds. So I was like, Sure. So I went online, Google real estate schools, you know, found the closest one. And I literally got my license. And it was one of those, like, all weekend classes, right? So I got it, for weekends, got my license, and I was a realtor. And I started selling. And I always intended it in the beginning to be a part time thing. Like I thought it was just going to be something I sell four or five homes a year, you know, make a little extra money and be a teacher the rest of my life. And I’m also a former college athlete, so I’m a little competitive. So I got into it and actually loved it. Because I think it reminded me a sports, right? Like, if you work hard, you actually get a return here. Right? Right. And there’s a piece of my, my, my soul, so to speak, that missed that competition, right? You every day of your life as a college athlete, you’re competing, and then you leave it, you’re like, Okay, that’s over. And now it’s back in a competition mode. And I just loved it, I gravitated into it, I was successful. And I literally did both for three years as a part time agent, because of the fact that I grew up, you grew up craving stability, like I did, for years there QC University, in my opinion, the best school out there, you know, but at the end of the day, like you, you go to school for five years, become a teacher and you achieve it. And I’m going to leave it to go sell houses at 100%. Commission. D.J. Paris 12:26And it was probably probably difficult in a sense to because I imagine with teaching, sometimes there’s there’s a calling, like, it’s like I feel drawn to do this, you obviously could have chosen any career. You know, Syracuse is a great university. And so you could have chosen any any path and did you feel called to teach was that like part of? Skye Michiels 12:47Totally. And you know, the last year I stayed as the last year, I literally stayed because of the fact I didn’t want to leave the senior class to that as teaching, because I’ve been with them all for years. And yeah, it’s a relationship. Oh, yeah. The relationship and care about those kids are exactly and then on the surface, when you look at real estate on the surface, it actually it feels very, especially nowadays with like, all the housewives and the HGTV stuff, right? It feels very, like. What I discovered, though, within real estate, is all the skills I applied as a teacher, I can apply in real estate. And that’s what made me successful, between caring about someone learning about who they are making sure I could explain everything properly, making sure they really, really understood the process, right? All the skills of a teacher applied so closely, to me being a realtor, as long as they then applied sort of that competence and the sort of the drive you have as an athlete as well, when those came together really made me who I was. So I did both for three years. And then finally 2005 went full time real estate. And it was made the decision and you know, this was gonna be my career. D.J. Paris 13:58And then now you’re in you’re, you’re you’re a corporate guy now now you’re part of you’re part of the biggest real estate company out there right now. So you are the National Head of agent development at Compass and everybody knows compass of course, I would hope by now everyone knows compass. And you know, they just they just are crushing it everywhere. And and obviously, Robert replikins a really impressive guy, of course. And yeah, you guys are always in the news. And I’m always a lot going on with Compass. Um, how did you get to compass just out of curiosity? Skye Michiels 14:27Yeah. So over the course of my career, you know, I was an individual agent, oh five and then over. In 2012, I created my real estate team. And it was called Real Estate with heart you know all about caring and cared about people, etc. That team I grew that team into one of the top teams in the Philadelphia market. At the time I was with Keller Williams, which I love Keller Williams is such a great company, some great trainings and awesome culture, etc. But I was at the time I’m as also craving a little something more, shall we say. And compass at that time in 2018, was just starting to launch in the Philadelphia market. So I remember taking my first recruiting appointment only as taking it because I was like, I’m gonna learn about this company so I can recruit against them. And the minute when I walked D.J. Paris 15:21in, like, wait a minute, they’ve got everything. I don’t want to compete with those guys. Skye Michiels 15:26It was that situation, I walked into the appointment, I met a gentleman named Rob Lehman. And at the end of the day, in my head, I’m like, Oh, my God, why did I take this appointment, because I literally fell in love with a company, the philosophy, the branding, the marketing, there’s so many aspects that I wanted to create, but there’s just so many, it’s so challenging in most real estate companies to create it, because of the fact that, you know, the factors present really holds you back. And the encompass sort of overcame this, really, because of the fact that they invested so many millions of dollars in in supporting agents first. And that was like this philosophy that I had, that I really wanted to sort of pursue. And so at the time, in 2018, I came over to compass I took over as the managing director for the city of Philadelphia, and my team came over as well. And my sister ran my team. And yeah, and we launched in, we launched in June of 2018. And I came over in August of 2018. And as awesome ride, and then over the years, the teacher and me started to come out. And really, this is accentuated in the pandemic. So I’d been doing a little bit of national team teaching that our retreats and things along those lines and the pandemic hits, right. So March 2020, hard to remember it, but it everything shut down. And we’re sitting there, like, what do we do. And immediately myself and a group of probably about 13, or 14 other people were formed. And we launched a thing called coaching at Compass, which was all virtual training. So every single day, all we did was we did all this virtual training. The other thing was, I was drinking a lot, eating a lot, watching Netflix a lot, you know, we would have our virtual happy hour, and then you know, you’re like, alright, six o’clock, like what I do now Mazal just watch TV, there’s nothing to do. And this was in March. So the end of April, I launched a group called sticks hammers, which was sort of a morning and accountability group, just within my market, just within the Philadelphia market. So between the coaching and compass and the six hammers, I started to work a little more nationally, but I was still managing full time as well. And then at the beginning of this year, I was promoted to the head of agent Development here at compass to make a long story short, D.J. Paris 17:54no, it’s, it’s, it’s really impressive. You’ve really come full circle you’re teaching again. And and also, you know, you’re you’re obviously super engaged in in the real estate, Industry and Market. So before we I want to get some advice, because our audience are all realtors, I assume, I don’t know who else would want to listen to our show. But we love our we love our audience, of course, but we also are here to help educate them and help get them ready and AI for next year. Right, we have a shifting market that’s already shifted, and we just had a Fed rate increase, you know, a couple days ago. So we’re certainly agents are, well, you know, they’re stressed, they’re worried. And I’m super excited to learn, you know, what you’re telling agents on what to do through the end of the year, all the way into 2023. But before we do, let’s get to your podcast, because I always wait till the very end to sort of say, Oh, by the way, he’s got this, and then you know, not as many people make it to the end. So I want to make sure we get that out there right now. So tell us about the 6am errs. Skye Michiels 18:59Yeah, so the six hammers, once again, it was formed in April 2020. And the mindset it actually was the originally like, couple of years prior, I had gotten divorced. And one of my really good friends a guy named Jay Dreyfus at Keller Williams, I was struggling I was in a bad place. Sure. Sorry, can see this. I’ve been D.J. Paris 19:18there. I know. Yeah, it’s bad. Even in the best of scenarios, it’s bad. Skye Michiels 19:24And I have a beautiful divorce by the way, I have a great like, you know, my kids are we have great beautiful 5050 custody, et cetera, but going through it, it rocks. So Jake wood, he said, Hey, I’m gonna start texting you early in the morning. 5am We followed a guy named Jaco willing Nick, who’s like, sure, D.J. Paris 19:43sure. Yeah. By the way, for anyone who doesn’t know who Jocko will, because he’s got a million books. He’s a crazy what ex Navy Seal or? Yeah, I guess you’re never an ex Navy SEAL. I shouldn’t say it’s like disrespectful. I didn’t mean it to be he’s not But anyways, he’s a Navy SEAL. And this guy is hardcore. And he’s all about discipline and anyway, go Correct. Sorry. Skye Michiels 20:07So Jake and I formed a group called the Five Amber’s, right? We woke up at five, a couple days a week, we we’d get on a zoom call, we actually launched it like, nationwide, it was really cool. Actually, the Facebook group still exists today, Jake is one of my best friends today. But you know, he moved to Colorado, I went to compass like, you know, so it just sort of, sort of settled in, I guess we could say. So when the pandemic hit, I started just revived it as the six hammers a, it was a pandemic, so you didn’t need to get up at 5am. And 6pm is also the hour that really allows it to be accessible to everyone, you know, a little a little tough. It’s a little hard if you’re not like a crew guy swimmer, like an early morning person to Paperboy, like 5am is just it’s not healthy as well. 6am was a great time. And to make a long story short, what we do is Tuesdays and every month you sign up and you commit to doing one goal for the month, you wake up at 6am. And you get on a zoom call on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I usually will interview someone motivational on the Zoom call. And then I’ll put a post, I’ll post a question of the day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and workplace, which is our internal Facebook system that you need to answer. And then we also read one book of the month. And the goal is let’s create a community around sort of waking up early and really taking care of ourselves. Because at the end of the day as realtors, what do we do all day every day, what makes us successful is we take care of other people. And that’s good during the day, because of the fact that’s what makes you successful. The challenge we have as Realtors is that usually that spills over into the early morning and in the late evening, because of the fact that we are always on email and text and social media. And we literally wake up from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. Sometimes we’re on our devices. So the goal of the six embers is really to say to people that you don’t need to be all things to all people at all times. Early in the morning, early in the morning is for you. Yeah, that’s for you. And we coined a term we call Healthy selfish, that you need to be selfish in a healthy way, early in the morning, you don’t get on the phone, you win. And everyone is different, right? For some people, it’s working out for some it’s meditating. For some it’s reading. For some people, it’s folding laundry, because it makes you feel like you’re in control, whatever it is that you need to do for yourself. That’s, that’s selfish, but it’s healthy, selfish. That’s really what we try to preach. And we want people to wake up with a little bit of motivation, a little bit of positivity, a little bit of inspiration early in the morning to carry them throughout the day. D.J. Paris 22:51Now, is this open to only compass agents? or can anyone apply for this? Skye Michiels 22:57It’s a great question. So it is right. The the live group is only compass agents, right? Because of the fact we use internal communication systems, etc. And over the years, I had hours and hours of interviews that are recorded, and my mom, my mom was like, can you send me that interview? Or like, you know, people would say, Hey, can you send me the interview, I want to send it to my my kids are. And it really it got to the point where I was like, I got to put this out publicly, because there are so many great inspirational moments and interviews and a lot of there’s people within compass, but people outside of compass as well that we interview. So I was really motivated to put something out there that the world could actually see inside what we do as a group and gain inspiration from it as well. And I’ll say it’s, obviously it’s a lot of realtors will be a lot of staff members in there. And the podcast really is not about real estate per se, it’s really about you as an individual in the person, and how do you get inspired and really take care of yourself. D.J. Paris 23:59So Podcasts can be listened to by anyone. So we’ll have a link to that in the show notes again called 6am. ers number six. And if you want to be part of the actual accountability group that’s limited to two for currently to the compass agents. So a lot of our listeners are compass agents. So if you don’t know about this, this is a great time to sign up. But let’s talk about right now what’s going on? Because of course, everyone’s focused on what’s right in front of them, which is some challenging times, right. We had, well, they’re challenging times in relation to what we had a couple of years ago. And I think that’s an obvious thing for people to to think back and go Well, that was easy. This is hard. But if we think back maybe a couple years ago, even at 3% interest rates, I don’t know that it was so easy. I think if you were working with buyers, we all remember it was not easy. If you were working with sellers, you had a great run, but now things have changed and we’re now you know rates of course are much higher. Um, obviously business still needs to continue, people still need to move. And but yet I, I’m part of our local association here. And we I’m, I’m in work on some committees that deal with programming around helping agents get through this current time. And boy, everybody I know is a little bit stressed. So as you know, so I’m curious on what you’re telling agents or what you’re seeing out there, how are successful agents sort of continuing to stay focused? Are they putting the blinders on? And just kind of doing the things they were always doing? Or are they are people pivoting? Just curious to get your thoughts on what you’re saying? Skye Michiels 25:40Well, the first thing I’ll give everyone is that the solution to anxiety is action. If you’re if you right now are feeling anxious. Anxiety is all about unknown things in the future. And what happens when we feel anxiety is we get, we sort of get frozen in place, almost picture the deer in the headlights, right, and we don’t move. And that is it. That is not a good thing right now. So if you’re out there, and you’re hearing this and you feel anxiety, my challenge to you is what are the actions that you need to take in order to move forward, right, get out of the headlights get out of the blind spot, get out of that frozen mode. Because the reality is there are real estate transactions that are rehab, there’s millions of transactions are going to happen. But in this moment, when you feel that frozen mode, that anxiety is going to kick in, and it’s going to paralyze you. And if you are not in a mode of action every single day, then you are literally going to sort of slide backwards, and it’s gonna get really, really hard for successful agents. And when I’m coaching everyone, this is an opportunity. We have a massive opportunity right now, as professional agents to capture market share and elevate what we do in two years ago, a year ago, let’s be real, if the property is priced right, and you had it in the MLS, like it was about all you had to do. Yeah. So at the end of the day, our role as a as an agent, or an I like calling us like advisors and consultants around real estate sales. it at the end of the day, it really we weren’t able to fulfill our greatest potential, because of the fact that it was it was the market was so crazy, it’s so fueled with, with low interest rates and low inventory, it was hyper hyper growth, right, it was not natural. And so now we’re moving back to a world where there is an opportunity for us to elevate what we do as realtors, and to elevate what we do with an industry to actually embrace that role as the advisor and the consultant. And I I really am coaching agents right now, to figure out everything you can do to be in action. And when you think about like the last two years, a lot of agents probably didn’t work in their CRM, they didn’t update their contacts, they didn’t reach out, they didn’t have those great touch points that made you successful, right, all you did was you done, you did transactions, you show properties, you listen to homes, and you were so busy and so frenetic that you were just running so fast, well, we have an opportunity now to take a step back, and we’re still going to work as hard, we’re just going to work in a different manner. Because the reality is the millions of transactions that are going to happen in this real estate industry are going to happen with people that have real life situations. But if we are not in a relationship with these people, what are they going to do, they’re going to click on a link online, and then they’re going to get connected to someone that’s paying lots of money to a third party company. And the reality is we need to be reaching out to people we know, in a human manner, in a manner that develops our relationships. So when that advisory role comes up, we are elevated and they reach out to us for help. Right when you think about financial advisors, you know, your financial advisor is constantly in touch with you hopefully about your portfolio and what you should be doing. And the reality of real estate transaction that happens once every seven 810 15 years. D.J. Paris 29:14But there’s a lot of lead time in between. Skye Michiels 29:17And the what most agents do is they they don’t remain in their clients lives as an advisor around real estate beyond the transaction. And D.J. Paris 29:28if I pause Can I pause for a second I have a theory about about this number one, obviously we’re talking about the time in between sales which I think is maybe is not even maybe it is more important than when you’re actually working with the client because as you said this this is I mean we’ve all seen the stats the I don’t know you know depends on what study you look at but the certain number of peeps certain percentage of people literally forget who their realtor was like three years after the transaction. My parents are this way it took them. They have a they had a home in North Myrtle Beach and it took years to sell it because it’s just kind of weird timing, whatever. Anyway, took years and many different realtors to finally, finally somebody did it after like five years, it was brutal, but they finally did it. And my parents were like, Oh, thank god, somebody finally got it sold. And my parents are super grateful to this person. I was asking my dad not that long ago, this is a couple years ago, but I said, who wasn’t even a realtor because I thought maybe I had a lead out there. I was just gonna say he goes, he goes, I don’t remember. And my parents liked this person. And they couldn’t remember now they don’t live in North Myrtle Beach, you know, they’re never going to do another transaction there. But still, that was shocking to me. And I went, Oh, yeah, I’m in the industry. Of course, that makes sense. People don’t stay in touch. And what you said, I think is really important. So here was my my thing I was going to suggest for anyone out there that’s going okay. Like Skye was saying, now’s the time to think about how can I deepen my relationships with my connection to these people? Well, that sometimes is is the challenges they might go well, I don’t know, what am I supposed to just call once in a while, or I don’t I know, they’re not they just moved in a year ago, what am I going to do, I could call and say like, what’s going on, or how you doing, and that’s fine. But what I’ve always suggested, especially you talked about your car, like really getting your CRM updated, I think now’s the time to call everybody you know, especially now if you have some extra time, and you probably do call everybody in your database, and literally just update the information be like, Hey, I’m working on my marketing thing for next year, I just want to make sure I have all the right data for you. Find out their birthdays, find out their anniversary, if they’re married, find out you know, where they work, if you don’t know, you know, and this gives you find out what their children names, ages, maybe even birthdays, too for that. So this way, if you have that information, you now have six, seven reasons to pick up the phone next year already automatically built in to your calendar, right? You’re like have the ability to pick up the phone and go, Hey, it’s your wedding anniversary, just wanted to say happy anniversary. Anyway, I was just thinking like, this is the time to get that data in there so that you have all those touch points built into your calendar. Skye Michiels 31:58So true. Well, I think two agents struggle with this, what do I say? And I think the reality is because of the fact that we’re looking at that former client as a client, not a human being. And when you go back, and let’s bring it back to the beginning of our interview, right, like my website, you look at it, you get an idea of who I am as a human being. And I think this is a technique you can also use as you put a touch point to do what I call reverse social media. So social media, Instagram, and Facebook, they give us what they want us to see. But we have the ability to go in and actually look at what’s happening in our clients lives. And when you ask yourself the question, well, what should I say, Well, what’s happening in their life and reach out about it? Right? Give them a compliment, give them a piece gratitude. Or you can just say, and this is one of my favorite scripts was you it’s a text or an email, and you just say, Hey, I’m just going through my records. I saw your name, and it made me smile. Just want to say hi, no need to respond back. Just letting you know. D.J. Paris 32:58Oh, boy, it Oh, good. Okay, and we want to emphasize only do this, if somebody’s authentically makes you smile, too. Because people are gonna smell you know, something that isn’t honest, but that you are so absolutely right is is using social media, as almost research and development, you can literally just, again, don’t wait for the feed, because Facebook’s only going to serve up things that they think you’re going to want to see. You’re not going to really get a good sense of everything that’s going on in someone’s life. So go through, type in their name, see what see if they’ve been on vacation lately, see what’s going on with their kids. And then my suggestion is don’t you can always comment on posts. And that’s great. And that’s definitely better than doing nothing. My suggestion is pick up the phone and call or text be like, Hey, man, just saw you got back from Cancun. Hope you had an amazing trip. Like, that’s the sort of stuff that people go wow. Skye Michiels 33:46Yeah, the other the other brilliant gem I’m gonna give you as well is to ask for help. Yes, I’m coaching next week, I’m actually coaching this within compass. And we’re going to basically be giving we have 1000s of agents signed up for that. So I’m really excited. But it’s five days of giving is the challenge. So I’m going to be basically showing how gratitude but the first thing is agents are going to reach out to their clients and say, Hey, we’re developing a recipe book. Do you have any Thanksgiving recipes that you love that I could share in this recipe book D.J. Paris 34:20and everybody has at least one and Skye Michiels 34:22even if they don’t? Yeah, what they’re gonna say, oh, you know, I don’t have anyone but that’s awesome. Can you send me that when you’re done? Absolutely. And now you have a digital recipe book you know that you can send out instead of just that the corny Hey, hope you’re having a Thanksgiving like the blast email blast we all get right like the D.J. Paris 34:42turkey I’m thankful you’re one of my clients or what yeah, Skye Michiels 34:45now like and when we wait, your parents got a Thanksgiving recipe book from their realtor like as a oscillate right? Now we got to get beyond that transaction. We got to think of like what are my clients going to need and the key aspect of asking for help is people like helping other people. And now and you’re not asking for help in a, in a bad way, you’re asking for help in a good way. Imagine that neighborhood guide. You, you ask your clients, hey, I’m building a neighborhood guide, do you have a favorite restaurant in Chicago? Or everybody has whatever, right? And now, what are you doing, you’re interacting with your clients, your former clients in a human way, and what it’s all about being present in their mind in a positive manner. Because while they may not buy or sell a house every 10 years, how many people do they know? In those 10 years that are going to buy or sell and what you want to do as an agent, you want to create raving fans, that when you say, Who is your realtor, I, my clients, they say, oh my god, Sky, you’ve got to call them like, here’s his number. And let me text them right now. Because of the fact I’m present in their lives in a manner that is nothing to do necessarily with real estate. But everything to do with real estate, if that makes sense. D.J. Paris 36:00Totally. Now, after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country on the show, do you know what CRM is used more than any other by our amazing guests? Well, you guessed it is follow up boss, let’s face it. Following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time. With less effort. Don’t take my word for it. 