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

Welcome to our quarterly feature, Social Bootcamp With Gogo Bethke! In this episode, Gogo goes through the process of starting and building a team based on her own experience. Gogo also discusses what positions you need to hire first when deciding to start the team. Next, Gogo describes how she runs her own team from distance and what her expectations are from her team-members. Last, Gogo and D.J. discuss Gogo’s bootcamp and what it offers. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Gogo Bethke can be reached at gogosrealestate@gmail.com and at her Instagram account. Purchase Gogo’s Bootcamp by clicking here – Keeping It Real Podcast listeners get a discount! This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Thinking of building your own real estate team. Where do you start? We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show. Welcome to get real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and today is our regular series called Social bootcamp with gogo Beth key. Now gogo Beth key came to the United States in 2003. To build her American dream she was broke, she had no real estate experience no sphere of influence barely spoke English and only $6 to her name. So that left her with nothing else but Facebook to help build her real estate business which is where she started and she created gogos real estate began her and began her real estate career now with the power of social media gogo has sold and I this number is old and it’s I know she’s gonna correct me because this is way low, but has sold at least 75 million in real estate. It’s hundreds more at this point. But she shares the good the bad, the ugly of real estate and her honest snippets into her daily life has earned her 10s of 1000s of social media followers. And in the real estate community. She’s earned the nickname The Queen of social media and after being asked to present at various conferences and events with realtors. She built her own social media bootcamp, which is called Go Go’s bootcamp. Now today she has a team of Gosh, eight 900, maybe 1000 agents we’ll find out less than 1000 agents nationwide. She has 1000 agents on her team. Her goal is to help as many agents as possible make a name for themselves in real estate utilizing social media. Now if she can do it, this girl from Transylvania, Romania with no formal US education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience, and an Eastern European accent that anyone can do it as well. Please follow gogo on Instagram. That’s the best place to learn about gogo as she is at gogos real estate. And please also consider investing in the bootcamp I just mentioned, which is called gogos boot camp. It has dozens of hours of instruction to help transform your social media into a lead generation machine. And for a special discount just for our audience, our listeners or viewers. Please go to Gogo podcast.com and go go podcast.com By doing that, it helps support our show and also you get to Go Go’s unbelievable program Coco Welcome once again to the show. Oh, thank Gogo Bethke 3:43you for having me. I missed you. D.J. Paris 3:45I miss you as well. And I this is this is funny. If you’re watching me you’re seeing me in the shadows because my blinds I have these super fancy blinds that are electric, except the battery ran out so I can’t shut them and I’m staring at the sun. So I’m in the corner. So if you’re looking at me, you can’t really see me but you can focus your eyes on Gogo. She’s the guest anyway. And she’s probably more interesting to look at than me anyway but it is it is good to see you. And so what tell us what’s going on what do we want to talk about today? Gogo Bethke 4:18Well I was thinking you know, usually get bring social media but I feel like social media is just the basics right? It’s how you you start building your business and continue building whatever business that you decide today I will not in companies right? But I also feel like that’s also false like the umbrella of technology and leveraging your time and building systems and processes so that you can have time freedom, location freedom and financial freedom is pretty much what all builds off alright, initially all started with social media and all works in social media for me. So I figured today I run a small local business or a small local team in Michigan, but I live in Florida. So I thought that we could talk about what it’s like running a team and not even living in the same state like what says And then processes and weekly meetings and things like that we have in places in order to make sure it’s all working properly and and you can have your cake and eat it too. D.J. Paris 5:07I think that’s a really great topic because we’re seeing it, you know, this trend towards teams, the last couple of years teams are becoming more and more powerful, more and more than norm. I think, you know, it’ll be interesting to see in like five years what that looks like, I think I, my guess is a lot more agents will be on teams, or now is the time to maybe think about even creating a team. So this is really interesting, because I have now talked to people like gogo, of course, which we’re talking to you today. But I’ve also talked to other agents who work in other states, and, and literally don’t live in those states anymore. So it’s very, very interesting. So yeah, let’s talk about it. So I Gogo Bethke 5:47started out as a as an agent, right, like everybody else selling real estate. I started with social media. And that’s why today out of necessity, right? Today, people know me as a social media cleaner real estate. But the idea is not for you to be on the hamster wheel for the rest of your life. Right? When you were trading time for money, you’re going to hit a ceiling. And when I hit my personal ceiling, I was like, Okay, I have a couple options. I can sell more homes, which requires more time, which I already didn’t have. Right? Or I could sell more expensive homes, which was also not necessarily an option because guys at the time I was in an area called Pinckney, Michigan, good luck finding it on the map. They have a population of like 9000, I was already selling in the low four, hundreds, average price range locally was 275. So my next option was to like break into the gated community. And we had like two of them in like a 20 mile radius. So it was like, Oh, that’s not gonna be an option, right? Because yeah, you can break into the communities, but the turnover rate is much less because your pool, the pool of buyers that you have, you know, the top 1% You’re talking 1% of the buyers, how many of them are on the market, those homes usually sit on the market longer, yada, yada, long story? Yes, I would make higher Commission’s but less often. Right, so that wasn’t an option for me either. So I was like, Okay, the next option is I have to create a bunch of enemies. So since there’s only one of me and only 124 hours, then how can I make possibly more money without trading more of my time that I already don’t have is by creating a bunch of other Minimes, then I can leverage their time to make commission. This is where comes in a team, right? You can also do it, you can start off with referrals, if you don’t have enough transactions, right, where you can justify hiring someone full time and to your team. And also depending on what brokerage you are, what their qualifications, what you need to hit in order to qualify to start a team, right? So at our brokerage, it’s a $6 million production to start a standard team. Right. So if you don’t have that, you might say, Okay, I’m not I don’t qualify to start a team just yet, but I don’t want to work as much as I’m already working. So then what you can potentially do is go into corner, just go D.J. Paris 7:45just go go saying that because she’s seen me slinking away from Gogo Bethke 7:50his winking at me and going to shake D.J. Paris 7:55up. My girlfriend’s listening, I am not winking. Gogo Bethke 8:00He does have one eye closed, because that’s what the, D.J. Paris 8:03if your husband is listening, I’m not waiting. I’m sorry, go ahead. Gogo Bethke 8:07I closed that. You know, what is that. So then what you want to do right is multiply yourself so it’s time for you to create a bunch of meaning use, if you don’t qualify to start a team, you can join it with an agent and just say, Hey, listen, the overflow that I have, I’m going to give them to you at a 5050 transaction fee. So now think of it this way every listing that you have, especially I want to look at your production. Right and look at let’s say the 20 deals last year, I want to see out of the 20 deals, how many were listings. If you are more than listing heavy, right, and it’s time for you to to hire a buyer’s agent for multiple reasons a because if your listing heavy, you do not have the time that it takes to babysit those listings. Each listing should bring you two buyers, one is going to buy the house one is going to buy something else in the same price range. So every time you have a listing and you didn’t get yourself to buyers off of that listing, you wasted your own time, which means if you’re a listing heavy agent, you can go ahead and hire yourself a buyer’s agent and their job is to hold your listings open and follow up with those potential buyers so you can close a salad and double dipping and V get another buyer for your team right and yourself to then go ahead and you know buy something else in the area for the same price range. So let’s assume that you had a $300,000 listing, right that should bring you to $300,000 buyers, and a commission commission on 300,000 If you charge 3% is nine grand even if you have a 5050 split that $4,500 for the buyer that’s going to buy the house and another $4,500 when a buyer is going to buy something else in the similar price range. So now you are the one listing you created yourself a $9,000 commission on the listing side and 240 $500 Commission’s on the buyer side by splitting the opportunity with the buyer’s agent. So now you turn that $9,000 Commission into $18,000 and you created someone an opportunity they just close two deals they would have not been able to close otherwise. D.J. Paris 9:53And you know I think you you’ve said this I just want to make this a point to is these are people that can hold open houses for you for your listings if they’re in the same area. Gogo Bethke 10:02Exactly, exactly. So you got it. So now that you understand the math right, now the next thing you want to get done, actually, let me just do something very quick. The next thing you want to get done is work yourself up to a team. Because when you work yourself up to a team, right, now, you’re going to be able to give an opportunity to the agent with a reduced commission versus a full commission. Think of it from the agent perspective, if the agent can go ahead and have a reduced commission or half cap, right in our case, why would they give you 50% of their commission if they don’t get a reduced cap, right, because they still have to reach a full PCAP. So the idea of starting the team is not only going is unofficial to you, but it’s also beneficial to the agent, because now they’re going to be able to sorry, now they’re going to be able to pay less into the company and make more money and take home. So the likeliness that they’re going to stay on your team for a long time is much higher. D.J. Paris 10:56Yeah, we’re talking about creating stickiness by giving opportunities at a reduced Commission, which makes perfect sense, because you’re providing so much incredible value to the team member. And it’s really what most the reason most people leave the industry in the first couple of years is because they don’t have enough opportunities, they can’t find enough opportunities on their own. And so this idea of even finding somebody who might be struggling in their first year or two and saying, hey, I can help get you out of the struggle. And you workout in arrangement, it creates incredible stickiness, they get to learn from you, and everyone wins. Gogo Bethke 11:27Exactly, you got it. So that’s the idea of starting it right. And then eventually you’re going to but before you get yourself a buyer’s agent, though, I strongly recommend to get a transaction coordination coordinator first, right? Because that is your lowest data entry is the lowest return on your investment for your time. Right. So that needs to be the first one hired out. If you can’t afford to have an assistant, that should be your second hire. And the third one should be a buyer’s agent. And eventually, if you’re really good at social media, and advertising, and you have more leads that can come in and if your buyer’s agents are not good at turning them into clients that you need to get an ISA, an internal sales associate, in case you don’t know what an ISA Yes, because I didn’t know what an ISA was right? It’s pretty much a call it’s calling center, they call on your behalf, they create opportunity, they plug that opportunity into your team’s calendar. And in return, they usually get paid a small percentage and maybe a small hourly rate. D.J. Paris 12:21Yeah, and let’s talk about you mentioned transaction coordinator and I we so rarely talk about that on the show. And I think it’s really important thing for people to understand. You don’t have to input everything yourself into the MLS, you don’t have to input, you want to review everything, of course to make sure it’s accurate. But you don’t have to go around chasing signatures through you know, dot loop or DocuSign, or whatever e signature platform you’re using, you don’t have to worry about setting up important dates related to the transaction that are coming up. You can hire somebody to do that. And it’s ridiculously inexpensive. You know, what, what are you seeing for prices for transaction coordinators these days, Gogo Bethke 12:58I mean, it’s a little different nationwide, right? Someone in Alabama is gonna pay different pricing than someone in California, right, just because the price per transaction, the regulations, and there’s way more work in California, there is in Alabama, but I would say somewhere from 250, all the way up to 500 per deal. Now in most states, you can also charge what’s called the transaction fee, right. So if you can charge a transaction fee, you pretty much justify your transaction coordinators cost by collecting a transaction fee plus commission, right, so I collect 3% on each side, plus a 595 transaction fee, which also covers our TC, our photography, all of the additional marketing costs, the broker opens all of those things that we do for our clients. Now think of it this way a TC only gets paid different that paid meaning if your deal falls apart, let’s say you have an accepted offer. And for whatever reason, buyers get cold feet, they walk away, right? Whatever reason that your deal is not going to close, you don’t owe the transaction coordinator anything. So you will lose absolutely nothing. You work for the same deal that they work for the same deal. If the deal doesn’t closes, you don’t get paid, they don’t get paid, they get paid pretty much when you get paid. So it’s an absolute no brainer. For us realtors, that should be your first hire. I mean, you should have got it done in the last few minutes when I was talking. D.J. Paris 14:10And it’s it I want to make this point there are not too many services in this world that I’m aware of that. If if something doesn’t happen, even though they’ve done all the work, then then they don’t get paid. But that is how the transaction coordinator services work. I don’t know what magic they have to where they can do that. But every service is kind of that way. So it there it goes at not much risk. And do you really want to spend hours chasing things your time is worth more than $300? Even if you if you spend, let’s just say I don’t know, three hours total on paperwork over the course of a transaction is probably more than that. Isn’t that worth 300 bucks? I think it is. Gogo Bethke 14:49i The easiest way to do it is by calculating your hourly rate. So most agents have no idea what their hourly rate is and that’s where they go wrong. That’s because they don’t know how much money they make in the hour too. Damn. Spending $300. It’s an expense versus realizing that if your hourly rate is $1,200, and here’s how you’re going to calculate it. Let’s say you made $250,000. Last year, let’s see, what, 40 hours a week, that’s 2080 hours a year, divided 250,000 by 2080 hours, and you realize that your hourly rate is 400 bucks. Now, if you’re making $1,200 an hour, should you be doing data entry, even if it’s only taking you three hours, that’s $3,600, you will be paying 300 versus saving yourself that 3600. Because that’s what it’s costing you if you do the work, right. Not only that, but if you hire that out, and you pay 300, which by the way, charge a transaction fee, so it’s not even a cost, right? But let’s say you hire it out. Now you create it yourself three hours to go get yourself more clients. So let’s say you get one client per hour. That’s three clients, what’s your average commission? Let’s say it’s 10. Grand, you created $30,000 worth of opportunity here in those three hours, and you paid out 300? If I told you give me 380,000, would you do it? D.J. Paris 16:06Every every I give you every penny I had? Gogo Bethke 16:09Exactly. I’m like, Can I do it again? How about? I want to wait, can I do it again, right? Like, of course anybody in the right minds, but people don’t start to understand what their hours worth. So because they don’t know what the how much money they can make. Everything is a cost. D.J. Paris 16:24Yeah, and I think to getting over this hurdle of, well, they’re not going to do it as well as I can do it. That’s, that’s, that’s what stopped me from getting virtual assistants over the years. And I wish I would have given that thought up years ago, because you can absolutely find great help. And you can coach and train them and teach them. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you hire somebody as coach and train them. And by the way, maybe they won’t do it 100% of the way that you would do it. Okay, but maybe they’ll do it 95% If 95% is acceptable, and it should be in most cases. Now, when it comes to paperwork, obviously, everything needs to be perfect. But if they can do 95% of the work for you, and you can just give them $300. And then you go off and go to a networking event or host a client appreciation event, or just call your database and say how’s everything going and trying to get leads that way? Boy, you’re gonna make money instead of wasting time, you know, making everything absolutely pixel perfect. Gogo Bethke 17:20You got it. I have like 40 of them. I don’t even know who does what anymore. D.J. Paris 17:26It is it is remarkable. Gogo Bethke 17:27What do I care as long as the work is done? What do I care, right and I full freedom to my, my VAs, they can do whatever they want from whatever they wanted. As long as the work is done, I always tell them, I don’t care if you’re on the beach or in the club. As long as when I message you get back to me and the work is done. You have Wi Fi and cell service. I’m good. Do it from wherever you can, right. And the other issue people have is like they have accents, right? And so it occurred to me one day, because I felt the same thing. And I occurred to me one day, I’m like, hold on a minute, I have an accent sounds like Ah, okay, so that is not an objection anymore. Because if I can build an empire here, right? With an Eastern European accent, they can certainly handle whatever job they got hired into. D.J. Paris 18:12Yeah, and it’s funny we’ve had we have six virtual assistants at our company who helped do administrative tasks for us. And they are constantly calling our Realtors at our firm. And they’re such a lovely people are our virtual assistants, that I don’t believe anyone has a problem with the fact that they live in the Philippines. And their accents are very minor anyway, but they’re just lovely, wonderful people. And I don’t think people care that much anymore about hearing an American voice versus a you know, a foreign voice. Gogo Bethke 18:41Yeah, I mean, we’re getting we’re getting used to it. I think I think COVID taught us a lot, right. D.J. Paris 18:46Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s talk about also like doing deals in other what when you live in another state, so let’s talk about that. Gogo Bethke 18:55So I moved to Florida originally, and my son is in Michigan, right? And we decided to one day, about two years ago, we were at a local mastermind, right? And I never forget and Jake, John kitchens, the coach said, go go and do it. Why are you guys still living in Michigan? You know, you’re not a tree you can move. And I was like, Oh, why do we live in Michigan? Like you only have one life? Why don’t you just go and live it wherever you want to live? Right? Yeah. And we love Florida. We love the seasons. We were kind of sick. I’m sick of the winters. We love Michigan in the summer where we were sick of the winters. So we decided to move so we came down during COVID We rented an Airbnb, we really loved it. I decided to make a purchase new construction took us 14 months. But then we moved down here. In the meantime, we built a team in Michigan, right? So I was like okay, I have two years to build the team remove myself 100% from production. And while I get to move my team stays the same transaction stays the same actually, they didn’t stay the same. They almost doubled which is amazing. Right? And that shows you that you can get it done from absolutely anywhere if you have the right systems and people in the places right. So we still do everything the same like if I was in Michigan. So we have a very structured, I have a contract with my team, I have a standard team. So the different forms of teams I’ve been the brokerage that I am with right mine is called the Center team, which means I’m a full capper. My agents are half cappers, just so you understand that. And then we have expectations. So the size of how everybody else likes to run their business, I have expectations since I built my business on social media. So they have to post they have to do analysis, they have to do all the things that I’ve done. When I was a full active agent, I’m no longer in production, I removed myself 100%. First, I stayed on the listing side, then and I gave all of my buyers away. And then one of my agents became really good, she became my listing specialist. So now all of my listings go to her, the buyers go to another agent. And that’s pretty much how we do it. We have a meeting once a week. With me, they have multiple meetings with me, they only have one meeting a week. So every Monday with all of my nine companies, I have a meeting. So I’m back to back to back on Zoom calls on Mondays. But in one day, I can get it all done. I have my meeting with everybody needs to have my meeting with for the week and I can go on with my week. Everybody knows what they need to be doing. So Mondays we have our team meeting and the team meeting, we kind of do it, we kind of have a flow to the meeting, right? We chitchat for a second, how was everybody’s weekend? How many open houses? Did you guys do, you know, do you write offers, and then what’s going on in the week, the deal is, and then we go into what we call the lead tracker. And if anybody wants a copy of my lead tracker, you can go to my Instagram, and go to my link. So if you go to Google’s real estate on Instagram, go to my bio, and in my bio, you find the links and in the links, you can find the free lead tracker, it’s my lead tracker. Now it’s a few pages long, and I walk you through it. It’s an Excel sheet. So I walk you through exactly how we use that. So an initial page is everybody that comes in there any lead no matter what source they came from, it’s a manual entry from the agents, right, I want them to get into the motion of tracking and knowing who they’re working with, right? Even though everything we collect automatically goes into our CRM program that we use Cavey core from there, the manual, one is where they actually had a conversation, and they are communicating with that person, right. So that’s our lead tracker is the first page everybody goes in there. And then all of our agents have the little drop down. So we know which lead was assigned to each agent. As soon as you assign it to that, in general, it automatically puts it over to their tab as well. So in the bottom, we have each agents has their own tab. So from the big screen, right on the very initial first stage, I want to see that we have $17 million worth of leads in our queue right now. Right, that’s our that’s our initial page. And then from there, it breaks it down to the agents. So I see that Clancy has 7 million of the 17, Kerry has 5 million of the 17. Josh has 1 million of the 17. Right. So it’s like it breaks it up. And then from there after everybody and then they also color coordinate there’s green means that they’re under contract. Right. So when you’re looking at there’s everybody that’s white on their own sheet means is that they are in communication in some shape or form. Green means that they are pending, they actually have an accepted offer. Red means they told us to fuck off. Can I say that on your show worse, and beep it out. So they pretty much tell us to go pound sand, we make them rad because that means that we are not allowed to contact them anymore. But other than that, if they are just not talking to us for whatever reason, we consider them that they are a future client at some point, right? So we stay in touch with them. So when they go pending, they all go green under the under on their tab as well. But it automatically goes over to the pending tab as well. So when I open up my initial lead tracker, it shows 17 million, but then I open up the pending tab, which was 5 million. I know that we closed about what 30% Right, so we have a 30% closing rate. Now we have a little bit higher closing rate than nationwide average, I would say because we really only target warm audiences, meaning I don’t run ads, right. So the leads that come in organically come in, they pretty much raised their hand and they want to do business with us. They contacted us they went on their website, they went on Facebook, they commented on something that we posted. So it’s not like cold audiences when I’m running $5,000 ads a month and Joe Schmo was bored on Zillow and somehow found his way to the right, we don’t do that. So with that being said, Now, in the pending tab, I’ve see what’s going on what we are closing how many we have, what are the closing dates, who was the lender? Where did the leads come from yada yada? Now where the leads come from we also track because I want to pi? I want to see in the end of the year, where should we be spending our time? Where’s our referring partner? Who is our cheerleader? Right? That Where’s if I was to spend marketing dollars, where should I spend it? Which I don’t have to spend marketing dollars? Well, if I was to spend, where should I spend it right? You want to see where your leads are coming from? Is it your sphere of influence? Is it open houses? Is it a lender partner sending you new leads? Is it your ability to get it from your book club yoga man to man sales, whatever that is, right? So you have to create those categories, literally where those leads are coming from. So then you know in the end of the year where you need to be spending your time or your marketing efforts. Okay, so from the pending tab now goes to the clothes tab. Why do I have a separate tab for that? Here’s the reason why. How many leads we generate. How many are we able to put on contract and how many are able to actually save and close? Some deals are going to fall apart? Right? And I want to see what is our closing rate? Not our pending rate, what is our closing rate? Right? And from those mistakes that are there when pending, but we didn’t close we that means you need to learn a lesson and what is that lesson that we need to learn? Right, so then your closing rate can get higher? Because do we get paid for pending? We get paid for it almost. D.J. Paris 25:25Right. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we’re talking about tracking, we’re talking about making sure that you know, not you go go, but our listeners know exactly what they’re okay, from, from warm to pending, we need to know what that close ratio is just to get depending. And then we need to know the the close ratio from pending to closed, and not only to be able to forecast. But as gogo just said, a really important thing is maybe my pending to closed, close ratio is only 60%, which means 40 of my pet 40% of my pending deals fall through. Okay, what’s going on? What skill do I need to develop to figure out a better strategy to get that up? Gogo Bethke 26:03Exactly. You got it? You got it? Yes. What? How D.J. Paris 26:09much of coaching in real estate is about teaching people. There’s two things I think I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. I’ve always thought, Look, it’s very difficult to go out and be a successful agent. I truly believe it’s not an easy job. It’s doable, absolutely doable. But it’s not easy. Most things in life that are worthwhile aren’t easy. So that’s not a big Gogo Bethke 26:29Hey, I always say if it was easy, everybody would be a realtor. D.J. Paris 26:31That’s right. And a lot of people try and a lot of people don’t make it. But I think it’s it’s really a couple of things. I think discipline, of course, and that’s something that, you know, everyone’s got to figure out how to find their own their routines, their discipline, what works for them. But then, this idea of tracking everything, it seems daunting at first, if you’re somebody who just kind of flies by the seat of their pants, and you’re aren’t used to really having a good awareness of what your numbers are, but it is actually freeing once you get in the habit, I Gogo Bethke 27:01love it. I love it because you can grow something you don’t track. Right? Nor can you learn a lesson. If it’s not literally staring at you in the eye on the spreadsheet of like, shit, like two out of 10 deals fall apart. Like what? And that’s not okay. Right? So I’m attract that I like to joke and say my trackers have trackers. Yeah, I’m the biggest numbers nerd you’ll ever meet. It’s so to me. It’s so exciting. Okay, so then actually have your trackers which you should have your trackers and I’m giving mine for free. So go and download it and make it your own right? Then what you want to do is you have to one your team lead right? People will drag you by the nose if you let them. I actually had to fire my nephew. Oh, no. Because I only want to work with people that have the work ethic you can work 12 years for building your reputation and someone can run it in three seconds. And I’m not allowing not allowing that no matter who they are even if their family right. So you have to honor the business how you want to build it, they have to, they have to agree to build it with you. Right and your way. So our team contract, first of all, you have to have a team contract. And in that team contract, it has to spell out what is expected of them that the leads have to be answered within five minutes. If they don’t answer the within five minutes, they’ll never get another lead again. Yeah, they have to do two open houses every single week, hour, out of four weekends in a month, they have to do two weekends, open houses, right. Our listings always have to be held open until they sell every single weekend, if they can’t have the open houses, and it is their responsibility to find a replacement. Right. So all of these things my agents have to post we have a posting schedule, which means it’s from my Cavey core, right that in Cavey core, they’re going to take the lanes Mondays, we do a listing Tuesday, we do all of our listings Wednesday, we do search for homes, Thursday, we do open houses and Fridays we do how much your home is worth. Now, because we have multiple agents, they take turns weekly, one agent one week, the other agent next week. So I don’t care how they divided up. But as long as we made a post every single day with featuring one of these properties, right? Because that’s how you’re going to generate those leads back to you. Because Cavey core has a lead capturing ability. That’s the whole point you’re doing it, you’re not doing it because we have nothing else to do. Right You’re doing it because I want more clients, right? Then those leads come in to our Cavey core from their first one who jumps on it, they put their initials on it, that lead becomes theirs, they have five minutes to contact them in some shape or form. We do a lot of video based, so they send them video style, selfie style video, right introducing who they are, they would love to under business, yada, yada. And then kind of they go from there every Friday. So the team actually one more thing. Wednesday’s is our team meeting our organizational mindset and production training, I should say, and it’s mandatory for them. So it’s mandatory for them to come to everyone’s a one o’clock training. It’s mandatory for them to go to the contract training, which our brokers do contract training, I think every Thursday at 930 and they have to go to them until they want to do all of the trainings. I’m not I’m going to teach you the contracts because guess what is it my time was spent? DJ, no, no, somebody else already doing it. So me as the leader, it’s my responsibility to make sure that you know where to go to get the education and to hold you accountable for it. But I don’t have to be teaching you the contracts. I’m not the broker they are, like, so we send you to contracts training, and they only have to go until they get to all of the contracts. And then every Friday, they have a meeting with my operations manager on Fridays is one they have another spreadsheet, right? And that check sheet is mostly like, Did you hold an open house this weekend? Which property? How many people walk through? How many did you contact? How many buyers? Did you get out of that open house? Did you send 10 messages to your fear of influence? Did you have face to faces? Or did you have face to faces, they supposed to we have this rule of Never Eat Alone. So they have to take someone out for coffee or lunch every single day. And that could be a local vendor, it could be a title, company or lender, like anybody that you need to form a relationship with. But also your sphere of influence the cousin that you haven’t seen in three years that a high school friend that just had a baby, and you’re thinking they have to upsize, right. Like all of those things. So Christie goes through that, that that spreadsheet, so we hold them accountable, make sure that they’re doing the actual thing that is expected of them. Did you make all of your posts all these things? So all this guess what I can only through Wi Fi? Or cell service? D.J. Paris 31:20Yeah, you don’t have to physically be present. And I was just thinking about everything you expect from your agents. It sounds like a lot. And for those of you that there are anxiety went up with thinking about all this activity, it’s actually anxiety reducing, because once you know, at least for me, it would be I don’t want as much as I like to say, I don’t like to be told what to do, I absolutely need to be told what to do in my life. I just do. And I think a lot of us are that way. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just knowing where, you know, look, I’m a creative person. So I don’t like structure, which is why I totally need structure, which is why I need every single day I have every just about every moment of my workday is completely planned out. And it doesn’t mean that I’m always proactive, I’m always active, but from like three to four today, I have blocked out, I just wrote busy and I’m going to relax for that hour because I am doing all these other things. But the point is, I know at three o’clock, from three to four, I’m shutting everything down. And I’ll come back online at four o’clock and finish up my day. But the point is, is I have to have everything structured, and it has been so freeing, and it actually has made my life a lot easier. And you just Gogo Bethke 32:29get it done. Right? Because when you don’t like people telling you what to do you also have this thing inside of you. I’m not gonna do it. Yeah. And guess who is going to not reap the benefits? Yeah, you. Right, so even my executive assistant who’s in Brazil, and she’s my assistant, I tell her all the time you’re my boss, because you can attack me where I need to be tomorrow. I love it. Yep. Right, you’re gonna make sure that five minutes before love, and you’re gonna compound to make sure I’m showing up. You can count on me, by the way, but they always still call to make sure that I’m showing up right. So they’ll absolutely structure will free you up. Because then I know that by 11 o’clock on Tuesday, I actually got it all done. Because this is what was on my calendar is good. As long as I’m doing all this, I’m going to continuously grow because one of my biggest fear is to stay at the same level. I actually got a board of directors because I’m not your typical agent. I’m not the person who’s going to make another 150,000 Next year, right? Like I literally did the math last week I was at an event in two of my businesses. Let me see if I wrote it in my notebook. Yes. So from 2019 to 2020 2021. Yes. So from 2019 to 20. I grew 89%. But from 2020 to 21. I grew 238%. Amazing, right? So it’s like and by the way prior to that every year, I doubled my business Double, double, double double. But now I want two and a half times because now I leverage. Right now I have a bunch of mini knees to do the things that you cannot possibly finish alone in the 24 hours. Do you think Tony Robbins is building? Like everything that he has today? Like he’s sending out that email that you got today? Stop it. D.J. Paris 34:16Yeah, he’s leveraging people you’re leveraging. And by the way, it’s never been more affordable, to be able to leverage help. It’s it used to be really cost prohibitive because we didn’t have access to people all over the globe who wanted to work. We had access maybe to just what was in our local market. And we all know if we’ve ever tried to hire locally, it can be challenging sometimes to find good help. And so now we have the whole world’s competing for your business. And so you have the opportunity to meet other people from other places who you know, like you said with a cell phone connection or Wi Fi can essentially do what it’s really it’s made us all step up our game because it means we’re all a little bit replaceable. So we really have to Step Up if we want to continue to thrive, but you can leverage some of these technological advances that we’ve had in recent years to make the make your life a lot. It’s not that it’s going to be necessarily easier. It’s going to be more efficient. And I think that’s, Gogo Bethke 35:15I think it’s removing things from your play that you suck at it. But you have, you’ve been doing it anyway because it needs to get done. It also it’s freeing you up and giving you time to do things that you love and you really good and it comes natural to you, right? Because I don’t work a day in my life. I feel like when you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. I get to do this. And the crazy part they pay me for it, they pay me to be me. D.J. Paris 35:45I 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 Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else and oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, it’s really cool. I it’s funny. I’m I have the same thing like with this podcast, which started out as a passion project about five years ago, maybe six years ago now. And I was doing everything because number one, it was not a revenue generating sort of project. And also, I didn’t know, I didn’t even know who to ask for anything. Well, and so Okay, so I got to a place where I was able to eventually get some help. And I wish I would have done it years before even if it would have put me in debt a little bit. If even if I didn’t have the money to do it, I really should have knowing what I know now because and I never suggest people go into debt if if they can avoid it, of course. But I looked at our numbers for our podcast and our growth in the last two or three years has been exponential. I don’t even know what the number is because I’d have to calculate it. It’s so high because I hired somebody to basically do everything producing the episode casting it, you know, doing all of the production. And then also I have a marketing person from Bangladesh of all places Bangladesh, who is so incredibly good. I don’t know what he does. I don’t know how he does it. But our numbers are skyrocketing. It’s not because I’ve gotten that much better. It’s because I’ve leveraged people who know what they’re doing. And I wasn’t very good at promotion and marketing. That’s not what I’m good at. I’m good at hosting a show. So didn’t make sense for me. And now we have more sponsors we have we actually turn away sponsors and I’m not saying that to brag because I wish I didn’t turn any sponsor away but we only have so many sponsor sponsorship opportunities. Well I have somebody looking for sponsorship opportunities for me so now I have more sponsorships it pays for all my staff these are things that anybody could do it I’m not special GO GO GO GO would probably say she’s not special. She just has systems Gogo Bethke 38:49yes I’m just a little girl from Romania with no college education I didn’t even speak English you couldn’t pronounce my name if you tried my real name right with no sphere of influence no money, right I’m five foot two and they were like you need to do and I’m like I’m African. I’m this little blandy like no stranger danger. Have no right so if I can do it, consider that. D.J. Paris 39:10Well, this is a great place I want to talk let’s talk a little bit about about about your your boot camp. Tell us about Go Go’s boot camp for those of us who are new to it. Gogo Bethke 39:19So go was boot camp came about kind of necessity, right? Because figuring out social media and systems and why and algorithms and how to do things and posting and CRM programs and automated drip campaigns and Zapier integrations and you know, all of those things that social media might sound like it’s simple, right? But the goal is that you want to be able to generate use traffic from one platform, right? Like the Instagram, tic tac, Facebook, being able to take them over to something else, a website or a funnel or something that you have built where you can capture the information. But after you capture their information needs to dump into a CRM program, right? And then the CRM program needs to be automated to follow up on your behalf or you have to have people that follow up right away because if you don’t follow Put the lead within five minutes, guess what another agent already did and you lost them, or they forgot all together that they just messaged you, right? So you need to have the systems in place. So over time, I would go in and speak and people would ask me, Hey, can you come and speak and so that, and I felt like they asked me all the same questions. And I was like a broken record or a parrot repeating it just answering the same question over and over again. So I figured it would be easier if I record myself. And then I can just say, Oh, just go here, watch everything, implement everything you learn into your business, and you have the same results. So we created goggles bootcamp, initially, we had social media only. And then after I switched over to exp, I bought over 1000 agents and designed and built 1000 Agent organization. And then I built a course it’s called the agent attraction for people with the idea that if they want to build teams, right, and organizations or depending on whichever brokerage they are at, if they own their own brokerage, right, and I help them agent attract to their brokerage, because I don’t know the nationwide average for agents retention, but when you’re a broker or a team lead, you’re constantly losing agents because or they’re not good. And they’re going to leave the industry altogether, because they’re not hungry enough. And they don’t have the work ethic, right? Or they’re okay, and they’ll stay with you for a while or they’re really good. And then after they became really good, then they’re gonna go out to be an individual agent. And here you’re back in the hamster wheel getting the next agent, right. So agent attraction, we are doing that we are helping agents or team leads or broker owners to build their own teams and brokerages. So that’s that the next one we came out with, it’s called V conium. And that is virtual assistant. Right? So since I talk a lot about virtual assisting people ask me all the time, can you help in getting a virtual assistant, so we built a course around that, and I can give you a link on that in a little bit as well. And then we had a TC company as well, now I realized that I can’t really put my brand with other people’s work ethic. So if it requires other people’s work ethic, I have to be very careful of what and how I’m promoting, right. So then the transaction coordination company, they actually decided to shut it down. And now the white label that to a company who has been in the industry for a very long time with a very good reputation. So if you guys need a transaction coordination company, we can also going to my links on Instagram, Google’s gonna see that calm and go ahead and use them. Those are the ones that I was able to research and I trust them, they did a great job. And right now what we are going to do, which I haven’t told you yet, we are working on through the years, the social media bootcamp, for example, it was created for agents in mind, right? So it’s very real, that very it is real estate based. Now through the years going to all of the entrepreneurial events and things like that. I’m getting asked all the time. Can you help me? I’m a lender, can you help me on a title company? Can you help me have a yoga studio? candle shop? Right? So what we are going to do now we are going to create what’s called the Small Business boot camp and social media marketing. So then everybody can use it. That’s going to be more generalized, right explaining the Google My Business, the you know, all of the different platforms and how to generate leads, what’s your programs to use all of those things for pretty much any type of business. So right now we actually retired, the current goggles, we can social media is going to get a facelift. And when that’s ready, you’re going to have a brand new link. And then you can start promoting it to all of our listeners. It’s just going to be brought up to 2022. D.J. Paris 43:11Awesome. Well, we’re excited. As soon as that is, is ready to go live, we’ll definitely make sure we announce it. Well, what a great place to wrap up. So go go through a lot at us in this conversation. So if you need to go back and listen to it again, grab a pen and pencil because she speaks fast. But everything she says is absolutely valuable. And it’s what exactly what she did to grow her business. There’s no secrets here. But you need to know what to do. So go back and listen to this again. And also maybe you know, somebody who’s trying to grow a team or wants to maybe consider joining a team or maybe instead of joining a team, they could create one. This is a great blueprint. And gogo is the person to follow because she when I met her, she was just an individual practitioner. She didn’t have a team. And all these years later now she has 1000 agent, and it’s not that many years later what it’s like three years later, maybe in half. Yep. Three and a half. It took me. I’ve been in the business. 12 years, 12 years, about 12 years. I have barely I have barely 800 agents. So Google is crushing it. And I have a lot that I’m Gogo Bethke 44:11sorry to celebrate. D.J. Paris 44:12Yeah. Gogo Bethke 44:16I don’t have 800. Local like 800 Local is amazing, like beyond amazing goal that you guys have achieved that 1000s and 45 different states and in four different countries, right? It’s very, it’s a very different it’s much easier when your pool is 1.6 million to get 1000 D.J. Paris 44:35Well, it’s still impressive regardless, and we’re both we’re both impressive. How about that. But we love Gogo. She’s been an amazing partner for us since the beginning and she came on here when we had no listeners and we are so grateful to be able to help support her but also to learn from her. She really the only reason she has 1000 agents is because her whole value proposition is really what most firms don’t do. Do which is like I’m actually going to show you exactly what to do to grow your business, not the skills to learn, although she does that to not how to be a good realtor legitimately, here’s what you do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and she and then you get her results. It’s really incredible. I’m so I hate to say proud of you, because I’m just in awe of you, I guess I should say in awe. I’m proud to be to be your friend, for sure. But I so Gogo Bethke 45:26I wanted to say on my camera, the friend, you know, through this, it’s like you took me on to your podcast, the same thing. Yeah, you didn’t have listener, but I was just an individual agent to write with a little bit of understanding of social media marketing, we have grown together, D.J. Paris 45:38we have grown together and and we want our audience to grow together as well. So when students Go Go’s new boot camp comes out, you can take a little bit of a preview at Gogo podcast.com, just to get an idea of what the previous version looks like the new version is coming soon, but you can at least go check it out. And also just tell a friend about our show. That’s the only thing we ever asked him to think of one other realtor that needs that is struggling with structure. That’s really what we were talking about today structure, struggling with structure, have them listen to this episode. By the way, they’re probably not getting structure from their current managing broker. And that’s not a knock at managing brokers. They Gogo Bethke 46:15grow them. That it is, by the way D.J. Paris 46:18we have it. We have an agent that just recently outgrew our firm. And she had been with us about 10 years. And the reality of it was we could not meet her needs anymore. And she’s the loveliest person and she was she was so upset. She goes, I feel like I’m betraying you guys. And we said, No, you have graduated to another company and we wouldn’t have been able to support her anymore. It was actually the greatest compliment. And so So anyway, the point is, is you can grow to right and maybe you’ll outgrow your existing firm. Go go by the way you can go you can join her company and her firm as well. Right. So unless you live in the Chicagoland area then join my company. I’m only I’m only teasing, join checkout Gogo. She does some really cool things, but she’s not just hey, look at me. I’m cool on social media. She’s like, here’s exactly what I do every single day to run my business. She’s incredible. She’s a powerhouse and you know exp is very lucky to have her so go go thank you once again for being on our show. Please tell everyone listening about this episode. And we will see you on next one. Thanks. Go go. Gogo Bethke 47:21And if I didn’t if I talked too funny, funny and too fast. You can always DM me on Instagram. That’s the only place that I personally answer messages. It’s Google’s real estate on Instagram everywhere else I have vas. Sorry, I know I did just dump some reason. And I don’t really bet so you can D.J. Paris 47:38you can Yes, go go go go to it’s go go real estate. Go goes real. Go go real estate or go goes goes. Go go. So go goes plural. Gio gos real estate on Instagram. We’ll have a link to that. By the way in the show notes you don’t have I didn’t even think about that. Just click on the show notes. Once this episode, once you’re listening to this episode, and it’ll be right there. So alright, go go. Have a wonderful day. It was great to see you and everyone else. Have a wonderful day too. We’ll see you on the next episode. Gogo Bethke 48:07Thank you guys. Bye

Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties! In this episode Ryan and D.J. discuss Ryan’s technology company and what it offers. Ryan talks about how to prepare for the fall season and whether an agent’s ready for the spring market. Next, Ryan analyzes an agent’s sales funnel to get a clearer idea of what’s next. Ryan and D.J. also discuss how to maintain and nurture relationships with your network. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Are you prepped for the winter and then spring market coming up? Well, we’re going to talk about exactly what you should do to get ready today. 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? 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 clients a real sales and marketing solution to generate more business and 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. And real geeks includes an easy to use CRM so that when your leads sign up on your website, you can actually track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness so visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod again real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business. This episode is also brought to you by really aerial maps. Now 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 can 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 paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. Well, you’ll love really, really as a real estate map generator that lets you custom design professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales flyers and listing appointments in minutes, not hours. Simply enter the subject property address, auto populate nearby retail logos with the click of a button and download your aerial retail map really turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps and more time making money. Get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting reedley.com and signing up for an account no credit card required. Again, that’s reedley.com REBL i e.com. Get your aerial retail maps done fast. 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 Parris. I’m your guide and host to the show today is our monthly series called coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about Ryan, if you’re new to our show. Ryan actually comes on every single month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de abril is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at depot properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and he’s also in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida. Jaipur properties focuses on high customer service, managing and executing their agents marketing and transaction management for them, so that their agents can stay focused on their business. Now if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or maybe you’re just not getting the attention you need from your existing company, please check out depot properties, visit D APR properties.com. That’s D A p r i L II. Just like it’s I guess just like it sounds D APR properties.com. There’ll be a link to that in our show notes. We should also mention that in addition to running a real estate brokerage Ryan also has a title company, a mortgage arm. And also I feel like I’m missing one lot of technology arm as well. So Ryan really runs a lot of different companies in within the real estate space. So his perspective, when we talk about how to stay on target is not just focused around brokers. It’s really kind of a holistic approach. So we’re excited to have him on and get his wisdom. Ryan welcome. Ryan D’Aprile 4:32Thank you. Yeah, software are our software companies and nallo so it’s it’s a custom made just since you brought it up. It’s it’s a custom a CRM that integrates with the MLS and other providers out there. We’re actually going to market with it we’re going to mark first with the mortgage product. So we’ve had a lot a tremendous amount of success. I just started just started calling on individuals about three weeks ago and getting a tremendous amount of interest on it, but we’ve been running our businesses off For the past couple of years, it’s been really successful. So we’re really excited about that. So I appreciate you mentioned that. D.J. Paris 5:05And it also just sort of whet the appetite of of the listeners as this, you know, there’s a million different CRMs. For realtors in the marketplace, what makes yours in particular I find most attractive and interesting is that it’s really what I would call all event focus. So it’s able to identify reasons for an agent to then reach out to their sphere of influence their existing clients, it actually identifies opportunities, and really prompts the user or the agent to then take action, which a lot of CRMs are just like, upload your database, create some sort of strategy for staying in touch, and then it will remind you to do that, but yours actually identifies opportunities, which I think is so cool. Ryan D’Aprile 5:46Well, a lot of them I find have too much information, and most people won’t, you’re using about 10% of it. And so I try to you know, keep the you know, the acronym kiss, keep it simple, stupid, and just minimize it. So we actually could track our business be very well aware of it, be aware of where our businesses are coming for, we have a snapshot, or it tells you your main lead source, or where your primary amount of your businesses, anniversaries, and closing dates, all that kind of stuff. tie into social media connections with your network, so you can see what’s going on with them. track how you’re, but you know, you got to participate in it, right? It’s like, anything, you know, it’s your, you’re gonna get out of it, what you put into it. And, you know, so that’s why coaching is always so important. I was with a loan officer of ours today. And he said, I could spend four hours in this thing. It’s got so much Mike exactly, you can and they’ll tell you exactly what to do step by step, and then it becomes a process, not just a guessing game, what am I going to do today, you know, most of us wake up and we just react to the day where I I’d rather you have a plan laid out and just run that plan consistently. D.J. Paris 6:57Yeah, I encourage everyone who’s listening, this is the this is such a simple thing that everybody already knows. But I encourage you the night before, you know, to really go over your day, and maybe just identify the three to five major things you want to accomplish the next day, and then also revisit that in the morning because I even I knowing all of that I still have to remind myself Okay, um, before I go to bed, let’s take a look at tomorrow. And let’s identify a few things. So obviously, that’s a very simple obvious step, but something that is easily overlooked. Ryan D’Aprile 7:30Yeah, yeah. What do you want to talk about today? Well, let’s talk about the market. Let’s talk about, you know, we’re coming in pretty soon to the fourth quarter. I mean, it goes like that, doesn’t it? But how do we, you know, prepare for this fall season, which is upon us? And then, you know, more importantly, are you ready for the spring market? And what does your spring market look like? And D.J. Paris 7:56I want to pause just for a moment because I want to, I want to mention why I think this is so important, because I spend a lot of time with realtors, obviously, we have a lot at our firm, and then I am involved with our local association. So I even get to talk to a lot of realtors, outside of of our company. And even the most really the more successful realtors that I talked to, everyone seems to be really focused on what’s going on today in the market. Right? And we, you know, if I ask somebody, how’s it going? They talk about what’s going on today? Oh, inventories down rates are up. You know, it’s a struggle. And I don’t hear a lot about well, what else should I be thinking about today? Right. So I’m excited for us to provide some additional insight into maybe a different way to think about today. And you were saying, you know, let’s think about the spring. Ryan D’Aprile 8:46Absolutely isn’t in fact, I’ll I’ll even share my screen and see if I can show you how we look at it. Is that okay D.J. Paris 8:52with you? Sure. And we’ll just describe it for our audio listeners. That’s fine. Oh, yeah. Ryan D’Aprile 8:56Okay, fine. That’s right. It’s right. It’s a podcast and thing because we’re on video here. But let me see if I could pull this up. Can I Be careful some confidentiality here. So let me just think of how I can do this here. Um, I’m gonna make this little bit. Let me come over here. Okay, I’m gonna make this a little bit bigger. But let me show you how this works. D.J. Paris 9:20And I’ll do my best to describe it to our audience. Ryan D’Aprile 9:24Oh, you have to allow me to share. Okay, we’ll do that. Sorry about that. I just just came. D.J. Paris 9:30I always should be able to now Yep. Ryan D’Aprile 9:39Okay, so you may see my screen here. I can see it. Yeah. So I’m just going to kind of quickly through this. I don’t want to be on it too long here. But like, this is in leads. This is a sales funnel. Right? And I’m gonna make it bigger. So you don’t really see client names here. Okay. So is that okay? Yep. This is one of our agents, actual dashboards, right. You could, you know, here Er, this is the visual cues are incredibly important, right? So this particular agent has closed $90 million year to date $3 million, currently pending 5.6 million active another 5.6 of clients that they feel will close this calendar year that that comes from this here closing this calendar year. So, you know, in coaching and working with this agent, this agent can manage this themselves by looking at it, they can go and filter over here by this year. And it’ll show just individuals that you have going to share, so I’m not going to show their names there. But you could go through and calibrate like, Do I really have $5.68 million of leads not active clients leads, right, here’s active, that’s a totally different animal leads that will close this calendar year. And now there were like four and a half months left in the year that’s it’s gonna get tighter and tighter. So you’re you got to get more and more critical on these particular leads, and then shift on pay, are they more or next year? Or are you even certain that they’re going to transact a higher yield? So on this particular loan off, agents dashboard here, you’ll see there $18.9 million closing next year. That’s wonderful. So I’m going to click on closing next year, right, and you’re gonna see there’s a 33 leads. So I would come over to here and when to look at again, I’m doing my best not to show you the client name. Sure. But there’s a last note date right here. Right. So now I would organize like, okay, so of this net. And this is again, you could tell this is this, this, let’s just look this little this agent will do anywhere between 25 and 30 million in volume this year. Seven years in the business, and monitors or business takes it very serious what their day is they use this dashboard, consistently, this is another product. And now we’re teaching and coaching our agents that hate, make sure you close this $5.68 million in business this year, and you’re taking care of it. And of course, look at your network and make sure you’re in flow with your network. But look at all of this business that you have next year click on it. That’s 3333 individuals for a total of $90 million of business. Almost last time we touched base with him was last time we saw him for a cup of coffee and I was I suddenly went to dinner lunch with them. This is next year this year is over this year, we’re just maintaining and closing out what we got currently going on. You gotta be looking downfield what’s going on next year. D.J. Paris 12:21So have a quick question. So looking at this, describing it, there are we mentioned about just about under 6 million impossible closings this year that or that rather, the this particular again, it’s I know it’s a mortgage agent, but really, it’s a real city. This is a real I’m sorry, this is real estate agent, this organization was a little bit different. Yeah. So So there’s about, you know, 6 million or so that’s that we want to close this year. And you said better make sure they’re closing this year, or or updating it to maybe next year or removing them from right from the funnel. How do you how do you recommend somebody goes in to that group? And, and sees it you know, what’s the actual process of staying in touch to say, Hey, are you are you going to close without just asking them? Or do you recommend just asking the client are you planning on? Ryan D’Aprile 13:09Do you ask, you know, you focus first on relationship, but then you got to be direct and have conversation. Hey, when are we going to go out? When do you want to list your home? You know, where’s the hungry price that you that’s what you’re gonna ask internally, if they’re a buyer, when do you want to get out next? And you got to? It’s like, well, let’s get out. You know, let’s start looking in November. It’s September what? 13th today? So are 12 Yes, yesterday was September 11. So if somebody says yeah, no, right. Thanks for reaching out, you know, I’m thinking we’re ready. But we don’t want to get out to like maybe like right after Thanksgiving. I’m coming here. I’m changing them to closing next next year. Yeah, they’re not going away. It’s just when I come over to my snapshot, right in my snapchat saying, Hey, I’m forecasted. 34 million this year, I’ve closed 20 million. I got 3.2 million hours of pending, got 5.6 are active. But here’s the 5.6 that are starting to close. These are the leads. So this would go down this would go up. Right, here’s your needs. And so you could have your timeline 5.8 this year 11. On certainly one transact and 90 million for next year. Right. Here’s your lead sources you can see 50% from the network referring them 40% From network referral, then we have open house internet relocation leads whatnot. So in you do the exact same thing with your actives, you come over here and act as their act of actually exactly what active means you’re currently working with them, right? So he’s got $4.96 million of sellers and $735,000 with the buyers, which comes out to that 5.6 number which is happens to be very similar to what the leads are. They’re closing this year, but they’re two different categories. This is 1414 active clients will come over to Leeds $5.68 million and a total of Have 16 leads now. Now you close out your year. Now you calibrate it, you figure that out, you close it out. And then you look downfield and say okay, great, I got 90 million here for next year, which is 33 people, you better be in flow with those 33 people this next, you know, four months so that you are their realtor in 2023. What D.J. Paris 15:26you’ve worked with 1000s of agents over your tenure as as you were an agent yourself, of course, you now have a company with hundreds and hundreds of, of agents and loan officers and different different different sort of jobs within the real estate industry. But with respect to realtors, I wonder what percentage of agents know what their actual pipeline looks like? I bet it’s a pretty low number who actually know okay, well, they might know where they’re at for the year. But do they really have a good sense of what’s closing before the end of the year? Yeah, maybe what’s closing next year, that’s got to be even a smaller percentage of people who know this, I wonder just by just by forecasting this way, what this does to someone’s business, even if it’s, it’s kind of like I always heard, if you just write down your goals, you have a better chance of achieving them. Even if you don’t do anything, obviously, you have to do things to but I suspect this is a major first step, just getting it all down and reviewing the numbers. Ryan D’Aprile 16:20It really is. And I think the key is maintaining your business and and a lot of us, gosh, I would venture to say 92 to 94% of the real estate agents out there are are reactive and not proactive, and loan officers to like look, the past 20 years in the mortgage lending business. It’s been order taking, there’s just no, except for 2008. It’s been order taking, and it has shifted. Loan Officers have got to be out there, they got to be proactive, they got to be creating relationships with their sphere of influence their network and real estate agents. And, you know, it’s probably the worst mortgage lending business we’ve seen in 20 years. And but now you’re seeing 94% of the loan officers struggling real estate agents, or real estate market shifting too. You don’t have to struggle, the business is always there. But if you’re a reactive real estate agent, when the market dips, your business will dip too. There’s no doubt. Now if you’re proactive agent when the market dips, your business will dip as well. But not dramatically. In most cases, you’ll probably have an uptick versus a minor downtick. But in the mortgage lending business, we’re seeing loan officers businesses down 45 to 65%. Real estate agents, you don’t want that. But you will get it if you’re reactive. And and I D.J. Paris 17:43even think there’s little subtle, subtle ways to start the day that that sort of create more reactivity. I know for me, I had to stop checking my phone the moment I woke up, because I used to check to see what emails came through over the night. Not that you don’t need to look at that. Of course you do. But it put me in a reactive mindset. Literally, within the first moment of waking up. I was like I better see see what happened over over the over the night. And it’s really never anything that can’t wait an hour or two before I start my day. But I don’t do that anymore. Because it puts me in a reactive mindset. It’s like okay, now I need to react to this. Now I need to and I’ve like No, no, I need to first set my intention for the day and really have a good awareness of what my day is going to look like. Then I can go back and and I now just only allow myself to check emails a few times a day. Ryan D’Aprile 18:30Yeah, that’s one of the best things you can do. It’s not easy. It’s hard. That phone is a powerful thing. I was at Iowa with my daughter over the weekend we were talking about and I left my wallet at home. Oh no. Yeah, I’m wife wife was with me. But you know, but the tab came and I just asked the lady Do you do Apple page and of course they’re cute. My daughter said bad you soon won’t need a wallet or credit cards anymore. I said honey you won’t need a wallet anymore. Right I mean it’s it’s it’s a matter of time where you won’t even need a why hate why that lump in my back that D.J. Paris 19:10annoying? Yeah, stand it Ryan D’Aprile 19:12and so um but because of that I’m getting stupid Wall Street Journal alerts. I’m Gam factoring that shit off right? I’m getting I turned my email alerts off my text messages off. I’m so it’s me too. It’s like any boss, right? It’s like, you know, things like kryptonite, once it grabs you, you know, it’ll control your day. And you know, I heard this expression one time like if you treat the market like God, right? If you treat the market like God, then like God giveth God taketh away. That’s what’s going to happen to you. So you can’t treat the market like God, you got to take control of your marketplace and your marketplace is your network. And your network should be in a database and you should have a CRM and you should use and live in it’s here. I mean, there’s a lot of people that are part time passive in this business. They it’s their full income, right? But it’s uh, it just it’s a very passive approach to it. But the top of the top, you know, the guests that you have on these shows, they treat it like a business, they’re dead serious, they’re involved, they probably do know what they have closing next year, they probably do they know the name of the clients and, and their temperatures and whatnot. And that’s why I built this, I didn’t see anything out there like that. So that’s what he created for our company, I’m now going to start sharing it with others. D.J. Paris 20:26It’s very exciting. And I do think this idea of, you know, text messages, we could talk about this for a moment, because I would like to get your take on this. So text message. And I only bring this up because I hear a lot of agents talk about it is that the challenge with one of the challenges with having our devices with us at all times, aside from being Well, part of being reactive is clients text. And most people, I think, find that that’s a much bigger part of their business than it used to be people are more comfortable. And a text exchange doesn’t have a beginning or an ending? Well, it has a beginning, but it doesn’t have an ending really, right. So people can just continue on this conversation anytime, day or night. Really, when there are no boundaries around texts, really. So I’m curious and how you coach your agents to not let the texting become like because it can be infinite. And whenever. And you see that text come in and you don’t want to be reactive, you’re like, I’m only going to respond a couple times during the day. But how do you set about the right boundary? And how do you let the client know that I’m only responding? Or do you recommend going a different way with that? Yeah, no, Ryan D’Aprile 21:30I so Okay, so there’s two different things. So one, it seems like you’re asking how do you manage the client and your time, so you’re, you got to react to what they want. But so your old days not reactive versus proactive? And so you have to do got a time block? And you have to say, When am I going to be the one sending the text out? Versus texts coming in? We’re not going to be the one send the texts out, why don’t we where am I going to track it. And so that I know, hey, DJ Paris is in my network, I want to be in touch with him once a month be in his body. Because the reality is once every seven years, he buys and sells a home, and every single year for people in his network, buy or sell a home. So he’s got potential for referrals for me, right, that’s just how it comes down to. So if I have too many people in my network that I’m in flow with every single month, potential 800 referrals from my network, and 16% of them are going to transact. So that’s another 32 potential transactions. So where’s my business come from? Where do I make my money is being in flow with DJ Paris, who is not actually an active client? Right? He’s somebody that’s in my network. And then I go on, and blog. So that’s why I built this thing, kind of like the old you know, the the Toyota manufacturing system where it’s, you know, just in time to combine the visual flow, you have, you have different silos, right? You have one is your network, and there’s 203 interference, people in there, that’s my job, I’m going to be proactive with them. Then I’ll come over my next one, which my leads closing this year, closing next year, and that’s where I’m gonna transact those leads live in that network tab, I’m skipping over them because it says it’s in your funnel. It’s either in your leads, or you’re active, or you’re under contract, tab. So when I come over to my network, and I’ve been proactive, I’ll see DJ Paris, and I touch base with him in August 15. Of 2022. It’s over 12. And guess what, I sent him a Facebook message. And that’s the note I sent. So now I’m going to just do a little research two minutes, I’m gonna pick a phone and I’m going to shoot you a text message. That’s how I’m going to do it. Now, when D.J. Paris 23:27we’ve been talking about about monitoring that activity, social media activity in the sense of our, you know, hey, when’s the last time I proactively, you know, reached out to DJ? And what was the the way I did it? Did I do it via text via social media? Ryan D’Aprile 23:42Now, right, yeah, that needs to be tracked, that needs it. And that’s for you, that your borrower, your, your, your buyer, or seller, they’re not going to it’s for you, right. And again, it’s nurturing relationships. So I see DJ, and he was at Mercer recording this past weekend. And he put it on Facebook and said, Oh, my gosh, DJ, got to friends with siblings over misery accordion, we got a call from the bums outing every year, right. And also, because of that, I’m able to create immense, immediate connection with you. And then I move on to the next important person in my network. And that’s me nurturing that relationship. And that’s the proactive. Now when I go to text you that I might see five text messages from active clients, or leads, I gotta, I gotta move on. I got it. I gotta push those aside and go through mine. I got DJ, I’m doing seven a day. I got six more to do. I start at nine I’ll be done at 945 and now I could get over to those text messages. But before I get all those text messages, I go to the network. I’m gonna go to my leads. Okay, I got 45 leads of those 45 leads. Seven of them have not heard from me in three weeks. Great. Now just get seven to go. And then all 45 have heard from me within the past three weeks. And now you go to the React that let’s go file these active clients of text me to do The Gourmet flights, I got 15 active clients, and seven taxonomy, I’ll update that, and I will knock out the other eight. I’ve just accomplished an entire day work by 11 o’clock in the morning. And I can now do whatever I want with the day. Right. D.J. Paris 25:14And what we haven’t talked about is servicing existing clients, we haven’t talked about checking the market, we are talking about business building activities, which are staying in touch, in your case with this example of with your network, monitoring it so that you actually are tracking it rather, and putting all the activity in. So you know