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

Stephanie Spenner the founder of Maven at Compass goes back to the beginning of her career in Milwaukee as a leasing agent. Stephanie describes her transition from Milwaukee to Chicago and how she built her business. Next Stephanie talks about social media and how to utilize these networks for lead generation. Stephanie also discusses the importance of knowing your inventory and the process in and out. Last, Stephanie focuses on the importance of building relationships and how that helps in building your business. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Stephanie Spenner can be reached at 262-613-8985 and stephanie.spenner@compass.com This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Now that the market is shifting, are you doing rentals? Well, you should. We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re gonna be speaking with top luxury producer Stephanie spinner. Before we get to Stephanie, though, a couple of quick reminders first, the best way you can help our show is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Stephanie and send them a link to our either our show, which you can find on any podcast app, or if the person’s not really a podcast person, just send them to our website, they can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from a browser. That website is keeping it real pod.com And also follow us on Facebook, you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod every day, we find an article that’s written specifically to help agents grow their business, and we post it on Facebook. So check us out facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our conversation about the luxury rental market and luxury properties in general with Stephanie spinner. Jay on the show, we have Stephen spinner from Maven at Compass here in Chicago. Let me tell you more about Stephanie. Stephanie spinner was born and raised in Milwaukee and she’s been living in she’s been living in Chicago for six and a half years and she started her real estate journey when she was 18. In residential property management, where all the best stories live. She has been an independent broker for almost five years now. And she started her own brokerage and then came to compass where she currently is running a team of 13 agents and an expanding team. It’ll be more by the time I finish this sentence. But right now she has 13 agents who specialize in rentals, but also helping renters become buyers become homeowners generating leads through social media marketing, and I want everyone to pay attention before we bring Stephanie on. I want everybody unless you’re driving. Or if you’re driving pullover, go visit this website because I want to show you a really impressive website that that highlights some of what the what Maven and Stephanie’s team does with respect to social media and video. It’s live shy.tv So li ve ch i.tv. And you can go see their YouTube channels and some of the cool ways in which they promote different different listings and places to live. So anyway, Stephanie, welcome to the show. Stephanie Spenner 4:09Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. Finally, to have you know, hear your face in person or hear your voice in person. D.J. Paris 4:17And you have to look at me I’d see my face which is not not always a pleasant experience, I’m sure but I appreciate you look very nice for anyone who isn’t watching Stephanie is always always looks super, super nice. And you know, I always appreciate how professional you are. I was actually really impressed. So I heard Stephanie speak just to give the audience an idea of, of you know what, why you’re on today. And I mean, we’re always wanting to talk to exceptional realtors, and you are but there’s a lot of exceptional realtors. So the reason why we thought you would be a great fit, no pressure, by the way on the show, but as you have a really unique approach to building your business and I’m sort of surprised that more people don’t Don’t do it this way. But I just think it is so smart. It makes all the sense in the world. And you have built an incredible career in a very short amount of time doing it. And it’s not the only thing you do. And I haven’t even told the audience really what it is we’re talking about rentals. But she does more than that. But this is a great entry point that I think a lot of agents overlook. But before we get into what you’re doing today, I’d love to start all the way back at the beginning and learn more about why you got into real estate and how Stephanie Spenner 5:30thanks so much for having me, DJ, I’m excited to share my story again, or the full thing as much as you’ll as much as I can fit into 20 or 30 minutes. So D.J. Paris 5:40and that’s all the time we have. So go right ahead. Stephanie Spenner 5:46I don’t want to miss anything, because it is all part of the journey. And it’s not like it just happens overnight. People are like, how do how do you do it if you don’t have a YouTube channel, like I didn’t always have a YouTube channel. I had it for like literally less than two years. So I started in real estate when I was 18 years old. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my we moved to Walker Shaw, which is like 2030 minutes west where I went to high school. And then I was going to UW I started going to UW UW Milwaukee for college. And I randomly applied to be a leasing agent when I was 18. And my first semester of college where my parents made me live at home for the first semester. So I was like driving to Milwaukee for 2030 minutes to school every day. I don’t know why I did that, or listen to them. Because I always made my own money. Since I was like 14, I’ve had two jobs literally like. And so first semester I lived at home, I worked, I randomly applied to be a leasing agent at a premier property in downtown Milwaukee. It was just a high rise that had a pool. So that’s why everyone wanted to live there. But it was built in 1961. So it was like very old. Three total towers made up the complex 600 units. And so I randomly applied to be a leasing agent there and somehow I just I got the job, and how D.J. Paris 7:13real quick just out of curiosity, because when I was 18 I, you know, I barely like knew enough to like, get into college and figure that whole thing. How did you know that that was even I worked as like minimum wage at some, you know, whatever. How did you know that that was even an option back then just out of curiosity. Stephanie Spenner 7:32So I mean, basically, in high school, like I was really good at academics, but it but I was also a class clown. So no one really knew that I was smart. But I was always in AP classes and stuff. And senior year I was in this really cool business program. Because of like the grades I got, I was able to get into like this business program that we had in senior year of high school, where if you got certain grades and stuff, then you could go to school only for the first half of the day. And then you can go to business co ops. So they like they helped me get set up into an office manager job that I worked at for almost a year, like a year and a half, I worked there as an office manager position on my resume. And I’ve always been in the business mindset since like, since I can remember. And so when I like as an office manager, I mean I was bored out of my mind and but I love the like secretarial work I love to like staying organized. And that’s always been something I like, loved to do is like just be organized. But I so yeah, once I had that office manager on my resume, I just like and I was so bored at work every day that I would just sit there and look up jobs and apply to this one. I applied to that one. And I would literally just like apply a bunch of jobs. I would take interviews, I would literally go to these interviews and get a lot of the jobs but this one for some reason. Just like really, I was like this is this seems cool. Like, and like these are like older people like you know, they’re all in like their 30s working there and stuff. But I was very adult, I guess right? Yeah. And that’s just like, I’ve always been like this more mature like, kid, like, a couple steps ahead, I guess. Like mentally I feel like, but yeah, I just randomly applied to be a leasing agent. And like, I got the job at the first day the property manager is showing me model apartments and I’m like, why is this woman showing me peoples of places like I didn’t even know what a model apartment was. And next thing you know, my first paycheck, I had more sales than the other girls that were working full time. And I was like, Holy shit, like, this is my passion. Like I can’t believe I just got this lucky. Like, this is what I love to do. And no matter what I’m finishing school, that was just something that was ingrained in me that I had to have an education. No one like my family. No one in my family had has an education. But it was just like me no matter what, even though I also didn’t need it. It’s like I was already making more money than my parents were. But I was If I was going to school full time, I worked full time. And so I’d have classes like Tuesday, Thursday, all day long. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I would go clock into the premier property Fridays, or Saturdays, Sundays were open to all the five. And I would just work all day and just close a bunch of deals. And then the owner of the company, which I didn’t know, it was a shitty company. But I worked for this company for almost four years. And I loved it. And that’s how I got my backbone that I have today that I feel like I can handle anything. So once I was working as the leasing agent at that premier property for two and a half years, they promoted me to assistant property manager there. And then he’s like, Oh, you want you want more money, like here. And he gave me a stack of papers with all the availability of his properties in Milwaukee from like Whitefish Bay to Greenfield, so kind of like uptown to South Loop Streeterville to Logan Square, and he’s like, here, do whatever you want with it. And he gave me a set of 100 hard keys, like hard keys, not fast. And I’m just shaking around like the janitor. And I’m just like, what, and this was Craigslist days. So I like after a week, I was like, okay, like, let’s do this. And I went through and I looked at everything that was vacant on his list, I would go to the property, take pictures, put them up on Craigslist. Now I was a broker. But I didn’t know I was a broker until I came to Chicago and realized like, this is like, like, brokers are super legit. I didn’t have to have a license