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Boy, I’m just absorbing what you did, I realized what I need to do is create content from our listeners. I never have asked our listeners to contribute to the show, I asked him to tell a friend and boy, that is all you ever have to do if you’re listening is tell a friend. But I’m thinking you just gave me a great idea. I would love to create a list of tips from our listeners about what’s working for them right now. And maybe what isn’t working, that would be kind of cool, too. But But putting that together and just giving that away to our audience and saying, Hey, here’s here’s all the stuff that you guys told me. So that I love that boy, what a great, great idea. I love that. So so why don’t we think about 2023 Here’s what we know, we know rates are higher than they were I don’t want to say hi, I just want to say higher than they were. Because my parents got got their first mortgage, it was double digits in the in the late 70s. So So again, it’s all relative, but we know that that that people are not as happy with rates as they as they were. So what are we how are we talking about this not just rates? I just mean, how are we talking to clients right now? Or what are you suggesting? agents do to really explain sort of, or rather to sort of set the narrative versus what maybe the media is projecting? Correct? Skye Michiels 38:34Well, a the media is always going to put things out there that are going to generate activity, right. The reality is that real estate transacts based around most real estate, but transacts around the life goals, not financial goals. So true, isn’t it? Yeah, we’re not talking about like, investment properties and all that stuff. Like that’s a little different. But for the vast majority of people that buy or sell real estate, they’re doing it not because of finances, but they’re doing it because of life. death, divorce, birth job. Yeah, right, you name it. So so the reality is that most people real estate’s one thing you need, that’s a necessity of life, that’s also an asset that you you need to buy and sell, right air water, like you’re not really buying and selling that it’s just like sort of natural shelter is it is a necessity of life. So one of the key things that I challenge are the realtors that are listening to this is find the people that have those life events that do have that need and with them work with them on solutions. So an entrepreneurial principle we talked about here at Compass is be solutions driven. When you are encountering a problem within your your clients life or your transactions, etc. The more you focus on the problem, the less you can accomplish, the more you focus Some potential solutions, and the pros and cons of each. Well now you can actually move into action. So the bottom line is there’s usually a solution to something. And at the end of the day, that’s what we need to drive that there’s two one buyer announcers. Yeah. Seller held financing. Yeah, there’s the there’s lots of potential solutions. But what are they? Now the one thing I’m, when I think about 2023, I went through 2008, I think you might have as well, like, no, I D.J. Paris 40:30got in just after that, but, but I’ve had enough guests on the show that had been through it, too. I feel like I’ve been through it. Skye Michiels 40:37Yeah, a, and that was a different because there was a nuclear bomb that went off underneath our feet. This is different, because what we’re doing here is we’re just pumping the brakes on the growth that was not healthy, right? Like, it was not healthy to have offered, you know, double digit growth, like multiple bids like that, that was not a good thing. So the what I’m trying to coach Realtors on, and also this, in essence, like your buyers and sellers, is that, hey, you got to go back into the life goals of what you’re trying to do. And then backfill into the finances, start with life, then go finances rather than being like, Oh, I just watched something on Fox News or CNN. And I’m scared. Well, that’s not, that’s not how you should make a decision. The second thing is that get ready for the bounce, meaning this is a little bit of a correction into normalcy. And at some point, as rates start to go down, demand is still there, we haven’t gotten rid of the demand for housing, right? We haven’t gotten in the inventory is still at an all time lows, frankly, even as we’re starting to increase, we’re still at an all time low for most markets. So the reality is there, there is probably a little bit of a bounce coming, we just don’t know exactly where that’s going to be. And once again, the work you do in the next six months, will probably dictate the next two years of your real estate career. Because if you sit there and once again, that anxiety kicks in, and you just starve your hands and say, Well, I’m just gonna sit here and go on Facebook and Instagram and you don’t give up? Well, you’re probably gonna that’s gonna dictate next two years, your real estate career, you’re gonna live pretty slim. Most realtors that I’m working with right now are are so excited, because of the fact that they actually have time now to help class. They have time to work in their serum, they have time to take those actions. Build the Thanksgiving recipe book, frankly, D.J. Paris 42:36they do the fun stuff. Now Now’s the fun stuff time. Skye Michiels 42:39Yeah, exactly. And the reality is like, yes, it’s just about getting better as a professional and improving your craft. And as you do that, you’re going to do more transactions, and you’re frankly going to gain a lot of market share. Most, most good agents are actually like, Oh, here’s an opportunity, all those like, if you do research in your local market, look up how over the last 20 months, how many deals were how many agents did one two or three deals in the last 20 months. The reality is those agents are gonna be gone in the next six months. D.J. Paris 43:15Like we were already we’re, we have a holding company here. At RT, we have two companies, ones for active producing agents, and ones we just created. Not every state has these. But for people that don’t actively produce or want to keep their license active. They just want to can we in the last, so we have about 700 agents in that in that company in the holding company in the last or maybe 800. Now, in the last month, we’ve added almost 50 agents just because people are exiting the business. So if you are a producing agent, whether you’re part time or full time, now’s the time to really get excited because lots of people are leaving. Skye Michiels 43:52That’s right. And I think too We’ll see this accelerate as dues come for like most associations operate on a yearly schedule. So you’ll see that jump in January, probably as well. So it’s, it’s key. And once again, I think it’s the positive is like they’re really solid economics people have equity. People, you know who you are, like, I know, you just got it. I mean, you probably remember doing short sales, right? Where people didn’t have equity in banks were for closing, like, we have a lot of positive economic aspects that are going on right now that are good. And if you’re buying a home, the rial, this is a really great way you can explain to buyers, here are three options, there are three things that are going to happen with interest rates, if you buy today, number one, interest rates are gonna go up and you’re gonna be really happy that you locked in this 7% Or six and a half percent, or whatever it is you locked in. Number two, they’re going to stay the same and then you’re no worse off. Or number three, they’re going to go down and then you’re going to refinance into that lower rate. So the reality is, in either one of these scenarios you’re going to be, you’re going to end up in a good space as long. And that’s a really great way that you can explain to buyers right now, the fact that interest rates going up, it’s just sort of the reality of where we are, as in the in the interest rate market, the reality of interest rates are going to change. And if they go up, and you’ve locked in, I remember I just bought a house actually in in June. And I was so pissed, it was like, Man, I could have walked you missed out. I missed it. And now I’m like, Oh, my, my mindset, like totally changed. Like, Oh, thank God, I like it. And then at the, you know, that 4.25 Like, rate I got I was, at the time, I was so mad. Now, I’m thrilled. But the reality is, no matter where you are, you can explain, one of three things is going to happen, they’re gonna go up, and you’re gonna be happy, they’re gonna stay the same, you’re gonna be happy, they’re gonna go down, and you gotta pay a little money to refinance into the lower rate. D.J. Paris 45:59Yeah, it’s you know, and you’re you brought up something a few minutes ago that I just want to step on a little bit, because it’s so important, which is that you said most consumers, most buyers and sellers, aren’t thinking about rates, they are thinking about their life events. And funnily enough, I just got lucky when I bought my most recent condo, which just happened to fall in a time when the rates were that low. That was not the reason I bought, it was because this new development came about. And I was like, I needed to make a move. And it just so happened that I got lucky with rates, it could have been the I was 7%. Either way, I needed to move. And so I just got lucky. So I think as agents, we often we’re so immersed in it, that it’s so much of our life, that we think everyone else is thinking about it. But you’re right. In most cases, people are thinking about what they need for their family. And whatever the rate is, is the rate. And it’ll affect what they can afford, of course, but it’s not going to. I don’t think it’s pushing people away as much as agents might be talking about it right now. Like agents are thinking people are scared, and they don’t want to pay. And I’m like, I don’t know how true that is for the vast majority of buyers and sellers. Skye Michiels 47:08You will feel this ad out a little bit too because right now, we probably still have the people that we’re looking at in the three to 4% rate and for those who didn’t get in, yeah, it is real for them. But the people that you will encounter over the next six months, when they meet you and you do your consultation, you explain here’s the process, here’s the payment here’s where rates are for them. That’s just where rates are right D.J. Paris 47:35and and and one more thing I was just gonna before I’m sorry, but also to the people who did buy a couple years ago the last couple of years probably overpaid by a significant so that’s another thing you can bring up if somebody’s like, well, rates are where they’re at, say like, well, let me just show you what it would have cost back then to purchase this home. And and you know, and then all of a sudden things get more in line like oh, okay, it’s not sky is falling. Sorry. I’m so glad Skye Michiels 48:00no, no, I was gonna almost say the exact same thing. And the other positives are we can actually do a home inspection, we can actually get an appraisal we can actually D.J. Paris 48:07you don’t have to buy it sight unseen. Skye Michiels 48:11I bought my home with no, I didn’t see it. I just went off the picture. Amazing. I didn’t do an inspection. I didn’t have a mortgage contingency, even though I got a mortgage. So no appraisal contingency, right? And but I knew I knew what I was doing. I’m like, look at it knew what I was basically buying. What’s that scary, D.J. Paris 48:31scary. Skye Michiels 48:32I’m in the business. And I was really scared about it. But at the end of day, that’s what buyers had to do to get home. The positive now is actually I as a real estate professional can protect you, I can actually do an inspection for you. We can do appraisal, we can have a mortgage contingency, hey, you need to sell your home and buy this one, we can actually make it contingent now because of the fact we’re back. What we’re dealing with, we’re just coming back to the ground. This is like we were we just it was a rocket that took off. And now we’re just sort of settling back into the ground of what’s normal in real estate. It’s normal for us to take 60 days to sell. It’s not normal for it to sell in two or three days back in 2010. You sold the house in two days, right? Whoo. Yeah, that’s great. You know, no, it’s like it’s normal. For this. It takes some time. And that’s what we have to adopt this mindset that we are professionals. And what we do matters. Because if what we do doesn’t matter, then the internet companies are just going to take it over and do it for us at a cheaper rate, frankly, great. D.J. Paris 49:34Yeah. And they’re going to do a better job digitally than we can do because that’s their business. What we can do is all the interpersonal stuff, all the we care about you stuff, and if you can be the care about you person and the AI can educate you and read you know, reassess what’s actually going on and re educate you and make you feel cared for and appreciated as a as a human being And then you know, that’s going to win out almost every time over over the tech. That being said, I think this is actually a perfect place to wrap up. So I want a couple of things. The 6am errs, if you are a compass agent, and you want to participate in the accountability group, what’s the best way that they should do? I guess they probably know, internally, they probably know how to get access. I hope Skye Michiels 50:23so. But just in case you don’t, you could obviously email me sky@compass.com. Or you could actually sign up on the website as a compass agent as well. D.J. Paris 50:32And if you are not a compass agent, which, of course most people listening are not, let’s listen to the podcast, subscribe to 6am ers and get a steal, you still get all the interviews and all the exciting parts of what Skye does. And by the way, if you are an agent, and you are, you know, not happy at your current firm, or just want to see what else is out there, obviously compass would love the opportunity to speak with you. There’s, you know, reach out to your local compass office, you can reach out to sky as well, I’m sure you haven’t directed to the right, right person. But compass is really doing some great things. And I don’t work for Compass. And I’m impressed with Compass, because I just think they do so many so many wonderful things for agents. So definitely if you’re looking to explore their options, except if you’re one of our agents stay with us. I’m only being silly, of course. But But anyway, if you are exploring other options, check out compass, they are actually a bit different than a lot of what the traditional big firms offer. So check them out, they’re there, they do a lot of great things. So Skye, thank you so much for being on the show. This was a real pleasure and a lot of fun for me. And I can’t I won’t become a compass agent only because I have my feet firmly planted here. But I wish I was only to be part of your six AMS group. So maybe I’ll figure out a way to sneak under the door because I want to I need that accountability in my life. So if anyone out there is a congress agent, you know, definitely Let’s sign up for 6am ers it’s it’s it’s I mean so many people read the how l read book of the Miracle Morning, which is like every like every realtor I know is read that book this is an extension of that and you know specific to real estate. So anyway guys, thanks we want to on behalf of sky and myself we want to thank everyone for listening and supporting our show. As I said earlier, please tell a friend that’s the only thing that you can you need to do to help us continue to grow. And also check out sky Michael’s everything he offers on the on the national stage with with Compass, as well as his 6am ORS podcast and accountability group go to Sky michaels.com link to that in the show notes and also 6am ers which I apologize I forgot the website for that is that 6am or 6am or.com yet and birthday. We’ll have links to that in the show notes. So six the 6am errs.com So anyway, Sky thank you so much and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you everyone.

Paul Salazar with Hilton & Hyland Beverly Hills goes back to the beginning of his journey in real estate. Paul describes how he transitioned from working with his mom to selling luxury real estate. Next, Paul discusses how he built his business by cold calling expired listings and how he perfected his skills to get properties sold in record time. Paul also talks about cold calling, door knocking and sending handwritten letter to clients and how these activities helped him build relationships with developers. Last, Paul discusses the the major differences between working with a smaller property size compared to ultra-high-net-worth side. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Paul Salazar can be reached at 310.492.0737 and paul@paulsalazargroup.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Have you ever wondered how Realtors transition into luxury sales? Well, we’re going to talk about 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. 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 your host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top 1% producer and luxury real estate agent, Paul Salazar before we get to Paul, well, it’s the holiday season. So I’m just going to ask for a gift. And don’t worry, though it’s it’s I’m actually going to ask for two gifts. The first is to check out what our sponsors are offering, please, please support our sponsors, we vet them, we only bring to you really high quality services and products that Realtors could use, please support our sponsors, because they’re the reason we can keep making these shows. And the second thing we’ll ask for the second gift you can give us is really simple one won’t cost you anything just tell another agent about the show, especially for 2023 Is it going to be a tough year, we know it’s going to be a tough year. Let’s make it as least tough. Now that’s there’s a better way to say that. Let’s make it as comfortable as possible. By introducing as many people as you can to our show. Our whole intention is really to help you grow your business. And the more people we can reach we really believe the more people we can help so help us fulfill our mission by reaching as many agents as possible in 2023 and let them know about keeping it real. And guys, that’s all I got. Let’s get to the main event, my interview with Paul Salazar. Today on the show, our guest is Paul Salazar with the Paul Salazar group of Hilton and island in Beverly Hills. Let me tell you a little bit more about Paul. Now with over 600 million in total real estate sales in over 200 satisfied clients served. Paul Salazar is a real estate veteran with a years of invaluable experience. He has partnered with one of the top luxury firms in the world Hilton and Hyland, Beverly Hills, Paul has had a string of 20 plus million dollar properties sold under his belt, making him a true standout in this highly competitive and fast paced industry. Paul’s an expert in rebranding and relaunching properties that have been lingering on the market. He also works with developers to build luxury spec properties all throughout Los Angeles. Please learn more about Paul two places want you to go visit his website, which is Paul Salazar group. And that’s Paul Pauls a Laz ar group.com and also find him on Instagram. It’s also Paul Salazar group will have links to both of those in the show notes so you don’t have to type it in. So please go visit Paul and Paul, welcome to the show. Paul Salazar 4:20Wow, that was a great, quite the intro there. Well, it’s so funny. I was feeling weird hearing all that stuff. Yeah. All right. D.J. Paris 4:29It is it is weird. I had somebody recently interview me, which very rarely happens. And they went through, you know, list of things like I was just mentioning you and I was like, Well, I don’t I don’t like to hear that at all. Like, just doesn’t sound right. Paul Salazar 4:42I know it feels weird. I mean, it’s great, but also feels weird. D.J. Paris 4:46Well, I would love to talk about all of how you got into luxury. But also let’s start at the very beginning of your real estate sort of journey. How did you get into real estate and why Paul Salazar 5:00Okay, so let’s start from college, right? Because I will, let’s start from like, like my culture. I’m, I’m Colombian, and almost everybody in my, in my family, they have their own business that are there. They’re entrepreneurs, my dad, my brothers, my cousins, aunts, uncles, right? So it’s kind of in our blood to have her own thing. Not to have a boss not to be told what to do. Right. So that’s one. Two is that in college, I finished college on a study abroad program called Semester at Sea. And that was my last semester of college. I finished that. And then, you know, I went into the real world, and I was like, What am I going to do? Like, I just finished traveling the world with a bunch of college kids having a blast, drinking, partying, you know, traveling, literally circumnavigating the entire globe. And I was pretty depressed. I, you know, I gotta tell you, I was not I was not in a good place. I was working with my dad. He has his own business, but I knew I didn’t want to be in his business. But I also knew I didn’t want to have like a regular nine to five job, right, like so. Like, so like, what am I going to do? Right? I don’t really have any capital to like, start a business. My mom was in real estate. Century 21 beachside in Rancho Cucamonga, which is where I went to high school, and which is where I live while I was commuting back and forth to college at UC Riverside. So I would say about three months after Semester at Sea. You know, I was, you know, I had a few, a few interviews with some regular nine to five jobs. And it just, it just wasn’t clicking for me, you know, and then, you know, my mom came into my room I like I vividly remember this day. And she’s like, you know, she used to call me up. Bobbito. So she’s like, Bobbito Why don’t you you know, you know, come sell real estate with me. And this isn’t Oh, six. Right. So the market is still on fire. She’s D.J. Paris 6:52like, the perfect time to get in. Oh, six. Yeah, yeah. She’s Paul Salazar 6:54doing really well. Like she’s traveling. She’s, she’s, you know, selling a bunch of real estate. I’m like, You know what, that sounds good. You know, I was like, all right. I was like, Yeah, sure. You know, that’s let’s, let’s do it. You know. And so that’s, that’s how I started to get into real estate is selling real estate in Rancho Cucamonga first century. 21. beachside. D.J. Paris 7:15Wow. And you came in at such an interesting time, I actually bought my first condo in 2006. And upon retrospect, maybe, maybe not the ideal time for me to have bought a condo, of course, none of us really knew that back then. It wasn’t like the writing was so obviously on the wall, of course. But But So you started kind of towards the end of the of that boom? And what was it like, you know, starting off in into in 2006. Paul Salazar 7:43You know, I, I’m very grateful that I got at least a year of decent market under my belt, you know, of like, doing transactions with my mom, as I’m learning the business. Right. I also helped enhance her business as well, because, you know, I had a business background and in college, right, which helped a little bit, let’s be honest, you know, you don’t really learn a lot in college, at least, it’s specific to real estate. But, you know, I think I was able to use what I learned in college, to help her grow her business. And so we, we created the Salazar team, it was team Salazar, that was the name of our team was me and her and we had a, like, a part time assistant. And, you know, again, I’m very grateful, I didn’t start in Oh, eight, because I probably wouldn’t have made it, and I probably wouldn’t have still be in the business. So it’ll it allowed me to stay in the business to, to have some money saved up for the, you know, for the rainy days of you know, you know, 2008 through 2012. Right. So, you know, again, very, very grateful for it, but at the same time, I was selling very small properties, you know, $200,000 properties 300,000 Every once in a while, will will bring a $500,000 property, and I was really excited about that, you know, but it was it was great, you know, I’m, again, very, very grateful for that for the opportunity that my mom gave me. D.J. Paris 9:07Yeah, it’s, it’s a really good opportunity to be able to work with somebody who’s who’s established who’s successful. And also you get to learn, you know, so I imagine your mom was was, I imagine a pretty, pretty great mentor to you. Paul Salazar 9:23She was, you know, and we, we’ve always had a really great relationship. And I was living, you know, so my parents were divorced already. So it was just me and her in the house. So, again, if you’re starting real estate, and you have like a bunch of bills and debt, it’s really hard because it’s, it takes about three to six months, maybe a year to get you know, get get going. So living at home really allowed me to I had very, very little bills, you know, maybe the 1000 bucks, maybe $2,000 a month, which is nothing right? And retrospect you know, so if I closed one big deal, big been you know, 300,000 dollars or something like that I would I would keep 5000 bucks and I would have enough money for like three months. And that’s what I would do. I would save up the money and I knew I had enough money to last me another six months. And then I just kept on growing that, that that nest egg to a year to two years and that just kind of kept on going from there. D.J. Paris 10:17Wow. And at what point did you decide to to make a shift from from working with your mom or working in Rancho Cucamonga? And then you know, making the shift to? To where you are now. Paul Salazar 10:29Yeah, so. So, you know, the crash happened at the end of oh seven and oh eight, right, I started selling some short sales. And that’s what kind of kept me kind of going is just selling short sells, right? And my mom always pushed me she’s like, Bobby, though you can always sell, you know, luxury properties. Like why don’t you go out there and to like Beverly Hills and like start selling some luxury properties. And to me, I always had doubts, you know, like, my mindset wasn’t there. Like I was like, I don’t think I could do that. I don’t know anybody there. I don’t know the market there. I don’t have any connections. And even though we live only an hour away, but I could be from Ohio, it’d be the same thing. You know, like another universe almost. Yeah, completely different universe. And I had no connections like I literally knew nobody that lived in that in that area. My whole family was in Rancho where Pasadena or in this area. Right. So at the time, my girlfriend lived in Brentwood, which is like West. Sure. I still live on the west side. Right. And so I was commuting back and forth, right. And my mom had gone to Colombia in 2000 at the beginning of 2009, or actually, or 2008, or something like that. And she had met her now husband, right? So it was a perfect transition. She’s like, she had called me and she was on vacation for like a month in Colombia. And she’s like, Hey, I want to let you know that I met some guy and like, my heart drops, like we met some guy, you know, Columbia. And she’s like, Yeah, I met some guy in Colombia. And, you know, of course, being the son. And you know, she’s been divorced. I was very protective. Sure. I was, like, I don’t know about this mom. She’s like, Yeah, we’re gonna get like, think about getting married. I’m like, you just met the guy like a month ago, you know? So but it ended up working out. Right. So since I was commuting back and forth, my mom had now planned to move to Colombia to go live with her now husband. It was a perfect transition for me to be like, you know, what, let me move to LA Let me try it out. You know, give it a shot. I had saved enough money for about six months of, of living in LA, right. So so my plan was I moved to LA to downtown LA. So which is kind of like, not in Beverly Hills or not in the west side where I live. But kind of like a like a, like a middle ground because like all my friends and family still live in Rancho right. So I didn’t want to be too far away from them as well. So I moved to downtown LA with with my best friend from college. And we got a