exactly how long it’s been. So that because people might be listening going, Okay, well, I know I have to reach out to these 30 people today, or however many people are on my show up on my CRM today. But now you get to get a bit creative with it. You don’t have to call 30 people you can or you can Oh, you know, you can see what they’re doing posting on social, Like Ryan said he saw that I was I was at an event this weekend. And so he might comment on that, that that counts, right? Anything counts, it doesn’t have to be Hey, when are you buying or selling? It just has to be some sort of reach out? In there’s lots of ways to do that. So it’s not like you have to call everyone and say, What are you buying? You’re selling? Because Ryan knows I’m probably not buying or selling for a while. Ryan D’Aprile 26:14Exactly. That’s exactly right. And it’s going to be more more focused on you and the relationship, right. And then that way you attract business instead of chasing business at some point, especially in different businesses that you’re in. So if you’re mortgage lender listening to the show, you need to ask for the referral. It’s more appropriate in a business to business environment that loan officers are in versus a business to consumer. Which real estate agents are loan officers, of course, are as well because they have to deal with the consumer. But you know, a lot of majority of us probably 80% of us or our sales calls are on those real estate agents. D.J. Paris 26:53So that’s thinking like, I was thinking it’s it’s that that I think it’s m Scott Peck wrote the book, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. That he might have been the road less traveled guy anyway, somebody wrote, actually, it was Robert Frost, the poet but anyway, the expression, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. I don’t remember who wrote who said that or wrote it, but Ryan D’Aprile 27:12less traffic up there. D.J. Paris 27:16That’s right, because I was just thinking, so I moved into a new development a year and a half ago. And you know how many postcards I’ve received from realtors? Now again, am I going to move anytime soon? Or people who move it into a development moving? Probably not, but a heck of a good time to start a relationship? Maybe we didn’t have good experiences with our Realtors, not everyone does, right? I have gotten exactly zero postcards. Zero. That’s, Ryan D’Aprile 27:40that’s so so that’s another point for all of our listeners here, right? I mean, the market shifting, you got, it’s going to be a flight to quality, you got to be on your game. If you want to have a similar year you had in 2020 and 2021. You’ve it’s not, it’s not going to just come you’ve got to be deliberate, you got to be proactive. One of the things that we should all be doing is in our database, right? We have previous sales, we should be looking at 2021 and 2020, sales and even 2019 We should be looking at data close. And we should be in tune with our past buyer clients on their home anniversaries, especially the ones for the immediate year. That’s where your highest degree of referrals are going to come from. But even the past three years staying, that’s where like that juicy referral business comes from. As you saw on the agent’s dashboard, I just had a $20 million production year to date. 50% was from his network. The other 50% was from his network referring him. That’s 10 hours or referrals. People had no idea. But the network he nurtured and took care of referred in that business. By the way, that average price point is just over $300,000 that $20 million producer. So that’s like 70 Plus units in a year. So it’s so for all the listeners across the country, right? You know, who start saying to myself, well, he’s in Chicago, they’re probably eight 900,000 hours not that person. That person is average price points in the mid three, in fact, 303,000 hours in Chicagoland average price and like the climbed up in the past year or so. But those numbers are attainable anywhere. You just got to get a database, you got to get a group of people, you got to create a network and nurture that network. You got to be consistent, you know, Denzel Washington, I saw a little clip on him, it was great. Like, if you’re not committed, you’re never gonna start. But if you’re not consistent, you’re never going to finish. So many people are just not consistent. I truly feel a database. A good CRM will bring you back to that consistency and, and don’t get distracted with all the bells and whistles because less is more, in my opinion to a good CRM. D.J. Paris 29:48And you know, doing the little it’s always the little things. It’s it’s remembering someone’s home anniversary. Well, it’s actually not remembering because no one’s going to remember that especially the person who moved in is probably not going to remember it either. But your CRM I’m just going to remember that and it’s going to tell you today so and so’s home anniversary, are you going to call them text them, send them a social media post, drop off a gift, send them a card, you’re going to do something. And Ryan D’Aprile 30:11that will help you with that as well, client giant, I can’t attest to them, because I’ve never use them. But my agents have, and they like it a lot. So I’m giving them a shout out, even though I don’t know them from Adam. But I’ve heard from a lot of agents to use it. It’s really good for buyer clients when you’re active with them. And then it’s also very good for like those anniversaries. It’s customized, it’s not branded, right, which is good. It’s like coming from you. It’s genuine. So that’s a that’s a good resource for you guys to be looking at. And again, that’s going to squeeze that orange and get you more referrals. D.J. Paris 30:49Absolutely. And so that’s really interesting. So you were let’s go back to the example of the person that we looked at just we don’t have to see any of the stuff. But that’s really interesting. So seven years in the business 30 million average price point is actually less than the average Chicago home. So it’s not like this person is playing in the ultra high net worth space, mostly. You know, they’re they’re working with average, people Ryan D’Aprile 31:13read out the 14 clients that they’re currently active with that he’s currently with 260,000 hours 285,000 through $35,000 $180,000 250,000 hours. 475 That’s a big one. 1 million we got a big one there. $400,000 275. I mean, it’s your I mean, besides the exception of that $1 million, one, but there’s another one for $35,000, that’s going to bring that back. Right? It’s, you know, sold, you know, 67 units, year to date, $100,000 to 30 $700,000 155 200,000 hours, 645 $80,000 363,100 45,000. That’s just a quick sample, I’ll stop going on and on. But I wanted to just, you know, for your viewers to hear, like, you know, this is an individual who sold $20 million year to date is still below 30 years old, you know, and D.J. Paris 32:13is probably going to close right around 30 or 28 or so. Ryan D’Aprile 32:17Yeah, I mean, it’s already at $24 million, with what’s pending, as well. If you had, if you had what they’ve closed, what he’s closer to date, what’s currently under contracts at 20, about 24 million, D.J. Paris 32:28that is a heck of a good those are, those are fantastic numbers for somebody in their 20s. Well, for any age, but certainly somebody who’s not even 30 yet. And for being seven years in the industry and for being in a year where there’s we hear a lot of doom and gloom. That is That is fantastic. So So what’s the secret to that person’s success? It just activity and consistency? Yeah, Ryan D’Aprile 32:50you know, here’s the reality. In my opinion, this this person has bought in to the system, the process that we’ve coached on right now, it didn’t fight it just kind of fall through, had mediocre first year had Okay, second year, came out third year stayed consistent. I have a lot of agents that are having great bang out years. But I know they got something else coming to them because they’re not being consistent. I’ve seen it time and time again. And so it’s just it’s are you consistent with it? Or are you caught up on the latest and newest fad, and trend and everybody’s going to is going to come and tell us here’s the future of real estate, this is direction is going to go? I haven’t in my 20 years seen real estate changed that much and not going to start believing now that it’s going to completely change to a different angle. Either it comes down to individuals strength or relationships. And you and I were talking about teams, I don’t think the whole industry is gonna go to teams. I really don’t. D.J. Paris 33:53That’s good. Cuz that’s that’s all I keep reading about. So I’m glad to hear a different perspective. Ryan D’Aprile 33:58It’s not D.J. Paris 34:00I mean, most people are individual practitioners. So Ryan D’Aprile 34:04it’s going to continue to be like that and that’s why I think you know, real estate agents you know, the concept of selling your book of business sure it’d be nice thing it’s okay excited about it. There’s nothing there you guys it’s through relationships it’s you’re going to ride out the sunset in this business put away max out that SEP IRA that or self directed 401 k be smart with your money. But you know, it is high unless you’re in a completely transient marketplace. And totally transient marketplaces, say like, Chicago, right? Downtown Chicago, or Miami York or New York, right? Yeah, eyeline leads are going to give you more there right you’re gonna be able to be more transient. You know, open houses are probably gonna be more successful because there’s not such tight communities right. But in the majority of America right there, suburbs or neighborhoods or communities be a part of that community. And those individuals are hiring you because they know you they like you. They trust you. They got a relationship with you. That’s how people I mean, it’s very arbitrary what how people pick real estate agents, it’s the person that comes to mind. Right? And they usually call him one person. And same thing you know, when times when you’re you’re building a home or you’re gonna get a remodeling project done, or you’re even hiring an attorney. It’s who the first person because I sure as I like you helped me. It’s just how it works. D.J. Paris 35:35I 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 want to go back to that individual per se. I just realized something. And I don’t I just want to sort of put this in the mind of our listeners again. Somebody’s in their seventh year, still not 30 years old yet. And my head? I can’t remember. But yes, well, right around we’ll say right around 30 and seven years in and is basically closing a deal with every five to six days. He has a transaction closing something like that. He said he did about 7070. Ryan D’Aprile 37:21Let’s just look care. under contract. Yeah, about 70. D.J. Paris 37:30So this is somebody who’s closing a transaction essentially every week. That is remarkable. Write that in there. And that is somebody who the parent and by the way, half of his business came from his sphere of influence directly. The other half came from his referrals from a sphere of influence. It’s not like he’s even buying leads Ryan D’Aprile 37:5140% came from his network directly. Okay, so help me with my math, what’s four times 728? Right, so 20 deals from his network. 32% came from his network referring him so referrals for his network. Okay, so another 22 or so. Right? So what do we get total? What add those two together? 60 something or no? Yes. 70 to 73%. Then 30% came from for sale signs. 8% came from a lead from that listing. Right, amazing. Yeah. And then an open house. You know what I mean? It’s like it all comes down to the power that network and then once you start going you start getting listings second leads from your listings, and starts to snowball. D.J. Paris 38:43Yeah, I mean, this is somebody who has not been handed a lead. I have not heard Oh, he’s either purchasing leads or been handed leads by the company. This is somebody who literally just is nurtured their sphere of influence for seven years, is very profitable. Ryan D’Aprile 38:56And what he’s close here today is a half a million dollars in gross commission income. That’s a very profitable GCI. And there’s a lot of people that do that kind of GCI, but it’s not nearly that profitable, because you’re paying $10,000 a month for leads or more. I’ve seen it. D.J. Paris 39:14You know, that that is really that that case study of that individual that is a remarkable person, because it doesn’t it might not seem remarkable, but if we think about all of those numbers, they’re stacked together is that is a heck of a that’s a heck of a career right there. For somebody who’s about 30 years old. Ryan D’Aprile 39:32That person does not live in Chicago. Okay, he’s in one of our outlying markets. And that person is not originally from that area moved there. Seven years. And you just saw, it’s all from network and referral network. So anybody can do it. It’s just are you committed? And if you’re, if you’re not committed, you never start and there’s probably 80% of our real estate agents are like that. And then are you consistent because if you’re not consistent, if you’re not consistent, you’re not going to finish. So it takes To really tough, you know, tubes of iron in your body to be committed and to be consistent. And I applaud those that have consistently listened to your, your podcasts that go to coaching that go on to the next level. You know, there are some that will just come easy to do, and they’ll just continue to do it. But for those of us that it’s not that there are tools out there, they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do. But you kind of use them you got to be in um, it’s surprising what would happen to your business to be dedicated three hours to it proactively, versus four or five hours just being reactive all day long. D.J. Paris 40:38Yeah, I think you’ve really have to figure out a way to turn off the alerts the notifications, and put the blinders on like the horses have in racing and just focus on the task ahead. And it’s hard, because we’re all so connected. And it is it is a bit of setting up your systems to sort of make sure like when I go to the gym, I make sure everything’s turned off. When I wake up in the morning, I make sure it’s turned off when I There’s certain times of the day when I we want to do what’s called one mindfulness where you’re focused on one activity at a time, so you can give it its full attention. And you’re not pulled because we get a dopamine reward when when we’re reactive, because it feels like we just did something productive, we replied to an email, we, we and you have to do those things. We just want to structure it so that you’re doing it intentionally versus oh, it just came across my plate. And I, I really didn’t want to pick up the phone right now. So I’m going to deal with that instead of picking up the phone and calling somebody and saying, Hey, I saw you were just on vacation. Where do you go? Tell me about it? That’s being proactive? Ryan D’Aprile 41:38Absolutely. And then your focus more on your business than the news and the marketplace. Because if you listen to the news, you just watch the marketplace, you can go to a very dark place. D.J. Paris 41:48You, you you? Well, look, we know this about social media, I think you know, what you’ve said about social media, about it being the way to maybe the most healthy way to think about it from a business perspective is this is your your research and development. This is paying attention to what’s going on with your clients so that you have a reason to reach out to them, versus, you know, really trying to make a splash yourself by promoting yourself. But you should probably figure out a way to do that, of course, too. And I know you agree with that, but using it more as a research and development tool versus a you know, yeah, Ryan D’Aprile 42:22you shouldn’t be promoting yourself, you bet you should be putting equal amount of effort into nurturing your network. Now most people spend a person their time promoting themselves, and maybe probably less than 5% nurturing the network. If people got that to 5050, their business would just take off, which is absolutely take off. But you know, we’re still in that, even though Facebook and Instagram and tic tac and everything else been around for over a decade now. if not longer, right. But it’s still kind of new to us. You know, we’re kind of jumping into that and making that like our center point of branding. D.J. Paris 43:03Yeah, you have to be really careful because because as we as you and I know and I mean, the research is really clear at this point, that the more time you spend on social media absorbing it is you actually get you know, you’re unhappy or your happiness goes down, you’re you feel more disconnected. So there’s a lot of good reasons to stay away from social media as a an entertainment vehicle. So if you can then say, Okay, well, what’s really can be useful about it is knowing what’s going on in my clients lives and reacting to that, that is going to bring you business, Ryan D’Aprile 43:34you know, and it’s interesting, so Right, like, like, you know, we could I won’t name but we can name some high profile social media people, right. And their target market is national. Right? So a real estate coach, say Buffini or give me another one. Tom Ferry. Thank you. That’s what I’m trying to say. Tom Ferry right Surrett Am I saying his name right? Yep, sir. Hmm. Right, sir. Hi, right. Those guys right there targeting a national national network, real estate agents. You know, our clients are not national. It’s really local to our network, and how many of them are really living on it? And the reality is, it’s very difficult to boost real estate related type of advertising because of fair housing. Oh, I get did things adds denied all the time that have nothing to do with Fair Housing simply because real estate’s mentioned in the title and who you should be promoting that to as your network your friends and your friends of friends. Well, you can’t do that. So the reality is probably five to 6%. Your network may be seen, not seen, don’t do it. But you got to complement it with direct mail, email marketing, some outdoor marketing, but again, if you are like most real estate agents 5% Being involved with your network and 95% branding, networking and just being reactive, you get that bounce 5050, you’re going to do what that individual that I just showed you is close $20 million year to date. And I can take the individual and put them side by side with other real estate agents that I know, in different marketplaces. And there’s no way that real estate agent should be selling more real estate than the other agent. But he’s just committed and dedicated, being consistent. And that’s all comes down to it’s my job to make everybody crystal clear. That’s the only differentiator, any one of you can have when you decide a to start, and then be to be consistent with it and fall through it for a full year. D.J. Paris 45:36Yeah, if you if you just too well, it’s, it’s really you need a guide, I think you need somebody that can help get you out of the habits that you’ve created that aren’t helpful. And you need a guide, meaning a coach, an accountability partner, this is where coaching comes in. And this is where you guys, your firm in particular really helps it not that every agent wants that particular help. But boy, I know, if I was a working agent, I would want somebody keeping me accountable, making sure I have systems in place to make sure that I stay on target, because we all know that everyone listening, we all have parts of our life that we want to do other things that we can’t get ourselves to do. Right, maybe we want to go to the gym more, maybe we want to spend more time with our kids, maybe we want to be better about our finances, whatever it might be, or maybe work more on our business or whatever it is, and we just don’t seem to do it. And if you can get a coach to help you. It’s worth the investment. Ryan D’Aprile 46:31Well, we’ll also so even besides coaching, some people don’t want to coach you, but what we’ll do is we’ll take the transaction management and the monthly marketing off your hands, and provide that for you and have it done for you so that you’re more motivated, being engaged with that network, and then taking care of your CRM and tracking your business. You know, I will, you know, I’ll attest to my wife, she does 25 million in volume every year. And you know, she, I mean, her marketing is very simple. It’s done consistently, it consists of social media posts once or twice a week, which you know, are provided to her postcard once a month to her network in her farm, some Maggie’s local magazine ads in the neighborhood. And that’s it, and she doesn’t even touch that stuff. And she’s in flow with probably five or six people in her network a day. And therefore she is able to be a mom first and foremost, and focus on three girls and taking care of me and everything else while putting up tremendous numbers and not killing herself. Because she’s consistent with it. Could she do more? Absolutely. But she doesn’t want to. She’s great where she is. So my, D.J. Paris 47:45by the way, that’s a that’s a heck of a good full time income without all the other responsibilities. Right? Just being an agent, that’s a heck of a good income. Ryan D’Aprile 47:54Absolutely. Anybody can have it. Anybody can have it, but it’s again. Are you more on the MLS? Are you more in your transaction management software? Are you more texting and emailing active and existing clients? And are you just not prospecting? And when I say prospecting is that calling and asking for a referral, it’s calling and nurturing relationships. And following a system, it’s people choose to drive blind every single day with the most important part of their life, besides family and health. But you know, the third part business, which is income and financial health, it’s like it’s beyond me, you got to take control. Anybody could do, you could start whenever you want. And especially times now like now it’s the calm, people don’t realize how more more focused you have to be. It’s not just going to come to you, we can’t be order takers, we got to be very proactive. Gotta be very business oriented, and be very proactive versus reactive. D.J. Paris 48:54And what this whole will do, having structure and knowing exactly what your day is, you know, sort of looks like and I know things change, of course, but knowing that the approximate structure of the day will alleviate a tremendous amount of anxiety. Because what you’ll find is you’re not worried as much about when’s that important phone call going to come in with somebody who needs me to buy or sell you, you are taking proactive steps and you’re making your own luck. those phone calls will come in over time, like you said, Work this for a year and see what happens. And then just continue to work it forever. And there you go. That’s it. Ryan D’Aprile 49:29It’s that simple. Awesome. Well, D.J. Paris 49:31what a great place to wrap up I should mention for anyone who is in the show who lives in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida. You know, Ryan has company they’re not in every part of every state. But if you live in those states, and you’re interested in learning more about what Ryan’s companies do, again, they have real estate brokerage, they’ve got a lending. So if you’re a loan officer and you’re looking to see what other options are out there, of course speak to them too. They have title they’ve got a technology firm where they’re putting out software Um, but if you’re just, you know, most most of our listeners are going to be agents, if you’re really just wanting to see what other firms offer, you know, check out April properties, they really have a unique value proposition. They’re not just like all of the other firms, they really, really try to focus on what are the hardest things that agents struggle with. And they allow you to take that off your plate. And this has to do with some marketing and staying in flow and staying in touch so that you can focus on what’s best in your business, I’ve yet to really see a firm, I don’t know of any other firms that do it. So this is this, truthfully, that’s a really, really unique proposition. And you owe it to yourself to see what they offer and see if it’s a good fit for you. So go to Depot properties.com, their team would love to chat with you. And so on behalf of all of us here at the podcast, and all the listeners, we thank Ryan for coming on every month. He’s got four businesses to run. And we are and he’s got a daughter in college and two others in. So the other two in high school to I think, right? Ryan D’Aprile 50:55Yeah, Junior Senior. In fact, I have a coaching session here at three o’clock. I’m going to watch my daughter cheerleader, and then come back for 530 meeting so so he’s a D.J. Paris 51:03busy guy, and he takes time out for us. And we appreciate it. So Thank you Ryan. And on behalf of our Ryan and myself, we thank everyone for listening. Please tell a friend about our show and support our sponsors on the show support Ryan, as well as tell a friend and also leave us a review. Just let us know what you think of the show that will help us continue to improve. All right, Ryan, thank you so much. We will see you on the next step. See you next month. Ryan D’Aprile 51:25Alright DJ, take care

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com. Chris Linsell from TheClose.com and D.J discuss Chris’ article with “111 shocking real estate statistics” and go through some of these statistics together. Chris discusses hype shifts in the market seen in the last couple of years. Chris also focuses on the importance of agent’s activity on social media for their business. Last, Chris discusses 3 categories that bring success to agent’s marketing efforts. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we have some statistics that you need to know as an agent that will actually help transform your business. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. 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. buy real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host for the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with crystallin sell from the closed.com. This is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes and let me tell you more about the clothes if you’re not familiar. The clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. They cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Now please visit the clothes.com to check out their articles. I also recommend subscribing to their newsletter, so you get notified every time they come out with a new article. And their articles are incredibly deep and detailed. And for example, if you were looking to some ideas of how to conduct a better open house, they are not just those some of those articles you might find by searching and you see these lists of a few different ideas that you already know these are deep dive articles. So definitely check out the clothes.com with us, as always is Chris Lindh Sal, he is a staff writer and the real estate coach for the close. Now Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. So licensed agent Chris is a licensed agent in the state of Michigan, and he’s been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural, rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community, local community theater. And Chris, welcome once again to the show. Chris Linsell 3:09DJ pleasure to be here. Glad to see you glad to glad to get into the real estate, real estate Convo today. Man, there’s a lot going on right now in the real estate space. So excited to chat. D.J. Paris 3:22Well, you’re not only our Sherpa in the sense of what’s going on in real estate news and technology and sort of actionable insight from market sort of conditions. You’re also my Sherpa for my new smokers. So Chris is also into smoking meats not that this audience is that interested in hearing us discuss that but i i Chris helps me I just smoked my first brisket and Chris was was helpful during that and helpful, everyone. So you have his he has a lot of knowledge. And we’re excited to have you again. So Chris Linsell 3:54well. Yeah, well, you know, whatever I can do to fill your brain or fill your belly, man. You know, you just let me know how I can help. D.J. Paris 4:00I love it. Well, let’s you guys just recently are you in particular just released a an article a couple of days ago on shocking real estate statistics that agents and everyone needs to know about. So I’m excited to get go through some of the standard by the way you wrote. This is how detailed Chris as a writer is as well as the close itself. There’s 111 Shocking real estate statistics and imagine as an agent, if you just went through there and picked out 15 or 20 that you could just have at the ready whenever you’re having conversations about real estate or the conditions of the market today. I would imagine that would be some nice expression with arrows in the quiver, right? Yeah, arrows. Chris Linsell 4:45Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I want to make sure I give credit where credit’s due. It wasn’t just me that that worked on this. We have an amazing team over the clothes, including another one of our staff writers Jody and our marketing In manager, Becky, that both played a major part in making sure that this article was exactly as valuable as it is. So major kudos to those folks and a whole close team. But I will say, you know, there are a couple of things that are worth calling out here just at the jump. That, I think if you’re, if you’re listening to this, and you’re wondering, okay, yeah, okay, I’ll here’s some, some real estate statistics, because I think it’s interesting, but how does this actually apply to making my business better. And I want to just start by telling you, a whole bunch of the things in this article, and that we’ll talk about today will directly positively affect your efforts as a real estate agent, because a part of what you do, and a part of, of how you position yourself to create the business that you want, is by showing your community and your clients and your prospects, that not only are you experienced in the spaces that you serve, but you’re also knowledgeable about what’s going on. And you can take that knowledge and apply it to benefit your clients. So as an example, as an example, just right off the jump, I was really interested to learn through the research of this article that there are currently as of July of this year, there’s 1.6 million members in the National Association of Realtors, this is an all time high, never had this many people in NAR, which is crazy. I mean, so there’s a lot of people in the real estate space, there’s actually over 3 million people with active real estate licenses in the United States. So there’s a whole cohort of people out there who have real estate licenses that aren’t a member of NAR. So when you are talking to your clients right now, you can start with some of this information and say it and internally have this knowledge that you’re not the only game in town, there’s a lot of people out there who are competing for the real estate business. And when a client chooses you, that means that they have chosen you among other competitions. So be knowledgeable of that be thoughtful of the fact that they have choices. And you can you can kind of leverage that through your initial conversations with them. D.J. Paris 7:18Yeah, I actually think that’s a real positive because it reminds me of I think it was M Scott Peck who wrote this book although I could be wrong, which is the road The Road Less trap while he wrote the road less traveled. But I you know, it was he wrote this book, but the axle expressed it, I was gonna say it’s not that but it’s never crowded along the extra mile. Right. So I think this allows agents to step up their game become more valuable to their clients, and also separate from the pack. Chris Linsell 7:47Yep, absolutely. So I want to throw out just a couple of numbers, DJ, and let’s see if you can, we’ll play a little little rapid fire and I will not be looking at the article, don’t you don’t look? Okay. Okay. This is really sick, significant number here. 66%. What do you think 66% might apply to in the real estate space? D.J. Paris 8:10I would, I’m curious if it has to do with the amount of agents that have been in the industry for less than a couple of years? Chris Linsell 8:17Oh, good, good guests. But no, as of 2022, started 2020, to a full 66 actually a little bit over 66, almost 67% of real estate professionals are women. We are living in a world and working in an industry driven by women. This is a place where the success of the market at large depends on women. Now men certainly play a major role in this too. We’re all in this together. But ladies, if you’re listening to this, you are the driving force in our industry. And you know, we as an industry as a whole those of us who talk about and work through the industry, we got to take this into account because your the perspectives and the direction of women in our profession are the driving force of success. D.J. Paris 9:07I’m starting to see a lot more female only or female lead brokerages and fin teams in particular, I’m seeing a lot more of that than I did a decade ago when I got into this industry. And I’m I think it is it is very fun and neat to see that. And I think that, you know, boy, some I used to see a lot of teams that that had both men and women and a lot of teams do. But I do have a there’s a special place in my heart when I see a bunch of women collectively getting together. And you know, they do sort of run this industry in a lot of ways. And I think that ultimately is is a good a good thing for everyone. But I see I’m seeing like now’s the time for the for these women who seem to be taking more leadership positions and running things and I’d be curious to see how that all plays out. You Chris Linsell 9:54know, I totally agree. Okay, another question DJ, what would you guess the percentage Have Realtors actively United States who have had their real estate license for one year or less? I’m talking brand new real estate agent, right? What percentage of of agents in the US have had their license for one year or less? 15% is my guess. Actually, that would be a great guest last year, but this year 18% 18% of agents out there have had their license for less than a year. And here’s what agents and brokers need to know about this information. One, there is a reasonable chance like almost one in five, that the agent across the table from you, this may be their first transaction. Okay, so for those of you who are seasoned in the space, keep in mind, almost a 20% chance here that the person sitting across the table from you is brand new to this. So how do you need to adjust your communication? How do you need to adjust kind of the shared workload of getting transactions across the finish line? You know, in the real estate space, our competitors are also our colleagues. So how are you going to how are you going to keep that in mind. Another thing to think here is if you are a managing broker, or if you are a, you know, you own a brokerage, or an indie agency, or franchise, you got to know you have more new agents in the space than then historically you’ve ever had. And this means it’s time to step up your professional development, you have to be really thoughtful and conscientious about your training. And Holy smokes. If you are a team leader who has working with brand new agents on the daily, like they’re shoulder to shoulder with you, these are folks, you have more of these people in the industry who want to learn from you than ever before. So if you’re building a team, keep in mind, you got a lot of inexperienced agents out there. But that usually means you have a lot of folks who are ready and anxious to learn kind of at the feet, so to speak, of somebody who’s done it a number of times successfully. So yeah, it’s a little bit of extra work, mentoring and training. But the payoff could be huge. D.J. Paris 12:09So it’s really never been a better time for a team leader who’s looking to expand the team with new newly licensed agents and mold them. Now there’s just more of them out there. And also, remembering for everyone listening, if you’re not in your first year, you probably remember your first year and if especially if you were not on a team, and you were trying to build your business, my suspicion is that that was a pretty stressful first, actually, probably for several years for you. So you know, we think about reaching out offering a bit of a lifeline to these these agents who might not be getting the training they need. From there, you know, managing broker who whatever you can bring them into your fold. And you can also charge them a little bit for that with a percentage of their income. That’s totally reasonable and acceptable. The other thing I was thinking, as Chris was saying, What if you’re on the other side of a transaction with somebody who’s newly licensed, inexperienced, probably doesn’t know a lot of the nuance of how to get certain transactions closed or moved through. If you nobody, very few people will ever tell you. This is my first real estate sale, Mr. Cooperative broker and our Mrs. Mrs. Broker, and can you help me, you know, it’s an embarrassing and difficult and vulnerable thing. So most people aren’t going to tell you, but you can actually look it up. If you suspect maybe somebody’s newer to the business, while obviously you could call their managing broker just say just that curiosity, are they new? And can can we help them a little, or you could just go on to your state website. And I think the information is public in all 50 states and see when they were licensed. And then you can always reach out to them and say, Hey, I see that you’re newer to the business. I got a few suggestions about how to make this happen better for you, you know, being of service that way. Instead of just going like, hey, this person doesn’t know what they’re doing. Well, yeah, they’re in their first year. And you can look that up. They don’t tell you Chris Linsell 13:50totally, totally. So I want to pivot a little bit. I was particularly fascinated in this in prepping and prepping this article. Looking at some of the interstate migration data. People have moved a bunch is since since you know, the spring and summer 2020 COVID did a number on those things. This is I don’t know guessing here. I just want to throw throw out a stat here and get your reaction from July 2020 to July 2021. The State of Texas grew its population by 30 million people. And the state of Florida grew its population by 22 million people biggest growth of states all across the country. And this includes California, which has the biggest population at large. And so you know, that sort of growth in California might be you know, that just in California would be impressive but seeing that kind of growth in states Texas and floor Which, you know, not small states by any means. But by far record growth. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Would you agree with that? D.J. Paris 15:09Yeah. And the Florida thing makes sense, because there’s a lot of baby boomers nearing retirement. And traditionally, you know, Florida is a destination that people consider. Also note, because of the state income tax situation, and other and weather and all sorts of other reasons. But yeah, so I think to me, what I hear when I hear things like, hey, client, people are moving to. And I, by the way, California, I believe, and I don’t know this, if this is true, true, but I believe they have a net negative, I think they’ve actually are losing people every year or the last couple years, at least, because of all sorts of regulatory issues and taxes and six, but anyway, Texas, Florida makes makes perfect sense. And Texas has favorable tax laws for businesses. I know lots of companies are moving there to but I guess the way I would interpret that or an action step would be time to develop relationships with brokers in those areas, because I now might have my clients may be moving, I’m in Chicago, but clients here, you know, my parents are probably going to retire to Florida as well. They’re gonna need a realtor down there. Chris Linsell 16:13Yep. 100%. That’s my my big takeaway for this. I don’t care what state you’re in. If it’s any excellent, I should say, if you live in any state, other than Florida and Texas, you need to run, don’t walk run to like a referral portal or like an agent database where you can connect with agents in those states and start setting up these referral relationships right now. Because chances are, you’re going to see folks who are looking to get to those states, at the very minimum to buy second homes for vacation properties, maybe to relocate in general, it is still, it would be statistically unlikely that you don’t experience that, you know, over the next couple of years. So be thoughtful about the fact that Florida and Texas are destinations right now, they’re likely going to be for the foreseeable future, in part because of what you mentioned. As as you know, we’ve got retirements for a lot of folks coming up, we’ve got favorable tax and regulatory environments for businesses. So definitely something that is worth worth keeping in mind. If you only have a couple of referral relationships, make sure you’ve got them. In Texas, and in Florida. D.J. Paris 17:28In Texas, I was gonna say in Texas, what that means in Florida as well is all the major cities are the major markets. You need to have a realtor in place for that. How do you find them? Lots of different strategies. I think we can all probably figure out ways to do that. You could Zillow reviews, you can ask if you have an internal network within your brokerage, you can go to labcoat agents on Facebook and ask about, you know, experiences that people have lots of ways to find realtors. I guess the point is Chris is saying build your database of referral partners. Yeah, Chris Linsell 17:57yeah. And, you know, you had mentioned retirement, which brought up another interesting stat that I’ve found since 1980, which I know feels like ancient history for folks who are, you know, in the, in the, the, you know, Generation Z or or nearby? For me, that doesn’t seem that long ago. 1980 just feels like you know, that’s that’s just a few years ago. But since 1980, the median sale price for home in the United States has increased by 781%, which is D.J. Paris 18:31of seven, almost eight times. Oh, I don’t know if that right. Chris Linsell 18:35Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, almost almost is you have seen an almost 8x increase in the median sale price in homes. And why i Why do I think this is statistically significant? Well, for real estate professionals who have a client based or a community, where you have a lot of folks who are nearing retirement age, or maybe they are have are now just past retirement age, and they are starting to think about kind of the, you know, kind of later chapters in their life. There, it will not be uncommon to see a lot of these folks who have been living in their homes since the late 80s, and 90s, and maybe even before, and what that often translates into, is are folks who, when they’ve been in their home for 30, or 40 or 50 years, many of these folks have just stopped monitoring the value of their property, because why would they they don’t need to think about how much this is worth because they own it outright, they’ll pay the taxes. They’re not looking to sell anytime soon. This is just their house. These are many of these folks are considering now what their next options are. And so, given all of this climate, if you have these folks in your market, it is a genuine possibility. They have no idea how much their property is worth. And so All right now I am encouraging folks that I coach and do consulting with, you should be spending time in the tax roles of your community, if you have public tax roles, and identifying people who have owned their homes for 20 plus years, because it is a very good chance that these folks don’t have an accurate idea of how much their home is worth. And the longer they have owned this home, the better because it is more than likely that they have even if they think they have an idea that they don’t have the complete, accurate idea. This is where you can step in and provide cold call or cold, a cold like letter value to these folks by saying listen, I ran just a really preliminary CMA on your property. And I think you’d be surprised at the results, I think your value might be and you can ballpark up higher, you know, just just a general price. And say, I’d love to give you some ad, you know, really accurate data, I’d love to just do a quick walk through the property provide you with some options. This is totally, you know, free of obligation and charge, I just noticed that this might be something that you might missing. There’s so much value you can provide for your community through this, and a ton of business that can be done as a result of it. D.J. Paris 21:18My parents built their home in Peoria, Illinois in I think it was 1980. Or we moved in in 1982. Not moved. These are not my parents are super, super tech. Not I mean for their age, they’re in their 70s. They’re super tech savvy. But are they going on Zillow and looking up the value of their home? They’re not? I assure you they aren’t. And they assume the next year or two are going to eventually get rid of that home, I am going to ask them how often they receive phone calls, emails, letters in the mail that say, Hey, I want to do a value, I bet you the answer is maybe one a year if that. Chris Linsell 21:56It’s an opportunity to right now, especially if you have good strategies for that initial approach. And that provision of value. And if you need help on those things, you can always visit the clothes.com We have a ton of resources for folks who are doing cold outreach on marketing, who are doing CMAs who are providing that sort of value to their community, lead with value, the business will come from that and a close can help you get there. I wanted to call out DJ a couple of kind of pre and I you know, I hesitate to call it post pandemic because we’re not quite post pandemic, but kind of pre COVID and kind of post COVID hype shifts that have happened in the real estate space, there’s got to kind of call these out popcorn style and get good and I want to hear your thoughts. Just in general. Number one, the the National Association of REALTORS increased their membership by nearly 50,000 people between July 2021 and the in July 2020 to 50 50,000 people join, they are pending home sales in June of 2022. We’re down over eight and a half percent over may as a direct result of these escalating mortgage rates and housing price changes. Mortgage rates are changing the way that people are shopping for homes big time right now. Another important one to call out with mortgage rates expected to likely stabilize close to 6%. Home sales are likely going to see if we predict out if we have some stabilization. 2023 may be a year that we start to see home sales stabilize and the markets balance a little bit as those as those interest rates kind of equalize a little bit. And then the last one I wanted to call out here was just the overall projection in home prices. Despite all of the craziness in the market, we are still expected to see home prices grow in 2022 on net, but 2023 There’s an expected decline in the average home price. Yeah, you know, D.J. Paris 24:14I think this this speaks to a I’ve always thought more of a It might even be a philosophical style question that is worth exploring, which is is a primary residence and asset. And the there’s there’s different debates about how to how to define an asset and whether a primary residence fits that criteria or not. It certainly is an asset on the day you sell it. We understand that. But I think this could be an opportunity for agents to have a deeper understanding of what an asset is and how important home value values are to somebody’s overall net worth. And you know it and I think having that in Information and being able to have a deeper conversation with somebody about the importance of home pricing today, where it’s going to be in 20 years, how it affects somebody’s overall net worth, I think is really important because I think people overestimate. So when I say people, the average buyer and seller probably overestimate the importance of where home prices go. Because it’s important when you’re buying something and when you’re selling something, and then there’s all this time in between. And, you know, do we do we want to look at a primary home as an investment? Or do we want to look at it or as an asset? Or do we want to look at it as just hey, we got to live somewhere. And and so there are different thoughts about this. And I encourage agents to have a perspective on this have a point of view, and be able to understand the different perspectives and be able to share that with somebody because I think re education or educating somebody is becomes really important, because you have to remember, buyers and sellers are going on Zillow, they’re looking at their Zestimate. They’re curious. Right? And that question is, yes, that number, whether it’s accurate or not, that’s also debatable, but people look at it, and they assign significance to it. Your job as the agent is to help them understand is, is this a significant number to you, Mr. or Mrs. Buyer and Seller? How does this fit in with your overall life plan? How it you know, and ultimately, what you might find is it’s not as important as we all in the industry think it is because we deal in home prices. And we’re always negotiating, I don’t know how important it is whether the home prices increase or decrease a little bit over time. I mean, I guess if you’re if you’re making a big giant bet on that something is going to appreciate, then yes, it is significant. If if you’re just hey, this is my family home for the next 20 years. You know, I understand having your clients understand what this asset actually does along the way. And what it does at the end, I think is a really important understanding for a realtor to have. Chris Linsell 27:00Yeah, I totally agree. And in fact, I coach people on a regular basis, to say, the only reason I want you to know what the kind of market sentiment and the direction of home prices is, it is it has almost nothing to do with the dollar values of the homes and almost exclusively has to do with you being connected to the sentiment of the buyers and sellers for which you are serving. Because those folks get emotionally affected by those numbers, you should only be objectively affected by those numbers, those those numbers should only change kind of how you process strategy for what’s the percentage that we should offer over or under the asking price and how many days on market, you know is you know, what’s the ratio of days on market versus versus list to sale ratios and all that stuff. Those are just objective measures for you. But for your clients, those are subjective measures. So you want to make sure that you are in tune with those market directions, in part are almost exclusively because your clients are emotionally internalizing those and you can’t be objective value to those folks without taking that into account. Right. Speaking of of kind of internalization and and kind of experience and I know we’re running up on time here, but I wanted to just call out a couple of interesting marketing statistics that we uncovered as a part of this article that I think a lot of folks would be surprised by. The first is in 2021, the closed did a survey of our readers and we found from our readership, that more than 30% of agents who we surveyed reported closing at least one transaction as a direct result of their activity on social media. One in three almost one to three agents said I got a sale because I posted on social media. D.J. Paris 29:01I 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 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. Chris Linsell 30:22So I thought that was worth calling out in the context of also, new data released by Mehta, who owns Facebook said that Americans and we are calling were, we are at the close, qualified some of this some of this data and took just portions of it to understand that Americans who are likely to become homebuyers or home sellers, so we’re not including folks, like under the age of 22, basically, in this, but folks who are over the age of 22, on average, spend up to 90 minutes a day, on Facebook, or Facebook connected platforms like Instagram and Messenger. These are your people, and they spend over an hour and a half a day on these platforms. And 96% of the visits to these platforms happen on mobile devices. So real estate professionals, if you are not on Facebook, get on Facebook. And if you are there, the content you are creating has to be it is not optional, it must be optimized for mobile consumption. If you are envisioning somebody opening up their laptop or logging onto their desktop computer to consume all of your wonderful Facebook information. And you are tailoring your posts to that sit down desktop experience and not to the mobile phone in the back of an Uber or on the subway or sitting on a park bench. You are wasting your efforts relative to somebody who understands exactly who is reading and consuming your content and how they are doing it. It is time to accept the fact that people are doing it on their phones. And they’re doing it a lot. In fact, the average American Facebook user clicks on 11 ads per month. So there is a lot of evidence to suggest that not only is your organic presence there important, but your paid presence can be very profitable, if you are doing it correctly and understanding the facts as they are. D.J. Paris 32:42And you know, there’s a couple a couple of things I thought about, as you mentioned that one is that it’s a great time if we if we know that 1/3 of every of all the agents who are online have have talked about getting at least one transaction for the year. Or maybe if we think about well, what is that worth? Right? So take your average home sale, and the average commission and obviously can figure that out pretty easily, then think what if I were to hire somebody to assist me with some of this? Would it be cost effective? If they could get me from maybe one Facebook transaction a year to three or four or five? Would it pay for their salary? Would it pay for their health, whether they’re part time full time, that’s another something to consider if you’re not super Facebook focused. The other thing I would say is, don’t neglect video video is how people are consuming a lot of social content. And you don’t have to have special lighting or you know, special devices, you can use your mobile device and literally just turn your phone around and at every show and go let me show you something really cool about this home. If that’s all you did. You can track your metrics and see if your audience appreciates that content. But it doesn’t have to be a lot more than that. It just has to be bite sized information that people find interesting. So now’s the time I agree with Chris to really put yourself out there on social talk about what you do provide think about value. What do my clients what are the questions my clients asked me and make videos or write articles specifically answering those questions. Chris Linsell 34:18100% 100% In fact, my I have another real estate coach named Sean modry, who also does some stuff with us on the clothes, specifically with our clothes pro product. And he and I have talked regularly about how successful real estate marketing especially on social really boils down to three categories. Evidence of success, evidence of knowledge and evidence of action. And social is such an easy place to demonstrate evidence in these three things. I love DJ I love your example of every time you were to show him just flip on your phone and say out. I’m going to show him I really want to show you something super cool by just doing that this 32nd video you are demonstrating action. Hey, you’re at a showing you’re a busy agent who’s out working, you know, about the inventory and the activity in the market. Oh wait, you know about the inventory. That’s evidence of knowledge. So you’ve got evidence of action, you’ve got evidence of knowledge. And what did I say? The third one was evidence of knowledge, evidence of blanken. D.J. Paris 35:25Knowledge, action and Chris Linsell 35:29experience, experience. Yeah. So these three things experience, you are literally working with somebody to accomplish the same sorts of things that your potential buyer or seller will want to accomplish. These three things are accomplished so easily on social with just this single piece of video, I tell you what, I follow a lot of realtors on Facebook, specifically those in my local market, because these are folks that I’m connected to, I want to see what they’re doing. I want to celebrate their successes with them. I’ll tell you what the most consistently successful agents in my markets are the ones that I see doing this constantly. And it generates a lot of conversation, because those folks who are doing this constantly are offering their audience a chance to engage at their on their own terms at their own pace. And it may be that the first 10 times you do this, you’re going to get no response from people, but I guarantee you people are watching. And it only takes one time for someone to say, Oh, I love bay windows like that, you know, I’ve always wanted bay windows in my house, then that single comment is going to lead to a text message or a Facebook Messenger message, it’s going to lead to a further conversation and it’s going to lead to another name and your CRM that you can then turn into a client. D.J. Paris 36:51You just gave me a great idea. I loved the bay windows idea. Because here in Chicago, we have a lot of our architecture for residential has a Windows and the windows are definitely like, I assume they’re still considered a premium nice thing to have. I had it in a previous condo of mine, I loved it. And if even if you’re just like, here’s everything you need to know about bay windows, and you do a little video or write an article about it. If that’s the thing that you’re into, or if that’s a thing people in your market are into. That would be incredibly unique content that a lot of people would or hate. What about the trend for all white? You know? I’m sorry, I’m blanking on on the term, but fixtures all white? You know, cabinets and countertops? What’s the deal with quartz versus granite? What’s that, like? These are things that when people are buying homes they care very deeply about and then they don’t care about them ever after that until they have to make another real estate transaction. So you could do these articles, you could go talk to a stone specialist and go say, tell me about Granite, tell me about quartz? What is it? What’s best for spills, you could go into a tile store and do that that’s content, you could it’d be super valuable. And I know you have to go Chris. So Chris Linsell 38:07Well, I do I did want to just attack on to that to two really quick little things. It’s that is content that is marketing, really valuable marketing assets. Also, you know, like Alert, alert, that’s professional development for you, as a real estate professional, you should know that stuff. And if you don’t know it, don’t worry, most of us don’t, you have to be active in learning those sorts of things. So you are actually bettering your business, your ability to advise your clients by going to learn that stuff. The end, you get to create marketing content. And I did want to throw out one example too. If you’re feeling daunted by by like you know that kind of like recurring video thing that we were talking about. I have an agent that I follow on my local market who is super smart about this. She is a lover of mid century modern furniture. So whenever she goes to a show if she spots something that is like the mid mid century modern style, she snaps a photo of it and she has a recurring thing on her Facebook and Instagram called the mid century mod alert. And she’ll share a photo of it she’ll share Oh, I was at a showing I saw this, this house is you know, this space is perfectly suited for this doesn’t get on video does it all in just in images and gets a ton of interaction as a result of that because it’s consistent. It’s something that’s attracted that people can be drawn to. And it’s something that she can do without feeling a lot of discomfort. D.J. Paris 39:33And you can do or totally agree that this is something you could find your own little niche. I mean Zillow Gone Wild the account on Instagram and Facebook if you’re not familiar, you need to be because this is mostly a non real estate professional followed real estate account, sort of poking fun at people’s design choices with their homes. Zillow Gone Wild is a perfect example because even though I don’t watch real estate shows on television I just I don’t watch the reality stuff with real estate. I follow Zillow gone wild because I am fascinated by what people do on the inside of their homes, especially when they do wacky things. And that’s, that’s what that sort of account is all about. You could go to every showing and find something unique. And maybe you don’t out the you know, the address of the property. But you can always say, you know, like you were saying your hashtag could be weird things, I find it showings or something. And that would be huge for people. Everyone loves to get a little everyone’s got something weird in their house anyway. So. All right, Chris. Well, this is so great. If you want to see, we’ve covered like five of these statistics, there’s 111 of them. This just came out. While by the time we released this episode will probably have been three weeks or so. But if you go to the close, and or, you know, we’re gonna have a link to this in the show notes this particular article about 111 Shocking real estate statistics you need to know but this is good stuff, guys, you can use this to reach out to clients right, deepen your connection on social all sorts of great ideas, build your team. So go visit the clothes.com they also have a premium membership called the clothes pro where in most of their content is 100% free you don’t have to subscribe but if you want to take it to the next level, they have premium content as well. It’s like $1 a day it’s totally worth it. The clothes pro when you go to the clothes.com Look at the clothes pro try it for a month see if you like it, I promise you will. Chris does a lot of coaching on there as well. And obviously he knows his stuff. So everybody visit the clothes.com They’re awesome, let’s support them. They don’t need our support, but they deserve our support because they are really the best source I have found for anything related to really deep dive non sort of non ideological or you know, basically just here’s the facts. Here’s what we find related to anything about building your brand or your business as a real estate agent. So check out the clothes.com guys You won’t regret it they’re the best. Chris thank you as always I will let you get on with your busy day but boy I wish I could talk to you for another hour with more of these stats because I find them so fascinating. Chris Linsell 42:10Well I’m sure we’ll connect on this and I’m gonna be smoking up pork butt this weekend. I’m sure we’ll chat about it. By the D.J. Paris 42:17way, Chris, if anyone out there who is into smoking you actually and I don’t want to put words in your mouth but before we go, you actually so brisket is often considered like the Holy Grail of smoking because it’s expensive. It sort of seems fancy it’s it’s it’s a cool thing. It’s not as common but I and I have now done both I’ve smoked pork butt which is pulled pulled pork for those of us not in the smoking community polpark versus brisket and Chris I believe you have told me that you actually prefer the taste of pulled pork over brisket if you had to choose one or the other. Is that that accurate? Chris Linsell 42:51Well, I mean, I don’t want to I don’t want to offend anybody and they like the like religious smoker community or anything here but their pork has a lot going for it when you’re smoking. A chunk of meat that size takes a long time you got a lot of good flavor in there. It lasts forever. Pulled Pork will last you forever in the fridge or the freezer and you can put it on so many things. It can be in sliders, it can be on nachos, it could be it could be so versatile. I’m not saying don’t go Brisket. Brisket is delicious, but give pork a chance people and pork. D.J. Paris 43:26It’s a heck of a lot cheaper. You can usually find it for a couple of bucks a pound sometimes. Whereas brisket I just did a brisket and it was like $13 a pound it was so I can Chris Linsell 43:35feed the entire barbecue with $25 with a pork butt. I can barely feed myself for $25 The Briscoe D.J. Paris 43:43well we will Chris Niobe will announce our smoking conversation. Smoker conversation podcast. But for now we will say goodbye. Maybe we’ll we will start giving some some grilling and barbecue tips. Yeah, Chris Linsell 43:59right. Questions about barbecue and grill. I I’m not I’m not I’m being totally serious here. If there’s one question from somebody about how to prepare meat on a smoker, I will answer it for you on the next podcast that I’m here with DJ I’m just I’m just calling out. Right DJ, find a way to get this question to him and I will answer your question. And by D.J. Paris 44:23the way, a grill or a smoker is a fantastic closing gift. And it doesn’t have to be 1000s of dollars you this is a great I mean assuming you understand what the family wants and needs. That is a heck of a good gift. So keep that in mind too. All right, Chris will chat with you next month Always a pleasure Chris Lynn sell by the way Chris speaks all over the country is constantly in demand. Are you have any upcoming speaking appearances? Yeah, Chris Linsell 44:50you guys are I you know this one’s gonna by the time this episode drops would be perfect time for conference planning during the State of California. I’ll be at the car Are reimagine event in Long Beach, middle of October. If you are in the National Association of Realtors, and coming to the NAR conference, I’ll be speaking at the NAR conference in Orlando in November. And if you are in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania and coming to the triple play conference in December in Atlantic City, I’ll be presenting actually four different stage presentations in Atlantic City so you can literally have an entire day with me if you feel like D.J. Paris 45:25well, that would that that sounds like a dream for I’m sure a lot of our audience. I mean, seriously, I love I love hanging out with you. All right, yeah, we will. We will call it a day. Thanks, everyone for being being a listener and participant with our show. We consider our audience our family, even though we don’t get to speak with you directly. Hopefully, we’re speaking to you. And we want your feedback as Chris said, so let us know what you want more on the show. And also send us your your questions about about grills, smoking barbecued anything, we will answer it next time. Chris, on behalf of everyone, we thank you for being part of our show for as many years as you have been. Chris is a wonderful guy and obviously real a real asset to our show. And also on behalf of Chris and myself. Every single one of you that listens. This is the reason we do it’s because of you the person I’m talking to right now in your ears, that you are the reason we do this. So we need your help. Tell us what you want more of what you want less of it. Also tell a friend about the show, the more people who know about us brings in more opportunities for us to give you better content. So just tell a friend that’s all we ask. Okay, Chris, thanks for being on the show. We’ll see you again next week or next month. Thanks, guys.

Heidi Bolyard an Architect passionate about teaching realtors and other RE Professionals how to think as an architect describes how did she get interested in architecture and why she made it her career. Heidi discusses how she got into working with realtors in helping them and their clients make better decisions. Next, Heidi talks about the frameworks of SOLD, the main walkaways of her courses and how they help realtors. Heidi shares her tips to help agents think like an architect. Last, Heidi talks about the trends regarding renovation or home construction is she seeing right now. Download Heidi’s guide on 3 things in 5 minutes to make more money as a realtor here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! You can schedule a call with Heidi Bolyard here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00What do architects see that Realtors often miss? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Heidi Bolyard, who is an architect and she is going to show you what architects wish Realtors knew and how to think and speak more like an architect with your clients. But before we get to it, just a couple of reminders. By the way, you probably didn’t know this. We just crossed over 400 episodes. We’ve been doing this for about five years now. And I want to encourage everyone who’s listening to please go back and listen to the early episodes. My intention, when I first started the show was not to really create even current, sort of here’s what’s going on today kind of episodes, and we do some of that. But the vast majority of what we do is really timeless. It’s talking to top producers about how they got started, what they did when they first got in the business, what they’re doing today and what they recommend agents who are looking to grow do so even though we’re pumping out two to three episodes a week now, please go back and listen to the old ones. I promise you there’s so much value there. And also just tell a friend, that’s the only other thing we ask of you is tell one other realtor, maybe somebody who’s struggling right now, it’s tough out there, tell them about our show, and that might just help them find their next idea to grow their business and keep it thriving into 2023. So enough about all that Thanks for being part of our show. Thank you to all the listeners for 400 episodes, we’re gonna keep cranking them out as per usual, but now on to the main event, my conversation with Heidi Bolyard. Today on the show we have heightened boneyard from soiled by design. Let me tell you more about Heidi now Heidi is an architect by trade but is also extremely passionate about teaching realtors and real estate professionals how to think like an architect to get to the heart of what homebuyers actually want in a dream home. Now she started supporting Realtors when they began to hire her to do walkthroughs with their clients, I actually should have done that. That was that’s a really smart idea. But today she teaches real estate professionals how to ask questions with the same level of detail as an architect. And this the same detail that an architect needs to actually build the right home for someone. Now she received her Bachelor’s in environmental design and architecture from Ball State University and an associate’s degree in both construction management and art from Delta College. And when she’s when designing homes. Heidi’s main goal is to inspire her clients, nurture families and create more happiness and joy in their lives. Now, I want everyone to do this. We very rarely have non Realtors on the show. But this is a very special episode. So I’m really going to ask you to do this because I think it will really help your business go to sold by design dotnet sold by design dotnet. And there is a white paper I want you to download. You just have to give your email address and your name. And it’s titled Three things you need as a realtor to make money faster. But written from an architect’s perspective. This is a perspective you don’t normally get. Trust me it’s worth it. And anyway, also visit Heidi on sorry, on social media, which is at Heidi Bolyard and that’s Bo LYARD We will have links and by the way Heidi is at IDI. We’re going to have links to that in the show notes so you don’t have to Write that down, just go to our show notes. We’ll have a link to soul by design where you can download the white paper. And of course, follow Heidi Heidi, thanks for being on the show. Heidi Bolyard 5:08Thank you so much for having me. D.J. Paris 5:10We are I’m really excited. I never get to talk to architects, I’m always fascinated. Can I tell you the only architect joke? I know, it’s it’s, I think it’s a really good one to everyone who’s, who’s in architecture. Everyone else won’t get the joke, but it’s actually a civil engineering joke. So I’ll tell you, I don’t know many jokes. But I always thought this was great. So and I’ll explain it. Because I think it’s I think it’s a great introduction to what we’re going to talk about today. So it’s an old joke that some of you might have might know and architects might have heard it. But it has to do with civil engineering, where it’s like, what’s the difference between a civil engineer and a psychotic? And the answer is one pays better. And the reason why that’s funny, for everyone going I don’t get it is because what I love about architects and civil engineers in particular, is like a civil engineer will will look at like, a river, and then the two banks on either side and, and visualize a bridge going across and actually can see this bridge that doesn’t yet exist, you know, and much like a psychotic does the difference. The architect or civil engineer can actually build the bridge. But anyway, it’s probably not a great show. But I’ve always loved that joke that based better you guys are able to visualize things that don’t exist over Heidi Bolyard 6:28hired any and or engineer or architecture. D.J. Paris 6:31Well, I, I’m embarrassed to say that’s, that’s my only one. And I probably lost half the audience on it. So if you’re still with us? No, I’m really excited because I do not know anything about architecture. And I know that our audience is always looking for an edge as a real estate professional, to be able to go inside a home and actually provide more value. So I’m excited to chat with you. But before we get to all of that, I would love to hear about your journey. How did you get started? Did you grow up? I imagine a lot of kids grew up probably wanting to be architects. I feel like it’s one of those professions that could be a childhood dream. I don’t know if that was your childhood dream. So I’d love to hear about how you got interested in architecture, and then how you made it a career. Heidi Bolyard 7:14Originally, my childhood dream was to be a radiologist. D.J. Paris 7:17Wow, wow, that is highly specific. Yeah, you wanted to look at X rays. Heidi Bolyard 7:22Look at bones like you could see those cool pictures. And yeah, like, you can read those. Like, that’s fascinating. So now I read blueprints instead. So very similar polarity there, maybe, yeah. But I grew up in a fairly rural area. And we didn’t have a whole lot of opportunities for electives. So one of the opportunities I did have was residential drafting. Wow, I had taken that class, it just absolutely fell in love with it. It was so much fun. And then I ended up doing it for a second year, my senior year of high school and then from there went into architecture program. D.J. Paris 8:05So if I mean, that’s amazing to me that your school even had a drafting a program. I mean, I wouldn’t have even known what that was it when I was in high school. And there certainly was none of that where I grew up. So the fact like did you have like the the drafting table that’s at the Heidi Bolyard 8:22mechanical, like drafting where you went to school? D.J. Paris 8:26I don’t know maybe? Heidi Bolyard 8:28Like did the mechanical drafting, but I’m like, that sounds boring. I wonder like, draw something? Yeah. D.J. Paris 8:36So So in high school, you sort of caught the bog, you started understanding how plans, you know, are made visually. And then where did you go from there. Heidi Bolyard 8:45So from there, I had actually went to a community college where I was going to do like a two plus two program. Somehow that turned into eight years and four degrees. I don’t know how these things happen, but they just do. But yeah, I was in a, like a set an architecture associates program. And in that I was just like, I am basically taking almost all the classes I need for construction management. And I had a good friend whose dad owned a construction company. And he was just like, hate when architects don’t know what they’re drawing, they don’t know what they’re doing. And so he really pushed me to get a better understanding of construction, so that I would be a better architect. So that’s why I ended up getting an associate’s degree in construction management, which was fantastic too, because it gave me skills for managing and like owning a company. So that worked out later in life. D.J. Paris 9:44Yeah, that makes sense. It’s a nice skill set to sort of complement. The design side is like now I have to do some project management and understanding how that all works and the actual boots on the ground, labor part of it, I think, That’s so interesting. So as as an architect, I think you have a really unique skill set. That is, I think, particularly attractive to realtors, when did Realtors start coming to you saying, Hey, you’re really skilled, I want you to come either check out this development I’m working on or maybe it’s home, my client wants to buy or sell. I’d love to know how that those two worlds interacted. Heidi Bolyard 10:23Yeah, I have a client, that’s a real