in Wisconsin, or maybe I did. But that company didn’t care. I was not licensed to do what I was doing at the time. And so I was, at the same time I was the assistant property manager working full time, there was also a broker being able to show any of his properties at any time. So like, literally in between classes, I’d be like, Yeah, I can show you at 1230. And I would literally like run down the street because a lot of his properties were on UW Milwaukee campus Eastside, which is really nice part of Waukee. And so I would just like show properties in between classes, before class after class, before work after work of the premier property where I’ve clocked in, and then he’s like, Oh, you want more money, like here, you can manage your own building. So all at the same time, I then manage my own building, which which it was only 50 units, and 50 units. You have free rent, if you just kept the building fully occupied, and shoveled and raked and clean the apartments and people moved out and change the lightbulbs in the frickin garage. And every hallway, the lanterns were gas. So when you took the light bulbs out, like you could get shocked. It was it was a great deal. I it was a great deal. So I had free rent, I managed the building, I had free parking, I went to school full time, the whole time. And I just I loved it. I can’t even believe to this day that I did as much as I did. But like I just loved it so much. And that’s how I got started. And I finished school. Five years it took me and I graduated with finance and international business. D.J. Paris 12:50Wow. Well, it took me five years to and I wasn’t as busy. So I really respect all the things. You’ve been a hustler since you were as old enough to work. And I mean that in the best possible way. I mean, somebody who really digs in and grits it out and that we all know that that’s one of the cornerstones of success, but I love the fact that you have been living that basically everyday sense. And you’re still continue to do that today. And so yeah, I think, oh, go ahead. I’m sorry, Stephanie Spenner 13:24that that’s that’s will lead right into the next story. So like, that’s where like, I just, I think when I was younger, like my, my dad, just, you know, I’d be like, hey, I want a soda he like he’d be like, how are you going to earn $1 to go get that sorta and I’d be like, let’s do it. And I like literally earn 100 pennies to go get it myself and like I did it. And like, if you want it, you gotta go get it. And like, that’s what I’ve taken from that. And that’s what I think drives me and just being proactive. And that’s one of the biggest things that like, takeaways from today is like, be proactive. Like, if you want something, go get it if you want something and you think you’re not gonna get it, then it’s never gonna happen. But if you want something and you go after it, and you don’t get it, at least you try and and you’re gonna you’re not gonna, you might not get it, but you’re going to get the next thing that you should have got that is super close to that. Now I’m trailing off like I always do, but D.J. Paris 14:16no, no, no, I think you’re saying something really important, which is you’re not trailing off at all you what you’re saying is it’s the it’s that old expression and I want to make sure I get it right because my, my anyway, it’s something like and I know I’m gonna say this wrong, but something like shoot for the stars land on the moon. Right? So so even if you don’t get the stars you still end up with something. That’s probably still Stephanie Spenner 14:39the moon which you didn’t have the stars or the moon for. Exactly. You were back on planet or D.J. Paris 14:46so. Yeah, no, no, you you know, it’s so funny. It’s, it’s I’ve done so many of these episodes. And I remember one of my, one of my episodes from this as a Chicago person so anyone who’s listening you can Go back and find this episode probably several 100 episodes ago, but there’s a broker here in Chicago, named Matt Larissa. He’s one of the top agents in the Chicagoland area. And I asked him, I’m like, Why do you think is he’s always like, number one or two, I know the list of top agents. So how do you why do you think you’re number one or two and all these other agents, you know, who are just as smart as you. And you know, he’s a very smart guy. And he goes, I just, I wanted more. He was just real honest. He’s like, I just, I just outwork everyone. He’s like, I’m kind of a dummy. And he’s not a dummy. But he was thinking. So it’s like, it’s not intelligence. It’s just I work hard. And I look at you the same way in again, I’m not trying to compare the two of you, because you’re very different people. But I’ve always respected the amount of energy that you put into your business. And it’s really clear what you’re doing. So let’s, let’s dive into it. Because you have this team. And you guys have really mastered the art of luxury leasing. And again, I know you do way more things that you sell million dollar homes, and you do all of that too. But what I think makes you really unique is this entry point where you decide, and it’s so smart, you decide to build the relationship when people are renting. And that is so smart, because everybody who owns or almost everybody that owns used to rent, right? I know I used to rent. And the only reason I chose my Realtors because he was my friend. But nobody helped me when I was renting. So I didn’t have a realtor to think to reach out to. And then when I got time to ready to buy a million years ago, I was like, Oh, my friend does that. But had someone been helping me along the way, I might not have ended up giving it to my friend because I might have already had that relationship. And I’m so shocked that more realtors and not every market in the country would support leasing. You know, it’s certain markets are better for that than others. Certainly here in Chicago, there’s a ton of it. But even here in Chicago, I don’t see many agents doing it. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about why you decided to go that route. Obviously, your background would suggest that you’re great at doing leasing all the way back when you were 18 or so. But love to hear more about you know how that works for you and your team. Stephanie Spenner 16:58Yeah, if I can go back just a second. I know that we’re short on time and stuff. But it’s funny that you just mentioned Matt literacy along with my name, because he’s now using my partner and videographer to do his videos. Oh, D.J. Paris 17:15what is that? That is awesome. You must have great videographer. Stephanie Spenner 17:20But it’s not only that, but it’s like it’s this is also a point where it’s like, am I going to be mad at him or my partner? No, there’s plenty of business to go around. And there’s plenty of personalities to go around. The same the person that wants to work with me is not the same person that’s gonna want to work with him or person on my team, which is why I love the diverse team that I have and that I’ve created. And then just just really quick going back into the proactive and how I got to Chicago so I so I came to Chicago six and a half years ago, I had no plans to move here I managed. I made my way up in Milwaukee to be managing the most luxurious rental tower in Milwaukee called the bow Dern which is right next to the Bucs arena, that when I moved here, they were breaking ground for the new arena. But I rent it to all the Bucs players, all the admirals players, all the Brewers players, they all lived in the building. I had courtside seats to all games. I had free everything because that’s just you know how Milwaukee worked and Shaw walkie and so and I had free rent, I managed the building. And I had like one of the best departments there was and I was visiting Chicago, Christmas of 2015 When I saw marquee block 37 being built on State Street, and I said I like stopped in my tracks. I’m like, What is this? Like, I have to have this building like, I have to have it. I don’t know why I just had to have it. And I finally saw the name Ballard. And I researched Gollum, the management company and part of the development team and I found the head of hrs email, and I emailed her my resume and I said, I don’t know what’s going on here. But this is what I do now. Call me if you think there’s room for me somewhere. And they call me in for an interview basically the next day, and they basically gave me a verbal offer on the spot. Because my mentor to this day is like a mother to me, she always reminds me of why she hired me in on the spot versus because I asked what is going to be the price per square foot of these units. D.J. Paris 19:23Ready? How do I how do I how do I how do I get these things rented? You were already thinking I need to know some specifics about this verse, which is a brilliant question to ask in that kind of interview. So so Stephanie Spenner 19:36different from Milwaukee. Yeah, tell Unknown Speaker 19:38you that. Well, that’s true, too. Stephanie Spenner 19:40Oh, yeah. They basically gave me a verbal offer. And I like I moved to Chicago 10 days later. And I like wow, the developers of the building that I worked for, I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to tell you guys this and they were like Stephanie like, you are Chicago you have to move this is 100% You like go freak release like we got, you will figure it out. And it was like the best decision I ever made like, and one of my favorite quotes goes along with being proactive is like jump at opportunities as quickly as you do at conclusions. D.J. Paris 20:15Oh, that’s I love that. I Stephanie Spenner 20:18love to jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions and I jumped, jump, jump, jump, jump, and Mark, he was the best decision I ever made. I, we started up, we started pre leasing marquee in February of 20. March of 2016, we opened in June of 2016, I was the leasing manager, and I released up the building and we’ve leased 690 apartments in 13 months. And I rented like 250 of those. And that is truly why I see so much value in rentals from me writing the checks for these brokers who are bringing clients in to me also seeing that I hit a ceiling and I can’t just want to be leased out marquee there was no other big building that I was gonna like that was going to be a challenging enough. And I was like, oh, like I want to be on this guy’s team, like this top producer at marquee had just left his big brokerage to start his own thing and or just to be an independent contractor and get 100% Commission and I was like, I want to be on your team. I want to build your brokerage, like let’s do this. And so him and I built