place together. And I didn’t have a job. I moved to LA without having a job. And I said, I said to myself, do I want to start selling real estate? It’s gonna take me a while to get going. I don’t have a budget to market myself. I don’t know anybody. I don’t know. Any of the markets. I don’t know any of the areas. I don’t know anything about the motor. Right? So I was starting from scratch. I knew how to I had a closed at that time, probably about 30 deals 30 or 40 deals with my mom over the last couple of years for the last three years. So I knew about the transaction, right. But I didn’t know about the players. I didn’t know about how to sell luxury real estate, which is completely different than selling a house that’s worth, you know, two or $300,000. So, so she moved to Columbia in 2009. I moved to downtown LA. And I said you know what, what I should do is I should probably work underneath a top agent, right? So I emailed my resume to about, you know, 10,000 agents, I downloaded all the emails smart. All the emails from the MLS, in had emailed, and that was emailed every single person, right. I got I got a bunch of interviews, I got about 17 interviews, you know, and my last interview was a call with Chad Rogers, who was at the time on Million Dollar Listing. Yeah, on Bravo. He was one of the original cast members. And he was working at Hilton and Hyland. And when I do my research, I’m like, this is the best firm in LA one of the best firms in the world. Like I really want to be at this firm, you know, and I had gotten no calls from anybody at Hilton. And the last call I got was from chat. He called me he left a message and he’s like, Yeah, I’m on Million Dollar Listing. I’m like, I have no idea who you are. I don’t watch that show. Right, which he actually liked. Right. So yeah, sure. Yeah. D.J. Paris 14:42Because you weren’t you didn’t want to hang out with him because he was on TV. Paul Salazar 14:46Exactly. Exactly. So So I called him up. We had an interview and it was a match. It was perfect. So and and you know I you know I have to give a lot of you know of attitude and a lot of credit to Chad for giving me the opportunity to be working under him because he was selling big properties, you know, you know, you know, 1518 2021 22 23,020 $3 million properties. So because of him, I was able to get into the luxury market. And I stayed with him for a long time, for about 10 years, I should have left earlier. And I think the reason why I didn’t leave is because again, my mindset wasn’t there, I didn’t feel that I, I can, I could, I could sell real estate on my own, you know. So Chad really taught me how to how to deal with these high net worth individuals, how to deal with business managers, how to deal with how to deal with lawyers, how the transaction works, how to list properties in this in these areas, you know, and his, his community was Malibu colony. And if you’re not familiar with Malibu colony, it’s it’s only 120 houses right on the beach in Malibu. It’s a gated community, Sting lives there. Jason Stata. Pamela Anderson. I mean, so many celebrities call this place home. And his his his family owned a house there. So he grew up in this in this community. So most of the deals that we that we did were in this community. So I really got to know all the big players from from working with him. You know, the only thing the only downside with working with Chad is that he already had a network, right? Yeah. So he wasn’t really out there prospecting, like I do nowadays. Sure. So I really didn’t learn the business side of real estate. Through chat. I just learned how to how to talk to people that are lawyers or CEOs or billionaires, right? I learned how to communicate with these kinds of people, because he would, he would give me a deal. Like, he would say, Hey, Paul, this is my listing. And I will take it on from there. Like I did most of the work, I really helped him run his business. And we did well together. And we did well together. And I think, I think after after 10 years, I think what, what, what helped me make that transition from, you know, the mindset was just like I get, I just didn’t feel, I guess worthy enough, or I didn’t feel I had the capability of going on my own. Like, I feel like I needed somebody to help me out. You know. And so I started to listen to like to like some podcasts and, and Tom ferries podcasts really kind of resonated with me. Sure, I really love to hear what he had to say. And I started to listen to him. You know, he’s like, he was talking about cold calling. And I was like, I’ve never cold called in my, you know, at this time, I think I was in the business for about 13 years. And I had never cold called once in my entire career. D.J. Paris 17:37And and probably didn’t want to either. You’re probably like, I don’t want to have to do that. Yeah, Paul Salazar 17:41yeah, exactly. I it’s like it was really scary for me. And at that time, when I was working with Chad, I was his assistant. And then after a couple years, it was like a hybrid model. And we also actually had an assistant, so it was me, him and we had an assistant. So he would give me deals, I would hold his open houses, I would get deals through the through that I would get deals now through some like friendships that I had in LA. So I kind of started to grow my business, but I didn’t really grow it that that big. That’s why I was also scared to leave him. So I didn’t really have or big, you know, a big source of business. Because I would also get like a, like a small percentage of his business as well. But if I left him, I wouldn’t be getting that anymore. Right. So that’s how I started. You know, it’s it was a long, it was a long journey with Chad, I learned a lot I should have left earlier, like probably after five years, but I didn’t. And after, you know, listening to tom toms podcast for about three months, I joined his coaching program. And after that, I started cold calling. I got a couple of my own listings, and then I left chat right after that. D.J. Paris 18:44Wow, I accent so I have a few questions I want to go actually. Thank you. That is really incredible story. And there’s more to the story. I know, I want to go back to just this really smart idea that in all the episodes we’ve done, I don’t think anyone has ever suggested and it was a really good idea. Be there. So obviously teams are or whether or not you want to be a solo practitioner or a team. Having a mentor, regardless, is a great idea for so many listeners. So Paul did something very creative and something that literally anybody can do, which is he got he will in your case you scraped a list off the mls of realtor emails. You can also buy these lists, they’re really not that expensive, but a couple 100 bucks, maybe for your local area. And then he just fired out 10,000 emails and that is absolutely doable. So if anyone out there is listening, that is essentially how Paul got to into luxury property he invested in reaching out to everyone in his local area and got 17 interviews and I mean it’s it is it is remarkable. I was just talking to one of the very top producers here in Chicago yesterday and I was asking her how often and she’s a solo practitioner And she does about 160 million a year just herself alone. And yeah, she, she’s amazing. And she I was like, how often do people email Realtors email, you asking for mentorship coaching? She’s like, Oh, no. And she’s super nice and very sweet. She’s like, almost never. So it’s one of those things that I guess sometimes we think maybe those people are getting inundated. And maybe they are, but maybe they’re not right. And so I just wanted to honor you for sort of being creative in that step. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. Now. That’s what US recruiters do we get those lists. Yeah, we want to recruit realtors. So recruiters do this all the time. But individual agents unless unless it’s like, oh, I have I have a listing. And I want to, I want to email every realtor to let them know about it. That’s another reason why sometimes people do it. But as far as like to find a mentor or a partner, boy, what a smart idea. So again, I just wanted to step on that a little bit, because I think it was a really, really smart play. The other thing, too, I want to talk about so many of our listeners, and I’ve obviously you know people who are your peers are probably like, how do you get into luxury? Well, you just told the story of how you got introduced to that world. But then there’s that whole step of like, I didn’t grew up in Malibu, I didn’t I don’t I didn’t grow up in this gated community of 120 homes where everybody knows me because those are my neighbors. And that’s what I grew up with. And, and yes, you were introduced to that world, but then it is this pretty big shift of like, I’m going to cut the cord and try to build my own business. And you said, looking back, you know, maybe you stayed longer than then you needed to. But that does require a massive mind shift change to say, okay, I can I can survive and thrive in that world, even though that isn’t my background, and it isn’t necessarily what I what I’ve known my whole life. So I’m curious on what you learned with Tom ferries coaching program, which everybody who listens probably knows who Tom Ferry is if not, he’s he’s an He’s incredible. His dad Mike ferry is kind of a famous guy in the, in the, in the coaching movement. Brian Buffini is another guy. So it’s usually Mike ferry, Brian Buffini and Tom Ferry are kind of like the three biggest names, and all three of them have have really great stuff to offer, Tom Ferry has kind of kind of having his moment the last like 10 years, he’s kind of been the guy who’s everyone’s kind of paying attention to but what did you learn from from Tom’s coaching? You know, coaching partners about how to shift your mindset. Paul Salazar 22:30I mean, so much, right. I mean, there are so many different tips that that that he kind of suggested, you know, affirmations, some books, right. But I think for me, I think the biggest shift was, at the time, you know, I was, I was single, and I had just started dating this girl, who’s now my girlfriend, and she’s an entrepreneur, you know, and she was out there, you know, you know, just like putting yourself out there, you know, and I wasn’t doing that. And so she, she really kind of inspired me to be like, you know, I can do more, right? Like I can, I can do more with myself, like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t need somebody else to help me. I can do it on my own. You know, and it’s, I think, I don’t know, if there was one thing, I think was just kind of listening to his podcast, and all actually, the interviews just like this, this kind of interview that like Tom would do, and the interviews that that that you do, DJ are so important, because they allow the listeners to get inspired to hear the stories, because to me, those stories really helped me be like, Wow, that person did it. That person did it. And now, I started to say, why can I do it? You know, so those stories really helped me out. And when I was with Chad, I wasn’t really into the business. Like I was more traveling, I was partying. So I wasn’t really focused on my career, I was really more focused on just having a good time, to be honest. So and, you know, since I had a girlfriend, I had more time to kind of focus on my career, instead of, you know, traveling and doing all these other things, right. But I think hearing the stories was really the most important thing for me, in kind of shifting the mindset, right, because I heard all these stories of all these other amazing agents that started from nothing, or they, you know, didn’t have anything or it, there was, you know, everybody has their own story, right. And some stories, I can’t relate to as much as, as other stories, right. So like, like, I may relate to certain people, but I may not relate to other people, right? Sure. But But But listening to those interviews was my favorite thing. And to this day, I still love to hear those interviews because I learned so much about what these people do, how they grew their business, and I always take one or two things, and I implement that in my business. D.J. Paris 24:47I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by me More than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, well, boy, that’s exactly our goal on this show. So glad that that worked for you. Because, you know, it’s funny, I was thinking like, oh, it would be really fun to have chat on the show. And it probably wouldn’t, I’m sure he’s, he would be excellent. But the moment people hear oh, like if I say, how’d you get into luxuries? Like, well, but you know, I grew up in this area that, you know, that’s immediately when a lot of our listeners would be like, Oh, okay, well, I didn’t I didn’t grow up in an environment like that. So yes, easy, easy for that guy. And of course, it isn’t necessarily easy if just because you grew up in that environment, but it is not as relatable, right. And so I love to present you that you sort of infiltrated in a good way and sort of went, Oh, I belong here I can I can thrive in this environment, and just learning how to communicate and maybe with people who are in that ultra high net worth space, and understanding their needs, understanding what the goals of people like that, who I imagine there’s people that you have clients that probably have whole teams of people that you have to meet with financial people, accountants, attorneys, agents, whoever it might be. It’s not I imagine it’s not just usually like one single buyer, and one seller, and then the agents on either side. So what would you say? So So anyway, just to continue on in your story. So So you, you decided you got the courage to kind of go off on on your own cut the cord? And then, you know, did you feel at that point that you had made enough headway into your your sphere of influence, that you were able to sort of survive that Paul Salazar 27:48way? You know, I, again, I think I’ve always had enough money to survive six or 12 months. And I think that’s an important thing for agents to hear. Right? And I don’t have any kids, right? I don’t have any kids yet. So it’s easier for me to grow that like nest egg, right, just for me. But, you know, for anybody else, that everybody knows how much they need every single month, to be able to say, you know, what, if I’m going to go into a new business or to a new venture, I have this much time to actually excel before I’m like, you know, broke. Right. So I’ve always been comfortable in that regards, where, you know, I could have again, I could have left, you know, five years before leaving chat, you know, because I had that money. I just didn’t have the courage right. So for me it was luckily, the coach I had was very inspiring to her name is Mary Jett. She is now the head of all coaches at Tom Ferry. She is an amazing person. She is like, she’s just like a mom, you know. And she was coaching junk ramen, who was like one of the top agents in the in the nation. She was coaching Gary Gould, who sold the the Playboy Mansion who was at at Hilton and Hyland and Gary was actually the one who recommended me to marry Jeff, you know. So I, again, very grateful to Gary Gould, who’s now a coal banker, because I called him and said, Hey, Gary, I know that you’re coaching with Tom Ferry. And when I’m doing you know, all my research is like, yeah, you know, call my coach Mary Jess, I called Mary jet. She was coaching like 75 people, right? And she’s like, Hey, you know, why don’t I send you, you know, three or four recommendations here at the Tom Ferry coaching network that that may be able to assist you. I talked to those coaches, but I didn’t have the same connection that I had with with Mary jet, you know, so So I call them married yet again. I say, hey, Mary, I know you’re busy. I know you have a lot of clients. I’m very coachable. I am, I am ready to go. And please coach me because I know that you have, you know what it takes to help me grow my business. And she said, You know what, Paul, let’s do it. And so again, so, so grateful. For Mary, because she actually really inspired me to leave chat. She, she, she didn’t push me, she inspired me. That’s the that’s, that’s the difference. I did it on my own. She was actually shocked. After two months of being coached by her, I left chat. And then three months later, I hired my first assistant. D.J. Paris 30:17Wow. Yeah, you know, so what I’m really hearing is she gave you the courage to bet on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny too, because betting on yourself is a very scary endeavor, even for the most confident person because it also could, could not go well. And, and in your case, you know, you really have to commit and you did, and, and you made it work. So, so you left, you found the courage to do that. Your coach, of course helped you, you know, change your mindset to this, like, you can do this, but also, I’m not gonna push you to do it, it’s a decision you have to make on your own and whether you do it or not, I’m still your coach. And, and you did it. And, and then and then how did things, you know, blossom from there? Paul Salazar 31:06Well, so, again, I didn’t have a network, even though I’d been in LA for a long time. You know, I think my network was really outside of LA, you know, I had a small network in LA from, you know, just kind of meeting people, you know, going out and whatnot. But I really didn’t I I’m not really a networker. You know, that’s not how I get my business. Right. And a lot of people in LA that are successful, actually are good networkers. But that’s not me. I don’t like to go out at night. And like smoothies, that’s not my thing. So when I was, you know, listening to how other agents, you know, grow their business, you know, cold calling expireds was a great way to grow the business. So I started, I started cold calling expireds, you know, and it was, that was so hard for me to start doing that. And I actually started cold calling expireds I think before I hired Mary Jo at the Tom Ferry organization. And then I hired her, but I basically started cold calling expireds every single day. And I was horrible at it. And I was so I was so nervous getting on the phone. Like, it was, like, traumatizing for me. I was like, and my girlfriend is like, why, you know, what’s like, what’s going on? And she’s also a coach herself, you know, so she was kind of coaching me through this whole process. But again, it just like the mindset, like I just wasn’t there. And I didn’t have I guess I didn’t have the confidence yet to really cold call these people. And when you’re cold calling, you know, you know, 2345 and plus million dollar houses. They’re getting calls from everybody in there, everybody. I mean, like people from like, like, an hour away are calling them. It’s nuts. D.J. Paris 32:44So you were only calling luxury expireds? Or were you Okay, so So you somehow subscribed? Did you subscribe to a service that gives you those leads? Or did you just find them in the MLS as they would expire? Paul Salazar 32:55So at the time, I was using red X, I’m now using Vulcan. But at that time, I was using red X. And I think it was like a filter of doing like, only houses over a million dollars. So I was like, listen, anything in LA right now, right? Anything over a million dollars is like a like a, like a teardown, you know, yeah. So it’s like, I like the word luxury. It’s like, I don’t even know what that means anymore. Because I hear it here in LA is a $2 million property, like a luxury property. Because it’s like a three bedroom, two bath 1200 square foot house in an OK neighborhood. It’s insane. Right? So so with that being said, you know, I started I started cold calling expireds. D.J. Paris 33:32And by the way, I want to pause here for a second because because for those of you that have never I feel like that art of calling for sale by owners calling expired listings isn’t as popular anymore. Well, first of all people, you know, look, most people don’t like making cold calls, and calling for sale by owners or expireds. This particular will say just expired. It’s expired. It’s particularly difficult because it was on the market, probably with another realtor. It didn’t go well it didn’t property didn’t transact. And so you may you may be calling somebody who now hates realtors or hates the previous realtor or and as you said, it’s also because it’s a luxury property, at least by the price. It is now you know very attractive to everyone who buys these leads, which is a lot of agents. So you’re right people from an hour away. Sure. I’ll drive in for a $2 million property of course. So now the owner is getting bombarded with you’re probably not the first phone call even of the day. What do you call them? So So can you just talk a little bit about what those calls were like, just because I love the fact that you started calling fizz bows and, and or sorry, expired listings. And were able to you know, still still build a luxury practice out of it. Paul Salazar 34:46Yeah, I mean, I I knew that like, that was really the only way that I wanted to do things because I’m not an I’m not a networker. That’s not my thing. I’m not going out at nighttime and going to events, right? So I like to be home during the week. So it’s either open houses door knocking or expireds. And I still don’t have the courage to go door knocking yet. So I started with expireds. Right? That was the that was my first step into building my confidence into doing scary things. And a book that I like to read. That really inspired me was Miracle Morning. Oh, yeah. How Elrod Yeah, yes, exactly. Great book. So highly recommend it for any for any listeners. So me and my girlfriend started doing that. So we were still waking up early, you know, 545 alarm, getting up at five, you know, meditation journal workouts. There’s a couple other things there. I forgot what what they are. But But doing that every single morning, and then that really propels you to a very successful day, you know, so I started doing that, but by making the calls was was really tough, you know? Sure. The good thing is that I, I knew the market. So that was what I knew the market, which is really important. And number two, I was at a great brokerage, Hilton Island, and we only have one office and only 150 agents. So it was only really, in my office is only one other agent that that does expired calls. So if if I’m calling Hey, it’s Paul Salazar, a Hilton and Hyland, I kind of know, not everybody, but most people will know that, that that brand name, and they’ll they’ll say, You know what, there’s only a few agents at that at that brokerage. It’s a very, very popular brokerage here in the area for High Tech High End residential. And so they, they, they gave me a little bit more respect, right. That’s nice. Yeah. So, so that definitely helped me out, okay. But at the end of the day, it’s you just have to know how, you know, you obviously have to have a script that you that you internalized, you have to know it from, you know, you have to just understand the script, there’s only going to be a few different objections. And they have to know how to handle it. And more importantly, it’s the it’s your tonality. Yeah, that’s what I learned is tonality is so important, right. And everybody’s different. I’m really good with a certain demographic, ladies that are like 60 Plus, you know, I just, yeah, that was my sweet spot. So that was my first listing. And, and, you know, it was a, it was a, it was a $2.1 million listing. And they had interviewed the other agent in my office who was like the king of expireds, in in LA, who does a ton of expireds. And I actually beat him, I beat him to the listing, which is great. And, and the way I did it, it was just like, I was just personable, and I in what I started to create after that was, how do I become the best listing agent in LA? What do I have to do to become the best listing agent in LA? So that was really my, my mindset going forward is? How do I create? You know, a great listing, right, so what does that involve? And how do I also, so my next prospect, how I just transformed this property, sold it for record price, you know, you know, you know, shortly that Mark is on the market for six months, I sold it in a weekend, you know, so I started to, to, to create those marketing pieces, to help me get the next listing and the next listing and the next listing, and I started just to just really hone in on my listing skills, and my negotiation skills and my sales skills to really go from expired to sold, you know, and I have, I have, like, you know, like 15 now of case studies of these houses that were once on the market, I transformed them, and I was able to get them sold. D.J. Paris 38:47You know, that’s, that’s such a great approach, this idea of sort of what we would maybe call story selling this idea of, hey, let me tell you about this previous thing, versus, here’s why I’m the best choice, which I’m sure you do have that as part of your pitch as well of like, here’s what I’m going to do for you, here’s the XY and Z of what I’m going to do. But let me tell you about this last property I just worked on, here’s what I did to that, here’s the results. And you know, you’re sort of sharing that, that whole journey to somebody and that’s a very powerful approach that I suspect a lot of agents don’t think that way. It’s more like hey, if you look at my reputation, if you look at what I what I do in general, I’m a big deal, you know, without saying I’m a big deal, whereas you’re telling very specific stories of previous experiences you have and that is it’s a very unique approach actually, I think that’s that’s quite quite smart and obviously, is started resonating with these with these expireds and honestly, Paul Salazar 39:45like, because of expireds like that’s what helped me grow my business like it’s because of expireds because you know, from there, you hold open houses you find buyers from there you go door, knock the neighborhood from there, you start just started Little by little start building your business. And you know, like, again, I think 60% of my business right now is still expired still new business because I don’t have enough old business to get repeat clients. I don’t I don’t I don’t have the the like the luxury of being like, Hey, Paul, you sold my property two years ago, I want to buy something like I rarely get those calls maybe two or three times a year. Obviously, as I grow my business, I’m getting more and more of those calls. But I still cannot rely on that I still rely on circle dialing on door knocking on sending mailers on calling expireds and doing open houses. D.J. Paris 40:37Let’s talk about door knocking, because so few of our guests on, I’ve had a few guests that have that have talked about door knocking I suspect more more have done it, maybe just don’t talk about it. But that is also, I think, a very courageous thing to do. And it’s very difficult. So as you you know, tell us your approach for door knocking just, you know, are you are you door knocking in neighborhoods where you just or you’re currently selling a property or just sold a property? Oh, by the way, I just, you know, I helped your neighbor down the street, just wanted to introduce myself that kind of thing, or how did you go about doing that? Paul Salazar 41:11Well, I have a geo form, right. So