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

In our November episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talks about the slowdown as we near the end of the year. Carrie also talks about the decreases in the market regarding listings and under contract single family and attached homes in Chicago. Next, Carrie emphasizes why now is a great time to start drafting your business plan for next year and shares tips on how to draft your business plan. Carrie also shares 7 tips for marketing strategy for 2023. D.J. shares his marketing tip of the month. Last, Carrie and D.J the importance of building relationships with realtors in other markets. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Carrie can be reached at carrie@atproperties.com or by phone at 312.961.4612. Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Are you worried about 2023? Well, let’s talk to a top producer and see what she’s thinking for the next year. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show, and today on the show is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group with at properties here in Chicago. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. In fact, in the last 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in the Chicagoland area Carrie is in the top 15 producers on out of 46,000. That’s incredible. She’s in the top like 1/10 or 1/100 of 1% of all the agents here. She’s a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. And she also works with a lot of developers who have to choose her to represent their high end developments. Please visit Carrie at our website, which is Carrie McCormick, r e.com. And also definitely follow her on Instagram, I believe she has the very best Instagram account I’ve ever seen for a real estate agent, which you can find her on Instagram at Kerry McCormick real estate and by the way, those links to her website and Instagram will be in the show notes. So you can find her there. Carrie, welcome once again to the show. Carrie McCormick 2:52Thank you, you always have such a nice intro. It makes me so happy. So thanks. D.J. Paris 2:56Well, well, I’ll tell you, I’m always happy to talk to you because and I just it’s gonna sound like a like a humble brag. And maybe I guess it is but it’s not really my intention. We’re prefacing this by saying please forgive, please, audience and carry forgive me for the brag, but we just crossed over. Maybe we didn’t. But we’re right on the cusp of crossing over 2 million downloads in the lifetime of the show. And I bring that up because you’ve been with us almost since the very beginning. So part of the reason why we’re now doing even higher numbers than ever before is because of because of you. So thank you for helping us get to Carrie McCormick 3:30know amazing, yes, yeah. Awesome podcast, and you’ve got great followers and, you know, continues to grow. So I’m happy to be part of it. So thank you. D.J. Paris 3:40Thank you. So what’s what’s going on this month? Carrie McCormick 3:43All right, November. And I know we’ve got listeners, not only here in Chicago, but we have listeners all over the United States. So I just wanted to kind of talk about a broad United States market. Data and I know everyone knows this. But as we move into fall, our market continues to slow down. And we know that consumer prices and higher mortgage interest rates are squeezing our buyers and it’s just an affordability challenge and even hearing people talk about not only from homeownership, but you know auto loans and grocery everything, everything seems to be going up and people are getting squeezed. So right now mortgage rates are at 55% higher than they were a year ago. It’s just in I was saying it’s we were going 150 miles an hour last year. And now we’ve come to this I feel like it’s like 50 miles an hour. It’s like this screeching halt. We’re still, you know, driving at the limit or you know, our speeding limit, but it just feels like it’s just so quiet. So it’s it’s tough. And just here in Chicago, for those that are here in Chicago are new listings in the city of Chicago for single family homes. was down 2.7%. And it was down almost 30% For attached homes, which is our condo and townhome market, which that’s a big number are under contract. So that’s was new listings were down or under contracts for single family homes is down 22%. And down 28%, almost 30%, also for attached homes. So these are big decreases in our market. And I know that Chicago acts like a market within a market, each neighborhood is very independent. And again, those stats are just over the city of Chicago as a whole. So we’re down, you know, so it’s a message that we have to give to our sellers, all the stats, all the data, the information, we’ve got to communicate that to our sellers, so that’s important. But every November, I’ve been doing this for 22 years and been a broker here in Chicago for 22 years, every November, I look back at the year and figure out what I did, right, I figure out what I did wrong. And I tried to create a business plan for the next year into 2023. Because with the holidays coming, it’s going to go quickly, now’s a great time to to start your business plan. And it can be a daunting task for a lot of people if you’ve never done one. And I’m going to give you just a few quick tips. And anyone that wants more information or to have a quick phone call, I’m always available to talk to people about it, not to say that what I do is 100% Correct. But what I do for me, at least it works. So let me give you some quick tips on a business plan. Gather your numbers. And when you look at them, figure out what worked and what did not work. That is the important part of it. So think about the number of listing appointments you’ve taken for 2023 I’m sorry, 2020. To look at your calendar, look at the number of listing appointments that you took, look at how many deals that you closed this year, number of buyer appointments, number of days and hours that you worked each week, that’s a hard one. But for me, it’s I don’t know if I can even calculate it. But just look at your calendar of the time that you’ve taken off and look at the days that you’ve worked. Look at your number of conversations you had each day a big one is look at your marketing budget, how much money have you spent, and then look at where you spent the money. And the lead sources that came from what worked, what didn’t work. And again, just look at your GCI and then look at your volume. These are all data numbers. And hopefully through the year, if you were organized with a calendar, or writing things down, this will be easy to calculate. And you’re going to quickly see where you spent money and it didn’t have a good return or you’re quickly going to see oh my gosh, I had you know these 10 listing appointments and they were all came from this one ad that I ran or came from the one postcard that I sent out. And then you know going into 2023 Those are the things that you should double down your marketing money on and focus on so you can get more business. D.J. Paris 8:16I’m curious when as you’re reviewing what I would love to ask you what did you think you didn’t do a good that you have room for improvement for next year? Do you have anything as you’re reviewing the year? What you what you wish you would have done different? Carrie McCormick 8:30Yeah, I think, you know, I spent, I spent a lot of money online, which, through 2022, I’ve, I’m very focused on what is working with it and what is not working, and I’m constantly changing it. So I think monitoring it, and not waiting six months, you know, but monitoring your online spend monthly is important because you’re gonna those are, you know, quick stat. So you’re going to really see what’s working and what’s not working through engagement through responses on it. So I think that’s something that you do have to focus on, I would say I do a lot of print advertising as well. That’s a little bit harder to gauge the ROI. So to answer your question, I think what I need to focus on is my postcard mailings and just mailings in general of it’s a lot of money to do that. And I’m not getting as good of return. So either I’m gonna cut back on it, or I need to perfect it. And I think I’m gonna perfect it. D.J. Paris 9:27You know, what’s funny is the development that that I bought that that you represent, represented as as, as the seller, your group represented, I was just realizing I’ve been there a year and a half and I have I have not received one postcard not from you, because I wouldn’t expect to receive it from you, of course, but from any realtor or anywhere now under understanding that this is a new development that people just moved into. Are we looking to move anytime soon? No, obviously not. Or least we just don’t know. I hope nobody’s thinking of moving. So everything’s going great. We all love the place. But I would think now would be a great time for another agent to sort of swoop in and be like, hey, hope you’re loving your place. I know, you’re probably not going to make a shift anytime soon. But I just wanted to start a relationship because we know that a lot of realtors who represent buyers end up the person buys the home, and they don’t hear from the realtor ever again. Now, my realtor was my boss, so he doesn’t know why he and I did it together. But the point is, is I wouldn’t expect him to send me anything but no, not other one other realtor. And again, it would take just a little creativity for someone to think about that. But I don’t know, it seems like a good idea. Carrie McCormick 10:37It does. And you know, that’s another thing is Think outside the box a little bit, I think doing postcards or mailings, templates all over the place, there’s companies that do it, they all start to look the same. So you have to be a little bit creative think outside the box. Because you know, like, if you received something a little bit different than mail, maybe you would open it or it would stand out to you because it was a little bit different than just, you know, a glossy postcard. So again, think out of the box a little bit if you’re going to spend some money on postcards. Another thing is, think about where you’re spending your time and your energy. And this again, sounds very easy. It took me years to start kind of time blocking and looking at things that got me distracted and figuring out where do I need to spend most of my time and what do I like a time audit you know, what, what’s effective of my time what is not effective of my time and and figure that out? And you know, make a daily routine of what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. It’s different for everybody. There is a saying by Tony Robbins and it’s it’s sometimes it’s not what what what you’re willing to do that makes the difference. It’s what you’re no longer willing to stand. So there’s things that are time sucks in our day, right? And I’m just trying to think what it is but there’s there’s definitely things that you know are not productive. And you really have to realize that when it when you’re doing it and avoid it or give that task to somebody else. So they can focus on that and you can do income generating activities. D.J. Paris 12:13I 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. 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, I agree. I think that’s it’s, it’s, you’re right, like we can’t control rates, we can’t control buyer sentiment. As much as we can try to influence it. It’s hard to influence sellers and buyers right now with the state of the market. And deals are falling apart at the last minute, we’re seeing a record number of those. So things are outside of our control, and in a lot of ways. And then there are things that are always within our control, which is our activity. And actually, I have a quick little story I thought I’d share with you and the audience because I think this is perfectly apropos to how it may be what agents can do right now. While maybe things are a little slower than normal, and everyone’s stressed. And yes, all of that is true. And there’s things you can still do. So this just happened yesterday. It was my one of my closest friends and his wife’s anniversary. It was their ninth anniversary. Here’s how I knew that I had put it in my calendar or in the contact list form. Or sorry, the contact. You know, I have for each of them. I have their anniversary date because I was there at their wedding and I wrote it down or I asked them later whatever it was because I thought this is what my closest friends I probably should know when his anniversary is so that all I could no I’m not a Producing Realtor. There’s no I’m not looking for anything here. I just want my friend to feel that I care about him. So I sent so I have in my little calendar every day if it’s Sunday. nice birthday, if it’s one of their children’s birthdays, if it’s an anniversary, it’s the only way I would ever remember to do anything is even my own family with stuff is, you know, I write it down because I don’t when it’s my parents anniversary, I think it’s, you know, April, something, but I don’t always remember it perfectly. So I put all of my friends information and so I sent a text to my friend and his wife yesterday. Oh, hey, happy ninth anniversary, it was literally took two seconds. And his wife who I’m not as close with, I don’t know her as well as I know him. She wrote me back and she’s like, You were the only person every year outside of their, like immediate family that knows it’s our anniversary, and or if they know it, nobody else writes us about it. And it was just took two seconds. And I’m like, that is so easy to do. And, and she was like, how do you do that. And I was like, why just put it in a calendar. And you know, but it’s like, there’s no magic to it at all. But the point is, is is now is a great time to think about your communication strategy for staying in touch with everybody over the next year. And now’s a great time to call your all your clients and say, Hey, I’m just updating my, my contact, you know, whatever my marketing system, I just want to make sure that I have all your data correctly in here. But I want to make sure your birthday is on such and such day. Right? Great. Okay, hey, just out of curiosity, what what’s your anniversary date, I’d love to, you know, just know that. So I can, you know, give you guys a quick hello, or something on your anniversary, like people will tell you this stuff, especially if they’re past clients. I mean, that shouldn’t be any problem at all. But certainly the you what I’m trying to the point I’m trying to make is you want to stack the deck with reasons to reach out to somebody. And it doesn’t have to be, Hey, you want to buy or sell a home. It’s like, Hey, I remember your anniversary, like people care very much when you demonstrate, you know that you care for them and that you’ve taken time to build it into your life that their their lives are important. And really simple and easy. So I know I’m talking about this a lot. But guys, this is a great time to just update your database, call all your clients say hey, I’m I’m just getting my you know, getting some things together for 2023. Just wanna make sure I have the right data for you. You know, and you can say, Oh, by the way, you know, I would even ask if you’re, if you’ll feel close enough asking when their kids birthdays are ask them what grades their kids are in. If not birthdays, ask them, hey, you know what grades are they and so you have an idea so that when school rolls around, you maybe have a list of people to you know, give some you know, care packages for kids in grade school or high school or college or I think there’s lots of cool ways you can demonstrate care, that don’t have anything to do with market conditions. And that maybe will pay dividends when people are ready to buy or sell. Carrie McCormick 17:37I think that’s so good. And sometimes it’s the little things that matter. And I just wanted to finalize in this, our call by saying the seven tips that I have for marketing for 2023. So I’m gonna say my seven tips will be video video video, you have to do video, you have to do video, I’m I know people don’t like to do it, or they don’t want to be in front of the camera, but it’s just, it’s going to dominate in 2023. So just get used to it and do videos. So that’s number one. Two would be teamed up with a mortgage lender to strategize you know, as we are in this market with these crazy interest rates. We do need a professional on our side to strategize there’s all these different bite down programs and different ways to message it. So definitely team up with a mortgage lender. I’m also going to tell you to create a blog which I don’t have one. So I’m going to try to do that for 2023 newsletters, your website, you know get all of that in, in the right place, refresh your social media profiles. And that’s another thing, these are all good reminders for me to do to you know, make sure that all of your profiles are up to date and refresh your headshots. You know, there’s brokers out there that you know, I’ve looked them up online, so I just know who I’m meeting and I meet them and they look nothing like their head did their picture. So you know, it’s a good time to refresh your headshots, QR codes, use those utilize those in your marketing campaign to capture client information. I don’t know where I’m at with number wise but clean up your CRM, strategize on a system just like you said, to stay in touch with your clients. There’s different tools, you know, you can call people, you can email them, you can send them a survey to get information. And then just I think, finally, a marketing tip for everyone is work on your messaging and what your purpose is. I think when you know, and you can communicate who you are, what you do, what your purpose is, to your clients, they’ll better understand you and what your job is to do for them. D.J. Paris 19:47Yeah, I agree on all of those are such such great ideas. So I think you know, great time to take a step back from the craziness of where inventory and rates are and sort of say well, I can’t don’t do much about that right now. But now is maybe a time to invest in some more learning some more skill development, you know, getting the marketing down for next year. And I’ll just give this one final tip for from a marketing perspective. I say it all the time. I’ve said it probably on the show a bunch. So I apologize for the review. But it’s a great fundamental. LinkedIn is really great at a couple of things. And one of those is work anniversaries. So I was talking about romantic anniversaries, you know, wedding anniversaries, dating anniversaries earlier. But work Anniversaries are another thing. So this is something that usually nobody knows it’s their work anniversary. So in a way, if you can find out like, I don’t even know it’s a work anniversary for me until I start getting messages on LinkedIn going, Hey, congrat, right. Like, we never know, most people don’t know, their actual anniversary. So another great reason is you just go to the LinkedIn act activity feed, and you’ll literally can just check it every day. And you’ll probably see when people get promotions, when they get a new job when they have a work anniversary. All of these are things that people would never expect you to, to reach out to except on LinkedIn, when they tell people it’s their work anniversary that you get a lot of messages. But how about a phone call? How about a text message? How about going a little bit beyond and noticing something like that? And again, just demonstrating care. So anyway, I love that, I think, yeah, I think it’s I think it’s a great place to wrap up. We should also mention two quick things. Right now, you know, I think is also a great time to build relationships with realtors and other markets. Right? It’s a wonderful time to really say, okay, my clients tend to move or retire to or have vacation homes in X, Y and Z places. And so for example, if you have if you’re a realtor, and you have people that live or that want to live in Chicago, some time of the year, or maybe a second home here, they’re moving to this area, or you know, down to Florida or Texas or wherever people are moving these days. You know, Charlotte, not Charlotte, but Charleston is a big one Nashville, of course, lots of places are having these big booms. now’s a great time. And so Carrie would love the opportunity to work with you if you have clients that are interested in the Chicagoland area. She’s literally one of the very most successful Realtors here. She does it all herself. It doesn’t get passed over to a team member. It’s literally her so if any and if anyone’s listening who isn’t a realtor, but just a buyer or seller or renter or investor or developer who wants to work with the top realtor here in Chicago, Carrie, we could not more highly recommend her she’s the best. Carrie what’s the best way that someone can reach out to Carrie McCormick 22:43always call me 312-961-4612? Or you send me an email at Carey at@properties.com. D.J. Paris 22:52Awesome. Well, we will bring this this episode to a close Don’t. Don’t let it bring you down. As the as the song says. This is this is a tough time most brokerages are down. production is down for agents. It’s just kind of where we’re at. We can’t do a whole lot about that except keep moving forward. Again, people want to work with people who demonstrate competence and care. So up lets up your competence level. Ask more from your from your brokerage about skill development, knowledge training, and then ask more from yourself about staying in touch so that next year, you’re like, Alright, everybody in my database, I have five different times throughout the year that I’m calling them for different milestones or reasons to reach out birthdays, anniversaries. Hey, just checking in how’s everything going? You know, school, starting school, ending whatever it might be, come up with five or six reasons to reach out not real estate related to each person in your contact list. And you’re gonna have a great 2023 At least I hope so. So anyway, I’m Carrie and on behalf of Carrie and myself, as always, thank you to the audience we are, this is our Believe it or not our most our highest month ever is this month as far as number of downloads. I don’t get I don’t say that to brag. I’m just so encouraged. And it’s really we don’t spend any money on on marketing. I wish we probably did, but we don’t. And so we’re so grateful to everyone for telling a friend about our show. Please continue to do that. Think of one other real estate agent, maybe even a new agent who wants to hear cash and wonder how somebody gets to the very top of the mountain like Carrie Well, this is how so definitely send them a link to our website, keeping it real pod.com. And also again, if you know anyone who is looking to buy, sell, rent, or develop in Chicago talk to Carrie. So I’d be happy to carry myself we say thank you on behalf of the audience. We say thank you to Carrie. This is it’s so incredible to get somebody of hers have her skill level and her busyness level to be on our show for years and years now we are so internally grateful. We’re so thankful. So anyway, I’m Carrie thank you again and we will see Everybody on the next episode. Carrie McCormick 25:01Thank you guys

Jen McConnell talks about how she got into real estate business. Jen emphasizes the importance systems and people and how these were the key to her success. Next, Jen talks about The McConnell Foundation and what’s that activity all about. Jen also talks about how they brought their services to the next level and the complimentary moving truck they offer to their clients and community. Last, Jen gives advise for new agents and describes what kind of content would she share in her social media if she was a new agent today. Please check out The McConnell Foundation here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Jen McConnell can be reached at (843) 300-7585. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00When Top realtors say that systems and processes are the most important part of their business, what exactly do they mean? 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 solutions so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Jen McConnell. But before we get to Jen, just a couple of quick reminders first, well, a reminder for me to thank you for listening to our show. We’re so grateful and appreciative that you’re listening right now and the best way you can help us continue to grow. And the only thing we ever ask is that you tell a friend think of one other realtor that needs to hear about systems and processes to take their business to the next level because Jen is going to tell you exactly how she did it, and does it and send them a link over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be streamed right there. Or if you’re gonna send it to somebody that loves podcasts, just have them pull up their favorite podcast app search for keeping it real, and hit the subscribe button. We would appreciate it. Well that’s that’s really all I got today. So let’s get right to it my interview with Jen McConnell. Today on the show, our guest is Jen McConnell from McConnell real estate partners in Charleston, South Carolina. Let me tell you more about Jen. Now Jen was fortunate enough to start her real estate career when she was just a junior in college. Now with over 17 years of experience in the industry she has she has particular expertise in luxury real estate and custom homebuilding. She is a certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist through the Institute for luxury home marketing, where she has been awarded the prestigious million dollar Guild Award. Jen has also earned the coveted realtor of distinction award achieving the highest rank possible as a Platinum Award winner through the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, the Platinum Award Jen places in the top 2% of agents in Charleston and in 2021, Jen and her husband Josh opened their own brokerage on the Isle of Palms in Charleston, South Carolina, and for McConnell real estate partners where she is the broker in charge. Also, they run a foundation which we’re going to be speaking about as well. To learn about everything Jen and McConnell real estate partners visit their website see H s estates Estates is plural ch s estates.com. There will be a link to that in the show notes. You can just go to our show notes. Click on CHS estates.com. And check out everything Jen and Josh. Jana, welcome to the show. Jen McConnell 4:13Thank you, thank you for having me. D.J. Paris 4:16I am so excited because Charleston is just one of those one of those places that I just feel like everybody who visits it, you know, that I know seems to come back saying Oh, I wish I were to live there and you were telling me off camera that you’re getting like 60 plus people a day move to the Charleston area, which is just incredible. Jen McConnell 4:36From elsewhere, but not only that, but there are so many people that come here to vacation and then literally they just stay there like someone will pack up my stuff. I’m just gonna hang here. Here. No big deal. They literally just haven’t say especially during COVID Oh my gosh, the whole state of New York just basically came here and they’re like, Oh, we’re just going to go home. We’re gonna stay here now. We’re gonna move here and buy D.J. Paris 4:55so which is obviously great for real estate agents. However, I imagine there’s a lot more real estate agents probably getting their license these days at Charleston, I assume that’s probably I bet the real estate, the realtor populations. I don’t know if it’s doubled, but there’s got to be more Realtors now. So it’s good. It’s good. And it’s also there’s a lot of competition, I’m guessing. Yeah, Jen McConnell 5:16I mean, we have close to 7000 licensed agents. But you know, the top like, 500 make up 98%. D.J. Paris 5:22Do it out? Yeah, yeah. It’s funny. We do that. In Chicago, here we have about 47,000 agents total and same sort of thing. It’s like the top 20% Do you know most of the, because there’s so many people that get their license as a part time thing, or they just do it to buy and sell their own properties. But what’s really cool about Charleston is you have you have like a lot of advantages, right? You have this beautiful, wonderful city, wonderful weather, you’re you have beaches, you also have vacation rentals, like there’s so Charleston, just in the rich history, but just so much going for it. It’s just so jealous. Jen McConnell 5:59There’s so much no matter what your lifestyle is. It’s here in Charleston, I guarantee you no matter if it’s the arts, if it’s, you know, golfing, I mean tennis, everything boating, like everything that you fishing, anything you want to do is here for sure. D.J. Paris 6:12I’m so jealous. And I’m a tennis and not as much of a golfer but my dad’s a golfer and, you know, he’s been golfing all over the Carolinas for the last 30 years, like three, four times a year. So we were lucky enough to go to Kiawah Island. Actually not together. I take it back. We didn’t go together. We went we went a different trips. I was thinking we did a father son thing, but we didn’t. But anyway, that’s also right near you as well. That’s amazing. Jen McConnell 6:38Yeah. And one of the most impressive courses on the east coast, the ocean D.J. Paris 6:42course. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s funny, I’ve not that our audience doesn’t care about my golfing. But I will say, if you if you’re a golfer, you need to have an experience once in your life where you have a caddy. And the first time I ever had an actual caddy, like walk would be through the course, which is very strange experience was was at the ocean course in Cuba. And I was like, thank God, because I was like, What do I do here? It’s like literally one of the hardest courses in the world. And I’m not okay, enough about that. Nobody’s nobody’s logging out to hear my golf stories. So how did you you started, you got into real estate when you were in college, which is not very common for the guests that I have on the show. So how did that happen? And why? Sure. Jen McConnell 7:28So when I was a junior in college, I was a marketing and finance major. And I didn’t have an internship. And I don’t know, I just always knew that I was gonna go into real estate somehow. And I don’t know what kind of led me in the new construction realm. But I knew that there was a homebuilder on highway 30, in Ashland, Ohio, which is where the college and where I grew up. And I knew that that sounds like a really cool job, and I can do those internships, and maybe they would pay me maybe they wouldn’t. So I just literally, like walked in, I had my resume. I’m like, 20 years old. And they were like, Oh, we were hiring, but we’re actually we just hired to fill the spot. And I was like, well, that’s just not gonna work. Like, I just need to talk to your manager. Like, that’s all like, I won’t, I promise I’m not here. Like, I just wanted like a job, job or internship, it’d be fine. Like, I just talked with him. And then like, eventually, like, edge my way in and let me talk to the manager and end up getting it for like a sales assistant position. I was like, Okay, well, this is cool. And then it was just I loved it. I loved it. It was custom construction at like, 20 years old, you’re designing these ridiculous houses. In Ohio. You know, they were like, you know, what you kind of see everywhere, like on a farm or, you know, some of the nice houses for sure. But then they opened, right when I was graduating, so a year later, and they’re like, you’re gonna go to Charleston, and we’re going to Wilmington, I was like, Well, you know, I’ve never been to Charleston. Let’s do that. Like, I’ve heard. It’s great. Let’s go there. So I moved down here and didn’t know a person at all isn’t up there for stuff going on location in Charleston. We’ve been down for ever since. And, you know that and I was 21. At that time designing like ridiculous beach houses, multimillion dollar beach houses, like, who gets that opportunity, right? Like it was just, it was wild. So that’s really how I got my start in new construction, and then new construction for 11 years. And then once I got married and started having kids, and I was like, I don’t really want to work six days a week, like, I want to kind of have more flexibility with my schedule. So then I got my general brokerage license in 2008. And then actually didn’t really start doing it full time until like 2016 D.J. Paris 9:22Wow, because you weren’t you were busy doing mom’s stuff. And you were Jen McConnell 9:26really like I actually so I had my kids that I had my daughter when I was still working on new construction, but literally like on maternity leave, I was like, I can’t go back to six days a week. And we’re going you know, we’re just going to general brokerage at that point. That’s when we kind of came back because we’re all saying that on our palms and yeah, the financial protection sensor 2016 When I’ve been in general brokerage D.J. Paris 9:46Wow. Well, I you know, as as somebody who I don’t run our brokerage, but I know the work it takes as being part of the management staff at our brokerage and, you know, I almost wonder, are you working even more now now that you run your own brokerage? Are you able to have better balance? Because you have, you know, some of that flexibility. Jen McConnell 10:08You know, the work life balance is an interesting topic. And I’ve been in several masterminds about that. But I do feel very close to that balance. So I found that if you’re really stressed and running on fumes, there’s either to do one of two things, or both things missing either leverage or systems. And I was missing both, like in 2016, to like, 2019 it was really just running on fumes, you know, I was doing I was the EAA, I was the assistant, I was doing all the transaction paperwork, I was going to have your clothes and whatever home inspection I was selling, and listing. It’s impossible, right? Like, you can’t keep up with that stuff. And, D.J. Paris 10:42oh, by the way, you’re a mom, too. And I have like Jen McConnell 10:45a one and two year old. So it’s like, no, it’s not. And I have a marriage, like it’s not sustainable. So I found that really quickly, and we had a major life changed in 2018. That kind of shook our world. And that’s when everything kind of came in perspective, to be honest with you that it was like look like, it’s just not going to operate that way. Like we deserve a better life than that. And things just need to change because we need to savor every moment, we came with our children, our selves, our marriage, you know, everything. So just kind of worked itself out that way. And now I’m just very focused on if we have a pain somewhere in our business, it’s a system or a person that we’re missing. And that’s really what it comes down to, I think, D.J. Paris 11:21wow, that’s such a, that’s a really concise, and I was trying to sort of poke holes in it as I was thinking, Is it always systems or people and okay, maybe it’s not always that, but like, probably 95% of the time. So I was thinking, like, it’s true enough, you know, and, and I was, I was just reflecting in my own business, because, you know, whatever, my own struggles, and I was thinking, yeah, she’s right, it’s systems and people. So I think that is such a great point. And I always like to remind our audience too, if if you hear this, you go, well, easy for them. They’re top producers, and they have unlimited resources to be able to, to hire people. And it’s like, well, maybe, or maybe not. But the good news is, for anyone listening, who maybe as a solo practitioner, maybe is newer to the business and doesn’t have those resources, you can hire help from all over the world these days, you know, using like, upwork.com is a great place to look. And the point is, is you don’t if you you know, if you can’t afford someone local, and you can have tasks that can be done, you know, virtually, thank God, there’s so many options now, and people can afford to have, you know, more of that virtual assistant experience at a really nice price point. Jen McConnell 12:30Well, yeah, and I would honestly say like, even three years ago, I was not a top producer, like I was doing well, compared to everyone else in my office, I was at a big brokerage, but nothing compared to what I’m doing now. And it’s just because I think it’s more focused on those systems first, and then I heard people that can help with help showing help doing the EAA, work, help a personal assistant role, and really just allowing me to do what I’m good at, which is being in front of my clients, where it helping them get deals, you know, listing homes, I mean, that’s what I’m good at is in front of people not sitting here filling out a dotted box, right? Like, there’s people that can do that, and are way better than I am at that type of work. And I praise them for it, because they just, they know how to do way better, and I could never touch it. So why try. D.J. Paris 13:12I couldn’t agree with you more. And it’s, it’s I know, it’s hard to for a lot of our listeners, and even for me as well, I’m not a practicing agent, but I work amongst agents, and just this idea of of giving over part of your business to, you know, to someone else to be able to handle and it’s like, what if they screw it up? What if they make mistakes, and, and I understand the fear there. But was that challenging for you to be able to give up? Because, again, you know, I can’t do everything, but I’m used to doing everything. And if I give up my dotloop docs to someone else, whatever, you know, it was that a fear of yours that like things would just all fall apart? Jen McConnell 13:47Oh, 100% and it was so silly. Like I look back and I’m like, Oh, I like literally worked skin involved, like for years, like what was I think he’s like, No, someone will mess up a document and then like, I just it’s a better fit to do it myself. No, it’s not 100% it’s not, there is someone who is better with each skill set and you can figure out what your top 20% should be. And that’s what you should focus on 100% the other 80% that you’re doing that you’re not really that good at you need to leverage that out for sure. Because they’re gonna be there 20% Then D.J. Paris 14:17and even with documents like transaction management companies are plentiful, they are all over the charge I don’t know three 400 bucks a deal and you only pay if the deal closes and then that person you know you have to find a good person of course but like you just you know there’s a million ways to find good good people to help with that. It’s like for 400 bucks to never have to deal with paperwork again per deal. It seems like a pretty good deal to me. Yeah, Jen McConnell 14:41I mean, again, like I think that just staying in your lane, which I mean husband wife, you know we own our brokerage together. So stay in our lanes is very important. But staying in your lane with what you’re good at and knowing what you’re good at is like the first thing you should find out if you’re just becoming a real estate agent, like know what you’re really good at sometimes those ages It’s far better at the paperwork. And maybe they need to be like an EAA role and just a showing assistant. So when they get that interaction with people, but they can still do their work, which really they love to check those boxes, whereas like, I don’t want to see the box, I just want to talk and I just want to go and I want to go to the houses and lets them into the marketing videos, do the fun stuff, you know. So I think just always finding your role and saying you’re staying in your lane is super important, and knowing what your role is coming into new agent, for sure. But yeah, you definitely do everything started out 100%. And you do that until you’re too tired and worn out. And hopefully don’t get to that as far as I got when I was like every day was working on like, no breaks, you know, that’s just not fun. This is we’re here to live right and give back. And that’s what we I realized kind of just a few years ago, but like I said, like three years ago, you know, my I did like 8 million, like, that’s not really a lot in our market at all. You know. And so I think implementing those things, implementing leverage implementing people and implemented systems like that’s why we are where we are today. So for sure, D.J. Paris 16:02yeah, I agree. And I think it’s a good place to talk about your sort of your TrueNorth. And what like, because you, you and your husband have created a foundation, and I want to, you know, whatever you’re willing to share about that, I’d love to share that with our audience. Because I think you know, for somebody to find their why or true north is so critical, especially right now when the real estate market is changed. And people are realtors, a lot of them are struggling in most markets, because inventory is changed and rates have changed. So having that sort of why to be able to kind of keep you going through through some of the more challenging times I think is really important. Tell us tell us what your TrueNorth is and why that’s important to you. Jen McConnell 16:48So back in 2018, my son was well 2017 Actually, who was born in July, and it was five months old was diagnosed with cancer here at MUSC Children’s Hospital in downtown Charleston. So that obviously was very earth shattering for us. But that day that he was diagnosed, my I stopped, I did not talk to clients, my phone was off, emails were cut off, social media was cut off. I did nothing but focus on getting him cured. So you know, that’s scary for real estate agent especially I was I was just getting into general brokerage I had just gotten back in general brokerage 2017. So I was just getting back into it, you know, kind of getting a groove going and then you know, that hits and you stop. So we’re didn’t care about that at all. You know, I feel like everything worked out on the end. So he was cured. Fortunately, by his five month Ursu, the 10 month birthday, I guess if you want to call it so by 10 months old, he was cured of cancer, which was of course, like the best, you know, the best thing you could ever hear in your life, like and the fact that they could say cured we were like, wait, wait, did you say the C word like cure? D.J. Paris 17:53remission? remission, right? Jen McConnell 17:54Like, that’s what we were expecting? Just like no, you know, you’re he’s cure. And if you know that, for us was just, it’s everything, right? So that really propelled our business entirely and changed everything. So my husband left corporate America within six months of my son’s here simply because we just realized, like the grind and being responsible to a corporation who kind of really doesn’t care if you’re here or not sure what’s going on in your life, they want you to be there and be president, that really changed everything. So he came on board, six months later, left corporate America, once our son was able to go back to school, there’s kind of a lag once you’re cured, and when you can go back. I only worked you know, six months that year. And in that six months, I did $8 million. So that was my top here. You know, today that has been that was amazing. Six D.J. Paris 18:41months really? I with all of the stress of of what’s going on? Yes, Jen McConnell 18:46I did. My phone did not ring and that was kind of something in the middle that you’re thinking like, okay, like I thought I would have had like a call and know what my phone was dead silent. And I’m like, wow, okay, well, you have to start over. Like, it’s alright, I can do that I can start all over again. It’s fine. Like, whatever I got to do just get this boy here. And a week before my son go back to school, my friend said bring it again. Like it was just referrals coming in ages from other markets, sending referrals, repeat clients coming back, like it was a miracle. I mean, he’s a miracle for sure. But like, it was just that to me, I’m very I’m religious. That’s God, that’s nothing to do with me at all. So that that best year was definitely him. And then from there, we just kept doubling our business. And it really comes down to at that point where we realized like, I’m not going to grind 24/7 not see my family, not see my kids, that’s my husband. And then just you worn out like who wants to go through life like that. So we’re very intentional on where we spend our time. But then implementing those those systems and and the people that we really need to be able to run and run at a high rate. So you know, this year we’ll do 45 million. And that was three years ago where I did eight, you know, so D.J. Paris 19:53yeah, it’s amazing. And this idea of it’s almost like saving up for a rainy day in a sense because this idea Yeah, that you guys had your your, obviously your your child was struggling with a very serious illness and and that takes up all of your attention. And of course the business does have to go on pause. And then when he said when he come back, it’s like, oh boy, my clients, you know, they’ve sort of disappeared for a while, and maybe they won’t return maybe I do have to start over and this idea of building systems so that when, you know, really unfortunate things like that happen, you know, there’s there’s ways to keep the business to some degree chugging along. And so I imagine that’s probably was motivation for you to that should, should we, you know, should we want to spend more time, you know, at home or with the kids or whatever the the goals of the family are, you now have systems in place to support that. Jen McConnell 20:47Right. Well, I mean, I literally used to have my client, like, my, my database was an Excel spreadsheet, like, I mean, that was just three years ago. So it’s like, you have to start somewhere like to say that very humble beginnings. But you know, yeah, it’s just, it’s not sustainable again. So like, why I was running the grind because like, I have to make sure I hit all these people, right? How many times a day, how many different weeks and two weeks out throwing it out on an Excel spreadsheet, it’s not sustainable. So I’m sure most agents have something much more sophisticated than Now, thankfully. But really, what changed our business beyond just that is, is having that Northern Star like we were talking about earlier, and, and that for us is to be able to give back to boaties oncologist. So my son’s name is Bodhi, his oncologist is Dr. Jacqueline, Rebecca and USD and she has one of the only two gastric research labs in South Carolina for cancer. So you know, we Josh and I both had prayed to God, when we were in the hospital, once we found out he was diagnosed, and we were, we just said like, if he gets through this, like, we will do whatever we can, sorry. D.J. Paris 21:45Oh, okay. These are these are big things. So I appreciate I appreciate that the biggest things honestly, yeah. So I appreciate your appreciate your emotion. Jen McConnell 21:57Yeah. And we just thought we would do whatever we could to give back. D.J. Paris 22:03And so and so you started a foundation. And I, the foundation is tell us about actually tell us about the foundation? Well, yeah, Jen McConnell 22:11so the first thing that we did, actually, so 2018, he was cured 2019, what we decided to do with our brokerage was we started setting aside a portion of every commission, and donating that to pediatric cancer research. So 2019, we did 20 or $25,000. And then $50,000, the next year, this year, we’re already over 65,000. So I think we’ll be close to like 90,000. And we’ll donate just for the brokerage. So which is awesome, right, and we involve our clients like this is a very transactional business. And but on the buyer and seller side, like it’s a very relationship, relationship based business. And so what really came super clear to us once we knew that we wanted to kind of base our business around, giving back to to Doctor practice research, because we need to really involve them into what we’re doing. And so you know, every email, we update them on where we are with our musc goal for the year and we invite them to our fundraising events. And if we have client events, we’ll have like a donate portion. And you know, it was awesome, because our clients just they come through for us and they’re always so sweet. Like, before we had our foundation, they would literally just like hand us checks and be like, well here like, I want to I want to donate to your cause. And I’m like, Well, I know but I can’t take your your like donation from a brokerage. So it’s like, the way that like I but I knew what to do so much more to write so so we’ll always do you know, from our brokerage set aside that portion that will always give back to Dr. Becker’s research. And the awesome thing is for research to share on national level, by the way, like she shared it with St. Jude and all these wonderful, amazing hospitals across the country. So that’s the cool thing is not just here that her research is going. But then so basically, once clients kept paying that money, and we’re like, guys, like we can’t do it that way. We were like, You know what, we can do it bigger, we got to get bigger, and we just need to start our own foundation. So in 2021, we started our own foundation, the McConnell Foundation, and we had our very first gala last year in June. And we raised $45,000, for our first gala for Dr. Baca, which was like really cool. I know, like, I don’t have a gauge, because I’ve never done that before. But I mean, I had great mentors in the industry. And they were like, Jim, like, that’s really, really impressive. But like, okay, good. Like, I want to double it next year. I’m like, I know, like, I love it. So it’s cool. It’s cool. And we’ve done it with almost $120,000 in the last two years to musc pediatric cancer research. So it’s Yeah. We just Yeah, I mean, and again, like, that’s why like, I feel like I’ve been given the skills in what I do real estate that is helping me give this life to someone else, hopefully, you know, and, and provide that research. So that’s really our that’s our Northern Star like we were talking about earlier. And that’s why we do what we do when we are so clear focus on know what we need to do to be able to provide for the research for sure. D.J. Paris 24:54I mean, that’s such an interesting and important thing that you said and I want to make sure that our audience really We heard that because I suspect that when you when when you and your husband and look at your brokerage and come up with sort of ideas of what you want to do for 2023 and beyond, I imagine, you know, a big part of the conversation is, hey, we want to raise X amount of money for, or we want to donate and raise for, you know, this pediatric cancer research. And that becomes a huge motivator to keep the business growing and operating versus just, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with of course, you know, one’s own salary and one’s own own conditions. But it is, I imagine, because of, of how much it impacted your family, that becomes a huge motivator. So it’s so interesting, you said, we just want to be able to donate more. So in order to do that, we have to do more business and raise more money. And I think that is such a such a really a beautiful thing. And I really applaud you for finding that North Star. And, and then taking action, right and realizing that so many people, you know, you know, don’t don’t take that kind of action and not to judge them in a different way but but it’s really something that’s super admirable and and you get your entire community behind you as well. And everyone now is wanting, you know, wanting you to succeed so, so I applaud you for that, for sure. 