epic Chicago, which he still has now. And we focus only on rentals. And we worked on a WeWork offices, I built the whole brand whole business for brokerage and I hit a ceiling with with that. team that was the brokerage that I built, I hit a ceiling there. And that’s when I came with like one other agent from that team over to compass and realize that like compasses exactly what I needed to help like, boost me up and because they truly like collaborate without ego and dream big together. And those are like all their principles of Compass directly aligned with the principles I wanted for my business. And the first day I started at Compass, I had like, my first sale opportunity. And I still had no idea what I was doing. I had my broker’s license for two years, my previous business partner did not help me at all of a sales, he barely knew sales, but he kept faking it till he makes it and he couldn’t teach me any of it because he was still faking it. And I came to campus and like, within the first month, I close my first sale, because people, all these other top producers helped me. And then they I helped them when they had these rental things and these rental questions. So that’s like, that’s really like my full story. And I, I just I love rentals, so much. I love rentals so much. And I happen to get into sales, because my renters want to buy. And, and I that’s fun, too. It’s just nowhere near as fun, it’s nowhere near as satisfying. And I just I will always do rentals, and I and I have like big plans for the city to change things. And I truly believe that when developers see that they should separate the leasing activity from property management is when they’re going to see the ultimate the ultimate efficiencies, the ultimate maximization of rents. Decreasing a vacancy is when you separate leasing from property management, property management should be taking care of the current residents and making sure they’re happy and making sure the building is maintained. Leasing should be handled by brokers bringing in new clients, I can be showing the property any hour of the day. And like But notice, I’m late to this meeting with you today because I had to meet with another agent on site. Because that property doesn’t do self guided tours, which 90% of them do for me and my team, which means I scheduled a tour and I say I’m bringing I’m coming through with my client, they say the doors are open stuff come on through and they like let me take my client around on my own. I’m in and out in 20 minutes while that broke their leasing agent who works on site, who’s paid salary plus commission, if they close that deal, can be taking out another client while I’m taking out my client and now both of us can be closing a deal at the same time. And but that’s really a big point I wanted to say today too, is just like I really I my big goal that I’ve always had since I started epic, my last brokerage and what is about to start happening, I know and see it and I feel it it’s already happening because of the efforts that me and my team are doing is separating that leasing from management. And I truly think that’s why mark key block 37 that I was part of the lease up. I truly think that’s like the number one reason why we were the most successful. I mean, we were in newspaper or newspaper articles for like breaking records of leasing a property the fastest ever in history, especially in 2016 and nobody. People didn’t live in the loop yet. It wasn’t like a popular place. Olivia, and we made it fun so, and I think we were so successful because my mentor at the time who was the property manager of marquee Jennifer saw Seto like, powerhouse queen. She knew that cuz she went when she did every lease up in Chicago, she knew to separate property management from leasing. I was a leasing manager, I handled all leasing, I had my three leasing agents and me anything, any single leasing question went through me, I approved all the leases, I approved everything, I set up promotions, like the promotions and concessions and stuff. And Property Management handled any current resident complaints, they handled the movements of the current resident of the residents that we just closed, and everything. And it was just, it was seamless, it was seamless. D.J. Paris 25:48Okay, it’s what I what I love about about your business. And the way you approach it is you have a plan, you have intuition, which I believe is one of your guiding North Stars is your intuition. Because you have really good well, you have the ability to really pay attention to your intuition. Like you’ve already said it a couple times, hey, I moved to Chicago on intuition really, I saw a building I applied, I got a job. And then now you’re like, I’m changing leasing here in Chicago, here’s what I’m doing, I know that this is going to happen. Right. And and you actually get results that way. And I think that’s a really important thing is, you know, it’s sort of a more of an ethereal kind of non tangible thing, but like paying attention to what’s going on inside of us. Sometimes there’s wisdom there and knowledge that we can’t totally comprehend. Like you said, I really had no business moving to Chicago, I really shouldn’t have been here, when I saw this building, and I just knew I need to be there. And and then you, you know, you, you jumped at the