here here in Venice, in the in the west side of Venice Beach, I have like a you know, like a 500 You know, home, you know, community that I’m constantly working on. Right? So that’s, that’s how I started door knocking, right. And again, this is all from Tom Ferry Mary jet, saying, Hey, you have to have a, you have to have four lead pillars. One is you know, for so when I first started coaching with them, it was geo farm expireds open houses, and then my past clients, which is very, very little, right. So so, you know, door knocking to me is the most effective way of prospecting, hands down. Wow, it can’t be more effective than calling expireds more it’s it just takes a lot of time and effort and energy. And that’s why people don’t do it. Because it’s like, you have to go out there you have to have like a marketing piece. You have to go and doorknob. It’s like it’s a lot of time and effort. You know, cold calling is a little bit easier. You’re at home, you could be in your PJs, you could just you know, get out of bed and do it right. But when your door knocking, you have to you know, I gotta say we got to look good. I look presentable. I gotta I gotta understand the market in this little area. But, you know, I’ve, from one of my door knocking deals is actually doing COVID. Right, where I couldn’t actually door knock, but I was still passing out flyers. And if somebody was out in the front of the door, I was, you know, like, if they’re out in the yard, I would talk to them. So funny story is like, I I wanted to start, I wanted to get into selling new developments. Because Santiago Araunah, who was one of the biggest agents in the nation, he’s here in Brentwood. Actually, you know, he actually interviewed me when I first came to LA and Oh, nine, he didn’t hire me. But he’s a great agent, you know, like, he like I always look up to him, because he’s kind of like me, like, he’s a, you know, Latin guy like me, he came from nothing. And he’s built an amazing business. I mean, he’s, he’s a freaking baller, right? But he, he built his business on door knocking. And, and he found a lot of tear downs. And he was able to sell those to developers. And then the developer built a 20 3040 $50 million house, and now he’s selling those houses, right. So that’s another great way of getting the luxury space, if you’re in an area where there’s a lot of tear downs and development opportunities, right, is to start, you know, door knocking those houses, finding those sellers, finding the the developers, which is super easy, right. So that was one of my first development deals a few years ago, was during COVID. Walking around in my geo farm, I knew I picked this geo farm because it had a lot of tear down potential. And a tear down is going to be three deals, three sides, right? You rep the seller who’s selling the development opportunity, you rep the developer, and then you rep the developer one, they sell it in a good chance that you get a lead out of it, or a buyer and you double ended so there’s possibly 244 sides and one one deal there. Right? So there’s a really, you know, really, you know, good chance that you can make some good money on these on these tear downs. So anyway, so I was doing walking, I met the the the older couple that were super sweet. They knew nothing about real estate at all. Their father just had passed away. So it was it was a trust sell. They had a they had to pay no capital gains. So it was perfect for them. They were going to cash out. I found a great developer that I now have sold multiple deals to. And you know, and that’s how I kind of started right now selling brand new developments was was just by door knocking these houses. D.J. Paris 44:41And this idea of cold calling developers not to hey, I want to rep your next project which of course every realtor would want that too. But you’re saying hey, I’ve got a deal for you essentially not not a deal. I’ve got a transaction possibly for you. Not a deal isn’t like I’ve got special offer for you. But I’ve got this property that that you might be interested in Mr. And Mrs. Developer. I’ve never heard of anybody doing that. I don’t know why that has never been talked about that is a brilliant approach to giving providing value to a developer, to which they’re like, hey, this guy’s great. He’s given us business. We’re gonna use them for, you know, maybe other things we’re doing. Paul Salazar 45:22Yeah, for sure. And I think, my pitch to these, the sellers that own these tear downs, and there’s not all properties are going to be considered tear downs, you know, sure. I always look out for my clients, no matter what I always look out, like, if I was them, what would I do? Right? There’s some houses that you can slap some paint on, it changed some countertops. And we’ll talk about that a little bit later on. Because I also specialize in like, re, like refurbishing a house, you know, redoing a house, and selling it to an end user, right? But But there’s certain houses that you can’t do that it’s either too small, or it needs too much work. And it’s a perfect teardown, right, like the developer is going to pay more than an end user, right? So so what my pitches to these to the sellers is that I’m going to create an offering memorandum and an OM right. And that’s not really used for for residential brokers, they don’t really understand what that means that that’s for for like commercial agents, you know, that’s our industrial buildings, or office and retail or, you know, other kind of commercial, real estate. So what I do is that I create it with my team, like a 1520, page, PDF, and it outlines, right, this is what we’re selling. This is what you know, what we’re asking, you know, this is, you know, what the what the land, you know, price per square foot, because we don’t look at price per square foot for the house, we look at the price per square foot for the land, we sell them comps of other other land cells that are similar to this in the area. We also saw on comps of what a new development will sell for in the area, we also show them what they can build, per the under built report, which is a company here in the area that can tell me how big of a house I can build on it. And then I email it to developers. And then they’ll say, give me a call. I said, give me a call. And now they they trust me even more, because I created this great marketing piece that took me three hours. And they trust me like this guy’s the real deal, right? And so I start calling these developers, I said, Hey, and it’s so easy to find developers. So there’s no excuse for anybody not to find developer, all you do is you go on the MLS, you find out all the new developments that are sold. You look at public records, you saw who sold them. If it’s an LLC, you look up the LLC, you look at the manager, you find them online, they have a website, you give them a call, it literally takes five minutes, right? Yeah, it’s super, super easy. So that’s how it started. And I luckily sold it to a great developer who I have a great relationship now. And now I’ve already sold them a few other properties that are now being built. And that house, I sold it originally teardown for 1.6 million, so I double that. And then we sold it two months ago for 4.2 million. And, and we put a big sign in front of the house as as they were building it, you know, as they were building the whole house a huge sign a massive sign with a QR code to like a website. And I got I got a buyer lead that I sold another house for 3.1 million, I got other leads that I’m working on right now. So it’s like, every single listing should give you two or three deals. At the minimum one deal. And if you really know how to maximize it, two or three deals. So that’s why I really focus on on on getting listings. D.J. Paris 48:35How many other agents do you know who prospect developers with with opportunities like that you put together? I’m curious if that’s a common practice. And if it is, I’m curious on how putting together that 1520 page PDF with literally step by step of like, here’s all the work we’ve done, here’s the options for what you can do mister missus developer. And here’s what we think, you know, estimated profit might might be how common is that? Are you like the only guy really doing that? Is that your sort of secret sauce? Or do you feel like other people are putting together similar packages? Paul Salazar 49:12I was it’s not a secret anymore. But But I don’t think anyone else is doing it. You know, again, I really pride myself in being detail oriented. And creating really nice marketing pieces like that. That’s my thing. Like I I really want to have a nice brand. So if you go to my, to my website, it’s very clean. If you look at my at my Instagram profile, I try it’s getting better and better. Right? It’s not easy to like have a nice, clean, bold and sophisticated look. But that’s that’s what we’re trying to build here. But I don’t know anybody else that’s that’s doing that. There are a lot of agents that sell a lot of developments and they’re there and they’re doing this right. And the other way of getting these deals is by sending letters So like, I would drive around a whole area with my assistant, and I will pick out, tear down, tear down, we write the address, we put it on an Excel file. And now we send handwritten envelopes. And we send them a letter, I just close it. I’m actually under contract on a deal right now from a letter that I sent three months ago, and they call me Hey, I got your letter, do you still have that buyer? I’m like, Yes, I do. I put the deal together. And now we’re under contract for another development deal. Right? So not only door knocking, or cold calling these these tear downs, but also sending letters works. D.J. Paris 50:30I love that you’re doing all of the things that you would assume a luxury agent probably doesn’t have to do, right? Most luxury agents I know are not calling fizz Bo’s expireds, they’re not cold calling developers. They’re not writing, you know, letters. Or maybe they are and maybe they’re just not telling us on our show. But I appreciate that, that you weren’t born into this sort of luxury business, you really built it, you bootstrapped it and and you you saved up enough money so that you could you could explore that. And, and I just go i Those are the best stories, I think, the so let’s talk about because again, so many of our agents are like, okay, I can start doing some of those things. But everybody wants to be a luxury agent. You know, what, what’s the major difference you found? Because you do 20 plus million dollar properties as well. What’s the major difference between working with you know, a seller of a, you know, let’s say a million dollar property or, you know, in LA, of course, the like you said, everything’s kind of, or at least in the area you service is kind of a million dollars, even the smallest properties? What’s the difference between working on the smaller property side to the ultra high net worth side? Are the are the needs? And the goals basically the same? Or is it is it kind of a different world? Paul Salazar 51:51I mean, I think at the core, it’s the same thing, somebody wants to find a home. Right? So so in that, in that respect, there’s there’s going to be an emotional attachment to selling real estate, either in high end, or in a lower price point, right? Sure. I think the only difference is, is that when you’re selling real estate here, a lot of the times they have a business manager, who can make things very difficult a lawyer, writer. And so they have, by the D.J. Paris 52:20way, are not emotionally involved in the property that a buyer or a seller might be there emotionally involved in keeping their their position, which their position is, is to very thoroughly review the financial component of this transaction, which I’m assuming is a big deal be so you not only have to win over the emotional side of the buyer or seller, but you also have to win over sort of the more empirical part, the objective part of dealing with now this team, which those are, those are two different very different masters to serve, I imagine. Paul Salazar 52:51Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think most of the people that I service here in LA, not everybody, but most of them are just sophisticated. And they, they, they’re, they’re educated. And they’re they’re business owners, they’re very smart people, right? So they may know, they may know about the property more than you do. Like, you know, if you’re showing them property, they may have done all the research. So you have to be prepared a lot more than I was prepared. When I was working in Rancho Cucamonga. I’m not saying you don’t have to be prepared selling real estate in a smaller price point. But all I’m saying is that over here, I feel like you have to be more prepared, because they are going to ask you tough questions. And they and they’re going to expect that you know that they they’re going to expect the you know, the market, they you know, the players that you know about the house, all that stuff. So I think that’s the biggest difference. And then the other thing is, is when you’re listing a property, I feel that, you know, I spend easily, you know, five to $6,000 per listing, before it’s even on the market. You know, we’re spending, you know, a grant that two grand on a photographer, same for a videographer or floor plan, I do everything like we do Instagram ads, or the YouTube ads, we do Google ads for our listings, we want to be the best of the best, right? And that’s how I this is, this is my plan to get to the next level. Like I really want to start growing my business to the next level. I’m not there yet. And I have a long way to go. But I know that if I keep doing this, I will get there because people are going to start noticing that I really take care of you. I’m going to look out for you. And I’m going to get you top dollar or I will get you the best price if I’m repping you as a buyer’s agent. D.J. Paris 54:42Yeah, it’s so funny to hear you hear somebody say I’ve sold 600 million in real estate. I’m not quite there yet. I’m just just but that’s that’s the motor that you have that keeps you going 600 million is is just where you’re at today. It isn’t necessarily where you want to be tomorrow. But it’s So funny to hear that that, really, it seems like your your entire career has been so much of put the blinders on do the hard things that are maybe a little scary and uncomfortable, but are healthy, and things that other agents aren’t willing to do like door knocking. I mean, gosh, I would bet less than 1% of agents have ever door knock, or made a cold call, quite honestly. You know, I don’t I don’t think people leave and do that as much anymore. And yet, here’s here’s somebody, you know, like you who who still does it. And, and that is, um, you would think a luxury agent wouldn’t be going door to door, you know, we sort of have our own, you know, misconceptions about what that even means. But it is one of those rare arts, you know, this door knocking and letter writing that, you know, people really appreciate if done the right way. It’s it’s absolutely a lost art and is obviously been part of the secret. Not secret, but part of the reason for your, for your ascent. And so let’s let’s talk about, you know, I’m sure there’s people that reach out to you that goes, I want to break into the luxury market. What What are your thoughts on that? I see, I always think most agents shouldn’t aspire to that unless they want to up their game, like you were saying, now dealing with buyers and sellers who maybe are a bit more sophisticated, maybe are just more business focused, like you said, a lot of business owners, a lot of people who have been successful in their careers, and just have a level of sophistication that, you know, maybe people at lower price points, you know, just don’t have or aren’t as interested in. And so, you know, you do have to appeal to that sort of those qualities of these of these more sophisticated buyers and sellers. You know, what would your advice be to somebody that says, I want to sell $20 million homes just like you Paul Salazar 56:51I you know, what, I think people glamorize because of what’s on TV sell Sharon said and Million Dollar Listing and they think it’s just like, so easy. When you go into a luxury market, the competition is at a different level. This is why I have to up my game. Like, the only reason why I’m doing is because when I lose a listing, I I’m like, Alright, why did I lose that listing? What can I do better? Now I’m adding another piece to my arsenal, little by little right. So, you know, being part of the Tom Ferry organization, I see people in much smaller markets selling $500,000 houses that they’re making 10 times more than me, you know, so I think for an agent, you got to think about is it about is it about the glamour of selling luxury real estate or is about the money because you can make a you can make more money selling $500,000 houses with, you know, obviously more units than selling luxury property and selling just, you know, five or you know, or 10 listings or sales per year, D.J. Paris 57:53you know, not having to spend 5000 plus per listing the market. Paul Salazar 57:57Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I again, like if your dream, like, for me, my dream was never to sell luxury real estate like that. I never, you know, got into real estate to be in Beverly Hills, it just kind of fell into my lap, right? My mom kind of pushed me my girlfriend was living here. I got the, you know, I got the assistant position with with Chad Hilton and Hyland, so everything kind of, you know, kind of just, you know, like, like, the road kind of led me there. Right? But it wasn’t like, I was like, I want to sell, you know, 20 monopolistic so that that now I do, right. But But before that, you know, it wasn’t really a big deal for those agents that really, really want to get into luxury real estate because they they love those kinds of houses, they want to work with those kinds of people. That’s great. You should you should do it. I think joining a team is obviously I think, you know, having a mentor joining a team should be the first thing you do 100% You have to learn about how you know what it takes to be a player, learn the players learn the area, learn the markets, who are the buyers who are the sellers, right. And then after that create a plan. You know, how am I going to get you know, open houses is a great way of finding buyers right. You know, cold calling door knocking I mean, there’s so many stories out there. Santiago Irana door knock Brentwood for years. He’s killing it. You know, the guys on Bhandar listing, you know, Parnes, you know, the Bonsu brothers, they also door knock and Bel Air. So there’s so many stories of people that are not even from LA. And they want to do luxury real estate but they but they grinded their way in. You know, you gotta grind your way and it’s super, super competitive. So if you got he got what it takes, and you’re in your competitive and you’re willing to grind, then go ahead and do it. Why not? I mean, anybody can do it. I did it. And everybody, you know, a lot of other people did it too. D.J. Paris 59:50Well, I think that’s really such an inspiring message. If we sort of look back at your entire career. Yes, there were opportunities that allowed you to get introduced to different types of audiences that you now work with. But nothing was handed to you at all. You You made your own luck by doing the things that maybe other agents wouldn’t be willing to do, even from starting, you know, with sending out 10,000 emails to other agents. And by the way, not being a guy who’s a self promoter, right, that is something you would think maybe a self promoter or schmoozer would want to do, because it’s a good networking sort of exercise. You were just like, I need to find a mentor here. And and so you earnestly send out all these messages. And then you know, everything, you continue to do things like that, throughout your entire career and continue to do it today. It’s not like oh, now it’s just, I just get calls all day from developers and from luxury, you know, buyers and sellers. You’re still drumming up all this business on your own. And I think that’s just a great a great place to sort of wrap up for today because it is like, it’s like reminds me of that old. This ancient, I think it’s a Zen saying I can’t remember exactly where it comes from. So I apologize if I’m getting this wrong, but but the expression is a good one, which is Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. You just gotta keep keep doing the, you know, the hard things. Because that’s what keeps everything going. It’s not like you, you don’t feel like you’ve arrived, so to speak, because you’re still doing the same exact things. And that’s oddly, but but also absolutely makes sense of why your continued to be successful. And who knows, maybe one day it’ll all just come come into you without without that much effort. But it’s working for you. And it’s a great reminder of just practicing the fundamentals and consistently applying those just the same way. We built our podcast here. It wasn’t any one interview that got us, you know, it Yeah, it’s just just consistency and talking to people like yourself, and what you what you shared was really super inspiring today. So I hope, I don’t even hope I know our audience has received a tremendous amount of benefit for any agents out there who might be might have clients that are moving to, you know, to the more exclusive areas of LA in the suburbs, and are looking, you know, maybe they don’t service that particular area, maybe they’re in a different state, but they have clients who maybe have second, third, fourth homes, and they maybe want to partner with a top agent like yourself, or if there’s anyone who is in the Beverly Hills and surrounding areas who’s a buyer or seller investor developer or renter who wants to work with you directly, you know, what’s the best way that one of our listeners could reach out to you Paul Salazar 1:02:43call me text me email me Instagram, it like I, I check all those things. So like my cell phone 310-387-1976 Call me shoot me a text, email Paul at Paul Salazar group.com. Instagram at Paul Sallows our group, so very easy to get in touch with me. I’ve actually, you know, been, you know, I’ve had people reach out to me to ask for advice. I always you know, you know, give them a you know, a few minutes of my time to because I listen, I respect that, you know, I was there at one point. And I respect people that like, go out there and reach out and like, you know, want to ask for advice. I’ve actually given like, there’s a kid in high school that sent me a long email saying, He wants me to mentor him, I brought him to my open house. Now he helps me out with things. It’s like it when you put yourself out there, the world is gonna give you gifts, you know, and, and I think a lot of people don’t put themselves out there because it’s, it feels vulnerable. You got to get uncomfortable, you got to be durable. And the more vulnerable you get, the more uncomfortable you get, the more difficult things you do, the more you start to feel like empowered by yourself like, well, I can do that. You know, I think that’s probably my biggest tip for any listener here is just start doing small things every single day, that are that are difficult, you know, taking a cold shower in the morning, waking up early, working out in the morning, making a you know, one cold call door knocking one door, you know, going out and just meeting somebody striking up a conversation, and you start to realize that wow, why am I even worried about that? Why was I scared about that, you know, there’s that we just have these these these fears? Because you know, we have this it’s a human condition, right? Sure. But but once you get over this, then you start to get more empowered and you start to do more and more difficult things like I still have a lot of things that I want to do that are that are difficult, that I’m still you know, getting to little by little D.J. Paris 1:04:44cold showers is such a great example of a small thing that any anybody can try. And it is shockingly difficult. It’s more difficult than you think it’s going to be thinking about it now. It’s actually two times harder than what you’re even thinking And if you can, if you I want everybody to try this tomorrow and it’s not because having a cold shower in and of itself is anything, it’s it’s the idea of it. And people say there’s some health benefits whatever that that may or may not be. But what there definitely is a benefit is you if you can make it 30 seconds, 60 seconds and complete it you will feel as much jubilation as if you just ran a marathon because it is that difficult. And that is an easy win. It’s not an easy win. It’s a very difficult win. If you can do that daily. I promise. Just do it. Try it once tomorrow try to make it 10 seconds on ice cold all the way to cold. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s tough. It’s I did it for about a year, I need to get back into it. I did it many years ago, took me months to find the courage to do it. Months and months and months. It sounds silly. I know I’m just talking about this one specific thing. But it’s a something that you will again, you will feel unbelievable. As you walk out of that show, you’ll be like, I just did something crazy art. And you’re right then other things, which maybe aren’t quite as difficult. Don’t seem as bad as as they did before. So oh my gosh, what a great thing. So do hard things, people that are healthy, do hard things that are healthy. And Paul, what a great, great place to wrap up. So everyone go please, Paul’s a wonderful guy, reach out to him if you need some assistance. Also, if you have clients that are moving to the Southern California, talk to Paul, he wants he wants to chat with you. And he certainly is a great realtor to have in your in your database. And Paul, on behalf of our audience, thank you so much for coming on our show. We this is such a such a pleasure to have you. And if I fiber make it out to to LA I haven’t been there in many years, I need to come back. I want to say hi to you in person. And yeah, and see you in action dinner. That would be fun. And on behalf of Paul and myself, we want to thank everyone for making it to the end of the episode. Please do us to do us one favor. This hasn’t been an amazing episode, I want everybody to think of one other realtor that needs to hear what Paul had to say. And just send them a link to our either this episode or our website, which is keeping it real pod.com You will help somebody by sending this to some struggling agent in your office. Or maybe you know another agent from a different office that you know that could use, you know, this sort of this sort of past sort of pep talk from somebody who started with really no major help and built this incredible career and is really just getting started. And it’ll be inspiring to to everybody else. He’ll be actually helping people do that. And you’re helping us as well. So please send a link to this episode. Other than that, Paul, I am so excited to continue to watch your journey. And thank you so much for being on the podcast and we’ll see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Paul. Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it.