estate agent. And we had done some work for her home, just she hated like, it was a, I think like an 80s 80s or 90s. Home. And she was like, this was way before modern farmhouse was popular. And she was like to turn it into a modern farmhouse. And I’m like, Oh, this will be fun. So we that’s what we did, we like change the exterior of the home the facade to make it look like a modern farmhouse. And then after that, like she, she had ran into a few different times clients that were looking at several different homes in the area that they wanted to buy, but they knew all of them needed to be renovated. So they were looking at some older areas, in the Columbus, Ohio, area smoulder suburbs. So all of those homes tend to be closed off spaces, and just kind of dark, not enough windows. So I walked through the homes with them and just kind of talked through with them, like what possibilities were with the homes or even some of the homes I’m like, this is going to take so much I think it’s best unless you’re really, you have your heart set on it like best to look at one of the other outputs, or one of the other options. D.J. Paris 11:44It’s really amazing. I’m thinking now, like you have such a almost complete skill set, because a realtor is able to have you come in evaluate a property, and then you don’t just know aesthetically or from an engineering perspective, what’s what’s correct, what needs to be changed, what can be changed, you know, the possibilities, but you also probably understand cost, right? Because you have this construction background as well. This knowledge of understanding time and, and how how to actually make the plans from the drafting table, you know, come to life. So I think that is incredibly valuable to realtors, I think that is so interesting. I wonder how many realtors who are listening to our show, which is pretty much our entire audience are Realtors I wonder how many of them have ever thought to reach out, you know, of course, we know inspectors and appraisers and we know people that can do bits and pieces. But you have this really sort of well rounded understanding of how homes work. And so and so now you’ve you teach people this, which I think is so cool, I’ve yet to see any other architect, even think about, you know, teaching agents. So can you tell us a little bit about sold by design, I oftentimes, by the way, only, I’m only getting to this early in the conversation because I oftentimes forget. And then we get to the end and like, oh, by the way, she’s got these great courses. But I really want to talk about these because this is the only course I’m aware of that really teaches a realtor how to think like an architect. Heidi Bolyard 13:10Yeah, so we have, you know, a few different like things like the, the PDF, just to get some understanding of what the soul by design framework is that we have a four part framework, that’s called sold. So it stands for simplifying the process. And then the O is outlining your clients goals and dreams, the L is for laying the layout of the existing home in the D is for details of the existing conditions within the home. So really just that overview, from the from the initial point where I meet with a client that’s looking to renovate, or add on to their existing home, kind of starting at that point. So the one thing I always start telling when I’m working with real estate agents is tell them like, you need to go in and see your client’s existing home. So even though they’re not looking to stay there, like you need to know what’s working for them in the home and what isn’t working in what they love about the home. And what yeah, they would want to improve if they stayed there, just knowing all of those things about your client. And then also to like, I think so many of us can be challenged with communicating what we’re really thinking. So if you’re in their space, they can show you what they’re thinking. So it makes it easier for them to express to the real estate agent, what they’re really looking for in a new home. D.J. Paris 14:43So this idea of you going into someone’s existing property and saying, Tell me what’s working in here. What do you like? And I that’s a really interesting question itself. I’ve not ever heard anyone and we’ve done I don’t know 400 or so episodes. I’ve never heard anybody asked that. So cific question. I don’t, of course know every question that our guests ask their clients. But I think that is such a smart question. Because it’s not just Hey, what’s wrong? What’s broken? What what do we need to fix? What can we improve? That that’s important, of course, as well, but understanding what’s working, and even if they’re leaving that home and selling it and going to buy another home, I think really helpful information, you know, what do you love about this current home that you’re leaving? Or that you want to change it, you know, you’re staying put you want to change? So I love that. What do you think? What do you think Realtors miss, that they could pick up and I know your courses teach this, I don’t want to give away all your secrets. But we’d love to know what what Realtors oftentimes just aren’t thinking about that an architect would would catch and I understand we can’t teach somebody a skill over this, this episode. But some ways that you would encourage agents to start thinking about properties as they go in and you know, are there and witnesses? Heidi Bolyard 15:56Yeah, one thing I encourage agents to do is I know, you know, I know that with the current market, a lot of people have been not doing their home inspections. But when you have a home that’s having a home inspection, go and talk with the home inspector about, like, things that he sees, and like, issues and or potential issues and things like that, just because it’s gonna give you a better understanding of existing homes, and the clients already paying for them to be there. So you might as well take advantage of that free education. D.J. Paris 16:31That’s a really, really good point. It’s, it’s something that I don’t know that anyone’s ever said that either on our show, this idea of going to the inspection, you know, I think Realtors might think, well, it’s gonna make me look like I’m involved in the process. I’m there, I’m supposed to be there. You know, it’s my job to sort of be there to witness it. But from a skill perspective, yeah, the agent can pick up a lot of information, just talking to the inspector and saying, Hey, what what did you see over there? Did you know you mentioned this in your report, or you had mentioned that you’re writing it down? What did you see, I’d love to know what you saw. But I have an example. I bought a condo in the last year and I have this wonderful inspector. I know at the beginning, I was joking saying I should have hired an architect but but ours was a new development, there was really no reason to do that. And in my inspector was amazing. And just in case he’s listening, he was amazing. We I loved him. But one thing he saw that I would have never seen as he saw that one of my doors was warped in our master, but I’m sorry, the primary bedroom closet was the door was warped. I still don’t see a work door when I look at it. And I didn’t, but he was able to see that and so I was like Hey Mark, how did you hear today I still have a stroke I would still struggle to see it. But there are little tricks and tips that that you know people who are you know, part of that that world understand like yourself when it comes to design because you do so much designing what do you I think many realtors are just my guess would be they’re afraid to have those conversations. They might know the basics about okay if you you know want to renovate your kitchen or if you want to add on to the home, you know they have some general knowledge maybe even specific knowledge. But what would you what do you say? I would suspect that many Realtors just don’t really understand a lot of what actually you know unless they’re developers themselves really understanding the process from start to finish I’m curious on on where you see some of those disconnects. 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 and 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. Heidi Bolyard 19:52I think like looking at existing homes, it’s looking at the existing spaces. So looking at what spaces are too big, what spaces are too small? Like, where could some things be reworked, but I think that going back to that first part of like seeing their home, like really understanding what your clients are looking for so important, because if you don’t understand that, you can actually walk into a home with them, and see how it could function for them. D.J. Paris 20:20Yeah, it makes sense. It’s like, Heidi Bolyard 20:21it’s like, really understanding the client. D.J. Paris 20:25Lots of lots of questions. It sounds like and I think that’s, but like lifestyle questions, it sounds that that’s part of it, too, right? Like, where do you spend the most amount of time in this home? Where do you relax? What is relaxation look like? Heidi Bolyard 20:40The whole family cooked together in the kitchen, or is it just? D.J. Paris 20:44Yeah, you know, and it’s funny too, because like, I cook a lot. And I was just thinking, as you said that, that every time I’ve bought a place, and the kitchens are always been fine. But for somebody who cooks a lot, they really need a different type of kitchen than somebody who’s not as inclined to, to, you know, use the stove, and the oven and the range, and just all of all of these things that I realized, like, I’m really my next home, if possible, if I can make this happen, I need to have two ovens. And I know that now, I didn’t know that before. And just because I cook so much. And so it’s something that that I’m now realizing, but I wish somebody would have said, Hey, do you cook a lot? Because if you cook a lot, what here’s what we should do, we should give up some of your counterspace or your cabinet space, and we should put in a second oven for you. And here’s why you want to do that. But I wouldn’t have I wouldn’t have known right? So I love this idea of of people coming in and asking me questions. And this is something that any any agent can do is really, and really you should be doing it anyway. Finding out exactly. So asking people about about how they interact inside the home, I Heidi Bolyard 21:51think asking all of those questions, you’re asking the client questions they’ve probably never been asked in their life. So they feel more heard, than they’ve ever felt. So especially if they’re interviewing multiple agents, before they, you know, select one to help them find their new home or even sell their existing home. Like, if you’re asking them all these questions. They’re, yeah, they’re gonna be really impressed that like, you’ve taken the time to really get to know them and learn about them and learn about what they’re looking for in their new home. D.J. Paris 22:25Yeah, there’s there’s sort of superficial surface level rapport building sales, 101 stuff, like you see some, they, they’re there, they have a picture of them holding them, you know, a fish that they caught, you know, you’re a fisherman and you can talk about that. That’s one way of building rapport. And it’s maybe more more surface level. And then there’s really getting into somebody’s desires, their likes, their dislikes. And that is, is very complimentary to somebody. It’s actually very respectful, I think, to say, tell me, like, you know, these kinds of questions, you’re right, I think that’s a much better way to build intimacy to build trust. Because you’re demonstrating care, you’re saying, okay, yes, I see that, you know, you fish. And that’s great. And we can talk about that, too. But Heidi Bolyard 23:10those things, too, if you guys have, like, there’s some common connection, just because then they, yeah, people, people work with people they know, like, and trust. D.J. Paris 23:18Yes, yeah. So, so you started creating a platform, you realize there was this space in the market, where there was a big disconnect between your skill set, and of course, you know, you have many degrees, and most of our audience are probably not going to, you know, enroll back at university, you know, to develop these particular degrees, but they can leverage some of your, your knowledge and wisdom and actually learn some of some of this framework so that they can come in, and just, quite frankly, be be like, you were saying, if you’re in competition with a few other realtors for a listing, you’re gonna go in and say, you know, look, the person behind you might have been super charming. And maybe, maybe that’s enough to win the business, but you can come in and actually win with skill. And I think it we’re in the day and age where charm is, is being demoted as far as importance. And I think skill is rising to the surface, a little bit more than it used to, from a sales perspective. So I am so interested in learning this, and I know if I was a practicing agent, which, which I, unfortunately, I’m not, I’m still too busy to do that. But that would be the first thing I would do would be to sign up for this. Because I want to have an advantage and an edge. So when somebody goes through your course, what are the main benefits that they get to walk away with once once they’re sort of I know you have many courses, but what is the overall sort of objective? Heidi Bolyard 24:44overall objective is really just, it’s honestly the same process that I use when I’m working with a client to rent, renovate, or add onto their home or even build a new custom home. So it’s really that initial step of outlining their or their goals and dreams for what they’re looking for. And then the design process of, you know, laying out the home and, and seeing that and then more detailed things like mechanical systems and the kind of some structural systems like I teach, like where how to locate bearing walls, as long as you can get to a basement like it’s, it’s pretty easy to determine that or even standing on a first floor, being able to see you know, oftentimes and in the homes, it’s just you see a straight wall going right through the middle of the house. And there’s your bearing wall. So D.J. Paris 25:36that and again, I want to pause for a second, I apologize, Heidi, for interrupting you. But you just really important because if I as a realtor can walk into a home and have a pretty reasonable idea where the load bearing walls are, I now at least know what isn’t possible, or what is what opportunities might have opened up from knowing this information. That is incredibly valuable, because you can go into somebody’s basement, for example, or any part of the home. And if you have a little bit of that knowledge, you can even just whet the appetite of maybe the prospective buyer, if you’re if it’s a by side transaction or less, I’d say hey, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this. But one thing I’ve seen work is you know, we opening up a certain space, and I think this wall might be able to come down. Have you ever thought about that, you know, bringing those ideas is is really exciting to people I would imagine Heidi Bolyard 26:28when I think too, like walking into a home just because like the people that are selling it or using it as a dining room. Like if you know what their goals are like, Oh, well, they’re using it as a dining room. But what have you used it for this space that you wanted in your new home? Like just to help the client also think differently think outside of the box when they’re walking through the home with you. D.J. Paris 26:50And how many of us grew up with dining homes, that we ate him twice a year, three times a year. And they they’re beautiful. And they were not to be walked in and touched and all of that. Heidi Bolyard 27:01Or dusted? Yeah. D.J. Paris 27:03But how many of those rooms could have been repurposed for something more functional, that, you know, tradition would have, you know, not, people wouldn’t have been able to see another opportunity in that room. Because they’re they grew up in a house with a dining room, as well as living rooms, even more of a mystery to me, we grew up with a dining room and a living room, we were not allowed in either. I mean, not really allowed. We didn’t do anything in either of those rooms. And they just sat dormant. They were pretty, but they had pretty things in there. But I almost think it was a good chunk of our first floor what’s like, don’t go in and don’t use them like don’t, Heidi Bolyard 27:39early, early 90s, late 80s The great room that they had a newer home and they had a great room. And he’s like the great thing about it is we never have to clean it because we’re never allowed in their space to never use. D.J. Paris 27:58I think in today’s day where we’re working from home a lot of us are well realtors have always been able to really do that. But but a lot of you know non traditional work at home jobs are now working home jobs and and so you now have there’s a premium on, on on space. And so now it’s like, hey, that living room that we open, you know, holiday presents in once a year and we never go in with the piano that none of nobody uses it practices on maybe it’s time to rethink that room into a more functional and useful space. I’m curious and I would be remiss if I didn’t sort of bug you with this question, which I’m sure you get at every cocktail party or every social event you go to because it would be the first thing I would ask an architect and it’s almost maybe an interior design question so I apologize if it’s not totally in your wheelhouse, but I suspect it is but just about like trends like what What trends are you seeing right now that maybe our audience should really learn more about as far as you know renovation or even just home construction or with this move to maybe working more from the home obviously home offices are are more Heidi Bolyard 29:05effective in a lot of homes with two offices now just because oh, I’m work from home. So you know, converting dining rooms adding French doors so that it can be used as a second office. We see that a fair amount. And then the other thing is interesting like people are putting in these massive pantries to basically be their messy kitchen. So it’s like where there used to be like this nice kitchen, but like you just kind of serve food there. And then that’s the one where you prepare the food. So I feel like this keeps just getting like it’s been happening for years but I just feel like it’s just continues like people are putting countertops in there even like I know for me we have our blender in our pantry we have like a a convection oven that toasts and does all this other stuff which is nice because it eliminates appliances but like just to get like to keep the kitchen counters cleaner. Just so that we don’t have all of this clutter, I say clutter creates chaos. So I like seeing our kitchen counters more cleaned up. So that one and then one thing that we heard from a contractor recently is the homeowners want to have a Costco door into their pantry. We were like, What is a Costco door and it’s a door from the garage and it’s not a full door, it’s like half door and you open it and from the garage, you can like push like all of your, all of the the non perishable stuff you got from Costco into your pantry without having to bring it all the way through the home. D.J. Paris 30:38That is That is brilliant. That is brilliant. I love that like your your 21,000 gallons of mayonnaise, you can just push as opposed to you know, that actually is really, really incredibly functional. I’ve seen some really interesting things too. I’ve seen people build, recycling sort of shoots, where they just put push, like what used to be, although I don’t think we see these much anymore used to be those. I used to think it was so cool growing up, and there’d be these older homes that had just these little like, yeah, those little like little doors. Yeah, well, the quick hand crushers are great too. But like just those little chutes where you could throw your laundry and it would go down two floors, you know, and end up in a basket. I’m seeing I think people are really into functionality now. And I think this idea of like you were talking about pantries, I have a massive walk in pantry now. And we you know, probably because of Marie Kondo or whoever the the, you know, organization person is, you know, everything is now organized, we have, you know, these, you know, these these tubs that we use, that are labeled, and all of that, and we really keep as much of our stuff out of the kitchen. But again, I guess the point is asking somebody, Hey, are you the kind of, you know, family that likes to have, you know, your your convection oven, your toaster oven or whatever, out out and about, so you can use it? Or is it okay? If you go into the pantry to use it? Is it better to maybe put the microwave in there and put and keeping the area, you know, simple and minimal and clean, which is you know, more, you know, public facing, I guess to guests. And we’ve done that in our home. We’ve tried to remove all the appliances from the actual, you know, the exception of the built in stuff, move those into into the pantry and it’s like, oh, that why didn’t we think of that sooner? So that’s a those are some great, great tips. What about? So the idea of two offices is great, but again, this is all about asking questions, isn’t it like it’s really about that’s so that’s so interesting. Heidi Bolyard 32:43I have to talk to you people are using like that, like one of the offices a lot of people are putting like a Murphy bed in it just because you have guests like how many times a year like it’s, it’s like just here and there like put on a Murphy bed. And then you could just talk you’re like I’ve seen people almost build desks into like the closet space of an old bedroom, or a bedroom to really use and then they add they can close the doors when they’re not using it and pull the Murphy bed down. And so their stuffs tucked away and somebody can use it as a guest bedroom. D.J. Paris 33:12I am the biggest fan of Murphy beds. I am we were we were wanting to do this. I’ve also noticed that second bedrooms for new developments. You know, not primary bedrooms. But second, secondary bedrooms, especially in condos have at least here in Chicago have shrunk. It used to be that the secondary bedroom was was not quite as big as the primary bedroom. But it was it was bigger than it seems to be now. And now there seems to be more of a premium on larger living space, smaller bedrooms. And so we looked into getting a Murphy bed for that second bedroom. Because we yeah, we have guests three times a year. It’s my parents like to come and use it. My sister and her husband once in a while. And 99% of the Year, nobody uses it. And I was like I had my first apartment out of college when I lived in St. Louis had a Murphy bed, which was so cool. I thought it was the coolest thing. And then yeah, and then I didn’t see a Murphy bed until like a year ago. Like it was like about a 20 year gap where you just never heard about them. And now they’re all the rage probably because a home offices and Heidi Bolyard 34:15it is COVID push people back. So placed on D.J. Paris 34:20there. They’re expensive, but they are awesome. And that is we ended up not doing it. And just because the cost of the Murphy beds, one that we wanted was just was too costly, but we might still do it because it really again, having this information really allows you to go into a home as an agent and say, I have an idea for this home like do you guys have a lot of guests? Or would you rather have a space that’s more functional? Have you ever thought of a Murphy again, bringing ideas to people is great and so as far as the idea but I know pools have also become very, very popular especially since COVID. Heidi Bolyard 34:59And now Your living spaces. Yeah, as well. Just yeah, place to be outside of the home and still be able to have some, it feels like an extension of the home, it feels like additional square footage. D.J. Paris 35:14Yeah, I’m, I’m a huge, huge fan of, of, of outdoor living space. And again, there seems to be now more of a focus on creating more of a living functional environment in and outside the home versus just a place where we, you know, end up at the end of the day after work and try to relax and go to bed. This idea that we can actually have fun in the home is is is a little bit more of a newer idea. I think unless, you know, you were dealing with ultra high net worth people, as an agent, of course, they have a lot of space, so they can create, they’ve always been able to create specific rooms for specific things and, and the average person really usually wasn’t able to do that. I think now there’s there’s more opportunity, because there’s just more interest in converting rooms into into various things. Heidi Bolyard 36:03And I think like you said, with the fun space, I think, you know, with COVID as well, like, people couldn’t go anywhere. So they were like, Okay, let’s figure out what we can do in our space so that we have more like, you know, our own personal entertaining space. So. D.J. Paris 36:22So for an agent that wants to learn more about how to think like an architect, obviously sold by design.net is a great resource that she Heidi has courses. She is the real deal. She has a she is not a realtor, she is an architect, she has the drafting table, she goes in and out. And what type of projects do you do you work on? Mostly? Is it mostly residential? Do you also do commercial, Heidi Bolyard 36:47we work on primarily residential work, we’ll do a couple commercial projects here, and they’re mostly multifamily, but some other, you know, smaller commercial projects. But those are normally for savers for clients that we have that we did their homes. So but yeah, so it’s nice to mainly focus on residential work, we love doing whole house renovation projects, especially in older homes. So taking those early 20th century homes and converting them into functional living spaces for 21st century families. D.J. Paris 37:24And there is a lot of lot of sort of opportunities that again, the average consumer isn’t probably aware of unless that they’re studying this on their own, too. And so I think, you know, as an agent, you have a couple of opportunities here one, of course, you know, sold by design dotnet can teach you how to think like this. And I encourage everybody to consider those courses, because, boy, just imagine how much more sort of useful you’ll be to your clients when you’re able to sort of bring some of that architect knowledge in to a higher level. Yes, yeah, the 1,000%. And also, I think, if you’re not able to do that, you know, buddy up with an architect, somebody who’s wanting to do more renovation work or development and, you know, ask to take them to lunch or asked to have them come to a property, maybe pay them for their time is another option. And have them come in and say, What do I not know that, you know? What, what about? Are you seeing a lot of additions being so I’m interested in, in sort of renovation stuff right now, because last year, of course, his home prices were soaring, you know, and rates were so low. We were seeing a lot of that it’s changed a bit of course now. But what are you seeing on the renovation front? Is that still as popular as it was in the last couple years? Heidi Bolyard 38:52Where we are in Columbus, Ohio, it has not slowed down? Actually, we’re even busier than we were last year. So it’s, it’s it’s amazing. So D.J. Paris 39:05what type of renovations are you seeing? Heidi Bolyard 39:07Um, a lot of a lot of still like whole house renovations just looking to update the home because they don’t want to move they know like they really liked the neighborhood they’re in they like the schools their kids go to, they’re not looking to they don’t really want to move somewhere else. So they’re willing to just to renovate their, their existing home, we see a lot of people adding on more space, some more living space, like a bigger family room space just so that they have, you know, somewhere to go within the house that gives them a little bit more room to do activities. But then to we also see a lot of people adding on in law suites. So a lot of people have done that to bring family back into the home. So having multi generational households. So yeah, a couple years when people couldn’t see their or family, they’re like we want them with us. D.J. Paris 40:03Yeah, nearby. So that’s such a smart idea too, because it also frees up a space in the main home too, right? Like there’s, it’s, again, it’s one of those things that most people don’t, aren’t they they’re just not oriented homeowners to even think that way. I know, I’m not I don’t think that way at all, when when I bought properties in my past, I go, Oh, this is what I got, you know, and that’s why I’ve always bought things that looked perfect for the what I wanted at that time, because I don’t have the ability to see what isn’t there, or to see opportunities, that’s just not a skill set of mine. So I suspect real, producing Realtors probably are more oriented to to think about things like that, but most homeowners might not be because they’re, that’s not their, their area of expertise. So this is where you can come in as an agent, and really helped define your worth, like being able to not just sell the home and put it on the MLS and marketed property and negotiate and all of that, but actually come in and add lifestyle value, like I’m going to help your lifestyle within this this property. I think that is, I mean, wow, Heidi Bolyard 41:12we’re out there design skills, some basic design skills, just to really look at the space and, you know, help walk their clients through how that home could be their perfect dream home. D.J. Paris 41:26Yeah, it’s funny, too, because there’s a lot of trends that people really, you know, in order to stay on top of what’s going on. And this is what architects do. And whether it’s interior trends or exterior trends or design trends, you know, or construction trends. Like for example, it’s funny I was, I was chatting with an architect, or I’m sorry, an interior designer, because our place is entirely white. Like everything is white. And you know, today that’s really cool. In 10 years, it’ll be like what were they thinking? Why? Why would they do everything? Like, that looks so silly. But I did ask I asked them interior designer, I go, am I making a horrible decision? But my countertops are white, my cabinets are white, everything’s the walls are white, everything’s white. And in 10 years, is that going to be she’s like everything in 10 years is going to be looked at as oh my god, what were they thinking? So the idea, but understanding that, that there are trends that people are interested in and not not just design trends, but but understanding that is really what architects do. That’s what they know. And I think this is a huge opportunity to build that in, instead of just being like white walls are in right now. Understanding more Yes, yes. You know, that’s more surface level stuff. But understanding functionality, I think, is really what we’re talking about is is this like, how big is the master bathroom? Do you guys need a big master bathroom? Why do you need a separate room for the you know, the toilet? For example? Heidi Bolyard 42:50Yeah, water closet? Do you need two sinks? Do you need a linen closet? Like, what do you need in the spaces? D.J. Paris 42:56Yeah, yeah, it’s funny. You know, and there’s, there’s things that you know, architects can look for. And also, they can look maybe even, most importantly, is they can look at existing design and desist existing construction, right? And be able to say, Hmm, you know, there’s some problems here or this there was, there was a construction issue here that you probably wouldn’t have ever seen. So, you know, I imagine those can be incredibly helpful as well. Heidi Bolyard 43:26Well, yeah, like learning, like teaching we teach are real estate agents, just like things that you can look for within the house, like cracks up in the ceiling cracks in the top of walls around windows and doors, like what, you know, kind of figuring out what that is. And then also teaching, you know, just kind of assessing agent like the age of the furnace and hot water heater and Windows. So when I was looking for a house a few years ago, my real estate agent, she had, you know, we were walking through it, and she’s just like, just so you have in mind like this was built 93 She’s like, the windows original furnaces original water heaters original. And they’re all gonna have to be replaced there. Yeah, 30 years old. So. So that having that in mind that made me think through. Well, as an architect, luckily, I was just like putting some numbers together in my head. And I was like, well, once I do that, and we offer over listing. I’m not really Yeah, it’s not really what I wanted to spend. So so it was easy for me to make that decision because she gave me so much information. And then it also saved her the time of having to write an offer on the on the home that we eventually would have not fallen through on because then we would have realized later once we had the inspection that all of these other things would need to be done. So it’s really just thinking higher level for your clients to save not only them time and money of hiring an inspector but saving you time And as well, D.J. Paris 45:01I mean, can you imagine the, you just said something that was so, so powerful to me? Can you imagine how? Well I see both both ways it could have gone, right. So that best case scenario is the inspector sees these issues brings it to your attention before you, you know, close on the property before you go under contract, of course and say, hey, Heidi Bolyard 45:23you’ve already spent hundreds of dollars on. Yeah, the inspector. D.J. Paris 45:27Yeah, and that’s best case scenario. Worst case scenario is Inspector misses those things. And then as the realtor, you know, two years in your clients now are spending 50 grand to replace all the stuff that you as the realtor didn’t see, the inspector may have missed, and they’re gonna blame you Heidi Bolyard 45:43as the HS, because you probably, you know, referred sprint inspectors, but that’s the one who chose unfortunately, the inspector missed it, but they’ll still blame you, D.J. Paris 45:53they will still blame you and and just to be able to say, as a realtor, Hey, before we put an offer in this furnace is 30 years old, here’s what a furnace is going to cost, let me or let me do some homework, I’m gonna get back to you real quick, I want to find out what it’s going to cost to repair it, replace it. Rather, we need to think about that before we put an offer, because I don’t want you hating my guts in two years when you have to replace it. And that in and of itself is so incredibly valuable. And as an architect, and as somebody, I know, you do a lot of other things too. But like just even knowing that is going to make you so valuable to your clients, they’re gonna go, oh, we were gonna buy this property and a realtor talked us out of it, because Heidi Bolyard 46:33they saw information that we didn’t know Realtors knew. And then they’re going to refer you to all of their friends with maybe a real, a real estate agent, because they’re gonna be like a real estate agent was so knowledgeable D.J. Paris 46:451,000% I’m sold, I this is a great place to wrap up. Because I don’t want to beat this point in any further, this is just really cool information that I don’t, I’m sure to, you know, there’s parts of it that you can find online and other places, but why not just go to one place and learn it from a respected professional in the industry. Heidi is awesome. Her company is incredibly well respected. And she has wants to teach this to realtors as well. It’s just a passion of hers. So go to sold by design dotnet, there’s a free white paper about three things that you need to know as a Realtor that will help you make money faster, help you start down the path of thinking, like an engineer thinking like an architect. And then there’s all sorts of other she has, she has courses she has coaching, she, you know, has all sorts of resources there where you’ll start to learn. And if you’re looking to invest in your business, you know, you can invest in buying leads, or you can do other marketing efforts. But how often are you investing in your own skill set? Right? This is a skill that varies, I would assume less than 1% of Realtors really have I’m just making that number up. But it’s probably about right maybe one to 5% of Realtors know how to think like Heidi Bolyard 47:56realtors that have been out there for a while. So just really state agents the opportunity to just jumpstart their growth. I love D.J. Paris 48:04it and really separate yourself from everybody else. So guys, if you’re thinking about increasing your skill set this year, and maybe maybe things are a little slower right now, because the market shifted. This is the time to invest in your skills. And imagine being able to say to your client, you know, hey, I’ve been trained by architects to look for certain things. So I’m going to ask you some some questions. So we can have a really, really great experience here together. And boy, that’ll separate you from everybody else. So everyone visit sold by design.net. Heidi and her team run by she is busy. She’s she’s doing development, she’s doing renovation, she’s doing home construction, she does it all. And she finds time to teach you guys how to think like her. So let’s use Heidi’s knowledge and reach out and learn like so that you can think like Heidi so everyone go to sold by design.net. Heidi, I want to thank you for being on our show. I was so excited to have you. This is such a unique episode for us. And I hope that our audience so much for having me. Yeah. And I hope our audience appreciated it as much as I do. I know they did. So everyone go to Seoul by design.net. And on behalf of our audience, we think Heidi, she is a busy architect. She doesn’t have time to do these silly podcasts. But she took time because she wants to help realtors and so we appreciate that. So on behalf of the audience, we say thank you. And on behalf of Heidi and myself, we want to thank the audience for sticking around to the end, please just we ask you to do two things for us. One, tell a friend think of one other realtor that could benefit from you know this particular episode with Heidi and send them a link to this episode. You can just have them, send them right over to keeping it real pod.com. And also, leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show whatever podcast app you might be listening to us on. Leave us a review. Let us know write us some comments. We want to always continue to improve to better meet your needs. All right, Heidi. Well, it was a pleasure to Adding with you we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Heidi. Heidi Bolyard 50:03Thank you have a great day.