opportunity, as you said, and all of a sudden, here you are now all these years later, a total superstar. Um, I want to talk about social media, and how it can be used to for lead generation. Because, again, we talked about this a lot on our podcast, but I think what you’ve done with your YouTube channels, has been really, really inspiring and interesting. And can you talk a little bit about how you think about social media and how you utilize that for, you know, engagement? And also lead? Gen. Stephanie Spenner 27:22Yeah, I think what’s really cool about real estate is that there’s like, really not too many rules, and especially as an independent contractor, meaning like, marketing, like you can literally be thinking outside the box, like so far outside, and like there’s just no end to it. And so like, and I just don’t think a lot of people think that way. And I don’t think a lot of brokers think that way, and they just start like postcard newsletter, cold calling networking, referrals. How can you get referrals, if you don’t frickin have any of the other things like, you know, how can you? Who are you mailing a postcard to? Who are you sending a newsletter to? Where do you start before that, like, how do you get your first lead. And I know that a lot of brokers, like myself, were taught to get a lead the wrong way. They’re taught to post a fake listing or a different address, and then oh, that person calls them and oh, now I have my first lead. And now that leads gonna give me a referral and I’m just gonna boom, boom, boom, boom, and I was like, Holy shit, I just like left my full time, like on site leasing agent manager position to be an independent broker to like, this is how we get leads. Like, we’re gonna post fake ads on Craigslist. And I’m like, I like literally, within days, I was just like, holy shit, no, and I went to Facebook, and I would just want to fake it. Like, I’m not even, I’m on Facebook. I do not use it at all. It’s a different demographic for me. And I think for a lot of people, it’s like, oh, I stay in touch with my parents, whatever. But I at that time, like five years ago, I was I went on Facebook, and I went into different groups. And I was like, Oh, shit, like new to Chicago, like, Polish people new to Chicago, or like, Chicago meetups or like, roommates looking for roommates, or sublets. And I would literally just like read them and be like, This girl will be like, I’m looking for a roommate, my budgets 1400. And I’m like, Girl, I can get you a studio on your own for 1400 Boom, she calls me I literally close her in a virtual tour like the next day. And to this day, she’s my client rented from me three times and you know her she’s ready to buy now. And she’s uh, you know that she’s a cold lead the second she’s a renter, and then she’s a warm lead, you know, the second time she rents from me again and then when she order the or the second time, she sends in her job form, which is like what we use to collect the leads. So even if it’s a previous client, and they’re like, hey, step. If you remember me, I You helped me with my place last year and like, of course, I remember you here complete the form again with your new criteria. And they’re like my budget seven grand and I’m like, You Why aren’t you buying something? I’m like, How long do you plan on Being in Chicago, you know, and then like, maybe five years, it could be longer. I’m like, let’s talk about buying. Literally a week later, we’re under contract for something. So I’m digressing. I’m bopping around here. But this is just who I am. I can’t like, it’s very hard for me to like, I have so much to say all the time. But, but that’s how I got started. I just I went through Facebook, and I started like just getting leads through Facebook market groups. D.J. Paris 30:27Yeah. And that’s something that I noticed, like I live in Wicker Park and which is a neighborhood here in Chicago for our listeners who aren’t familiar. And there’s a Wicker Park community group or page or whatever it is, and people are constantly posting, hey, I’m looking for a hairstylist, or I need a house cleaner, or someone know the goods, best sushi place or whatever. And at least once every couple of days was like, Hey, I’m thinking I want to move to Wicker Park, but I don’t really know what’s available. And I am shocked at how few responses that come back. If I was a realtor, I would be finding my local group for wherever I live, and work or service, and I would be a real serious presence in that Facebook group making sure I’m providing great content. And then you know, and that’s, that’s what you did. And And now, you know, Craigslist, whereas agents, what they used to do, as Stephanie was saying earlier, many, many years ago was, hey, we’re going to post ads on Facebook or Craigslist, rather, we’re going to hope people reply, and then we’re going to try but you know, when people reply to one Craigslist ad, they reply to like five. And so all of a sudden, you’re now competing with four other agents, you don’t even know. And it just gets really, really messy. Whereas well, Stephanie Spenner 31:37you’re saying Go ahead. Yeah, I will say too, though, like, you know, I didn’t just go to the groups and start messaging people out of the blue. So part is that, that I want people to take away from it. This is what I do is I