Lindsay Barton Barrett goes back to the beginning of her career as a real estate agent and describes her transition from a real estate attorney. Lindsay explains how how she built her business from scratch and how does she get to referrals. Next, Lindsay talks about how to build relationships with developers and describes how she gained the trust of real estate developers. Lindsay also discusses how is she educating her clients to keep her business going today when the rates ae going up and the market is shifting. Last, Lindsay provides advise for realtors on how to build and maintain relationships and how she keeps in touch with her clients. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Lindsay Barton Barrett can be reached at lindsay.bartonbarrett@elliman.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Have you ever wondered how developers choose realtors to work on their projects? Well, we’re going to talk about 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. 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 Lindsey Barton barrette. Before we get to Lindsay, just a couple of quick reminders of will as always a reminder to me to thank you for listening and supporting our show. Thank you for checking out what our sponsors offer. Thank you for continuing to listen and as most importantly, thank you for telling a friend. Think of one other realtor that has not heard of our show that could benefit maybe somebody that wants to work with developers, but hasn’t quite figured out how to crack that code which we’re going to be talking about today and send them a link over to our show. You can always go directly to our website keeping it real pod.com or any place you can find podcasts just search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also if you’d like to leave us a review that would be fantastic as well especially if you’re on like Apple podcasts or Spotify, Stitcher, wherever. Let us know what you think of the show. We read all your reviews and we take your suggestions into account. But anyway, enough about me and other show. Let’s get to the main event my conversation with Lindsey Barton Barrett. Today our guest is Lindsey Barton burette from Douglas Elliman in New York City specifically Brooklyn, although she works all of Manhattan, but let me tell you more about Lindsay now veteran New York City broker Lindsey Barton barrette sets herself apart in a crowded field with an astute advisory approach. She has over two decades of award winning experience and an unblemished reputation among her fellow agents. She’s closed and pause for dramatic effect $1 billion in total transactions throughout her career and she and her team have sold four of the six most expensive homes in Brooklyn’s history. Lindsay is methodical and prepared and thanks to her former career as a real estate attorney at a prominent New York firm clients can trust that every step of the process is buttoned up from start to finish. The result of Lindsay is unwavering professionalism isn’t only seen in her steady stream of top producer awards and accolades, but also in the legions of fiercely loyal clients and the extensive referral business she’s cultivated over the years. In addition to assisting buyers and sellers in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with a specialty in brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods. She’s worked directly with the city’s leading developers. To learn more about Lindsay, please visit her website, Lindsey Barton Barrette team.com And that’s Lindsay with an A y. But don’t worry, you’re not going to have to type it in. We have a link for that right in our show notes. But please do visit it and see what somebody who is at the very very top of the mountain in real estate, what their website looks like. It’s impressive. It’s awesome. It’s elegant. Anyway, Lindsay, welcome to the show. We’re so excited to have you. Lindsay Barton Barrett 4:36Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here. D.J. Paris 4:39We are very happy to Lindsay and I were just talking about some some other things prior to the show, not real estate related. So I’m really excited to learn more about your your path and progress and journey through real estate but I’d love to start all the way at the beginning because I know in your previous career you are a real estate attorney Well, but how did you get involved in real estate to begin with, Lindsay Barton Barrett 5:05I would say probably goes back a little before that I grew up in Seattle. And my, my dad was a war lots of hats over the years, but was involved in real estate development and construction a little bit at certain points. And in the hotel business as well. And that just it, it always interested me, because it covers so much ground, it’s really personal, yet also tangible. And so I was, I was intrigued by it from an early age, honestly, the construction part of it, all of that, and then I went to law school, and I went to Columbia, which is a very traditional law school approach, you know, think Paper Chase, you know, we don’t teach you to be a lawyer, we teach you to think like a lawyer. And so it was very theoretical in certain ways. And there was not a lot of specific sort of, there was not, there were not a lot of specific classes that related to practice areas necessarily offered, including real estate. And maybe there was, maybe I missed it. But I didn’t come out knowing that that was what I wanted to do. But I knew that I was interested in real estate. And so I worked as a corporate attorney briefly. And when I would do diligence on transactions, you know, m&a transactions, or something, I was still continued to gravitate to the real estate piece of it. So I ended up laterally between two big firms in Manhattan and moved to another firm where I was in a real estate, dedicated practice. And I really, I was, I loved it, I loved the pieces of the transactions. But I didn’t love the role that I was playing in transactions. I, I think they’re amazing lawyers. But often a lawyer’s job is to pinpoint all the potential pitfalls in a transaction, instead of focusing on keeping parties together and keeping parties moving forward. And I would work on big transactions where there were both commercial real estate brokers and investment bankers on the deals, and just sitting on conference calls or sitting in the room, I would look at what they were doing, and think that’s what I want to be doing. I want to be building things and putting deals together and helping really smart people who know what they want to do get together and do it in a profitable and, you know, they know what they’re doing, you know, our clients really knew what they were doing. And so I often felt that the lawyers were just bringing up the same points every single time that had been resolved in the last iteration of this document. And I just didn’t, I didn’t like the role that I was playing. And it may have been a function of being in a big firm, versus being at a smaller firm. But ultimately, I just felt like between not seeing myself as a New York lawyer, and the various sort of the various limitations that that can present in terms of hours worked and all of those things. I it just became clear to me that I wanted something different in my role and in my, in my hours and all of that and so I and then I bought an apartment with a tiny bit of money. I put 5% down I think on a condo in the East Village, it D.J. Paris 9:06which by the way, which by the way, 5% down on a condo in the East Village is still a tremendous downpayment. It was a long time Lindsay Barton Barrett 9:15ago, but yes, yes, it was. And so I you know, I put 5% down, I bought a condo in the East Village and then over the years, you know, and that was one thing that I really that has also been a driver for me of what I do is that I do have a very sort of quintessential real estate escalation story of I bought the condo in the East Village turned around and bought a co op in Cobble Hill turned around and bought a relatively you know, for the time and for New York and expensive townhouse that ultimately we got renovated and I sold it this past year for a significant multiple of a The condo in the East Village in 2000, but also what we bought it for. So it really enabled me to do this job, I was able to take out a home equity line of credit, so I had something to fall back on. And so real estate has actually really kind of done for me what I think it does for a lot of people. But what I think a lot of people don’t really believe happens anymore. So that’s sort of my backstory. D.J. Paris 10:26Yeah, and there was really a lot there. I just want to unpack a couple of things. Number one, I want to honor you for the courage to walk away from a legal career that you worked. Well, number one, Columbia is not one of the worst law schools in the country. It’s actually one of the very top and that I’m sure that’s how you, of course, how you got to New York. Did you also do your undergraduate in New York as well? Or did you just end up there for law school, Lindsay Barton Barrett 10:53I was in upstate New York, I went to Cornell undergrad. So I went to I went to great schools, you know, no complaints here, you know, but it just it this, it, it was a different path. But it brought me to where I am now. D.J. Paris 11:08It’s Was it difficult to walk away from working so hard to pass the bar and and of course work in in corporate, you know, the corporate law world, and then to be an m&a activity, mergers and acquisitions and then say, you know, I really, this isn’t my I’m, I don’t want to bill, you know, 1000 hours a year anymore, or whatever, the whatever lawyers are billing these days. Yeah, I know, it’s always a staggering, staggering number. And sort of trading hours for dollars is really what attorneys do, which is why they work so much. Was that, Lindsay Barton Barrett 11:40especially, um, it was hardest for my mom, I would say, Sure. My mom was not happy about the decision. What are you doing with your life? Yes, um, and I should be really nice to my mom right now. She’s not doing great, but I she was not happy that I quit my job. Um, it was scary. It was definitely scary. Um, and you know, it’s true, you need a real sort of, you need something to fall back on. And I, I genuinely got that exclusively by doing a home equity line of credit, where I put my job taking that money and knowing that I had it, and then leaving. And so it was definitely scary. I felt like I had maybe one client, maybe two, they were sort of friends that graciously trusted me with their home purchase or home search. I think one of them ended up buying and one of them didn’t. And then otherwise, I really, you know, I think people look at me and go, Oh, you’ve had all these like, lawyers, lawyers are very conservative. I have a lot of law school friends who still rent in New York City, and I graduated from law school 23 years ago. So, you know, lawyers turned out not to necessarily be my sort of go to client base, either. And when I when I left, I knew I didn’t really know what I was doing entirely. So I was very nervous to try to tap that resource and mess it up. And so I didn’t sort of dive back into the law firm world to try to get clients because when you first become a, an agent, your job is getting clients not doing your job. So yeah, so I, I was nervous, obviously, I had a paycheck. And at that point, I had a mortgage. And, but I was excited about it. And I felt like I had the cushion. And I could give it time. And if after six months, it didn’t work out. I will move on. But fortunately it did. It did. I landed in a good place. I had a great support system in terms of my manager and people that I worked with. And you know, I at the time, I was engaged. And then ultimately, my husband was supportive. And now he’s not my husband anymore. And so yeah, I was able to do it. It was scary. But I was really fortunate in kind of, I don’t know why managed to hit the ground running and then just build from there and get referrals from the people that I worked with. So D.J. Paris 14:37how did so since you didn’t tap the hey, my friends at the law firm I was at or certainly people who know me in my field, as you were saying, because I was thinking, Oh, this is so brilliant, because she’s all of her clients will be the attorneys. She knows. Yeah. And that turns out, but you you served my question by saying that is not what happened. So I’m actually really interested in and yes, I understand You know, having this previous career that you’d worked so hard for, obviously, you can fall back could have fall back fell back onto that. Very, I’m sure very easily. So that that is there’s some comfort there, I’m sure. But, you know, I don’t know, you know, when you were when you were, you know, practicing law, I don’t know, if you were out there securing clients and going out and sort of shaking the hands and getting business or if more things were assigned to you, but But now, you know, now you’re on your own, you’re in charge of every wearing every hat for the for the business, and also learning how to how to actually be a decent realtor. Of course, you have become an beyond excellent realtor now, but was, what was it like in those first six months? You know, how did you secure you had one friend that turned out to to be a buyer? You know, the other one didn’t? And then it sounded like, you know, you were you were on your own trying to drum up business? How did you do that back then, if you don’t mind sharing? Lindsay Barton Barrett 15:55Um, you know, it’s funny, I think back and I, in some ways, I still don’t totally know, I don’t remember. And I will also say, and we get this from agents all over the country. Price points in New York are quite high, you know, and the reality was, at the time, in order to sort of level my real estate salary salary to where my law firm had been, I think I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to sell something like $8 million. And at the time, you know, maybe it ended probably was a little more. I hate to say this, like, that’s not that hard to do in New York. And so even in 2002, I guess. And so my first sale, admittedly, was a million dollar sale, which was a big deal. It was a crappy loft in Tribeca. And then I had a cup, I did what Pete young brokers do, I worked, I worked to open houses for senior brokers for clients. That was probably my second sale was a pretty good sale. Also, I think over a million dollars from somebody that I met at an at an open house. And then I definitely I worked at Corcoran at the time, and there was a place on the website that you could go in and say this is what I’m looking for. And I think that was my third sale. And that was probably a $350,000, co op. And it sort of I mean, and then there were a couple of associates, who I knew at my law firm who referred me to friends. And so sometimes it wasn’t the lawyers, but it was friends of lawyers. And honestly, it just, it went from there. And I was fortunate to have one or two listings early on. And that was really where I got buyers, it and in 2002 people buying a $400,000 apartment, often didn’t that didn’t we’re not working with brokers. And so there were a lot of direct people. And then it you know, I don’t remember entirely, but it just it did start to it starts to snowball. And I remember very early on in my career, a woman in my office was sort of giving this motivational talk and talk about it was sort of like a fence the family tree or like the anatomy of a transaction and more so of the referral network. And she talked about how she sold very inexpensive studio to this actor in New York. And then he introduced her to this person, and they introduced her to these two people, and how from this one like $200,000 Studio sale, she ended up doing like $15 million of business. So it’s really, it’s really acknowledging that and recognizing that there’s always an opportunity, but there’s also a good way to do that and a and sort of an obnoxious way to do that. And so I think it’s finding that middle ground and staying in front of people. Obviously, I’m a huge proponent, and it’s this is a little more do as I say not as I do, because I don’t always get around to it, but newsletters I think are probably the single best source of clients because they’re also free. You know, mailers are expensive, like running an ad in New York Magazine is really expensive. Newsletters are free and you control the content and you control the presentation and you know Up to this day, anytime we send out a newsletter, we get some response, usually some referral. D.J. Paris 20:07Yeah, I used to I did a talk once at a conference. That was something I can’t remember the exact title. But it was said, nobody wants to read your newsletter. But that’s not the point. And I talked about how whether or not people read the actual content of the newsletter, is is largely irrelevant, although it’s obviously good to have good content. And hopefully, some some of the people that you send it to might actually read some of the articles, but just this idea from a branding perspective of, hey, this is what I do. Here’s here’s, you know, a little bit of acknowledgement that I know what’s going on in the market. I put this together, I’m sending it out. And you know, it’s always good to stay, if not front of mind back of mine from for your clients. And you’re absolutely right, that consistency does in fact, work. I was thinking about this, like I, you know, I know you work with a lot of new, well, you work with developers, you work with a lot of new developments, I actually was just thinking, so I purchased in a new development a couple year and a half ago. And so I’ve been there a year and yeah, year and a half, a little bit more than a year and a half. And I have not received any communication from any other realtors. You know, usually you start getting postcards and things. And I’m, I understand that, on the statistical side I am people who purchased it on my building probably aren’t going to purchase for the next or sell for the next I don’t know, five years, you know, who knows seven years, whatever it is. So I get it. There’s a long term play here if you want to start introducing, but you know, not one, there’s 45,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area, not one postcard from anyone going, Hey, congrats on your new purchase. By the way, you know, I would love to just learn more about you, I want to keep you updated on you know what’s going on with your place. Again, tons of opportunity, right to like build relationships. And that’s what you do really, really well is is build relationships. You were talking about this how how you know, your friend, one, one transaction, you know, for one person can lead to $15 million in production over time. Yeah, that is clearly the way that you’ve done it. But I wanted to ask you because you said something I thought was very interesting. You said there’s an obnoxious way to sort of build those relationships. And then there’s a way that that is, you know more, you know, gentle and, and non invasive. And do you mind sharing a little bit about how you think about, you know, maybe asking for a referral or maybe you don’t ask maybe you demonstrate value in a different way. But how do you do it in a way that’s most comfortable for you? I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course it is a follow up boss and let’s face it following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. 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They’re probably friends of mine who might say that’s not true. But I you know, I don’t like to be pushy, and I don’t like to be salesy. I remember my mom was not happy when I left my job. And my dad was said to me, you know, you’re really you really don’t have a salesman’s personality. And you know, what I said to him is I don’t feel like I’m going into sales. I’m not chasing people down on the street and saying, Do you want to buy an apartment? I’m, I’m fulfilling the need that they already have. They’re, they’re choosing to at least explore the possibility and I’m working in an advisory capacity. And I view myself as being a professional and not a salesperson. So I think that goes across the board, whether it’s how you’re trying to sell a property, or how you’re trying to sell yourself as a broker is, by and large, I try to be as valuable as possible to my clients so that, of course, they’ll refer me. I certainly have sort of, I guess, the typical call to action to kind of things in my newsletter of, you know, if anybody, if you’re looking, if anybody’s considering a real estate purchase, if you need any advice, call us. But beyond that, we don’t really every once in a while, you know, if I am talking to somebody I know really well. I will say something explicitly along the lines of hey, you know, we always really appreciate referrals. And of course, when I, when I get one, I try very hard to call that person right away. And I think it’s important. And, you know, this is a lesson I’ve learned from other people, but I think it’s I, I’ve learned it for myself to a referral is not about the sale, it’s about the referral. And so you can’t wait until somebody buys and they might not, but you want to, you want to encourage people to refer your business. So even if they refer you a crappy client, you can even call and say I really appreciate the referral, just seeing no, like, that’s not really necessarily the type of business that I do. I can find somebody to refer them to. But if you’re ever talking to someone like this isn’t a great referral for D.J. Paris 26:45me. Isn’t isn’t that what attorneys do as well, because attorneys get these calls all the time, because people think, oh, attorneys just can do everything and every specialty. And so this is very much often what happens with attorneys. We’re like, oh, I don’t do that. But my buddy does. And you know what? And nobody says to the attorney who who isn’t able to service that client? Well, gosh, I don’t even know why I called you. You can’t handle that. No, the person goes, Hey, you know what, I’m a specialist in this, but my buddy does this, I’m going to send you over to him or her. And so it really shouldn’t work any differently with with realtors, I think you’re right. There may be this fear of like, oh, no, they’re not going to refer me anyone else because I wasn’t able to help this person. But I think as long as you’re providing value, like you said, just passing it off to somebody who does do that. That’s I don’t see any negative to that at all. Lindsay Barton Barrett 27:34Yeah, and that’s exactly it, you want people to recognize you as their go to for anything real estate. And so I think to that end, it’s also really important to have a great referral network yourself. And so if you’re always getting referrals, you know, if people are always calling you who say, Okay, well, I’m looking at Park Slope, but I’m also looking at Montclair, New Jersey, it’s important to have someone in Montclair, New Jersey. And so you know, if you’re, if you don’t do rentals, you need to have a really good rental broker, I say this, again, do as I say, not as I do, because I’ve, I’ve searched for that. And it’s always a challenge, because that markets also changing quickly. And so sometimes your best rental brokers end up deciding, they also don’t want to do rentals. But I think it’s important to have a great referral network. You know, there’s the obvious ones, you gotta have a great lawyer got a great mortgage broker or several of the each, but you also need great referral brokers in other markets that you might cross over with. D.J. Paris 28:49Yeah, and again, that’s how attorney attorneys are very good at this, right. I think attorneys are almost better at referrals than any other profession I’m aware of. I mean, they just see, I always ask attorneys, like how do you get business and they’re like, Well, I get a lot of referrals from these different channels. And it is, it seems like so much more of a mystery and how to do it as a realtor. So I imagine with that background, you probably just are naturally more understanding of I do this. And I have this very specific focus, because that’s where I can provide them the most amount of value and I need to have this other almost team in place for anything that’s outside of those, those really strict boundaries because I’m just not going to be as effective as you know, the person down the street who that’s what they do. So that makes that makes so much sense. We talk about that a lot on the show, but I think it can’t probably be talked about enough this idea of having this really strong net, you know, referral network, which hopefully also is two way that comes Yeah, exactly. To you. Yeah, I wanted to ask about so, you know, you being in New York during of course the pandemic and seeing, you know, a lot of people sort of leaving the city because of course So, you know, New York had had a lot of publicity around, you know, COVID. And then the effects that it had you guys were basically sort of the epicenter of the United States, you know, part of COVID, at least at the beginning, and you saw a lot of uncertainty around the city, it seems like that’s changed. And so it seems like people are, are returning more, more so to the city and also to places like Brooklyn. Well, Brooklyn’s always been super cool and awesome. And I imagine, it hasn’t always been but it certainly over the last 2030 years, it’s really changed. But was that was that? Were you concerned at all during that time that Oh, my business might radically shift based on you know, the sort of uncontrollable, you know, sort of things going on in the world? Lindsay Barton Barrett 30:42Not for long. I definitely had that moment of just absolute panic that made no sense. You know, I remember very distinctly walking along the reservoir upstate with my kids, because we spent much of COVID at a at our house upstate, like many New Yorkers did. Near Woodstock, and I remember a moment of panic of, what am I going to do. And then really, over the course of the next couple of weeks, I was really focused on trying to get the deals done, that were kind of hanging in the balance. But it also really highlighted to me that real estate, selling residential real estate is a, everyone will always need to buy and sell. You know, and there, I think Barbara Corcoran, at some point said, you know, it’s always a broker’s market, whether it’s a buyer’s market or a seller’s market, if you’re a good broker, you should be selling because things are selling. That being said, I, you know, I, there’s been a lot of talk about all of this, because the market has changed. And I was having a conversation with someone for some sort of pretty well known publication, and it will remain really interesting conversation. And the reality is what you do need for a market as buyers, and if you have no buyers, you have no market. And so that was certainly a different, you know, and the market self correct. So if you don’t have buyers, at some point, you’re going to drop the price low enough where you have buyers, but that was certainly a fear at some point. But I, I don’t know if I’m just a little bit deep down, even though I don’t seem like it necessarily a little bit of a Pollyanna, that I believe that things are gonna work out. But I also I’ve lived in New York for 27 years, 25 years, excuse me. And New York is unlike, you know, I mean, New York is unlike any city, as is Chicago as is, you know, all of these sort of world capitals are unique, and they’re desirable, you know, they have so much to offer. And I will also say that I had a very selfish moment of going, people are really going to want to live in townhouses now. And that was absolutely the case. So yeah, there were certainly concerns, there’s there are always concerns as things change dramatically, like we’re going through right now, frankly, you know, uncertainty is difficult in any market. But I knew even if people left people would come to take their places. And I mean, we’ve already seen people who left during Cova come back. So it, you know, so so no, I was not very worried for very long, I knew that there would be a lot of adaptations, and there was a lot of talk about selling, you know, houses via FaceTime. And this and that, and I didn’t have I didn’t think that was going to last long either. And I think that’s largely the case. I mean, we’ve