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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And you know, because you know you were talking about, and I’ve interviewed people on our show that that still work out of an Excel spreadsheet, and that works for them and great. But there are more sophisticated options. And so I’m just curious on like how you went from Excel spreadsheet to more automation, right? I obviously, yeah, let’s just tell me sort of what that journey was like for you. Jen McConnell 28:08So the top priority person involved with clients is to write the top tier level experience, like we kind of coined ourselves as a concierge level of real estate. And so we want to, I mean, I think my earbuds are dying, so I’m sorry, if you let me know, if you can’t hear me for some reason, I know you’re you sound great. So to provide that context of real estate, not only just, of course, being in front of them, but everything else. So before they need us, you know, what are they seen on our website? Or were they seen on our social media? So it comes down like for me, I’m the marketing kind of behind our brand. And so I look more at our how we’re presenting ourselves, we have a client moving truck, which is a 16 foot you know, fully branded, moving truck which our clients can use complimentary when they’re moving or even if they just buy something and you know, a new sofa, they want to go pick it up. So just taking kind of the experience to the next level. You know, whereas when we started in general brokerages in 2018, probably 75% of our business was bought leads whereas now I’m at 5% which really I’m not buying those are just major corporations that I pay a referral fee to to help their execs so I do consider that thought but so we’re at a 95% referral for you know, repeat clients base now so what we’ve done but our but our margins have not changed. So what we did we took that money that we were using when you were buying your clients and I put it into the customer experience and that client experience from you know, not just once they meet us all the way through years and years down the road. So that’s your client events but just elevating them and elevating everything that we do like our we have a magazine that we give out so instead of just like a a one page like I used to have like a one page double sided like here’s Jen McConnell and you know, like, I don’t know is nothing impressive, but like we have actual like magazines Like, Apple legit? Yeah, so like, this is the first thing, anyone who needs anyone on, you know, my husband or I or we have another event, you know, that’s the first thing that they see. And then just elevating everything from there. So like a closing book is a hard bound. I mean, this is like a legit book, you know. And so just fully, it’s everything from their inspections to like, if they had invoices from repairs, you know, coming from restrictions, if it’s new construction, we have their manual there. So just elevating everything that we’re doing to give that client experience so much more than they would ever expect. By like, that’s our whole goal is to be able to do that. And then we’re intertwining that with who we really are. So connecting on an emotional level that knew who we are, is we’re a family that’s supporting musc. And by you supporting our business, like we’re able to do that on such a better level. And then they want to get involved as well. So we’re just we’re intertwined. Like we’re it’s not a transaction at all. And it’s not just a buy or sell and or investor like these are people who are in our lives. That’s the best part about it, honestly. D.J. Paris 31:01Yeah. Yeah. It’s like you’re almost building a, you know, continuing to add to this giant family. That’s all helping each other. So that, you know, the greater good can be can be accomplished. You said so much here in the last few minutes. I want to just unpack a little bit. No, no, no, no, no, in the best possible ways that you said a lot. I’ve wanted to talk about the truck. Because this is it’s a simple idea, really. But I don’t know I’ve been doing this podcast five years, not one person has ever told me that they do this. I don’t think anyone I’ve ever interviewed does this. So you guys went out and acquired a smaller moving truck for or I couldn’t tell how big it is from from the picture. But it was really good sized truck that your clients can use sort of when they need it. So So what was the impetus for that? Just out of curiosity. Jen McConnell 31:49So moving is never fun, like no matter who you are? And like, yes, a lot of our clients definitely have the movers are moving company or relocation company doing the things. But we did find a lot of clients who were just like burning these U hauls, and they break down. And they’re not cute, which is like, you know what I love about ours. But like, you know, they’re just not a fun thing. And you have to go like, all the way across town to get it and can’t return it there. It’s just, it’s a pain. So we’re like, what is one concierge service we could provide that help them in this one issue like this one obstacle that they keep hitting? Well, let’s get him let’s get a movie trailer. Right. So we got this beautiful, like 16 foot brand new movie check. It has hardwood floors in the bed, because oh D.J. Paris 32:36my gosh, I didn’t realize it was that nice. Wow, Jen McConnell 32:40it’s so pretty. Like it has, you know, the Sand Ocean waves on the side like a sandcastle on the back. Like, it’s just such a cute truck. But the cool thing is, like, all of our clients love it, it’s easy to drive this newer, so it like turns normal, and we feel like there’s driving a big SUV. But we do give it to like the schools and our church whenever they need it. So it’s just a nice tool that we can still give back, you know, to purchase charities, whoever needs it at the time, and then our clients get the full benefit. They don’t have to worry about renting a truck and it’s it’s clean yet. It’s like a little dolly and there’s a ramp and like it’s just ready to go. Like it’s just simplifying their life. Like, that’s what our concierge level is, I would I expect and really requires that we just provide that next level service. So that was just one of the little things that we do. D.J. Paris 33:21I love that. And it’s really, really smart, also from a branding perspective, because of course, people get to see this truck driving around town that says, you know, hey, what will you use our truck if you if you use our services, I think that’s, you know, obviously, a constant source of, you know, exposure to the community. But it was interesting that you said sort of you were buying all almost all of your business, you know, three years ago, and it’s not, and now you’re you’re almost exclusively referral based, and it’s not that your margins have really changed, you’re just taking that money and investing it back into the client experience. versus, you know, the the just meeting new people, right, this idea of deepening the client relationship, I’m assuming the theory is that by deepening the client relationship and really going way above and beyond what the client might expect, even after the sale, then you know, they’re more likely to want to tell all their friends and family like oh, you got to support the McConnell real estate business because you know, look at how the all the cool stuff they’re doing for the community and beyond. I’m assuming that was kind of the the overall idea. Jen McConnell 34:32Yeah, I mean, we just like we love our clients and I know most agents say that they do like we have fun with our clients like we go to like what we’ve a baseball game, we rent out the mezzanine and like all their kids come like I love seeing their kids grow older and get bigger and it’s like oh my gosh, you know, it’s just it’s sweet are like the families who like moved here during COVID and they don’t have any families like we become their family right and so it’s just like we got to keep up with grandma, grandpa you got to keep up with like the kids and you got to just, you know, it’s just such a fun relationship business. And I think agents forget, like, they’re like, it’s just a transaction. It’s like once it closes like, Oh, here’s your, your card and you’re closing it and like, you know, hopefully you’ll keep my mind but like, what’s the statistics are like what 86%, I think is the set, like, they totally forget who you are, you’re their agent is when they close on the house, because you don’t follow up. And like, it’s not just your follow up, but like, you genuinely should be interested in like, your clients and what they have D.J. Paris 35:23going on. Well, you mentioned, you know, paying attention to kids and grandparents and, and all of these things, these require systems, right? Because of course, with hundreds of clients, it becomes more and more difficult to be like, oh, so and so’s child is entering first grade. And I should probably, like reach out than just say, hey, oh, good luck with your, you know, first grade or whatever. But how do you do that? How do you keep it all organized? Because that’s a lot Jen McConnell 35:48of work. So, you think about that, right? So if you look at your client base, and you figure out what pods they’re in, so we have the newlyweds, no kids, we have kids, young family with with young kids. We have families with older kids, you have you know, retirees so kind of break everyone up into your paws. And then you say, alright, well, I’m a young family. What do I or if I’m a young couple don’t have kids, I probably would only go to happy hour, right? So like, Alright, we’re gonna target that’d be happier. And we know that, that probably, Jen and Josh aren’t coming because they have been in Bodie at home because they can’t get evicted on a weekday. So like, we know that that’s just going to be our first time homebuyers, younger homebuyers, or maybe even empty nesters will come happy hour. But then we know like the baseball game, right, we know that the kids are going to payments with the kids are going to come to that right? Well, if we go to a brand new restaurant downtown with a water, we know that’s probably going to be more of our NPS. There’s like so look at your pods who your your client base is, and do those events, specifically for them. Like one thing that we do, for instance, for kids, like we were just saying about school, so every August, we take personalized cookie boxes to every single kid of our clients. And it has like three little cookies one’s like a pencil one is like an apple and one’s a chalkboard, it has their name or not. So it’s like, have a great first day of school, you know, Harrison, or whoever, and we deliver those to their house the first day of school. Like, that’s definitely I have to be like, okay, Jonathan has a kid, you may have to has a kid like, I make sure I reach out to them individually. No, they know that every August, they need to look their emails, and they can register for that cookie box. And it’s going to come to their inbox, you know, the first of August, we know that. So it’s just a guaranteed thing. And and that’s a system, right? And I just copy that eblasts for last August, and I changed it to say this year’s date and it’s coming out. So it’s just it’s super easy. So just things like that, like just really being intentional with your touches is something that we focus on. And then what do our clients really want to do? Like, they don’t want to come to my office and like have happy hour? No, I mean, they want to do that. And they want a cool place. Oh my god, I think both of my headphones are D.J. Paris 37:43dead, okay, you’re still sounding great. So keep going. Jen McConnell 37:47So just really again, like knowing your clients and and targeting your business. So we look at our calendar year, we started November, and we look at the whole next year, and every single month, we plan out exactly how we’re going to touch our clients and what we’re gonna do with them. Like if we’re going to meet up in person, if it’s on person, we’re gonna deliver the cookies, that’s not necessarily in person. And so you just kind of break up and make sure that you’re seeing them, you’re talking to them. And obviously, you’re touching them with your emails, if they’re not gonna, if there’s gonna annoy you with everything else, or at least getting your emails and if not, they’re gonna get your you know, your quarterly newsletter that we mail out, you know, so this will have updates, like, this is a personal letter from me always. We usually always have some, this is about our gala. And then we will say something about the kids and they’re like, this was our baseball. So they’re still keeping in touch with us. Like, even if they want to ignore us. That’s totally cool. But I know that they’re still getting you know, this in the mail. I know, they’re, they’re still getting our E newsletter. And you know, eventually they’ll come out and come play if they want to. And if not, then that’s fine, too. But at least that we’re in front of them. D.J. Paris 38:42Yeah, it is. It is interesting. I once interviewed one of the top Realtors here in Chicago, and I was asking her, you know, Hey, why do you think you’re so successful? And she was, she was like, I wish I had a better answer for this. But I reach out and call every single one of my clients every week and just give them an update on what’s going on. And I was like, Okay, and what else she was like well that that’s kind of it she’s like, I obviously I’m do a lot of a million other things. But she goes I actually think that’s the most important thing. And most agents don’t do that. I was thinking as you were saying that to you know, you were talking about sort of even after the sale, you know, doing Hey, every year we have the cookie thing for the kids and in the fall and we you know, we have all these fun events that people can attend and they’re gonna get notified and then they also get on my newsletter and, you know, other pieces of mail from time to time, but it seems like you’re really really are focused on just constantly engaging with your, with your client and your prospect list. And it really seems to be obviously very effective for you. And it’s interesting because you’re still spending the same capital you were before but you’re probably getting a better return I would assume now because you’re now you know now it’s people who who you know who are clients, they’re in love with you for what all that you guys do for them and for the you know, the Right or community, and then you know, they’re going to tell everybody they know. So it’s really, it’s really impressive. And so as a marketing person, what advice do you would you have for somebody who is an individual practitioner, you know, somebody who doesn’t have maybe, you know, a ton of resources, or a team? What might you suggest to them to sort of help make start to make the transition from doing everything to maybe working on some systems or hiring. Jen McConnell 40:31Starting out as a new agent so well, for marketing? Like, like you said, marketing? I think social media for sure it’s free. You just need your time, which as a new agent, you have plenty of that would be for sure. But then your systems I think, definitely have to have a good CRM, we use follow up boss, there’s a lot of really good ones out there. We’ve been we’ve been very happy with follow boss, and probably always be with them. But that’s D.J. Paris 40:54our one of our sponsors. We’d love follow. Jen McConnell 40:59Oh, good. Yeah. Okay, go to the follow up boss conference in November. Yeah, so you have really good CRM, like, even if you’re just starting now, it’s gonna cost you money, but you have to invest, be able to get money out. One book that I would definitely recommend as a new agent would be Profit First go by that like that is really can get you in trouble. If you are a new agent, and you’re just spending spending spending, I gotta have the best business card business yard signs, best Open House signs. And then you don’t even have a deal, like, do not go down that route, like definitely read profit first. But then once you get that money invested in that CRM, and it’s going to be several $1,000, you’re like, for real? Like, I don’t get any of that commission? No, it has to go back into your business, if you’re serious about it. So I think that and then there’s just so many templates and follow bosses, you know, that’ll get you on a good path, if you don’t have a good foundation with your brokerage that kind of says, like, here’s how you really do the transaction. And here’s what you should do for follow up. There’s wonderful templates in that CRM, as as many others I’m sure. That would be my first purchase as a new agent, for sure. And then like I said, social media, that’s how you’re gonna get your big business. If you don’t, if you literally know no one, and you don’t have a good sphere, where you are, and you can’t afford to buy your bit leads, then social media, for sure. D.J. Paris 42:10And if you if you were in that situation, I don’t know you’re not anymore. But if you were, what would you put post your marketing person? So I want to I want to press just a little bit and find out what kind of content would you post on social, would you? And again, there isn’t one, you know, right or wrong answer to this. But I’m curious on on if you were starting out what what type of because we, you know, we say that to our agents a lot here at our company, like, oh, you should, you know, really do a lot of branding and promoting on social. And finally, our agents were like, Yeah, that’s great. But like what content you know, and so we had to really just create a whole bunch of content that they could they could borrow and use. But not everyone has that. So I’m curious. And if you were starting out new nobody, and we’re like, Okay, I’m going to do something on social, what kind of content would would you work on. Jen McConnell 42:57So I would be the master of my market and your market be very much like where you live, like I live on Iowa palm. So I would be the master of Iowa palms not Charleston. Like, that’s just too broad. So I will be the master bio palms, I would have 100 videos of our palms, I would be doing open houses on our palms, even though they weren’t my listings, I would be going through go and shows and doing video tour. So even if they don’t know that I’m not with a client, they’re seeing I’m doing this $5 million listing over the water and this liquidity pool. And he’s ridiculous details. They don’t know that I’m not actually with clients, but I’m in the real estate world. And they’re going to know I’m in the real estate world by what I’m showing. So I would definitely be showing all of that on social media. But again, knowing your stats, so you need to know the stats for your market and be the expert. Oh yeah, two to three forest trail just sold sold for 2.2. That’s the highest one story that we’ve seen. So not off the ground in two years, like you need to know your stats. And once you become the market expert, and you’re showing that through videos, or reels, or stories, or even just your grid, you know, I think that you gain a lot of credibility that way. And people call on you real quick on Instagram, like oh my gosh, and they feel like they know you, especially if they see you I don’t put myself on my own Instagram a whole lot. Because I feel like I’m like on the truck. I’m like everywhere. So I don’t know, I’m worried about it. But I think that if I were a new agent I for sure would be if if I were just starting out. D.J. Paris 44:19I love that is providing content to the community in large about the community restaurants, school districts have, you know, fun things that going on in the area also knowing the market stats and the go and show is such a great idea. That’s so just just we’ll make this our final thing because I think you’ve given us so many amazing tips, but the go and show is so you would reach out to other realtors who have listings and say, hey, I want to promote your listing. May I come over and do a quick video tour or because you if you don’t have a client that actually wants to see it. Have you found that most listing agents are receptive to that do you get some pushback sometimes or are most Jen McConnell 44:59back So once you and you basically are showing time, you can actually just say, virtual showing, and you can just go through and video it and then you can add it to your own real or whatever later and you can give them credit which I think most agents appreciate on the left side. You just say like, oh, Jen, just listen to this awesome listing on waterway like they, if that goes far away, and then you get tagged on their, their page as well, which is, you know, good for your page. But no, I mean, I’ve never had pushback, I do a million dollar Monday, every Monday on my social media. And sometimes I’ll use other agents listings for that. And very rarely, there’s been like, three in like four years. I’m just kinda like, okay, that’s fine. If you don’t mean to help market your listing? D.J. Paris 45:40No, I guess I guess they won’t help give you exposure to sell. You know, Jen McConnell 45:42I know. They’re gonna give you full credit, of course, to whoever it is. So who knows? If I think I lost you. D.J. Paris 45:58Ask agents, firms to think up anyway. So we’ve been jet if you can, are you still here? You know, oh, no, no, no, it’s not you it’s Zoom is having an issue. So anyway, this is a great place to wrap up. So I want to mention just a couple of things about Jen. Number one, if you are a realtor, and you have clients that you know, vacation, out in Charleston area, or looking to maybe retire out there, obviously a lot of people do. Jen would love to connect with you. So Jen, what’s the best way or by the way, if there are any buyers, sellers, renters, who are listening to our show, who are you know, either in the Charleston area or moving there or want to explore different you know, home options there. What’s the best way someone should reach out to you. Jen McConnell 46:48They can call text directly, my number is 843-300-7585, or my website, definitely check out is CH s estates.com. And honestly, like, we get a ton of vacationers so even if agents are in town, and just to have a local, you know, like coffee session, I would love to meet people from out of town, we have a ton of people relocating here from other areas, you have to sell their home, you know where they are. So yeah, I’d love to have a coffee date with anyone. D.J. Paris 47:14Well, I that is the invitation is open. So anyone out there who has business in the Charleston area, or who just wants to have a referral so that if business comes up, you can now say, Hey, by the way, Mr. Mrs. Client, I know you’re looking at are looking to retire, maybe get a vacation home. You know, I know somebody out out in Charleston, who you know, who’s really good. So this is a great thing that you now can bring to your clients just by introducing yourself to Jen and getting connected that way. And vice versa, maybe she’ll have people that are moving to your area. And so you guys can swap leads. So Jen, thank you so much for your your service, in, of course, the foundation that that you guys run and support and the causes that are important to you, and also just being of service to this podcast, we are so grateful to have had you on the show, you’re you’re just a obviously a really honest and compassionate and vulnerable person. And I think that is that is always something that we can all aspire to be more of. So thank you on behalf of our audience, we thank you for coming on the show. And on behalf of Jen and myself, we want to thank our audience too, for sticking around to the end. And we ask that you do just a couple of oh, by the way, Jen, if anyone out there was touched by your story, if they want to help support your foundation, what’s the best way that they can do that? Jen McConnell 48:36They can go to the McConnell foundation.com Or there’s links on our regular website as well. D.J. Paris 48:42And we will post a link to the foundation in in our show notes as well. So please contribute donate time, money, or both to to this organization to the foundation rather and Jen. So on behalf of everyone, we thank you, we thank Jen we think our audience and we ask that you just do two quick things before signing off. Number one telephone I think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing about systems people and Jen’s journey through real estate, send them a link to this episode. I mean, also, she talked about her true north, maybe there’s somebody out there who’s struggling trying to figure out their purpose. In real estate. This might just give them you know the incentive they need to keep going forward and finding their purpose. Send them a link to our website, keeping it real pod.com. We would appreciate it and also leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. Whatever podcast app, you might be listening to us, let us know. We take all of your comments very seriously because the only way we can get better is if we know what you like and not like or dislike so tell us how we can get better. I’m Jen, thank you so much and we will see everybody on the next episode. Jen McConnell 49:45Thank you DJ, appreciate it.

David Neagle the founder of the global consulting company Life Is Now, Inc. talks about his journey in the business world and how he ended up in consulting. David describes three things he changed in his attitude that brought tremendous change and success into his life. Next, David discusses how one can identify mindset challenges they are experiencing and what to do about that. David also discusses how to identify parts of your business you should delegate and how to achieve that. Last David talks about his The Successful Minds Podcast and what information they share there. 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 0:00Today we’re going to be talking about three key mindset shifts for your real estate business that will double your revenue without doubling your workload in 2023. 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 with David Nagle all about mindset. But before we get to David, just a couple of quick reminders, as always, well, first reminder is to remind us to thank you, the audience for continuing to listen and support our show, the best way you can help us grow is by telling a friend just think of one other realtor that you know that is needing to a mindset shift, especially for today’s episode and then send them a link to this episode, you can find all of our episodes on our website, keeping it real pod.com. And in fact, you can also follow us or find us on any place podcasts are served. Although usually podcast apps only will pull up to the last 300 episodes. And we actually have close to 430 I think at this point. So if you want all the episodes we’ve ever done, and we really believe a lot of our content is timeless and really should be something that you can go back to and get really great wisdom and advice. The best way to do that is on our website. So if you’re somebody that wants to go all the way back through our entire library, the websites the best place to do it, but we appreciate whether you listen to one episode or all 427 I think we appreciate you for being here today and please tell a friend about our show. All right enough for me let’s get to our main event my conversation with David Nagel. Right today on the show, our guest is David Nagel with life is now and let me tell you more about David is really really an impressive guest. David Nagel is the founder of the multimillion dollar global consulting company. Life is now incorporated. He is also the host of the Business Daily News ranked podcast the successful mind. David’s quest is to teach people how to think successfully so they can experience personal freedom. Now being in the personal and professional development industry. For more than 20 years, David has worked alongside other well known mentors like Bob Proctor and Tony Robbins, and his clients include many well known people, including New York Times number one best selling author, Jen Sincero. Now David has helped 10s of 1000s of students from across the globe, and is one of the architects of the personal growth industry. Through David’s mentoring and podcast 1000s of entrepreneurs, experts and self employed professionals have gained the confidence and found the right mindset needed to increase their revenue, turning their endeavors into seven and eight figure ventures and out forever an avid student David’s core vision is to bring expanded awareness and higher consciousness to as many people as possible and to find greater ways of helping leaders make a bigger impact so that they can lead with their greatest possible so that I’m sorry so that they can lead their greatest possible lives and serve the greatest number of people and I want everyone to visit David’s website not only to learn more about David and his consulting services, but to also check out his podcast and successful mine. So for all things David go to David nagel.com and misspell that David Dav Dee and his last name is N E A, G L E, N E ag le.com. So David daigle.com, we will have a link to that in the show notes, as well as a direct link to his podcast, which we encourage you to subscribe to David, welcome to the show. Unknown Speaker 5:14Thanks for having me, it’s an honor to be here. Well, D.J. Paris 5:17it’s an honor to have you, I am always interested, I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by consultants, because I just love that, essentially, they’re problem solvers. And this idea of, you know, real estate agents are so often their own CEO, their their own customer service team, a lot of times, you know, so many of our listeners, it’s just them, and they’re running the entire company, they have to wear every single hat. And this idea of, you know, getting a coaching sort of experience, or having some third party person come in and say, hey, you know, here’s some tweaks that you may want to consider is very, very exciting. And most of our listeners just don’t have that. So I’m excited to get some insight into you about maybe ways they could improve, you know, their mindset or, you know, part part of their behavior to help actually get the more results. But without just working more hours, I know, that’s a that’s a huge one that one of your tenants is there’s ways to become more productive without just pushing and grinding it out more. But before we get to all that, I want to hear more about you and your story. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey in the business world and how you how you ended up in consulting? David Neagle 6:25Yeah, it’s an interesting journey. And it’s a very interesting journey. As we were talking about off air I, I was born and raised in Chicago. And from about 13, on my, my wife was kind of taking a bit of a different twist, because my parents got divorced. And we were kind of just left alone, me and my brother to really kind of bring ourselves up, there wasn’t not a lot of engagement there or near as much as there should have been. So I was I was making a lot of mistakes. And I never liked school. As a kid, I didn’t like to like to read. Now I have a library that’s over 4000 books, and I’ve read them all. So it’s a really, it’s a really weird twist, you know, but at 17 years old, I quit high school, I went to the army, got out of the army came home got married, but I had no skills. Okay. I guarded nuclear bases in the, in the, in the army in Germany. So there, I didn’t really have anything that that transferred over into a skill it didn’t, I finished, I got my GED in the army, but I had no other formal education. So I just went to work got married, we had a couple of kids. And I found out really quickly, that I was creating more responsibility that I had the ability to actually stand up and handle. I didn’t have the skill sets to be able to provide financially for my family, but I didn’t know what to do to change it. And the other thing was that I was around the people that I was around, I would ask for help, like, can you give me some advice as to what to do? And all they would say to me, is you shouldn’t have quit high school. It’s like, yeah, kind of get that now. I realized the error, okay, but I can’t go back and change that. So what you know, what do I do now, but they really couldn’t give me any advice. They would just say, work harder, work all the overtime that you can. In the late 80s, I had a brief stint working for Metropolitan Life Insurance company selling insurance, which was actually going well until the savings and loan crisis hit. And then my policies were dropped, like people were dropping policies left and right, right, they just they just couldn’t afford them. So my paycheck went down so low that I couldn’t stay working there. And the only other thing I could do was drive a truck or drive a forklift. So I went to work for a warehouse in while Illinois key foods and at the time, Mr. Key he was the largest food importer in the country. I mean most of the things that we get and appreciate our because he brought those things in and really supplied especially really heavily supplied them to the Midwest area of the country. So I was working there but it wasn’t doing well. I hated what I did. I didn’t like it. I didn’t see any future for myself. I felt extremely stuck and things are progressively getting worse. So I wake up one morning and our cars repossessed right and and that we end up filing for bankruptcy we have to leave our apartment in the middle of the night because we can no longer afford to live there. So we have to move to a really bad neighborhood way down south by Joliet and I have to work I have to drive in to while to go to work. So it’s it things are getting really bad. And I was I was more and more humiliated by the day where we were living. Where Mike where we were bringing our kids up the stories that I was hearing about what was happening there during the day while I was at work. Sure. And I have a I got to work one day and I got reprimanded twice before I even punched in. So I was already you know, the worst possible mood, I was tired, I was exhausted. I was working six and a half days a week. And I was in this trailer, I was loading food into this trailer and I broke down and just started crying. And I was like, God, please show me something, anything how to get out of this, I don’t know how to turn this around. Because my thought was I have to go to college. But I need time and money to do that. And this is before the internet. I mean, there was no you had to go to a physical building, you had to you know, spend time to go get an education, and it was not a possibility at that time in my life. So I had this voice in my head said change your attitude that night, like it was very it was it was like very loud in my head said change your attitude. And I started playing with that idea. And really long story short, I changed three things in my attitude. And I said, I am really going to see if there’s anything to this, like, can this work? Because it wasn’t that I hadn’t heard that before. That’s what teachers used to tell my parents when I was a kid. You know, like David’s a pretty smart guy. If he would change his attitude about school, he would do well, but I hated school. I just couldn’t stand it. He just hated being there. So I started acting like I loved what I did. I started treating people with respect because actually what it wasn’t that I was a mean person, I was angry and didn’t know what to do with that anger shows taking it out disrespectfully to other people. And I really wasn’t doing the best job that I could because nobody ever showed me how to do that. So I was working to go home. I was raised in a in a in a union environment, so to speak in in Chicago, and it was only about doing what you’re paid for wasn’t there was no attitude about really trying to work your way to the top doing more than you’re paid for. Right? That kind of a of an ideal, I did not have that. So if I change this and make this change, I’m like, I am going to do this for a year and see if, if anything changes in my life because I didn’t know what else to do. In 30 days, I tripled my income. Wow. Yeah. Well, I was right. How did that happen a year? Well, I went from 20,000 a year to 62,030 days. And it so spun my head around that I thought to myself, How can this possibly be how can I how can I make this change and have this happen in in 30 days. And what? What became very interesting to observe was that the opportunity to do that had been around me for two years, but I didn’t see it as an opportunity. Because I was looking through a lens of being angry and blaming and victimized were everywhere that I went. And the what happened was there was this guy that used to come to our doc at key foods twice a week, every Tuesday and every Thursday, and he drove a fuel truck out of Lamont Okay, so a company called Osco fuel. Okay, the big red trucks. You’ve probably seen him downtown. Yeah. Right. So he would come he would come every Tuesday every Thursday, and he filled our trucks with fuel and he also filled the trailers because they were refrigerated trailers, so they had to fill them with diesel fuel. Part of my job was to make sure that he filled the right ones, the ones that we loaded with food to check his ticket off, and then you know, let’s send him on his way. But the guy always read the diesel fuel. Like he really stuck he she had to be outside working, whether it was like 100 degrees and mosquitoes and humans it gets in Chicago, or if it was 20 below out there or if it was pouring rain, he was always out in the element. And we and I used to think to myself, well at least I’m underneath this dock, you know, I get this doc over my head. Like this is some big this guy’s got it real bad. Yeah, right, exactly. And I get to know this guy over two years. His name was drew batty. He used to live in Whiting, Indiana. Now he lives in Michigan. But what but after I make this change, he comes up to me one day, and he says How long are you going to stay here? Because he knew that I wanted to get out that I was looking for something else. And I’m like, Drew, I don’t know. Uh, you know, I have I have absolutely no idea like I would so do something if I only knew what to do. And he said, Why don’t you come to work with me, like coming to work where I’m working. And I’m like, and I started ripping on the guy right in front of him. And I’m like, Dude, you drive a bomb on wheels. You deliver fuel, like, I don’t want to do that. I said, I actually said this. I said this to him. I’m like, has anybody ever died? Driving? That’s a reasonable question. I thought so. Then he says to me, Yes, last year, a guy a guy going down 65 and driving down to Indiana flips it and he burns to death. And I’m like saying, I don’t want to come work for and I want to work with you. And I made this I made the real insulting comment to him. I said, besides all of that, I said how much could you possibly be making? Oh, well, last year I made 50,000 Wow. And I went what Am I get out of here? You didn’t make no 50,000 driving that thing. I don’t know what I was thinking. Like, I didn’t know what I was comparing it to in my mind, but it was pure ignorance on my part. Sure. And he says, I will bring you by check my check stub next week when I come in, I’ll show you if you don’t believe me, I’m like, Yeah, you do that, right. Next week, he comes and he shows me and he had made a little over 50,000. And I’m like, You’re kidding me. So all of a sudden, I’m now looking at this. Like, maybe this is an opportunity pay pay attention here. I had a ton of questions, I had to get over all kinds of personal fear about what this was. Sure. Long story short, though. I went, I went there. Within a week, I got hired, I started working and my income tripled, instantly. Amazing. And the thing was this, because this could have been a story where I went to work there, I acted like I got lucky, I worked really hard and either stayed a truck driver there for the rest of my life, because there were guys that did that, that there spent their whole career driving those fuel trucks. Or maybe I could have gotten into management. It was a small family owned company. So that was kind of rare. But I didn’t look at it as luck. I didn’t believe in luck. I thought to myself, I did something that caused this. I just don’t know what it is, and what not. So I start I pulled out a copy of thinking grow rich that I had when I worked for Metropolitan Life. And in the introduction, there’s a there’s a thing called the slide disguises of opportunity. And Hill says that most people miss opportunity, because they don’t see it as opportunity. They see it as being unfortunate, or misfortune or temporary defeat, they don’t actually see the opportunity that’s in front of them. And when I read that, I thought to myself, that’s what this is. That’s why I didn’t see this for two years, because I was looking at it as something that it’s not. I got so fascinated by that idea. I’m like, I gotta learn more. So I started reading everything I could get my hands on, I started going to seminars, I went to like Tony Robbins in like 1993. And he’s like, rah, rah, it was I thought it was like, this is the coolest thing in the world. I didn’t even know this world existed. And I was on this path for about seven years. And I started working with people because everybody saw my life changing. It just kept getting better and better and better. I started out at this company driving a truck. When I left, I was in charge of expanding the company across the country. And I never went to school, I just kept learning on the job and playing myself the best that I could. And people would say to me, How can I fix my business? Do you have any idea what I could do different, and I would give them advice and they would do it, they would start winning. And I’m like this is a business. So I so in in it’s actually it’s actually this month 1999, October of 1999 is when I started the business 24 years ago. And I started it I walked away from what I was doing, and I never went back. And it’s been a journey of a lifetime. It’s just been unbelievable. D.J. Paris 18:05Well, you have first of all, congratulations on 24 years in the consulting business. And also thank you for your service, as well. I know that you said that earlier in the story, but something that that, you know, I think is important to for us that are not in military service to realize that sometimes, you know, soldiers or people that you know, are in the military, whether they’re soldiers or not, are coming home, they’re finishing up their their commitment, and maybe they don’t I mean, I’m sure there’s more opportunities now for them to develop skills than than existed when you when you were there, but some people come back and they don’t know what to do. And they don’t have those skill sets. So it’s important to remember that, yeah, we and their mess. David Neagle 18:48Yeah. So you know, you’re I was interviewing lieutenant colonel and my own podcast a couple of weeks ago. And he told me, he said, you know, we lost about 7000 men and women in the Afghan war, he said, but we’ve lost over 30,000 due to suicide since they’ve come back. unbeli And he was telling me just you know, the PTSD, the mental illness is horrific, and we’re not doing anything to take care of them. So there’s there’s a major issue out there. D.J. Paris 19:14Well, and yes, and obviously there is so any of us know veterans and people that come back like let’s Let’s put on our empathy and passion hats and let’s figure out how what we can do to help serve them as they served us. But I also wanted to mention you as you were talking about your own journey, I was thinking about it’s probably the name of a book. It certainly isn’t a phrase I made up although I’d love to say that I did. But it sounded like a lot of it was this gift of desperation, right? You had responsibilities. You know, if you were a had been a single guy and you know early on in life where you’re sort of like, I have a crappy job I’m not you know, I don’t see a lot of room for improvement. But it’s only me I’m only sold dealing with my own self that that maybe isn’t for some People as painful as Oh, I have, you know, a family to support. I have, you know, trying to figure out, I have bills to pay, I have all these responsibilities, and I’m stuck. And I think a lot of even our listeners who, who get in get their real estate license, probably a big chunk of the reason why is they want freedom, they want the freedom to work, when they’d like to, they want the ability to be their own boss. Of course, nobody tells them like, that’s a lot to do. And it’s not the easiest thing to figure out on your own, which is why coaching exists and consultants and but it’s, it’s a really hard thing for an individual practitioner to figure out. But I love the fact that as you sort of, you know, progress through your career, even though you were in what, you know, admittedly lower level or lower skilled jobs, you said, your idea was, well, if if I if I change my attitude, let’s just let’s just test this out and see, is there an empirical result? Is there, you know, is my life actually going to look differently, and it tripled your salary? Because you did identify an opportunity that at first glance was not an opportunity. It was like, Oh, that would be a demotion. If I were to come work for you. I might, I might, you know, have injury or die. And also, there’s no way you make any money. You’re the guy filling our trucks. And sure enough, no, there was because, you know, that person was was kind enough to look past some of the jokey insults and go, actually, I do pretty well, and you should come work with me. And you were smart enough, or maybe desperate, and upper, whatever that part is, to be able to go, oh, okay, this is a real thing. And then take action. And I think you’re right, it’s like mindset really allows people like you were saying, in the Napoleon Hill book, you know, to some of some of operate, some of these opportunities that that come to us don’t seem like opportunities, and they almost might even seem like problems. And this idea of keeping your mind open enough to see a different path is exactly what you did. And then when you went to work for this smaller company, which he said, really didn’t have a lot of obvious opportunity, because it’s a family run business, they’re going to be promoting, probably from within, I don’t know if I’m even going to progress. But you know, the one thing that I’m sorry to keep going on and on, but I just wanted, you reminded me of something that I think is so important, which is, which I wish you know, and my parents did a wonderful job raising me but but one thing I wish it would have been drilled into me a little bit more was that even, you know, I was like a dishwasher when I was a teenager, and I had those sort of super low, low skill level jobs. And it’s really hard work is you know, working in a warehouse is crazy hard, I did construction, I did a lot of those those kinds of tasks. And every boss at any of those companies, whether it’s a small family firm or a large, they really are just looking for somebody to shine in whatever position it is, and like the boss goes, Oh, thank God, this, this person cares. And we’re going to keep our eye on this person. And opportunities do become available. Not every time but but in a lot of instances. Or if the company you’re at, doesn’t recognize how well you’re doing. Other people will, and, and they’ll might extend opportunities to you. So I love that story. Okay, so thank you for that. And I really was just really taken in by by your journey. And it’s really obviously very inspiring. So as you I know, you you, you know, work with with a lot of different businesses and also with real estate agents. I want to talk about mindset, because you really talked about, you know, changing attitude, you know, whether we call it attitude mindset, we’d love to hear sort of what your thoughts are on how somebody could actually start to, to identify maybe mindset challenges that they’re experiencing, and then what they can do about it? Well, let Unknown Speaker 23:52me tell you about a couple of interesting things that happened to me with real estate people along my journey very early on. One of the first that I can remember, real estate people that I that that hired me, was a guy who was doing land deals, right. And he was pretty successful here in the states doing land deals. And then the Chinese started to come in. And they were buying up enormous plots of land. These were 100 million dollar deals, and where he was succeeding before he was completely failing. So I don’t remember how he got introduced to me. And I had never really done anything with real estate before. But I had a conversation with him and he hired me. And I said, well tell me what’s going on. He was like, I can’t figure it out. Like I’m succeeding over here. He says, but every, every one of these huge deals that I tried to close with the Chinese, it’s like it’s just going out the window. Well, here’s something that’s interesting. I had some experience working with some Chinese companies, and they do business different. You know, they’re number one. They’re very meticulous about The bottom line and all the different pieces of a contract that may not be important to us here, but they’re very important. It’s very important to that. So anyway, so he’s telling me the story. And I said, Well, where are you losing the deal? And he’s like, it’s at the contract, we’re losing the deal at the contract. We can’t, we can’t seem to agree. And I said, well, like how, tell me what’s going on. So I don’t remember the exact stories. But what he was telling me. And what I I started listening to the story he was telling me it and when became very relevant to me was that what was important to the Chinese was not important to him. And he could not see why these other things were important to that. And it was a cultural issue. So I started talking to him about the reasons why these things were important to them, and that he needed to give great importance to these. And he immediately went out and closed $100 million deal. And then he closed the $200 million deal after that. And the guy just, I mean, that was it. I mean, he was just he was out a rocket ship from that point on. But he said something to me, that was also the huge breakthrough. For me, he’s like, I cannot believe that this was right in front of me, and I couldn’t see it. And I’m literally losing 10s of millions of dollars in commission, because I can’t see this problem. And I’m like, It’s the craziest thing, isn’t it? You know, it’s like we see through this bias of our own. We tried to make everything fit into that. So another another story short one, was that a woman contacted me who was working through some other company that I did work for. And she said, mainly chance, do you work with real estate agents? And I said, Well, I have on occasion, you know, broker here, broker there to everything she said, she said, My brother is in the top 1% of real estate agents with Prudential Realty in the company. And this was right around when the the crisis happened in Oh, eight. And they’re really having trouble, right? Sure. Would you would you talk to them? And I said, Yeah, sure, I’ll talk to him. So I started talking to them. And by shifting what they were focusing on, traditionally, for that not considering what had changed because of this crisis that we were in, they all became stuck. And I had them up and selling within like 10 days from that end, but it but they were so stuck in their mind that nobody would sell because of the crash in the market. Like they had made up their mind that they couldn’t do business. So after reframing it and getting them to reframe the idea of okay, because here’s something that I recognized very early on, were an actually I learned this working with salespeople, salespeople would come up with the idea that because of some situation or reason people stopped buying, right, oh, people aren’t buying because it’s summer, or it’s a Christmas holiday, or their kids are going back to school. And I’m like, That’s all BS, it’s complete BS, there’s two different value systems, you have people that have all the reasons not to buy, because of search situations or circumstances in life, possibly even the amount of money that’s coming in or out of their life, those things that value is higher on their, their priority than somebody else who has a different value set. And what’s more important to them, right? They they buy with a different idea in their mind, if you change who your market is based on, you’re looking for a different value set, instantly, you will move from people that aren’t buying to people that are buying, and they had never thought of that before. So when they would do that they would go from not selling to selling instantly. Just by just by doing that. And of course then you have the people that don’t believe you at all. And they just get us dig their heels in that they’re right. You’re wrong. D.J. Paris 28:52Sure. Yeah. No, this makes so much sense. You know, I was thinking back to the Napoleon Hill quote, I forgot exactly how it was phrased the sly, Sly opportunities, this idea of good opportunities at dying surprises of opportunity, slide disguises of opportunity I love that it reminds me of another phrase call don’t call the elusive obvious. It’s like it’s right there but it’s elusive. You it’s right in front of you. And and you’re absolutely right. You know, and that’s happening right now. And in the in most Realtors businesses today we have rates, you know, have doubled since their lows of A Few Years Ago and even though rates are still relatively low in comparison to Two Years Ago, you know, realtors are going oh my gosh, people people don’t want to buy right now. And it’s like okay, maybe the people that wanted to buy two Years Ago with a 3% interest rate Yeah, now that maybe they don’t want to take a loan out for six and a half percent right now even though to me that’s still pretty reasonable, but maybe to them it isn’t. But there are lots of people who who will who will find opportunities to purchase or to sell property now. That that but it You’re right, it results, it requires a shift in mindset for the agent to say, Okay, where are these people that are interested in in taking advantage? It’s almost like buying a stock when it’s undervalued. That’s right. Yes. It’s not, it’s harder to find people that, you know, will do that because it goes against some just general sort of human behavior of oh, it’s it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, at a loss right now, do I want to buy something at a loss? Yes, you do, if you think it’s going to go up, but the vast majority of people don’t maybe operate or think that way. So you do have to change your mindset, and then go, Okay, well, where are these people hanging out, or it reminds me of a quick story I heard from a really successful car dealer, when this was back during the, the oil embargo in the in the 70s, when there was oil, just massive oil, or sorry, gasoline shortages. And so, you know, people weren’t buying big cars, because they it was too difficult to get gas. And so these car salespeople were struggling, and the really successful ones went, Well, where do I Where can I go? Where people don’t care that much about this? Who can still buy luxury cars? Like, oh, what if I go hang out at a country club? What if I drive one of our fancy cars over there? Are those people still buying cars? Probably? Those are people least affected by something like that. So So yes, you’re right. There’s always opportunity. But you’re right. It’s about understanding, how do I how do I shift? And it requires a right a shift in belief and attitude? How do you? How do you suggest people start to examine their beliefs? And then and then change them? Unknown Speaker 31:30Well, that’s that. So that’s a great point right there. Because you talked about people coming into being a real estate agent or a broker because they would give them freedom. But psychologically, with the average business person, does that’s going to start their own business, is the sell at the level that they believe is easiest for them? Sure. Right. So they’re so they may not go after the guy that sell the $10 million house, they might go after somebody selling $130,000 house? Because that’s what they see themselves as so part of it is to address that, right? How what lens are you actually seeing the business world through, isn’t at your comfort level, because just like you said, with going to the country club, there are a ton of people out there that want to buy and sell right now, because they have different reasons for buying and selling. They’re not nickel and diming. Their their ideas of what they want to commit to it, that 3% doesn’t mean anything to them, they could care less, right? What the percentage is, they just want to move or need to move for various different reasons. And they’re probably looking at much bigger sales when they actually do that. So the first thing that I say is, if they’re not seeing if they’re actually not seeing that, that opportunity, then I challenged them to look at their own comfort zone for who they’re actually selling to. Right, because now that that opportunity has shifted, the only way that they’re going to be successful is if they grow out of that, if they grow out of that level themselves, then they have to actually start to see the opportunity at a different level. So how can they internally shift their value set to go after a different type of a client maybe even increased their own goals in their life? You know, really go after more? When that starts to click generally you see the the alternative of that go like they’ll start looking at other people. I got a 21 year old kid that that is a broker. He was a friend of my daughter’s and he’s probably doing about 5 million a year right now, man, so he just he would he just goes after commercial real estate. Like he learned. He watched he goes in he negotiates. He finds things he looks for reasons people want to sell and he’s just not going to debt and he’s a young guy with no experience. D.J. Paris 33:48I 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. 