Ben Lalez with The Ben Lalez Team discusses how he went from an individual producer to leading one of the largest teams in Chicago. Ben describes how he and his team nurture a lead and the processes they use. Ben also discusses what changes are being seen by him and his team in the market with the changes in interest rates. Ben goes back to the beginning and describes how he got into real estate business and also describes where he sees his team headed in the future. Ben and D.J. discuss what comes next for the real estate market. Last, Ben discusses the interpersonal side of his team. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! If you’d like to listen to Ben’s first interview with us, click here. Ben Lalez can be reached at 847-452-9675 and ben.lalez@compass.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How does a top 1% Producer nurture their leads? We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now onto 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 today we have a returning guest, Ben lawless from the bend LoL is team here in Chicago with Compass. And this is a really exciting episode because not only is Ben going to tell you exactly how his team nurtures, leads, and by the way, they have just in the last several years closed 335 million in real estate, but also he I went to his office to shoot this. So if you’re listening to us, check out the video version because Ben’s team professionally shot and edited this and it looks amazing way better than anything we could do. So I want to thank Ben for you know, really taking some initiative and helping us look even better than we normally do, which is not very good. But Ben’s team did an outstanding job and he provides so much value in this conversation that you’re going to love it. So without further ado, let’s just get right to it. My second conversation with one of my favorite people in real estate Ben lawless. Today on the show, we have Ben Lalas from the Ben Lalas team here in Chicago. Ben’s actually been on the show before. And if I sound in a little different, and if I look a little different, it’s because I’m actually in Ben’s amazing Bucktown office. And he so generously invited me to come along and I’m excited to see you again. Yeah, let’s let me tell you a little bit more about Ben. We’ll keep it short, because we have a lot to sort of talk about. But Ben really started as a general contractor, he went full time in real estate in 2019. And I want you to pay attention to these numbers, because in 2017, he did 4 million in production in 2018 14 million, so a $10 million jump in just one year. The next year he did 24 million another $10 million jump. And in the trailing 12 months, Ben Wallace team has closed 165 million in production. And it’s just incredible. There’s 45,000 Real estate agents here in the Chicagoland area. I’ve yet to see somebody quite grow so quickly and build a team as fast as Ben has. He is a household name here in Chicago amongst agents. But Ben and his team pride themselves on thinking and dreaming big and never getting out hustled. To learn more about Ben and his team, please visit Ben lawless.com. That’s BNLAL easy.com Ben is a real pleasure to be here in your office. Ben Lalez 4:15It’s almost like I didn’t provide all of those stats to you. D.J. Paris 4:19By my crack team of well, it would be I was gonna say researchers but it was you who sent us this information but really you are all I am on the Chicago Association of Realtors, which is our local association. I’m on our YPN committee which is for young professional network which is ironic because I am 46 I’m I shouldn’t technically be allowed to be on there still look Ben Lalez 4:40good. Thank you. That’s the game. D.J. Paris 4:45But what’s funny is every year what we do YPN and Ben knows this because he’s been to many of these events is we have these these breakfasts where we bring in top producers and so we have to plan these as an as a committee and your name has come up I’ve been in the maybe two years of my third year will be this next year, your name will come up again, every meeting next year, it came up every meeting this year, because of the explosive growth, people don’t understand it. Other agents are inspired slash jealous of this. It’s really, really cool to be here and to have your attention because you are, I don’t want to say even a rising star, because you’re obviously already one of the top producers here in Chicago. But the fact that you rose so quickly, is just I’ve yet to see it. And in anyone else. So congratulations on the team success. Ben Lalez 5:32Man, I didn’t expect so much flattery right out of the gates. But, you know, we appreciate it. It’s, you know, there’s no secret says, you know, just hard work. D.J. Paris 5:41Well, tell us a little bit about, you know, we you’ve been on the show before. And this was bad. It was so funny, because after we got done talking, Ben had sort of shared with me, he said, he said we really ready to take this to the next level. And I said, Okay, you know, and I, but you know, most people will say that, right? Like, that’s a very common thing that people who own businesses, or who have a team in real estate will say, Hey, we’re poised to go to the next level. And not everyone does. And then you just legitimately went to that next level, just as you said, you would in the timeframe, you said you would, and I want to know all about how you went from being an individual producer. And it’s in look, it’s not like you work at a little small company, where they just decided, You know what, everyone’s going to work with Ben, because he’s the, he’s the top sales guy in our office, you work for one of the top, you know, producing companies in the industry compass. You know, you are for lack of a better word, a cog in this wheel of compass. It’s an impressive wheel. But you are an impressive cog in that wheel. But you’re also one of 1000s of agents here. And yet you have risen even to the top of compass here in the local market. Tell us? I mean, I just I just love hearing how people do that. So yeah, share with me, Ben Lalez 7:00what’s really interesting is, when we first did this podcast, it was in 2020, right before COVID or late 2019. Right? And knows, right when I moved over to Compass, I think it was probably February of 2020 2020. Oh, right. Before we had our 2019 numbers, they were out. Yeah. And I was sitting, you know, on this podcast at my single desk at the compass officer. And, you know, I was just happy to be on the podcast, you guys had reached out to me, and I’m like, Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. And I didn’t know, you know, we didn’t talk about what the title of the podcast would be. But I you know, I remember it, there’s no chance there’s no way you remember, I don’t it was four to 24 million. That sounds right. Two years. Yeah. And, you know, now we’ve gone from 24 to 165, in another three years? And to answer your question, and like, for anyone who’s listening, it’s all about I mean, it’s leads and sales, right. And throughout my entire career, you know, even when I was doing 4,000,014, whatever the numbers were, my whole philosophy has been, you know, grow, organically, whatever feels normal for me, and then make the necessary changes if it feels right, just head in that direction. So what happened with me and, you know, growth doesn’t happen by accident, right, there was a game plan. But what I always tell people is, you know, you’re only as good as your sales, you’re only as good as your leads. So every time we, you know, I personally had too much business to handle, what do you do, you bring on another agent. And then when us three had too much business to handle, you hire another agent, and so on and so forth. And you know, now we have, you know, a large team. It’s one of the largest in Chicago, but it’s only because we have enough business to go around. There are teams out there who are hiring for ego, in my opinion. This has nothing to do with that we’re hiring out of, I only hire out of need, Sebastian is sitting right to our left, hired out of need our second videographer hired out of need, we have two isas. Do you get where I’m going with this is hired out of need, but it’s only because we have enough to go around. And all of these people are necessary to keep, you know, the boat afloat, if you will. Well, it’s D.J. Paris 9:21funny because I you hear so much about 10x or 3x 5x, you know, depending on on how much you pay attention to things like valuation and, and growth and a lot of its, you know, for lack of a better word marketing sort of smoke and mirrors Bs, and it’s the promise of something that rarely ever happens. Businesses usually don’t 10x I mean, it’s certainly possible, but you sort of have done that. And I don’t know what the actual x is from 14 Ben Lalez 9:50to 165. If you want to look at it that way. Yeah, pretty significant. Four years. Yeah, yeah. And four D.J. Paris 9:54years so you’ve actually done that. So it’s not just like, hey, we’ve just organically grown I mean, yes. Have, but you’ve organically grown in a way that that’s almost exponential. And that to me is is interesting. And yes, of course it’s leads in business. Everything is leads in business when it comes to growth. But how were you able to accelerate it so much nothing was handed to you now. And that’s the other thing, that’s really important. Because a lot of times, when people get to certain levels of production, things do start to happen for them, things are handed to them. But that really wasn’t your path. Ben Lalez 10:31Now, so I’ll answer this two ways. One, people have to, this is my fourth business that, you know, I think if it is a business now, right, I’m not just a real estate agent. This is a business that, you know, I’ve cultivated, I had a business in college, I was a general contractor, I was a property manager. You know, this is now what I consider my fourth business, what you what I’ve learned along the way is, I mean, the most cliche thing ever, you have to spend money to make this kind of money. I mean, you’d be shocked if I showed you what my expense ratio is, you’re absolutely shocked. But you have to be very, very on top of your numbers. So I’m the one hand, I think a huge part of this, as I’m thinking about it a little bit differently, where people don’t come into the business understanding that this hat, I’m a company, we are Ben law, LLC, we’re established, we have, you know, expense reports, we have PNLs. And the average agent listening to this, I would imagine, that’s not how they’re entering, right, I have the benefit of other businesses that either I shut down or have frankly, failed, and you learn from them. The second way I would answer is this. I mean, you’re you’re a perfect example, DJ, right before this podcast started your I think your watch lit up and you got the alert, right? And how I mean, your eyes lit up. D.J. Paris 11:53So So yeah, just to peel back the curtain. So I recruit agents. And I got a lead. From one of our web, somebody visited our website said, Hey, I’m thinking about joining your company. I was beside myself for a moment that I couldn’t immediately respond to do we have it Ben Lalez 12:09on camera? I think we haven’t. And this is where we insert it right here possible, where you He looked at his watch. Unknown Speaker 12:14And he was like, Oh, I was like, oh, so we just started I gotta leave. Yeah. Ben Lalez 12:17So you know, however many years in, you know, if we get a lead via any channel, I’m getting the same notification. And, you know, if it’s a fit here, today, $13,000 parking spot, right, come, you know, someone wants to buy a $13,000 parking spot. I am making sure that whoever is getting assigned to is, you know, actually taking care of this client and may not be the sexiest thing in the world, we know it’s not, but you never know where it’s gonna lead. So every single lead, no matter how attractive or unattractive gets handled the exact, exact same way. And I think that’s a huge part of this is what is that way, it’s our system. It’s the, you know, cheesy as hell like the bend. Lala is whacked. I’ve taught it to 22 people. Now, lead comes in, you do a B, C, D, E, and the system, we use Salesforce, like it’s going to tell you exactly what to do. And when, and just do it. And if you continue to do it over and over and over, and we have a you know, funny saying like a lead isn’t dead until they tell you to screw off. Yeah, till I tell you to eff off is what we say. Yeah. And, and we have it for, you know, 365 days is our policy short where I want to, I want proof that you were talking to a wall for 365 days. And then cool, let’s kill it. Like, let’s kill the lead, and then you move on. But how many agents do you know that don’t follow up on a lead. D.J. Paris 13:46So I used to work. Before I got into real estate, I worked for a tech company that generated health insurance leads for health insurance agents. So we were at the time the company I worked at, we were producing about 15,000 leads a day. And then we were selling them to agents all over the country. And so one of my jobs was to help educate the lead buyer about because, of course, as a company, we want them to keep buying leads. So we have to teach them how to work these leads. We had millions of leads, data, we had millions of leads that we could go through our data and look through our servers. And actually, we had a CRM that was that would come with it. Now not everyone used our CRM. But for people who did use our CRM, we were able to take a look at that data and see how quickly an agent would drop a lead. And it was shocking. So what we found was that the average consumer when they need to buy health insurance, it would take them about 13 days before they’d actually make a buying decision. It’s kind of complicated. You got to call your doctors are you in network with this Bob? You know, it’s not quite as simple as as as other types of services. So it takes a couple of weeks, so that the buying decision happens on day 13 On average, most of our buyers would give up by day three. So here’s of the leads of the leads. Yeah, I’m sorry. Yeah. So the agents would they would buy these leads, they would, they would call, you know, maybe they’d call 10 times in three days, they’d give up persons not interested, they’d move on, we find, well, that person actually, about another week from now is really going to make that decision. Yep. So I think we’re, you know, we’re sort of saying the same thing, speaking Ben Lalez 15:20the exact same language. And, you know, a lot of it is, you know, for the first six months, you know, me or one of our sales managers is looking at every single lead, and we want to see that something was logged, every single day, we have like a whole process for how often before you get to recategorize them, sure, we just, you know, this is what I discovered from four to 14 and 14 to 23 million, okay, this works, and then we just duplicate it and poured gasoline on it and spent more money and, you know, people who are listening who are spending money on I don’t care what lead Ave, like, even agents on my team follow up to three times, if it doesn’t pay right away, they move on. And we have ways to make sure like I’m notified when that occurs. And we track conversion ratios pretty intensely here. So you get a lead, you know, we expect a certain conversion ratio, um, that lead for you know, the year and just do it over and over and over and over again, until you want to rip your hair out. D.J. Paris 16:21It’s really funny, I was driving right right down the street here. Because our offices are pretty close to each other I, I drive by this guy has got a billboard. And this is such a perfect example of follow up, although it’s going to be in the, we’re going to have to, you’d have to make a little bit of a mental leap here to to get to sort of get my best DJ. Well, it’s more for the audience. I you and I live here so you, you might have even seen it. There’s this guy’s got a ski cap and and he’s got a billboard needs to be kind of doesn’t look like a celebrity. And his I guess his name is Tim. And it says Tim cast in, which would lead me to think he has a podcast, his name’s Tim. That’s about all I know. And that’s all that it says that it says weeknights, from seven to eight, everywhere podcasts are streamed, and he’s got these billboards, and I go, it’s unusual. I’ve never seen a podcast like that in here in Chicago with a billboard. And I thought, oh, maybe he’s trying it for a month kind of God only knows what it costs. And now it’s a second month. And so finally I was like, just because I drove by it every single day. I’m like, I’m gonna check out what this guy is. Now it turns out, he’s, it’s a political show. And it’s not really my cup of tea at all. But I checked it out. Because he was in a way following up with me by I was seeing his face every day for about two months. And finally, I was like, I gotta figure out who this guy is. And again, that’s not a perfect metaphor. This is not this is perfect. But it’s all about repetition. And it’s about Ben Lalez 17:46layering, you’re layering these touch points. So I’m sure he was trying to get on some other your LinkedIn news. Oh, for D.J. Paris 17:53sure. Yeah, try. He’s not just doing billboards, I just happen to drive by it every day. But for agents who are listening, I mean, you. This is the wonder of technology. I mean, there’s a lot of things that that we could argue with the particular social media that maybe divide us and make us less happy. But from a business perspective, what a great opportunity to stay in touch with your contacts, know what they’re up to know where they’re going on vacation, and being able to comment on things outside of real estate, as a way as a as a touch point, versus just Hey, you ready to buy yourself, you have all this opportunity information is just be people just give away their lives online. And so you now have reasons to contact them and talk about it. And I’m curious for you how often or what is so you have some you know, lead comes in, you have them at least set up for 365 365 days of contact. Yeah, what do you usually find is, is what is the usually time to? How long does it take before they actually become a client? Yeah, Ben Lalez 18:52so I’ll kind of just give it away, because I mean, no one’s actually going to implement it. So lead comes in, everyone knows speed to lead, you need to contact that on the first, you know, we want to do it in the first 30 seconds. Sure, whatever. Once you know, hopefully, best case scenario, they become a client and you’re interacting every single day, and you guys live happily ever after you sell them a home. But if that doesn’t occur, what we want is four touch points the first day, and if they’re complete silence or not interacting, you put them on the shelf for three days. They come back, you hit them four more times, and this is all logged. If you can’t get them to engage. You put them on the shelf for a week, they come back, you know, the system tells you it’s time to reach out to DJ again, right? Hit him for more time. So what at that seven? day mark one week mark, D.J. Paris 19:36you have a better sense of where they’re at. Yeah. And then you know, Ben Lalez 19:39I let them put them on the shelf for a month. They come back you hit him four more times. Put on the shelf for three months, they come back, hit him four more times, put them on the shelf for six months, and then you know hit them four more times. And then after you aggregate all of that time that was a year they hit they come back after six months you know you try again. And you try to get them to engage. And we, you know, we can talk about exactly how we go about that. But you know, after that a lot of this is like, okay, you can feel good about how much effort you put in. So that’s four times I don’t even know, I think it’s eight. So it’s like 32 attempts to get someone to engage with you feel like that’s enough, don’t you? Yeah, that our numbers prove it, it is enough. D.J. Paris 20:21It is enough. And but it’s getting to that 32, right, that that most people aren’t? Well, it’s not that they’re not willing to, they don’t have a system that would tell them, you’re now at step 17. And you’re halfway through the process. And you’re six months, this is totally normal, this person’s blowing you off totally normal, it’s okay. It’s part of the process, it takes the emotion out of it, it’s I’m just running the program, essentially. So Ben Lalez 20:45here’s one of the biggest challenges I hear from agents across the city, country, etc, is, you can always do more, your work is never done. People don’t know when their day is done. So the system that we have, you know, I just told you about how people cycled through. So you have top priority clients, you put them on the shelf, they’re ignored, and then they become top priority clients, again, after X period of time, that’s how the system is set up. It’s actually really stupid, really simple. Sure. I you know, some people like brand new, maybe only have 10, top priority clients, Joey helper, and on my team, for example, he probably has 60 top priority clients. And that means that they need some form of contact today. Right. So it’s obviously going to take Joey a lot longer than a, you know, a brand new agent. But for both of them, it’s the same philosophy. After you get done with your top priority clients, your date is finished, it’s done. And that’s like a really big unlock, and a lot of my agent’s heads were like, go to the gym. Yeah, go on, go take your significant other out, like, go do whatever makes you happy. Let me handle the leads, let me handle the infrastructure, let me handle your transaction management, let me handle your social media, your day is done. Right, you may want to work on some other aspects of your business plan, be it marketing, you know, we have a lot of like, where we’re sitting, if you like, look at our videos, like we do a ton of our video here. So people just literally funnel in and out of that door, we handle it, we post it for you, et cetera. But that’s like the, that’s how this was built. I want you know, I wanted to know, when my day was done. Yeah. And it was impossible. Because follow up is theoretically neverending, right? Like you could prospect 24 hours a day, theoretically. But you know, we developed a way to, you know, it was through a lot of trial and error, do this. And you’re done. D.J. Paris 22:42You know, we talk about competition, especially around around lead generation. So, you know, we all get emails from, you know, these unknown surfaces that are promising Facebook leads, you know, or you can go there more traditional route with realtor.com, Zillow, etc. And then there’s of course, you know, referrals from existing clients. What What have you found to be because everyone else I talked to who has not grown, I’ve never met anyone who’s quite had the the growth that you’ve had. So everyone else I talked to, has grown strictly organically, but when you talked about pouring gas on the fire, you’re talking about investing into the business? Yep, finding, finding those people that raise their hand and say, I want to talk to a realtor. And and I’m what I’m curious about is what is the competition look like? Meaning understanding that the person who fills out a lead form and in get set your way, good chance that they might have filled out a lead form? And are also talking to another agent? Come on? So of course, all right, so how is it as competitive as somebody who isn’t participating in this sort of space? Or is it less competitive than that Ben Lalez 23:57it’s way less competitive, especially we’ll call it at this level, where we are trained, like we are training every single day, about how to go about, you know, XY and Z scenarios, so that when there’s another agent, we have to assume we assume that there’s another agent in the picture. Sure. So like we preach, you know, if you’re going to meet someone for the first time, at some point, you need to ask them for their business. Right? You know, it’s not just all right, nice to meet you know, like, our line right is and we call it a call it like the soup talk after the first showing is Hey, DJ Has anyone ever actually walked you through the home buying process here in Chicago? D.J. Paris 24:38And the answer that is almost always no, Ben Lalez 24:40especially especially with a lead like a full lead off of Zillow? realtor.com Yeah, like face whatever. Yeah, D.J. Paris 24:46definitely a no yeah. Oh, no. Oh, Ben Lalez 24:49well, do you have a couple of minutes for us to you know, run through it. Unknown Speaker 24:53Perfect. I love it. So Ben Lalez 24:54what we see happen is like this a sigh of relief like Oh, thank god someone like a human being is actually going to spend the time to walk me through it. But hey, DJ, Okay, step one is finding a real estate agent, someone like me to walk you through everything, A to Z. So if everything works out, I’d love to be that guy for you. Step one, A, we need to introduce you to a lender. I assume you don’t have $500,000 sitting under a mattress. This is a recording. So like, literally, like we have a recording. Yeah. And everyone needs to repeat a to z, sure, verbatim the way I say it, right? Because it’s your team. Yeah. And then once you have polished, you can put your spin on it, I don’t really care. But like that needs, we need to get to that we call it the stoop talk the right hook, you need to tell them like, Hey, this is who I am. This is what I’m going to do for you. But a lot of people like don’t have you know, a lead starts with a call or click or whatever. But there’s probably 40 steps to actually you know, converting this client into a I’m sorry, converting this lead into an actual client. And we have every single tiny little step formalized systemized, there’s no guessing anymore. And it’s like what I, essentially what I did to go from zero to 14, and then we just copied it. There’s agents on the team right now. I think we have four or five agents doing, you know, 10 plus million. It’s amazing. And some of them have, you should probably be interviewing them, they’re going on like zero to 10, in 12 months. That’s incredible. We have agents who, like got their license and are doing 7 million in their first year, I’m talking about, you know, Mara, if you look on our website, now, all the recruiters are gonna go after her, but D.J. Paris 26:43But I mean, it’s, it really is impressive. It’s, it’s, I found in pretty much every area of life, not just specifically to being a successful real estate agent, but it’s discipline and systems, it’s consistency, and it’s about the marathon, right, like, it’s just understanding that, that this is the process. And it takes, I think, I think being reactive takes a huge emotional toll. It wears me out when I’m when I’m reactive. And I know that realtors have to really figure out the balance of being proactive versus reactive, because things are flying at them all day long. emails, texts, you know, and trying to figure out how to bat that stuff away. And, you know, service the client at the same time. Also understanding how do I get this back into this process? How do I just keep this process going? To me processes? It’s funny, I think most back to your point about asking for business. I think most people don’t have any scripts at all. Right, honestly. And now, the people I interview on on this show, yes, they are people that are that they they know their pitch. They know how to present their successful like people like yourself, of course. But for our listeners if you don’t have an elevator pitch, like locked and loaded a 22nd. So when I do, this is how I can be helpful. And then here’s how to get to the next step. Oh, if if you want to give me your your email and phone number, I can send you some more information, or whatever the next step might be, if you don’t have that ready and locked, like you’re gonna just miss opportunity after opportunity after I think most people don’t even have that. Ben Lalez 28:32I want to play a game, I was actually looking to see if anyone was here, where you I want to like pull on one of my agents. And you just hit him with you know, a common sales objection. Sure. And you know, that person and I would say the exact same words to you at the exact same speed, the exact same tone. And that’s, you know, 22 deep mate, you know, we have four newer agents and zero, we’re still teaching them but the other 18 will say the exact same stuff to you. Yeah. And, you know, we don’t want people to think too hard. This business isn’t rocket science. The what I continue to tell these agents who I’m sending out on appointments is, whoever your meeting is, they got really lucky that it’s you. Yeah, right. As opposed to someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re doing. You have a ton of infrastructure behind you. There’s an absolute even if you don’t know the question, in real time, I’m sorry, you don’t know the answer to the question. And in real time, I guarantee someone here knows and you can acquire that information in under five minutes. Right. So I mean, that’s a huge part of this and a huge part of I think our value proposition under this roof is like you You skipped for years. D.J. Paris 29:47I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by More than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. 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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. Yeah, and the team teams have have I believe recruiting for realtors is it’s all going to be teams in the next it’s already pretty much is. But it’s certainly trending that way. And teams are just becoming more and more important. Because to the client. There’s there’s an obvious value proposition there. That’s that makes sense. To the agent, there’s an obvious value proposition there because you get the experience, like you were just saying, and the support and the wisdom of the team collectively. And I think you know is is this Do you think this is the death knell of the individual agent? Is that is the individual agent on their way out? Ben Lalez 31:48I don’t I personally, I personally don’t think so I think if you’re a good solo agent, I, I think you can still sell your value proposition like, Hey, you’re only dealing with me, every phone call every text, the lender, everything is gonna go through me and I got you. And it all depends if that’s what the consumer wants. Now, something for sure that we know, you know, after doing this for enough time is to get to call it 50 closed clients, it’s going to take you a whole hell of a lot longer to get there. Something that we talk about is dollar per hour. I mean, ad nauseam, like that’s all we talk about. And that’s what I’m trying to do is like, yeah, you may on those your first 20 humans that you close, you may make less money, but you got to those 20, probably four or five times faster than you ever would. And those 20 areas, you know, at least here those 20 are yours. Right. So you you know, for the rest of your career, those 20 you can jump to you know, your company like, right, those 20 are yours. And that’s I think somewhere around 50 or 75 closings is enough to, you know, perpetuate an entire career and you know, nurture those people correctly. It’s a really good D.J. Paris 33:08point. Yeah, it is funny. I love hearing those, those stories to where it’s like, I built my whole career off of 10 people or 20 people. And and yeah, absolutely. And but if you if you want to, if you want to grow beyond that, that’s where you got to start reinvesting. And what’s been your experience with with lead providers? I’m curious on on, have you found lead quality going up down staying consistent? You know, what have you found? Ben Lalez 33:37Are we familiar with the Zillow FLEX program before we jump in here? D.J. Paris 33:40So let me let me just explain to the audience, what we’re talking about. So Zillow FLEX program is basically so OP city, came onto the scene. And as a counter to what Zillow was doing at the time, where Zillow was just selling leads directly to agents price per lead kind of scenario, you know, somebody raises their hand, they want to talk to an agent that’s going to be a certain amount of money. opportunity comes along and says, We’re gonna give you the lead free up front, and you’re going to pay for it on the back end. So free up front, and then we’re going to take so Zillow says, Okay, we’re going to try that as well. That’s the Zillow live transfer. So it’s not available in every market only actually only in a few markets at this point, I believe, but leads free upfront pay at closing. Ben Lalez 34:26Yes. So, you know, we can just be I’ll peel the curtain back. So in 2019 2020, I was spending about 20 G’s 20 grand a month on Zillow leads paid up front. Sure, and we were getting something like 35 Live transfers. So there’s calls versus nurture leads, which are, frankly garbage. So of those 35 You know, we were making good enough money I was like, you know, we’re spreading you know, spreading these leads around, and they came a knock on our door and they were like, hey, like, we want you to spend more money. I’m like, get outta here. I’m spending 20 grand a month like, leave me alone. Isn’t that enough for you? D.J. Paris 35:09They should erect a statue to you. Yeah. Ben Lalez 35:12I mean, there are people who are who were spending way more. Oh, sure. So they’re like, Hey, we think you’d be a good candidate for this program. And I listened and I was really, you know, very scared about it. Because what I was doing was working. Objectively, you know, I was tracking ROI. As crazily as anyone you’ve ever met? I wanted to make sure that this $20,000 A month make sense? Yeah. Go figure. Right. Yeah. So we decided to do it. And our connection volume that 35 didn’t go up right away. But you know, I wasn’t paying for it upfront. I was like, Okay, this feels good. Fast forward. We’re only on it for you know, we’ve only been on it for 1516 months, we get 165 of those live transfers a month. Wow. Has our call quality gone down? Has our lead quality gone down with Zillow who has I mean, right. That’s our bread and butter. We mean 50% of that 165 is not really probably 35% of that 165 is from Zillow leads Sure. Has the quality gone down in the last three, four or five months? Yes, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Zillow or any other lead provider. I think the buyer quality has gone down dramatically. The people who were most serious all did what they needed to do in 21, and early part of 22. Now you have these people who are just like, these wet noodles, like, Oh, I didn’t, you know, interest rates were too low. There was too much competition. Interest rates are too high. Like, why aren’t Why aren’t these properties moving? So I think it’s more about the consumer, like consumer dynamics have changed? Not necessarily I think Zillow is and realtor I think they’re probably doing the same thing they’ve always done or the, I think a just as interesting a question is what is Zillow doing with market based pricing versus Zillow flex, and that’s all conjecture. But, you know, right now, we’re not feeling the burden quite as much as others that you know, I’ve spoken to, D.J. Paris 37:19ya know, and it all it the reason I was asking that question was was only because I know your systems are, are, they’re flexible, but they’re also pretty well established. So I was curious if you’ve found in any change, with interest rates, of course, changing. Inventory has changed. What are what are the biggest challenges your team is facing right now? Like, what are you guys dealing with? Ben Lalez 37:44Absolutely, no doubt about it. It’s so we are still 75% buyers. Buyers are flimsier. They aren’t as serious. They aren’t. Like once they go under contract, like way more are falling out and not having anything to do with the property. They just get cold feet. They just like oh, I you know, they’re coming up with any excuse you imagine, to fall out. And I think the biggest thing is is so we’re across all our lead sources, our conversion ratio is still about the same. But the time it takes to get someone across that finish line. You heard me talk about dollar per hour. Yeah, dollar per hour is going way down. So it’s taking whereas it may take 30 hours from call to going under contract, like and, you know, we’ve become used to, I think that 30 hours has become 70 hours. Wow. So I mean, in a very real way, you’re making half the money. Right? And, you know, that’s what these things like, they’re not. They weren’t intuitive to me when I first came here. Sure. Like, but that’s how, you know, we’re, we’re training people how to think DJ, let me ask you a question. Yes. Turn the tables, please. What’s your dollar per hour? If you’re sitting at home? Yeah. And you’re, you’re doing something that you love your eye? Right? You’re playing tennis, your work, whatever, whatever, whatever the cases, you’re relaxing? How much does it cost? To have you stop? And come do whatever I asked you to do? For one hour? D.J. Paris 39:22Yeah, I you know, that’s an interesting question. I don’t know. I truthfully, don’t know. Ben Lalez 39:30Yeah, like, and it’s not it’s not a really easy question. But it’s an important one. Yeah. So and there’s a couple ways that I have my people think about it. And that’s like, just because you may not make, you know, your $200 An hour right there. Right. What is the potential of that hour? Exactly? Right. So for me, like I have to see a path to somewhere around $1,000 an hour for me to do take on a new client. And for me to do this, right, for example, sure, there needs to be a path to $1,000. It may not happen right now. But it could definitely happen in the future. And why? Because especially in the brokerage business, if I’m gonna take on four clients, or I’m gonna take on 10 meetings with leads 10 appointments, that’s at least 10 hours, but we know that only one and a half of them are going to transact, right. So if you’re not, you know, if you don’t value your time, quite enough, you’re just going to be spinning your wheels, right? So, I mean, for all those listener listeners out there, like, what is your dollar per hour like JP, who was sitting out here before? He’s like, Man, I have no idea like 20 bucks, I’m like, okay, and now he’s up to, you know, 200 He needs to see a path to $200 an hour, because it’s probably going to shake out to one 125 or something. After it’s all said and done. And 125 an hour is not a it’s not a bad living. D.J. Paris 40:57No, no, it’s a fantastic living. I think that’s just Sure. It’s good. I think this is really interesting. Ben Lalez 41:11Yeah, it’s more team lead stuff, then, you know, I don’t know who your primary who’s your D.J. Paris 41:17audience are. People want to hear how you do it. So this is how I mean, you’re, you’re, you know, you’re given the recipe. I think it’s, no one’s gonna follow it. You know, it’s so funny. I, when I, when I first arrived in Chicago in 2001, I worked at Morgan Stanley for many years, and the top financial advisor in the office, he would say the same thing he would go, I’m going to tell you guys exactly what I do, and exactly how I’ve become, you know, the number one guy, and none of you are going to do it. And he’s like, you can all do it. But none of you are gonna do it. Yeah. Or he’s like, one of you will do it or something. And he was absolutely right. Ben Lalez 41:53I’m a Gary Vee guy. And he says the exact same thing. Like, you know, one out of 1000 people will actually, honestly, you’ve seen all my video. It’s because of Gary Vee. I’m like, fuck it. Fine. I’ll do it. Yeah, but it’s the it’s the same thing. Like the agents on my team. I’m giving you a you should go start your own team for and make, you know, do a 165 D.J. Paris 42:19Are your but there is shocked that like, there’s other people like you doing it. Like, aren’t you? Like, how’s nobody? Oh, no, Ben Lalez 42:25I’m not surprised anymore. And you know, it’s really interesting, man. I’m having like, this weird moment sitting here with you, where I still felt really, really green. When we first did our interview, and I you know, I was like, I felt like I was faking it. Okay, in 2020 when we did our interview, and now I’m just like, man, like, you know, I do know what I’m doing. Yeah. And why? And why no one else is doing it is has become more and more and more shocking. And I think I’ve figured out some of it. Why not? Everyone? Wants to? Yeah, and can lead primarily? D.J. Paris 43:03Well, that’s true. It’s a different skill set. It’s actually a totally different skill set. Because you have to be, you have to do systems. You have to manage, you have to hire. Yeah. So it’s a it’s not typically it’s not typically the same skills that would make you a successful individual agent. Yeah. So you Ben Lalez 43:23have to come at it from like this completely, completely different perspective, which I think we lead with is, this is a company, we have a marketing department, we have a sales department, we have a transaction company, we have an IT department. And even on an agent level, like a solo agent level, it’s the same thing. You are the marketing department, you are the sales department, you need to get big enough to outsource Yeah, marketing, outsource outsourced sales. D.J. Paris 43:48Do you see yourself more as, as a manager or as a as a co leader? Or as a coach? Yeah, Ben Lalez 43:54you’re a coach. Yeah, that’s, D.J. Paris 43:56that’s always your definition. You’re I’m a coach. Ben Lalez 43:58Yeah, I’m a coach. And I’m also a business owner. But if I’m being again, completely honest, and it’s, you know, I told myself that I would just, you know, open book, I’m interested in outsourcing coaching as well. Sure. I want to outsource everything period. As long as the coaches as good as me or better, I’m still providing value to my agents. Right. Right. And if that person is not also, you know, doing all sorts of things, I’m unavailable right now, if that coach is available. 