started we’ve done a few deals, sight unseen. Not many, certainly people who’ve done like a first tour, FaceTime, but you know, it’s a big purchase. And it’s, it’s personal. And I just, I didn’t think that there was going to be much duration of people buying from videos and stuff. D.J. Paris 34:31Yeah, and that seems to have kind of gone away at this point. Although what’s nice is for people that are able to do that and willing to do that it’s just much more normalized now. So even though we’re back to being in person, hopefully, that will not change, Although who knows, but at least that that that has been normalized, you know, throughout the last several years. So you do have people that are willing more willing to explore virtual Little conversations. So it’s a nice option that isn’t bizarre or weird, or, you know, it’s just been normalized. So I suspect that’s, that’s been good for agents who do have some clients who maybe are like, You know what, let’s just just show up with the FaceTime and let’s let’s do it virtually. I had a question, I have two questions, because you work with a lot of developers. And so one of the it’s funny, whenever we do episodes, of course, most of the brokers we have on the show are and I say broker, again, synonymous here, and where I’m from with realtor. So if I say broker, not everyone in the country doesn’t always know what that means. We’ll just please excuse my language. Well, that will be realtor. But anyway, a lot of the a lot of the realtors we have on the show, our top producers, almost all of them are, and a lot of them work in the luxury market. And that’s for people who don’t work in the luxury market. You know, that’s oftentimes something they feel like they should aspire to, is to being a luxury broker. But also developers, that’s the other one that people get really excited about, because it’s seen as this. I’ve arrived, if developers are now choosing me to represent their, you know, their developments, and of course, yeah, there’s a certain truth to that. How did you start to get involved with developers? What was it that allowed you to win over their trust in their business? Lindsay Barton Barrett 36:20Um, admittedly, in part, I, I started a development company, with my ex husband, so my ex husband was an architect. And I was, you know, I was when we talked about it on our first date, it was very pathetic. Um, so he was an architect, and I was real estate lawyer. And we were both really interested in development. And, and we started a, a real estate development company and did a bunch of condo projects in the area of Brooklyn where we lived at the time. And that really helped me get my foot in the door. And, you know, I was much more in that world of other developers. And so I think people, other developers saw that I really understood and often there is a, there isn’t always an alignment of what the broker wants, and what the developer wants in terms of incentive structure. I mean, as a broker, you’re happy for them to spend, you know, no limit of money on advertising, because it’s going to help bring people in. And of course, yeah, you’re going to be able to sell things for higher prices, if you have more, more demand for the product, and all of those things, but it’s not necessarily one to one, and, but if you’re also invested in just the the ultimate success of the project, and the absolute success of the project, you’re gonna have a different perspective. And so I think that that certainly was important. You know? D.J. Paris 38:09Yeah, I just wanted to jump in for a second and say, like, what you just said, is actually quite profound. Because developers want people who understand what the pain points of a developer are, which of course, yes, getting getting the property sold. Yes, obviously, that’s why they’re hiring you. But for the agent to say, or to at least have the mindset of I don’t want, I’m not going to keep coming to you, Mister developer for more ad dollars, or I don’t want to keep investing myself as the agent into, you know, more than I think is reasonable. But understanding that, that it is a business and running it like a business and it goes beyond just you selling the property, having an understanding of what developers deal with since you’ve done that is obviously part of your your family history as well, I think gives you a tremendous advantage. When meeting with developers. You’re like, I grew up with this. Number one. Yeah, I know it. I’ve been on on all sides of it. And I’ve also run my own development company, which which again, it’s it’s funny, I, I hope that our audience is really inspired by that. Because anyone listening candidate can build their own development company as well. And if you don’t, if you’re if your husband isn’t an architect, which of course most most of our listeners don’t have, that in their immediate family go out and find an architect, there are millions of them who absolutely are probably waiting for somebody to partner up with. So it is it is something that, again, is a really smart way to sort of get involved with developers because then you get to say when you’re pitching to other developers, oh, I do this also, by the way, maybe on a smaller scale or maybe on a different a different you know, sector, but this is what I know what you want you deal with and I want to help you. And I imagine that’s a very powerful pitch. Lindsay Barton Barrett 39:53Yeah, I certainly think it is. But I also do, you know, I think that one thing, I also believe strongly about being an agent or being a broker or realtor, it’s a job. And so I think it’s, it’s important not to sort of look at it as something where you’re also going to be doing this and also going to be doing this. Like, I think, coming to developers, I think, you know, I think one of the best ways to sort of digest that is to make sure that you do understand that person’s business just like a, you know, when you have a residential client who’s looking for a new home, knowing that they have family overseas, who comes to us today, all the time, and they need a separate place for that person to stay that’s feels a little separate, and they’ve got space, and they’ve got their own little kitchen like that, if you don’t know that you’re going to show people around fit. And so I think, understanding what, how it works as the developer and the profit structure and knowing that if you only suggest the most expensive stager, they may feel like you don’t have their interests at heart, and you don’t even understand what their business is. And so I think it’s really important to communicate that you will protect them by only coming to them with things that you have evaluated yourself and say, okay, the, you know, the juice is worth the squeeze or whatever, like, we’re gonna spend $20,000 on this campaign, but I think ultimately, it’s going to translate into a 2% increase in sale prices, which is $200,000. So, you know, I think it’s acknowledging that that’s their money, and you’re not just going to spend that money because it’s gonna produce better materials, or, you know, so I think that’s the probably the most important part is just this understanding your client? D.J. Paris 42:15Yeah, I agree. Yes. And again, that’s probably also the skills you develop as an attorney, it’s probably incredibly helpful for how important it is to get a good sense of what the client wants and needs, so that you can continue working for them in a way that that is most effective for them. Question about sort of today’s market. So we know, of course, everyone listening to the show knows rates have changed, doubled, in a lot of cases, maybe even more than doubled at this point, seems to change almost daily. And I don’t know what it’s at today, but, but it certainly is gone up. So rates are double what they were at the lowest point, which I don’t think is maybe the best metric to measure against. But it’s what people know, because it was so prominently featured in news and social media, how rates were so low, and now people maybe feel oh, I missed out. Except, of course, what they maybe don’t always know is there were lots and lots of buyers and places prices were inflated, and maybe it’s not so different now, even though rates have changed, but, but there just may be a lot more sentiment out there that now’s not the time to make any big moves. So understanding that those are some hurdles that realtors are dealing with all over the country. How have you been dealing with that? How have you been educating your clients and just keeping your business going, despite the fact that there probably aren’t fewer buyers in the market at Lindsay Barton Barrett 43:42this point? I think that’s absolutely true. There definitely are fewer buyers and fewer real buyers because even if people I mean it’s, it’s really hard, even if people feel like real buyers, if you were looking a month ago, and then you went on vacation or something and came back and then you find something and then you get your pre approval updated. You know, I think we’re seeing that a lot we’re seeing more deals fall apart. And I think that’s probably part of it is that people are not internalizing or properly sort of analyzing what these rate changes mean. But I will say I think it’s really important to recognize that rates are fluid, and they go up but they are very likely to come down again. And so if you know i I’ve had this conversation with a few clients recently, many of whom said, you know, that’s true. I really hadn’t thought about it that way. And of course when rates are super low, you’re really excited Ain’t it because you can lock in this rate for a long time, and you know what your monthly outlays gonna be. But when rates are high, it’s important to remember, it doesn’t have to stay like that forever. And so, you know, real estate is a long term play almost no matter what. And when you’re buying a home, maybe life does change, and you end up selling it in three years. But, you know, I, for most of my clients, any clients who are not investors, you know, my, my recommendation to them is, you can’t really have any expectation of appreciation, unless you plan to stay in this home for at least probably five years, you never know. And you need to have flexibility on that. Because if the markets in the toilet five years, you want to be able to hang on to it for another two or or, you know, move up. But it’s a long term play. And because rates we have seen have changed so quickly, so dramatically. We don’t know what’s going to happen. And I’m not going to promise anybody that rates are gonna go back down to, you know, 3% for a 30 year fixed, but I can tell people with some degree of confidence that I certainly think they’ll go down, again, in a meaningful way over the course of the next two to three years. So I think it is an opportunity, I think that that will take some time, because sellers are having a hard time adjusting. Sure. So D.J. Paris 46:35I can’t get twice the listing price anymore, Lindsay Barton Barrett 46:39or I can’t get exactly the same price that they got down the street. And, and then, you know, we work in we work in different markets, we work across a lot of price points. And for New York, you know, I certainly recognize that. And it’s one thing we are seeing is the very high end, Brooklyn, in particular, turnkey townhouse market is stable. There aren’t really many rental alternatives, if you want a really nice townhouse, and Brooklyn Heights, there’s not one to rent. So you may still end up in the sale market. You know, there’s a lot of liquidity at that price point. And so we are really having a hard time getting a meeting of the minds at that price point. But things are staying pretty stable. You know, at lower price points, people are a little bit more understanding that interest rates have really made a big hit. And so you know, I think I’m sure everyone’s going through the same thing. It’s educating your sellers educating your buyers keeping buyers spirits elevated, that what they’re doing is good for the good for their themselves and their family long term. D.J. Paris 47:59I think it seems like so many people and it’s so because it oftentimes is a buyers you know, largest asset or one of their largest assets it becomes this idea that it this primary residence is an investment and I think the realtors could I’m curious to get your thoughts on this could really do their clients a favor by readjusting that expectation that number one yes. Okay, maybe technically it’s an investment but it’s you have to live somewhere right and so even if it does go up by you know, two times what you paid for it, odds are you’re not downsizing on your next home. That’s not usually the sort of human nature psychology piece of it is, it’s like well, I’m just gonna bank this extra 500 Grand i just made usually it’s like now we can upgrade to a higher price point property. Maybe once somebody hits retirement age that changes and they downsize and then yeah, they can bank some of that money. That’s not usually what most people do with their profit from their primary residence. At least that’s not been my experience with anybody I know. Maybe maybe the most savvy people would do that. But most of us you know, we don’t buy a 20 inch TV when we’re you know, a teenager and that’s all we can afford. And then when we’re 40 we go you know, let’s go back to a 20 inch TV right? It goes No I want the 65 inch or the 80 inch or whatever. We keep going bigger and bigger until we realize maybe things are too big but but the point is is is it’s my sister did this she her place almost doubled in value in the West Village. She was on Barrow which is like beyond amazing street you I’m sure you know it. And then you know fifth floor walk up no air conditioner, you know a little tiny unit. No amenities really as a co op and fifth floor walk up and it was like 475 square feet one bedroom that includes a one bedroom as just this little tiny nothing place but it was it was lovely but it was just tiny. And everything was miniature and stuff and and then she she she took that money and then But, you know, she goes, Well, now I can’t live in my neighborhood anymore. Because even though her she had made all this money, she had actually priced herself out of her actual street. And so she ended up moving to Queens with it with her fiance at the time, and it ended up working out for them. But, but again, people don’t usually go from a 475 square foot, you know, Co Op to, you know, maybe I’ll just stay at 475 square feet, right. So this idea that people see their primary home as an investment, I think can can be very problematic. And it’s, it’s, I think it’s just not an investment, maybe, unless it is, unless it is something that generates income, or that, you know, you’re going to move to an investment property at some point, but, but this idea that realtors can can really re educate their clients about this, this let’s not think of this as an investment as much as a lifestyle, and, and quality of life sort of situation. I think that would I think that would quell it also dating the rate on the lending side marrying the home, you know, that’s that expression that, that it’s sort of a cutesy expression that people say, but it’s a good expression, because I think it’s exactly right. I mean, rates do change, people refinance. And you know, we’re not in the double digits, right? It’s not the early, early ate late 70s, early 80s anymore, which that was a really difficult times, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to try to be a buyer’s agent when it’s, you know, 12% rates, but people were doing it then, too. So, anyway, I’ve gone on enough of a rant about that, but I really appreciate your thoughts about it. Because I think, you know, for anyone out there who’s going, Gosh, the buyers just aren’t into it. They feel like they’re getting ripped off, at this point, time to re educate yourself as the agent about how to have that conversation to say, You know what, even if you would have tried to buy a place two years ago, you would have, here’s what you probably would have paid over asking for what you’re looking for, I’m going to show you evidence that would have suggested that, you know, maybe it wasn’t such a great time for you. Or maybe it can still be a good time today. And we can refinance in a couple of years. If if Yeah. So anyway, I’m sorry, I will get off my soapbox, rant there. But But I want I want agents to not be so so disheartened during this time, and you have a billion dollar business that you’ve built. And that is beyond impressive. I want to ask sort of my last question, which is, so you talked about newsletters, we talked about client relationships, and how one can lead to one plus one, you know, can lead to dozens and dozens and dozens? What advice do you have for agents who want to further develop those those relationships, make those more intimate, make those more important, really demonstrate value so that in between sales, maybe those people again, you mentioned newsletters, keep your name in front of, but what else are you doing just so that the your clients don’t forget about you, or that they keep thinking about you when they’re talking to other other people who might need your services. Lindsay Barton Barrett 52:58I am not as good at that as I should be, quite honestly, and in many ways, because I’ve been fortunate in in building these relationships that largely feed themselves, I mean, and the New York market, it is a unique thing, I know that it has remained strong and times when others have not been I think this COVID experience was really unique in that it was one of the few times that we’ve seen a, you know, somebody selling in New York and buying somewhere else, and they don’t come out ahead and not necessarily in actual like dollars in your pocket. But in terms of the strength of the market, that you know that you’re getting top dollar in New York, and you know that you’re buying at a little bit of a discount wherever you may be going, and that really got flipped on its head. And that was a big adjustment. But it was also a really interesting illustration of what drives people and people were buying because they wanted to move. And so they were able to just say, Look, this is what’s right for me, this is what I want. And I’m gonna do it. And this is the price. This is the price that it is today. And so I think that it’s important for people to remember that that that and this touches on what you were saying it’s you’re doing this for yourself and for your future self and for your family. And, you know, you got to make the choice that’s right for you that is somewhat untethered from is Is this the right investment? And so I’m going to I’m going to go back one second, a little bit about that because I totally understand and agree with you that it is not exclusively an investment but I think another way to look at that and I’ve spoken to clients a number of times is it is a lifetime investment. And very rarely are people selling and then renting unless it’s sort of a temporary, either move for one reason or another, or renovation, or relocation, or whatever it may be, you know, a strategic decision, but people are generally staying in the market. So, you know, I, we get so many people who say I can’t lose money on this house, well, if you’re selling at a discount, whatever you’re buying, in all likelihood is also at that same discount, it’s a lifetime. And so in your, you know, lifetime portfolio of real estate holdings, you’re probably going to come out ahead of the stock market historically, that is what has happened. And so I think don’t like Don’t get so fixated on every one transaction, because that’s not what it is, it’s a lifetime of owning your home. And there are ways to leverage that if you have a rental unit, you can do a 1031 exchange, and you feel like genius, you know, there’s a lot of different ways to leverage real estate ownership. And so I think that’s important to focus on also, and frankly, like you still do get that primary residence interest deduction. So I think that’s something we should really be focusing on right now, too, because if you’re paying more, you’re getting a much larger deduction. So that’s something that’s my that’s my sort of callback to the last one. D.J. Paris 56:34No, I appreciate that. And I, I want to just wrap up, because you have been, this has been so valuable to our audience, I, I always like, you know, when I first started this show, all these years ago, it was like, oh, all of these top producers are going to have all of these very specific strategies and tips that the rest of us don’t know about. What I’ve learned after 400 episodes is that is rarely the case that there’s like this little secret magic formula that, you know, we’re going to unearth on the show and, and it hasn’t happened yet. But But maybe, maybe in the next 400 episodes, somebody will have that. But the reality of it is it isn’t much about that at all. And it’s more about consistency and discipline, and also just understanding how people think, who are really at the top of the mountain in as a realtor. And so I think you’ve given us today, you’ve given us some great strategies. But on top of that, just this idea of like, here’s how I think about things, here’s how I keep going. Because at the end of the day, sort of I think mindset and I can that word is I think really overused. And it sort of doesn’t even mean a whole lot anymore, this idea of just the beliefs and the strategies that somebody has that you know, like you were saying Barbara Corcoran saying there’s always there’s always buyers and sellers, there’s always a brokers market. It’s about making sure that that you can pivot and adjust to those changes. And I also want to mention that Lindsay is currently looking for one additional team member now this is a billion dollar team. So she doesn’t, of course, take any and all agents that reach out to her. And in fact, you’d have to probably be somebody that is really impressive. And she did not say that to me, I’m saying on her behalf. Because I know that she’s going to expect somebody who is who is really somebody dynamic and special. But if you are a realtor in the, you know, the New York market, specifically Brooklyn, Manhattan, you know, anywhere there that you think you could be a value and you can be a valued member of her team. Reach out to her, you know, the best way to do that just go to her website, you can submit some information. And also, by the way, for everyone else who’s listening, who’s a realtor, whether you’re in New York or elsewhere in the country, if you have clients that are moving to the city moving to Brooklyn moving to other places in the New York metro area, and you’re looking for a top producer to send them to well, obviously Lindsay is a great choice. She’s at an amazing firm. We’ve we’ve interviewed tons of people from Douglas Elliman over the years and they’re always just really best of the best obviously Douglas Elliman is doing something right in their hiring. But also if you are looking for a broker to refer to Lindsay would love the opportunity to connect with you. Let’s see what is the best way another agent can reach out to you? Lindsay Barton Barrett 59:22Website definitely and we have a team email, which we did by necessity I you know, over the years sort of figured out some of the things and the everyone responding to the same email at once and sometimes responding from my email and then I also respond gave rise to the LVB team email. So LVB team@women.com is probably the best way D.J. Paris 59:51and we’ll we’ll post a link to that in the show notes as well. So if you are an agent that wants to partner with Lindsay with referrals, or maybe you’re looking to would explore being on a team yourself and you live in that area, reach out to Lindsay to see if you might be a good fit for her. And by the way, she’s not always hiring like most real estate firms like our firm, we’re always hiring. So you can always reach out to me if you want to join our company in Chicago. But Lindsay is not that that kind of agent and doesn’t have that kind of team. It’s a very exclusive small team that she can really manage, you know, work with and make sure that, you know, all of her team members are having success. So definitely reach out to her if you think that would be a good fit. Lindsay, thank you so much for being on the show we had, I had such fun time with you, you really, really appreciate how busy you are. And really just again, walking away from a really, really sort of something that you would work so hard for not walked away entirely, but walked away from that being your profession and your source of income is is truly, you know, it’s really again, this courageous quality that you have, I think is amazing. And so I hope it’s inspiring to our our audience. And also we want to thank Lindsey for her time we know how busy she is. And so on behalf of the audience, we say thank you to you. And also on behalf of Lindsay and myself we want to thank the audience for for not only sticking around throughout the whole episode, but also hopefully finding value here and we just ask that you do one thing which is telephoned, think of one other realtor that needs to hear this, this conversation that we just had and send them a link to our websites keeping it real pod.com We’ll have that link to that in the show notes as well. But please tell other realtors about our show. It’s how we’ve grown over the last five years now and so we want to continue to grow and reach more and more realtors. So anyway, on behalf of everyone Lindsay thank you and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Lindsay. Thank you