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 fine. 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, it’s really impressive we, we bring out a lot of agents who are in their 20s, who are killing it. And because I always find like, boy that just impresses me again, most, most people I knew in my early to mid 20s weren’t buying and selling homes. So it wasn’t like I could just, you know, hit up my friends who were buying condos, no, they weren’t buying condos, they were renting, and living with roommates and all of that. But you’re you’re absolutely right. I think, you know, for anyone listening, I think there’s this, if you get a little tinge in your stomach of discomfort, when you think about, well, I would like to sell, you know, maybe it’s more luxury properties, or I want to make the switch to commercial, if I’m residential, or I just want to do something a little different than what is in my comfort zone. You know, if I’m selling homes that are 100. And you know, like you said, 140,000, and I really want to sell homes that are 300,000. And above, you know, it’s, but it scares me like that, I think is is an important thing to note is if you get a little bit scared, but you know, it’s like the next part for you, it’s probably the right path. So there’s a little bit about getting comfortable with discomfort, right? I think that’s like, if you can tolerate that little pittance in your stomach and realize that’s a signal that I’m a little bit scared to the next level, but people get to the next level people do it. And, and so what would you recommend? If you’re like, Okay, I want to get to that next level. You know, and I and I, I’m not exactly sure, you know, but I, you know, I’m scared because I don’t maybe I don’t have the skill set yet to do that. Or I don’t know how to reach those people. You know, what would you what would you recommend? Unknown Speaker 36:44So the first thing that I recommend is I asked them what they really want? What are your goals? What do you really want, because if you’re really being honest with yourself, part of your inner direction of what you desire will begin to lead you into the outer possibility of whatever that is that you’re looking for. But most people are not raised in an environment where it’s okay for them to want what they want. Right? So they’re right, you’re you’re kind of raised with this idea, like you don’t need that. Only buy what you need, don’t spend more than you need, or you don’t deserve it. That’s, that’s absolutely, absolutely. So they so they get stuck in a financial freedom in their mind that keeps them at a very low level. And then when they do business there, they’re actually looking for people that are struggling, just like them. So so that’s one of the first things that I do there. And the other thing is, is I kind of reframe the idea of fear, because most people will say to me, David, how do I get rid of this fear, like I just got all the all this fear. And I’m like you don’t, you know, matter of fact, you don’t want to write either is actually a good thing. It keeps us alive. If we removed all of your fear, you probably be dead in a couple of weeks, because you wouldn’t be alert to things that could actually kill you. So the idea is, what is fear doing for you? All it’s doing is it’s saying, Hey, here’s something you should pay attention to. It’s not saying follow the fear. It’s not saying listen to the fear, it’s a pay attention, because there’s something outside of the way that we’re wired. That is possible threat. So pay attention, but then you’re supposed to use your intellect to evaluate whether or not this is a fear? And if so why and if y then what is it that you need to do so that so it’s about teaching a person how to think through the possibility of whatever fear is suggesting, because it’s not an absolute, it’s just a suggestion. And it should be a suggestion, it keeps us on our toes for what we’re doing and helps us make better decisions. The other thing is that if you make a decision, and you made the wrong decision, that’s not a bad thing. It’s a great thing, because it gives you real world data to reevaluate how you made the decision. And then to go back and make a different one. Right? Every entrepreneur fails their way to their success D.J. Paris 38:58that I want. I want to pause for a second, because that is the most true thing I have experienced. I’d read that a lot. Certainly when I was growing up, and I yeah, all you see, all I would see is the success. And of course you don’t see the failures. It’s almost like looking on Instagram, you don’t, you don’t see as much of the botched meals that people make, or, you know, the pictures of their spouses that haven’t been retouched in the, you know, it’s like, we’re not seeing videos of them yelling at having an argument with it with their children on, you know, but, but this idea that learning actually comes from failure and failure, not failure is probably the wrong word. But but we’re not getting the results you want. Or if you you know step on your own success and you you know, make the mistake that that you know, feels like it costs you. You’re absolutely right. The most successful entrepreneurs I know are the ones that fail the most. Unknown Speaker 39:50Yeah, absolutely. In our in our company. We we my CEO has developed something called sun shining your mistakes which Is your we want you to make mistakes here, right? Because if you’re not making mistakes, we’re not stretching enough. And if we’re not stretching enough, we’re not learning and growing. So it’s constantly, it’s fine to make mistakes. But it’s weird because well, it’s not really weird anymore. But it is an interesting thing, that when people come to work for with us, and they you start to bring them into that culture, they’re a little standoffish about it. And the reason is, is because people are taught mistakes or not, okay, we start learning that message in grade school. And it’s like, no, you’ve got to get it right, you’ve got to get it perfect. You can’t, you know, you’ll never be able to hold down a job if you screw things up, and then up people that are paralyzed in the decision making process, and nothing like you don’t have any information. So you make a decision, you have to make a decision. It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong, just make the decision. And then we’ll pick up the pieces as we go and make new ones. D.J. Paris 40:56Yeah, I agree. I really well said I have nothing more to add to that. Because it is so important to what’s like that old expression, feel the fear and do it anyway. Right? Like, yes, the fear is there, pay attention, and then identify as this, you know, someone chasing me with a knife, do I really need to run and get out of harm’s way? Maybe? And then Okay, great. And if it’s if it’s, oh, I’m just worried about failing, I’m worried about, you know, taking my career to the next level. Good. Now you know what you’re afraid of, and now you can work to, to reframe that and learn whatever skills you need. Because, again, fear is, like you said, providing information to us. There’s something that’s stopping me from moving forward. Now, I’ve identified what it is, Oh, it’s this this glitch I have, because my parents always told me I wouldn’t be successful or whatever, whatever the backstory is, okay. That’s your story. That’s, that’s fine. And yes, thankfully, there are paths forward. One of the things I wanted to talk about, because I think realtors, oftentimes, you know, as I said, at the beginning, they’re wearing so many different hats. They’re basically every part of their company. And of course, one person’s skill set, inherent skill set to their, their, you know, makeup, a genetic makeup, is probably not going to be sufficient to do every part of a business, which is why, you know, why, why there are employees and businesses that can do things that maybe other people can’t do. So I want to talk about delegation, like delegating work, because so many realtors are just solo practitioners. And I’m curious about your thoughts about how to delegate and how somebody should identify parts of their business that they should step away from, and and have someone else do for that? Unknown Speaker 42:37Great question. So we have a saying, when when there’s a problem that shows up or there’s too much work that shows up the question in your mind should be who not how, who, not how, because you’re not supposed to be doing all the work. The the idea of a self made person is a ridiculous idea. There’s no such thing. And, you know, you’re probably only really good at one or two things, everything else you need to find people that are better than you. So the so that you should be consistently thinking who not how, and I need to build in the direction that I want to go, I should not be hiring based on an emergency in my company, but then it always comes down to well, how are you going to pay for it? Well, first of all, you have to hire strategically. But the idea is that the hiring of a person is supposed to free you up to go make more sales not bog you down to so that you can’t actually pay for the person. And what’s really fascinating is that if you look at companies that really hire in with the idea of in the direction they want to grow as a company, they always find a way to pay people, but you don’t need to pay a person until you make a decision to actually hire the person to begin with. Right. So when you make that decision, you change yourself over to a completely different type of desire and necessity in your life to be happy. So you actually start manifesting more business by taking on more responsibility. D.J. Paris 44:03This is a really important point and and it isn’t just a sort of a nice thing to say because it sounds good. This is really important. And I think we all all of us listening have been in a situation where we want it to get to some next level whether it’s our career or relationships are great, a great example so if we’re not in a relationship that we desire to be in one and we really work through what we want kind of partner we want the kind of partner we’re gonna be all of a sudden once that’s kind of worked out and it doesn’t work this way for everybody but for people who really put a lot of time in to going okay, I want to get serious about you know, finding a partner. It does eventually show up at usually the right exact time. But but it does it or some people just get lucky, I guess and it happens, you know when they least expect it. But for most of us once we put our mind to something you’re right, all of a sudden the blinders almost come off, and it’s Like our field of vision expands, almost I know that’s kind of a, you know, a bit of a metaphor, but But it actually sort of does happen. You’re right, opportunities just start presenting themselves. I’ll give you a perfect example. So I’ve always been, I didn’t pick up I realized I was very sensitive. And I didn’t know what that meant. I just knew that I felt things maybe more deeply than, than certain other people in my life. And I, I felt disconnected sometimes. And I was, you know, I cry easily and a few other things. And so I started, I was thinking about it. A couple of years ago, I was in an airport, and I go, I wonder if there’s a condition or not a condition. But I wonder if there’s something that there’s like a category of people, like, I can’t be the only person out there. But my whole life, I just been told, Oh, you’re just too sensitive or whatever. Or and I would tell myself that and then I just got to be some other people out there like me. And so I Google it. Well, sure enough, there’s a whole temperament it affects 20% of the population. It’s not a negative. It’s just the temperament. And it’s called highly sensitive. And it’s actually a legitimate thing. And because I just said, Maybe this isn’t a DJ thing. Maybe there’s, you know, other people that that could, you know, help give me some guidance about what to do with the sensitivity. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just something you have to learn how to cope, right? All of a sudden, I found this whole community and I went, Oh, I’m not one of every five peoples like me. And oh, and there’s all sorts of help I can get to help me learn skills to cope with this thing that I thought is a massive disadvantage. For me. It turns out, it’s not a disadvantage at all. But But this idea of, you know, 44 years of my life, I was like, Oh, this is this awful burden I have to carry. It’s like, actually, you know, now I can, because I opened up my mind to maybe there’s a there’s, this is called something. And it’s like, Oh, wow. And now I’ve gotten immersed in that community. And it’s like, oh, yeah, this is, but you’re right. It’s like it’s about changing one’s mindset and seeing what opportunities exist. Unknown Speaker 46:51It’s a it’s a great gift, being an empath. I mean, that your sensitivity allows you to see things in people and read people in ways that other people can’t even begin to understand. Yeah, that is a fantastic gift to have. It D.J. Paris 47:08sure is, and, and back to delegating for a second, because did you ever think that we would live at a time where we now can access work from all over the globe, from people who don’t live down the street who don’t live in our local communities, and if you can hire people locally, that’s awesome as well, and ice, but not everyone can right away, maybe the finances just aren’t there. But you know, you need help. I mean, it was a lot tougher to do that, you know, 20 years ago, even. And now, you know, with the with, with us just being connected globally, we can find help from all corners of the of the globe, and oftentimes for less money than maybe that we couldn’t afford to hire somebody locally for it. That’s right. Unknown Speaker 47:52That’s right. Yeah. And we teach people how to do that all the time. Because it is a major, it’s a major obstacle in the mind of the person. But I want to challenge everybody that’s listening this like, I’m not saying you have to believe me, do investigate this yourself. Listen, our podcasts and you’ll, you’ll begin to understand it because it does take a bit of time to understand it. But let’s, let’s be aware of something very important. If your parents were not entrepreneurial, you were basically raised middle class working class, the rules and values for surviving financially, when that’s the class that you’re raised by are completely different than if you’re in business for yourself. And I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m not doing a good bad comparison. I’m just saying different. And justifiably so if somebody else is completely in control of your income, you’re working for another person, you have to make decisions based on that reality, because you don’t have the ability to increase your income that will. But when you’re in your business, you do have that ability. So the more you understand that ability, and you have the ability to exercise it, it comes down to this, I only have to be concerned about hiring somebody, even if I don’t have the money, I only have to be concerned about hiring somebody if I’m not willing to do the work to pay for them. If I’m willing to do the work to pay for this person, I can go ahead and hire anybody that I want. And I can make the I can make the determination to make the money to be able to do it. And I become extremely focused in that direction. And we do that with companies every day, every day. And they’re just astounded by the idea that they were just psychologically stuck that they couldn’t do it. Because they didn’t necessarily have the cash in hand to do it. I’m like, you don’t need to have the cash in hand. You need to make the decision to do it. And you need to make the decision that you’re going to work in what your sales to bring the money in to be able to do it. Changes. Yeah, D.J. Paris 49:46it really does. And it’s it’s, it almost appears as if sometimes by magic, and it isn’t magic, but there’s a magical element to it that when we put our minds to something and we really commit and You know, like, I’m going to head to the gym here shortly. And I nobody hates the gym more than me. But all I did was I said, Look, here’s the reality, I cannot, I will not go by myself and I’m, at the time was 44 years old. I’m like, I know myself, I would love to go to the gym on my own, it’s not going to happen. And there’s a little defeatist attitude there. But it was very honest. I was like, Look, I’ve been living in this body for 44 years, I pretty much know what I’m motivated to do and not do. But is there a solution? Can I still get fit? Well, I had to go, I’m just gonna have to do the expensive option and hire a trainer. And I thought I can’t afford it. It’s It is an incredible amount of money. And yet, here I am, two years later, it’s not that my income has dramatically shifted, where I just now have so much money that I can hire trainers. No, I did it even when I really couldn’t afford it. And sure enough, the money showed up. It just kept showing up. It’s not like, you know, you know, it’s not showing enough showed up, or I could continue to do that. And here I am now two years later, and I all I did was change my attitude. I just went, I’m going to have to pay for this, I’m going to have to figure out a way to pay for this or else I’m not going to be healthy. And it was really that simple. And you’re absolutely right. Like I never thought I could afford to pay for that. And somehow I did. Unknown Speaker 51:19Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s a, it’s a very interesting dynamic with human beings. When we are split focused on something, all we do is see the confusion and the reasons that we can’t, when we make a decision, we really focus in on what it is that we need. And we have to understand something, we’re programmed to manifest what we need, we will always get what we need. But people aren’t consciously aware of that when you become consciously aware of that everything in your life changes because you’re like, holy crap, I had no idea that this would actually work if I if I did it. But you have to be willing to try it in order to be able to do it, you got to step into those decisions. To do it. It I mean, it completely changed my life. And I got the first semblance of that when I made the decision to change my attitude. And all of a sudden, everything in my life changed because of it. I’m like, wait a minute, what, what thing matrix did I just walk through, this isn’t supposed to happen to a 17 year old dropout? Like it’s not I’m not supposed to triple my income in a month. But then, so that from there, I went from 50,000 a year to 50,000 a month, and then over a million and then beyond that. And it was like it, it just kept getting better. But I kept doing the same principles that I was learning along the way. And it’s everybody else around me could not even begin to understand how this could even be possible. Except for the D.J. Paris 52:44people that have gone before you Of course, yes. Who know it and and they look at you and go, Oh, he’s one of us. Yeah, that’s it. And, and, and the good news, too, about pretty much every local community, you know, whether you live in rural Montana, or Iowa, or you’re in a major city, like you’re outside of Charlotte, I’m here and in Chicago, there are people that have done this, and and I would encourage you to beg, plead with them to develop a friendship or relationship or at least take them out to coffee. And say, tell me about how do you start your day? What do you what do you say, when you wake up to yours? You know, when you come across a problem or a challenge? What are you doing? And it’s amazing success leaves clues, doesn’t it? I mean, people will just not even close people will just tell you, this is what I do. Unknown Speaker 53:30Yeah. Yeah. And and the higher you go as far as successful people, the more information that they’ll give you, because we want to help people, right? I mean, I want to help people. That’s what I learned how to do what I did when I became aware of it. I’m like, I thought at the time, this is the greatest secret on the planet. Nobody knows this. Right? I found something out, I can’t believe and it was very true that many people don’t know, most people are not raised in that with that kind of a mindset. And people will say to me, Well, Mike, you know, come on mindset really isn’t that like, you know, looky looky are, you know? And I’m like, No, it isn’t. Mindset is the way you do anything. Right? It is the way you think about things, the way that you learn about things and your mindset is biased to the way that you were raised. Yeah. So that’s the only thing that you know, but there’s things way beyond what you know, that can have an amazing impact. Like you said, it’s almost like magic on your life and people just don’t know D.J. Paris 54:29it. And it might not come in the timeframe that you’re expecting. In fact, it likely won’t. It’ll either take longer or shorter. So that’s also the another challenge is to is to commit to the activity or the discipline and trust that, you know, the answers will reveal themselves at the right time. It just might not be the time that’s most convenient for you. Absolutely. Tell us about the podcast. So we’ve been talking about it and I want our audience to have a resource where they can go and reset their mind their expectations. And again, this is not from, you know, David’s not a guy who knows the the sort of, you know, cool sounding phrases and things to say he actually consults businesses, he you know, he’s worked with multibillion dollar businesses. This is somebody who is paid to get results. So, so I love that you have a podcast and you’re not just a self help guy, which you know, some self help guys are amazing. But I like people that get results in the real world, too. And so tell us about the successful mind podcast. Unknown Speaker 55:32So in 2017, I was I just I got the idea. Like, I want to try a podcast. At that point, there were about 500,000 podcasts today. There’s 4 million alone in in the United States, right. That’s grown that much. Yeah. So I started it. And I was doing it. And me and my partner Steph, to us. What we were having a meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk, in New York, in his office, and we were sitting around just kind of shooting the shit with him. And we were talking and he was like, how’s the podcast going? And we’re telling them, and he says to me, what, what information are you putting out in the podcast? Right? And we had been doing it for about a year at this point. And I was telling him and he said, is that your best information? And I said, What do you mean best? He’s like, is that the results driven information that you would give a private client? I’m like, No. And he said, I want you to start giving. He said, I challenge you to start giving that information for free on the podcast. And I’m like, Are you kidding me? He’s like, my secret sauce. I can’t give that for free. Yeah. So then he says something to me, that really kind of changed my my vision on Sunday, he saw me he said, David, let me ask you a question. He’s just honest, just between us? Is there anything that you teach that if a person knew what it was, they couldn’t find it on the internet? And I’m like, That’s a good point. He’s like, it’s the same thing with me. He said, so they’re not paying for the information. They’re paying for contact, right. So when you get when you consult somebody, they’re paying for contact or paying for strategy, they’re paying for that. But the information itself, they could get anywhere, they just don’t know what it is. He said, so if you give enough of that information, you’re gonna grow your business and D.J. Paris 57:12or they don’t know who to trust, they don’t know whose information is accurate. And you can build your brand through a podcast of, Hey, I am an authority figure here, I do actually have real world experience and results. Let me let me tell you what I do. And then you’re right, even though it maybe you didn’t, you know, create all of your own learning, you’ve learned it through others, and through other experience, you still can be of incredible value to people, even if you give away the secret sauce, Unknown Speaker 57:42yes. And that. So that’s what I started doing. We’re like, Okay, I’m gonna give this a try and see what happens. Our major concern was that it would piss off our private clients, if they should get angry, because they’re overpaying for this. We never had one of them even even say that it wasn’t even a thought on their mind. But what did happen was that every time that we would do a live event, or a seminar, or a speaking engagement or something, one of the one of the things that we would ask people on a forum would be how did you hear about us? And almost overnight, we started getting tons of people going the Podcast, the podcast, that was our first introduction. Now, it’s hard to measure that as you know, right? I mean, because these aren’t getting as much D.J. Paris 58:21data. Very little, unfortunately, very little. Unknown Speaker 58:24Exactly right. It’s not like it’s not like your regular marketing campaigns that give you tons of information. But you do get the information on the opposite side, when you ask people, How did you first hear about us? And they tell you, it’s the podcast, you know, that thing is working. And, you know, I mean, we went over 2 million views in a relatively short period of time, without any marketing agenda on our end, just putting it out there. So it’s spread by word of mouth. So it’s, it’s a really great thing. And there’s a ton of teaching on there. And there’s also we just started something new me and Steph tous she’s my CEO of my company. And we’re currently do once a week we’re telling stories based on real challenges that companies that we work with have and how we’re actually fixing those things for people on so so that so we’re doing that and people are loving what they’re loving it so check it out. Yeah, so everyone D.J. Paris 59:16I want everyone to consider no I’m not don’t consider just subscribe listen to one episode, see if you like it because you know, sometimes what you what you all you really need is a different voice telling you this is telling you in some cases, things you already know. But if it’s coming from an outside source that you trust and that has authority, a lot of times that can sort of sink in a lot a lot easier than trying to convince yourself of something that you know maybe you read in a book at some point but never implemented. So give give David’s voice and his and his partner’s voice a shot because they get results. So everyone subscribe to the successful mind. Podcast. It is available everywhere podcasts are served, so call couple ways you can find it, just go to whatever podcast app you’re using and search for the successful mind, you’ll find David, and you can subscribe there, or we’ll have a link to it in our show notes. Also, you can visit David’s website, David nagel.com. That’s an E A g l e, also a link to that is in our show notes. So you can learn about all things David, and his company at David nagel.com. Well, David, I think this is a perfect place to wrap up. And really, really appreciate your time on the show, you’ve inspired me to think even for myself outside of the box, this is my fifth year doing this podcast and I, you know, we’ve tried to make improvements and adjustments along the way, but am I putting out my very best content, I need to examine that and think about, you know, what I could be adding or subtracting from the show to to make it better. So the best way that you guys can help me do that is by letting me know what you think of the show. So best way is, let us give us a review. Good, bad or indifferent. We want to know what you think because this show is for you. And if we don’t know what you need, it’s hard for us to make improvements. So let us know. Leave us a review whatever podcast app you use, let us know send us messages, emails to the show that also helps us. And also let David know what you think about the successful mind. Go check out an episode and let him know so that he can better meet your needs on his own podcast as well. So David, thank you on behalf of our audience, thank you. This was a coaching session that you really gave, you know, 20,000 people, and we they appreciate it. So how about doing David a solid and subscribing to his podcast? Maybe you’d get more of this every single time he publishes an episode. I know I’m going to subscribe. So David, thank you for challenging pleasure, man. I mean, in my own comfort zone to do better on this podcast and everyone can always get to the next level. But sometimes you just need a different voice telling you to do certain things. So on behalf of the audience, we thank David for his his time and on behalf of David and myself we want to thank the audience for making it all the way to the end of this episode. One more thing will ask if you telephoned think of one other agent out there that’s struggling to get to the next level and maybe just needs a little bit of encouragement this episode should help them do that and also turn them on to David’s podcasts successful mind for regular you know, regular episodes about exactly that. So sent, let them know about our show. Let them know about David’s show and we would appreciate that. So David, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode.

Leah Canfield a 30 under 30 laureate for 2022 from Breckenridge Colorado talks about how she transitioned from her skiing career into in real estate. Leah discusses her approach to the real estate market and how she got her name to be quoted in local newspapers. Next, Leah describes how she started working in the new development world early in her career. Leah also discusses gut instinct and how she manifests it in her business. Last, Leah describes why she believes the grind culture kills your creativity. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Leah Canfield can be reached at leah@mountainhomesgroup.com and 970.485.1571. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does one of the top skiers in the country transition to real estate and become one of the top Realtors in the country all before the age of 30? Will stay tuned we’re going to find out 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 30 under 30 Winner Lea Canfield. But before we get to Leah just a couple of quick announcements as always, thank you for listening to our show. The best way you can help us continue to do more episodes is by telling a friend so think of one other realtor that you know maybe someone in your office or a Realtor you meet out there in the field that needs to hear from conversations like the one you’re about to hear from Lea telling you how to become a top agent. So tell a friend that’s the always the best way you can help us continue to grow and now on to my conversation with Leah Canfield. Today on the show we have Lea Winfield from Mountain homes group with Coldwell Banker mountain properties in Breckenridge and all of Summit County in Colorado. Let me tell you more about Lia. Lia Canfield is a real estate agent in her hometown of Breckenridge, Colorado and she grew up ski racing, and was at the peak of her career, the fastest Junior Super G skier in the country. Now she is now one of the top selling Coldwell Banker agents not only in the country, but actually in the entire world. She ranks in the top point 4% of all Coldwell Banker agents worldwide. She has been named to both Coldwell bankers and realtor magazine’s 30 under 30 She loves to ski mountain bike and travel, I want you to visit Leah at her group’s a homepage, which is mountain homes group.com Again, mountain homes group.com That link will be in our show notes. Leah, welcome to the show. Leah Canfield 3:31Thank you what what an intro? D.J. Paris 3:34Well, I am I will tell you the intro doesn’t even begin to really explain how excited I am. Because, you know, we’ve done I think, I don’t know what number episode this will be some 400 the low four hundreds. And you know I oftentimes this is a little embarrassing, I sometimes don’t get to do the prep for the show until pretty close to to the show. I have people that that helped put together notes for me and I was really excited this morning when I got to the office and started reading about you because not only of course, you know you have this sort of impressive background with with you know, competitive skiing and being an athlete, but also having a tremendous success pretty early on in the business career of being a real estate agent. And you also gave us a some talking points that we’re going to get into about grind culture and your thoughts on that. So I am really, really excited to chat with you. So thank you for coming on the show. I don’t always get to say that or don’t always even feel that sometimes with with all of the guests that we have as much as I love our guests. This one really speaks to me this topic of Brian culture. So I would love to start all the way at the beginning of of sort of where you entered. I’d love to start really at the beginning of competitive skiing and move our way into real estate because I think there’s probably some parallels and some disciplines that that translate it over. But tell us about this. How did Have you been skiing your entire life starting out very young or did you get it? Yeah. When you were Leah Canfield 5:04okay. Now Yeah, I started very young. I learned to ski when I was two, my dad actually a whole different story. But he’s an amputee above the knee. He was a big skier. And he was apparently a Paralympian. So he really got me into the sport. And I ski race through my whole childhood, through being a young adult, I got to travel internationally to series, which was very cool. I don’t think I even realized how cool it was until now. And I started to get some really good success. But I was one of those people that was always going like 120%. So that led to actually quite a bit of injury in my career, I had five knee surgeries before I turned 20. And those are really, they have quite a long recovery time period. So sure, like five or six years, I was just under the knife and in physical therapy, and just always trying to get back into sport and then re injuring myself. So that D.J. Paris 5:57was where the injuries were the injuries due to like, falling, or were they like wearing out the cartilage or? Leah Canfield 6:05Yeah, it was a little bit of both. It was some like coming back to sport too soon or too aggressively. Some certainly crashing. Some actually were due, I think, to some procedures that in the medical field, they thought were going to be very successful and actually had a pretty high failure rate. So some failed kind of installations of, you know, ligaments and so forth. But But yeah, it was it was a lot. So ultimately, that was going to be my career path. I had decided for myself. D.J. Paris 6:35Were you thinking like were you looking at Olympics was that? Leah Canfield 6:38Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was going to be this was my life. But I decided, hey, look, this is my body’s not designed for this. And this is too much I quit. Yeah, which was tough. But then after that, I wasn’t sure what to do. I worked at a coffee shop down, which is still here and record plants for a few years. And I was like, Okay, I got to, I got to do something. I felt like I had to do something. So I went to a local community college just for like a summer and went to a few classes. I had an economics teacher who says hey, like buy these books, buy these business books. So I bought them. And my now husband at the time was like, what a waste of money like those are going to put you to sleep. You’re never going to read those. I like to tell that story now. Because they literally changed our lives. We just started our journey into learning about, like financial freedom and personal finance, and how real estate can have such a huge role in this developing net worth and like freedom of your own life really had, yeah, all those great topics so D.J. Paris 7:46that you mind sharing one of one or more titles. If they changed your life I want to hear about Leah Canfield 7:52they did and there’s so many good ones. But like some of the real basics learning, like what an asset is what a liability is. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I read that, like lightbulb. You know, some people love that book. Some people hate it, but I felt like it was life changing for me. D.J. Paris 8:06No question about that book, because I always want to ask someone do is a primary residence and asset. I know this is a debatable topic, you know, what Leah Canfield 8:15is your? I? I think it depends. I can’t just say yes or no, because the definition of an asset in my mind, and probably from reading verbatim from the book is something that makes you money, right? Something which this does D.J. Paris 8:29not only on the day you sell it possibly could make you money. Yeah, Leah Canfield 8:33exactly. And we’ve taken this approach with our primary residence at least that we’ve decided to build this and build it as an investment. But, you know, the fact that we didn’t sell it after a couple years, and we’re still living here, it’s questionable, you know, so it’s a lifestyle someday. It’s a lifestyle investment. But I will say that we were very intentional about the equity we had in our house, the location, making sure that we were treating it not just as a primary residence, but also as an investment. So we had our multiple hat on when we pursued our home. And I think we always kind of will, but it depends. And that’s D.J. Paris 9:10the only reason I’m bringing that up is I feel that oftentimes I’ll ask Realtors not so much on the show, but just in my day to day understanding, and sometimes they’ve never been asked that question. And I’ve always thought it’s a really important thing to have a position on whether it’s yes, it’s an asset. No, it’s not or it depends. Yeah, I have an answer, because there are a lot of people who will be having questions like that. And anyway, so I’m sorry, I don’t want to get us in what’s just because you mentioned that I wanted to hear your perspective. Yeah, Leah Canfield 9:40I would say that it’s a really important savings account, especially for people who maybe aren’t very actively investing. Having equity built in your home is some of the it’s the only way for some people that they can actually successfully retire. So if you’re not an active investor and you’re not happy buying, you know, cash flowing investment properties and building up your 401k or your retirement plan. Sometimes a home is your only real worth when it comes to net worth. So I think it’s extremely important for a lot of people. D.J. Paris 10:07So anyway, you read, read books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad that can change your life. And then how did you decide to get into to get into real estate as not just maybe an investor or somebody who’s going to be selling it? Leah Canfield 10:20Yeah. So we started on the investment side, I actually then went to CU Boulder got my degree in finance and real estate, during which time we’ve picked started a very small investment company, like a few people and bought a little house and fix it up and rented it out and then sold it and then did that a handful of times. And after the first time, we bought that house, I was like, we bought this, and I have absolutely no idea what just happened, right? You know, I went to school to study this. And I’m like, what, you know. So then I realized I need to get my real estate license to learn what I’m doing in order to be a real investor who takes herself seriously. So I started and just got my license to support the investment side. And then it really grew from there. And I realized just how, number one, it was much more challenging than I thought it was gonna be. And number two is more lucrative than I thought it could ever be. And more fun. So yeah. D.J. Paris 11:12grew and how long have you been practicing as as a realtor? Leah Canfield 11:16It’s been almost seven years. So 2015. Yeah. Yeah. D.J. Paris 11:21So you got it, you really got into it pretty quickly after. So you say your your ski career sort of came to a conclusion. Then it was college and then right into sort of investing in real estate. Yeah. And being being a realtor. So let’s go back seven years only because seven years doing the quick math on that. Okay. So, yeah, yeah, 2015 ish. I’m just trying to think of what the market conditions were at that time. What was it like starting a career in real estate now? Yes, you you I imagine you have some sort of public notoriety being from Breckenridge being, being a competitive skier that that’s probably been in the newspapers a lot and sort of the, you know, whatever publications, people there read, so I’m sure you’re known to some degree in your community, although there’s probably a lot of competitive skiers there too. Leah Canfield 12:14incredible athletes. D.J. Paris 12:16But did you know but making a pivot? Oh, I’m sure making a pivot from professional being a professional athlete to then selling real estate in a person in their early 20s. What was that? Like? I imagine that couldn’t have been necessarily an easy thing. Leah Canfield 12:33No, it really wasn’t. People did know me for sure. But they weren’t. They knew me as like someone’s kid. They knew my parents, they know me, because I have been here since I was like mine. Right? And so they weren’t, you know, when it comes time for them to sell their multimillion dollar home, they’re not like, Yeah, let’s hire, let’s hire a friend’s kid. That was certainly tough. And not only that, but our market is extremely saturated with agents. There’s like this running joke that, you know, if you are at a dinner party, the cast people that are real estate agents. And so it was highly competitive as well. So my initial strategy actually wasn’t to go after clientele, of local people that I knew because they also already knew a dozen or more agents that have done in a business much longer than me. So that wasn’t my initial approach. I, I started really focusing on one of our our number one feeder market, which is the Denver Front Range area and working on getting those people as they come into town and stroll Main Street, and also making really good connections with the agents that work in Denver that have clients who say, Hey, we’re thinking about buying something in the mountains. So that was my approach. And I think that that really helped me get a foothold in the industry instead of you know, it’s another one of those books that I read. It’s great as the Blue Ocean Strategy, D.J. Paris 13:47I felt, I don’t know this. Let’s say that one more time blue ocean. Leah Canfield 13:50Yeah, it’s what a blue ocean and it’s just in a nutshell, it’s like, you know, you have your red ocean, which is highly competitive. You know, I think it’s like the D.J. Paris 13:59big a local Breckinridge agent is red ocean, competing with Leah Canfield 14:03the, you know, for the same clients that everyone is competing for. And the blue ocean strategy is like, hey, what’s a way that you can look at your business a little differently, where you have a lot less competition, and that was the way that I did that was say, Hey, I’m not going to compete for this one client that has, you know, a dozen realtor friends. I’m going to go after this person who doesn’t know anybody and Breck D.J. Paris 14:22Yeah, I love that. So you made you made friends with with realtors in the Denver area. Yeah. Because you don’t support the Denver area personally or no. And they don’t support Breckenridge. So this is this is that makes boy that makes so much sense really a great opportunity for any of our listeners who either you know, live in areas where people buy vacation homes, or maybe where they retired to, or in the flip side, you have people that are leaving to go elsewhere and in Illinois, Florida is a place where a lot of for tax purposes people retire for, obviously the weather and you know, whatever other reasons are Um, they might go there. And so that would be, you know, anyone who’s a Florida agent, you should be just calling every realtor, you know, in the country and saying, Hey, if they’re thinking of moving here, so that’s very interesting. So how so? So you then you was more about building relationships. And you also said something also as, as the people from Denver were coming into town, how were you sort of intercepting? Leah Canfield 15:23Well, so I don’t know if all offices have like a floor agent. Right. So I was working on floor lot. I was at the end, we have an office right on Main Street. And that was extremely difficult for me because I had to overcome this sense that there was like something wrong with salespeople that they were like, bad people. And I had that somehow ingrained in me that like, if I was going to sell something to someone, I was like, doing a bad thing, right. So I was not a natural born salesperson. And so it was very awkward. The first few times I interacted with people, I like locked up, or someone walked in, they walked out, I was like, what was up and but you know, everything takes practice. And eventually I got the competence to just be personable, and be myself and chat with these guys. And it also took me acknowledging that, hey, I’m not just like, I’m not trying to take advantage of someone I’m trying to, you know, help them because I am and a resource for them. So once I kind of shifted my mindset that a salesperson is not like a parasite, but instead a, you know, a source of wealth of information, and you know, a friend, and someone who can help you with something that you need. Once I made that shift, it was a lot easier for me. Yeah, I D.J. Paris 16:31so agree with that. And for anyone out there who’s struggling with what Leah was talking about this idea of, I’m bothering people, they don’t want to talk to me, they think I’m gross, because I’m a salesperson. And nobody likes salespeople and all of that. Yes, there’s truth and all of that, of course. But if you’re not a gross, slimy salesperson, you don’t have to worry about coming off as slimy and gross. It’s what I say to guys all the time who go, I wonder if that girl thinks I’m a creep. I’m like, Are you a creep? If you’re not, you don’t, you can go ask her out, it’s okay. If you’re not a creep, you’re don’t have to worry about being perceived as creepy. And the same thing to salespeople. If you’re not a horrible human being, then you can go ahead and talk to people who by the way, 99% chance they’re going to use a realtor anyway. So this isn’t even something like hey, you really need to get into this bizarre insurance that you don’t even know about. But I’m going to try to convince you you need, which, by the way, is a perfectly fine industry as well. I love insurance agents. But that’s a much tougher sale sometimes because it’s selling things that people don’t even know they need. But in your case, they’re going to use a realtor. So I just wanted to really honor you for saying that. Because I think it’s so easy to forget that everybody, when they when everybody starts out in this business, it’s it’s it’s a little nerve wracking to have your first open house to sit. And I love the fact that you live in an area where people still walk into the offices that is not as common in the country. But it’s a little bit of a trial by fire because they’re coming in and or, you know, they’re walking by and you’re not having to strike up a conversation. Leah Canfield 18:09Yeah. Or at the end of it, I would be walking out onto Main Street like, Hey, what are you looking at in this window? Well, let’s talk about it. So yeah, took a little confidence boost. D.J. Paris 18:19I love that. So So you, you really jumped in. And again, you’re still a young person. But I guess I guess it too. Makes sense. Because you talked about everybody in town knows me. As you know, I’m a skier, I’m my father’s daughter. I am you know, I’m a kid, you know, and I’m a kid in my early 20s, I’m an adult technically, but people in town, maybe not only do they maybe see me a certain way, they also have, you know, a handful of other agents that maybe they’re best friends with, who are probably going to get the listings, you know, above you just because that’s how things work. So let’s talk about so So you started working at, you know, in the office, and you know, dealing with floor time and sort of trial by fire, I sort of would say is having direct one on one conversations. And then how did you grow from there? Leah Canfield 19:09Yeah, so, um, you know, I, I started pretty early on coming up with a business plan. And I think that those two words together cause people some a lot of anxiety. But I don’t remember who said this, it might have been Mark Cuban, but he’s like, Hey, if you can’t come up with a business plan, in the amount of time that it takes you to drink a can of soda, like you’re doing it wrong, and that stuck with me because it was like, okay, don’t overcomplicate it, I get a small piece of paper or a post it note or whatever. And I write down what I want to do in sales. You know, how does that translate? What’s my average sales price? What do I think is attainable? How many sales is that? How many appointments do I need to do? Do I need to make and then I also did some really crude math of how approximately how many people do I think I needed my database? I went to a ninja class. I think they said something like, you know, every person your database translates to something like $10,000 of it. and come or something something along those lines, I might be misquoting. But I, I said look, I need to start building my database like nobody, I need to start putting my name like I can’t feel next to luxury real estate in as many instances as I can. So I started putting more and more people in my database, and coming up with a plan that they saw my face and heard my name next to real estate. I also started doing some, like, something I learned from Barbara Corcoran, which is reach out to your local newspaper like these, these people are just usually young and hungry and overworked and have to come up with content for the newspaper. And they don’t know like, they have to do it every single day. And so if you help them and say, hey, look, this is super interesting. This is happening in our market, nine times out of 10, they’re gonna call you back and say, Hey, can you explain this to me? And can I quote you on this, and then all of a sudden, your name is in the newspaper next to luxury, real estate or whatever you decide, that’s D.J. Paris 20:54really, I’m gonna pause you that is incredibly interesting. Nobody has ever, ever made that suggestion on this podcast. So super exclusive for us. So I want to I want to just just sort of unwind that a little bit so that our audience really hits, I thought you were gonna go a different way with it, which is, I do have this kind of cool story about my background as a, you know, a junior skier who was, you know, headed to Olympics and now I’ve pivoted because of injuries. And like, that’s a very interesting story just in and of itself that a newspaper might be interested in. But that’s a one off. And so I thought you were gonna say, Well, I