24/7 That’s probably a better situation for the agents on my team. D.J. Paris 44:37Where do you get the most satisfaction? Oh, wow. What do you enjoy the most about? Do? Do you do? Yeah. Do you like being in personal production even though you don’t do that anymore? No, no, what’s your favorite? Ben Lalez 44:51So I’m gonna reframe your question for the way my brain works. Like when, like, when and how do I get into flow? Yeah, you And for me, it’s like when I’m creating a new D.J. Paris 45:02system, you’re like, Yeah, you like systems? Yeah. Ben Lalez 45:06Taking something that isn’t working, correctly, finding that software that or hardware or whatever that will make it work, building out the system in order to implement it. That’s what is most interesting to my weird brain. D.J. Paris 45:27Yeah. How did you? How did you end? You were in real estate. You were a GC? Yeah. But how did you how did you decide to do just was real estate more of an entrepreneurial path? Or were you? Were you more about like, some people have that in them where they just, they just see real estate and becomes? Ben Lalez 45:47No, it’s, um, kind of goes back to something we spoke about earlier, just like what felt organic. So I’ll tell you a story in 2019. When I went full time, I had like the biggest general contracting job that I ever like, I couldn’t believe that I had won it. And I had baked in so much more juice into the pricing than I ever have. Because dollar per hour. And I didn’t I wasn’t enjoying it every time someone called me like, yeah, you talk a little Yeah. And I’m like, well, that doesn’t happen with the real estate brokering side. And I turned down, I mean, I would have made 150 grand on that one job alone. And I picked up the phone, I’m like, Hey, I don’t even remember the guy’s name. I’m like, Hey, I’m so sorry. But like, my heart just isn’t in this job anymore. I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline. Thank you so much for the opportunity, whatever. And I didn’t take on another job that day. And I, you know, went full steam ahead because this felt right, like, making good money. I enjoy it. At the time, you know, the people aspect was more interesting to me, kind of as you progress in this business. It’s really difficult to like manage I’ve I’ve personally close some somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 transactions. Like, I don’t want to manage more than that I can’t manage more than 400 relationships is not in me. Right? Despite how, like, I may not be super tight with someone. Right, but 400 was enough. But managing, you know, what’s now 22 agents and some staff, I get a ton of, you know, a ton of joy from that. D.J. Paris 47:25Yeah, I imagine there’s almost it feels almost like you’re creating a legacy. I think, you know, of sorts. And I don’t mean that from an ego perspective, but you’re actually building something that you have full control over the process, or collaborative control over I should say, you know, you’re the people I know, people on your team, they’re very happy. The but I this idea of skill building is really, really important to you, the skills and systems. You know, I think if if every day if I if I woke up every day, and I focused on a certain skill, and I just spent 10 to 20 minutes developing a particular skill. I feel like I feel like my career would be further along. But also, how could it be further along? Well, I just think I just think that it’s something that we stop doing. When we get into adulthood, we stopped developing skill. And I see it as a huge, huge problem. And, you know, there are really important skills that one can no matter what field you’re in, if you can devote your life to skill, and service, boy, I mean, there, you’re right, there just isn’t that much competition, because most people will end up getting comfortable. And just continuing on. Ben Lalez 48:51I think there’s something to be said for, like, I’m relatively young for this volume. They’re not four years old. There’s something to be said for the ability to take risks when you’re younger. And like if it doesn’t work out, whatever, even as I sit here today, I’m way less likely to take a risk because things are working. I’m not going to, you know, I’m pushing myself every day to try and do something bigger and crazier. And I kind of think of it as acquiring a new skill doing something I haven’t done yet and trying to make it work. And it gets more and more challenging every year that goes by. D.J. Paris 49:34What’s next for you. Where do you see where do you see the team headed? Ben Lalez 49:37I was having a conversation today. And I think the immediate next step what feels right because we do have lead overflow, you’ve heard me talk about it over and again is what feels natural is adding some more agents to support to the existing you know, lead in flow and then see from there? That’s it. D.J. Paris 50:03Yeah, it’s funny. I, when I asked, I’ve asked a lot of my guests that over the years, like, Okay, where do you what do you see? And they’re like, just, I’m just gonna keep going, you know, and because you know, they’ve built some sort of system or team or process, it works. And, you know, it’s just a matter of juicing it up a little bit. Ben Lalez 50:23So the the reason why it’s such a mundane answer is I recognized early, that every single thing that I do has to be built with scale in mind. So everything that we have, kind of like what you have going on, it doesn’t really make a huge difference right now. If it’s we add one or 30 agents, the infrastructures already built, where it shouldn’t be altered, burdensome. So the question is, like we talked about, a lot of this comes down to like, what is next, forget about, like, what I want to do next, like what is next for real estate, and we talk about making sure that we’re specialists still sitting right over there. So like, we talked about us making sure that we’re first, whatever it is, right. So we think we were even though we’re not the best edit in Chicago, we were first to video. We were. So right now, and everything that we do for video has scaled. So you take a look at me and you take a look at David fields, Alex Bach, Joey Halperin, JP Merritt, they all look exactly like me on all of their social channels, because we built machine right, right for editors overseas, whatever. So what is that next thing? So like we talked about being first in virtual if we’re definitely not first, but the first to like, take it to Bob and Sally homeowner? Sure. Right. So what do you think it is? I don’t know. D.J. Paris 51:56I don’t know. I, you know, I remember, years ago, I was, I was fortunate enough to be at a birthday party in San Francisco with somebody who was at the time on the board of directors for I’m going to say Guitar Center. But it could have been another company. I don’t remember. But anyway, it was he was also the CFO of of like a like nerd wallet, or one of those companies Jesus, okay. Yeah. Big, big, big deal tech finance guy. And he really nice guy. And I, I said, I’m getting into real estate, not as an individual producer, but just as a business opportunity. And he goes, agents will not be needed in 10 years. And Ben Lalez 52:42when was this again? Was that when was this conversation? D.J. Paris 52:47Eight years ago? Okay, Ben Lalez 52:48still two years for his prophecy to be fulfilled. Yeah. D.J. Paris 52:51And he said, agents are not necessary. And I said, and at the time, I thought, well, that that makes logical sense. Because I’m not I wasn’t a realtor. I’m, technically still, I am a realtor, but I’ve never practiced as a realtor. So I don’t really understand what Realtors do. But but the the, I know how they talk, and I have them on my shows, and I have lots of them in our office, but I don’t actually know the process, embarrassingly enough. But I absolutely thought back then that he was right. I thought, you know, why can’t this be what I’ve been through this process? We don’t, we don’t really need people. But I had enough distance from the actual buying and selling process, as a consumer to sort of forget how challenging it is. And then just a couple years ago, I bought again, and I went through the process. And now now now. So the first time I was in a tech space, I was in a tech job, I know experiences real estate. Now, you know, 10 years into real estate 750 agents at our company, you think I would have a better handle on things and I was like, oh my god, I forgot how I’m crazy and stressful. And I absolutely need help on this. And thank God there’s realtors out there to help me. And it was for my own purchase. And and so and so I he was wrong. Thankfully, because the the the challenge I think he was right in in a lot of ways in zillo comes along and basically says okay, we’re going to take all of the the objective stuff and we’re going to take care of that for you we can pretty much handle a lot of a lot of the facts and figures for you companies like Zillow and other tech providers. And then you Mr. And Mrs. Agent can now come across and you’re the interpersonal component, you’re the person you’re the reason that that you’re going to be able to handle people’s emotional reactions, you’re going to be able to guide them through the process. And by the way, oh, this is one of the most stressful processes that a human being can go through. It’s right up there with death, loss of a job it is from from on a stress, psychological stress level. is moving and buying a home and all of that it’s right up at the top with the most stressful events in someone’s life. And that’s the one part that can’t be automated. So he was wrong about that part of it and the significance of that, that that emotional connection that people have to their homes and making a switch, we all obviously, all of us know. And that’s the cool part about technology is technology can kind of take a lot of that other stuff out of of, you know, your, your to do list, and then you now get to focus on hey, I’m here for you, I’m with you. And I think that’s the coolest part about about this industry is you get to help people make really good decisions. Your team obviously is doing that. Can you talk a little bit about about that part of it, like you guys have all these processes for, you know, converting a lead to a client. But I’m curious on the interpersonal side, like, what are you guys doing to deepen those relationships? Because of course, that’s where the juice, Ben Lalez 56:03so it’s really funny what so for, I don’t know what what I heard was, like, if you have processes and systems you can’t have as deep and emotional connection with your clients. Is that what you said? D.J. Paris 56:17Well, I don’t believe that I just think having those processes allow you to then focus on and we’re Ben Lalez 56:23done, we’re done, we’re on exactly the same page, where because we have so much of the BS handled Exactly. All we preach, I just want you to make sure that the end user, the buyer or seller has the best possible experience and my you know, the people here just have more time to actually do what they’re best at. Yeah, I have, like the people on my team, we I tried to hire for EQ, for emotional intelligence, and we do like a personality test profile, or we’re an Enneagram team. Sure. But, you know, that’s the, the agents on my team are better than me now. Like, they’re so much better at handling buyer seller emotions, they’re probably better at value like valuations. So, just by virtue of them having the time and then the skills that we’re teaching them. We probably do too many trainings. Like that’s also my job is like literally sitting in this room up on that screen. And we go over exactly what to say and do in a whole variety of scenarios. We also spend a weird amount of time DJ essentially in a more or less group therapy. So we have a, you know, a session in this room called talk it out where people just come in and bitch and like, sure we listen, and people bounce stuff off. So that people recognize that, yeah, buyers and sellers are going through the toughest emotional situation that they can imagine. And it’s your job to help them navigate it and making sure that you know, you’re keeping things here because it’s not healthy. For you, personally, it’s also not healthy for your clients, to have you at that same level as them your whole job is to stay even keel. And making sure that that’s said to our agents over and over and over and over again. So that they can deliver. I mean, really, what we’re striving for is like a consistent level of service, right? We have deals from hell we have sure shit that hits the fan, you know, we have, I don’t know, if we have like a bad review or two because ship goes sideways. Right? But when you have stuff kind of all set up and already formalized for people, you know, you can spend time sitting here, like Claude is still over there working on the transactions, he’s our transaction coordinator, you don’t have to worry about that BS, you know, D.J. Paris 58:50I think that’s the real huge benefit of the team is that, you know, you with a team, you can develop people in certain ways, and you can develop them with their individual interests and talents. And I think that is, you know, in real estate realtor history has not really been something that Ben that prominent. And now in you were saying some teams, you know, grow for ego, reasons size, you know, hey, I’ve got 30 people on my team. And then you know, teams are structured a million different ways other teams are like everyone’s their own individual practitioner. So it’s not even really it’s more like a company or more like a brokerage in that sense. And then other people are like, Okay, I, you know, these are my roles. But what I think teams can really help people do is is is not have to create an influence those systems that you’ve already established and can execute. So, it is really funny. One of my very first interviews I ever had with on this podcast was a woman in the suburbs of Chicago. You And she had said, you can she’s like, you can give me anybody and I will, I will make them six figures by this time next year. But they have to do everything I say, she’s like, I’m she’s like, I’m not. I’m not saying that as an ego thing. She’s like, I legitimately know how to do this. And you sort of have that same mentality. Yeah. It’s really pretty remarkable, actually. Because I know, and I know, a lot of our listeners are, you know, wake up every day going, what do I do today? What should I be doing? Where should I be focusing my time? Oh, my gosh, there’s so many things coming at me. How do I proactively build my business? How do I respond to clients? You know, it’s a lot, it really is a lot. And I think that’s we’re going to see a flight to teams, we’ve already started to see it, this flight to teams, people like you who have these processes in place, they’re like, settle down, I got you, I’m going to create the structure that you need. And I’m going to walk you through this, and you’re gonna have a wonder you’re gonna actually have more freedom through the structure that I’m giving you. Ben Lalez 1:00:59Yeah, it’s interesting, because I also see the way teams are run. And we, you know, work hard play hard is a cliche, like there are teams that pride themselves on, like, no days off, worthy. I mean, exact exact opposite. If you can make as if you can make money at a high dollar per hour, and service your clients appropriately. I want you to take as many days off as you can. Because our philosophy is work hard, like rest, heart recharge, yeah, hard. But getting back to one of your other points, the way and this is something I’m still kind of sussing out. So like, there’s 22, agents, the or like, and we’re all sharing in some capacity, a transaction coordinator, videographer, CRM, like it’s a co op in some weird way, this where instead of hey, DJ, why don’t you and I go hire an assistant together, like all kind of handled already. And like, I’ll go like, and if we need a second transaction coordinator, I’ll go, you know, I’ll handle it if we need. Fourth videographer, like I’ll go handle it. And everyone on the team trusts that my hiring processes are also tight, just like every other system. So I mean, pretty, like preaching to the choir here. How tight are your hiring systems? D.J. Paris 1:02:17Yeah, pretty tight. You know, for us, if I had, if I had to wake up every day and try to figure out what I was supposed to do that day, I would be a mess, I would be, I probably would have, I don’t know that I would even be on this earth anymore, it would be so stressful, because I have a lot of responsibilities. And I’ve, you know, multiple companies you do as well. And this idea of of having to, you know, create structure, it’s the only way for me, it allowed what structure has done for me as allowed me to be more creative, oddly enough. Because when I when I can devote a specific amount of time to creativity, being that if I can structure my creativity, as crazy as that sounds, it actually works much, much better. And I’m a creative person, I don’t want structure. I don’t like structure. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over and over over again. But it works for me. And it works for probably most of us as well. So I don’t think it’s it’s just, you know, me being the sort of artsy podcast guy, I think most of us in this industry could benefit from, from having a more salary style job. Fortunately, you know, you can join a team and have a similar experience a hybrid experience, a hybrid experience with a lot more income. Ben Lalez 1:03:35Yeah. And I mean, that’s what I’m trying to provide to these agents is high dollar power, and flexibility. Some teams like you can potentially make more money, no doubt, but they own your schedule, like you do what I say when I say it, et cetera. And I’m trying to toe this line, and it’s worked so far. Yeah, were like, Yeah, I’d like you to come to these trainings. They’re not 100% mandatory, like, you need to use my CRM, it’s not like 100% mandatory. You don’t have to tell me when you’re going on vacation or anything like that. But at some point, if you don’t do things the way we say, it’s gonna, you know, it’s gonna cause problems for me, right? Because you’re not producing at a level that we all you know, expect at the end of the day. It is a company and you need to bring in money so that I can keep the lights on not only for you, but for everybody, you know, for everybody else. D.J. Paris 1:04:36I mean, really, you I think what we’re talking about is is you know, I don’t want to sound pejorative because it isn’t Ben Lalez 1:04:45definition of pejorative for those fans, not for me, I know what it means. D.J. Paris 1:04:50But for everyone else, it’s a it’s a fancy a fancy word for for, like, being a slight too. Somebody or being critical. This is not a criticism at all, I actually are not being pejorative, I am not being considered. But it does sound what I’m about to say is this is business one on one. And and that is not not to say that it’s simple and easy. It’s not. But it is important, right? So if you’re treating this industry like a business, you then have to figure out systems and you have to figure out processes. And I think that’s systems is really probably the best first place anyone should start is systematizing their business, finding those repeatable tasks that are continually come up, that they can automate. Ben Lalez 1:05:40So kind of like boiling this down, I remember our conversation, you asked me something like what is the most important thing you would tell an agent? And I think that’s a good place to kind of wrap up. So I’m leaving for Dallas tomorrow. But what I said last time was like CRM, like if you don’t have a CRM, then what are you doing? And interestingly enough, that hasn’t changed. But I personally think now after I don’t know how many more years and how many more additional sales, if you are in, what percentage of this business do you think is follow up? D.J. Paris 1:06:21Oh, gosh. Follow up, I’m going to I place a pretty high value on follow up, I’m going to say 70% of the businesses follow? Ben Lalez 1:06:30Exactly. That’s exactly the number that we talked about. So 70%. So get your CRM in place, and focus 70% of your day. On following up. If you can handle those two things, then, I mean, you’re probably I would argue 90% ahead of everyone else who’s just winging it. D.J. Paris 1:06:50Just two things. Yeah. It’s hard to things though. I, you know, we I’ve always thought the best people in service are always the ones that call you just before you call them. Right? They call you and they’re like, Oh, hey, that thing? Here’s the answer. You don’t have to call me again about it. You know, that’s essentially what the message is. You don’t have to call me about that thing. I’ve got it. Right. If that can be the client experience that they don’t ever have to dial your number is like, to me that’s a wild success. Ben Lalez 1:07:22So let’s listen to the end. You’ll like this should be the clip that we like tease people with. Yeah, make it all the way to the end for the you know, the primary useful piece of information. D.J. Paris 1:07:32Never Yeah, that I love it. We’re we’re ending with the most valuable piece. I love that Ben Lalez 1:07:39and most obvious and mundane. D.J. Paris 1:07:42What most obvious and mundane but you know what John Wooden, who I believe is the most winningest coach shocks tell me you’re gonna tell a sock story? Oh, no, I don’t. So this is the embarrassing part. I know nothing about sports. My, the amount of information I have goes down about one millimeter into the water for sports. I know nothing. But John Wooden was all about systems processes. And oh, like shooting free throws, you know, 500 of them a day. Ben Lalez 1:08:09Well, let me give you another one about exciting, but it works. Let me give you the first thing John Wooden taught his players was how to put on their socks appropriately to avoid blisters and athlete athlete’s foot. Sure. Well, you are more basic than that. Yep. D.J. Paris 1:08:25In winningest coach in NCAA history. Yeah. Also put your socks on right DJ also never looked at the scoreboard. Because he said the scoreboard didn’t tell him the affirmation he wanted. Yeah. And that’s a really, really interesting point. And so then it’s like, okay, well, if he wasn’t looking at the scoreboard, what was he looking at? He was looking at individual performance, performance. He was looking at each ad because he would say, as you exit the court only, you know, if you played well, you might have won or lost, but you could still feel good on a loss if you played well. And so I think that’s what really what we’re talking about, right? We’re talking about playing well, like the results end up while your results have been Ben Lalez 1:09:04if you play well. The volume will show and our industry. D.J. Paris 1:09:10Amazing. Ben, thank you for for coming on a second time. I am just completely enamored. You’re younger than me and just doing doing so many cool things in real estate. It’s really impressive. The battle all this team has taken over Chicago. Ben Lalez 1:09:29Before you wrap up. I want to be the first to go on record saying that if there’s ever someone to interview you, it’s me. I would love it as you need to be interviewed on the keeping a real podcast because what you have that not everyone has because I haven’t listened to every single episode. Sorry. But you but you have been sitting across D.J. Paris 1:09:48how many of me? I think we’ve done about 400 of these. Yeah, so Ben Lalez 1:09:52it’s about time. You got interviewed and everyone else can draw out the information from you D.J. Paris 1:09:59what But I will tell you is the funniest part of the whole. This whole thing for me this podcast is that I always say, I know the least amount about real estate that anyone who listens as certainly my guests and and probably all the ancillary people involved too. But I what I what I really That’s bullshit. Well, I’ve had conversations with you about real estate. That’s yeah, absolutely not. That’s probably untrue but but it’s true enough in the sense that I just like talking to people who are exceptional. Who knows more about recruiting than you? Well, that’s probably true. Okay, who knows more about title and finance and running a business I call Ben Lalez 1:10:39you to, to to pump me up every morning. It’s literally what you did at the start of this. I appreciate it. All right. Hi, on your intro for the next like six months. D.J. Paris 1:10:48I I am I’m very, very grateful. And yeah, I probably downplay some of my achievements. But but it is, I’m truly honored to be here and to sit in this in this room with us. What you’ve accomplished, is remarkable. just remarkable. And for everyone out there, you really should be paying attention to what Ben and his team are doing. Go to bends website, Ben lawless.com, B and L A L E z.com. Check out his team. They’re amazing systems. Check out what they’re doing with video to watch them on social Follow. Follow them there. They’re ahead of the curve. Ups. Copy us. Yes, copy them. There. And they’re just they’re just nice, nice people. So anyway, this is very uncomfortable for me, because I am not in my normal chair. So I don’t even know how to reduce Ben Lalez 1:11:39Do you normally have like a special I have a D.J. Paris 1:11:42I spin and I know and I know. But I’d be half of our audience. I want to say, Ben, thank you for coming on. Again, having here in your conference room to film this episode. This is really special. Ben Lalez 1:11:56Do we end with a hug? Or D.J. Paris 1:11:57we could end with a hug? Absolutely. Yeah, especially, you know, the best part about doing the show is I get to meet people like that. And honestly, it really isn’t. I don’t I don’t mean that in any sort of, you know, false Ben Lalez 1:12:13in a pejorative way. Well, D.J. Paris 1:12:17that wouldn’t be a pejorative statement. But, but. But, you know, it’s really fun. Because when I meet people at your level, a lot of times I just find, you know, I built friendships out of this, and I consider you a friend. I’m proud to consider you a friend. And, you know, I’m a big supporter of yours. And I just want to see you continue to grow. And you obviously are and it’s just fun to be part of the ride, I guess. I think that’s what’s most interesting about the podcast is I feel like I just get to be, like passenger in cars, that other people are driving, and I just get to sort of hang out and see what they’re all about. And, you know, maybe it will rub off on me one day, but anyway, thanks, man. I appreciate you being on the show again. Yeah. Great to see you my friend.

Leigh Marcus a Top Real Estate Agent for @properties goes back to the beginning of his career in real estate and explains why he chose this career. Leigh talks about his marketing efforts with branding in particular and also discusses how he builds and maintains relationships with his sphere of influence. Leigh focuses on the importance of showing humor in your branding efforts. Last, Leigh shares his thoughts on open houses. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Leigh Marcus can be reached at 312.969.3122 and Leigh@LeighMarcus.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.

In our August episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties discusses what happens to home-pricing as the market is cooling down. Carrie explains the growth in demand for luxury properties seen especially during the last year. Next, D.J. shares his marketing tip of the month. Carrie also discusses the importance of developing new skills as the market changes and shares her 5 tips on what to do when there is a shift in the market. Last, Carrie shares what not to do as real estate agents based on her personal experience. 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 0:00How does a top producer doing 160 million a year just by yourself deal with low inventory and high interest rates. We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through the show today 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. 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 locally, Carrie is ranked in the top 15 of all producers. And I don’t mean top 15% the top 15 So she is a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments, please visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. And also follow her on Instagram she is consistently rated as having the best Instagram account for realtors here in Chicago. So at Carey McCormick real estate both of those links are in our show notes. So you can just go to our show notes and tap on the links. Carrie, welcome to welcome to the show. It’s nice to see you again. Carrie McCormick 2:48Thank you, thank you, as always, and just on the note of Instagram and thank you for always giving a shout out to my social media. I love love love doing it. Some of you who do follow me may know that my Instagram was hacked like two weeks ago, I saw that, oh, it was unbelievable. And I guess this has been happening to a lot of people where they impersonate you. And they create fake accounts. And that’s very similar. I mean, they really just clone your account and they just read they changed your name by one letter or something and then they started contacting my followers and as you know, apparently I was selling Bitcoin to people and you know, so it was kind of crazy and I filed some reports and Instagram took my account down. They blocked my account, thinking that I was the impersonator and it took several steps and not that I want to be the techy guru of how to get your account back But if anyone does lose their account or gets impersonated in need some tips, please feel free to reach out to me it took me at least 72 hours of digging and researching of figuring out how to get my account back. But successfully I got my account back and hopefully it never happens to anyone. D.J. Paris 4:11Well congrat congratulations on getting the account back I know how scary that can be. I’ve had similar things happen in different ways that are very, makes you feel very vulnerable and you’re like Carrie McCormick 4:22yeah, and you don’t realize like how attached I was to my Instagram account. I’m losing it I would just I felt lost but again thankful that it’s back. But we’re headed into September which is unbelievable that this year is flown by so quickly, September 2022 And a lot of people been asking about home prices. You know we’re coming off of our crazy 2020 21 And you know record pricing throughout the United States and you know people are saying okay, we’re obviously the market starting to cool down. What does that mean to home pricing and, you know, do a lot of Reading and of course, I’m boots on the ground and seeing everything. But we’re forecasting that home prices are going to continue to appreciate not only in Chicago, but nationwide. And really, it just boils down to the supply factor. So we’re still in very low supply of homes. And we all know that mortgage rates have jumped up. And of course, that has dampened the demand somewhat. But the demand still outpaces the supply. So again, just standard economics of supply and demand. We don’t have much supply here. So it’s keeping prices pretty steady in our market here. D.J. Paris 5:37You Yeah, I think we’ve been pretty lucky in Chicago, at least in the city, it seems like pricing has still been relatively steady. I know we’re seeing some pricing drop across the country. Curious, do you think that that will affect Chicago, like city pricing, or even suburban pricing in the upcoming months? Carrie McCormick 5:58I think that, you know, some of the sellers, there’s a little bit of a disconnect between sellers and buyers and sellers are still kind of, you know, looking back last year of what the record prices were. And, again, that was a very inflated market. So I think we just need to educate the sellers on where the market is right now. And again, there’s still great prices out there. But we just need to be a little more realistic about the new market conditions. One area, which is surprising is the luxury market. I finally closed my $6.2 million deal last year modulations. So there was a lot of you’ll see there’s just a lot of high end luxury sales going on. And I did some digging, and I found some interesting stats. So in 2020, there was a 2.2% growth in the numbers of individuals that had wealth over $5 million. So think about that. So in 2020, if you had five people who had $5 million in income, or net income in value, there was a 2.2% growth in 2021. So one year later, that number grew by 19.8%. So 19, almost 20% growth of people that have a net value of 5 million plus that’s a huge, I think that’s a huge number huge in one year. So all of these folks that grew their net worth more than 5 million, where are they putting their money, they’re putting their money into an asset, which was a home. So because what that number, what 19.8% equals is 660,000 new individuals that entered a different net worth bracket. Okay, so that that new bracket, again, 660,000 people, and again, that’s across the United States, but we saw that in, you know, the Florida market, the Arizona market, Austin, you know, Chicago, obviously, so there was this huge demand for luxury properties in 2021 and 2022. So, and that, to me, it still continues to go, I see so much, you know, cash injected into this market. You know, some of my listings that are 3 million plus a lot of the demographic are, you know, 3040 year olds, and it’s just, it’s, it’s amazing. So it’s, it’s great to see that that Mark is still thriving. D.J. Paris 8:21Yeah, it’s sort of got me to think about, I can actually give my marketing tip of the week right now and then come back to carry to more information from you, because you just sparked an idea that I didn’t realize, as you were mentioning the statistic about the high net worth individuals, sort of the growth there in the last year. And it’s like, wow, I didn’t know that. And I suspect a lot of our listeners didn’t know that either. So I don’t know, of an ease of a better way to do this. But you should first friend, everybody you know who’s in your contact list on Facebook. We’re not just on Facebook, but on LinkedIn, in particular, because this is the place oftentimes where businesses post updates, work anniversary, show up promotions show up, when somebody sells a business, it shows up when somebody starts a new job, it shows up. And so this, these could all be things that oftentimes maybe are talked about, not necessarily somebody’s net worth increasing, but if someone sells a business or if someone joins a new company, or if someone’s you know, some big news at the company they’re at, you know, this is you should be following the companies and following the individuals and then just look on LinkedIn once or twice a day for a couple of minutes. See if there’s any major news there and you can reach out to your clients a hey, I just saw that, you know, you started a new career, you got a promotion, and you’re now you know, a CEO or whatever. And then you can talk to them say, Hey, is anything changing for you from a housing perspective? You know, do you thinking about you know, making a move? I think that’s a fantastic reason to pick up the phone and I can’t think of any other because people don’t always post their professional accomplishments on Facebook or Instagram. They don’t always do it on LinkedIn either, but that’s usually have a place where I see that stuff. Carrie McCormick 10:01That’s great. And actually on LinkedIn, there’s a little bell at the top that says notifications. And that’s a great tool because it’ll pop up any of your connections have anything new, whether it’s a birthday, or like you said, a job change. It’s obviously a professional network. And it’s definitely a great tool to use. So I love that tip. Great. Well, D.J. Paris 10:22what else do you want to talk about this week? Carrie McCormick 10:24Oh, actually, I was just going to talk about too with the market changing. And as everyone probably knows, I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. And through the years, you know, I’ve seen a lot of market shifts, and people start, when I say people, brokers, we all start to kind of retract when the market changes, and I always say, you know, what comes up must come down, right, so that, you know, the market continues to change. But when there’s a challenging market or a changing market, there’s always agents that find success, and you have to adapt, and in Pivot, you know, so you’ve got to look at developing new skills. And if you do, figure out your new skills, and how to thrive in the market, your business is going to go is gonna grow. There’s agents that don’t want to change that they stay status quo, or they just kind of put their head in the sand, and they give up, you know, or they say, you know, I’m just going to sit back and wait, you know, for the market, which is fine, if that’s what they want to do. But, you know, for those who do want to succeed, you do have to pivot and make change happen. So I wanted to share with everyone, my five tips on what happens, you know, or what we should be doing when the market changes. So my first tip is to understand the market of what’s happening, and really kind of dive into the stats and why the markets acting, the way that it is, once you understand that is really to successfully communicate that to your clients, they want to hear from you, they want to know what’s going on. And then you know, you look like a trusted adviser. So again, understanding the market and communicating that effectively to your clients. Number two would be to change your marketing plan, when the market changes, you do have to change the way you advertise or your market your properties or the again, the way that you communicate these properties online. So you know, re revamp your marketing plan, look at different ways, and different avenues for advertising. Number three is to be a resource and to be the adviser and LinkedIn is actually a great platform to do that, you know, there’s always different groups to join, or whether there’s, you know, speaking events, whatever the the topic is, people always want to know what’s going on in the real estate market, even if they’re not a buyer or seller, they just like to know, you know, their home is their biggest asset. So they want to know what’s happening. So just be a trusted resource and adviser and provide information. without expecting anything in return, I would say it’ll come around to you at some point. The fourth tip would be to learn to systemize your follow up your communication and I will say I am working on this. I’ve been working on this for years. You know, again, everyone loves communication and loves to hear from you. So if you can systemize it to some degree to make sure that you’re staying top of mind. I think that’s a great thing. If anyone’s got any tips for me on that one. I would love to brainstorm with people because it’s when you have a lot of clients. And you’re you know, it’s it’s hard to make a personal phone call every day to everybody but you definitely have to be organized and be systemized on that. And then my last tip would be number five would be to invest in your business. It’s kind of a hard thing to say at this point, especially when you know the market you know everyone feels like it’s softening or your sales aren’t as high as they were last year. But you do have to invest in your business whether it’s in your systems whether it’s in your advertising, staff now is the time to invest because again what goes up must come down and what’s down comes up eventually. So if you are prepared and ready especially for spring 2023 You have your systems in place your advertising your staff, you’ll be ready to rock and roll spring of 2023 D.J. Paris 14:15I 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 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 See, 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, those are all such great suggestions I was thinking about. I spend time with a lot of realtors, of course, because of my job. And of course you do as well. And it seems like agents right now are a little frustrated because businesses slowed for the most part. And, of course rates have gone up inventory hasn’t really changed as much as we would like. So you now have people that may have been looking before, when when the market was was really going strong, and weren’t able to buy something buyers in particular, because of course, we knew how competitive it was with when rates were so low. But now that rates are higher, a lot of buyers have pulled back. And if we look at just even the mortgage application rates have gone down substantially from last year about I think about 20 Some percent. So that’s not a surprise, but is something I think agents can use. Because, you know, if we think back to when rates were in the twos and and the threes, people were were overpaying for properties, there was so much competition, as as we all remember, if we were practicing in the last couple of years, it was it was crazy. It was hard to get people were buying things sight unseen, they were waving inspections, they were they were doing a lot of things that in a normal market, they wouldn’t have been able to do. And so now that rates are, you know, 80% higher than they were back then. People might feel bad about that, like, Oh, I missed my window. But I don’t know that, that so many windows were missed. I think it was really hard to buy a property the last couple of years. So I actually think I’m curious to get your take, is it? What is your sort of perspective on that now? Because do you have clients are like, Oh, I missed the good rates? And I don’t know what to do. And Carrie McCormick 17:24yeah, I mean, there definitely is a little bit of remorse, you know, with with the rates, but you know, if they were paying higher for a property, but had a lower rate, now they’re paying a little less for a property a little bit higher rates, you know, the rates are still low, lower, you know, I mean, they’re not that they’re not 3%. But you know, they’re just hovering around five, so they’re not terrible. I just try not to focus on it is what it is, you know, there’s, and, you know, I say just capture the rate that we have now capture the home that you that you want, you know, in a year two or three of the rates do tick down again, then you can always refinance out of it. So I try not to look back, I try to keep keep it positive and look forward, I do want to share one quick thing with everybody that just happened to me. And it’s kind of more of what not to do. If I got to do so in this is a true story. I’m not going to mention any names. So don’t worry, as I start this story. And these wonderful clients that made we went to two showings