Welcome to the November episode of Learn With A Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate! In this episode Joel discusses how to guide buyer agents in helping their clients. Joel also talks about how to convince first-time home buyers to buy in this market. Next, Joel Joel explains the 2-1 buydown. D.J. emphasizes the importance of partnering up with a lender to offer first-time home buyers webinars/seminars to help them in their journey. Last, Joel describes how to talk to sellers about rate buydown. 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 and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00We all know that rates and inventory are challenging right now. But how do you still speak to first time homebuyers? We’re going to talk about 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. 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 Welcome to another episode of keepin 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 today once again, is our monthly series learn with a lender with Joel Schaub 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. And he’s got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is that he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction making you the agent look like a hero. Last year alone, Joel gave back almost $300,000 of his commission to buyers who worked with him and that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all loan officers nationwide. Out of in fact, out of 400,000 loan officers Joel is ranked number 137. Again, out of 400,000 loan officers chosen in the top 200 agents in the entire country. Last year, he closed 619 different transactions, his highest ever this year already, even in a year, we know is a bit challenging. He’s already close to 286 transactions in all the way through the end of this quarter for 116 million. But more importantly than the numbers is Joel’s dedication to education. The way that he built his business is so simpatico to what we tried to do on this podcast, which is trying to educate people so that you can thrive in markets like now. So if you’re looking for a loan officer, or if you’re looking for a different loan officer to partner with, we cannot more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best I’ve ever worked with. And and anyone I’ve ever sent to him says the exact same thing. But Joe can be reached by the way you can reach out to him by emailing him joel@radio.com J oel@rate.com. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049 Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel welcome. And once again, Joel Schaub 3:35DJ, thanks so much for having me on. And those numbers they, when I hear them from you. kind of always blows my mind. But coming on each and every single month. We really like to give back and we really like to share something if I’m an agent listening that can help us get one more transaction, maybe help a new buyer right now in this market, help a seller maybe calm them and talk them off a ledge because properties aren’t selling as fast are they? D.J. Paris 4:06Right? Yeah, it’s it seems to be that inventory. Still low properties aren’t selling as fast because of course, interest rates have gone up. And I think it’s important that we talk about this because I know there’s a lot of stress out there in the industry. Right now realtors are stressed loan officers are stressed. And we want to do what we can to alleviate some of the stress and just keep everyone going. Joel Schaub 4:33I was having a conversation with an agent that and I fully disagreed with and I think this is a great one to see how many of our listeners agree with this person, right? A little controversial, right? And they had a buyer DJ and they said well, I’m gonna wait until prices come down. And the agent fully agreed that there’s a crash coming. They’ve totally agreed that there was a major price drop happening with mortgage rates going up They were fully on board that we would see an across the board drop in prices. And I said, I have to stop you right there. I’m in the exact opposite camp. And I really believe there’s only two ways for prices and all of the markets to go down drastically, and one would be a lot more inventory. Right. Right. And I said, Well, let’s walk that line for a minute. How do we get a bunch of additional inventory? are sellers going to start selling in droves? When they already have rates that are locked in in the twos and threes? No. So that will be going out there? Are we going to have a lot of new home start, right with the supply chain issues and the cost of goods going up? Are we going to have so many additional back homes where the supply ends up being so high to drive values down? No, probably either of those are going to be there. Right? And then lastly, do we think there’s going to be a big wave of foreclosures? All these people that had their income double and triple checked by a mortgage guy like me, that had good downpayment? Are they somehow going to walk away from home that they put 510 or 20%? Down? Unlikely. So without the big supply, I don’t see values across the board going down. And I explained this, then, you know, we agreed to disagree. But I think in certain markets and in certain individual sellers, we will see price reduction, and we will see buyers getting deals and that’s what I’m really excited for for buyers that are entering this market that maybe haven’t bought before. D.J. Paris 6:39Yeah, and I think too, it’s really important that our listeners who are realtors who are in the industry, take a step outside of the industry from time to time and realize that especially for first time homebuyers, you know rates aren’t really as relevant to a first time homebuyer not meaning that they’re not important. Of course, they’re important, but they’re not at the top of usually the list of importance of how to make a decision about buying a property. Right. So we think about the psychology of figuring out, you know, making the transition from renting to buying. I know when I first when I was ready to purchase a property, my very first property I don’t know, Joel, if you can relate to this. He had the same experience. I was ready because I knew I had to save a bunch of money for a downpayment, whatever the rates were, they just were like, it wasn’t like, well, I didn’t, you know, and I think most people sort of work that way. They’re like they save up for years, or however long it takes them for, you know, a downpayment, that’s, you know, 20% or less, or whatever they can afford. And then it’s just Okay, we’re ready, let’s let’s figure it out. And whatever the rates are, you know, that month that, you know, that day is kind of where you’re at, because you’re ready when you’re ready, emotionally. And I just think, you know, it also 7% rates, which is what we’re seeing is, you know, a common common number these days. Is not the end of the world too, right? It doesn’t, it’s not double digits, we’re not, you know, oh my gosh, nobody can afford it. But I just think it’s important for people to think about like the first time homebuyer I know, I didn’t think about it at all. When I was buying my first home, I just went, Okay, I just talked to a lender. And that’s what the rate was, what the rate was. Joel Schaub 8:24If I’m an agent, I need to control the narrative. Because if you watch the TV and all you hear our rates are higher. That’s what got a lot of people into the market before when they were rates were low. When rates were so low, people that had no interest in ever buying said well, I better do it because rates are so low. They went in and they bought places 2030 $50,000 over DJ right. They were overspending on the properties. And now that there’s an opportunity for buyers to get a good deal they don’t want to buy change the narrative, right? You’ve heard me say this for years, I like buying my shirts on sale. Yeah, like buying shoes on sale. This is the opportunity for buyers to buy real estate on sale. If you’re an agent, and you can teach the buyers, there is an opportunity. And the fact that we don’t see a major reduction in prices on the horizon that scares people. Right? Why would I buy now? What happens if the value goes down? 20% I just don’t see that happening in major markets across the board. D.J. Paris 9:27Yeah, I was reading an article today by on life hacker which the I’ll try to post a link to it but it basically says what a 7% mortgage rate really means for your monthly payment. Now this isn’t an industry you know, publication. This is just a for anyone. Life hack. It’s a great website. By the way life hacker it’s great blog, I really encourage people to check it out. There’s lots of real great tips about how to just live your life more efficiently and effectively. But anyway, they were kind of going through the different you know, rate increases and you know, here’s what monthly payments look like. 3% and 7% 8%, etc. And the article itself is great, but the thing I was most interested in was the very first comment. And I want to just read it is by a woman named Meredith Dietz, just some sort of, you know, you know, person outside of the industry. And she wrote this comment, and I thought it was so perfect, because it’s exactly how I feel she goes, and I’m quoting her quote, I hope to encourage and again, this is not the author of this is just somebody who read the article and is responding to it. So I don’t know if Meredith Dietz is even a real person. But anyway, I’m going to quote her, I hope to encourage you young first time homebuyers, when we bought our first house in the 90s, the rate on our mortgage was eight and a quarter percent. But we were able just a few years later to refinance at about 5%. So even if you end up needing to borrow now at a higher rate, there’s a pretty good likelihood you could refinance at a lower rate down the road. Now, that is exactly what Joel has been saying forever, right. And this is a good thing to to hear from people outside of the industry, you’re not being fed this just from your loan officer, who of course, you know, wants to keep keep the deals coming in. That’s actually true. And it’s exactly what happened to me. When I when I bought my first place in 2005. I don’t remember what the rate was, for something, five, something, whatever it was, a couple years later, I refinanced and I got a lower rate. And then guess what happened two years later, I refinanced again, it was not as big of a deal, because you marry the rate, sorry, you date the rate, you marry the home. And I just thought that was such a perfect comment. Joel Schaub 11:39I like to take it one step further. Right. Now I like to marry the home and divorce the hell out of the rate. Okay. All right. All right. These are the highest rates and at the short term problem, which is inflation, right, we know the Fed can get it under control, we just don’t know when DJ, so we can divorce that rate, and it’s going to happen. Okay, I don’t have a crystal ball. But I do. Okay, right. So think of that. I don’t have it. But we know in the industry that the Fed isn’t planning on keeping rates this high. And when they actually say that they’re going to stop with the Fed cycle of increases the Treasury yield, they’re going to drop 100 to 200 basis points. And we literally should see these rates go from the seven, we’re not gonna get back down to the twos and threes, that was during the major problems that we had, because of COVID. But we really truly expect that the rates and the fours and fives, and that isn’t 10 years from now, that’s not seven years from now, literally sometime in the next two to three years will be rate that are considerably lower. And if you can get in now and buy a property, especially if you’re a renter, and you’re in one of these major market areas where you’re paying a lot of money in rent, which does not go down, buy a place now and be able to see the future where you can actually get a lower monthly payment because those rates will come down. D.J. Paris 13:01Yeah, to hold totally a 100%. Agree, I think this is something that we need to be very careful as real estate professionals to limit the amount of exposure we have to some of this media information about rates equal fear rates going up equals bad, we have to remember, the economy was in such despair and turmoil that the Fed had to lower rates to keep the economy going. We were at one of we were almost at Great Depression level with respect to you know, unemployment, and lots of lots of issues. Obviously, we all we all live through that. So that was an anomaly. That was a blip. That was we were seeing rates, you know, you know, historic lows, that is not the benchmark that is not what we should be measuring against, we should be measuring against, what is the average, you know, what what has been happening is real estate professionals. We need to look at these cycles and understand and have a story to tell right now. Homes are on sale. Right? As Joel said, I like to buy things on sale. The hardest part about being a financial adviser if anyone knows if anyone is a financial advisor listening or has a financial advisor, the hardest thing a financial advisor has to do is convince people to invest when stocks are undervalued, right? Like, that’s a tough thing. Because you’re like, Oh, this one thing that’s like, it’s undervalued. And it’s it doesn’t seem like a good investment. But it actually is that like Now’s not the time to buy the thing that’s, you know, up 100% in value, right? So it’s the same, same option. Same thing with you just have to overcome the psychology of and explain to people that it’s actually a really good time to get in. And then we are going to, as Joel said, divorced the rate in the future. And we’re going to we’re going to we’re going to bring it back down to a more manageable number. I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episodes sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there. Follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Joel Schaub 16:15In the meantime, there’s a lot of buyers that would like to get lower rates and they feel like they’ve missed out. So we’ve continued to see this reoccurrence of this mortgage option where we can temporarily buy down the rate DJ. Okay, how does that work? And it comes in a couple of different forms. But you’d have to be under a rock to not have heard about this to one buy down, right? Yeah, every realtor and mortgage person recently is talking about how can I get the rate lower during these next couple of years where we anticipate the rate staying high. And a two one buy down isn’t a new idea. It means that for the first year of the mortgage, the rate is 2% lower than the current market. In your number two, the rate is 1% lower than the current market. And then in years three through 30. It was whatever the rate that was locked in at safe and secure. And it’s not an alternative that somebody you can’t qualify with that rate. It’s a way to get the sellers to lower the total cost for a buyer. So let’s walk through this to one guy down. And I want to show the strategy on both sides. Because if you’re listening, and you’re taking notes, this is a really great way to get more buyers. And it’s also a great way to get your seller to sell without making another price cut. Okay. So a two one buy down. Right now, even though the market everybody is saying rates that are in the seven. It’s not that hard with a 20% downpayment. I had a client that locked in this morning at 6.75. We just shopped it around and got a good rate. But from there, we took a seller credit. And we drove the rate down to 4.75. And you’re number one, wow. 5.75 and year number two, and then going forward, they’ll have that 6.75 rate locked in for life. And we just asked the seller to give a 3% closing cost credit. D.J. Paris 18:12Interesting. Interesting. So how does that so how would an agent explore these two one buyer downs? Joel Schaub 18:21On the buyer side, it’s very easy whenever we’re submitting an offer, or if we ask for a seller credit up to 3%, it will more than cover the buyer down for the client. So whatever bank they’re working with, every mortgage banker should know how to do this by now. Okay, I was doing it back in 2008. I was on a big development here in the city of Chicago. And the developer was looking for ways to sell more properties, right compete with the buildings that were right next door. And that’s what they did. They said we will buy down your rate for the first two years. And so the seller gives the credit. So let’s go through a scenario so that we can put some pen to paper and understand exactly how to do it and what it saves. And why not just ask for a price reduction. Right. So if we were buying a home at $400,000, and the client got a 3% reduction in the price, their payments about $88 left per month. That’s nice. But if we drove the rate down for the first two years, in year number one, that client payment is $488. Lower in the first year. $250, lower in year number two, and then again, three through 30. It’s still at a low fixed rate. But by that time the hope that we can refinance that loan, right? Yeah. So let’s take a look at this. If I’m a buyer, do I want to save $88 For the next 30 years? Or do I want to front load all of that interest and drive the rate down? Do I want a lower rate? Of course I want a lower rate I’m Yeah, so if I just get that 3% credit from the seller, all I’m getting in terms of a price reduction, I’m saving $88 If it’s just coming off the price. But if I get that inform of a seller credit, the mortgage broker can do a two one buy down. And it’s just a temporary rate reduction for the first two years. And that literally saved them hundreds of dollars. Because we’re front loading the savings and the time that we needed the most DJ. That was That is D.J. Paris 20:30a really smart strategy. So to one by Downs is what we’re talking about with with the seller credit. And, wow, that you’re blowing my mind right now with that I actually, I have all these ideas of thoughts about how to how to start marketing that to our agents. But for our listeners, if they wanted to learn more of these creative strategies, and they want to partner with a lender who brings ideas like this to the table, which by the way, for everyone listening, this is what you should be pushing your partners to do. Right, right now, you should be pushing them to say how do I talk to buyers? How do I talk to sellers, Joel just gave you a great option for people that are struggling right now with the high interest rates, you know, talking about, you know, actually has given many different options over the course of the episodes he’s done with us. But this is a great opportunity to reevaluate your relationships you have with specifically with loan officers, there’s a lot of loan officers out there, there aren’t a lot of loan officers who are going to consistently bring ideas like this to the table. But Joel, I also know that you are partnering with a lot of realtors right now and helping them build their business even through these stressful times. So if anyone out there is thinking about reevaluating, seeing what other loan officers offer, what’s the best way that they should reach out to you? Joel Schaub 21:55Well, the last time I announced this, I was actually overwhelmed by the number of emails that I got wanting to be added to the marketing list. So I have a weekly newsletter that breaks this down into plain English, and helps agents actually have some digestible talking point. So that you don’t need to know everything dammit, you just need to know enough where you can educate buyers and educate your sellers without getting into all of the deep jargon, right? Yeah, so the last time I did it, I think I had about 200 replies that was absolutely my inbox was full. And so yeah, you can email me and get added to the weekly newsletter. It’s Joel Jo e LL, AP rate.com. And that’s my Guaranteed Rate email address where I will reply, and I’ll add you to the weekly newsletters so that you can get the tip than the trick. And especially if you’re a newer agent, you need some good talking point. And you need to work with somebody in your local market to it’s not just me find a mortgage professional that wants to give to you, wants to meet with you wants to really spend money on you. Okay, there are a lot of RESPA compliant way that a mortgage professional can help a realtor. And that’s how all my relationships are built and finding ways to give back. Okay, if you do have a buyer that you need help with, you can also email me and that same email and say, Send me your lender in production template. And I’ll be happy to work with the buyer, get them pre approved, and then give back part of my commission which is $1,500 to the buyer. It makes you look good. And then we can work together on some transactions for sure. D.J. Paris 23:39You know, I think that’s a great idea. I hope everyone reaches out to you and joins your mailing list on your weekly mailing list because they’re going to get these ideas like the one you shared today with the two one buydown. I also just want to throw a last minute idea on there and this is something that Joel and his team can help with. And you know, other loan officers can as well if you if you’re not able to work with Joel, but this is a great time right now to start doing. You know, first time homebuyer webinars, seminars. This is these are guys, these are the people that don’t care about rates. If there’s anyone out there that doesn’t, it’s not that they don’t care about rates. They don’t care as much about rates as the person who’s buying their second, third, fourth home. Right? These are people that I’ve saved, they’re so excited. They need guidance. You can partner with someone like Joel to help you put these together. I know so many people we’ve interviewed on this show have built entire careers as Realtors for just hosting. You know I want to buy my first condo or I want to buy a five first property. You can start doing that on social media and other places and partnering up with a loan officer like Joel is a great idea. Joel you do a ton of these. Joel Schaub 24:52And we’re doing them via zoom. We’re doing them in person. It’s a really great way especially when you say they don’t care about rate I’d rephrase it in This way is that yeah, yeah, but they’re not dependent on it. If I’m paying your rent, I’m paying 100% of that rent in the form of interest. Right? Right, all of it is out the window, where the rate of mortgages is 7%, that’s a heck of a lot lower than 100% going out the window. So we can educate and teach. And we want to buy something when rates are higher, simply because we have the ability to refinance it down the road. And there’s a lot less competition to go buy a home right now and over the next 12 to 24 months, then we had the competition, win rate threat two or 3%, you couldn’t even get your foot in the door. So now there’s an opportunity to slow down, teach, and help. And the more people you can teach, and the more people you can help, the bigger your name gets, and the more you spread. And the way that you do this would be seminars, and teaching and education. There’s a lot of ways that we can partner together on those scenarios. D.J. Paris 26:01No question and Joe, you’ve been doing this since 2003. Teach help. And wait, right? Teach help, wait, meaning just can’t teach help, repeat, teach, help repeat. Joel Schaub 26:12And I need that on a t shirt. I love that word. D.J. Paris 26:17You know, it’s I was just I was talking. I was I was telling Joel this offline. I was out with a mutual friend of Joel and I’s the recently and and we were talking about Joel. Joel wasn’t there it was my friend and talking behind her say, right, yeah, behind your back. And so we were saying, you know, it’s so rare to find somebody who’s in a sales capacity, who has a sales job, who actually you don’t think of as a sales person, somebody who is legitimately all about training, education, and being just a good human being giving, giving. And we were talking about that. And we’re like, isn’t it funny that Joel is technically in sales, because you that’s just not what you think of you think of the guy who is constantly giving his time on this podcast, constantly giving to various organizations, various charities, various different things, organizations that that he believes in. And I just think that is that is really been the secret to yours. I mean, obviously, you’re incredibly skilled. And I don’t want to take anything away from your your business acumen as well. But just being a good human being. And giving has really been the secret to your success. I don’t want to speak for you. But that’s about what Mike and I came up with. Joel Schaub 27:38I’m terrible at sales. I’m better just being friends with people. Literally. I like making people laugh. I like educating. I like doing that. I remember I couldn’t even I got fired literally from Circuit City. I couldn’t tell. I just the people were like, should I buy this? Like, I wouldn’t buy that? No. And so it didn’t come naturally to me. But what does come naturally is the way that most agents that are highly successful, have grown their business, which is just by the more people you can touch, the more people that you can surround yourself and give back to it that whole givers gain mentality that if I’m listening to this podcast right now, I’m thinking of the five or 10 people that I want to give back to the people that maybe this year, lost out on a home they couldn’t buy when rates were low, because every time they put in an offer, somebody was coming in with cash. Or maybe every time they put in an offer, somebody had a bigger downpayment. And so now these really great couples, these families and individuals that had a low downpayment, that couldn’t compete, they can compete now, let’s go out and help those people. And the more people you help right now and putting your plan together for 2023 is going to really dictate how the next year goes. And it’s all about staying positive, controlling the narrative. And knowing that when rates are this high, there’s an opportunity for buyers. Okay, so one thing though, we got sidetracked, we talked about the two one buy down. And before we go, I got to talk about how that’s helped sellers. Oh, I’m D.J. Paris 29:12sorry, you’re right, to talk about sellers. Joel Schaub 29:15While you were telling me the story about talking behind my back and I had wanted to hear this DJ, but on the buyer side, it makes sense. Okay, so we have a rate by down for the time in which we think rates are going to be high. Okay, so how does this helps sellers. It really helps them because if a buyer comes in, and they only want a 3% credit, we’d be happy to sell the home at 97% of list today. I can already hear the agents on this nodding their head. Wouldn’t you be happy to get a full price offer? Well, 3% credit back. Oh, yeah. It’s not that the buyers needed it. So it’s a lot different than in the past when we’re submitting an offer and feeling like oh, this The buyer need the credit that close, maybe they’re not qualified. That’s not the story anymore. They’re working with true mortgage professionals that are talking to them about the to one buy down rate program, when they submit an offer, it’s just another added benefit that if you as the seller don’t take, they’re gonna go to the next listing, right. So instead of doing a price reduction, let’s work on seeing if we can put it right into the agent remarks, seller to pay for rate by down for buyer, right. And you’re seeing it in the MLS Wow, a lot lately. And so now, that idea, a lot of agents don’t know they might be hearing this for the first time. And if you see that, aren’t you going to be interested in to buyers? Yeah, what is the rate by down? Okay, so the average rate by down does cost two to 3% of the loan amount. And that’s the reason why we usually do this blanket 3%. Seller credit, okay, talk to your loan officer about the specific details, because I could go into full two hours here about how it helps the seller, and how it helps the buyer. But the average cost is based on the loan amount. So there isn’t a specific formula that I can do here that says, if it’s a $400,000 house, a cost EQ, it’s all about how much the client is putting down and what the loan amount is. But on average, it’s between two to 3% of the loan amount. And so the same thing that I’ve done, and we’ve done literally dozens of these in the last quarter, is get a seller credit for 3% trust the mortgage professional and ask questions so that you’re making sure that you’re taking care of D.J. Paris 31:33wow, I am completely blown away by that, that as a marketing guy, that is a brilliant strategy to promote listings. I have not seen that or or heard that. And I am so glad that you’re like what we didn’t talk about, well, how it benefits the seller. This is a this is a great strategy, guys. Obviously, benefits buyers, and it benefits sellers as well. Wow, amazing. I love that. So this is something you can put in the agent remarks. You can you can mention it, and it’ll help the homes hopefully, get a few more eyeballs and, and feet walking through the properties. I love that Joel great as always perfect way to end the show. I know now how I’m going to introduce the show, I’m going to say if you don’t about to one bite down, you got to you got to stay till the end. So when I go back and produce this episode, it’s gonna really we’re gonna make that pop, because that is really, really important. But for everyone out there who isn’t already working with Joel, Joel, we encourage you to get on his mailing list, email him joel@rate.com. Joel, also, if anyone ever wants to partner with you or work with you, what’s the best way they should reach out? Joel Schaub 32:40Yeah, it’s actually crazy the number of people that I’ve talked to in the last year from here and so people say I can’t believe you’re answering the phone. And I do. Don’t give out my direct line like I always do, which is 773-744-1968. You can ask for Joel because I answer and it’ll be me on the other end. And we can talk strategy there. If you do get my voicemail. Just leave me a message and I’ll call back and go through some of the things that you’re dealing with right now. And it’s all about trying to find ways that I can help use my knowledge to help you grow. Maybe get one more deal. Get one more buyer. Help one more seller. D.J. Paris 33:19Awesome. Well, he’s reached out to Joel He’s He’s great. He and the entire Guaranteed Rate team is incredible. All right, guys, we will see you on the next episode. Thank you to Joel on behalf of all of our audience, please tell a friend about the podcast. We’re we just crossed over 2 million downloads. We’re very proud of that. And but we need your help. So tell another realtor in your office. Everyone’s stressed right now everyone’s struggling. This is the episode they need to hear about. Send them a link to the episode keeping it real pod.com Or anywhere podcasts are served. Just tell your neighbor tell somebody who you know who needs help. Thanks, guys. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Joel.