just wanted to sort of trade in a little bit on my notoriety and get some publicity, which that would have made all the sense in the world to me too. But you actually want a totally different way was, I want their their reporters to call me when they need a quote, or or they need help with definitions, or that is beyond brilliant, because you’re absolutely right. These are people that work on incredible deadlines. They’re underworked, they are certain they’re overworked and underpaid. Yeah, sorry. They’re very overworked and underpaid. And it’s a stressful position, and you have can help actually make their lives a little easier. And so people, the reporter started using you in stories, I guess. Leah Canfield 22:13Yes. Yeah. And I still try at least once a month to send them something interesting that’s happening because I, you know, pull data for my newsletter every month, I’m looking at, you know, what’s happening this month in our market? What are some, you know, sales that are very interesting, or what, you know, we’ve seen some really crazy stuff in our market, right, like 200% appreciation of this and, you know, this story. Yeah, right. And it’s a headline, so anything anytime I see something, and I’m like, this would be a good headline I send so D.J. Paris 22:39often, how often do they ended up using your, your ideas, I’m just probably Leah Canfield 22:4570% of the time, you know, everyone’s thing, but most of the time, they’re like, they call me back from it two weeks or three weeks later, and they’re like, hey, just circling back to this. Can you tell me more about that? And then it ends up yeah, D.J. Paris 23:00that is that is so incredibly smart. I I’m a little bit sort of gobsmacked with that. I really apps which is a great word that I’m just starting to incorporate more into my it’s one of those words that sort of makes you seem smarter than saying I’m stunned. But But I am I am gobsmacked and or stunned because that that is an absolutely brilliant strategy. So thank you for that. So okay, you started. Yeah, so you started doing that that helped I imagine get your name out there. Leah Canfield 23:29It did. Yeah, it helps with more of that. Like my sometimes my older clientele maybe I would get a referral to someone wanted to sell. And they’re like, we keep seeing your name in the newspaper. And so that gives you credibility. So my struggle was credibility. Right? I was maybe they knew my parents. You know, maybe they knew that I grew up here but they certainly didn’t trust me to sell their luxury home and so I had to kind of chip away at that credibility. And my goal is when someone thinks of luxury real estate they think of me so anytime I could put my name next to luxury real estate in people’s minds then that’s a win D.J. Paris 24:08because it really what you what you could really do it for those of us thinking well what kind of stories I mean you literally just can look at data and the MLS find it really interesting statistic that is like a little shocking even you send that over go guys, I have an idea for you. Leah Canfield 24:23Yeah, and don’t get don’t get in too much. I mean, like I said, these guys are overworked. Don’t put more than five sentences in your email, right? Give them a give them a clip, give them a taste and see if they’re interested. They’ll call you love it. Yeah. So yeah, I did that. I started. You know, I also realized pretty early on that I I was very interested in new construction and developments. And I learned that when a town or a county wants to hire a contractor, they have to go through a very The transparent process because the last thing a municipality wants to be accused of is, you know, like taking kickbacks and hiring their friend for for a job. And so when a town wants to hire a real estate agent to sell a town built project, they have to go through an RFP request for proposal process. And I learned about this pretty early on in my career, like, a year, and year and a half. And maybe, and I had a friend who just got her got her license, and we were like, Should we put a proposal in for this project? We’re total longshot, but it was for a local project, still pretty big $25 million project. And we ended up winning the bid. Because people felt we just went in and created a very professional looking proposal, we took it very seriously. And they felt that we would be a good face for the project, and we got it. So that is also something that’s interesting for people to know is that oftentimes your like towns and counties have are doing some of their own real estate development. Because in so many areas, there’s a lack of employee or locals housing, and they’re trying to address that themselves. Anyone can apply for those for those sales jobs. So that’s how I really got started in the development world and that I learned a ton during that project. And it was a really great experience. And then I faced kind of another challenge after that, which was okay, now people kind of know me as the like employee housing person, how do I pivot, and become, you know, a luxury salesperson, which was more of the area that I was interested in at the time. And so I just kept, kept doing what I was talking about earlier, which is, hey, put my name next to luxury, real estate, we’re sending the newsletter, we have luxury listings in there, right, we make comments, we’re talking about the luxury market, because that’s where you want to be you kind of like Manifest Your, your goals. D.J. Paris 26:48That way. Yeah, that makes sense, is you you, you really I think what we’re really talking about is branding. It sounds like you very, very early on, you know sort of developed your brand, you were clear about what you wanted your brand to represent. And yes, you’re not going to turn down a $25 million development deal from a local municipality, simply because it doesn’t necessarily fit the the brand, you know, ideal. But it’s a great opportunity, a great learning experience, and how awesome to be chosen. So you’re going to do that. And then you’re going to you’re going to still return to your North Star, which is luxury. And then your North Star is is. And I want to mention too that a lot of times, Agents, I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. And you see this as well with other agents, I’m sure in your market is a lot of times the way agents think about branding is it’s all about the visual. So they’re doing a lot on social, Instagram, Facebook, there’s a lot of, you know, but you don’t really, that’s not really your path. And that’s a very, that’s a very unique way. So talk about is social a part of your marketing strategy, or I’m just curious what the importance of it is, Leah Canfield 28:00I think it’s more important than we give it credit for, we could certainly improve on it. We’re always talking about it, and everyone I’ve sent to build a team, which we can talk about, but everyone on my team is like, we need to do better at this. So certainly, like anyone we’re not perfect. And social media is one of those things that we can really improve on. But we, you know, you don’t have to be good at everything, you have to do everything. Great to be great, you just have to be great at a few things. And so I think we’re kind of leaning into the things that we’re really good at. And, and it kind of makes up for some of our things that we’re not so great at, which is like social media promotion. But D.J. Paris 28:36I’m not saying that to identify something that’s that’s you’re not strong. And I was and I hope hopefully you didn’t get that impression that’s like that, no good because I really was saying it as as a huge differentiator, that that that obviously you could always, you know, get good at social if you want to, but that’s not how you built your luxury brand. And really sort of avoided that. Which Which again, you could have traded in a lot of your previous success as a skier as as you could have really leaned into some of these accolades that you’ve you’ve received and made that a big push on social but you didn’t do that. And I think that’s particularly interesting. Again, it it sort of creates a more of a red ocean opportunity for you to find other opportunities to find other than Yeah, yeah, red ocean. Leah Canfield 29:26No, we have so yeah, I think branding can be very simple. Honestly, for me, like I said, my, my, my, my mountain to climb was a credibility mountain, right? Because I was young. I was a girl a lot of people knew me as someone’s kid. So I had to, I had to convince people that I was legit. Something I actually haven’t really told anyone which is that when I first started, I didn’t every cent I had was like going towards some investment because we were so into investing. And so I didn’t really ever save up to like buy a nice car. And so I drove this kind of beat up. Little Subaru and I certainly couldn’t You know, with a straight face, bring the luxury client into it and tour them on these luxury homes. So I my parents live in Breckenridge and, and anytime I would have a client or a walk in, I told my mom who drove a Lexus. And I was like, Can I use your best mom ever? She’s like, yes, you can. And so it’s coming right down to just like how, how you present you’re not I’m not trying to say that anyone who wants to become a luxury realtor needs to drive a Lexus or a luxury car, but but presenting yourself in the most professional way that you can, anytime you can, the way that you dress, the way that you speak, that you know, how you arrive, all of that makes an impact. And all of that does a tribute to your branding. It’s not just who you are online, because even though social media has exploded so much, I’m I’m still in the generation where I was here before, you know, the energy and, and your brand really is who you are when you’re standing in front of your client. And so how can you be the person that you want to be in, you know, if you want to be a luxury real estate agent, what does that look like and if you have to fake it until you make it the time to drive your mom’s Lexus or, or, or your friend, you know, you pay your friend 50 bucks every time she lends you her BMW, because you drive a beat up Subaru duel, you know, find ways that you can present yourself as the brand you want to be. And that helped me as well with even it also helps with confidence, you know, dress to impress until you feel more competent. So D.J. Paris 31:32yeah, yeah, I agree. That’s, I think that’s, that’s really, really great advice. And so let’s talk about grind culture. Because before we get into this, I want to hear your, your more you are firmly in the anti grind culture camp. And I love that because so often, we hear about out working our competition, working more hours, especially in real estate, where so much happens outside of the traditional business hours. You know, our our listeners are getting text messages, voicemails, you know, all sorts of things late into the evening. Boundaries are hard to set. They’re hard to follow. It’s also an unstructured job from the realtor side. So it’s, it’s, it’s tough. And it’s easy to just keep going and going and going because the text thread really never ends until they get the keys. And then you forget to respond until you forget to respond. Yeah, yeah. And that’s, yeah, so let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about Brian culture and, and what, what, why you’ve taken sort of a stance against it. Leah Canfield 32:40Okay, so I live in Breckenridge. I don’t know if the listeners are familiar. But it’s a gorgeous mountain town in Colorado known for skiing, biking, outdoor activities. And when I first started in real estate, I, I was a one one woman show, as most people are, and I really wanted to be successful. And I’m a competitive person, right. So I threw everything at it, just like I did with with ski racing. And I remember, we went on this vacation, my now husband and I, and I just worked the entire time. And we were at the beach, and I was on my computer when I was going back to the room and I was taking calls. And I was and I was just, I was just running. And I was on vacation. And I came back and I was like, that was not a vacation. That was That wasn’t relaxing at all, you know. And then I also really realized, I just did a little bit of reflection and said, like, what do I really want my life to look like? Because I only get one life. And there’s no point in living a life that I’m not excited about? Because like there’s no kickbacks, right? And so I live here in this gorgeous place. Because I love to go skiing, I love to go mountain biking, I love to go for hikes, I love to be outside. And I can’t do all of that if I’m on all the time. And so I decided that this job, you know, there’s multiple things can be true at the same time. Yes, number one, I want to provide a really high level of service to my clients. Right? Number two, i i One of my very first deals I like completely dropped the ball on this thing. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? I suck at this. And it helped me realize that I am the person who’s going to do everything at all times. Otherwise my life is not going to be what I want it to be. And so D.J. Paris 34:27we should mention that some people can somehow eat that out some people can seemingly do are designed for that. Some people are designed for it. I think the majority of us probably I’m not either. Leah Canfield 34:40No. And so and I you know, when I’m out on a mountain bike ride, and I get a call from a client, I want to be able to help them but I also don’t want to take the call because I’m on a mountain bike ride and that’s my time to you know, clear my head and, and so what I settled on was I need help, and I will plug another book that changed my life, called the E Myth. So, yeah, the entrepreneurship myth, I recommend, if you haven’t read it, every realtor should read it. It’s about the importance of building a business, like a real business and recognizing what roles you play. Because if you are a one man show, you are the CEO, you are the CEO, you’re all the whole executive suite. You’re also the receptionist, and you’re the marketing, customer service. You’re the social media per sales team, right? So write it down, say, like, Hey, I’m all these people. Am I good at all? Plus, am I a good receptionist? Or am I bad at answering the phone, if I’m bad at answering the phone, or if I don’t like it, then hire someone helped me with it. And so going back to that project that we did with a ton of brag that, that project, having that almost a guaranteed future income of that development gave me the confidence to bring on my first assistant. And that was a game changer, because I realized that I can provide the level of service that I want to my clients, while also enjoying my life. And not only that, I could provide a better level of service to my clients than if I was just grinding it up alone. Because I started, I think a lot of realtors become a victim of their own success. They’re like, Okay, if only I can reach this sales number. If only I could have a few more contracts, or a few more clients, and then they get there. And we’re like, whoa, I’ve got 10 things under contract, holy moly, and they’re like, going crazy. And then they’re like, I don’t have time to put together a monthly newsletter this month. Like I have 10 contracts, right? I don’t have time to prospect sometimes send these, whatever mailers, whatever your strategy is. And so they start dropping the ball on the things that are not urgent, because you have to, you’re gonna, you’re not gonna drop the ball on your contract, right, hopefully. And so having that assistant, having a team built around you helps so that when you do get busy, your monthly newsletter still goes out on the first of the month, right, and you can have a more consistent, reliable level of service to your clients. Because you have built a system and you understood that, hey, I cannot do it all by myself. And I’m actually I’m doing a disservice to my client trying to do everything myself, because I also get sick, and I also get burnt out. And I also want vacation. D.J. Paris 37:13Well, and that that probably is a lesson a lot of a lot of that you probably learned as a teenager being a competitive, you know, Super G skier, because you can pardon the pun, get to the top of the mountain and be on that Olympic team or even when when you know, whatever event of the Olympics you were going for, and then you can I mean, all of those are possible. They certainly were possible in your life. And yet, how happy you know, the happiness that you’re that, that you’re sort of wanting, or the fulfillment you’re wanting, may come at a significant cost. Because yeah, the level of of sort of output that that requires to get to the top of the mountain as a singular person is is well, you know, it’s incredible amount of demand on your body, on your mind, on your time. And so I have a question about texting a very specific question. So you were talking about, you know, you get the phone call, you’re mountain biking now you’re like, Okay, assistants gonna grab that I get it, you’ll you’ll have that routed to the assistant. What about text messages? Leah Canfield 38:16Yeah, text messages are tough. They are really tough. I would say that if it’s something that I either don’t have the mental space for, or I have something else going on right now. I will just screen grab that and send it to my send it to my assistant and say, Can you help me with this? Or, you know, I’ll say, Hey, Mike, this this person reached out to me about this, can you help me because and I like to recognize it. I’ve learned at the beginning of the correspondence, because if you’re really busy and you start communicating with your client, and then you try and leave someone in, then they’re like, No, I’m talking to you about this. But if they start asking you about something right away, and you can say, you know, you lose someone and immediately then that person is the point person. So I don’t have a perfect answer. Texting is really tricky. And I would be lying if I said that, you know, haven’t forgotten about a text and woken up in the middle of the night like, oh, never responded to that text, right. But I do love that the new iPhone I think you can like mark them as unread. I don’t have the newest iPhone, so I’m excited to get that so that I can like if I open up a text and I’m not prepared to deal with it, I can mark it as unread and treat it more like a email. I D.J. Paris 39:25want 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. But that I think that’s helpful because it also too, we know when you start communicating, you’re setting via text, you’re also setting in motion, like a response time that now there’s an expectation there and you set sort of clear boundaries around. Leah Canfield 41:03I do. I do in my own way, I’m not I don’t do it upfront, I’m not like, Hey, these are my business hours. Some people do that, I I really respect that. But I do it. Sometimes you meet if you have a client or you meet someone who you kind of can tell is like a pusher, you know, they’re gonna kind of push you and push you to kind of see what your limit is. And when I have a client or someone like that, I, I make an effort to not respond like it, let’s say someone who’s whose duck personality type text me, I had a client, and I’ll just give you an example. I had a client who I showed them a property, followed up with them. They kind of ghosted me for like a week. And then a week later, I like 10pm. They texted me and they were like, Hey, we’re ready for an offer. If we could, you know, my husband has work in the morning. But if you could have it ready, you know, before he leaves for work than we can by the morning. And I was like, You know what, I’m not responding to this, because that is in my way, how I’m going to set my boundaries. And if I don’t respond to this, it’s not going to set a precedent that for the whole contract period, I’m available to do work for you during the night hours, right? Because D.J. Paris 42:07because you’re in a position, when that text comes in, you’re in a position to either defend why you can’t do it, which is a lose situation, or, or you’re going to grind it out and try to get it done at the cost of sleep and energy and other things. And now also reinforcing their behavior. Now they’re going to they’re going to, it’s not like they’re magically going to snap to going forward, we’re going to, you know, not text you past five o’clock know, you’ve just told them, it’s perfectly okay, what you just did. Leah Canfield 42:35So yes, that’s you’re exactly right. I don’t want to reinforce that behavior. And there’s, with some clients, in certain instances, you know, I have a client who is at a surgeon, and his hours are super tough, and you wanted to have a call with me like 830. And it’s like, okay, I get it. And I can tell, he’s not that personality, who’s gonna start calling me every night at 830. So I feel like I can read people. And I don’t set exact hours, I respect the people who do. But I think that it’s important before you, you know, if you don’t feel like you want to respond to someone, because of the time of day or because of, you know, mostly it’s a time of data, right? If you’re on vacation, hopefully you have coverage from someone. But if it’s an in the middle of the night thing, don’t do it. If it’s that person who’s going to just keep, because you work, sometimes you work with these clients for like years, if they don’t find anything, or they can’t sell their house. And so then all of a sudden, it’s a lot harder to reel back. Once you’ve opened those floodgates of yeah, let me get that done for you at 11pm. D.J. Paris 43:33I am I I agree wholeheartedly. I just think it’s such a it’s a conversation I like to have because text community text communication really is very complicated in sort of what it what it represents, in different different side parts of the business. And so it’s something that every agent really needs to think through what’s my policy around x y&z And yes, when I have the, you know, the guy who’s the surgeon who, who’s who just got out of a 16 hour surgery and, and he needs to talk to me at eight o’clock at night, I get it, he’s not trying to push my buttons or pushing. He’s just, that’s when he’s available. Of course, we get that. But but we also understand that, you know, there’s certain ways we can set, you know, temporary boundaries around around sort of our general behavior. I also really, and I don’t talk about this enough, but I think we have a lot of women who come on our show, and I oftentimes forget as a guy, I don’t think as much about this, and I should, but I’m going to talk about sort of gut feelings and I know you’re meant to tell me a little bit about the importance of trusting your gut. It I mean, I imagine as an athlete, you have to know, you know, your you have to listen to signals to be a competitive athlete. But um, you know, I’m curious about sort of gut instinct and how that’s you know, manifested in your real estate practice. Leah Canfield 44:53Yeah, I’m I’m not a very I would say I’m a more logical person than any else, I don’t know if they call it left brained, I’m more logical. And so it’s easy for me. And I think people like me to dismiss certain feelings that they have, because they’re just contradictory, maybe to the logic, yeah, like, hey, this client is prepared to spend $10 million. And then your, your feeling is like, walk away, right? But your head is like, want me to have that commission before I’ve earned it, right. And so sometimes when you have those conflicting feelings, it can be tough, especially if you’re more of a logical person, because you can dismiss these feelings as just that, right? People have feelings, D.J. Paris 45:32the facts, the facts aren’t in yet. But the facts say everything looks okay. But something inside of me that’s more intangible, and, and and invisible, is is giving me pause, and my logical brain is going Shut up other part of you, you don’t you don’t have any facts. This is just, you know, whatever you’re getting scared or whatever it might be. And so the and by the way, this is this happens all the time. So I’m so glad we’re talking about Go ahead. I’m sorry. Leah Canfield 45:59Yeah, no, no, that’s, that’s good. So I think there’s a lot of us not to get into biology. But there’s a lot of the human body that I think we don’t totally understand most of us at least. And we are hardwired, with certain instincts, right for eating and registering. And yeah, for all sorts of things that have helped protect us over however many. However long in history, we’ve been a species, right. And so I think, once I recognize that, hey, sometimes that that gut feeling is a culmination of various instincts that my body has, those are legitimate, actually, those are just as legitimate as, as, you know, my logical part of my brain, potentially even more, more so because they’re older. D.J. Paris 46:44They’re older, they’re older, and they’re bypassing consciousness which consciousness, consciousness can can steer us wrong, right? As consciousness can tell us, you know, things are not the way they appear. Because we are imperfect. Our brains are imperfect instincts, however, tend tend to once you’re able to identify what an instinct is, and, and what and the difference between instinct and, you know, maybe things, you know, fears and things that may be getting in the way. Yeah, so I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, to Oh, yeah, Leah Canfield 47:15you’re right, you’re right. They’re, they’re there to protect you, your instincts are there to protect you, for the most part, so listen to them. Um, you know, being, being a woman in the business, I think, maybe comes at a little bit higher risk. I don’t generally really ever feel unsafe in the business. But I have had instances where it’s become clear to me after working with a client that they’re, they’re really trying to just spend time with me. And not, they’re not a real client. And there was one instance in particular where that happened, I was working with someone for a local selling season, and we ended up putting in an offer on something and and, you know, I referred him to some local lenders that he could call and one of the lenders called me and he’s like, this guy has no has nothing right. And the whole time, he’s of course, hyping himself up like, you know, I just sold this business I have all this money, I believe houses and and so there’s a lot that I learned from that because, you know, the lenders like doesn’t have money for downpayment doesn’t have a job, can’t get a loan, no assets, no one’s gonna loan him anything. And I realized, over the years, I’ve realized that people with real wealth, first of all, don’t flaunt it like that. The people who do that’s an immediate red flag to me, you know, people who will come in the office, and they start talking about how rich and successful they are. There’s very few of those people who actually have the means to become a real client of yours. And, and maybe that’s just our market, I know different parts, different areas are different, right? Have different people. But in our laid back mountain market, the people who can afford a $5 million house aren’t, aren’t talking to you about their net worth, you know, in the first conversation you have with them, and how they how successful they are. So anyways, it turns out this guy that I was working with had like a criminal history, and I should have done a background check on him. And certainly had no means to buy a house. And I had that gut feeling right at the beginning. And I didn’t listen to it. And so I said, Look, I’m just going to, I spent a lot of time with this guy. Who I think was D.J. Paris 49:08Yeah, it’s hard to accept something like that. Because, because because it could it could affect your reputation, meaning it could go online and scorched earth. This realtor dropped me as a client, I was a serious buyer blah, blah, blah, they you know, men do weird things when women when they feel rejected. Leah Canfield 49:26Oh, yeah. So I was, you know, I ultimately did have to drop him because he came back and wanted to work for me again and I said, Hey, you know, we need to get pre qualified this time. He’s like, Well, you don’t trust me you don’t believe in the money. I’m like, I’m when D.J. Paris 49:38people say, Trust me as a question. You can just not trust them. That’s Leah Canfield 49:42yeah, so you know, a couple of things I learned from that. Number one, we have a really good resource with our MLS, where you can do like free background checks on people. Yeah, and I think a lot of MLS is have that are working on that. So especially if you’re going to be you know, we have a lot of remote areas with like no cell service and we’re out Showing property, you know, mean, some guy that I met 20 minutes ago. So that’s something that’s key, I think we’re just looking up, I could have found this out by doing a Google search on this guy, and I just didn’t do it. And then, you know, find ways to, yes, you can ask all of your clients for a pre qualification letter, proof of funds prior to looking at homes. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But there’s also just another layer of, you know, I had a bad gut feeling when I met this guy, and I just didn’t listen to it. And, and there have been instances since then, where I’ve had a similar feeling, and I have listened to it. And I’ve never regretted it, even no matter how much because usually, with these clients, they’re waving, you know, money in your face, which is the first red flag. But you know, it’s become a lot easier for me, as I’ve become more successful to realize, I don’t need this, you know, and it’s not just about that sort of instance, there’s also a lot of people who aren’t respectable, right, or they don’t respect you, as a professional or the industry. You know, I was just going to listing appointment where the guys like, Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I think real estate professionals are overpaid. And I think it’s a whole thing is a racket, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I just, you know, I said, you know, to beat you on that I’m going to change your mind. D.J. Paris 51:12What are the what are the odds that you’re going to change that person? Yeah, Leah Canfield 51:15yeah. And also, I’m not going to, I’m not going to grovel for your business, if you think that I, you know, my place in the industry is unwarranted, because I don’t actually need I don’t need this I, I can find success working with people who are like me, who see the bigger picture and who are respectful. You know, and, and that’s also just been a lifestyle decision for me is like, hey, not only do I want to respect my own boundaries of when I when I want to be working, and when I don’t want to be working. But I also want to set my own boundaries of like, Who do I want to work with, because this is my life, you know, and, and work is a big part of my life. And so I would rather sell 80% of, of what I could sell and just work with, good, you know, honest people. And I’m not saying you know, any, to anyone in the luxury field knows that not every client, not a religious client is easy. I’m not trying to say, hey, this guy’s gonna be hard. Let’s ditch it. Because we work with our fair share of difficult clients. And I can be difficult myself. So we all have our own things, right. But when you get the feeling that someone is, you know, not trustworthy, or trying to trying to lie about who knows what, or just like, not a good person, you get that feeling? I think you should listen to it. Because why spend your time working with bad people? D.J. Paris 52:37Question has your gut. Ever since you’ve become a realtor? Has your gut ever steered you wrong? Leah Canfield 52:43No, honestly, it hasn’t. And it’s been so hard for me because that’s not my personality. To D.J. Paris 52:48Yes, your logical, yeah, oriented look at the data. Leah Canfield 52:54And it’s so hard because I can’t explain, you know, I can’t explain, like, why you D.J. Paris 52:59can’t walk it back and say, Oh, the reason I had that feeling was because XY and Z, it’s like, no, the feeling showed up before I was aware of anything. Leah Canfield 53:07Yeah, and I’m still not perfect. Like, I just, I still have instances where I have this, this gut feeling of like, this isn’t gonna end well, you know, maybe I should decline this. And then I kind of bug work, work past it, and work through it. And then sure enough, my gut was right. And I’m like, okay, so it’s not like I have, you know, just the perfect, you know, instincts that I’m always listening to, sometimes I’m like, that up, I should have listened to, should have listened to how I felt. But, um, I think that’s an important thing that, that we don’t really talk about enough. It just in general is that it’s, listen, listen to how you feel. Because also if, if for nothing less than when, when someone calls you, if you immediately get a pit in your stomach, I mean, you’re gonna get a pit in your stomach every single time you need to talk to this person. And you need to, you need to figure out whether or not you want to live with the pit in your stomach, because that’s not a way to live. Right? So try and find a way try and find a way to, to be at peace with the people that you work with. And it’s okay to say no, sometimes, you know, D.J. Paris 54:11so as you’ve stepped away from sort of grinding it out, which I imagine, you know, as the athlete, part of you understands, grinding it out. And that’s achieved. And it really is, you know, in many ways, such a significant part of an athlete’s life, sort of dropping that and trusting that that you can still progress and achieve and scale the mountain without necessarily burning the candle at both ends. What does your life look like now? Is it more balanced? You know, and how are you able to still achieve more which, you know, you’re still in the early early phase of your real estate career where you’re doing more and more and more and obviously, you know, this year is kind of, you know, a different year for most realtors, but you’re still moving forward and achieving. How do you do that? While maintaining balance, what what does that look like for you? Leah Canfield 55:03Yeah, well, so. So I will kind of like, there’s this, I’ll mention this adage that I have heard that I really appreciate. I think it’s an old African average. Hopefully, I’m not misquoting it. But it says, If you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far go as a team. And I think what they meant it very literally, like, if you need to get somewhere fast, you better start running by yourself. And if you need to cross a great distance, you better go with a group of people. And I, I really liked that saying, because I am kind of a lone wolf in my by nature, like I only did. I didn’t do team sports, I did individual sports, right. And I was extremely competitive as an individual. And I burnt myself out and was plagued with injury. And the thing that meant most to me at that time, which was ski racing, and I did, I did get to a pretty high level, but I didn’t my career didn’t last very long. You know, I retired when I was like, before I turned 20, I think. And so I realized that, you know, I should take something away from that, which is, life, hopefully, for for most of us is quite long. And if you want to have success in something, and you want to have elongated success, then it’s important that you work with a team, whatever that looks like for you. I’m not saying every single person needs to start a real estate team. But it’s important that you recognize that going at it alone, it’s it’s tough to you know, it’s tough to do stuff alone. So if that just means you have a support group or group of agents that you meet with to like, you know, talks about your, your highs and lows together, whatever that may be. So that wasn’t really the answer to your question. So to answer your question, what my life kind of looks like now is it certainly and my business, it’s not perfect, there’s always things where I’m like, oh, I need to improve on this, or we should be doing this. And, and so, it’s I think it’s always gonna be like that, though. So I’ve just kind of become comfortable with that feeling of this is not perfect, and I don’t love that I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, so but that’s okay. Right. I’m, I have to tell myself, it’s okay that my business is not perfect, because it’s improving. And D.J. Paris 57:19you you said something at the beginning that probably skated by a lot of us, but you said, two things can be true, right. And that’s, I think that’s called like dialectical thinking this idea of two things that could be in opposition can also be true, right? We we all know, if we have a romantic partner, we can love that person with all our heart and really be annoyed at something they did at the exact same time. And and letting one of those emotions totally take over is probably not not the healthiest thing is understanding. Yes, there’s times I’m annoyed with you. And there’s times I love you more than anything. And those can be true at the exact moment. Yeah, and so a life can be out of balance. And by the way, I don’t think balance I’m not even sure balance is possible. But the striving to sort of balance is is very, you know, important. And this idea that you can be because you are good at things and also not good at things simultaneously. Right, like, Leah Canfield 58:16wow. Right. So So yeah, I would agree. I think finding, I think I’ve heard of it. Maybe it’s like a false dichotomy, where it’s like, well, it has to be this or that. Right? I have to either enjoy my life or have a successful career. D.J. Paris 58:29I happy until Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Right. I Leah Canfield 58:33can either enjoy my life, or I can save up money, right? And it’s like, well, you can do both, right. So I think, I think it’s extremely important for people in our profession. They take their real estate class, if you’re new in the industry, or if you’ve been doing it forever. There’s no like you said earlier, it’s not really defined, you know, no one gives you like a manual and says, Here’s your job description. They’re like, hey, go, good luck, you know, sell stuff, because that’s how you get paid. So it’s really important to have the headspace to be able to be a little bit introspective, and figure out what you want your life to look like. Because it’s one of the best careers in the world, to be able to design your own life around it. You could say, hey, look, I’m, I don’t really feel that competitive. I only really want to sell enough to pay my rent, and go surfing every day. And you can do that, right? Or you can say like, Hey, I want to become the top agent in this market. You know, let’s start coming up with some ways that you can do that. And also go on for vacations a year, or whatever you want to do. Because the most successful people aren’t going out alone. You know, the most successful businesses aren’t one person. And every single one of us runs a business. So I think we’re just, I think, the grind, you know, grind till you die, lifestyle. It doesn’t take that into consider ERATION that you’re, you’re cutting yourself short, and you’re doing a disservice to your clients, because you really can’t. Like we are human, we have to sleep, right? And we have to take a rest. And if we really want to develop a good business, we need to sometimes take days off so that we can have a creative thought, so that we’re not just like, when’s their earnest money deadline? When it Okay, did I review that title commitment, and oh, God, I gotta get to this appointment. Because if you’re, if your mind is constantly on to do lists, you can’t operate in a creative space, that way, you can’t come up with new ways to do things better than other people. So you know, give yourself some space headspace by taking a few things off your plate. So you’re not just like running around like a chicken with your head cut off. And you can actually have an original thought, like, this is something no one else in my market is doing. What if we did that? Right. And I think that’s only possible if you if you can get some help, D.J. Paris 1:01:02and make and make space, right. And getting help oftentimes makes that space as as you were saying, and, and you know, to for those of us listening, who are solo practitioners who are thinking, Well, I can’t afford to hire, you know, a an assistant, well, there as you know, there are websites, where you can post jobs that all over the world, people will bid for your business, and they don’t have to live in your immediate market for for certain tasks. And there’s, you know, there’s lots of things that these are, can be highly skilled people that live in, in in areas where the compensation is much different than it is here, and oftentimes much lower, and you’re offering them an opportunity to make a good living for them, and also get the help that you need, where maybe you can’t afford to get a full time, you know, local assistant, right away. Leah Canfield 1:01:51And yeah, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of creative solutions like that. I mean, you can, if you live there College, people need to intern and they don’t, they don’t necessarily even need to be paid. Right? And, or if you have a group of agents in your office, and you guys don’t even work together, but you’re like, Hey, I can’t afford someone salary, but I could afford 1/5 of someone’s salary. What about you? Right? So there’s a lot of different ways you can accomplish this. But I, I do think that if you’re going to take your business seriously, you know, and you pick up the E Myth and you read it, and you realize that you’re both the CEO and the receptionist of your business and everything in between. There’s a better way. Yeah, better for you for your life. D.J. Paris 1:02:32I just want to circle back in this last thing I’ll mention because I think it’s really important. And you said this, and it’s quite profound. This idea of making space for ideas to emerge. So you’re talking about it reminded me of of the saying, which is technically a, it’s not even a saying it’s just true, is that the music that we enjoy? It’s not actually the notes that that are that we’re sort of interpreting, we’re actually interpreting the silence between the notes, because otherwise, it’s just one continuous sound, right? Yeah. So we all okay, yeah, we get that. But the point of it is, is that in order for us to appreciate things, we really do have to give it our attention, which means making space, which means putting down maybe the phone or the TV, and blocking out some actual time to sit alone and think for a few minutes here and there. About let’s let’s brainstorm some ideas of making, you know, x better or, or changing y. And, and if you don’t spend that time, it’s unlikely to emerge. Because we do live in this culture of cons. I mean, we have a device in our pocket that is unlimited. It’s unlimited, and its ability to entertain us. It’s completely unlimited. It’s the most powerful thing that we could have ever imagined now sits in our pocket, and you can give us any sort of feeling we wanted any given time, we just can dial it up. So it’s, it’s almost quite, it’s actually quite dangerous, in a sense. So extremely Leah Canfield 1:03:57difficult. Thanks a lot, Steve Jobs. D.J. Paris 1:04:01It’s all his fault. Leah Canfield 1:04:03But I mean, I struggle with it. I will mindlessly open apps on my phone. And I’m like, What am I doing? You know? And I will say that, if it sounds overwhelming to set everything aside and have a brainstorming session, some people are like, what does that even mean? It you don’t have to go forward with always having a purpose to something. And that is something that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older because you know what, when I was younger, when I was a ski racer, I couldn’t just like go for a stroll, right? I’d have to do like intervals, right? Sprinting for 30 seconds and then recovering and sprinting and recovering and all my friends were like, You’re crazy. Can you just come on a walk with us? I’m like, No, actually, I can’t have to train. And so now it’s okay to just be great if you can figure out a way to just be so if you if you don’t want to turn your phone off and do a brainstorming session for your job, or you know, for your business, turn your phone off and just go for a walk or take a shower or, or, you know, if you’d like to paint paint just make space for you not to be so turned on all the time because all of a sudden, you will be on that walk with no intention of coming up with any ideas for your business. And you will be like, Hey, how did I not think of this sooner, because all of a sudden, your mind has the capacity to actually problem solve. And that’s just burnout, the grind culture doesn’t allow don’t have that space. So you gotta make it. D.J. Paris 1:05:33I think that’s perfectly said and great place for us to wrap what I what I would like to say for everyone listening is that Breckenridge is a town where people oftentimes have, you know, a condo that they go to visit and ski it or maybe they have a second home, because they enjoy, you know, everything about that part of the country, which it’s like such a perfect sort of plays. And so this is an opportunity for anyone listening, if you do have clients that love to ski or love to be outdoors and are looking in areas to maybe retire to or even have a second home. You know, Leah and her team would love the opportunity to connect with you, Leah. Or, and of course, if anyone’s listening out there who is looking to purchase or list a property in the Breckenridge and Summit County area. I mean, Leah and her team, obviously are a great choice. They are not only one of the top teams in the area, they’re Leah and her team is literally one of the top agents in all of Coldwell Banker, including not just this country, but the entire world. So if somebody out there is looking to connect with you, and in some way, Leah, what’s the best way that they should do that? Leah Canfield 1:06:39Oh, man, you know, here’s the thing about being a realtor, you could just look up my name, and you will find all of my personal information. So you use pretty easy to find my phone number, my website, my email, D.J. Paris 1:06:51but what we’ll do is, yeah, we can send everyone right over to the website, which is mountain homes group.com. Again, mountain homes, plural group.com, the link will be in our show notes and you can find all things Leah there, you can connect with her. It should you you know, want to you know, set up a referral system. And by the way, Leah also has I’m sure clients that move from the area as well. So probably a good person to connect with. So and So Leah, we are so excited. Congratulations again on the nar 30 under 30 What a huge, huge honor not surprising for what you’ve accomplished thus far. But also, I’m glad that I’m glad that National Association of REALTORS recognized you because of course, seeming seems very well deserved. And we wish you the very best as you’re, you know, again, you’re sort of going up the mountain as opposed to traditionally in the past always going down the mountain. In your in your other career. But so part part in the silly pun there but but the but but I’m very excited to continue to watch your your ascent and and as you build your business, you know, we want to check back in with you and see how it’s going and what new lessons you’ve learned. Because, you know, your business will continue to evolve, continually evolve. And you’ll have better ideas as well as as things change. So we are excited to keep that keep that conversation going for. So everyone who’s made it all the way to the end. We appreciate you our listeners or viewers. On behalf of Leah and I, we thank you for sitting and listening to us talk. Hopefully this was helpful to you. I trust that it was it was for me. And I know we’ll get a lot of great feedback from our audience. And speaking of feedback, let us know what you think of the show. So best way to do that. If you’re listening through a podcast app, leave us a review, let us know whether it’s Apple podcasts or Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts anywhere. Just let us know what you think of the show. We read every comment and on. So on behalf of Leah and I we say thank you. And of course on behalf of the audience, we say thank you to Leah for coming on and really giving us her perspective of what’s been working for her. And there’s been so many great tips in here that I know our audience is going to be thrilled to share this episode with another realtor. So best way to do that just send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com We have every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream it right online. If the person you’re sending over isn’t a podcast person, just send them to our website keeping it real pod.com And thank you again to everyone Lea thanks again and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Courtney Hatfield the owner & top producing agent of Your HomeCourt Team talks about how she got into the real estate business. Courtney discusses how she started her career by joining a team and how shortly after that she decided to start her own team. Next, Courtney and D.J. discuss the importance of making big decisions and seeing mistakes as only tools to learn. Courtney describes the role of social media in her success and shares strategies for posting for agents. Please check out Courtney’s Social Media Guide here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Courtney Hatfield can be reached at 330-704-2621 and courtneyhatfield@mcdhomes.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does a small real estate team that closes one home every three days? How do they generate almost all of their business from social media? We’re going to find out 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 interests and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer and Team Lead Courtney Hatfield. But before we get to Courtney, just wanted to say thank you, because by the time you hear this, it’ll be probably about three weeks after I’ve recorded it. But we actually had our very biggest month ever as far as downloads and listens, which actually has been every month since we started, we’re super lucky to have always kind of gone up. But guys, we hit like a new plateau last month. So that would have been October of this year. So thank you does that November, December, you know, might not be as high because of the holidays. But we are so grateful which basically what I’m saying is thank you because we are not spending money on advertising. And the only way this is really getting out there as if people somehow stumbled across it on their own or that you’re telling them about it. My guess is you’re telling them about it. And so we want to say thanks. Really, it’s been a long wild ride five years now we’re going to keep going. But please keep telling every agent you know about our show. Our whole mission is to help every single agent you know learn from top producers like Courtney, so please tell a friend send over send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right there or of course you can find us wherever podcasts are served. So thanks. Hope everyone is having a great end of 2022 and on to our conversation with Courtney Hatfield. All right, today on the show ruff Courtney Hatfield from McGough homes in Cleveland and the surrounding areas. By the way, they just opened up in Akron office. Let me tell you more about Courtney. Now Courtney is a wife, a mother of two and owner and top producing agent of your home core team. She’s also the co owner of your home court designs and social media and she’s a social media speaker. According to launched her career in real estate believing you 100% Get what you work for authenticity paired with hard work and determination is carried her team of six into the top 1% of Northeast Ohio. She’s closing and her and her team are closing a home every three days and again, only six team members. Now one day it just clicked said Courtney and the freedom to live life on our own terms was hers for the choosing. She held the power she chose how hard she worked her schedule her paycheck and her opportunities. And we’re excited to chat with her today and she is willing to share a lot of what she did to become successful with our audience. To learn more about Courtney wants you to visit her company website which is m c d M as in Mary C as in Charlie Diaz and David Holmes plural.com MCD homes.com And also follow Courtney on social media because she absolutely shines there. You can find her on Facebook just by searching for Courtney Hatfield, also on Instagram, Courtney Hatfield dot realtor. By the way, all of those links are in our show notes as well as a social media guide that Courtney is generously going to provide to all of our audience, which is also in the show notes. So Courtney, welcome to the show. Courtney Hatfield 4:52Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I am a time listener. I just an episode this morning on the way to work. D.J. Paris 4:59Wow. Well, I I am so honored to hear that and really grateful to have you on the podcast as well. Because you what you and your team have accomplished in a relatively short amount of time is just nothing more than incredible. But before we get to sort of the present day, I’d love to start at the beginning. So can you tell us a little bit about why you got into real estate and and how you got into real estate? Courtney Hatfield 5:22Absolutely. So I got into real estate truly, by happenstance in 2018. It was a family decision, my husband’s family owned a brokerage at the time. And you know, I was a stay at home mom and I was bored. I was actually spending more money as a stay at home mom out of boredom that my husband was like, You need to go do something. So I was like, Well, what if I go into the family business, and I did, and I, I loved it from the start. I had a slow start with it though. Because right after I got my license, my husband’s uncle who was the broker actually was diagnosed with cancer. And he ended up passing away a year later. So it wasn’t really until 2019 that I really hit the ground running with my career. And I chose McDowell homes. I interviewed a few different brokerages, but they were one of the smaller boutique independent brokerages in Cleveland, and I really loved their culture and what they stood for it was a good fit. And that’s just really where I’ve made myself home. And I decided to start our team here. And so over the last three years, I’ve just really poured myself into this, you know, this baby that I created your home court team, and here we are, well, D.J. Paris 6:39you are killing it. And I think we want to just maybe remind everyone that you’ve only been really been practicing for, you know, a handful of years. And you started right when COVID was happening. So the fact that you started and again, on the heels of a tragedy and my my condolences for that, but also disability to start at, you know, tragedy aside, just COVID its own tragedy, of course, and what it did to, you know, to agents and their production, and everyone was was obviously struggling as agents to produce. And, of course, last year was was a pretty good year for a lot of agents because there was a lot more activity as we were all getting back to some degree of normalcy, but to then, but But this, you know, just to be able to, to start at this pretty challenging time is incredible. And how did you? How did you notice to create it? Did you create a team right away? Or were you already sort of chugging along yourself and sort of needed help? Or what was that? How was the decision made for that? Courtney Hatfield 7:41So I will say was the one thing that I really took away, besides the opportunity that I got from my husband’s uncle, when I came on to the family brokerage was I remember him, he had just missed a phone call. And I was sitting at the desk and I was just kind of like watching him because I was new. And I didn’t know what I was doing. And it in my mind, I was like, Oh, well, he has time to call that person back. But literally, he just missed it. And he was already dialing the person back. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s the type of hustle that I need. And I knew that I had it, like buried down in me. And so I was like, This is what I’ve got to do. So when after everything unfolded, and I started at McDowell, I was on a team. I came to McDowell and I joined a team. And I was only on that team for a short period of time before I realized I can do this. And I had everybody leads differently. And I had my own ideas brewing up inside. And I was like, I need to put this into action. And so I know I just went on a little side tangent. No, no, D.J. Paris 8:47no, this is all this is all. Absolutely. This is so incredibly unique. I want you to I want to stay with this. This is amazing. Courtney Hatfield 8:54It’s just interesting to me. It’s almost kind of how it all happened by happenstance. And but how it all fell together just so beautifully, to give me this career that I’ve built and to give these agents the career that they now have, and the people that we’ve met along the way, and it’s just I’m truly blessed for how it all unfolded. So, yeah, I know, I feel like I just gave him a really long winded answer there. But yeah, I joined a team. I realized very quickly, you know what, everybody leads differently. I do have leadership qualities. So what’s the worst that can happen? You know, I’m not successful at it. And so I kind of took that leap and I started and I started with one agent and I very slowly just grew to where we are now. I have six agents and we are all full time top producing, and just really incredible people all the way around. D.J. Paris 9:54Yeah, well I hear that I hear. It’s such a unique story. I’ve done I think 400 plus of these, and I’ve not ever heard anyone say I needed to develop a team, within a short period of time of not only being in the business, but also being part of someone else’s team where you’re like, I see what they’re doing, I could maybe do this in a different way or, you know, in my own way, and, and the fact that, in a time of really difficult time to be a realtor like all of this is, is blowing my mind, it’s leaving me a bit speechless. Because, because the results really do speak for themselves. I mean, here you are now with your six, or your five other agents are, you know, and your guys are closing, you know, 100 plus homes a year. And it’s not like, well, you’re 20 years in the business. And you’re like, it was time for me to build a team. And I was tired of working 80 hours a week. And so I started, it was like, right away, you’re like, I can do this. And that’s an incredible amount of confidence. And I mean that in the most sort of lovely way, because it’s just, it’s, you really did bet on yourself. And they’re really, you know, and I don’t mean this in any sort of pejorative sense or critical sense, but maybe you shouldn’t have even had that much confidence, right? And yet, and you made it. And that means I love those stories, you bet on yourself. Courtney Hatfield 11:17You know, I have that mentality. And sometimes it does bite me in the butt. And I’m just like, well, what’s the worst that could happen? You know, and so here we are, and the worst, there’s nothing bad about it. I went together, D.J. Paris 11:31I went, I love what you just said. And I really I know, I’m sort of stuck on this point. But I think it’s so important, this mindset that you have, I went and saw the filmmaker Kevin Smith speak once and we’re probably all familiar with him or or at least we know, we know the name and, and whether you like his movies or not, he’s he’s definitely had a impressive career as somebody that like worked in a video store, essentially, and then bet on himself and made his first movie clerks with like, a credit card that that was no studio would finance it. And then of course, went on to to a lot more fame, and he’s still making movies today. But anyway, when I saw him speak, he said very similar thing to you, to you. And this was his big message that when I saw him speak was, he’s like, betting on yourself. There’s really not much downside, right? He’s like, if you don’t make it, oh, well, you find something else to do. But what if you What if you’re wrong? What if you what have you would make it? And he’s like, What if you’re What if betting on yourself is actually right. And, and I, and the fact that you’re saying this now, is just I hope our audience is taking this in as like, betting on yourself might feel risky, but it’s maybe not as risky as as people think. And so I applaud you for taking that leap. And, and obviously, you’re having an amazing ride. So congrats. Yeah, Courtney Hatfield 12:50thank you. Go ahead. I was just gonna say very similarly to betting on yourself, which I feel like people, people need to do that not just in real estate, but just life in general, just have the confidence in yourself. And in your gut feeling of what you’re supposed to be doing all my life. I had been told I was, you know, bossy, or at leadership skills. And it’s like, Yes, I know these things, but how can I get there and channel them? And when? What’s that, quote, when preparation meets opportunity? perspiration? D.J. Paris 13:21Yeah, yeah, thing like that? Yeah, yeah. Courtney Hatfield 13:25It’s like, when everything comes to gather, so divinely just you have to trust it, that everything’s gonna work out in your behalf. And I think people should do that more often, not just in business, but in life. Well, I, I was just gonna say, I’m sorry, you don’t get what you don’t ask for, you know, I’m not going to ask you’re not going to get it. D.J. Paris 13:47And, and failure. Getting used to failure is a good thing, right? Because I’m sure as you run a team, there’s probably lots of things you’ve tried, you know, with your team that work and lots of things that don’t work. And I’ve found, and not in every case, but almost every really successful person I know, fails a lot. Like they’re just like, oh, failure is just part of the deal. But you just keep going you get back up, you try harder. And so it’s not even that failure is really the issue. It’s getting up from the failure, I think, Courtney Hatfield 14:15totally. And I wouldn’t even think I don’t even call it failure. Right? And it’s growing pains. We are gross. And I’m fortunate to be surrounded by agents that have a lot of grace as we grow to trust my vision, but they can say, Okay, well, this isn’t working out, you know, how can we correct this instead of just being all up in arms? You know, we have to we have to shift. D.J. Paris 14:39Yeah, yeah, pivoting and having having grace to for the imperfection of running a real estate business, whether it’s an individual practitioner and they just learned their best friend went with a different realtor as opposed to them or you know, somebody who’s running a team and maybe their top producer decides to leave and and it feels, you know, it feels Like, Oh, this is all failure. And it’s like, well, no, it’s just, it’s just an experience happens to be one that doesn’t feel very good and sort of sucks. But but it doesn’t have to be the end, right? It can keep keep moving you forward. And in fact, I learned, I read this, I didn’t learn it myself. But I learned it from reading it. But it’s like, we only actually learn from making mistakes. It’s only really the way that we do it. So I love the fact that you took it enormous chance on yourself. And here we are, I want to talk about social media and its role in how that’s helped really skyrocket your business. And you teach this as well. So this isn’t just something you do, you’re able to really tell agents. And I guess I want to start, before we get into it was something that I rarely, rarely ask people about social media. And I actually was telling this before we started, like, I gotta remember to ask this, because what is it maybe, first, maybe it’s a mindset thing. But how did what was the biggest mistakes that you see agents making in the way they approach social media? Courtney Hatfield 16:01Well, one of the biggest mistakes that I think agents make is not advertising themselves on social media. So I’m not saying don’t make a post, I’m saying when I go to your page, your Facebook page or Instagram page, how do I know that you sell real estate? If it’s a picture of the sunset as your cover photo? And you and your kids as your profile picture? That’s beautiful. But where does it tell me that you sell real estate? We are. We need to advocate for ourselves. And we need to advertise for ourselves. And so it’s free social media is free. So why aren’t we putting you know, you’ll see if you go to my Facebook page, on the very top, it my cover photo is my name, and my phone number. And you see multiple pictures of me in real estate, you see pictures of my kids, you say things like that, but there’s no question when you get on my page, what I do. And that mistake. D.J. Paris 17:03Boy, I agree. I think there’s certainly the going swinging all the way to the other direction. There’s too much too much advertising, of course. But I think what you’re saying is really important, because one of the stats that I might be a little off. So I apologize, you may or may not be able to correct me if I’m wrong. But one of the stats that that people forget or maybe don’t know is that especially with Facebook, and I don’t know Instagrams algorithm quite as well. But people who follow you on Facebook only see like three to 5% of your posts in general. So this idea of, of advertising is really important, because even though you put out a post saying, Hey, guys, I’m looking for clients, or whatever, or I just closed this home, only a handful of your followers are even going to see that. So you do need to make a conscious effort of doing some consistent marketing and not being afraid that people are gonna get so annoyed by this. If you’re doing 20 of those a day. Don’t do that. But or maybe do it I don’t know. But But certainly, don’t be worried about that, because Facebook is probably not going to share it with as many people as you want it to see it anyway. Courtney Hatfield 18:10Know, the algorithm on Facebook and Instagram, on any social media platform is only a very small sliver. See. And I can’t remember this statistic, honestly. But it’s a I want to say it’s like 30% or something like that. And I could be totally wrong. I could have just made that up that number sticking out to me for some reason. But yeah, like you said, only a small percentage of people see what you post. And so you need to be consistent in your social media posting, you’re not going to get water the same day that you dig the well. But if you keep digging, and you keep reminding people, you know, hey, I’m in real estate, look at this closing look at this review. Look at this cool kitchen, I got to show something like that, then you’re gonna stay top of mind. So you really have to be consistent and it goes first. When I go to your page. Can I see what you do? Do I know your face is your brand? Where’s your face? Where’s your phone number? I know I don’t scroll for phone numbers. You know if I want something? If it’s not right there I’m gonna find another phone number somewhere else. D.J. Paris 19:18Yeah, make it easy for people to reach out. Oh, and that can be done like you were saying that can all be done really in the profile or the the header image of of of a Facebook page or your own personal profile? Those your right you should make it easy. So that because and there’s nothing inherently cheap about that. I know some people struggle with like, well, I’m advertising and maybe that’s it’s like, you know what, it’s only it’s only cheap if you think it’s cheap. Like if you actually authentically I’m like I mean look, we advertise our business we I recruit Realtors as for our company, while the way I advertise is we have people who make cold calls to other realtors that’s advertising you If if that would have helped me on my Facebook page, I would put it on there. It’s not, it’s not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that whatever your version of advertising is letting people know what you do is not bragging. It is simply telling people what you do. Courtney Hatfield 20:15Yeah. 100% You’re so right. It’s not like I said, your face is your brand, the brand of your real estate business, when somebody thinks real estate, I want them to think of my face, I want them to think Courtney Hatfield. And by doing that by posting and being consistent on social media, I recommend posting two to three times a week. Don’t Don’t post those filler posts, don’t post the post that, you know, just because you feel like you have to post something, post something that is going to post a survey be like, what what would you want in your dream house? You know, do you want a wine cellar? Do you want to library? Do you want to in ground pool posts, you know, get something that’s going to get the people involved? Yeah. I also recommend, why recommend posting two to three times a week, I have my notes right here. So that’s what I’m looking off at the side. So I can stay on track, but also posting on stories daily. D.J. Paris 21:16What do you recommend for stories, because agents have lots of different strategies, some agents are like, Hey, I met a showing or, you know, listing or whatever. And I found this really cool thing in the home that I want to show you or check out this beautiful, whatever. Or there’s people that are like in the car on the way to the gym, or you know, there’s lots of different approaches. And I’m not here to say which ones work better. But I’m curious what you found works the best for you. Courtney Hatfield 21:43So I keep my posts, my posts on my page are very strategic, I fake posts with faces get 30% more likes and interaction than post without faces. So I’ll post pictures of myself or my kids or whatnot. Clients, when they close in front of their house, I’ll post a picture and I’ll paint the story for them. When it comes to stories, those are a little bit more, they don’t have to be as thought out. If you’re out to eat and you’re like, look at this amazing milkshake I got and you tag the location in it. You can throw a song on there, you know, you’re out in a showing and look at this incredible bathroom. Oh my gosh, you know, it, you don’t really have to put much thought behind it. I know people go live in their stories. I think that that’s great. Show your face go live. As long as you’re consistent doing it. And it was funny because I had somebody I was I didn’t post on stories for maybe a day or so I kind of took just like a break from social media for a minute. And I had one of my agents reach out to me, she’s like, how am I supposed to know like, what you’re up to if you’re not posting on your stories? And I was like, You’re right, like people follow along. And you don’t realize that but people are like, Oh, Courtney didn’t go to Starbucks today. What’s going on, you know, and people get invested. D.J. Paris 22:59They do. I mean, it’s funny, like, you know, this, this I, for those for anyone listening who is into gaming, or maybe has children that are into gaming, they there’s a huge industry now people watching other people play games, or talk about playing games. And and this is something people do get invested in other people’s lives. And this is a great opportunity to get people hooked on you. And so you said something really interesting. I just want to this really particular granular thing you said that was so, so smart, which was look at this cool milkshake I’m enjoying at whatever place and you can tag of course the place and then it just in case they’re not on top of their social media. If you know if they you know that well, if they are on top their social media, they’ll see it and maybe even repost it or or sort of set it out to their audience. Or if you don’t see that you can always message them and say hey, FYI, I just put this put you in a real I wanted to support the business. Yeah, and yeah, and then that becomes an opportunity to chat with the owner or whoever’s in charge. Courtney Hatfield 24:01Absolutely. A few things. So you could do with that by being your market expert tagging your plate, the tagging places and social media. So then they’re going to share it. People are going to see Courtney Hatfield dot realtor shared that post. She’s a realtor in this area. And I’ve gained followers from that I’ve had people message me from that. You can also one thing that I think is really neat to do is do interviews with local owners and love that local businesses and just draw Hey, I’m your market expert. It has does not have to have anything to do with real estate. But you D.J. Paris 24:40can either. I’m going to take over the interview for two for 30 seconds because Courtney just in Courtney, I’m so sorry but I am such a big fan of what Courtney is saying so I apologize for jumping on top of this one but I love this so much. So Courtney just gave everybody a literally a a strategy you could do every single week, find a local business in your area that you love and support and that you want to see succeed. And you have to think about it. Now we’re going to switch to the business owners perspective. They’re getting phone calls constantly from people wanting them to spend money on marketing efforts, right? Whether it’s print ads, radio, you know, internet ads, whatever it might be, it’s all about, can we get more money out of the owner so that they can get more business? You’re basically saying, I want to give you a free shout out to everyone who follows me? And can I do a quick Can I come down to your thing and do a quick like, two minute interview or 10 minute interview about why you started this business? There is never going to be somebody that says no to that, like, oh, no, I don’t, of course, I don’t charge. It’s just something I do. And oh my god, it’s so incredibly brilliant. Courtney Hatfield 25:46It’s just a great way for you to be in the media. So when people think of you, the goal is to get people to think of you as their source of information for your town, it doesn’t just have to be real estate related. And so you can go to the dance studio, and you can say, Oh, this dance studio has classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and they’re offering a special this month, this is the owner, Billy Bob, you know, and he has done this 37 years and just really expand on that. They will show the video, you can share the video to different you know, if you have a city Facebook page, I know I know those exist, you know, a county Facebook page, and you can just get your face everywhere. D.J. Paris 26:36I’m pausing, you know, because you just said another amazing thing. So because I live in a little neighborhood called Wicker Park, we have a Wicker Park community group and and we’re, you know what, you know, most of the posts are either there’s a lost cat or dog and somebody wants to find her other than that, it’s does anyone have a good recommendation for an Indian restaurant or whatever, a hairdresser, or doctor or whatever. So you pretty just said this amazing thing, you you go interview the business that you want to support, whatever it is, doesn’t matter what it is just something that you are really into. And then you absolutely have a community page somewhere online on Facebook, or there’s other places too, but and then post it there. And then oh, by the way, they’ve learned that Courtney, the realtor is putting this out and that’s amazing. Courtney Hatfield 27:21You’re their market expert. That’s how you want to brand yourself with your face. In on social media. With social media that I I like to drill, like drill in on is going live. So people are uncomfortable, they don’t like going live in front of the camera. It’s not for you. It’s for other people. So when you go live and you’re at a showing, or you’re at an open house, or you’re at you know, we have a theater downtown, where I live, going live there and saying I’m live here with this Beatles tribute band. And just those things won’t go into your won’t go into your feed, they won’t go on to your profile, but they’re going to go in your stories. And it looks like you’re everywhere all the time. And this has nothing to do with anything I just said. But when you’re posting in your stories, people don’t need to know that you’re actually you know, on your couch ordering a pizza, you know watching a movie, like out and about, it looks like you’re constantly going. D.J. Paris 28:31Yes. And perception is important. Is Courtney Hatfield 28:35it is so if you look like you’re everywhere, and you’re involved in everything, and you dabble in everything, people will say, Oh, Courtney has done this, she’s been here. And then they’ll come to me and it just builds that relationship. And you’re D.J. Paris 28:48also providing value because like oh, by the way, Beatles are my favorite band of all time. So I will always go see a Beatles tribute band. But but the but what you said is really important because whether you’re actually at the event, or you’re just promoting the event saying hey, Beatles fans, there’s this there’s the Beatles thing tonight like that’s that’s still incredible value to people that like wow, Courtney really knows what’s going on whether you’re there dancing, or not even able to attend this idea of providing value, even outside of real estate just saying like, I know what’s going on because this is my community. I work in this community. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. If we’re talking about branding now really, we’re talking about this idea. Yeah. Oh my gosh, Courtney Hatfield 29:29nobody needs to know you’re on your couch in your pajamas. Like you’re just providing value. That’s literally what our job is to do is to provide value via market resource be people be their go to person and that will eventually you don’t get water the same day. You take the while it will turn into clients it will turn into referrals. I’ve seen this time and time again in my own business, and we’ve only been in business, you know a few years. D.J. Paris 29:56Unbelievable what percentage of your business comes from social median I mean, just a general idea of 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. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half a 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. Courtney Hatfield 31:23My my personal business is all social media. Everything that I do i We do get leads on the team. But I don’t take I don’t take leads I pass those out. Sure. So all of mine last year, I just social media referrals I had 30 I closed 30 transactions. D.J. Paris 31:42Amazing. That’s amazing. So this idea how long did it see you talked about? Yeah, look, you know, we’re this is a marathon, not a sprint, you post once, and then nothing happens? And you’re like, Well, that didn’t work. And it’s like, no, it probably did work. It’s just not how people make decisions about about their biggest what are their biggest assets, if not their biggest asset. They need to get comfortable, it’s going to take time if you’re the followers, the followership is going to grow. How long did it take before you started seeing results on social? Courtney Hatfield 32:14It was probably maybe a year and a half or two years into consistently posting that I really started to get and you’ll see in the packet and the PDF that I’m going to share with everybody, you’ll see examples of people saying, Hey, do you have a business card or phone number I can share with my ex husband, he’s on the hunt for a house. Oh, Courtney Hatfield, 100%. She’s amazing. And local to the Canton area, one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet. And I share, I share a ton of screenshots. Just proof that this does work, if you keep putting in the time putting, you know, it takes time, it does take time. I’m very authentic in what I post. I’m not it’s not everything is curated. It’s right now you’ll look at my Instagram, and I just bought a house and I’m redoing it. And just little projects. And so you’ll see a bunch of reels of me, you know, attempting different projects. It’s what’s really happening in my life. And I get comments on there that people are like, I can’t wait to see how this turns out. And you know, it keeps people in the loop. So they may not need me for real estate right now. But if they want to redo their fireplace, they can call me, you know, yeah, still providing that value, even though it’s very authentic to who I am. D.J. Paris 33:36And they might, they might be doing their fireplace and going, you know, we don’t know the right masonry guy or or the architect or the contractor. Like, we should ask Courtney because I know I’ve been following her. And this is what she’s up to. Oh, I love that. I love that that is really, really smart. And I don’t know that anyone’s ever really talked about that in that way on the show. So I appreciate you going into that detail. And I’m a marketer. So I just absolutely love this conversation. And it’s so funny because what we’re not talking about necessarily is how to hone your actual skills as a realtor, which you absolutely should be doing on top of that. But I think agents focus on that quite a lot, which they should and they often neglect this this marathon like you were saying one and a half to two years before you saw results on social that is not a fun ride, right? Like that is a that is a it’s a grind that you just have to trust is eventually going to pay off. And it’s just look this podcast. No, nobody listen to this podcast for the first year and a half. Nobody cared about it and took that long before anyone even noticed it. So I am right with you. Courtney Hatfield 34:41Right you have you have to put in the time. I I’m weary about instant success. So every day that I’m like, Are we still like a top producing team? You know what I mean? I still question how I just question it because I feel like instant success. There’s something to be said about it. So we really have, you have to put in the work. And we really have to get where we are social media, I do recommend. So what I, my method on social media is I pick five topics to post about. And they are real estate related. And I can fly through those real quick, just my guess. So the first thing I posted are pictures of myself, because like I said, photos of faces get more, they get more engagement than photos of like, I don’t know, a certain set. Then I post work new listings, sold listings, reviews, market news and team news. And anytime I post team news, I am a big fan of giving credit where it’s due. So I am tagging the entire team. It’s not about me, it’s about them. This is their businesses that we are trying to grow. And so I will tag every single person. So now what I just posted about your home court team ends up on six different Facebook pages or Instagram pages or Instagram stories. And our brand grows from there. I’m a big, big advocate of posting reviews, you should absolutely don’t post a one star review. But if you’ve got a five star review, you should absolutely post it. If you sold a million dollar house, it doesn’t matter if you sold that house. Last July, you still sold that million dollar house. So post it keep posting it posts, you know, different posts like different photos of it. Because you are a million dollar agent now. You sold D.J. Paris 36:36Yeah. And you can even every year on the home anniversary, say congratulations to so and so who purchased or sold this home a year ago. So much fun working with you, you know could be something like that. And tagged. Courtney Hatfield 36:49Lee? Absolutely. Yes. i The third thing I post, I post my kids and I always try to make it business related. So my daughter had career day at school. She’s six, she wanted to dress up like me for career day. Oh, she put on her earrings. She put on her sweatshirt that says your home court team. She carried her purse, and she carried a little coffee mug. And that’s what she went to school and I posted the picture. And everybody loved it. D.J. Paris 37:16Where I’m supposed to do this thing I’ve ever heard. It was, Courtney Hatfield 37:19it was like, wow, she had my business cards in her little she had a little fake Louis Vuitton purse, and she put her business cards in there. And she took them and that was like passed those babies out, like get them everywhere. So I’ll post pictures of that or her in front of a listing sign. You know, pretending like she sold it. Just, that’s great. I love that. Just different ideas to kind of bring it it’s still business related, but it’s still personal to me. D.J. Paris 37:47Sure. Courtney Hatfield 37:48I’ll post quotes. I do like sales quotes. And funny. The quotes that I see get the most interaction or saves on Instagram are quotes about money. And I used to yeah, I’ve never I’ve never even spoken about this with anybody because that’s just like one of those you look at your insights and you’re like, oh, okay, but I’ve noticed quotes about money, financial freedom, things like that those get the most saves and shares on Instagram, which I thought was. So I’ve ramped up sharing those. D.J. Paris 38:22Well, everybody wants more money. Right. So I think that’s makes sense. Yeah, Courtney Hatfield 38:26absolutely. It. Yeah, it does. And then I post I, I like doing DIYs. So I that is my fifth thing that I post our DIY videos of the house, or a big thrift or something that I found a Goodwill or I’ll post things like that very authentic to me brings in a different type of audience gets the engagement and they know that I’m a realtor. In the meantime, D.J. Paris 38:53well and I want to point out something about the DIY crowd because DIY crowd is online. This is where they’re learning oftentimes how to do some of their DIY projects. So this this is also like going where your audience is yes, it may be it’s a different audience than then who was more attracted to other posts of yours. But that’s the whole point is you have different different sort of categories for different types of clients. And this idea of DIY, people are always looking for inspiration ideas instruction. So that is I’ve never heard anyone talk about that. That’s really smart. Courtney Hatfield 39:26It’s it’s home. It’s you know, we sell homes for a living so people what do they want to do they want to renovate their home or they want to update it in some way. And so I just post my personal DIY projects and products that I got things like that. And I mean, like I said, it’s a different following, but it’s it’s very in line with what I do. D.J. Paris 39:49You you’ve given us so many great I’m sorry, did we hit all five of your topics because I Okay, good. Because I know you You were you were wonderful, I lose track of things because I get so excited with with a lot of these ideas. And I’m realizing as a quiz, so funny. So this is This is Courtney, is was kind enough not to scold me, but she, she, she probably should have because she said to me, before we started, do you guys have Instagram? And I’m like, really for the podcast? And I was like, How stupid are we that we don’t have Instagram yet. And I’ve heard about lots of people talking about social media in the past. So this is my challenge to myself to take my own advice or Courtney’s advice, rather. And I’m going to commit to starting to post more regularly about the podcast, as well as our own business for recruiting realtors. But you are absolutely right. And you’re getting all of your business through social That is insane. Courtney Hatfield 40:47Yes, that one thing and I know, we talked about something mistakes, agents make social media Polit politics COVID You know, religion, issues that yeah, religion, things that we are, we’re not in the market to debate, we’re in the market to sell houses. So let’s, if somebody, you know, if I vote for somebody, and somebody else votes for somebody, I’m not going to not sell them house because they didn’t vote for the person I wanted, you know, I don’t care who they voted for. I care that they, you know, use me to buy their house. So I just keep all of that separate, you’ll never find a single thing on my page about anything political. And, well, it’s just D.J. Paris 41:32gonna polarize, it’ll polarize and alienate a certain group. And you’re as a business owner, I guess there’s, I guess, a strategy of like, if I polarized one side, maybe the other side comes? I don’t know, it seems like a very risky strategy. I would rather let everybody wanted to work with Courtney Hatfield 41:50100%. And I am shocked by how many agents I see that are just so like, rude about it on Facebook or Instagram, more. So Facebook, but I’m just like, oh, my gosh, don’t stop talking. D.J. Paris 42:03i Yeah, I’m a big fan of the the realtor community labcoat agents, which is, I think, the largest realtor community online. And it’s wonderful. And there’s so much value there. And I love Tristan, and those guys, they’re lovely. They’ve been on my show. But you’re right, like in this is just a realtor thing that other people wouldn’t necessarily see. But there’s a lot of like, you know, a brokerage has, you know, layoffs or something bad happens to a brokerage. And there is a lot of brokers out there who are like, Thank God, so and so’s going down and, and I’m just, it’s just, it’s an incredible amount. And I wonder what they’re posting on their own public stuff, if you know, they’re willing to serve. It’s very strange. So don’t really hate people. Exactly. Courtney Hatfield 42:44There’s enough sun to shine for every single person. And you know what, I kind of feel like if you were not, if you used your time better, maybe, maybe you should be selling a house instead of complaining on Facebook, you know? D.J. Paris 43:01Yeah, you’re right. And people who, you know, just being really conscious about the about your image. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s called branding. It’s really important. It’s funny, like we’re starting, I’m starting another podcast, unreal estate related for non real estate related for an organization. And as a result, I’m just interviewing people for this particular nonprofit. And it has nothing to do with me, but someone has to be the podcast host. And so I had to really think that even though I don’t speak for the organization, I’m not on their board of directors, I’m part of the community of this organization, but I’m not their main person. But it’s going to come across that I’m the main person because I’m going to be doing this podcast. And I had to realize, okay, it’s important for me not to insert myself into this new podcast, because I don’t I don’t speak for this brand, but you speak for your own brand. And on this show, I can be as you know, obnoxious says I want because it’s my own brand. But, um, but you’re absolutely right is, is really being aware that, you know, every time you post, it’s permanent, it’s forever. And, you know, maybe people should be more conscious of what their brand is because their clients are going to look them up. Courtney Hatfield 44:10They they really are. Yeah, just be very careful what you put on and what you’re willing, some people that’s the hill they’re willing to die on. So all right, I’ll take the clients you don’t want. D.J. Paris 44:21I love that. And, and also, I said this at the beginning, but I sort of said it quickly, Courtney is been generous enough to provide a guide for our audience to really help them understand best practices around social media marketing, we’re going to make that available. It’s in the show notes. It’s a PDF super easy to to get and really will help you start your journey there. What do you tell agents, people that that you speak to about doing more on social, if they’re afraid to sort of turn the camera on themselves? If there is a fear of I don’t know. I don’t really, you know, it’s hard for me to expose maybe, you know, they’re just a lot of people aren’t calm. have trouble in front of a camera. I know I’m not. Courtney Hatfield 45:03I’m not either. But a lot of people are in, some agents on my team aren’t comfortable with it. And a lot of the time, it really just takes practice. It just takes practice. Honestly, they’re nobody’s thinking about what you look like when you send them that video, they’re listening to what you have to say. And when people look too far into it, they really do. Yeah. So you know, I, it just takes practice, stand in front of a mirror, record yourself a few times, one thing that I have told my team is instead, so let’s say they make connection with a new lead, send that person a video and say, it was so nice to talk to you, I can’t wait to work with you, I’m going to, you know, send you properties, whatever you guys spoke about. But do it, make a video of your face and send it to them? It’s so much better than, hey, this is Courtney Hatfield, you know, it was such a pleasure and being, you know, sending them a text message that’s so much more generic, anybody can send a text message, what makes us different? Let’s send a video message. D.J. Paris 46:09So So I want to, I want to drill down on this for a moment because I want to make sure I understand the process because this is brilliant. So let’s say you’re at an open house, you get a list of people that have come in. And now at the end of the open house, you now have names and phone numbers and email addresses of people to follow up with who maybe they’re not going to buy the home. But but maybe they’re you know, you could show them other properties. So So you saying make a video for those people as well? Yes. Every How do you send that? I’m sorry? How do you distribute that to them? Courtney Hatfield 46:40Just through a text platform. We use, though I send my stuff through follow up boss. D.J. Paris 46:46But follow up boss. They’re there. They’re a sponsor of ours. So we love Courtney Hatfield 46:51shameless plug. There you go. I know. D.J. Paris 46:54But you’re right, you’re right. We all have phones that can easily do this turn around, hey, it was so good meeting you at the open house. I love it. Courtney Hatfield 47:01That’s all it is. And I just flip my camera around, I take a video, it was so nice to meet you guys at the open house. I know this home wasn’t for you. But I’m gonna go into go home and send you some options that might be looking forward to working with you. Then they see your face again. They’re more apt to respond, like we said, faces get more interaction than just a generic text message that anybody can type up a text message. sure anybody can send a video, but not everybody will. D.J. Paris 47:27In fact, almost nobody will. Exactly. Courtney Hatfield 47:31And it’s really, just really, it makes you stand out against your competition. D.J. Paris 47:38It does. And it shows that you are willing to go a little bit further maybe than other realtors to sort of earn the business I guess not even when the business earn it. I think you do have to earn it. I think earning it is through showing people that you’re willing to work, work for them and making a video shows. I mean, again, it’s just a great, great idea. Now I’m gonna we’re gonna put a cap on this episode, because Courtney has given so much of herself in this episode, that I think our audience is like madly scribbling notes about what they can do, because this is incredible. And Courtney has got to go because they’re probably closing a home later today. So I’m going to, I’m going to I’m going to do this and I want to have you back in the future to even give more more and more tips. But you’ve given us a solid hour of unbelievable tips and advice for social media, I am so so grateful to have had you on our show. And I want to make make a point that if there are any realtors out there, who are maybe in the Cleveland or surrounding areas, Akron area as well, you know, and you’re looking to maybe join a team, you know, you never know reach out to Courtney and see if she might be a good fit. Or you might be a good fit for her team. And by the way, maybe you’re just somebody who’s looking for a realtor to either your realtor in another area and you have somebody moving to that area or that you know you’re not a realtor and you found our podcast and you want to work with somebody like Courtney and by the way if you live in those areas you absolutely should you know what’s the best way that someone should reach out to you. Courtney Hatfield 49:07You can find me on Facebook, Courtney Hatfield, or you can find me on Instagram Courtney Hatfield dot realtor all one word. I’m on all the social medias, you can find me anywhere, Courtney happy. D.J. Paris 49:20And all of those links will be in the show notes if you’re listening to this through a podcast app. And also remember to download her pdf of some best social media practices that she was so kind to, to provide to our audience. And Courtney on behalf of our audience, we really drink from the fire hose today. And so I am my head is spinning a bit and I am about to start to put some some things into action for our own podcast here and my own real estate business or the real estate business I work for so that I can get better results on social so I want to check back in with you shortly and and get you back on the show. So on behalf of the audience, you provided incredible value. So thank you And I know how busy you are. So thank you on top of that. And also, well, we appreciate it so much. And also, on behalf of Courtney and myself, we want to thank everyone who’s watching and listening to the end. We really appreciate your your participation in our show. And the best way you can help us grow is by telling a friend just think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing maybe somebody who needs to have a better social media presence and send them a link to this episode. The best way you can have introduced someone to us just send it to our website, keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button. And then the other only thing we ask is that you leave us a review, let us know what you think of the show. It helps us grow helps us get better. So help us get better by telling other people and letting us know what you like and what you don’t like about our show so we can keep getting better for you, Courtney, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com. Chris Linsell from TheClose.com and D.J discuss lay-offs by a lot of technology companies and how it’s affecting the market. Chris and D.J. also talk about the value of personal brand vs the brokerage and discuss extensively the importance of building your own brand. Next, they talk about what should agents expect from brokerages they join. Last, they discuss what can agents do to improve their services to their clients. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00As a realtor, what should you be expecting from your brokerage in 2022 and 2023? Well, the answers may surprise you. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this next year? And do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? And are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering Realtors a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with tons of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you by readly Aerial maps. An aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before it investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you could spend selling real estate. And if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or you’re tired of paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. While you’ll love rapidly. Now readily is a real estate map generator that lets you create custom designed professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales buyers and listing appointments in minutes not hours. Simply enter the subjects property address, auto populate nearby retailer logos with the click of a button and download your aerial retail map readily turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps more time making money. So get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting readily.com. That’s REBL i e.com. And sign up for an account no credit card required. And now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ parricide. Your Guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the close. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes.com. And actually, let me tell you about the clothes. The clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals that they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology reviews, team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Now please visit the closed.com you can browse all of their articles they write incredible, long form deep dive, well researched articles about everything from how to grow your business to what tools you may want to consider which we might even talk about a little bit today. They just are absolutely it’s the some of the best content I have found in the real estate industry again, the clothes.com. And with us as always, as Chris Lynn Sal. He is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. And Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s also a licensed agent in the state of Michigan, and has been part of hundreds of real estate transactions from modest world starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris flyfishing are performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Also he’s a he’s a busy father as well. And husband. So Chris, welcome once. Oh, and by the way, everyone before we bring Chris on, although he’s already here, please visit the clothes.com Make that before you go to bed tonight. If you’re driving, go to the close read one of their articles. And trust me you will be hooked. Chris, welcome to the show. Chris Linsell 4:42DJ, thanks for having me. And I appreciate the fanfare here. It’s good to come back to come back to keeping it real because you’re welcome. So Flattery will get me everywhere. It really will get you in a lot of doors. I’ll be honest with you know, your real estate pawn there but that will opened a number of doors. D.J. Paris 5:01You know, it’s it’s funny, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but I was I was thinking a lot, I have a friend, this is funny, I’ll just mention this for a moment, I have a friend whose father retired he worked at, I won’t mention right word, but he worked at a traditional big fortune 500 company for for his whole career. And now he’s working just for fun at like a Home Depot kind of helping people find things because he’s really into using his hands. And, again, high level business executive now just kind of more having fun doing this, this thing in retirement, and he mentioned to one of the one of the co workers who happen to be female, he said, Oh, hey, if you smiled at customers more, you probably get, like more, you know, some sort of accolades, or people would talk about you more and, and I said, Oh, you have to tell your dad, you cannot say that you cannot, you cannot, cannot encourage people, but it is one of those things as real estate agents, I think about where I would never tell somebody, make sure you smile, because of course, you know, that’s not really the job. But being professional and being conscious of body language and how you’re communicating with your clients is really important. And so much of communication is nonverbal. Not to say that you should smile when you don’t feel like smiling, that’s actually disingenuous, and probably a really bad idea. But this idea of noticing, you know, if you are faced, we are face to face, again, at least most of us, you know, it’s really important to sort of, you know, practice in the mirror, have a good awareness of, of what your posture and you know, and your different mannerisms so that you can connect more easily with CLI. Anyway, that was my little soapbox. Chris Linsell 6:39I totally agree, though. I mean, frankly, like, the the mandate to smile more, you’re right is a little outdated. But I think it’s true, it holds true in the real estate space, there is a mandate to create an environment where your clients will connect with you. Because, you know, I’ll say this, that’s not a requirement to have a real estate license. But it’s very often a requirement for a successful real estate business, to have a demeanor and an environment where your clients feel like they have the opportunity to connect with you. So smile, frown, laugh, cry, whatever you feel like is providing the environment for for your clients to connect with you. I don’t really care. Just be genuine about it. D.J. Paris 7:28Yeah, yeah. Being genuine. And you know, we’re, I thought there would be a great Instagram account. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done this. And they should, I would love to see the the makeup lists real estate agent or the an unretouched photo real estate agent Instagram feed, where it’s literally just people as they are without all the you know, sort of bells and whistles. That technology allows us all to sort of be blemish free and perfect. And I think that people oftentimes, you know, don’t connect as well to that as they do just sort of genuine intimacy. And I agree that could be as just a matter of being yourself really, what’s what’s going on in in real estate right now you’re really well connected. You have a you have a good pulse about the industry and sort of what’s happening. Chris Linsell 8:20I’ll tell you why there’s a lot happening, you know, we could talk about a number of different things. And here’s what I’m not going to talk about today. I’m not going to talk about interest rates, I’m not going to talk about the the the, you know, average sale price across the United States or in specific kinds of influential markets. I’m not going to talk about that stuff. I’m actually going to talk I’d like to talk to you about what I consider a second order effect of all of that other stuff. We’ll let all of that other stuff the guineas will leave that to the you know, pundits on CNBC and and an NPR and the like, let’s talk about the second order effects of all of that stuff. Specifically. The second order effect that I’m seeing a lot of which is we’re seeing a lot of real estate companies, specifically real estate brokerages and, and firms that are centered in their use of technology, and getting out in front of business and the way the transaction is conducted. We’re seeing a lot of these companies, laying people off. We’re seeing a lot of these companies, a lot of these firms, contracting, tightening their belt, you can there’s 100 Different euphemisms for it. But the long and the short of it is we’re seeing a lot of companies who are reducing their headcount and rethinking their strategy, and I think it is a valuable thing to point out and I’d love to get your insight on this. That a lot of the companies that What are leading the headlines for this sort of activity? Were the ones that just 18 months ago, were also in the headlines, but for very different reasons. They were there because they were a disruptive technology forward business. They were changing the way the real estate transaction was conducted. They were offering agents and brokers in teams, something they have never gotten anywhere else before. Those are the same companies that are now laying people off. You’re not seeing a lot of Coldwell Banker, a lot of REMAX a lot of century 20 ones in the news because they have to cut their technology staffed by 20%. Pretty interesting. D.J. Paris 10:39It is interesting, and I sort of, you know, it makes logical sense to me, why that’s happening, why these layoffs are happening, you have a tech heavy sort of, you know, player, whether it’s a brokerage, or a tech provider, selling individual services directly to agents, or to brokerages, who, you know, probably saw a huge boon in their business over the last, you know, 18 to 24 months. Of course, you know, we all remember, you know, what things looked like when rates were lower and inventory was was tighter, it was definitely still really difficult to be an agent, but firms flourished during that time. I know our firm did we were worried that gosh, we maybe we would have to go out of business, nobody really knew what was going to happen. And that’s like, oh, wait, all of a sudden, brokerages did really well. Individual agents were stressed out and, and they had a lot more work on their plate, but they typically did well, too. And now, of course, you’re having companies that, that maybe entered the market a little bit later with it and putting massive sort of, you know, capital behind some of this technology or the staffing. Now, mortgage companies are a perfect example. So they all staffed up because they had to, in order to fulfill orders during the boom, and then now are, you know, are now struggling and having to layoff people and firms are doing similar things. But yeah, you’re right, I don’t hear news. And maybe it’s maybe it’s just better kept quiet, or it’s actually just not happening, although wouldn’t be kept quiet. Some of those companies are public, and that information would come out in earnings reports. But this idea of not hearing it from the traditional brokerages that they’re they’re doing much much cost cutting measures at all. Chris Linsell 12:28It’s interesting too, because, you know, one has to kind of stop and wonder whether or not the reason that is, is that these you know, the more traditional brokerage models have less of their resources tied up in what would be considered more of these kind of forward bleeding edge sort of efforts. I think that that’s a reasonable take in this situation. But I do think it’s worth pointing out that one of the challenges with companies exploding onto the scene in the time of a boom, is that we know as real estate professionals, this market is cyclical, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world, there’s always going to be natural cycles. And if you buy in on the upswing, there’s going to be a downswing. It just is the natural course of the market and of the economics of the real estate industry in general. So, you know, one thing I’m telling agents, as we kind of talked through this sort of analysis, and people are asking me questions about this. You know, a lot of people are asking me, like, is the is the compass model? Dead? Like, are they are they doomed for failure? And the answer here is no, I think it’s unequivocally No. But what agents should be thoughtful about in this is that the compassed model, this idea of providing agents with a whole heck of a lot of technology and marketing and branding resources, as a component of your package, rather than outsourcing those things, Agent by agent. That is the v1 of that, that plan, and they’re going through a contraction right now they’re learning what did not work. They are retooling. And when the market bottoms out and scoops back up, there’s going to be a v2 there. I mean, if you think that Apple was offering the iPhone in the 1980s, had the finely tuned machine figured out, you’re crazy. They went through a number of market cycles before they really figured out exactly how to put their foot on the gas. We’re going to see that in the real estate tech and the real estate brokerage space too. D.J. Paris 14:51And I also think, too with a company like compass and I’m I’m at least here locally in Chicago. I’m connected to a lot of Compass agents. I’ve asked them like, hey, the news about some of this layoff and reducing staff by whatever the percentage was, I think around 25% of the back office staff maybe and please forgive me, compass people if I have that wrong. I, I, I’m not here to celebrate any sort of layoffs at all. Because I actually think that that’s not not good for, of course, those people in the company, but but I don’t hear people I know, having much concern about about the compass agents I know, in particular, are don’t seem to have much concern. And I, and I’m wondering if that’s because their individual business has not seen, you know, any sort of change the the tools that were promised, seem to still being being able to be delivered. Now. Now, you were saying, you know, maybe that will change, right? Maybe they’re the compasses ability to deliver on some of those promises may change, and they will adapt. But it doesn’t seem to have trickled down in that one specific companies instance, at least here locally in Chicago, I have not heard agents go. Agents might say, Well, I’m a little worried about what’s happening at the company. But I haven’t heard Oh, it’s affected my production. So I imagine maybe that’s part of the reason to why we’re seeing a lot of headlines, but maybe we’re not hearing a lot from Compass agents about it. Chris Linsell 16:20Yeah, I think that that’s, that’s probably on the nose here. And you know, one other element to kind of add to that particular point in the conversation is I speak to a lot of agents who they talk about their personal brand, versus their brokerage brand, and how those two things interplay. And the reason that this is kind of off the top of my head right now is I recently just published the 20 end of 2022. update to the best real estate companies to work for article. And in doing so in interviewing a whole bunch of agents across the United States to kind of get their take on their brokerage and on their brokerage brand. The emerges this trend of agents saying a brokerage and its brand and its offerings are all very important to me. But for most agents, their book of business is not based on the artwork on their sign placard, it’s based on the name on the rider their name on the writers, so whether or not they are a century 21, or a compass, or a side or a, you know, any of the major players in the company, or in the in the brokerage space. Regardless of what the artwork is on the sign placard, as long as their name is on the writer on top of the sign, their book of business is relatively stable. And so keeping that in mind, what’s most important to their clients is their relationship with them, like we were talking about earlier, I mean, it is about the relationship that they have with their buyers and with their sellers. And so, though, tools like an automated, you know, technology, forward listing presentation offered by compass or complete, you know, social media branding, offered by, you know, different exp teams, even though those are things that kind of grease the skids of building your business, that isn’t where transactions are won and lost most of the time, you may be reducing or increasing your conversations early on, you know, maybe as a part of that process, but at the end of the day, it’s not the tech tools that are winning new listings, it’s you that’s winning the listings. D.J. Paris 18:44Yeah, I agree. And obviously, this is evidenced by all the transitions that agents make, you know, in every market, this idea of moving from from company, you know, to a different company, a different firm because of whatever particular reason. I think you’re right, I think I think that’s becoming more evident to agents as well, that the Hey, our, our brand logo and our our local sort of brand. Yes, it can, of course make a huge difference, especially in smaller communities, maybe, you know, certain certain communities, maybe vacation communities that that comes up more. So yes, of course, someone’s brokerage brand can and will make a difference. But then there’s a lot of agents that self sponsor, and it’s just them and that’s the best sort of example I have of, you know, people are able to do it with zero with not not zero resources, but with just literally their own resources are able to build a successful business and many of the top agents I know have done exactly that. And it’s not because the other firms haven’t come calling saying please join our company and maybe the splits aren’t quite high enough. I’m gonna build my own thing no the splits are high enough you know brokerages right now I’m we’re seeing I don’t know what it’s if you’re noticing this with the people you you coach or or in your local market, but boy, there’s a lot of recruiting going on right now it is just constant which makes sense. But as as the, you know, business has slowed a little bit by missing a lot of recruiting. Chris Linsell 20:21Well, it’s so interesting you say that too, because I’m seeing the same thing. You know, agents that I talked to, I mean, are getting, I mean, it’s it is not uncommon to get multiple calls, from, you know, from different brokers entities. And one of the interesting things that kind of comes about this is that it does point out that the most successful brokerage models in our industry are not necessarily the ones that offer the best tools, but are the ones that offer the best environments for agents to build the business that they want. Like those are the brokerages that hang on to the agents that are the top performing in their markets, it is not a matter of like who’s got the flashiest listing presentation, or who has the best branding. It’s interesting, because some of that stuff does correlate, but I think it’s coincidental, but it correlates it is it is primarily in my opinion about who offers the best environment. And that’s for agents to build the business that they want to operate because that everyone else is just chasing that if you’re building, if you’re setting an environment that is not cohesive or conducive, excuse me to building you know, allowing agents to build a business that they’re actually satisfied with your your time is limited, you’re you’re you’re going to expire eventually because agents are going to find those places. And to that to that end, I think it’s important to kind of call out here. If you find yourself spooked, by like reducing of the headcount at maybe maybe you’re a part one of these brokerages, that’s cutting back on resources. Keep in mind, it is about finding that environment that is going to allow you to build your business. And so if you’re the brokerage you that you’re in right now is not offering you that environment, it’s time to answer those recruiter calls. But it’s also time to think about the fact that maybe this environment actually already exists. Maybe what you need here isn’t somebody to hand you a silver platter full of all the food that you’ve ever wanted to eat in your entire life. But maybe it’s just like this brokerage is just handing you the keys to the kitchen and saying like, listen, we got an open, open, open slate here, build whatever you feel like building, we’ll do what we can to provide the resources necessary to give you the opportunities that you want. We’re not going to build it for you. But we’re going to give you the opportunity to build it yourself. That is a very empowering feeling for agents. So be thoughtful about the fact that just because the tools maybe aren’t there in the short run doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, you just might have to build them yourself. D.J. Paris 23:05Yeah, or the company that you join or that you’re currently a member of or maybe even going to consider maybe they don’t have a particular tool that another company has. Well guess what there are? If not, while there’s certainly dozens, if not hundreds of pretty prominent tech firms offering those tools that you can piecemeal or ala carte order on your own. So if your business is down and individual production, if you’re enrolled in a virtual production is struggling right now, along with a lot of other people, I would encourage you like Chris said, if you’re exploring other options, I would look less for bullet points of things they’re offering versus having a conversation about so how can you help me get back on track? That how can you help me get to the next level? Not? Hey, we’re gonna you know, and then also understanding that recruiters are people who do recruiting oftentimes are, you know, these are salesy type people, and they’re going to want to persuade you to join. My advice is always randomly don’t ask the recruiter for names, randomly call three or four people at that brokerage and say, Hey, I was thinking of joining I just had a great conversation with so and so. I really wanted to, could I get just a few minutes, can I take you out for a cup of coffee and in fact, you probably already know people at those firms, saying, you know, do you think this is a good fit for me, typically, that person will have no real incentive to persuade you to join their company. But they if you have people that you trust and this goes back to having great relationships with other you know, people, other broker or other realtors in your area, you can actually have those conversations and you might find that, you know, certain offices have certain managing brokers that are more attentive. that have, you know, different types of meetings or different types of skill based training? I think anything that skill training is something that that is not as common. There’s not a lot of skill training that I find from brokerages and boy, the ones that offer it, you know, you can basically beat a, it’s hard to beat a path to their door because there’s so many people wanting to get in. So for me, my advice is look for skill focus training, versus the coolest and newest tech, I’m a tech guy, I love the coolest, the newest tech, that’s what I would be drawn to. But I wouldn’t know at the end, it’s kind of like when you go shopping for a TV and you are sorry, I when I go shopping for a TV, which happens like once every 10 or 15 years, and I do all this research and I want to buy the absolute best TV and then i i spend months researching, I buy the TV, wait for it to be on sale. And then I get it a week later, it’s just my TV, it’s just the exact same. I’m watching content as I was watching before and a slightly newer model with slightly more bells and whistles. I use none of the bells and whistles. But I just, you know, need to watch something I need to watch through a device. And so I think being aware that sometimes the bells and whistles up here are a lot more important than they actually are is something to keep in mind. Chris Linsell 26:12Yeah, I agree completely. And at the end of the day, also, there is this, I think the equivalent version of that that experience you just had in the real estate space, to me is a lot about agents realizing it doesn’t matter nearly as much as they thought it did. The the kind of the new, the new labels on things like the new label on the CRM or the new, the new graphic on my side placard, those things matter a lot less, if you are not transforming the way that you are operating your business. When you are switching firms or changing teams or you know, though making those level changes. And I guess that like the the moral of that story is just like DJs TV problem here. It would be a transformative experience if DJ went from he’s he’s watching us consuming his content on his TV, to consuming his content on say, a laptop. Yes, the screen is a different size, but all sudden he has a keyboard and he can have create these all of these relatively interactive experiences for consuming content that he would not have in a very passive, you know, exposure experience watching TV. The same can be said for your real estate business. Maybe it’s time frankly, I hope maybe this is a mandate for someone listening right now, maybe it’s time to turn off the business TV and turn open the business laptop as it were, maybe it’s time to stop being passive and expect your business to be built based on the tools of your brokerage, even if that brokerage is a really tech forward bleeding edge like we’re top of the line with all of our bells and whistles, sort of options. At the end of the day, all of that stuff is just a remote control with a volume knob and a channel in a channel changer. If you want to go to the next level, you got to go to a laptop or something with a keyboard and a mouse where you can start having interactive experiences and building the business that you actually want to be operating using the tools at your disposal because at the end of the day, a passive experience it doesn’t matter what the brand is, whether it’s Sony or Samsung or Coldwell Banker or REMAX a passive experience is going to get you the same basically the same result. It’s the interactive kind of active experience where things are really going to start to change. D.J. Paris 28:50I 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 So 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. I wholeheartedly agree we’re talking about really building and maintaining and evolving your own personal brand, to, uh, to sort of become adept with the times. And and really the best way that I know, if you’re trying to figure out if the goal of your business is to develop more satisfied customers, if that’s ultimately the goal is I want people who have interactions with me, and do transactions with me to be like, Wow, that was amazing if that’s your goal. And I imagine it’s probably everyone’s goal who’s listening, then what I would encourage you to do as a first step is not to try to assume that you fully understand even though you may have perfect five star reviews across the board on Google and Zillow, and that does say that you know what you’re doing. But it might, I would, I would encourage you to do is to reach out to those previous clients and say, May I take you out for a cup of coffee, I am working on my business plan for next year, you are an amazing client. And I just wanted to get ask you a few questions about how I can better sort of stay in touch or better connect with people in between transactions. You know, once I’m in a transaction, I feel like I know what I’m doing. But, you know, there’s a lot of time in between transactions. And I don’t want to be the annoying person who’s always, you know, showing up in your inbox or in your texts or on your phone going, are you You know what, what’s going on as if anything changed in your life you need to buy or sell isn’t it. But at the same time, I want to stay connected. And I wanted to, you know, sort of have a conversation with you about maybe some ideas I have and what you think of that, if you did that with one client a week, for even just, I don’t know, if three months, you would get so much incredible information about what your clients actually want and need. And then to Chris’s point, you’re now you’re developing your own brand. And yes, you know, whatever firm you’re working out, hopefully that complements what you’re doing. And helps, you know, you’re hopefully working for a firm that has a a positive brand in the community. But this idea of reaching out to your clients now is the time to it’s towards the end of the year, you can even say Hey, this is for next year’s plan. But I just wanted to get a better sense of what I can do. Maybe in between sales. I think that is such a great question to ask. And very few professions ever ask service professions ask questions that way like I was, I’m always surprised when I buy a car. Why is it that and I it’s not like I’ve bought many, many cars in my life, but I bought a few. And how come I never hear from the dealership or the or the salesperson, maybe the salesperson is no longer there. But But I don’t hear from anyone one year out. Hey, it’s your one year car buying anniversary seems like the easiest, simplest thing. I don’t ever maybe I get a postcard once in a while, but I throw it away. But even car dealers could benefit from this right? Because you’re only buying a car so often. I’m sorry, I got off on a tangent. But I want to cancel that Chris Linsell 33:09you’re like right on the right on the numbers there. Like, I’m sure I’m not in the automotive space either. So I don’t I don’t know the details here. But I’m confident there is a wealth of knowledge around what the typical Buck car buying cadence is. And, man, it just does not it’s not a stretch to understand that people’s experience with buying something like a car is so colored based on the professional that they work with. It is it is the same it is it is the same in real estate. There’s just no two ways about it. And so creating systems that give you the opportunity to build that relationship to build that success, like I mean, I know we started this conversation talking about, you know, layoffs in tech in the in the tech space and like, what the bleeding edge of real estate looks like next and whether or not you know, it’s a market that supports all that stuff. Frankly, you know, this conversation is actually about the fact that it doesn’t matter what the bleeding edge looks like, as if that has nothing to do with the relationship that you’re building. Yeah, that’s right. If the tools that are either available or not available, will drastically affect your ability to build relationships, then yeah, you should be paying attention to that stuff. If those things don’t drastically affect your ability to build those relationships. Then those may be just distractions and things that are preventing you from that interactive business and keeping you trapped in the passive. D.J. Paris 34:47Yeah, I guess. I guess the message is brokerages are unlikely to save you that being said, can they complement can they add or subtract? Obviously they can and and Joining the right brokerage is something that is very important for everyone listening to consider, but also to realize that there’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors in the marketing or recruiting of agents in this industry, just like there aren’t any any recruiting industry. So realize that most brokerages are always hiring. That’s another thing to keep in mind. So whether they tell you or not most brokerages, certainly the larger ones are. And, you know, there’s i, if it was me, and I was out there producing and wanting to find the right brokerage First, I would figure out what my brand is myself. Here’s what I want my clients to think and feel about me, here’s what I’ve built already. And then I would take that brand to other brokerages and say, Does this fit, how can you help add to my brand? And and those are great questions, and I’m a recruiter. I’ve been doing this a long time. Nobody ever brings that to me. They really don’t. I wish they did. Because in a way, it’s easier that they don’t because it’s a tougher question to answer. But it’s, it is the best one of the best possible questions you can ask. When you’re meeting with another firm is saying, Here’s my brand. What can you offer? Or how can you help me grow my brand? And not just well, we’re going to give you some leads and rehab this great tech? Yes, yes. But how does that specifically help my brand? What can you do? And maybe it’s, Hey, it you should also know what your weaknesses are? In other words, as an individual agent, are you the person that goes, you know, I’m a I’m a Brian Buffini longtime fan. And I know I’m supposed to write personal notes, because that’s part of the Buffini method, and it works, but I just don’t do it. Okay, fair enough. Why not take that to a brokerage and say, Look, I understand your maybe you can’t write individual personal notes for me, maybe they can. But this is something that I’m not good at is do you have a solution for me, that can help me get these out because it will grow my business and really bring being more active in the conversations versus passive, the recruiters gonna lay out all the bells and whistles and it’s every firm you go to is going to sound like this is the greatest firm I’ve ever talked to, because that’s what recruiters do. But bringing, saying, Hey, here’s, here’s some of my weaknesses. Here’s some of my strengths. This is what I need from a brokerage. Because I just talked to my clients. And here’s what they told me they wanted. And I need some help with X, Y, and Z. And then can we write that up in any sort of agreement? Can we actually put that on paper so that we’re both on the same page, I have a clear expectation of what what you what I need, and you have a clear expectation of what you need from me. Chris Linsell 37:42No 100% right on the nose was right on the nose, that the business that people want to build is within your grasp. It is just a matter of identifying what levers actually will create that opportunity for you and which ones are distractions. D.J. Paris 37:58We should mention, too, that the close has a lot of resources around brand building around even, you know, as Chris said, they every year update their best brokerages to work for by the way, that would be the first place I would go because it’s important to understand the close is not funded, or or I apologize, Chris, if I’m speaking out of turn, but they are not influenced in any way. They are an independent, sort of, you know, content provider, they’re not influenced by the firm’s that they write about. In fact, if they were, you know, they wouldn’t have the loyal readership they they would have, because that would be evident that their content is being manipulated or, or or changed. They are independent sort of journalists and writers who do a deep dive and are willing to say, here’s what we think. And so that would be really honestly the first place I would look because it is a trusted source of independent, you know, individually thought out opinions and reviews. So, you know, that would be a great place to start to if you are exploring other options. Chris Linsell 39:04Yeah, I agree. Come visit us. close.com we got tons of stuff on here that will level up your real estate business. I guarantee it. D.J. Paris 39:12Yeah, I do as well. I’m a huge fan. And I think it’s a great place for us to sort of wrap for for this time. So this is this is really I think, for everyone out there struggling I get it our agents, we have about 800 agents at our firm here. Everyone’s a little freaked out. It’s it’s normal. It’s not trying to say it doesn’t, you know, don’t don’t worry, because of course everyone worries and and now’s the time though to realize you can be more proactive and you can actually take some some bigger steps forward. But talk to your clients see what they need. That’s the job. Right? So so do as much of that as you can and you’re going to weather the storm just fine. But yes, the clothes.com This is a great, great place, please make it bookmark it Make it something you check a couple times a week look for their content. It’s just good it’s really good. So anyway, on behalf of our audience want to thank Chris for coming on as he does every month for years now we just amazing content every single time really really thoughtful intelligent stuff and Chris is a writer at the close and he also does coaching with them and so Jeff check out the clothes.com for all things a Chris as well as just all things from that the other wonderful members of the staff there write and produce. And on behalf of Chris and myself always thank you for making it to the end of this episode. We really appreciate it we hope this has been helpful for you please give us feedback we need to know what you want so we can better meet your needs. So let us know and the best couple of ways to do that. Number one, I actually one way to do it, leave us a review. Just go to whatever podcast app you might be listening to or if you’re watching this on YouTube, let us know in the comments. But just let us know what you like and what you’d like to see different or changed it’s okay we can take it we want the criticism and we want to always improve because that it just improves our listenership. So it all everybody wins. Let us know what you think of the show. That’s that’s all I got for this week. Chris, any final thoughts? Chris Linsell 41:16Go out there, be active and be be a part of your success. Don’t be don’t be on the sidelines of your own business here. This is your game to win. D.J. Paris 41:27I couldn’t I couldn’t have said that anywhere near as well as you did. So that will be the final word. Chris, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks

Welcome to the October episode of Learn With A Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate! In this episode Joel explains what the FED raise of the rates means for the real estate market in general. Joel discusses the importance of educating your clients and never give up. Joel also emphasizes the importance of building relationships between realtors and lending professionals. Last, D.J. and Joel explain Joel’s Weekly Market Update and Lender Introduction Template is, how agents can subscribe for them. 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 0:00Now that rates are above 7%. How are you talking about them with buyers and sellers? We’re going to discuss 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 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 today, once again is our monthly series learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. And he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And he’s gotten to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. Now last year alone, Joel gave back almost $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 loan officers in the country, Joel is ranked number one 137. Now last year, he closed 619 transactions, his highest amount ever, for one year for almost $250 million. And already this year, Joel is close to 162 transactions for $106 million. Now if you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. PS I’ve worked with him too. And I say the same thing. Joel can be reached. By the way, here’s his email address joel@rate.com J oel@rate.com. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049. Both of those ways to contact him are in our show notes. So you don’t have to write that down. Just go to our show notes. And you can click and call or email there. Now let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel Schaub welcome Joel Joel Schaub 3:08adj, thanks so much for having me. It’s crazy when you hear those numbers. But it’s always so good to come on here and give back and actually share the insight that I’ve gotten from other real estate agents who call me. And every single time we do it, we really have a black. D.J. Paris 3:24We do and we should start out by saying just yesterday, the the news that was being seen all over television and print and online, was of course that the Fed raised rates, raise rates, again, 75 basis points, so three quarters of a percent. And I know that you know I when I first saw that I thought oh, what does that mean? Meaning how does that affect me personally? How does it affect the real estate industry? How does it affect, you know, anything related to housing. And so I am excited to sort of get make sense of what that means and what agents can you can do with that information to help keep their business rolling. Joel Schaub 4:05I’ll break it down into two easy centers that you can have if you’re an agent when you’re talking to buyers, because agents really come to me and they go, how do I explain this? Right? And so, by the time this is happening, we’re getting ready for another federal rate increase of short term rates. Okay, but let’s stick with what happened yesterday, where we had a well choreographed increase of 75 basis points to the short term. And what that meant was it was already baked into mortgage rates. So people ask me all the time, how did mortgage rates not go up on a day where the Fed just raised rates 75 basis points. And as an agent, you can explain it to borrowers pretty easily. The Federal Reserve meets every six weeks, but the bond market reacts every single day and sometimes hourly, right? So the Federal Reserve increase was already baked into array So we saw them go up for sale, this announcement was already in the cards. D.J. Paris 5:06Yeah, the you know, I think one thing that’s that’s way to explain that for agents is to realize that these these banks, these lenders are higher economists who are tracking the what the Fed is telegraphing through some of their meetings. I know this 75 basis point height increase was absolutely expected. All the news outlets were talking about it days before it even happened. And of course, you know, companies that live and die on rates, which, of course, are lenders, this is this is their whole entire existence is making sure they’re aware of this. So the good news is, as as from what I understand, you’re saying is rates really didn’t move very much as of yesterday, because of the announcement. Joel Schaub 5:48And then by the time that we’re listening, we’re already getting ready for the next federal rate increase. And so what we’re going to see is pretty well choreographed another 75 basis point, hopefully, followed by a 50, and then a 25. So from here, we’re gonna see another 150 basis points of increases. So they’re not done yet. And what that means is, there’s still going to be a little bit more pain in terms of mortgage rates, which right now are already over six and a half percent. But as soon as the Federal Reserve indicates that they have completed the rounds of increases, the big mistake and the big myth, it’s wrong. And I’ll tell you as agents right now, we don’t need the Federal Reserve to cut rates for mortgage rates, the drop dead again, we’re not waiting down the line for Federal Reserve’s to cut the rate, as soon as next year happened. And they decide that they’re done with the rate increases, mortgage rates are going to come down. And they’re going to come down sharply. Okay, they don’t know how long it’s going to take. So I talked about it being next year. And that’s really what the economists think, is that they will have this under control, that the Federal Reserve might not cut interest rates for two years, two and a half years. So we’ll see exactly what happens. But as soon as they’re done with the increases, DJ, we know that anybody who’s buying today can refinance that mortgage. All right, so we go back to that one phrase, right, we’re gonna marry the home and date the rate. D.J. Paris 7:19Yeah, and, and so this idea, and that is such a great phrase, I kept I kept seeing this phrase over and over again, in the articles yesterday, you know, you marry the home, you date, the rate, it is such a great and imperfect, I remember back in the days, where there were even interest only loans, which I don’t, I’m sure, maybe they still exist to some capacity these days. But they were very prominent, as you remember, back in the early 2000s. And, and people would that that was part of the pitch was like, hey, as rates move, you know, you can obviously refinance. And and that’s something and also, I’m thinking as an agent, you know, if I’m thinking there’s going to be more rate increases coming, which, you know, you seem to suggest, as is happening, that you’re hearing another great reason to reach out to the buyers and say, hey, you know, rate increases aren’t over yet. And if you are, you know, thinking about making a purchasing decision, it might actually be a good idea to get in sooner rather than later not to use that as a scare tactic. But just to explain, here’s where here’s where our economists think rates are headed. And if we can get in sooner, boy, that might actually help us plus a lot of buyers sitting on the sidelines. Oh, yeah. And when rates stabilized, we can always refinance down the road. And you know, and you’re maybe not paying a premium for the homes that you would have made a paid a premium for back when rates were in, you know, much lower. Joel Schaub 8:42I’ll tell you a story. I’m glad you said that, by the way. DJs. Last week, I had several clients that knew that the federal increases were coming, right. And so what they wanted to do is they wanted to secure a rate even though they did not have a property. So I went down and I had probably five or six different clients that will buy sometime in the next couple of months. And what we’re able to do is do a rate lock before the increase and make sure that their rate was locked in for 90 days. And what that allowed them to do was not so much with this increase because it was just last week, but it’s going to insulate them over the next couple of months. So that when the next increases come, they still have a rate that was as of last week. And what does that mean for an agent if you’re listening, reach out to your lenders that you’re working with and ask them to do the same thing for any buyers that you have. Now you have a buyer that’s locked into a rate and as they go up, think about how much they’re going to be calling you to actually go out on showing they have a rate they’re going to have FOMO DJ they’re going to have a fear of missing out that if I don’t find a home and go under contract, I’m going to lose the rate that I have locked in. Okay, so banks have different names for this contact your mortgage advisor that you work with closely. Our our company called Audit lock and roll similar to rock and roll, where you can lock a rate and roll go out and find a home over the next 75 to 90 days. And this is one of the big advantages as an agent would be working with somebody that can do that for you. And just think of the power there, right DJ, you see how this could be an advantage for agents. D.J. Paris 10:19I see it as a huge advantage. I think it was much harder trying to get deals closed when rates were, you know, much lower, I think because we had more buyers, we had less, you know, less inventory, we had more competition. i All I heard was agents stressed out during that that time period, yes, deals got done at a record number. But boy, it seemed like a pretty stressful time to be a practicing agent. All of our listeners can probably remember. So even though you might have done more deals, you know, back then, remember what what amount of stress remember how many offers you were submitting? Remember how hard it was to get in touch with the other realtor? It’s actually much easier now. Yes, the hurdle is you have to educate your clients. But that’s your job, right? The job is to educate your client. So think about this, whereas I see realtors? Well, Joel does to us every single day. We have a lot here at our company, Joel works with hundreds and hundreds of agents. And he also sees this as a lot of people are kind of depressed right now. Agents meaning they’re going on. Gosh, it’s just hard. Okay, Joel Schaub 11:20it’s everybody. Right? Everyone seems to be that way. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, I know you’re going to say, D.J. Paris 11:26well, the opportunity is always still there. And in fact, I every successful not every a lot of successful business owners that I know, say it’s in these times of challenge that the real opportunities are born because a lot of people just kind of, you know, fall fall apart. And now as you were telling me, before we started that you’ve you’ve put the gas on about doing more events, where now you have time to do more events, which is kind of nice. And you can you can actually put more into marketing so that when things do stabilize, you know, you’re going to reap the benefits of that as a loan officer agents could do the same thing. Now’s the time to do client appreciation events, you know, different maybe volunteer stuff, you could do volunteer events with your with your sphere. So if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, do a volunteer event, bring your sphere. There’s lots of things you can do right now as an agent to be proactive. Joel Schaub 12:19Right now, I fully agree with you in the sense that it seems slower for me personally. And the volume has dropped to about 10 to $12 million a month, when a year ago, we were doing much, much more than that. The difference here of doing 10 to $12 million on a monthly basis is that it’s so much easier for buyers to get an offer accepted. Okay. So when I’m submitting an offer, now we’re really talking about how much under the asking price we can get. Whereas almost six months ago, DJ, we were still saying, I’m going to submit an offer at full price and probably lose. Yeah, yeah. So there’s definitely a mindset here that you can definitely take advantage if you’re a buyer, if you can take some time and find the right place. As these rates stay high and maybe go even higher, there’s going to be sellers, where they’re just going to take a deal on a home to get it off the books and a dominant agent, I’m touching base with all of the people that are renting at a pretty high level, they can afford a certain dollar amount per rent, they can get out there and buy and let’s go make sure that they know there’s an opportunity coming up for sellers that will be selling under asking price. D.J. Paris 13:33Absolutely. I think now is the time to educate customers there, educate your sphere of influence, tell them what the reality of it is, with this rate increase and don’t take your foot off the gas with respect to staying in touch now is the time now is the best time probably to reach out because if if your clients or your sphere are watching the news, and they’re like, Oh, the sky is falling, you get the opportunity to reset that expectation and provide value and that’s, that’s really I think what separates, you know, whether it’s a loan officer or realtor from the very, very cream of the crop, the people that do the most business, they are proactive, they reach out they’re not afraid to share the truth and also it helps them reset expectations and everybody in life I don’t know I always want I always have these fantasies that like I’ll start getting phone calls from my service providers, accountants attorneys, you know, financial advisors going I have an idea for you and you know what I get very few of those phone calls and I think I would love it in my life if somebody were to call me once in a while and go I have an idea for you and this is what agents can do is partner with loan officers find out what what the real story is and then be able to share that with your customers so they’re not sitting at home freaking out. 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 the spy have cast 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 16:10Agents right now can go out and talk to buyers. And the same thing that why are people afraid to buy something when it’s on sale? Right? I talk about sports teams when the team is really hot. Everyone wants to go to the game and they’re willing to overpay now the theme is not so good. We can go get really good seats and get a discount and Phil have the same show. Right? So when Hamilton was in town, and it was really expensive to get Hamilton tickets, once it was lower price today, did they give a half a performance? Was it not the same show. And I know it doesn’t equate exactly the same. And people say oh, that doesn’t make sense. But it’s true. Like, I like buying my soup on sale. I like buying shoes on sale. I’m telling buyers, let’s go buy some real estate on sale. And when rates drop, you can refinance the debt, but you can never refinance if you overpaid by 40 grand. D.J. Paris 17:06Yeah, and you can now show with data through the MLS or whatever data systems you might be using, you can actually show how price values falling. And so it allows the person to to maybe make up that difference where they might feel the rate isn’t exactly where they want it to be. But that home price might be exactly where they need it to be. And that wasn’t the case, a year or two years ago, it was those home prices were like oh my goodness, that was that was actually in my in my mind, those were bigger hurdles to jump, I actually think the rate hurdle is is is is not as big of a hurdle. But Realtors need to sort of reset their own expectations and realize there’s opposite, there’s always opportunity, but it’s harder to sell a stock when it’s undervalued versus when it’s overvalued. Right. So it’s it is hard, but that’s your job is to reset your customers expectations, buy things on sale rates are still reasonable, although uncomfortable for some people, but they’re still very reasonable in my opinion. And I think if you’re able to have those conversations and then go, you know, hey, we’re going to have a refinance opportunity shortly anyway, then, you know, I think you should be able to proceed as as normal. And Joel Schaub 18:15he was telling me the story last week, DJ, and they were telling me how they were overcoming objections from a buyer, several buyers, a lot of times the objection came in that I’m gonna wait until rates come down to buy a property, right, I think I’m gonna wait. And I want to buy right now. All right, throw up I want to buy when these rates come crashing back down. And instead of putting up a big objection, the agent agreed. They said, You’re right, I think rates are going to come down in the future, too. So let me paint the picture of what that looks like. If you bought then the agent went on to describe the scenario in which if some day happens, where rates plummet? What are we going to see a bunch of buyers rushed back out into the market. Then he said, let’s talk about a scenario in which we bought right now and got a deal on the home, you owned the property. And then when rates drop, you don’t have to rush into anything. You can call your mortgage professional refinance down to the rates that you think they’re going to be. And we bought the place under value. And then we refinance the debt in the future. That client went under contract a couple of days later after them doing that. So you control the narrative, and really talk from you know, speak from the heart. D.J. Paris 19:30I absolutely agree. And I think part of it is just the reluctance to reach out with tough news. And I think if for all of our listeners, if you can be the proactive person that reaches out when there’s tough news to your sphere, you are so incredibly valuable to that sphere. They’re not going to choose anybody else. And so I love the fact that you come on every month and share with us and it’s not always Wine and Roses. Sometimes it’s it’s tough news, but you’re willing to share Eric, you’re willing to say, even though things have changed, here’s how to talk about it. I mean, you’re providing you’re doing the same thing that Realtors could be doing here on this podcast, I know you do it with your customers, and the agency you work with as well, we should actually mention that, that you still partner with agents, and if there are agents who are listening, who are looking for partnership opportunities, maybe sponsoring events, maybe co branding, certain, you know, flyers, brochures, loan officers can help with that, especially right now. So if anyone out there Joel is wanting to partner with you, whether they’re an agent, or maybe they’re a buyer or seller who found our podcasts or listening to you and say I would love to have a loan officer for my own property that has this much information, what’s the best way someone should reach out? Joel Schaub 20:47I’m happy to do that. And we could set up a conversation and just the easiest way would be there’s an email address, where I would send you the lender introduction template, where if you did have a buyer, and you wanted to refer them over to us, we would waive the fees on the lending side really partner with you. And so it’s just joel@rate.com. And I know I mentioned this probably two or three segments ago, and I paid literally 100 the agents across the United States where I’ve had email conversations, long phone calls, I talked to so many people in so many different markets. And whether we do business or not, they’re like, Wow, you actually answered, wow, you’re replying. And they think there’s like five or six of me. And sometimes DJ, I think there might be five or six of me. But there’s an opportunity out there, whether it is me or a local lender that you really like, if you’re doing business, you’re valuable, okay, so you make sure you get something from the lenders that are all reaching out asking for business. So one of the things that we deal with give back in that way. And then the second thing is you can even email us asking for the weekly market update. The market update DJ, you’ve seen this before? Tell everybody, D.J. Paris 22:00I love it. So every week, Joel’s team sends out a how to make sense of what’s going on in the lending world. In very short an email, very short, bite sized, digestible, easy to, you know, basically sound bites that you can then just take and use with your own clients. It’s, it’s, you know, like, for example, I’ll go to the the big mortgage website, if a news website is called mortgage News Daily, and they just aggregate tons of stuff. And I oftentimes as I read through mortgage news, daily stuff, I’m like, I don’t know what any of this means. It’s very complicated. And your team will actually take a lot of the data that’s out there and make it really digestible and easy to read in a short email format, with graphs and information. And then you can take that directly to your clients. Joel Schaub 22:44It just makes you sound better. And that’s what we’re about is getting information and making sure that you understand enough, and then be able to actually explain a few things to buyers. So that wow, that that email really helped from Joel. D.J. Paris 22:58Yeah. So if they want to join your email list, which everyone should there’s obviously no cost for it. And Joel, and his team would be happy to share that with you, should they just email joel@rate.com? Joel Schaub 23:09Yeah, we’d be happy to do that, we can add them directly to the list. So it’s Joel JOE l@rate.com. And so that’ll apply to the weekly newsletter. And then as for a partnership, you can absolutely ask for the lender introduction template, it’s already written out the way that you can introduce potential buyers and we can start working together and we really will, anybody that reaches out, we will absolutely partner with you and help you on your next transaction and get the lender fees waived in full and make you look good, really helped you grow the business to the next level? D.J. Paris 23:40Well, I love it. I hope all of our all of our listeners consider reaching out at the very least please subscribe to his newsletter, I promise you, it’s amazing. And it will help you be a better realtor, because you’ll have more information. And you don’t have to read, you know, 10 different articles, you know, to get this information, they do the hard work for you. So you can just sit back and let it hit your inbox. And then you can if I were an agent, I would take what you send every week and I would call a certain number of people in my database every single day for that next week going, Hey, I have a couple bits of news for you just wanted to keep you up to date on what’s going on. You could even leave it on someone’s voicemail really, it doesn’t have to even be you know, you don’t have to get them on the phone. And boy can you imagine I don’t get those kinds of voicemails. I don’t know about you with your different service providers in your life. But boy, I’d love to get messages like that. So I imagine your clients, everyone’s clients here would as well or sphere of influence. And you can really provide value versus just going Hey, you want to buy yourself something right now which of course you can do to but you can only ask that so many times before your friends stop answering the phone right? So if you call with with purpose, they call it I call it marketing with purpose. This is you know, obviously Joel’s team can provide you the purpose and the reason to reach out so everyone subscribed to his newsletter just email joel@rate.com asked to be placed on it. They’ll do that. And then of course you can reach out to him for any and all opportunities to work together to? Well, Joel, what a great, what a great way to sort of talk about what’s happening right now we appreciate it. I was even scared because I’m seeing all this news about the rates. And even though I know that it shouldn’t necessarily affect, you know, our business, you know, directly, I still I was freaking out yesterday, and I’m like, wait a minute, I know what I’m, I know enough to not freak out. So if I’m freaking out, your clients are probably freaking out too great opportunity to reach out calm the waters. And then you can, you know, provide some value. So anyway, Joel, thank you for helping call my waters and also for helping provide so much value here on the show. You’ve done it year after month after month, and year over year. And you have shown up every single month for gosh, years now. And that is really impeccable, remarkable, and probably no secret to the reason why you’re so successful. So everyone out there, discipline, and consistency and value. If you just focus on those three things, you’re going to be successful, you’re gonna get through this sky is not falling and stay positive. Right. All right, Joel. Well, thank you for keeping me positive, keeping us positive and keeping our show full of value. So on behalf of the listeners, thank you. And on behalf of Joel and myself, we think the listeners the viewers, you’re the reason this show, we just surpassed 2 million downloads. I think in the last week or so. We are so grateful to everyone who listens. And so please tell a friend let’s help us keep growing. Just talk to one other person about the show, send them a link, we would really appreciate it and that’s all we ask. Joel thank you so much and we will see everybody on the next show.