on a home for them. And my client verbally said to the agent, the sellers agent, you know, he’s like, I really think that this house is really priced way too high. And he’s very analytical. And he kind of gave his reasons why and the agents response was, which was a good one. She said, you know, everything’s negotiable, just, you know, make us an offer. Let’s, let’s get it in front of the seller, and let’s see what we can do. So we felt good about that. We made the offer, never heard back from the agent for two days. kept following up, you know, did you get the offer? Can you please respond? I hope everything’s you know, first reaction is like, is she okay? Is everything okay? You know, and then, you know, two days later, and she says, you know, I’ll get back to you tonight. So she finally got back to us that, you know, two days later, and their response was your offers too low, we don’t want to respond to you. Really? I said, Okay, you know, so I called her and I said, you know, you know, here’s, you know, I hate playing the comp game. But you know, this is why we came in at this price. And again, you encouraged my client to make an offer wasn’t that bad, but you know, it was a little bit lower and not super insulting. And then she wrote back this email to me, that said, you know, in the future, if you want to win, you know, a home for your client, I would suggest that you do XY and Z and she was basically telling me how to do my job and how I should prepare an offer and what I shouldn’t do, and she’s like, maybe your clients will be able to get a house. She’s like, Oh, which agents and I was like, oh my god, like it was like in writing. So rude. And I just thought that is not I mean, I’ve got thick skin. But that is not a way to, I mean, my guess is if they would have countered us, we could have probably come together knowing where my clients would, would eventually end up, which would be a fair deal, but, and I just thought I just I’m, like, so flabbergasted that it just like the tone of the it was just so rude. And I wrote back and I was nice. I just said, Thank you for the advice. You know, like, I don’t know what else to say, you know, thank you for the advice. And then there has been no communication since but I really feel like that seller is missing out. Because they do have a client that is very interested in the home, and just the whole communication. So I guess my point of that story is, as real estate brokers, we all have the same goal, we are fiduciaries to our clients, we have to do what’s right for our client, listen to our clients totally get it. But also just being respectful to each other as brokers. It’s a tough market. And be nice. That’s my underlying message all the time is be nice and be kind to everybody, no, no reason for negativity and rude comments. D.J. Paris 21:20Well, that and I almost wonder if that other agent maybe didn’t do their fiduciary responsibility, in a sense, because obviously, this is where reputation comes into, right? Like your reputation as one of somebody who is incredibly successful kind does the right thing for their clients. I mean, obviously, your reputation here in the local Chicago area is is, is perfect, you have this perfect reputation of being a good realtor. And also, who plays well with others. She maybe she didn’t know you, or maybe she didn’t look you up or maybe she knows you. Okay, so who knows, who knows what the dynamic there is, but to go, my client will be insulted or is insulted is really a strange thing. Because what do you say if you get an A just out of curiosity, if you get an offer, so you’re on the listing side now, and you do get an offer that seems really low or lower than that you might worry that this might offend the seller, but I know this realtor, they seem to get things done. What would you do in that situation? Carrie McCormick 22:28I’m always trying to put a deal together, you know, kind of attitude. And I always tell my sellers, be thankful that we got an offer someone loves your home, you know, and I have seen deals and put deals together where they’re worlds apart, you know, and then we ended up bringing the deal together. I’m not saying that’s, you know, happens all the time. But you know, let’s try to work. It’s negotiations, you know, and you work back and forth and have conversations with the brokers. And again, at the end of the day, the client decides on what they want to do. And, you know, I mentioned worth the fiduciary here, but you know, you try and you you get it, you, you take it to where you can if the deal doesn’t come together, at least you tried, you know you just but again there’s, you know, there’s no point in in bashing another broker, especially in writing. D.J. Paris 23:25Yeah, and then also Yeah, it just and lecturing somebody I think that’s a maybe she was having a bad day or something, but are the Yeah. Carrie McCormick 23:36I’ve got a little file of emails from a few brokers that really decided to go off go off the rails, I don’t know what I’m gonna I’m just hanging on to them for a rainy day. But, D.J. Paris 23:46but it is such a such a funny thing. It’s like, you know, I think if, if, as Realtors we should be the ones that are less likely to get emotional about things, right. Like our job is to keep things steady and level and then just seems like this other realtor did everything wrong, in my opinion. So Carrie McCormick 24:05my tip of the day on that one is just be be nice to each other, you know, and just try to try to work through the deal. It doesn’t come together doesn’t come together. But Right. D.J. Paris 24:16Right. And also just trying to tell somebody with 20 plus years of experience like what to do better. That is that is an incredible Wow, that the audacity of that is is almost impressive, in a sense. Like to even think I know better than, you know somebody who’s Carrie McCormick 24:33and I always listen to people’s advice. Right? I mean, that’s just that’s life learning is listen to others and I did I write it and I mean, I completely disagree with her. But you know, that kind of that’s, you know, it’s but again, I think there’s a tone of you know, here’s some tips for you versus it was just a very interesting email. I’ll just leave. D.J. Paris 24:56So I thought that’s a it’s a great example of how how I’m poor In addition to play nice in the sandbox, you know, and we’re all we’re all in the same sandbox early. So let’s be kind like you said, be kind. And by the way, nothing wrong with apologizing the day after, if you realize you you said or did something wrong? No, you know, oh my god, I had the world’s worst day yesterday. I’m so sorry. I said and wrote those things. I deeply apologize. You know, there. That’s there’s nothing wrong with doing that. But I bet you probably won’t get one of those but but that’s the thing. You never get the apology. But you can always apologize. People are people are funny. But yeah, that’s that’s a great example of how not to make friends and influence people, right? As Dale Carnegie, like the anti Dale Carnegie’s, anyway, well, well, that’s a great place to wrap up. So let’s remember everyone be kind and nice. These are people that are going to help you make money, these other realtors, so help them feel good about themselves. And don’t don’t lecture them unless, unless there’s some really, really good reason to do. So it sounds like there was not a good reason this time. Anyway, so we want to thank Carrie for being on our show. For as long as she has been, she continues to show up every month and provide our audience with, with with tons of valuable insight. And by the way, she is so incredibly busy, she does not have a big team. It’s really just her doing all of these transactions. And the fact that she spends a few minutes with us every month is a really huge honor to us. So we are so grateful Carrie for you. And we are excited to continue to have you of course on the show in the future. So for everyone out there listening, please, please Well, a couple of things. First, if you have any clients that are moving to the Chicagoland area and you don’t work the Chicagoland area because you might be in another state or another country or wherever reach out to Carrie, she is legitimately one of the very highest producing agents here year after year after year. She has a sterling reputation and would love to talk with you. So if you have any referrals, send them to her or if you yourself are a buyer or a seller or renter or an investor you know reach out to hurt you know, my girlfriend who does leasing for a building downtown. She had a broker come in yesterday. And by the way, just to make sure we’re not confusing people in Illinois, every realtor is a broker. So I know that’s not the way it is in every state. But anyway, she had a real what’s called a realtor come in. And the client was a realtor and a practicing realtor. So and that was very interesting. And my girlfriend asked the practicing realtor who really was the the tenants or the future tenant, hey, I’m just out of curiosity, why did you Why are you working with a realtor? And they go I don’t know anything about about luxury leasing. And so I’d rather hire my friend who’s really good at it. And, and I thought, wow, that’s really, that’s really great. So even if you’re a realtor, and maybe you’re looking for some help buying, selling, renting or if you’re not a realtor, but you’re looking for a great agent Carrie would love to chat with you Carrie what’s the best way someone should reach out to you Carrie McCormick 27:58always call me 312-961-4612 For those who prefer to text I’m a big texter as well. Or email which is Carrie ca RR ie at@properties.com. D.J. Paris 28:14And please follow carry on social media. So she’s on Instagram, she’s Carrie McCormick real estate. And you can also visit our website Carrie McCormack r e.com. And and I guess I am glad I did not take the Bitcoin as suggested No, I saw that I thought, Oh, she’s been hacked. But I’m glad you got your account back because I know how important that is to you. And I know it’s it’s a great place also to see your activity. It’s really fun because I like following you because I sort of feel like I know what your days look like, which I think is is really helpful for other realtors that want to see. You know, gosh, if I get ever got to that top 1% level, what would my days look like? And I think you do a good job of sharing. You know what it’s like to be a realtor. Carrie McCormick 29:00I don’t share everything with you. The days that that I go through, it’d be a fun reality show. D.J. Paris 29:09Well, anyway, everyone follow Carrie on Instagram because she is just as impressive work there and she does it all herself as well which is even more impressive. So she doesn’t outsource it. So you can really see what she’s all about at Kerry McCormick real estate. Carrie, thank you so much for being on our show yet again. We love having carry on and she gets so much great feedback from the fans. By the way. If you have a moment everyone listening, please go to whatever podcast app you might be on whether it’s iTunes or Apple podcasts now or Spotify, Google Play Stitcher, any anywhere you find podcasts and if you’re listening through us through one of those systems platforms, leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. And also please tell a friend think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing our show and send them a link over that’s all I got this week. Carrie this was a fun great episode. I know you’re you’re busy. Gotta get back to work. So we wish carry continued success. And thank you on behalf of everybody for coming on our show, and we’ll see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Kerry. Bye

Welcome to the August episode of Learn With A Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate! In this episode Joel discusses what’s going on in the lending world. Joel focuses on why agents should center their attention on the next 6 to 12 months rather than the next sale they will get. Joel also discusses how with the market slowdown this is the time to start creating content for your clients to provide valuable information. Joel and D.J. discuss the situation in the renting market at the moment. Last, Joel explains what Lender Introduction Template is, how agents can subscribe for it and also discusses his weekly newsletter. 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 0:00With rising interest rates, what do you tell your clients? And more importantly, how do you keep your business thriving? We’re going to talk about that today. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Harris, I’m your guide and host through the show today, once again is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And he’s got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives back part of his commission to the agents buyer on every transaction. So last year alone, Joel gave back $291,000 In closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1% Sorry, top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 loan officers in the United States, Joel is currently ranked ranked number 137. Last year he closed 619 transactions, his highest amount ever for one year for $249 million. And already this year, Joel has closed 243 transactions for 98,000,093% of that were purchases. 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 Joel can be reached via email at joel@rates.com J oel@rates.com. Or you can call him directly at 773-654-2049. Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel sharp, D Day. Thanks so Joel Schaub 3:06much for having me on. And you’re right. It’s very fun when I hear the numbers. But none of that matters. I really like being on each and every month because it’s the time where we can get back and have a gentle literally learn something. Because when you’re in the business, you’re so focused on buying and selling, but sometimes you don’t have that mortgage side. So it’s really good to come on and get back. D.J. Paris 3:28Yeah, I think this is a great time to have a conversation about what’s going on in the lending world only because I’ve noticed this because I Well, you do as well. I hang out with a lot of realtors for different reasons that socially. We try not to but yes, they’re everywhere, right? You can’t avoid them. No, but some of my closest friends now are in the in the industry. And I have noticed that there is a general malaise or a little bit of a sort of sadness around the fact that rates are not what they were at the you know, one to two years ago, which of course they aren’t. But I find that agents tend to like carry that residue around with them like this is like horrible, awful news that is just making everybody’s life so much more difficult. And I always think it’s great to like reset and sort of reset and go back to our baseline expectation of what’s going on. Because I just have to think this must influence the way that a lot of realtors interact with their clients. Like if the realtor thinks oh, my god rates are 5% and above, then maybe they bring that energy to their client. And maybe it just doesn’t really help the process. Joel Schaub 4:37It doesn’t it’s all about mindset right now. So I’m throwing out the whole narrative that this is a bad problem to have that rates are higher, and the agents that I work with and I teach and I coach, we’ve completely thrown that narrative out that the mainstream media tells you that oh, this is a problem. All right. It’s actually a blessing. All right. I’ve said this to you but For I mean, I like buying my shirts on sale, and I like buying my shoes on sale. And now it’s an opportunity to finally to buy real estate on sale. And by that, I don’t mean that we’re going to see a big drop in values, everybody’s waiting. And I’ll tell you now, if you’re one of these agents telling buyers wait for values to drop, you’re wrong. I don’t anticipate value, they’re going to drop drastically. But what I do know and what we’ve already seen, TJ, is that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get an offer accepted today than it was six months ago when there were 10 offers on the table. D.J. Paris 5:33Yeah, I mean, look, it’s sort of the analogy of buying shirts on sale is such a great one. Because I was thinking, as you said that I really rather never buy something full price, right? Like anything in my life. I don’t care if it’s at the grocery store, and it’s a bag of carrots, or, you know, a home, I want something that appears to me psychologically, I want something to feel like I’m not paying full price. And of course, as we saw in that really extremely low, almost an it was an aberration. It wasn’t I don’t even I don’t even think it should be in the same history book as traditional rate rates, because it was so unusual that it really doesn’t, it almost doesn’t even deserve a chapter in history, in a sense, because it really sort of, you know, is going to color people’s expectations today. But you’re right. Yeah, I could have gotten a much lower rate two years ago, but boy, I would have been competing with a lot more people. And I probably would be paid up paid a lot more for that same property. Joel Schaub 6:29And why is it DJ that? Buyers? They have this anticipation, right? Let’s think of that. I want to buy something, but I only want to buy a few months ago when everybody was doing it. And now all of a sudden, when people aren’t buying, they’re like, oh, I don’t want to buy either. You see, it’s actually wrong. Right? Yeah, it’s the home and get a deal on the price, where I could refinance the debt down the line, then be the big winner that bought a home 50 grand more than it was worth. So looking forward, if I’m an agent, I’m literally preaching this story. Um, D.J. Paris 7:03yeah, it’s a story that that needs to continue to be reinforced, because you’re absolutely right. You know, I was in a former life, I was a financial advisor. And, you know, one of the most, I was not a stockbroker, I wasn’t picking individual equities, or, you know, or bonds, there’s just not what I did, I’m more managed somebody’s net worth. But it is, it is psychologically difficult to think, Oh, I really need to buy when it’s low and sell high. We all know that intellectually, but it is a difficult thing. Because it you know, it’s why a lot of people lost money in crypto, because as as crypto exploded in value, and price, people started to jump in at the end, which was the wrong time to get in. And of course, with crypto, you know, any, any anything can happen. But you know, even in the traditional stock market, this idea of buying something when it’s undervalued is hard psychologically. So I understand the hurdle that the agents and have to sort of jump over for their client. But it’s, it’s a really important hurdle to jump over. Otherwise, you’re going to be as upset as the client might be. Joel Schaub 8:07If I’m an agent, right now, the number one thing that I would be doing is planning for the next six to 12 months. And what I mean by this is actionable steps to put out marketing and branding, where you’re not trying to get a sale today. I’ll repeat this, I know how hard it is, we want sales today. But you want to actually be building your pipeline for six to 12 months and think of this net that you could cast if you’re letting buyers know that you’re not desperate for the business today, and that you’re actually in their corner to help them when the time comes to finding the right property. I would work with somebody like that a lot more than somebody that says today’s the right day to buy, now’s the best time to buy. And guess what, when a buyer is working with you, and they want to maybe buy in the next six to 12 months, a good majority of them are gonna buy sooner, they really will, right. But making a strategy and doing social media posts, videos and actually talking about the future. And say, when there’s a little bit of snow on the ground, and I’m talking, you know, we’re here in the Midwest, so it’s not that far away. When we get to November and December here in Chicago, we definitely get snow on the ground. And traditionally, we do see a lot less inventory and the properties that are on sale, actually sell for Left, right. So teaching and educating that there’s an opportunity coming up. And if they buy sooner, that’s great. But I wouldn’t be doing videos once a week right now about are you thinking about buying the next six to 12 month, reach out to me. And then you start building a database of people that are ready, willing and able, some of whom will buy sooner, but you’re teaching and you’re educating about where the properties will be at six to 12 months from now. And there’ll be a lot less offers than there were six to 12 months ago. D.J. Paris 9:56I hadn’t experienced yesterday I just really want to quickly share because it was such an unusual experience, I had to go see a dermatologist. It was a specialist down at, at Northwestern. And I hadn’t ever been to this particular clinic before it, it was it was an older gentleman, he was in his 70s. And he actually took me into his office, which I always have seen that movies where you sit across the table from the doctor and you see their office, but I’d never actually realized I’ve never actually been in a doctor’s true office. And he sat down, he was an older man, I’m guessing in his 70s. And we were talking about this really like no big deal thing that that I was there to see him about. And he spent 10 minutes would be and and he did most doctors, you know, they’re so skilled. And they know what you have at the moment you walk in, and they’re like, I know what that is. It’s this, we’re going to treat it with this. But this guy didn’t do that. He was like, I’ve been doing this for two years. And I’m not totally sure what what your situation is right now. And as I was explaining it to him, he was listening. He would pause he would I would he would ask me a question, I would answer him. And he would take that information and pause and look up to the ceiling and go, Oh, okay, huh. And he would pause for about 10 seconds. And I realized I’m watching this guy think. And it was really, really, it was really exciting in a way. And it also was really comforting. And I was like, This guy’s thinking about me and trying to figure out the best solution for me. And he was clearly doing this, this this sort of, you know, intense sort of evaluation in his mind. And I was I was there to watch it. And then he called in, he was like, I gotta call a colleague, and I want a colleague to get his opinion on this. And he calls in his son who happened to work there as well, son comes in, and they’re talking about it. And it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Because I thought, wow, this guy really cares. He’s really thinking about this silly little problem. It’s not a life or death big. It’s a totally no big deal thing. But he’s really taken seriously. And I just was like, God, I’m gonna be with this guy for the rest of my life. Like, it was such a great experience. And I thought, boy, realtors could do this exact same thing and the good ones do. 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 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 13:21I like those awkward pauses. People are afraid to have silence. But think of this, you’re gonna live in a home for 10 years. And you’re afraid of somebody being silent for 10 seconds to think about your situation. The people that actually know what they’re doing take time to think about a situation because they don’t have a predetermined plan. The moment that you reach out, everything should be individualized. So as an agent, the one of the reasons as a mortgage professional, I was able to do 10 and $20 million a month was each scenario was different. I took my time and I listened. Whereas every other mortgage professional just talks and talks and talks. They don’t give the buyer a chance to actually explain what they need. So if you can listen and hear what they need, you’re really going to set yourself apart. D.J. Paris 14:10And I love this idea of creating content. Again, this is probably a time where the majority of our listeners and viewers have more time because the market slowed. You know, of course rates have increased inventory is still low. So there’s a lot of just more free time maybe than you would have and so, Joel, I think you’re absolutely right, such a great time to start creating educational content on social media. Tick tock if you’ve not a tick tock person, like it’s not going away and it’s becoming more and more and more and more popular and it doesn’t mean you have to be a 22 year old doing tick tock but but you want to speak to the next generation of homebuyers which this is the time because it people other realtors are going to start utilizing other platforms, younger platforms to get their message out. And you know the cool thing about places things like Tiktok and Instagram is you can cross post So you can actually take the same content, continue to repurpose it, use it. And you know, people are hungry for information. And I think this is a great a great opportunity to continue to tell people like, I know this stuff, I know what this stuff is, and I can talk about it. Joel Schaub 15:18Remember this phrase, right, and this is true, when we buy a piece of real estate, I want everyone to remember that you can marry the home and date the rate, okay, and start using that. And it’s really true. As silly as it sounds, we’re gonna marry the home, we’re gonna find the house that we love. But we know damn well that when rates come down, we’re going to refinance that loan, okay. And that’s the great thing about mortgage financing in the United States, okay. And you can always find a good mortgage professional that doesn’t charge to do a refinance. And now that’s big business, for the banks and all that. But if you’re doing the purchase mortgage, you should be able to get a mortgage professional, that will waive the costs for a refinance. And at a minimum, maybe it cost three or $400 to do an appraisal again, but other than that, work with a mortgage team, and somebody that will absolutely help your clients, buy the home, live in it. And when rates do come down, make sure that they go right back to that mortgage professional to lower the rate. And pick a rate where you don’t have to pay any fees. And maybe it’s just a bit above the lowest rate in the market. But there’s always opportunities that select an interest rate where you’re not paying closing costs. And that’s important D.J. Paris 16:30that marry the home date, the rate is such a great expression. And it really is exactly the truth. Because rates, of course, fluctuate, things fluctuate home is pretty, uh, pretty much considered a permanent, at least, maybe you don’t live there permanently. But it’s a permanent structure. It feels like it isn’t moveable. But but you know, when you date somebody, it may work out, it might not right, when you marry somebody, the idea is, of course, to be there for life. So, obviously, everyone understands this metaphor, I don’t need to explain it. But I think it’s such a great one, because it really is exactly the truth, right? The rates come and go, people come and go, the rates come and go, and you’re going to be able to make adjustments along the way via refinance. So that’s that is such, that’s almost enough, I think, just to explain what we’re going to date, the rate, we’re not going to marry the rate, that should pretty much solve a lot of the conflict, I think, between realtors and their buyers at this point and say Don’t, don’t worry, we’re just dating the rate, we’re going to find you the perfect home. And that’s the most important thing. And and again, also, we hear rates are up. But Joel, you always say and I love this is you don’t write a check with the rate on it right to the bank, you really just care about the total amount that’s coming out of your bank account every month. And that’s the most important thing. And those oftentimes aren’t aren’t as exciting of news headlines, right? It’s not as exciting to say, well, the average person’s you know, payment monthly went up $200, you know, from when the rates were lower, whatever that number might be. That’s not exciting news to say, Oh, the rates jumped, you know, do 200 basis points in the last year, whatever. That’s exciting. That’s if it bleeds, it leads, you know, for news. So we have to sort of bring it back to reality, saying, Actually, we’re just going to date the rate. And the rates aren’t that high at all anyway, like they’re still fine. And having that conversation, I think is going to call the buyers down. So I think you’re right, and also just this idea of like, you know, who’s thinking about doing this over the next six to 12 months, that’s really, really great. And Realtors didn’t really have the time to do that maybe so much in the last couple of years. They were they were in go mode, and they didn’t have the time to go wondering who’s going to be buying in the next six to 12 months, they were just trying to get deals closed. So now’s the time. Joel Schaub 18:41And DJ in our market right now rents are just going up just as fast if not faster than these mortgage rates. And so at my level 90, I’d say 80 or 90% of the clients that I work with are first time homebuyers that need the education. So agents lean on me to actually help them understand the difference between renting versus buying. And when we run just a three to five year analysis. It doesn’t matter that mortgage rates are no longer in the threes or fours. The rent rate is 100%. When you’re paying a mortgage, you’re actually getting something back when you’re renting every dollar goes out the window and so just re emphasizing for first time homebuyers it’s worth it to take a look and see what we can afford on a monthly basis that’s similar or less than what you’re paying in rent and get ready for an opportunity in the next six months where I could put you on a list and show you different properties where you’re not throwing the money out the way on on rent. D.J. Paris 19:38Yeah and just having the conversation to to renters about interest and deductions is is a huge wonderful surprise to anyone when they buy their first home if they’re not aware. It’s a wonderful surprise come tax time. And this is something I didn’t even know before I bought a property I had no idea I mean I just I was in my A you know, I was 30 years old I think and just didn’t know anything about real estate and, and loans and I got one and then I was like, Oh my God, I wish I kind of wish somebody had told me all the cool tax benefits of owning. And it was up to me to figure it out. But this is an opportunity for people to educate, educate renters about it, I’ll leave you with this, my girlfriend who you know, are Aggie, she works at a an apartment building downtown at a like a luxury apartment building. And Joel was saying how rates are for rental rates are going up. And that is true, I can I can attest to that. This is how crazy the rental market is, at least at my girlfriend’s building here in Chicago, the rents the rent prices change, at least about once an hour, and they have 500 units there. The technology is so advanced for some of these management companies is they don’t just like okay, that’s you know, that’s the $2,000 a month apartment. And it just that’s what it is, oh, no, it’s evaluating every other property that in the area trying to figure out how to be competitive, and they all compete with each other, and it actually ends up driving prices up. So they’re constantly trying to squeeze as much as they can out of the renter. And now technology is doing it for them. So that’s another thing to consider too is, you know, is the rental technologies getting so much better, where it’s going to try to squeeze as much as they can. Now not not every landlord uses technology like that. But you know, a lot of apartment buildings do and it’s really, really interesting. So rent prices change, they they’re going to want to, you know, extract as much income as they care as much revenue as they can out of the tenant. This is a great time to think to really educate somebody about some of the benefits of homeownership. And not just it feels good to own a home. But like there’s some legitimate tangible benefits around taxes and, and things that I bet a lot of renters just don’t know all Joel Schaub 21:49about education. And if you’ve been a longtime listener of keeping it real podcast, you’ve heard me come on and talk about the weekly update that I send out. And so many of you have emailed us and said, Please put me on your list for that follow up. And they use the information that I put in bite sized pieces to disseminate on video or phone calls. And it just helps them so that you don’t need to be an expert in the mortgage market. But you got to have enough knowledge that you can talk to people about certain things in a way that’s not so cumbersome, and techie. So we’ve taken that list. And then I’ve also created another follow up that people are asking for, which is they want to refer somebody over to us and they want the link so that they can get the $1,500 closing cost credit. So you can email me, and I’ll give it away here. You can literally say send me the lender introduction template, and it’s my email at joel@rate.com. So J o el@rate.com. And that short for guaranteed rate, it’ll come directly to me and you will get a reply from me. And there’ll be a template. So if you have another buyer that really wanting some education, and wanting that first time homebuyer benefit, and somebody that’s really going to look out for them, you can introduce me, we’ll get them pre approved. And then we waive all the fees. So I give a $1,500 credit back. And this will be one of the benefits of you listening to the keepin it real podcast. D.J. Paris 23:12Yeah, thank you for that if I were an agent, if I was a listener right now, and I may be a little slower than than I was in the last couple of years, or maybe I’m new to the business and I’m slow because I’m new. I don’t have as much business, I would be signing up for Jill’s newsletter. So just send Joel an email joel@rate.com asked to be put on the weekly newsletter also asked for his introduction template like he’s he mentioned. And Joel sends out the rate update and sort of the bite sized piece of what agents need to know, every week. And I would watch for that email, I would take several bits and pieces I would use that as the content that I would post on social media. And so you don’t even have to like you were saying you don’t have to think of or analyze or be an expert on what’s going on in the lending world. Just take these bite sized pieces. That’s why Joel and his team make them that’s exactly the purpose is so that you can take them to your client and look like you’re the expert as opposed to Joel being the only expert Joel is an expert, but he also wants the agents to be experts too. So definitely sign up for that just email joel@rei.com asked to be put on both of those well the list and then also get the template he’ll send it out to you and then there you go. Now you’ve got your social media content content for you know, for the foreseeable future do it forever it I promise you most lenders don’t even do this. I’ve noticed very few lenders on social media even educate other than you know, Joel, I know you do too, but but Joel is one of the few people that even does it in his field. So you can do it, but it’s not a crowded field and your audience wants to learn. Joel Schaub 24:44And just remember this, okay, the sky isn’t falling right now you can be the bearer of good news and you can let people know that regardless of where the rates are at right now. Still going to be better than renting and it’s going to be a heck of a lot easier for you as an agent to submit an offer on a property He then it’s not over asking, Okay, now we’re getting back to the point where you could come in under asking and not get laughed out of the room. And as we continue to see these rates at these elevated levels, because it could be this way for two to three years, we will have the opportunity once the Fed gets it right, they’re going to cut rates. So hearing it here first, once the Fed has inflation under control, they have to cut rates. Everybody on our floor that on the trading in terms of mortgages, we’re already predicting when and there’s various ideas as to when the Fed will cut rates. But it’s not a straight shot up from here, when they continue to trend up for a while once inflation is under control, the Fed has to cut rates, and that’s going to be the floodgates are gonna open again. So in the meantime, let’s be happy with where we’re at. Let’s help as many buyers as we can right now. And let’s keep things positive. D.J. Paris 25:58Yeah, and just to sort of give one one another quick idea because Joe, you always You are the epitome of this you live this now’s a great time to give back especially if you have more more spare time and to incorporate your your client list or your prospect list, do events around a charitable acts. Maybe you’re maybe it’s even just hey, we want to go support this bar down the street. That’s, that’s struggling right now. So you can do you know, some sort of event there. You can partner with somebody like like Joel, of course, who would love to partner and do events with you. But now’s the time to really, you could do a charitable thing. Now’s the time to really do some good out in the world. And you have the extra time to do it. It’ll generate goodwill with your clients. And you know, again, I just think that that’s the one of the best things you can do to develop a stronger relationship with your contacts is do something together that creates good for the world. And you know, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have that person as a client for life. I think. I love Joel Schaub 26:58that you say that too. And you have more time right now you’re not submitting 10 offers right now, how many times do you lose, you submit an offer in the last year or two and your great offer and it reminds me of one of my favorite weird owl songs I lost on Jeopardy. The old my loves in jeopardy remake and it’s true. You put in a really great offer and somebody beats you. And now there’s not as many offers going in so you can help your clients you have extra time find ways D.J. Paris 27:26to give back. Well, Joel saying that it’s funny because we we were talking about this ahead of time, I’m actually going to see Weird Al tomorrow night in Grand Rapids of all places. So I am excited. It’s probably the 10th time number Joel Schaub 27:39one fan here guys number one fan. Last and something to DJ at the keepin D.J. Paris 27:43it real send me a week something weird. related. Anyway, yeah, well, up on it. I’m embarrassed to say how many times I’ve seen it, but it’s been it’s, it’s now double digits. So excited. But anyway, it’s a great, it’s a great point. And so anyway, don’t despair. This is not the time to despair, there may be a time at some point in history that we should despair, but it isn’t now. So don’t worry, shake off some of the the stress from the last couple of years and realize that things are actually easier now and in a way. So you know, embrace the easier, easier part of where we are today. And that won’t you won’t get stuck in the harder part of today as well. So anyway, everyone, yeah, everyone should should sign up for Joel’s newsletter. So just to send an email to joel@rate.com. Let him know that you want to be on his newsletter, and there’s your social media content. And that’s the end. Here’s your talking points for your clients right now that are that are thinking about, you know, what’s going on in the news. This is how you readjust their expectation. All right, Joel, this is a great place to wrap up. Always a pleasure chatting with you and excited to continue our relationship here on the podcast. So if anyone out there is looking to partner with a with a lending professional Joel’s the very best I’ve ever worked with. So reach out to him. joel@rate.com you can also call him Joe, what’s the best number for you and your team? Joel Schaub 29:00My direct line? 18 years 773-744-1968 You get me directly you just test me. We’re definitely there to help. D.J. Paris 29:11Awesome. All right. Well, on behalf of our audience that Joel, thank you very much for continuing. You’ve been with us for years and years. We greatly appreciate it. And on behalf of Joel and myself, we wouldn’t be able to do this without the listeners. So thank you for continuing to support and listen to our show and watch us support our sponsors support Joel support all of our guests that we have on the show. They’re the reason that we have content for the show. And we’re really grateful to Joel for doing that. So support Joel support our sponsors and continue to listen and please tell a friend just think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this who’s maybe a little bummed out right now because things are slower send this episode to them it will cheer them up and it will really reset them to you know a more positive headspace. So, anyway, Joel, thank you again and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you

Dale Archdekin a lead conversion expert goes all the way back to the beginning of his career in real estate and describes his struggles in the beginning of this journey. Dale describes how he built his business, his failures and successes. Next, Dale discusses what Smart Inside Sales teaches and how agents can utilize it. Last, Dale talks about how to nurture leads over time. You can buy group or individual training with Smart Inside Sales using this link. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Dale Archdekin can be reached at (215) 370-1236. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.

Kurt Uhlir an entrepreneurial leader discusses the importance of having a website with a home search integrated. Kurt also discusses what he feels is a huge opportunity from a marketing perspective and what real estate agents are under-utilizing at the moment. Last, how to provide value to old clients who are not actively looking to transact in real estate at the moment. Please check Kurt’s Showcase IDX for your website’s home search integration and more. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Kurt Uhlir can be reached through email here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.