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com. Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses the topic he talked about in the NAR Conference in Orlando. Chris talks about marketing strategies that are still taught and used but don’t work on today’s market. Next, Chris and D.J discuss the importance of developing niches that bring you opportunities for success. Chris emphasizes the value of the time aspect of the transaction for your client especially in an unpredictable market. Last, Chris and D.J. discuss how to create a specific niche for yourself to work on and how to create a marketing strategy specific to that niche. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00What are some marketing strategies that you should absolutely avoid in 2023? We’re going to talk about 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 for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Harris, I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the closed.com. And this is a partnership between keeping it real in the clothes and let me tell you more about the clothes. Now the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents, teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. Now they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies. From the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the clothes.com. Again, that’s the clothes th e clsc.com. And check out some of their articles. Also at the very top of of all their pages, you can subscribe to their newsletter. I’m a huge believer in that. Because if you’re like me, there’s lots of websites that you go I should be visiting that more often, but we just don’t. So if you subscribe to their newsletter, you’ll get emailed every time they produce a long form. Article, which is all the time they have such great content with us, as always is crystallin Sal, he’s a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. And Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Chris, welcome once again to keeping it real. We’re excited to have you, Chris Linsell 3:06DJ, glad to have you I never get I never get tired of listening to your introduction about the clothes and about all the stuff that I’m working on. It’s genuinely a pleasure to be here. So glad that clothes can continue to partner with you guys and ready for a good time. Oh, today D.J. Paris 3:21it is and and we should say that by the time this episode will be released, you will have already spoken at the National Association of Realtors Conference. So let me be the first to congratulate you on your successful conversation. Which hasn’t actually happened yet. But I’m sure by the time this this is this has been released, it will have been a success. I was at your speech last year and San Diego and I thought it was the best session I went to because you were willing to take a stand and make some bold predictions. And just out of curiosity by again by the time everyone will heard this. It’s already happened. But what was your topic that you spoke about at NARA for this year? Chris Linsell 4:00Yeah, absolutely. So I actually am doing two sessions at NAR this year. The first one is on five missed expectations of our consumers specific to the way that technology plays a role in our in our industry. So what are consumers expect to expect from real estate professionals that we miss on a regular basis and we lose business as a result. So lots lots of chat about there. The other session that I will be slash have already delivered is five, five listing secrets from the top producers that I’ve worked with from across the country. And this ranges from everything from lead generation to listing presentations to marketing to closing and after transaction relationships. It is not an accident that the leaders in our space are consistently the same people every single year it’s because they’ve got some stuff that You’re out. And I’m sharing five big secrets about this. But actually, I want to say, you will still if you are listening to this and you are in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania, you can get a chance to hear some of this stuff. If you didn’t catch me at night, because I’m going to be at triple play in Atlantic City in December talking about a lot of the same stuff there. With some New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania specific details added. So if you’re in that tri state, come Come check me out at triple play. Well, we can rehash the conversation and get into some more together. D.J. Paris 5:33You guys, you know, what you did on the close? Is a and maybe you do have this and I missed it, but you need to have like a calendar or some sort of events, so that all the readers you know, will know about your upcoming speeches? If it isn’t there. Maybe. Maybe you guys could add that because you do speak a lot. And also to na NAR, NAR, I always say it the wrong way. So however it’s supposed to be I used to say NAR and then people that NAR would be like it’s really NAR. So anyway, I don’t know if it matters. But regardless of how you pronounce it, I are those sessions do we know if those sessions are also going to be recorded and available for purchase or for anyone, obviously, for attendees, I suspect they’ll will already had access, but I didn’t know if he could like buy them. So I don’t know if you know, Chris Linsell 6:20the recordings of the sessions will be recorded, they will be available on the NAR Conference and Expo website. For members of NAR I want to say it’s free for members of NAR, but it might just be free for attendees and super duper cheap for members that didn’t attend. So if you just can’t get enough crystal and Sal, you can, you can head to the NAR website and just mainline me right into your bloodstream there. D.J. Paris 6:49Oh, it’s funny, um, I don’t want to associate you with, with with addictive, destructive drugs. But getting addicted to your content is actually a good idea. So if you’re going to get addicted to anything, Chris’s content is right up there at the very best for real estate marketing, and just really just business and team planning. So I really think what they offer on the close is an actual perspective, an actual point of view. You know, I think realtors are often you know, because of their wanting to grow their business and be as accessible to so many people, there’s this idea of neutrality, that I want to be sort of in the middle, I don’t want to offend or, you know, create any division between myself and the customer. But I love that the close is willing to take a stand, but not just an uninformed opinion. They actually you guys do a ton of research and you arrive at a conclusion. And I often agree with pretty much all of all the conclusions I read on the close. So whether you see Chris live or you you’re able just to read some of the content he provides the clothes.com is really impressive, because you won’t just get a list of like, here’s five ways to spruce up your next open house, it’s going to be here’s what we’ve studied about open houses. And here’s what we know works. And here are some actual tidbits you’re not going to get anywhere else. So I love that the close is my favorite website to read about anything marketing related or business building. So anyway, but we’re not here to talk about how great the website is, because I could do that. I could do that all this all this entire time. But I’m excited to chat with you today. We were talking just before we started about what were we going to chat about today. And I think the topics a very good one. So why don’t you lead us off? Chris Linsell 8:38Yeah, so there’s, you know, there’s some shifts that are happening in the real estate market right now. We all know this. We can see it in our local market, we can definitely read about it in in, you know, big national publications, like, you know, the national news and the clothes and Inman, everybody is covering these shifts in the market. And I think the best way to kind of think about this is put yourself as you’re listening to this, put yourself in the shoes of the agent, you were in November 2021. Or maybe let’s go with Memorial Day 2021. Where we were seeing photos in the New York Times of people lined up around the block to get waiting to get into open houses. And we were seeing banks advertised on their website, mortgage interest rates. That would be you could you could basically fit for of inside the current mortgage rates. We were seeing opportunities for buyers and sellers that felt like they were on a different planet than the markets as we’re taping this right now sec. Can we can November 2022. So I want you to think about your business then, and your strategies for success. And I want you to think about your business now. And what I want, what I’m hoping we can chat about a little bit today is how the shift between markets is a heck of a lot bigger than the shift of between strategies. For most agents, most agents, they know the market has changed. They know their consumers needs have changed, they know their opportunities have changed. But have they changed their strategies? Almost, some of them not at all. And most of us hardly at all. And this is a problem. We’re gonna get bit by this pretty soon. D.J. Paris 10:45Can we talk about the strategies that are the tried and true older strategies that are adopted by agents who haven’t yet fully adapted to, to their current to the current market conditions and the needs of the of the agents, or sorry, the needs of the customers? Chris Linsell 11:05So that said, I say that one more time. So the tried and true strategy? Yeah, D.J. Paris 11:09so so maybe we should just define what are some traditional marketing strategies that may or may not make sense today, but are still being taught and taught and touted? You know, throughout the industry? Chris Linsell 11:20Absolutely. Absolutely. So I’m just going to use a really basic example. So we can all kind of get our heads around this real estate postcards. There is a ton of content on the internet, the close has some of it, actually, that talks about how to effectively use direct mail and postcards to generate leads. And if you think back to Memorial Day, 2021. If you sold a house in a neighborhood, you could literally just put on a postcard, I sold this house, and this mail it to 500 homes nearby, and you’d get calls because people like oh, wow, okay, this sold for six times more than I thought it would I own a house here, maybe I should sell my house. Sure, you couldn’t spit out you couldn’t walk outside and spit on the sidewalk without accidentally hitting the shoe of somebody else who wanted to buy a house at that point. That is not the case any longer. If you go out and spam blast the 500 closest homes to the latest transaction in a neighborhood. Not only are you taking a you know putting a burn barrel in the front yard and just lighting the money on fire that it cost to send those postcards, you are developing a negative industry reputation as somebody who is not in touch with the current climate and the needs of buyers and sellers. I would say a year and a half ago, we would think about our lead generation as an umbrella and upside down umbrella just turn the umbrella upside down, leads are going to fall into it. We are not in an upside down umbrella of economy and climate any longer. We are now in a samurai sword climate where you need to have Swift, deliberate thoughtful strokes in order to be effective. And you’re only going to hit a small chunk of what you’re swinging at at a time. But it’s going to be effective if you can be thoughtful around it. So in the in the example of postcards, we’re talking about adjusting from this spam blast this what I call evidence of action or evidence of activity and shifting it towards evidence of expertise. You want to show people yes, this house sold and it’s sold in part because you are a specific expert in a particular thing that got this transaction across the finish line. And the people who you are targeting with your marketing would also benefit from that specific expertise. Shifting from a an evidence of action to an evidence of expertise is a tough thing to do. But once you do it, it’s incredibly effective. D.J. Paris 14:02Just to make sure this is really clear evidence of action would be based around an accomplishment, right? So in the example of hey, I sold your neighbor’s home that doesn’t have action, or hey, I’m a top producer evidence of action. Well, I guess that could be both right. That could be both expertise. And so yeah, right. We’re not necessarily talking in absolutes, but this idea of I accomplished x, therefore I would be a good realtor for you Mr. or Mrs. Prospect. Chris Linsell 14:32That’s exactly right. Yeah, think about I mean evidence of action. The simplest form of evidence of action is your name on the right or outside the sign that’s in the front yard. That now is still that still is true. It’s evidence of action. But think about the message it sends when that sign and that name on that name writer sit in the front yard for six months instead of Six days now, yeah, it is a counter example to your evidence of expertise. The longer that sits there, the longer people are like, Oh, John Doe doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. Because this, he doesn’t know how to sell real estate because this house is just sitting right now. Right. So to shift to an evidence of expertise, let’s say that same house, that you’re going to blasts that spam blast that postcard, about the postcard now reads this particular house, you know, we sold this house, and it happened to have a wood Foundation, which is not uncommon for homes in the Midwest that were built in the late late 80s, early 90s. This home happens to have a wood foundation. Wood foundations are perfectly safe and great, actually, for places that get snow. However, property inspectors don’t always like wood foundations, and they can give some tough reports on this sort of thing. I happen to have the expertise to be able to navigate the property inspector, the appraiser, the buyer and the seller, and we got the job done. And if you’ve got a wood foundation, I can get the job done for you, too. This is evidence of expertise. And of course, all of that would be difficult to put on a postcard, specifically, but what we’re talking about here is changing your strategy from that upside down umbrella, to a samurai sword. So you are can you can cut and say this is where I’m effective. This is where I can create value. This is where we can work together. That’s what’s going to be necessary for success in the next iteration of the real estate market. D.J. Paris 16:41So let’s talk about how to actually do this. So what we’re really talking about is hyper segmenting your prospect list by expired their needs. And or if you don’t have a prospect list, identifying a prospect list based on need, right? So are we’re talking about going after specific audiences that have similar needs, as opposed to just throwing everything out there. And whoever responds responds, we’re gonna go target and find people who specifically want X, Y, or Z. I’m going to demonstrate my my expertise of x, y and z. So I just want to make sure I’m understanding that correct. Chris Linsell 17:22Yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, the real challenge here is fighting this urge to be everything to everyone. Right? Like, it is difficult for a lot of real estate professionals to effectively niche down because they don’t want to be seen as the one realtor who does the one thing. Well, the thing that we often forget about niching down is that it’s not a mutually exclusive act, you can have lots of niches. In fact, you should have lots of niches, you should be an expert in a handful of things. If you are an expert in a handful of things, you have lots of opportunity for success. Ultimately, I tried to tell agents that I coach, when they’re talking about transitioning their market into what I would consider to be this. It’s just a tighter real estate market, we’re going to see less demand higher interest rates, fewer transactions when we’re transitioning into these tighter markets, we ultimately have to show both our buyers and our sellers that their success is possible, relevant to what we can provide them that it is not just a matter of throwing something on Zillow and waiting for 20 offers to roll in. Success is still a path and we can get you there. This is really a chance to demonstrate your specific expertise value, and agents, even those who are still developing those who are brand new to the to the real estate field, they can still have they still have expertise value. Nobody else has access to the same MLS level data that you do. Certainly people can search properties on Zillow, but they don’t have the back end that you do. They don’t have the connections that you do, they don’t have the opportunity to network with their colleagues the way that you do. And so that right now is the time to start demonstrating that value of expert of expertise to your clients. And the faster you can do it, the more out ahead of your competition you can get, the more transactions you’re going to be capturing in the end of 2022 and the start at 2023. D.J. Paris 19:37Can I give you my favorite example of this and it actually comes from years ago so I my the home I lived at just prior to where I live now was a high rise in River North here in Chicago. And only well there were plenty of realtors that would send mailers that were more of the generic type flyers or brochures or postcards kind of thing. And when they would show up and are our mailbox once a month random agents, there was one agent who, every month, we got a eight and a half by 11, front and back, you know, postcard essentially, but it’s, you know, much bigger. And it in it, it basically said, I’m so and so I have sold more condos in this building than any other realtor and he said it in a slightly less direct way. But that was what he said on on the front. Also on the front. He goes here, by the way, are all the condos that have sold in the building in the last month, which was really smart, because you could see what two bedrooms were selling for and one bedrooms, etc. And then on the back, it had a list of every single time he had sold a property in the building, it had a list of all of his accomplishments. And I thought, well, if I was not in the business, and I was looking to sell my property, I was a renter at the time. So it didn’t apply to me. I said, I think I would go with this guy who seems to really know the building, he’s a total expert, or at least he has projected some sort of expertise. I don’t know if he’s actually an expert in the building. But if he’s being honest about his, his marketing, he’s sold more properties within the building, that’s usually a good sign in my mind as a consumer. So anyway, that was my favorite thing. And I’ve yet to really see anyone else ever do that. And again, not now, for anyone listening, they might think, well, I don’t I’m not the biggest, you know, seller of a particular neighborhood or a building like that. So not everyone’s going to be able to do that you have to earn your way there. But he wouldn’t have even had to say that he was the guy who sold the most property in the building. He just happened to be that guy. But he could have also some anybody could have sent everything else that was included all the prices of the places that just sold, you know, and like that’s, that’s demonstrating value. It’s demonstrating, hey, I’m not just blanketing this building, saying, Hey, we’re doing I’m a realtor. Oh, by the way, here’s information that you person who lives in, you know, apartment 1507 Are you kind of 15 or seven cares about? So that’s to me a great example. Chris Linsell 21:58Yeah, I totally agree. By the way. Now, we all know that DJ lived in a condo 1507. So what you know, it’s interesting, one thing I want to call out to as a as a power up to agents who are seeking to put this strategy into place is, wherever possible, highlight your ability to not just save your clients time, or excuse me tied to spoil, but not just save your clients money, but save your clients time, the time aspect of a transaction, especially in an unpredictable market is extraordinarily valuable. So your your example of the of the realtor who is consistently sending you marketing about the activity in the building. I think that that could even be taken to the next level to say something along the lines of I’ve done this now 57 times in this building, I know exactly the steps, we are not going to lose any opportunity, we’re not going to lose any time trying to figure out what we do next. Because I know exactly what needs to happen. As a consumer personally, I will go with somebody who is more expensive, if I am very confident that they not only know the steps, but they know the timeline. And they can accurately forecast that, for me, that is critical, especially for folks who have a little bit higher net worth, they can afford to spend more they are not penny pinching specific, like half a percentage point on the commission. But they only have a finite amount of time in their life to dedicate to this sort of thing. Anybody who can demonstrate that they are the best use of their time that they win the listing just about every time especially for those folks who are pushing into the you know, million dollar plus range for property. D.J. Paris 23:47I just talked to somebody who just got their license yesterday. And she I said, Oh, what what career you coming from? Because she was like, I’m switching careers and or she was like, I’m gonna stay with my existing career just just for a while before I go full time into real estate. I said, Oh, what are you doing? And she goes, Oh, I work it with surgeons, I work. She wasn’t a nurse, some sort of admin person for surgeons, and she’s been doing that for like 20 years. So she goes, I said, Wow, that’s kind of interesting and hyper specific. And she said, Yeah, I’m only going to work, I’m going to try my best to only work with surgeons. And I said, Oh, I said, Well, that makes sense. And she goes, I totally understand how they think I know what they I know approximately what they earn. I know, you know, she just has all this data about working with surgeons because that’s what she’s done. She goes I want to be the surgeon person. And I’m like that is a brilliant strategy. Because it is hyper specific. You understand the needs of that market, and you have access to that market. Chris Linsell 24:45100% I am it’s it’s a great example that you just use there. I have an agent who I’m friends with in my local market, who has signed an exclusivity agreement with the A recruiter for the local hospital system in northern Michigan. This person only takes clients from the recruiter, the recruiters office, she signed this agreement said I’m not going to work with anyone else I will turn away business I will only work with with the buyers and sellers that you send me. You have to send me your buyers and sellers. But I will only work with these people. The thing that this at first, a lot of people thought she was absolutely crazy for doing this because it’s like, you know, people want to work with you, you’re gonna send them away. She said, I am demonstrating expertise in a specific niche. I’m working with people who need to buy and sell they typically have a timeline, they typically have specific things that they’re looking for, like distance to the hospital distance to the to the physical therapy hospital or wherever they’re going. And they typically have a definable range of properties that they’re interested in. I become the expert in this space. She said, Honestly, the the fact that these folks are typically buying homes that are on the upper echelon of value, this is secondary to me, it is that is a distant second to the consistent expertise that I get to establish in a particular niche. D.J. Paris 26:21I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. 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So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, and there’s just a lot of social proof with that to saying oh, by the way, this is exclusively what I do. I’m basically, you know, a recruiter who only recruits you know, surgeons or whatever, whatever it might be so, so I think if anyone listening is wondering, well, I don’t have that I don’t know what that might be. For me, I have a suggestion, talk to all of your clients that you have worked with in the past, and maybe think about, you know, where there were their clients that you really enjoyed, you know what they did professionally, or you were really excited about, you know, what, maybe they had a hobby or an interest or a neighborhood they lived in or something that was unique to them, that maybe other people might have a shared interest or, or, you know, category of how they live their life that fits in the same category. Because if you if you are somebody that likes working with doctors, now’s the time to go start talking to doctors and saying, Hey, my I, I’m trying to make a shift, I want to work with more people like you or more teachers or more firefighters or whatever, it doesn’t have to be profession, whatever it might be, but I need to really understand your market better, you could spend the next year interviewing as many of those people and you will know, you’ll have a pretty good sense of whatever shared characteristics they have. And then you could create marketing pieces specific to that, that that hyper dialed in, sort of need Chris Linsell 29:05absolutely 100%. The the long the short of it is I would kind of put a bow on this conversation. The agents who are going to find the most success and are most likely to continue to be scaling their business after 2023 are the agents who can pivot away from this kind of, like operating like an opportunity vacuum cleaner, because it used to be that we saw so many opportunities in every single place. That I mean, the reality is DJ that the fact that the fact that the market conditions are changing. It doesn’t affect the fact that people still need places to live. We still need to buy and sell people are still going to get new jobs and lose their existing jobs. They’re going to have kids they’re going to get divorces, spouses You’re going to die, there’s going to be a ton of different reasons why real estate still needs to happen. So it’s not that there aren’t the transactions, it is just the accessibility and the approach to those transactions will change. And so if you are stuck operating, you’re upside down umbrella strategies and wondering why you’re not being successful. You should look to see, you know, get your samurai sword out of the closet and start swinging up. D.J. Paris 30:28Yeah, not now is the time to think about this to win with the, you know, with the way that we shop, and the way that we the way that we sort of navigate the world, yes, there are places for the big super stores like Amazon, virtually or Walmart, you know, with more of the brick and mortar, yes, there is convenience. And there makes sense to sort of try to be all things to a to a shopper. But the vast majority of us when we want something a little bit more specialized than just going out and getting our groceries or our household needs, we’re usually doing a lot of searching online, we’re doing a little research ourselves, or we’re looking for somebody who can help provide that to us in a much more concise way. Right. And I think I think this is, you know, I mean, if we just look at Reddit, as a great example, I don’t know how many sub Reddits there are, there’s got to be 10s, of 1000s. And these are all hyper specific to a particular interest. And if you don’t know what Reddit is, you guys can look it up. But basically, whatever you’re into, you can go find your community. And so the point is, is that can be extrapolated out to your own business as well figure out what you know, is a is a is something that you want to specialize in. And even if you’re not that familiar with it, you can get familiar with it. You want to work with developers start talking to developers and saying, how does how do agents get in with you? Like, what are they doing? How are they getting? What are your needs? What are you I mean, these are things that you can do first time homebuyers, people who have, you know, divorce attorneys if you want to work with people who are divorced, I know tons of realtors who just do that, who go well, I just get in good with the attorneys. I know the needs of a divorce. See, I understand what that process looks like, I understand some of the, the legal part of it, you know, anyway, I could go on and on. But the point is, is come up with something. And by the way, as Chris was saying, it doesn’t have to be your only niche, right? It could be niche one and the instead of having buckets of different types of of processes for marketing, like I have my farming bucket that I you know, and I have my my customer my referral bucket, you could also have buckets around your niches, right? Mm hmm. Chris Linsell 32:42Definitely. All right, well, D.J. Paris 32:43we need to we need to wrap up because Chris is is ready to board a flight very shortly. And he’s got some calls to make before he goes to Nar, and blows the blows the room out like I did last year. So anyway, we’re gonna we’re gonna say goodbye to Chris. But before we do want everyone, everyone, please, please, please, this is the website. i By the way, the clothes does not pay us for this at all. And we never, we would never ask for them to pay us. Because we are such big fans of theirs that we want everybody to go read, we actually think you’ll become a better realtor by reading the clothes.com Oh, by the way, like 99% of it’s free. So that’s even better. You don’t have to get pull your card out. Of course, they do have a premium subscription model as well, for the close Pro. We’ll talk about that on our next episode. But the very least go read their stuff, Chris, and the editorial stuff, they are not afraid of going deep, they go wide, and they have an opinion. So it’s not just facts and figures. It’s like and by the way, here’s what we recommend, guys, there isn’t really anything else out there like this that I’ve found. So go go to the clothes.com. And by the way, also, you know, we’ll keep you abreast of Chris’s speaking engagements so that maybe you can go see him live. But Chris, thank you so much for once again being on our show. We would love to, we love to have you of course, again in 2023. We will continue to have this have you on here. And you know, maybe we’ll even make some tweaks to it to to make it even better for next year. But we’re excited to continue the relationship on behalf of everyone because it’ll be the last episode of the year with you. We really appreciate everything you do for our show. So thank you on behalf of the audience. Chris Linsell 34:20Thanks, guys. Always a pleasure looking forward to the next time too. D.J. Paris 34:24Awesome. All right. Well, this that’ll do it for this episode, guys. We will see Chris in 2023. Either you can see him in person or on our show once a month. So thanks, Chris. Thanks to the audience. Please tell a friend. In fact, tell two friends that would really help us out. It’s the holiday season. Tell it tell two friends about our show. And that’s all we’ll ever ask of you. Thanks, guys. We’ll see you next time. Thanks, Chris.