Oliver Graf the Co-Founder & President of Big Block Realty goes back to the beginning and describes how he got into real estate. Oliver discusses how he and his partner built Big Block Realty, how they’re different and how they make it work. Next, Oliver talks about what are the best practices of top real estate agents that bring them success. Oliver and D.J discuss what tools their agents use in order to leverage them to greater success. Last, Oliver Graf talks about his own podcast Founders Club and what’s it about. Please check Oliver’s podcast Founders Club here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Oliver Graf can be reached at (800) 550-3209. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00What are 100%? Commission brokerages and why are they so popular these days? We’re going to talk about that. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with Oliver Graf to talk about 100% Commission brokerages and why they’re so popular these days. But before we get to Oliver, just one reminder, please tell a friend about this episode. Maybe you know an agent who’s looking to switch firms or see what other options are out there or maybe somebody who just passed their licensing exam and is trying to figure out what firm to go to remember those days how difficult it was, this might provide some insight into an option they might not know exists, so send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com Not only can they hear this episode of course but every I think we’ve done 420 Some episodes of the show they can hear all of them just by going to keeping it real pod.com please tell a friend we really really appreciate it But enough about me and that thank you and now on to our interview with Oliver Graf. Right today on the show we have Oliver craft with big block Realty in California. They are also expanding out to other markets and other states. But let me tell you more about Oliver now Oliver is a four time Inc. 500 entrepreneur, co founder and president of Big Block realty is big buck Realty has been recognized as one of the fastest growing independent brokerages in the country. He’s an active real estate investor. He is also host of his own podcast called founders Club, which is a top podcast dedicated to real estate and entrepreneurship. He is also the co founder of closing table a high level real estate Mastermind along with Sam Cora, man and I may be mispronouncing that, so you’ll have to correct me and Roland Frasier and he’s also the manager and CO creator of real closers, the second largest Facebook group for realtors. He’s also a husband and a father to two awesome sons. He’s a dedicated surfer and OGN artists on top of that he does it all. And to learn more about what big block Realty does, and we’re going to talk about that as well on the show. Please visit big Blake big sorry, big block realty.com We will also have a link in their show in the show notes so you can check them out. Oliver, it is such a pleasure to to have you on the show. Oliver Graf 4:04Yeah, thanks for having me. DJ very much appreciated. Sam correllian That’s my business partner. Thank you. It’s a tough last name. But yeah, appreciate the great intro and very excited to be here. D.J. Paris 4:19I have to tell you, Oliver is a bit of a like a hero to me in the marketing world because and I never really talked about this but we the the firm that that I’m at here in Chicago is called Cale Realty we big block Realty and Kol Realty have pretty much identical business model or commission and fee model, which is what we call 100%, which we will certainly talk about and I realized in the bath 400 episodes we’ve done I’ve never once talked about commission models. We talk a lot about top producers how they build their business and I’m certainly want to want to get your insight there too. But we’ve never really talked about brokerages and different options. And the reason I’m saying Oliver’s a hero of mine is not just because they’re firm has about 1500 agents, which is amazing. Like we have 800 agents total. He’s he’s got almost double that. But that’s not even the impressive part. But that is impressive. But what’s really impressive is their marketing. They, their videos for recruiting are the very best I’ve ever seen. And in fact, Oliver did know this, because we’re just, we’re just meeting now, but I had told him, before we started that one, this one of his videos was an inspiration for us, because we tried to be a little silly and funny in our marketing efforts. But these guys big block really, really does it just so perfectly well. So you guys are an inspiration to us. And you were trying to get to your level of marketing with your videos, which will have a link to some of those videos in our show notes. So you guys can see what big block does. But before we get to, you know all of that I want to learn more about you. How did you get into real estate? If you don’t mind me asking? Oliver Graf 5:56Yeah, so first thank you for the kind words we’re we’re very passionate about marketing and and creating videos and not just our our, our big tagline is we’re not your grandpa’s brokerage. So we do everything in a way that’s designed to stand out designed to be, you know, different and kind of forward thinking. But to answer your question, my partner and I, Sam, we met in college, and we’ve had many businesses over the years, you know, we have a entrepreneurial graveyard, so to speak of things that we’ve tried since the early 2000s. And then eventually, we both kind of made our way into real estate, we were cell phone salesmen in college, that was the way we used to pay the bills. And so we developed a kind of passion and real love for sales and the sales process. And so we thought to ourselves, if you know, if you’re gonna go into the sales profession, the best thing you can do is sell something expensive, because then the Commission’s are higher. And so the three most expensive things we could think of were jets, yachts, and houses. And since we didn’t know anything about jets, or yachts, we’d have we decided that houses would be the best way to go. So kind of transitioned, we ended up selling a few people inside of our cell phone store was T Mobile, inside of our, our, our boss at the time, bought a house, then the assistant manager bought a house and they were nice enough and had faith in us to help them with those transactions. So when we got those paychecks, we thought, hey, you know, this is this is a lot better than what we were getting at the time at the cell phone store. So that kind of started our transition into real estate. This was about 2006 2005 2006. And from there, you know, the market started getting pretty rocky at the time, we ended up doing a lot of short sales, that was the big thing going into those years, and really kind of did that heavy for the first three to four years. And then about 2010 is when that kind of dried up. And then from there, we decided that we wanted to start a brokerage. But we didn’t again, we didn’t want to do it the way that it had always been done. And that was kind of the basis for big block Realty and kind of how we wanted to build it. D.J. Paris 8:42And let’s talk about big block Realty and how you’re different because again, the 100% model, while it’s probably technically been around for, I don’t know, probably 20 years by now, it hasn’t been as popular as I mean, it’s probably more popular than ever today. And I think there’s a lot of our listeners who are maybe not familiar with it at all. So do you mind sharing sort of how from a commission and fee perspective how you guys are different? We can talk more about other things, too, but curious just to set the table so that people know what we’re talking? Yeah, Oliver Graf 9:14yeah, definitely. So you know, there’s a lot of ways that brokers add value to their agents, right, you know, that you give them leads you, you know, you have great culture, great support, great training these things. And then there’s obviously the commission split. So when we were kind of deciding which direction we wanted to go, we were big on the Robert Allen books at the time and creating multiple streams of income and recurring revenue and things like that. And so we built the brokerage on what is now the 100% Commission model, which essentially means that we pay our agents 100% commission when they close a deal and in exchange For that they pay us a monthly fee to be a part of the brokerage. So essentially, it’s more of a membership model than a traditional real estate model. D.J. Paris 10:09Yeah, so we have the same same exact model here. And I always refer to it as you have as either membership or subscription. And this idea of, you know, being able to offer a higher commission confuses a lot of agents. I know, it maybe not as much today as it did when when not as many people knew about this as an option in a lot of major markets. But so people pay a subscription fee, and I’m guessing a transaction fee, but essentially get to keep almost 100% of the Commission on every sale. Oliver Graf 10:45Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. So for the most part, if they’re doing, you know, a decent amount of business, they’re almost guaranteed to make more money with us, which is great. And what we found at the time is there were other brokerages that were offering kind of the same type of thing. But when we were doing all of our research, what we found is that they were very low on support, and very low on service and had a very like, don’t call us, we’ll call you type of mentality. And so we wanted to flip that on its head, and really deliver not only, you know, a high commission split and a high profit, so that they can take that money and put it back into their business, but also really over deliver on service on training and support. D.J. Paris 11:35We we learned that we have that same philosophy here, we, when we started kale Realty here in Chicago, other firms had attempted to do this 100% model. Prior to us, we started doing it in about 2011 2012. And they’re just again, they weren’t a lot of firms, that there weren’t any really successful firms in the city here that Ed had done it. And I think the mistake that was made by some of these other firms was this idea of Sure, we’re going to pay you you know, almost 100% of your commission and charge you a very low fee. But we’re also going to get to kind of not be there for you when when you need us. You know, that’s the trade off. We felt Well, nobody’s going to stay at our firm, people are going to be more than happy to to give 30% of their commission away at a traditional brokerage commission structure if they’re getting the support and the training that they need. By is, which is evidenced by the fact that there are 1000s and 1000s and hundreds of 1000s of agents who are at those kind of firms. So we knew that just by offering the highest commissions and lowest fees that wasn’t necessarily going to create a line of people to come in. It certainly brings in some people, but I always say the 100% thing is maybe not it’s maybe the reason why people join, but it isn’t necessarily the reason why they stay curious to get your thoughts because we learned we have to provide, we think just as much support and training as everybody else. Oliver Graf 13:01Yeah, yeah, no, that’s That’s exactly right. I would echo that same sentiment. I think that, again, you know, when people build their brokerages, they have to figure out what their value proposition is. And then once you figure out what your value proposition is, it’s how do you deliver that in the best way possible? Well, we didn’t want to be as a rental broker where you know, there’s no support, there’s no training, there’s no nothing, it’s just a place to hang your license and maybe close the deal every once in a while. What we wanted to do is really build a culture of people that love to be around each other share the same vision. We were we’ve always been really entrepreneurial. So we’ve always wanted to go after the more entrepreneurial agents. And again, that’s why we felt the 100% commission structure was best for us. Because we’re all about, you know, we don’t have mandatory meetings, there’s no floor time, there’s none of that it’s really about helping the agents build their own business, their own brand, their own identity, you know, and that’s the way we believe we can help them succeed in the, you know, in the landscape of all the different broker models that are out there. D.J. Paris 14:15Yeah, makes perfect sense. I’m going to ask you the question that I’ve been asked a million times, and I’m sure you and your team have as well. So what’s the catch? Right? That’s right. That’s a question that sometimes like, or a different question with the same probably answers. How can you afford to do that? So those are the two questions that I’m sure you’re familiar with, as well as I am. Yeah, but let’s answer well, Mattis will answer them. So what’s the catch? Right, so I feel this a lot. I’m sure you do. How do you answer that? Oliver Graf 14:46Yeah. What’s the catch? And how do you guys make money? Yeah. So you know, full transparency at the very beginning. This was a lot harder of a question to answer but now that we’ve proven concept and we have as Any agencies we do, there really there is no catch, right? It’s it’s a volume game for us. And just like Costco offers better deals than the traditional place, but you have to be a member to get that take advantage of that. It’s the same thing with us. And then in addition to that, we’ve also built a series of revenue streams around the agents. So we have closing services, transaction coordinators, different things that are all value adds for our agents that also become profit centers for us. So by them, helping us our, you know, network of service providers, that allows us to pass on more savings to them, and again, ultimately put more money back in their pockets. And that’s kind of how we approach it. D.J. Paris 15:49We do it the same way. And when we’re talking about, you know, alternate alternate streams of income, other revenue sources, you know, we’re looking at things like title, possibly mortgage, you know, just different relationships with other providers that and we explain it this way to our agents, too, it’s like, you do not have to use our title services, but by using those title services, that helps, you know, keep us in business, and helps keep our fees low. And the funny part is, pretty much every other firm has ancillary stuff anyway, right? Like, it’s not even unusual. Now, because I’ve been looking that the app, there’s really not much money in traditional brokerage, whether you’re at a typical real estate commission firm, where you’re gonna have a split, maybe an annual fee, you know, versus 100% model, it’s, it’s really, we’re, all of these, these, these big companies are now realizing the money is more in the ancillary because commissions are going up. The firm’s are going to have to be more competitive. We’ve I’m sure you’ve seen this with with firms coming in, and even buying agents and giving them cash bonuses, and giving them great commission splits. And they have to make up that money somehow. Oliver Graf 16:59Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think it’s 80, there’s 87 different service providers that touch a real estate transaction. So what we actually encourage this, I know, there’s a lot of agents listening as well. And so I want to make sure they get a lot of value. And, and what I would encourage them to do is not only focus on their business, but they can also create either revenue streams, affiliate relationships, or even acquire or start businesses that are, you know, involved in that ad set that tree of 87 different services that are involved. So things like moving companies, or, you know, surance, insurance, solar, like out here in California, solar is a big one solar companies, they’ll pay like $1,000, per referral, you know what I mean? Like, if you create those extra relationships, and those extra revenue streams, then all of a sudden, you know, you send three or four referrals their way. And that’s a couple of three $4,000, that you’re making an extra revenue. And there’s a lot of different things out there, if you start getting creative, and we can go through some of those if you want. But there’s there’s a lot of opportunity outside of just closing the transaction. D.J. Paris 18:19Yeah, there is. And so I think what I love about firms like like ours, aside from being very attractive from a cost benefit perspective, the hurdle we all we jump, or I shouldn’t speak for all of our of course, but the hurdle I jump is oftentimes just making sure people know that they are going to get more than they probably would expect. And we’re always, you know, pinging our agents and serving them to say, like, anonymously, like, how are we doing, because if we’re not doing well, you’re gonna go back to that traditional firm, you’re gonna be happy to give up the 30 or 40%, whatever it might be, to get better support and training. And we better have our training and support on point. And I would encourage anyone who’s considering, you know, looking into a model like this, see if a firm exists in your in your area. It’s harder to do in smaller markets. I’m from Peoria, Illinois. And we first thought, well, maybe we’ll open an office down there and there just weren’t enough agents to support it. So you know, certain markets may not have that Madison is a great one. We actually looked at Madison, I’m glad we didn’t go there. Since you guys are there. We actually looked at Wisconsin. There’s one in Milwaukee I know, but one or two maybe. But anyway, I applaud you guys for for continuing to evolve and expand. I would like to pivot just just briefly to talk a little bit about you know, with the number of agents you’ve seen funnel through your company and who are still there and really just killing it. We’d love to hear what you see as some best practices around top agents. You know, where do you see agents having a lot of success? What are some of those, you know, those strategies or disciplines? Oliver Graf 19:59Yeah, slowly. So in terms of kind of what separates the top agents and the most successful people from the rest is, to me, it comes down to three things. It’s, it’s number one, we’ll call it the nuts and bolts, right? You got to know the contracts, you got to know the business, you got to know conflict resolution, and just kind of the A to Z on how to be an agent and what to do when problems arise, because they will arise. And then the other two is advertising and sales. I think that the better you are at advertising, let’s call that lead generation, whether that’s cold calling, whether that’s buying leads and converting them through a funnel, whether that’s setting up referral sources, I mean, there’s probably like seven or eight methods of advertising, I think it’s really honing in and getting good at one of those. And then also, on the other side, it’s the sales piece, and then that, you know, really just understanding what a good salesperson is kind of understanding how to be a good listener, as opposed to just verbally vomiting on someone and trying to close sales that way, but really understanding their needs, getting on their side of the table with them, and then helping them through it by you know, asking the right questions and things like that. So it’s really down to those three things, and we can expand if you want. D.J. Paris 21:27Let’s talk I would love to talk about advertising. I don’t often talk too much about advertising with my guests. And I should and let’s let’s talk about it. What are you seeing that’s working for your agents right now with respect to advertising. I 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. Oliver Graf 23:03Right so um, let’s I can go a couple different ways. With that, I think I’ll give you my favorite one first, my favorite one is referral sources, not just, you know, staying in touch with your database and getting referrals from them. But creating referral sources that can give you multiple, multiple referrals per year per month. So that’s things like, like attorneys can be a great source of leads. And by simply working let’s say all the top divorce attorneys in town, or bankruptcy attorneys in town or probate attorneys in town, if you simply start advertising to them the same way you to advertise to your database, so send them a monthly mail piece and call them go to their events go to the events that they’re at and meet them. And if you just create one or two really good referral sources, from an attorney, or a CPA or someone like that, or like here in San Diego, we have a lot of bigger companies and those bigger companies, they have relocation specialists. So if you can get in there and create the relationship with those people to where you’re the trusted go to person. I mean, that can literally be the difference between doing five to 10 deals a year and 50 to 100 deals a year, just off a few good referral relationships. So yeah, just D.J. Paris 24:37just to add a couple of ideas as you were talking, you know, financial advisors, another great right. They oftentimes may be the first people to know that, you know, the client, their client might be considering a move. Of course, you mentioned divorce attorneys. That’s great insurance agents. We talked about another great, great one. And yeah, there’s the accountants, there’s a lot of ancillary Businesses that aren’t necessarily directly related to real estate, but touch people who are making those kinds of decisions that they now become aware of. And they can pass that to you, and you can pass things over to them. I’ve always, I’ve always been surprised when I talk to agents. And I say you should call some accountants, you should call some financial advisors, say you’d like to develop a really good relationship and send them some leads, and, you know, offer to help their clients as well. It’s done by I would guess less than 1% of all the real deals out there. But it’s a heck of a good idea, isn’t it? Oliver Graf 25:33Yeah, it really is. And, and back to the initial point is, once they give you a referral, and you do a good job for them, now you you’re in line to just get referral after referral. And if you set up a few of those relationships the right way, I mean, it could really it can, it can 10x your business over the course of a year. And so some ways that I would go about targeting those people going to the places they hang out, right, like here in San Diego, there’s a place called the University Club. Anytime you go in there, it’s, it’s 50%, attorneys and accountants. So just simply going to those networking events and building the relationships, and then calling them and following up and sending them regular marketing collateral, just like you would your past clients and database, and just working those. And then also, you know, a big part of our marketing mix that we teach is doing events, in person events, whether it’s socials and trainings. So for example, let’s say you have a financial advisor that you want to work with, well, why not offer to host an event where they can be the speaker, so they benefit they have, they don’t you cover the costs, you fill the room, you put the butts in seats, and all of that with your database and your marketing. And you know, there’s lots of different ways to fill a room. But if you fill a room full of interested people that are, let’s say, learning about a 1031 exchange, or how to buy their first home, or whatever it might be right you get those referral sources involved in those events, invite them out to your socials, then all of a sudden, you know, they become your go to source and you become theirs. D.J. Paris 27:16Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s so it’s almost deceptively simple, right? It’s one of those things that it takes about 30 seconds to explain to somebody, and then they have to put the work in to actually build those relationships. But boy, you know, if you’re only focused on as you said, your sphere, well, that’s a great place to focus. And you should, because those are probably the people most likely to use you. But we have a limited sphere, right? All of us, you know, unless we all know, 1000s of people were limited. We know probably a couple 100 People at most, as we get into this industry, and then we’re like none of them want to buy or sell, it’s like well, okay, they’ll they’ll come around when they come around, but you can proactively go out. And, you know, you don’t have to necessarily just purchase leads from different lead providers, although you certainly can do that, too. And so I think that’s great strategic partnerships around not just referrals, but also, you know, generating additional income, as you mentioned, you know, even with different utility providers in your area, there may be affiliate relationships, you can set up with your local energy company or your local internet and TV provider, cable provider, you might you could get paid, you know, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, you know, or sell every time somebody signs up one of your clients. And, you know, these are they’re going to need internet and TV and or at least the internet, maybe not cable, but internet for sure. And they’re, they’re probably also security services, like, you know, the the different, you know, security providers are also affiliate oftentimes have those relationships that you can build. So even if you Yeah, you know, let me Oliver Graf 28:51let me let me give you two more on that note, these are these are really good ones, because they generally find out about someone wanting to, you know, make a move far before everybody else. And that’s general contractor’s number one, because almost anybody that wants to sell their house, they’re going to do a little bit of work first. So it’s a great way to kind of get upstream before everyone else knows about it. And then the other one is property managers, because most people are going to tell their property manager, if they’re thinking about selling, if it’s an investment property, like hey, you know this after this lease, I’m gonna don’t worry about rehabbing. I’m going to sell the place and then you know, they can put you in the front of the line for that type of transaction. D.J. Paris 29:37Yeah, it makes all this boy general contractors, I never would have thought of that. That is that is absolutely really a wonderful tip. Because number one, every realtor wants a great GC to refer to their clients. And we know that great GCS are, you know, not always easy to find, and then the GCS want, what more work as well. So of course your how Helping them but yeah, they’re the ones that probably do get the first oftentimes first notice of, hey, we’re about to make a move here. And the GC could say, hey, you know, I worked with so and so you should talk to them. They’re really good realtor and they might be able to give you a, you know, an idea of what your place is worth, etc. So what a great i That boy that so much. That’s amazing. I’m shocked that nobody else has ever mentioned that in the history of the show. So I appreciate you bringing that to us. Awesome. I also want to talk a little just going back a little bit to your marketing specifically, because I am I’m such a fan of your marketing. And I think our our listeners could really benefit. Now a lot of times, firms are advertising directly to brokers to get them to join. So we would call that like a b2b sort of business to business kind of type of advertising. And of course, realtors are typically more business to consumer advertising. But I think what you guys do that our listeners who are more probably B to C can take away from is really injecting humor, sort of silliness. Funny, you guys are doing that in a way that is incredibly authentic. It’s not funny for the sake of being funny. It’s funny, because that’s clearly your personalities. And pretty much nobody else does that right? Maybe individual agents might do that, because they’re kind of silly. And you’ll see some silly individual agents stuff, but you don’t typically see silly brokerage stuff. And I love that you do that. And I imagine it separates you from virtually everybody else. Oliver Graf 31:31Yeah, yeah, that’s true. So I think the marketing approach is the same in terms of how we do it as a broker and how I would do it. If I was an agent, I think the the first step is really understanding who your customer avatar is. So what I mean by that is, who if you could pick your ideal customer? Who would that customer be? What are their attributes? What do they like? What do they not like? Where do they like to hang out, you know, and then go from there. Because once you understand who your customer is, it makes marketing to that person, you know, a lot easier. Because what I think a lot of people make the mistake of doing is they try to market to everyone. And by marketing to everyone, you’re kind of just marketing like everybody else, and you don’t stand out to that person. That’s your ideal person. So what we did is we identified that we wanted people that are entrepreneurial, we wanted people that are fun, we wanted people that again, back to our tagline of we’re not your grandpa’s brokerage, like we, we are different, we want to be different, we want to do things different. And we want to attract the people that kind of fit into that model. And so then you can kind of reverse engineer all your marketing from there. So let’s say I’m the opposite, right? Let’s say I’m a suit and tie person. And I’m very serious all the time. And the marketing message would be a lot different. And I’m looking for, or let’s say in another scenario, I’m looking for high end luxury clients, right, the high end luxury client is a completely different avatar. And so you’re probably going to want to wear the suit and tie and you’re going to want to have, you know, the Louis Vuitton belt and all of that stuff that you can kind of show off and, and put into your marketing mix. So I think it’s really just understanding who your customer is, if you could pick your ideal customer, and then working the marketing backwards from there. D.J. Paris 33:37Yeah, that makes so much sense. And a lot of times, I think we we focus on the fact that, and I do this too, because I’m on the recruiting side. And so I’m always thinking about our agent pipeline isn’t full enough. Or if you’re an agent might be thinking, Oh, my client, I don’t have enough clients right now nobody’s buying or selling, and maybe taking a step back and saying, Well, if I could design my ideal client, or in my case, or in your case, in ideal realtor to come work for us, what what might that look like if we could wave that magic wand and then saying, Okay, well, now we know who we’re looking for? Where do those people hang out? Where can I reach them? What kind of messaging Do they like? You know, where do they hang out online as well, not just in person, you know, and what, what do they want? Right? What are they all about? And you’re right it? It’s not easy, but it’s simple? I guess in that sense, I guess it’s simple and hard because then you have to create the marketing that will actually hopefully attract those those agents but or consumers. I would love to talk about tools. I know you’re a big systems guy. I would love to you know what tools are you seeing agents having success with whether it’s CRMs or you know, graphic design tools or any any tools that you think really help leverage an agent to greater success? Oliver Graf 34:56Yeah, so, back to the marketing and making Your stuff look good and kind of coming up with a cohesive brand feel I like invento market. So if you just Google it, you can find it, they basically, you can buy like packages of pre designed, fully branded, fully customizable marketing packages. So what that could mean is it could include a listing presentation 15, social media, templates, letterhead, folders, and that way you can just go and you can buy that whatever, again, is going to resonate to you and to your, your, your ultimate, ideal customer. So that’s one, I really liked that I also really like Canva. That’s kind of I know, a lot of people use that it’s kind of an obvious one, but a lot of people don’t. And I suggest that everybody does, because it’s really cheap. I think the paid plan, they have a free plan. And the paid plan, I want to say is like 10 bucks a month. But you can make really great graphics, YouTube thumbnails, I mean, they have all the templates already in there, and they’re very plug and play. So you just upload your pictures, you can design flyers, you can do all that stuff. It works just as good on any device, so it’s easy to use. So stuff like that. D.J. Paris 36:21I have a quick can Canvas story just tell you, because we use Canva as well. A lot of our audience, of course, is familiar. If you’re not, it’s basically Photoshop, when when you don’t need any sort of photoshop skills, or even the Photoshop software. It’s a web web application. It’s super easy, as Oliver was saying, when I was going to tell, you just reminded me of something. So one day, we were we were surveying our agents going, you know, what, if we could wave a magic wand? What would you what would be a tool that we don’t currently have that you might want? And somebody had said, Well, you, you guys do a lot of training our firms, we do a lot of training on social media marketing, and how to brand yourself on social, but you don’t really provide us any content to post the agent. The agent was telling us and it was the kind of that’s Hey, that is kind of a problem, isn’t it? We don’t really have content. So to Oliver’s point, I actually I know that advance of the market, I use it all the time. But actually when an Etsy, which I didn’t think those kinds of things existed on Etsy, and they do, and we bought, like 850, social media templates that looked really fun and cool. And they were all sorts of different whether it’s just listed just sold or, you know, more informational, or more like, hey, this, this is learn more about me as the agent, all sorts of, you know, different trivia questions, all sorts of cool ready made posts, that you can customize, make your own in about five seconds, and then push out. And I think it cost us about $100 to buy these templates and use them with with our agents. So it’s not even a high cost thing. And then you now have, again, assuming that it resonates with with your own person with your own personality, you now have ready made content that you can use on social media and definitely so we did this to separate ourselves from a lot of other firms that also didn’t provide social media content that agents can use. And we’re like, oh, well, just I don’t know if anyone uses it, but it certainly a nice easy thing to implement for our agents. And if you’re an agent whose firm doesn’t have that, well maybe consider looking at other firms or, you know, you can purchase those yourself for very, very little money. Oliver Graf 38:19Yeah, yeah, they’re all very cost effective and, and fairly cheap. But all everything we just mentioned. Another one that I’m a big fan of is is lumpy mail. So lumpy mail is mail that comes to your inbox and isn’t like a flat postcard or a flat envelope. It’s something that’s lumpy. So it sticks out in the mailbox, it’s almost guaranteed to get open. There’s a website called red paper plane, or red pepper planes.com. Check them out, they have a ton of different really cool lumpy mail items that you can send out to your clients. They have like, foldable houses that when you open it, it pops up and a house pops out. And you know, they have all kinds of different really cool things again, to stand out. One thing we’re big on is we pattern interrupt, and being different. So for us, you know, back to the marketing, if you’re sending out the same postcards that every realtor sending out, you’re not doing anything to stand out. But if you have a sphere that you’re marketing to regularly, obviously send them the postcards and all that but maybe once a quarter, send them some wild send them some crazy that stands out that, you know, send it to him in a FedEx envelope that they have to sign for an open right. Just doing things like that to be different is a is a great way to stand out. D.J. Paris 39:45Yeah, and it’ll cost a little bit more than doing a traditional, you know, postcard mailer. But if you can get your open rate up by at least 50% Or at least your read rate by 50% on a lumpy piece of and Oliver is exactly right, who doesn’t open a lumpy piece of mail because you’re trying to figure it out with your fingers and find the corners and you’re like this, this could be very cool. And especially if it opens up into a three dimensional house, yeah, that maybe that costs $5 per card. But boy, I would certainly expect I would get a few a few transactions out of it over time. I also used to do a presentation when I would sometimes speak at events called nobody wants to read your newsletter. And while I don’t think it’s a bad idea to send one, I’m sort of being silly by saying that, and I don’t mean to disparage we, we tell our agents to send newsletters, but we say don’t just send a newsletter, right, do other things that really make you stand out, and a newsletter is fine, no one’s gonna read it, but I guess they’ll see your name. And that’s a good thing. And if you send a postcard, you know, they’re gonna see your name, and that’s a good thing. But maybe you could do something a little different. And so I love the fact that you guys are, you know, you know, really into some of those alternative ideas that, you know, just get better results. Oliver Graf 40:58Yeah, another one, just on the male front is, is a site called mailbox power. What I what I, you know, what we teach to our agents is creating a post closing Follow Up campaign, because I forget the statistic exactly, but it’s over 50% of people forget their Realtors name after the first year. And so if you can create a follow up campaign, and with mailbox power, they’re all greeting card style, they come with a real stamp on the envelope, they they’ll do handwriting fonts, and all that. And then you can also attach gifts. So anything from just like a $2 pack of brownies, all the way on up to you know, all sorts of other gifts that you know, towels and tumblers, and all the all the stuff. But if you create a campaign inside of mailbox power, you only have to create it one time. And then every deal you close, you have one for buyers and one for sellers. And you just put those people into that campaign. And you set it and forget it. And now for the next five years, there’ll be getting mail pieces from you at least once a quarter, sometimes maybe once a year, on their clothes, aversary you send them a you know, you attach a thing a cookies or something. And that’s just you know, that’s that’s what separates you from the rest. D.J. Paris 42:22Yeah, it’s really funny. I have a lot of different service providers in my life as you do, I’m sure accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, etc. dry cleaner, you know, it could be a dentist, I’ve never received any sort of ongoing little thank you other than maybe a card that you know, at the end of the year, which you get, you know, dozens and dozens, but I don’t ever get a you know, and I love my accountant and I’m not in any she will she’ll never hear this. So I don’t I’m not disparaging her, but I never got like, hey, you’ve been with me 13 years, here’s some cookies. You know, I would love that. So I guess the point of me saying that isn’t to say, you know, so many people are doing it wrong. But if you want to add that kind of value, and you should, because you’re absolutely right, my parents, they sold a condo in Myrtle Beach, it took them five years to sell it because they sort of bought it at the wrong time. And they held it for too long. And anyway, it was very difficult condo to sell. They eventually sold it and the guy was kind of a hero in our family. And six months later, I said, Hey, Dad, what was that guy’s name? I wanted to send him a referral. And my dad goes, I have no idea. I’d have to look that up. I don’t remember. And isn’t that amazing? Yeah. And they liked him. They really liked him. They didn’t, they thought like, this guy’s our hero, and they couldn’t remember his name. And it’s not because my parents are forgetful they are, they are very loyal to people. And so it’s a great example of staying in touch after the sale. You know, we haven’t talked about this at all, I don’t want to pivot only because I know we’re gonna wait, let me I’m Oliver Graf 43:49gonna add, I’m gonna add one more thing just to bring it full circle, because I think that was a really good point you just made, but also back to the vendors, right? Why not create a mail campaign for the referral partners that you’re targeting. So that once a month, they get a gift card or whatever it is from you. And then not only that, but you can include them in your post closing mail campaigns. So you know, if it’s a CPA around tax time, you should say, hey, you know, it’s your favorite realtor, Oliver. I’m just sending out all the best. I know this time of year is tough for a lot of people. It’s tax time. Here’s my referral source. Hope that helps, right? You’re not asking for anything, you’re delivering massive value to that CPA. And then they in turn, you know, might come back to some business with you. So that kind of brings the loop full circle. D.J. Paris 44:39And it does and I want to stay on that for just a moment because you just got me excited because I started thinking what so so now we start at the beginning, right? So now we’re like, wow, that’s a great idea. And now how do we implement it? Well, we go back to Oliver’s first point you pick up the phone and call some CPAs or if you have your own CPA Of course you can start there. But you can call them and say hey, I’ve got an idea. I have a big, pretty big sphere of influence. And I’ve also got past clients. Around January, people start thinking about taxes and getting you know all of their documents in order. And, you know, if you’re looking for more clients, I would love to send something out every January, maybe even in December to saying, Hey, this is my preferred CPA, if you guys don’t have an account, and you need one, or you want to see this, this person’s amazing. And, you know, and say, Hey, would you be open to that? I’ll even pay for everything if you want, if you wanted to cover the cost as the agent. I can’t imagine any CPA would turn that down. Oliver Graf 45:34Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only that, you can even take it a step further, you could add a page on your website that says, These are my preferred vendors and just list them out. Now they’re getting more exposure. A lot of times, they’ll even offer to pay half, you know, most of our mailings that go out most of the events that we sponsor, our vendors are helping pay for those and bringing the cost down for us. So that makes it more of a win win for everybody. You know, if as long as you’re delivering value for them, they are going to bring the value right back. D.J. Paris 46:10One last question about real estate. And then I want to talk about your podcast, and we’ll wrap up here. I was seeing some of the books behind you, which some suburb lives I’ve read. And I wanted to ask if there was one book that you would recommend, above all others that an agent really should read? Do you have? And I know this is a tough question to have, you’ve read a lot, but any particular book come to mind. Oliver Graf 46:35I’d say probably the most impactful book I ever read was 48 Laws of Power by Robert Robert Greene. Yeah, it’s just an incredible book on the dark arts, you know, how to close deals, how to blend in how to strike when the iron is hot. I mean, he really covers the full gamut on on the Laws of Power and becoming a more powerful person. And that, you know, that helps with sales that helps with ideas for your marketing mix, and just all the way across the board. But that’s yeah, highly, highly recommend that one, D.J. Paris 47:14I own that book as well. And Robert Greene is not like a self help guy. He’s actually an academic. This is a this is I think he’s a college professor or he was, and he has thoroughly researched some of the most powerful types of personalities and with with lots of examples throughout history. I have not thought about that book in a long time. I’m going to pick it back up. So thank you 4848 Laws of Power Robert Greene with an E at the end, I believe. So we’ll we’ll post a link to that in the notes. And then we you have a podcast and we haven’t talked about that at all. Let’s talk about let’s talk about founders club. So tell us what founders club is. Yeah, Oliver Graf 47:51so founders Club was really designed to be a high level podcast for real estate entrepreneurs. So I’ve had people like Robert Kiyosaki, Grant Cardone, Chris Voss, Elena Cardone, Ryan serhant, a lot of top top people. And we really take a look at not it’s less about, you know, everyday real estate practices and more about building a big real estate business. And so we talk a lot about some of the stuff we’ve talked about today, you know, adding profit centers to your business, scaling up different tools, different things like that. But it was really just, you know, my way of giving back originally just to our agents, I wanted to just interview great people, and so the agents could hear. And then we started putting it out there. And it was really well received. And it’s been growing ever since. So you guys can check that out at founders club.tv. All the links are there. For anybody that’s interested in. D.J. Paris 48:55Yeah, I really encourage all of our agents as you are sorry, our agents, well, yes, our agents here at kale and all of our listeners, which are probably all agents, but they’re certainly not my agents. Everyone listening, this is the kind of value that Oliver brings in founders club. So if you’re listening to my show, you probably listen to other shows too. And as much as I would love to have no other shows out there, this is a great one for for our audience to pay attention to because think about, you know, just even the contributions he’s made in this last hour, given us a whole bunch of great marketing and advertising ideas, tool ideas, and you know, just ideas about how to really think about your business more from an entrepreneurial standpoint, versus a agent in the trenches, trying to make deals right trying to really strategize and he’s talking to business leaders who have done this in all sorts of different fields. So yeah, founders club is where you go and founders club.tv Is that does that right? Yeah, Oliver Graf 49:53they just yeah, if you just search founders club on your favorite player or YouTube, you’ll you’ll find us D.J. Paris 50:00Perfect. Well, I think what a great place to wrap up. And I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention if anyone is out there saying, Boy, I’d love to work at a firm with a guy like Oliver. And by the way, you should want to do that unless you live in Chicago, and you should work for us. But outside of Chicago, I’m just being silly. Of course, I am the biggest fan of big block Realty. And if you are an agent, and you’re not getting maybe the attention or or that you want at your current firm, maybe you’re not getting the support the training, or maybe you just want to see what else is out there and you want to explore other options, big block Realty, they’re in California, and they are expanding to other states, other markets. So they may already be in your area, they’re in Wisconsin right now. They’re looking at other states, Florida, I believe in a bunch of other places. So even even if they’re not there today, they might be there soon. So reach out. And the best place as an agent you can learn about big block is right on their website, big block realty.com. Check out their marketing, by the way, it’s great, their videos are just outstanding. And I think you know, we all have heroes in this in this industry, Oliver is unknowingly one of mine simply because of the way that they have conducted their marketing efforts. And, you know, you know that that’s going to bleed down into what they provide for their agents. So if you are exploring other options, couldn’t more highly recommend big black boy, they seem like a fun group, and Oliver. So thank you for being on our show. We really appreciate your time we know how busy we have about half the agents you do and we know how busy it is to even find time to do these kinds of shows. And you have your own show on top of that and a million other things that you do. So thank you on behalf of our audience for being part of our show and providing a tremendous amount of value. And on behalf of Oliver and myself, we want to thank our audience, the people listening, thanks for making it all the way to the end, we we appreciate you. And we ask that you just do two quick things as you sign off. One is to tell a friend I think of one other agent, maybe you know an agent that would needs to join a firm like big black, let them know about that. But also send them a link to this. This episode. You can find us right at keeping it real pod.com. And then, just like Oliver said, Any podcast app, search for not only founders club and subscribe to them, but also search for keeping it real. So let somebody else know about both podcasts and about big block Realty. And then last thing, leave us a review. We really appreciate it. The way that we get better is by hearing from our audience. So whatever podcast app you might be listening to this on. Let us know what you think of the show and we want to continue to make it better for you, Oliver, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Oliver Graf 52:27Alright DJ, thanks again. Appreciate it. We’ll talk soon

In our September episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties discusses how she uses the data from the weekly market activity report issued by the Chicago Realtors Association to pivot the current shifts in the market. Carrie also discusses what to do as real estate professionals during this time to make the properties you represent attractive. D.J. emphasizes the importance understanding where you are as a realtor at the moment and the importance of a realtor’s cooperation with loan officers. Last, D.J. explains what a holding company is and how real estate agents that are thinking of exiting the market can use them. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Carrie can be reached at carrie@atproperties.com or by phone at 312.961.4612. Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does one of the top Realtors in the country use market statistics to stay ahead of the competition? We’re going to find out 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 next year? And do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? And are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering Realtors a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with tons of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you by readily aerial maps. An aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before it investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you could spend selling real estate. And if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or you’re tired of paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. While you’ll love rapidly. Now readily is a real estate map generator that lets you create custom designed professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales buyers and listing appointments in minutes not hours. Simply enter the subjects property address, auto populate nearby retailer logos with the click of a button and download your aerial retail map readily turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps more time making money. So get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting readily.com. That’s REBL i e.com. And sign up for an account no credit card required. And now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And today on the show is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Cary McCormack Real Estate Group. With that properties here in Chicago. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer with over 20 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in the Chicago area, she is in the top 15, not 15%, the top 15 out of that entire 46,000. She’s a true superstar and expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors, and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments, please visit Carrie at our website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. Also follow her on Instagram at Carey McCormick real estate. Both of those links are in our show notes. Carrie, welcome once again to the show. Carrie McCormick 3:50Thank you as always. D.J. Paris 3:54All right. Well, what’s what’s happening right now? It’s, it’s now the end of September. Last quarter, and what are you what are you thinking about? Like, what’s what’s big in your world right Carrie McCormick 4:07now? Yeah, so obviously, you know, we’re headed towards the end of the year. So there’s always a big push to, to finish out the year strong. And as everyone’s been talking about, we’ve had a significant market shift. So, you know, those of us who’ve been in the industry for a long time, I’ve been in the industry for 22 years, you know, we know how to pivot, right? And it’s important that we pay attention to market and we do that. One thing I do consistently is you know, research on the market and reading different articles and different you know, facts about it. And one thing I just wanted to share with everyone that’s here in Chicago is I we have the Chicago Association of Realtors, of course and we have these, what we call faststats These are very informative, you know stats on the market and it can drill down to all over Chicago to specific neighborhoods and I always find that these are A great resource of information. And it’s interesting, I was talking to a colleague, when I usually pull these all of these numbers, you probably can’t see him. But you know, we’re all these big pluses of inventory. And you know, the amount of contracts and pricing, it was always these double digit, plus numbers. And now I look at I pulled it this morning, they’re all negative. So we’ve got, you know, negative listings coming in the market, we’ve got under contract is down, home for sale is down. So we’ve got, obviously, you know, indications of shifts in the market. But instead of focusing this time on this market shift, I wanted to talk about what we can do as brokers during this time, right. And as we hold on to our inventory, and we’ve got our inventory here, some of the stuff is not moving, right, some of our listings are not moving. So what can we do, and I think the number one thing to do is to do a price change. And all of us know, when we approach a seller and say we need to talk, you know, they know that we’re coming to them with a price change. But before we go into the price change, I always like to make sure that we’ve exhausted every other avenue. And you know, part of it is going to be the number one thing is communication, right? So all along from the start of your listing, you’ve got to communicate with the sellers on what is going on. Because again, once you get to the point where you do need to ask for a price change. There’s been the communication with them. So you know, one way to communicate with them is through current CMAs is give them an update of what’s happening in the market, what is selling what is not selling, so that they are engaged with what’s happening in the market. Also, feedback from all of the showings is, you know, after showing, obviously, you have immediate feedback from the buyers, but follow up with that agent, you know, one or two times to find out, you know, where did they buy? Why did they buy this house? What is it and communicate that information over to the sellers? Again, the more information you give to them, you know, makes them feel like they they’re engaged, they know that you’re engaged in their listing, and that you’re trying everything possible. D.J. Paris 7:16I love that I’m sorry, I just wanted to say I love that because this idea of keeping the sellers informed and saying, Hey, I’m going to chase these agents after the showing and make sure that I have a good sense of what they liked, maybe where they thought we could do some improvement, if any, and just their overall thoughts. And we’ll start to see if there’s some trends that emerge. I think that’s amazing. Carrie McCormick 7:38Yeah, so that’s, I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s easier said than done. But I do think it’s an important part of it. And then ineffective marketing. So sometimes, you know, we launch a marketing plan for a home and then after a few weeks, it kind of dies down. So you really do have to relook at your marketing and see what’s working and what’s not working. And part of that is reevaluating, sometimes the photos that are being used. You know, I just reordered the photos in one of my listings, because one of my listings has a beautiful view of the lake. But the way I initially set up the listing was it went from the foyer to the kitchen to the living room. And once you get to the living room, that’s where these beautiful views take place. Right? And I thought okay, so obviously I’m not capturing someone online, why are they not coming to see this property? So I reordered the picture to put the view first, even though it didn’t make sense, you know, when you walk into the home, but that is that that million dollar view. So I switched up the order of the pictures, I switched him up in all of my marketing campaigns made that view that first and foremost picture, guess what we had a showing this morning, you know, so you know, people’s attention, as we know is very short. So if they get to picture four, and I’ve not engaged them, they’ll swipe right Next, go to the next property. So we have to think about, you know, how is our marketing resonating with the buyer, and really just kind of taking a deep dive into each of your listings of you know, why why are buyers not calling or why are they not buying this property? So again, sometimes it’s good to set it and just go but if it’s not selling you got to change something right? So marketing is is one of them. D.J. Paris 9:29i That’s a really good one too. I was thinking about this because interiors can always be modified, right? Like whether somebody likes the paint or the flooring or the fixtures or whatever the furniture in the in the pictures that all can be changed and altered. But if you’ve got a million dollar view, what’s the harm in putting it you know, right outside like the first photo is typically the exterior second photo, a million dollar view, and they’re gonna get to the interior after that anyway, I think that’s a really smart smart play. Yeah. Carrie McCormick 9:59The other thing is, is when there’s interior or exterior condition issues, meaning there’s flaking paint, or you have dead grass or cracks in a window or something, you know, there’s defects in the property. When a buyer comes in to see that, you know, sellers sometimes say, Oh, well, we’ll fix it once the house is sold, or we’ll get to that, you know, a seller has lived in a home for years, and they just don’t see what we see coming in. And that could turn off a buyer, you know, a buyer doesn’t look at it so much as Oh, no, I’ve got to replace the grass, or I’ve got to paint. Sometimes they think, Well, does this seller take care of this house? Right? You know, and okay, they’re not taking care of their lawn, or they’re not taking care of the broken window, what else are they not taking care of. So even though these are small fixes are easy fixes. It just, it leaves a bad impression with the buyer. So my recommendation is always just get it fixed. Just get it taken care of. And I know that’s a hard one, because I too have sellers that just don’t want to do it. You know, they just don’t want to fix it until the house gets sold. So you know, if there is something like that, I just like to hit it off, you know, right when the buyer comes in is that the seller is aware of these items, these are the only items that need fixing, we’re going to get them repaired. So at least I hit it, you know, head on that they’re not that the seller is not going to take care of it. But again, I think it’s very important just to have the Home Show to its best on that first showing. D.J. Paris 11:37That makes so much sense. I was just thinking about this. Because when buyers walk through even a perfectly man manicured property inside and out, the buyers are still looking at things going, Okay, we’re going to need to change that there already is creating a list of things. And the last thing you want to add to their list is Oh, and look, the paint here is chipped. And yeah, we liked the paint. But now I have to add that to my list of having to deal with that once it’s over. Yeah, that’s a really, really good point is don’t add to the buyers lists in their mind, I guess. Carrie McCormick 12:08Right. And again, you know, all of these little things kind of add up in the buyers mind. My last thing is here in Chicago, especially we have a lot of condos and with condos, we have HOA fees or your assessments. And we’ve got some nice healthy taxes here are two in Chicago. So we have to think when pricing a property or presenting a property into the market, you’ve got to add all those together, because that’s the cost of ownership, your HOA fees, again, your assessments, your taxes, and then you have your mortgage, and then you have insurance, right, so all of those calculate to that buyers monthly costs. So we do have to think about when pricing a property or comparing our comps to take those into consideration. And with interest rates doubling since last year, right that plays into how much affordability someone has. So we do have to start doing a little math now when we’re pricing our property and at least again, communicate that with the sellers of that’s how buyers are looking at this purchase of you know, putting all the fees together. So making sure that we communicate that to the seller. And then with all of that you know with communication with your marketing your photos, getting any condition you know bad conditions in the home, cleaned up and fixed. If the house is still not selling, then it’s your price. Then you gotta go back down to the price. But again, if you’ve exhausted all of these, your seller will know that you’ve tried everything I want to D.J. Paris 13:42pause 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. 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. I think those are great, great ideas, and make really a lot of sense. Because right now there are fewer buyers in the market. So you can’t maybe get away with as many imperfections as existed, you know, back a year ago, even when, when rates were, you know, a lot lower. So I think that that is really strong points. So, agents, you’re going to have to either spend a little money yourself or and convince the sellers to spend a bit of money to do this. And while that’s not fun, and nobody wants to put the time into, of course, get those imperfections repaired, it’s going to help the property move a lot faster. People expect Instagram perfect. properties, which of course, no property is. But that’s the world we live in now. And so everyone’s dinner’s looked perfect from their phone. And we all know that that you know, this is just our mindset. And so do everything you and like Carrie said, if you’re if the agent or sorry, if the seller, the listing, the seller hasn’t yet, you know, corrected some of these imperfections, the listing agent can get ahead of it and say, Hey, we already know there’s a list of things we’re working on, we’re on it. And this sort of preempts the ability, the reason the buyer from them having to say I noticed the grass is kind of bare over here. I think that is so so smart. It really makes the listing agent look great to like, you know, to be able to say, we know over there, the grass is bare, we’re getting it fixed. I think that’s, that’s awesome. Because that’s really all that a buyer ever wants to hear is it’s being fixed the great thing. So I have a couple of suggestions. I’m sorry, Terry, did you have more? Because I wanted to get your opinion on this. Yeah. Okay. So I need to get your opinion, because so right now, our listeners and most Realtors I know, I have actually two things to talk about today. I’ll try to keep them short. But my first one is probably the most important, which is understanding where we actually are as realtors in this market for our buyers and sellers. And what I mean by that is yes, we know and we know, inventories down in most markets, of course, we know rates have basically doubled if not more than doubled in the last couple of years. Not a super fun place to be working when you’re working with buyers or sellers, really. But maybe it’s not a terrible time to buy a property. Now, here’s what I mean by that. And I don’t like to make blanket statements, because of course, it all depends on a million factors. But if you’re thinking, oh my gosh, rates are up, inventories down terrible time to buy. I’m not so sure that that’s objectively true. And here’s what I’m saying. Two years ago, when and even up to a year ago, we people were buying homes sight unseen for hundreds of 1000s of dollars more, maybe millions of dollars more in certain situations above asking price, you know, a lot of things, you know, trying to get deals pushed through at that time was almost impossible. So if you’re talking if you have buyers who are like, well, rates are in the sixes now and I really wanted rates to be in the threes. What you could do is go back to the properties that maybe they would have been looking at during that time and actually see what they closed for. And then actually running sort of the analysis of well, that property, you know, the properties that you were looking at before, you know, we’re selling for $150,000 more than what they go for today. And yes, rates have maybe doubled. But, you know, you you can basically what they call date the rate marry the home. So rates can be refinanced. Right. So at some point do we assume rates can should come down? Well, I certainly hope so. At some point, we don’t know when, but it might actually not be as as devastating to the buyer as it seems, because now they’re getting a cheaper price point. Yes, the rates higher. So maybe they pay higher monthly payments for a few years, or however long before the Fed cuts rates again. But boy, it just seems like I so my point is, is talk to a mortgage, talk to a loan officer, a Lending Officer. And actually, somebody I imagine has a calculator that can figure this stuff out. And it would be a really cool thing for an agent to think about. So that when somebody says it’s just a bad time to buy, you could say well let’s let’s actually run some numbers and I actually it might not be a bad time to buy and if you can demonstrate that through data, I think people will can calm down. So I’m just curious on what your thoughts are. Carrie McCormick 19:30I agree with that. It’s funny that you said that term data rate marry the home because someone just said that last night and I thought that was such a great thing and it was came from a mortgage lender and he said that to your point is just get the home that you want get it the price that you want rates will come down and you just refinance on you know out of that rate. So I always think to is a homes are so special, you know, I mean you have to live somewhere and no, just don’t Don’t cut yourself short by just looking at again, if the payments $200, more $300 more a month, is that really going to change your life? Are you really going to pass up on your dream home? But again, when you do that calculation, it’s probably not as bad as you think. I mean, I would rather pay a higher rate than pay $300,000 over the price of a home personally to app. So I mean, I guess maybe we should do that poll of like, which would you rather have? Would you rather pay $300,000? Over? Or would you rather have a 4% rate versus 7%? Rate? D.J. Paris 20:32Right? I really love this. So so everyone who’s listening who’s a realtor, which is probably everyone who’s listening, this is a good thing to to talk to a loan officer about, see if there are any calculators or or say, Hey, I’m running into these issues when I’m dealing with buyers. And I want to actually compare more apples to apples. So can you help me figure out what the data is? Or just at least anecdotally know how to talk about this, like Carrie just did, which really makes all the sense in the world? You know? Yes, we’re seeing the news. media’s is of course pushing, you know, they’re things that are, you know, negative, like rates are up, inventories down, of course, everyone’s seeing that. So as a real estate professional, you need to be able to make sense of that information and bring that back to the client. And it might actually be a really great time for, for your buyers to buy. But you need to run the numbers. And I think this is, this is a great time to develop better relationships with loan officers, and put their feet to the fire, because they’re the ones struggling to write if you don’t bring them business, they’re not likely to do well. And they’re going through the same issues you are. So this is where I think you reach out to them and say, What are you guys telling people? You know, what, what are you? How can you educate me, so I can educate my clients. So just an idea, maybe the sky? Well, the sky certainly isn’t falling. But if it feels like the sky is falling, this is an opportunity then to get some more information. So that and really, it’s your job as a realtor to know this stuff. Anyway, so but I just talked to a lot of depressed Realtors these days. So I want everybody to get undepressed Talk to your loan officers and find out exactly what the real shift is to the to the you know, really, homeowners really only care about how much money they they spend a month on their mortgage. Right? That’s really the end of the day, the most important thing and, and if it’s only a couple $100, and that doesn’t break your client, you know, then seems like, like Carrie said, a bad time to pass up on a dream home, it’s always a bad time to pass up on a dream home if if the pricing is reasonable. This leads me just to one other thing. And again, I apologize, this is gonna be a little negative. But I think there’s an opportunity here. So we’re seeing this in in here in Illinois, we’re seeing that there are real estate agents that are exiting the business, because activity has slowed, of course, you know. And so if you are considering exiting the business course, I would encourage you, our whole show is about teaching you how to flourish. And we hope that you do stay in but if that just isn’t possible for you, then in many states, there are what are what are called holding companies. And here’s really all the holding company is it’s a company where your real estate license is active, but you’re no longer practicing real estate as an agent, your license is active, but you’re just not really using it. And the reason why people can do why people do that is because what they can still do in a holding company is refer business. So we have a holding company here in Illinois, we have about 800 800 agents in it, and what they can do, and this is all state, almost all states can do this, by the way. So what you can do is you can park your real estate license, you’ll avoid paying all your MLS fees, and your association dues and all of the brokerage dues. But you can still earn referral commissions. So if you have clients that are coming into your life, even though you’re not practicing, you can refer them you can refer them to somebody like Carrie, right if you’re in the Chicagoland area, and you can still get paid a referral split. So how it typically works is you would if you have a buyer or seller, you then reach out to someone like Carrie and say, Hey, I’ve got this buyer, I’m not practicing right now. But I’d like to take a referral, split on it. And then you and the other agent would work out the referral split, and then you get paid when the transaction closes. So I know people that have actually made this their full time job where their don’t practice at all. And all they do is refer business to other agents and they have a tremendous amount of success. Carrie McCormick 24:25Yeah, actually, it’s funny that you are bringing this up because I received that exact call this morning for someone that’s was never in the business super full time. They were part time and this market shift is really just pushed them out and they want to focus in another direction, which again is is great. And again, we don’t want to ever talk negative, you know, we want to keep everything positive, but everyone’s got to do what they have to do. And this you know, they asked me to be their referral partner and you know, I think it’s such a brilliant way and we we obviously want to service our clients and keep things moving. So I think it’s a brilliant idea to support everybody. D.J. Paris 25:05Yeah, it’s one of those things where maybe people who are listening are thinking about even just taking a temporary pause right? Sometimes people do that. So if you’re going to take a temporary pause, or maybe a more indefinite pause, maybe you’ve just accepted a full time job somewhere else, and you want to explore that opportunity, but you don’t want to lose your license, put it in a holding company and then find someone to refer to and yeah, it’s not why you got in this business we get it, it’s not fun to sort of go a different way when you really wanted to be a full time realtor, but if you’re struggling right now, and he can’t find a way forward, there’s kind of a an opportunity to to regroup and save some money and figure out your next step. So that being said, we encourage you to stay in the business and also because lots of people are going to be exiting right now. Lots of agents will exit and that’s just the reality of it. So if you’re in and you stay in and you weather through the tough times, you’re going to be sitting really well when when the market recovers so I don’t think it’s a good time to get out of the business quite frankly. But if you are considering it, there are options. So I think I think that’s a good place to wrap up I’m sorry, I had to wrap up with something a little negative but it’s really still a nice opportunity if you are thinking of leaving for a temp for a period of time and but if you follow the some of the suggestions that you hear from people like Carrie on our show, you will thrive in these in these instances and you’ll actually become stronger and better because so many agents will be you know will be exiting or or they’ll just be depressed and sort of and I think that’s what’s happening to Kerry I don’t know if you’re seeing that from from people you know, who just seemed to be like a little bit down right now realtors are struggling I think, Carrie McCormick 26:48ya know, but we’re all here to support each other. So whatever we can do. D.J. Paris 26:53I love it. Awesome. Well, for everyone who is listening, please that well first of all, thank you for making it to the end of our episode. We love you we are we just crossed over 400 episodes we’re so grateful to everyone for continuing to support us please support us by continuing to listen and also telling a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing from from people like Carrie and send them a link to our our website keeping it real pod.com Also, if you I want you to watch the best thing I can always say about Carrie is not only is she an amazing realtor and really a true like icon here in Chicago so if you ever have any clients that are moving here, or you want to partner with another agent here in Chicago Carrie is amazing. On top of that she’s also does incredible work with her social media. And I think that if you’re an agent looking to do more with social media and you absolutely should follow what she’s doing use that as inspiration for what you could do to help your branding. So follow her on Instagram which is at Kerry McCormick real estate. That’s a link is in our show notes and Kerry if anyone out there is wanting to partner with you or work with you directly what’s the best way they should reach out? Carrie McCormick 28:06Always call me 312-961-4612 Or you can email me at Carey at@properties.com Or like you just said you could follow me and DM me as someone probably just did so put that down. D.J. Paris 28:22Awesome. Well Carrie, thank you. She’s Kerry’s been with us for years. We are so grateful to have her she is an insane powerhouse and somebody that you want to follow because you will never feel like you’re having a bad day in the market when you follow her especially on her Instagram. She’s always pivoting making changes and having a lot of success. So we’re glad to have her on the show as always, and again. Thanks to everyone listening. Thanks to Carrie and we will see everybody on the next episode. Guys

Brandon Zellers with Spears Group talks about his path into real estate. Brandon describes the strategy he uses for the cold calls he makes everyday. Brandon also talks about his other businesses in luxury car rentals space and his streetwear line. Next, Brandon describes how he prioritizes his day and how he’s been able to get a market share in this young age. Last, Brandon discusses the role of social media on the success of his business. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Brandon Zellers can be reached at (850) 736-1168 and brandon.zellers@compass.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How did a 28 year old close $33 million of real estate in his first year in the business? We’re going to find out 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 next year? And do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? And are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner, real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering Realtors a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with tons of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you by readily aerial maps. An aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before an investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you could spend selling real estate. And if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or you’re tired of paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. While you’ll love rubbly now readily is a real estate map generator that lets you create custom designed professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales buyers and listing appointments in minutes not hours. Simply enter the subject property address auto populate nearby retailer logos with a click of a button and download your aerial retail map readily turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps more time making money. So get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting rubbly.com. That’s REBL i e.com. And sign up for an account no credit card required. 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 Brandon Zellers. But before we get to Brandon, just a couple of quick announcements. As always, we first want to start off by saying thank you. Thanks for being part of our show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting our sponsors. And also thanks for telling a friend think about one other realtor that could benefit from hearing from a top producer like Brandon, who by the way, closed over $30 million in his first year and he’s under 30 years old, which is just incredible. So I’m super excited to get to Brandon but please let other people know about our shows, so that we can continue to provide these kinds of conversations to you. So just tell a friend that’s all we ask it. Also leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. If you’re listening on Apple podcasts, you can just do it there or Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, Google Play you know everywhere else podcasts or serve leave us a review we read them and we make adjustments to better the show for you. You know what, that’s it guys. Let’s get right to it my conversation with Brandon Zellers? Today, my guest is Brandon Zellers from the Spirit group with compass in Destin, Florida, also the 30 a corridor. Let me tell you a little bit more about Brandon. Now, this is incredible. And a lot of times when we have guests on, you know, our audience tells me they sort of tune out during someone’s bio, but I really want you to tune in for this because so much of what we’re going to be discussing today is is really woven into this particular bio. So, Brandon is 29 years old and he has been long interested in every facet of real estate from interior to architecture, but initially chose a different career path. Like so many of our listeners, Brandon had worked in sales roles over the years include locally and in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. He made the move to medical sales and began investing in real estate properties. Brandon’s entrepreneurial spirit eventually compelled him to strike out on his own, earning his real estate license and turning his investments into a full fledged career. Now, he joined the spirits group as a sales associate in 2020. Right and a very difficult time, I think, to become a realtor. And he closed over 33 million in his first year as an agent. I don’t know anybody personally that has done that. So he closed 33 million in his first year and he is 29 years old today. So that means he was 27 or 28 when that happened. But that’s not all he does, which is even more impressive in his free time. He operates Dr. Destin, which is an executive luxury car rental business, and has his own streetwear clothing line called sky sky, sorry, Sy sorry, cyc Syke, sorry, Sy ke the brand partners with organizations committing committing to abolishing slavery and trafficking around the globe. If for more information about Brandon, you can always find him at the spears group. website, which is the spears group.com. Brandon, welcome to the show. Brandon Zellers 6:21Thank you for having me. And thank you for that intro. D.J. Paris 6:24It’s it’s it’s a I love reading people’s bios, and I love putting them together. And yours really, really stands out. Among the 400 Plus episodes we’ve done, I am, I am really in awe of what you’ve accomplished. And I’ve had, I’ve had Jonathan spears, who runs the spirits group on our show before, I think I’ve actually had him on twice. And he is he’s just been a wonderful guest. And I’m so glad that we’re having you on. What I always like to do is to really start at the beginning, because you’ve done a lot of different things in you know, a short amount of time that you’ve, you know, been working as, as an adult. And I’m really interested to hear about, you know, your, your path into real estate. And I know you started out as an investor. But tell us about that, like, how did you even get started as an investor. Brandon Zellers 7:16So I’ll take you, I’ll take you back to 2019. I was in Kansas City. And I really just was struggling overall with you know, I had some alcohol abuse and was at a super, extremely low point in my life. And I decided to just kind of make the jump about one way ticket came to Florida. And I was like, I’m gonna figure it out. I got but I needed to get my mind. I needed to get my mental health back on track. Sure. So I came out here. I knew growing up, I was going to be in sales one way or the other. I thought medical sales would be incredible. So when I slowly, you know, got to recovery, got my mind, right, I started attacking some of these medical sales companies. And you know, putting my name in front of them. I eventually landed one I was there, it was an incredible opportunity, I was able to, you know, get a couple investment properties. This was right whenever COVID was happening. And so I got a couple investment properties. And realized, you know, my true passion is is real estate. I just I loved it. I loved every every piece of it really in the fashion. So the interior design, it goes hand in hand as well. So from there, I was like, Okay, I need to just bet on myself here. So that’s whenever I went and got my real estate license. And I think it was day three of real estate school. I picked up the phone and I called I called the broker or called spheres group. And just as like, Hey, I’m getting my license, I really want to be in real estate. I saw you guys sell the most expensive properties. I’m really interested. And mind you, I’ve never sold a piece of real estate in my life. But I was no I mean, I was determined. I tell people like I was at such a low point in my life, that I was willing to take risks, you know. And so whenever I got on the phone with them that third day, they were like, Yeah, we don’t hire new agents, and kind of went on that. That’s how the phone calls started. They left like 10 to 15 seconds. And I pitched myself as much as I could to the point they were like okay, let’s sit down next Monday. So went up and sat with them had lunch. And one thing led to another and I got on with the spirits group which was you know, one of the biggest opportunities in my life, but that’s how I got into the real estate space. D.J. Paris 9:53It’s an amazing story because so many brokerages our own our own include I’m here in Chicago that I work at, you know, we’re always looking to hire agents, whether they’re newly licensed or experienced. But not every firm is like that. And the spears group, for those of you that aren’t familiar, are one of the top producing real estate teams in the country, actually. And certainly within compass, which is the brokerage that that they work with, and Jonathan Spears who runs that team is in his BS, 31 years old. So the fact that he’s even accomplished all that at such a young age is is beyond remarkable. But also that yeah, they’re getting calls, I would assume every day from other realtors going, can I join your team? You guys are crushing it, I want a piece of that pie. And I have to imagine they have to play deep. I imagine they play defense a lot going well, you know, we don’t, yeah, you’re new and we don’t have time, we’re too busy. And they made time for you. And they saw something in you that maybe they you know, maybe they saw in them in themselves as well. And the fact that that they were you were able to pitch yourself in 10 to 15 seconds. I think that’s really important. And I almost want to spend just a moment on that. Having a that’s really what we call an elevator pitch, right? This idea of Do you have a way to present what you know, to somebody, you know, in an elevator setting where you only have 10 to 15 seconds before, you know the meeting ends? How what what did you if you don’t mind me asking What did you say if you don’t? Do you remember what you said in that time? Brandon Zellers 11:27Yeah, so I mean, I really talked about. So we live now in Destin is a beach town. So you can only imagine, you know a lot of people here. They work but they also spend a lot of time at the beach. But I’m coming from Kansas City, it’s a lot more fast paced, it’s a lot more Hustle day to day grind. So I just really, you know, talked about my mentality, bringing that that city life mentality to the beach is really advantageous that and, you know, I’m a blank, I’m a blank canvas to them. I don’t have any bad habits when it comes to real estate when it comes to sales in this space. And they can almost create, you know, the agent that they want me to be by handing me the tools. D.J. Paris 12:13Yeah, that’s true. However, it is a ton of work, right? They have to put in a ton of work. And obviously that investment paid off, because you know, you did 33 million in your first year, which I don’t want everyone to assume that Oh, well. He was just handed, you know, the 33 million and leads, which, you know, I don’t suspect is the case. And I know Jonathan pretty well. And I don’t suspect he is nice guy as he is. I suspect he’s not just handing you the deals. But but the fact that you did get to learn from somebody who’s had so much success. And it was literally a phone call that you made, you made one phone call. You know, and I’m sure you may be called other places too. But just this idea of, hey, I want to work with you guys. You’re the best. That is. That is that is a really, really impressive thing. So what was it like in your first year? Because you were I guess surrendering to their process, learning their process? Sort of going, Hey, I don’t have I don’t have any bad habits. What was it like to did you find that you didn’t also have some of the maybe the limitations that you might have thought in your mind of what was possible in your first year? Like I suspect most people don’t even assume that that’s even possible to do that kind of production in year one. Brandon Zellers 13:30Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll go back to you know, about the lead the lead generation and everything. So out of that 33,000,020 8 million was off of cold calls alone. That was strictly cold calling. I mean, I really, you know, I really focus on my processes my systems every day, I go to the exact same spot at the beach. I sit in the parking lot for four and a half hours every single day. I make X amount of calls. And I mean, it’s really just staying consistent with the basics. That’s that’s really all it is. D.J. Paris 14:07Wherever you sit I this is this is shocking to me, I need to I need to unpack this. You drive to the beach, which is beautiful and gorgeous. And why not? You live there, right? You might as well. And I had a beach day on Friday here in Chicago and I thought it was going to be just as a quick aside, I thought it would be really busy because it was in the 80s and I was like oh Alaska day for beach. So we went out and we were literally a block away from the downtown but but nobody was out there because it was a workday It was a Friday and and it felt like oh why don’t I do this more often? Right? And so anyway, you drive to the beach, but you’re there to work. So you literally just sit in your car and power on the phone. Brandon Zellers 14:44In my car. Yes. It’s it’s incredible. It’s weird. I think it’s weird to hear it but I mean it works like all beach ambassadors that walk back and forth like the ladies are all like my best friends. Now we talk every day. You Here’s your regular. Yeah, I get there like six 7am. I just like to start my day there. It’s very therapeutic, just looking at the water, you know, for sure. And getting in that zone. D.J. Paris 15:11I mean, that’s your that’s your office, that’s your own personal space. And it’s actually kind of brilliant in a way, because not only is it relaxing and enjoyable when you’re about to do some really difficult stuff, making four hours of calls every day is not easy for anybody to do. Right? That’s hot. That’s hard. And so you might as well put yourself in a situation where it’s at least a little bit enjoyable. also eliminates distraction, right? Like nobody. I mean, right? Yeah, I guess you could, you know, take breaks when you want to, and go talk to people, but like, no one’s knocking on the door going, Hey, what are you doing in there? What was so is that one of the reasons to is it just gives you that that private time to just get your work done? Brandon Zellers 15:53Yeah, the isolation, I’m really not an office person by any means. I like to, I don’t want to say like, have control of my space, but have control of my space. You know, I like to just get in my car, have my go get my coffee, go get my breakfast. It’s very routine based. That’s how I operate. So once I, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So I started started working. Like why would I stop now. So I still do that to this day. I am D.J. Paris 16:22in awe of that. That is that is remarkable and smart. And really something that anybody could do who owns a vehicle, right? Like, anybody could go do that. And it’s it’s a great way, if you find yourself being constantly interrupted by people in the office or at home. It’s like, Hey, I’m going to work. I’m going to a park. I’m going to the beach. I’m going, and I’m just going to Yeah, that’s Oh, man. I’ve never heard anybody say that. I absolutely just love that. And then let’s talk about those cold calls. Because I know everyone listening is going like what kind of cold calls is he making? So what what Who are you reaching out to? I’m just curious. Brandon Zellers 16:56I’m reaching out, I work primarily with a lot of investors. So we’re in a second home market here very vacation rental base. We have one of the great best returns in the whole country, when it when it comes to an annual, you know, return 10 to 12%, you can’t on a $4 million house like you’re not finding that anywhere else, except for Destin, Florida. So it’s pretty incredible. Which makes, there’s a lot of buyers always coming in as a lot of sellers. So I’m usually just trying to play matchmaker with that I’ll either have a buyer that is looking for a great return property, or I have a seller or I’m calling on sellers, to see if because I know this house is 4000 square feet, eight bedrooms, X proximity to the beach, it should do blank. I’m looking for those properties, if they were purchased 2019 2020. And I’m calling them I’m cold calling them and I’m asking, you know, what’s your price? conversation started. D.J. Paris 18:02This is really interesting. So you see yourself, maybe as much of a like a matchmaker as a like, you’re looking for opportunities, and then you’re looking for people to put those opportunities. Who would be interested in those opportunities. So when you say cold calling, you’re probably calling Are you calling other realtors as well to say, hey, you know, I know you work with these kinds of clients. Are you calling about just big, big investors from all over the country? Like, like you mentioned, I’m just curious, like, what type of people are you reaching out to? Brandon Zellers 18:33Yeah, so occasionally, it’ll be agents, especially if I have, you know, a hot property. And I’m looking to flip it quick. I’m calling all the agents who, you know, are in the same space as me when it comes to the investors and seeing who they have for the property. Because all of our a lot of our, you know, buyers aren’t just buying one and they’re done. They’re buying 1234 If there’s a good deal, they’re buying it, which is awesome. But I just tried to I tried to add value on both sides. Sure, kind of how I look at my day to day work. And D.J. Paris 19:11you’re also doing something really sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, but you’re doing something really, really smart that I think anybody could do who had people purchasing properties, you know, two plus years ago, where, you know, maybe the value depending on the market, of course, not every market is up anymore. But some markets are and some properties are and you’re basically calling people who bought and saying hey, your place is worth more now. And I’m curious if do you find that the agent that helped them buy the property at first, has you have you found that that those a lot of times those agents aren’t staying on top of their clients and aren’t going hey, by the way, you’re up like 20% You know, from from two years ago, we should you may want to sell this thing like are you running into people going I already have an agent Have you run into a lot of people going? Yeah, I haven’t heard from my agent in a long time. 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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You know, if I approach it with, we just sold the house next door? Would you would you be interested in an offer that kind of just piques their interest? You know, sure, and I can just get the conversation started. Usually I do have somebody. But there’s often times where they aren’t interested. But their price is literally 30% higher than I anticipated it was going to be it’s going to have to play a game like okay, is this even worth exploring? Or do we just kind of keep doing move on? But occasionally, obviously, we do have the sellers who are dedicated to their previous agent, which is, which is fine. But we just got to make the call, that’s the most important thing. Yeah, D.J. Paris 22:15I guess it is because you know, a lot of these people who have, you know, second, third, fourth homes that they use themselves, or if they’re investors who are looking, you know, for opportunities, they probably oftentimes don’t care who makes the call, they just want the deal, right? So they’re, it’s probably like, whoever gets to them with the deal is likely to maybe, you know, has a good chance of closing it too, despite whatever their previous relationships might be. Brandon Zellers 22:42Yeah, 100%. And it’s, it’s weird, because as you know, in real estate, it’s the only industry where you’re collabing and competing with the same people, you know, like it’s it makes it it makes it an interesting, dynamic. But the collaborative part is very important. So there are some I mean, there are times you don’t want to, you know, rub anybody wrong or step on anybody’s toes, either. You’re always just treading lightly. D.J. Paris 23:10But I love that idea of I have a friend who did a very similar thing to what you were talking about. And she just sold a six point something million dollar property here in Chicago, because she literally the the buyer, she had a listing, that was 6 million and the seller pulled out at the last moment the seller was like a little wacky, and anyway pulled out after our contract was already signed. And I’ve gone through attorney review and the seller just says like we’re canceling the deal. Well, she was on the listing side. And she was like mortified, because this was her biggest transaction ever. She’s professional, she’s very well respected, respected, and the seller pulled out. So what she did is she knew that the buyer was still wanting to buy something. And she literally walked next door to the property that was also worth $6 million, and said, Hey, I was representing next door, you know, it didn’t happen. If you’re looking to sell, I have a buyer for you. And it wasn’t even her client. Right? It was just, you know, whoever the buyer was, who was gonna buy the original property. And she said, I don’t know, I don’t know who you’re, you know, who you normally work with. But I think I can get x for your property if I can get that for you. Would you sell? And they were like, yeah, totally. And so she ended up salvaging that. And it’s the same thing you were talking. I mean, it’s really the same sort of opportunity. And nobody had gone to that person and said, If you sell right now, you could probably get 6 million or whatever it was. And so my friend did it and got the deal. And I go, do you know who the realtor was that originally was on the buy side of that original transaction. And she’s like, Oh, I totally know who it is. But they just dropped the ball and didn’t stay in touch. Yeah. Brandon Zellers 24:50It’s, I mean, it happens to all of us. You know, we all so it’s what comes around goes around But what we call that is, you know, prospecting with purpose. That’s what we like to wear, we already have the one side, we know exactly what they want. We go after that directly. And then when you because when you’re making those calls, it’s not as cold. I mean, it’s still cold, but it’s not as cold. Because you do have, it’s not hey, would you be interested in selling? We can list it for you. It’s, hey, we just sold this house, we have x amount of buyers who are also interested in the same type of property. You have it? What how do we make this work? How do we get this deal done? What’s your prize? D.J. Paris 25:38That is a brilliant, that is a brilliant strategy. It’s very simple to but it’s, it’s this idea of having a reason to call and not. It’s not like, hey, I want to build rapport with you. And I want to, you know, over time, win you over it. And of course, if you want to do that, as well, but this idea of leading with it’s kind of like, every year when I get to tax time, my accountant says hey, I need all your taxes. And, and I love my accountant, I’m in no way. This is gonna sound like I’m like being disparaging towards her. She’s wonderful. But you know, what I would love is if she called me and said, Hey, here’s like this new tax thing just changed. And what I really want you to do is think about this for next year, so that you can, you know, again, bringing an opportunity to me, right? And look, I’m not saying she’s not supposed to she doesn’t have to do that. But boy, I’d love it if she did because every year I Google, I go with any tax law changes I should take advantage of. But if somebody were to bring that to me, I would be I would be indebted to them. So I love that prospecting with purpose have a reason to call somebody not just a hey, what’s going on? Are you thinking about buying or selling? You know, that’s really, really smart. Now you do more than just real estate. So you didn’t just and by the way, 33 million in one year, even if you did that on one transaction, which I know it was many, many transactions. That would still be a full time thing. Yeah. And on top of that you operate Dr. Dustin, which is luxury car rental. How’d you get into luxury car rental? Brandon Zellers 27:04on accident, honestly, it’s kind of a funny story. I when I was in the medical sales space. I’m obviously moved down to the Florida there’s a lot of people with jeeps, I thought needed a Jeep to Jeep Wrangler. I had a Mercedes Benz CLA 250. That’s the car I bought from Kansas City here. And I had I had someone who was actually going to purchase the Mercedes. So I went ahead and bought the jeep. She backed out of buying the car. So I was sitting right with two cars. Awesome. I put it on. I put it on. There’s an app called Turo. It’s like, Sure, it’s essentially Airbnb for vehicles for renting your vehicles. I put it on there. It does. 3,001st month on a car. I was like, wow, hang on. Like, hang on. D.J. Paris 27:56That’s all my payments for a year or more. Brandon Zellers 28:01I was like this. At that time, I was only one of six vehicles on the whole, like in this area. It was relatively new here. And so I was like, this is interesting. Kind of that was the end of 2020. Are you Yeah, at the end of 2020. And then in during 2021 is when I really you know kicked it up. And it’s I just copy paste, copy, paste, copy, paste. It just kept adding, adding adding. I hired a director of operations from Kansas City, he moved down here, because now we’re up to 20 vehicles in this full plot. Yeah, I mean, we have it started with that Mercedes, but we have, you know, BMW IA, with the doors that you know, come up like that really cool. Some BMW M six, lot of Escalades because there’s a bunch of families that travel like in packs. So the asteroids are amazing. And you know, there was a there was a rental car shortage at airports, so people will just Uber. But there’s also a shortage of that here because everybody wants to go to the beach. So they’re quickly they’re calling us like, after one day, again, this is everything isn’t going to work. You guys have any cars. And so it’s kind of cool, how it’s how it’s worked out, I’m looking forward to, you know, continue continuing to grow that just to see what happens. It’s a fun business that allows me to, you know, drive multiple cars, I love cars. So it just allows me to have multiple cars that are kind of paying for themselves and switching in and out of them. It’s it’s cool. It’s cool. I love it. D.J. Paris 29:38I had a Jeep Wrangler many many, many years ago and here in the city of Chicago, which people oftentimes are like it it was it was a manual, it was a you know stick shift and I remember people thinking like oh, that just sounds terrible. And I’m like well it’s not great in the winter but because you know we like maybe I’d get the hard top on in time for the for just for ease or something, but what if I didn’t then it was it was fun. But I know man, rank. wranglers are super fun vehicles to and certainly in a beach town, they’re just everywhere. And so I love that you have these like this luxury fleet and you like building that business you saw an opportunity. I also want to talk about your, your streetwear. Why psych because there’s a you know, you talked about prospecting with a purpose, you know, there’s a real purpose and mission behind what you’re doing with with clothing, your clothing line about, you know, dealing with sex trafficking, slavery, things of that nature. How did you get involved in that. Brandon Zellers 30:36So that that actually goes back all the way to 2017. My uncle, and I actually, were just sitting, sitting in his basement. And like I said, I’ve always been into fashion. He’s always been like, my business mentor growing up, I just watch him being entrepreneur. And so here I am, like, young kid, like, hey, let’s start a clothing. Let’s start a clothing brand, not realizing it’s like literally one of the hardest industries to get into, like competing with D.J. Paris 31:06dickless big boys who get all the shelf space, they get all that. I mean, if you’re talking about retail, it’s like, the hardest thing to ever break into. Brandon Zellers 31:15Yeah, like it’s, and so it’s kind of our, it’s become like more of a lifelong mission. Like, we’re just never gonna give it up. We slowly grow it, you know, every year and my end. But the I once held, I can’t say the Fashion Week, I did a runway show for for the brand. And it was really cool, because it goes back to, you know, abolishing the sex trafficking and all of that it’s we we had like the models with their hands tied up like very, you’re making a statement? Yeah, it was, it was a very statement, which it did exactly what it needs to do. It was an incredible experience. And that kind of, you know, put our brand up there a little bit in our city, which was really cool. And we’ve kind of just been keeping keep going with that. We were very, we were very involved with a 21, which is a huge, you know, campaign for all that. And it’s Yeah, I mean, it’s fun, it’s something we’ll just do forever. I don’t think it’s ever going to be our, our priority business. I wish one day it would be that’d be awesome. If I if we had a massive brand, that was just helping, you know, global issues, like that’s incredible. But on top of that, we also have a wholesale a wholesale side of it as well. Sure. So we do merch and fulfill orders for a bunch of companies. So I love it. It’s kind of just a well oiled machine now. So yeah, I D.J. Paris 32:51I also wonder too, and I don’t know, if you talk about that with your clients, that oh, by the way, I have this this other thing, I’m not I’m not sure the pros and cons of talking about other businesses when you’re, you know, working with somebody on a real estate transaction, but I suspect if they were to hear the mission, and oh, by the way, I have this other thing. And here’s what we’re trying to do with it. I mean, who’s whose heart wouldn’t melt a little bit, you know, and sort of, you know, feel both sad and also grateful that that you’re out there trying to, you know, make some of those changes. So, I’m curious, does that ever come up when you’re working with clients? Or do you more keep that you know, more low key? Brandon Zellers 33:31Um, I usually wait till there’s a good segue, organically. Sure. And client to client, depending on because a lot of my clients are, you know, friends now. So, some of them, I definitely do bring it up, but it just, it. It differs on who it is, I D.J. Paris 33:49guess, of course, yeah. Well, I just I just applaud you for trying to make a difference and giving back and, and I wonder how much of this idea you talked about the beginning, like going through the surrender process of, you know, dealing with your own, you know, issues and challenges and sort of surrendering and saying, hey, you know, I’m going to make this better. I’m going to get the help you know, that that is needed and then going to the spirit group saying, Hey, I’m new, I need help I you know, I’m, I want you guys to mentor me and and here you are, but question more about prioritization, because I think a lot of us have struggled with that. So you know, not you know, not many of our listeners probably have, you know, a rental car business as well as as well as a fashion line. But but they have other things. They have families that are taking care of children, they’ve got other jobs. How do you prioritize your day? I know you’ve talked about hey, you know, you’re spending at least half a day or so. You know, at the at, you know, at your real estate job. Probably more than that is my guess. But how do you figure out where to spend your time? Brandon Zellers 34:56At the beginning, I’ll be honest, I didn’t. I would just try to do it. everything. And that’s why I mentioned how I had to hire someone to, to move down here and help out with the business because I had to give some of that away in order to grow. And so that’s kind of been a huge value add in terms of my business and priority prioritization, because now I’m able to focus on, you know, the bigger projects that will, you know, in the end help everything else that I’m working on. So that’s really, it’s for me, real estate. I’ll check in on Drive and stuff. But we have that that system is beautiful right now. It’s going great. We’re still growing it. And then Psych. Like I said, it’s with a couple partners. So we all that’s like a weekend thing we get together once or twice a month and chat about that. But I just like to keep my mind I like to keep I like keep going. I like to keep my mind busy. I like to see what all I can explore. I’m hoping to, you know, start on a couple new adventures as well. So this this upcoming year. D.J. Paris 36:05Amazing. Do you well, you know what we’ll leave that for? We won’t, we’ll leave that for a future episode. Because I’m curious, I don’t want to, I don’t want to spoil whatever secret secret of cool stuff you’re working on. I’m just excited to watch it come to come to be. But I do have question about this idea of competition, because again, for anyone listening, they just thinks, wow, they live in this vacation area, lots of wealthy people come and go. It’s just you know, handing out money and opportunities, which we you know, I’m sure is not the case. But there’s also fierce competition, because it’s not like you guys are the only brokers in town, right? Are the only actors in town, there’s probably 1000s. So you’re competing against people who have been doing this 3040 years who have really established impressive, you know, histories, right? These are not, you know, not Bozo, you know, who just got their license and you know, 55 years old person, this is somebody who’s B, these are people who have been working in this area for a very long time doing very well. And you guys come along, and you are grabbing up market share? Why do you think you’re able to do that at such a young age? Is it strictly because as you said, you prospect with purpose, you you have a reason to pick up the phone and call someone? Or is it more than that? Brandon Zellers 37:22That’s definitely a piece of it. Another piece is, you know, Jonathan has really pioneered a big part of this market, you know, him coming in at such a young age, and accomplishing everything he’s accomplished, you know, over a billion, that he hit that three years ago, you know, in his career, that’s, it’s incredible. So he’s really set the stage, and we’re just blessed to work alongside him and leverage his success to help us and help our brand. You know, that’s part of it. D.J. Paris 37:52Yeah, I guess it’s funny, he’s only 31. But he’s sort of like the big he’s been the big deal in that areas for years now. So I guess he’s, he’s not the new kid on the block. But at some point he was and, and this idea of being able to, you know, out, come out compete, you know, some because again, when I guess when you’re dealing with with multimillion dollar properties, you know, I’m guessing that, you know, a lot of times the buyers and sellers it’s not they don’t interview just one agent, they probably interview Yeah, many agents. So how do you, you know, how do you feel like you compete? When you’re up against other agents for one transaction? Like, what is it that you think you do, that’s maybe a bit different. Brandon Zellers 38:33So we focus on being proactive, as opposed to reactive, and building the relationships over just having a transaction, those two things alone will set you apart from 99% of your competitors, you know, truly getting in having great conversations with the seller, or the buyer, whoever you’re being interviewed with, and adding value will win every single time. And just we’re authentic. We know the space really knowledgeable on the area on the on the properties on the pricings. And it’s, it’s something that we’ve found success and just following those simple steps. So D.J. Paris 39:16yeah, it is funny. It’s like, when I first started working at the company here, I did not have a real estate background. And my boss said, I said, What do you think that because he was like, the Rookie of the Year, his first year and he was in his? I don’t, he might have been 30 years old, maybe? No, late 20s. And he was Rookie of the Year in Chicago. It’s kind of a big deal. And it’s a really big deal. And I said, Why do you think it was because and and Nick, our owner is like the nicest guy ever. He’s not particularly salesy, and he’s just a good guy. And I said, What do you think it is? Why do you think you had so much success in your first year? He goes, I don’t know. He goes, I only had one rule, which was I never wanted a client to have to call me first. Right? I wanted to, I wanted my clients to be like, I don’t have to ever call like they’re calling him Yeah, you know, he’s calling them going, Hey, here’s what’s going on. And he was my realtor. And I thought back because he was my realtor years before. And I thought back to my experience with him, and I had never had another experience. So I didn’t know it was anything special. But I went you right? I never had to call you when I was worried about a particular thing in my transaction, you always called me first. And it is funny. You’re right, it probably that in and of itself, being proactive versus reactive, probably does separate you from close to 99. Even if it’s just 90% of the competition. That is nine out of 10 people who are in you know, I want I’ll say finish to this. But I interviewed the one of the top, I’ve interviewed actually a bunch of the top Realtors here in Chicago. And one of them said the exact same thing. She goes, I call every one of my clients every week. And I was like, and she goes, No, that’s about it. Like, is that it? She goes, Well, there’s more to it. But that’s the thing. I do that like no one else does. Brandon Zellers 40:52You gotta you gotta touch them. Yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to be top of mind. D.J. Paris 40:58And curious about social media. Because you’re a young guy, you You certainly are no stranger to social media. Have you? How much is social media played a role in in the success of your business? Or has it not? I don’t know, if you’re, if you’re the investors and buyers and sellers, are checking you out on social or just curious what what if you’re utilizing that? Brandon Zellers 41:21It’s funny, because I thought that none of them were checking me out on social because they don’t follow a couple of them over the past month, you know, have mentioned that? Oh, yeah, I saw you. I saw you on Instagram, Facebook, and I was like, okay, they are watching. And I don’t know if it like, I assume that it’s helping. You know, I like to my clients say that I’m annoyingly persistent in the best way possible. And I think that’s one of my biggest strengths, because I’ve heard that multiple times. Because I just, you know, persist without exception. Regardless, like you have to just push through, oh, you can hear no, a million times. And you have to follow up. I think a big piece of this is you have to follow up. But I mean, I link all of my socials in my virtual business cards and everything. So they it’s they always have access directly to it. It’s hard to say if it I would, I like to say that it that it helps. I know there’s a lot of agents right now who think they can post on Tik Tok when video and they’re going to be selling 100 million, when it’s really still not that not that simple, especially with the market shifting. You have to, you have to maintain the fundamentals and the basics, which means you’re going to have to pick up the phone one way or the other. You can post the videos, I post the videos. But you have to stay true to the basics. D.J. Paris 42:44Yeah, you know, I almost forgot to ask this question because I oftentimes we ask all of our guests ahead of time, a few questions to kind of give me some things to talk about. And I almost never get to this question. And the reason I’m going to get to it isn’t so much that it’s as funny as it is one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard for for real estate. So I really want everybody to pay attention. I honestly, truly believe this. So one of the questions we ask is, what’s your funniest real estate experience? And so I’ll just tell the quick story. But I want to talk about how you solve the problem versus the actual story about the problem. Because the problem was you were brand new in one of your first showings, and you were on your way to the showing and you blank or maybe you were at the showing, but you blanked on all the information. Right? You didn’t have it memorized, which I mean, who does Right? Very few people do. So tell me about how you saw that? Because well, actually, I’m sorry. Tell us the story about how you blanked on the information. I do I actually do. Brandon Zellers 43:42This was at the very beginning. I had already. I mean it’s it’s nerve racking. We’re in multimillion dollar properties. I just started, you know, like, I don’t know really what I’m doing. But I’m here, like, no owl, but here we are. And so I’m like, you know, trying to fake it till I make it until that gets real without a showing and I’m sure know how, how tall the ceilings, what, what kind of lights, what kind of floors, and I’m just like, oh my gosh, like just unprepared. I thought I was prepared. I was unprepared. I wasn’t ready at all. And it was the most embarrassing thing by far in my real estate career. And from that moment, like I would just either walk through the house and talk in my phone. So I had all the information or I’d go on the MLS, type out a bunch of notes. And then what I would do is I put like a text to speech. And so basically you just copy all everything you wrote. And then you can have like a Siri voice basically play it back. So then like for if I knew I had a big showing coming up, I would just if I’m representing the buyer, I would just you know, drive, put it over my radio and just let it Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Just so that I knew. Yeah. Like just the system. overload, but then when someone asks a question, you’ll subconsciously like know the answer, because you heard it 4500 times. D.J. Paris 45:08I mean, it’s it’s sometimes they always, you know, sometimes the what’s awesome is razor the most direct solution or the simplest solution is oftentimes the most effective and, or something to that nature. I probably did not sort of quote that correctly. But But we understand the idea. And that is a brilliant and simple idea, right? It’s like, yeah, how cool is it to be able to walk through a property when a client asks a question, you don’t have to go to your phone, and you don’t have to, I suppose suppose you could, if you really needed to, but you’re like, I already know that because I’ve heard it replay over and over again, on the car on the way down. I’ve never heard of another agent doing that. So that is, I’m so glad that you shared that with me. Brandon Zellers 45:48Absolutely. I have some weird, weird things, driving to the beach and then driving and listening to MLS bios. D.J. Paris 45:56You know, though, but that’s really, it’s smart. It shows preparedness, it shows this idea that I take this very seriously. And I’m going to go to the beach because I like the beach, but I’m going to work and I’m going to work and I’m going to sit in my car and make dials. And I don’t know how many people make four hours of dials a day, I suspect it’s less than 1/10 of 1% of Realtors, it’s probably essentially nobody and, and you’re doing it and you close 33 million, and you’re a nice guy, you’re not you don’t seem to be a pushy salesy kind of guys, that’s not your personality. And, and it’s not the Spirit groups personality, either. I know, I know some of those guys. And they’re just nice, easygoing people, but they work hard, and they’re smart. And that’s a really smart thing to do. And it’s in it’s hard work to, it’s not easy to sit in the car and power on the phone all day long, trying to put deals together. So how much of how much of your success is just just the discipline of Brandon Zellers 46:48it? I would say, you know, a large majority, definitely is, you know, sticking to the processes. You know, Jonathan said at the beginning, when I started that, that was the most important thing, you have to you have to get a system in place, you have to get in process. And then you have to stick to it, you have to, there will be days that are worse than others days that are better than others who allow them knows, and you have to learn from your failures. Like I’m not afraid to fail, because I felt like I failed in the past. And I’ve you know, overcome that. Yeah, 10 fold. So, you know, back to like the drinking and then overcoming, I’m sure you’re sober now as of two weeks ago, so congratulations, and little things like that just one day at a time. And then taking risks. I mean, you have to take risks. D.J. Paris 47:40I think a lot of realtors could probably benefit from some of the lessons in the 12 step programs in particular, you know, for those of you that aren’t familiar with with 12 Step programs, one of the one of the sort of biggest things in them is is this idea of, of structure and having like, if you’re a meeting person, there’s meetings and you go to them as regularly as possible. And that in and of itself, just people going to these meeting rooms and saying hey, I’m I’m struggling, or I’m here to be of service, oftentimes helps keep them on track just going somewhere and doing it and you’re you know, you’re sort of saying the same thing, I go to the beach, I pick up the phone and I start dialing and some days, it’s easier than others. And some days, I you know, I strike gold and other days I do not. And but I’m just going to keep doing it. Because ultimately, you know, there’s a track record of it working for other people. And so I think there is something to this idea of structure routine. Obviously, discipline is, you know, like anybody would disagree with how important discipline is. But it is remarkable that you were able to sort of rebuild, at at a time when, you know, alcohol in particular can really take somebody down down for the count, you know, you probably, obviously are aware of that, and people, most people who have that illness do not recover. And so this idea that not only did you recover, but you’re thriving is truly truly impressive. And I wonder if you hadn’t have gone through that experience. I’m curious, would you would you be as successful as you were today? Like, if you were still able to do it all? And you know, continue, you know, with some of the the behavior that maybe wasn’t so how healthy? Do you think you’d be able to keep it all together? Brandon Zellers 49:23I had to say no, not definitely not. My growth wouldn’t have been as quick as it. Yeah, that has been in the last two years. I mean, it’s, I just thank God every day because it’s, it’s, I look back and I’m like, That is crazy. I see old pictures. I mean, I was 70 pounds heavier. Whenever Yeah, so and I always I remember at my old sales jobs in Kansas City, like I would always still be like a top producer. But I there was so much more I could have gave and like this is you know the fruit of that like I’m seeing that I was right because I always be like that You got it, you got to calm down, you got to chill, you got to relax, you got to get better. And like, because when I had laser when I was sober, like I had laser focus, I thought I could conquer the world. And so that’s how I feel today. And so it’s it’s literally I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t go back for anything. Marathons continues, you know, like we’re still, we’re still pushing one day at a time. D.J. Paris 50:24One of my favorite quotes is, it’s an old Zen. I think they’re called Cohen’s anyway, Zen saying, maybe it’s not Zen, but somewhere I stole it from somewhere. But it’s, I thought it was a Zen thing, but it’s a great one and it’s Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. This idea that the works goes on, right? But at least at least your your mind is clear. And you’re able to give more of yourself to, to the things that you that you’re involved in and and want to do, versus the things that you find yourself doing to cope with with other things. So I think I think that is is just remarkable and a great place to wrap up. So we want to give a shout out to not only Dr. Dustin but also psych if somebody’s interested in renting a luxury car in Destin. We do have listeners who of course vacation there. So what’s the best way they can learn about your your car rental? Brandon Zellers 51:23Yeah, so they can go to att drive Destin, just like it sounds. Drive destined.com. Or honestly, you can type in rentalcars. Destin, and we’re right there. So yeah, there’s multiple, or they can come and DM me at BS LSB. Ze ll A S? and I’ll hook them up for sure. D.J. Paris 51:43Awesome. And then if anyone wants to help support the psych, brand and mission, what’s the best way they can do that? Brandon Zellers 51:52So on Insta on Instagram, it’s sy Ke, just for letters, and then the website is site brand.com. D.J. Paris 51:59Awesome. Well, we will post links to both of those side businesses, because we want to support that. And we honor your time today. And you know, Jonathan, I believe if I might have this wrong, because I My memory is garbage. But I think he had reached out to us and says you got to talk to this guy. He just joined my team. I’m pretty sure he did. And we are we are so honored. Because again, not a lot of people have had that level of success that quickly. And not not that you haven’t been, you know, successful and other things. But just that in and of itself 33 million in year one is absolutely remarkable. And I honor you for that. I’m excited to see your new your new ventures excited to see how your real estate career continues to evolve. And, you know, we’re big fans of the spirits group and what what you’re doing as well. So thank you, Brandon, on behalf of all of our listeners who want to thanks, thank you for your time, I know how busy you are, this is not an easy time to find an hour to speak to us. So I appreciate you doing that. And also, on behalf of Brandon and myself. We want to thank the listeners and the audience for sticking around to the end. We appreciate it. Let’s support Brandon let’s let’s check out oh and by the way any realtors who have investors or buyers or sellers who might be looking to move retire invest down in the destin you know 30 A area they would love to talk to you right? You probably get calls from Realtors all over the country who are like, Hey, I’m looking for, for a team to refer business to so what’s the best way that anyone who wants to either work with you or refer business to you can reach out? Brandon Zellers 53:32Absolutely. So just at these Ella’s again, on Instagram, or at Spears group, either one. And if you just want to call we can chat doesn’t have to even be about real estate, we can just you can just call I talk on the phone all day long. It’s kind of my thing. Well, I love it. And next, D.J. Paris 53:52he would love to connect. So we will put Brandon’s contact information as well in our show notes. So thank you, Brandon for being on the show for everyone listening, please. Yeah, look at and for anyone out there who is who knows somebody who is struggling in their first couple of years. Or even maybe they’re not in their first couple years and they’re struggling. And then maybe they’re losing hope, right? This is a great episode to send to them that to see what’s possible, when you just put your mind to it and buckle down and really, really just get to work. And so feel free to share this with anybody out there who’s a real estate agent that could use a little bit of motivation and to sort of reset their mind and what’s possible. It’s easy right now I think to to get bogged down and rates are up, inventories down. It’s tough. It’s tough. It’s scary. It’s and yeah, so it’s nice to hear some of these success stories with people who are thriving during, during otherwise a pretty challenging time I think and in real estate. So, Brandon, thank you again. But for everyone out there listening, share this with a friend. Just send them over to keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done could be streamed there. And also leave us a review for listening on whatever platform Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora app, Amazon, wherever Google, let us know what you think of the show. We appreciate it. All right, Brandon. Thank you so much and we will see everybody on the next episode.