start posting about real estate, I have a sick ass video. At that time, it was still photos of model units from the property, probably pixelated, probably, like just absolutely no personality. Maybe some had furniture in them, maybe some didn’t. And I just posted static photos, and I’d be like River North two beds, under 3000 or whatever. And then so I people so that if I’m messaging someone, and they’re like, Who is this bitch, they go to my profile and say, Oh, she does real estate? Yeah, oh, maybe I maybe Oh, my lease is up soon. Your lease is always up soon, like, you know, so, like, put it out there and like you have to be putting it out there of like how you can help people so that they know that they can DM you that they can message you. I also I also do want to throw it out there. I guess this is like not important, but it is but like you have to put what brokerage you work with on your social platforms, it is illegal to not do that. You cannot say real estate broker and not have your brokerage listed. So it’s just funny because we have a lot of eyes on us being a social media influencing team. So we get like, it’s like we do one one video I said my services are free. The properties pay me to bring them renters you never do. Boom, tick. You said free can’t say free. Damn. Like I knew that. How did I say that? Like I had to take down the video on YouTube already had like 2000 views in two days, take it down, clip that out, put it back up. So it’s like, to me it’s very and not just because of that. But like, it is ingrained in my brain that in my heart and my soul that like you have to be ethical ethics is the most important thing. Your reputation is everything going above and beyond for every single client every single time no matter who they are, what their budget is, and what you’re getting paid is the most important thing. And that’s why it’s super important. And that’s where my team is called Maven and not Stephanie Spenard. CO Maven is an expert to kind of sewer in your field. I am very hands on with my training with my agents to and I do not take on the next group of agents until my first those new mavens are actually mavens, and they feel like mavens, and we have one on one to say, you know, how are you feeling? And we look at their numbers quarterly. And you know, we’re not like other teams were like, Oh, you didn’t do this. So your one strike for you or like, I know, I’ve heard that some teams say if you don’t get your invoices in like the same day that you do them or within the week that you do them, then that’s a strike and once you get three strikes, you’re out like if somebody can’t get their invoices in that quickly, it’s because they’re fucking crushing it and you’re gonna kick them off the team like, I’m sorry, like, take you know, let me get an invoice coordinator for you to help you take this little thing off your plate that can be maximizing your efficiency of like getting more clients, D.J. Paris 34:49it because the same skill that’s good at closing homes, apartments, whatever is not the same skill that’s good at paperwork necessarily. Right. Those are two totally one skill sets. And by the way one can, one can be outsourced. And one is, you’ll can’t. Awesome. Oh, you know, this is a good time to do a quick sponsor read. So bear with me we love our sponsors. So we want to talk really quickly a moment for a moment about our favorite sponsor, which is called follow up boss now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for my podcast, you know, what’s that CRM is used by more than any of our guests. It’s actually follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level, Stephanie can talk about that too. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time with less effort. Don’t take my word for it, though. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States uses his follow up boss. And he’s 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. And here’s the best part. They have a seven day a week support. We know real estate happens nights and weekends. So you’re going to get the help 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 completely risk free, but only at this special link, I want you to visit everyone visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now we’ll back to Stephanie, Stephanie, I would love let’s talk about your videos, because this is another I mean, you do so many things. Well, actually, before we get to videos, I’m sorry, let’s go. Let’s go back one step, I want to just set the table for why leasing is a great entry point for any aid, especially right now, when we have a little inventory for sales pretty much all over the country, we’re dealing with inventory issues, the Fed just raised rates, again, 75 basis points today, which I think mortgage rates have already been impacted. So that’s not a big deal for interest rates. But it’s a sign that, you know, buyers are going to be pulling back a bit. So we have a lot of opportunity here on the rental side, I am curious to hear about what your thoughts are with respect to y. Well, first of all, I also want to mention, you are incredibly passionate about rentals, regardless of the conditions of the market. This is your thing. And that I think in and of itself is a really important thing for agents and our listeners to understand is find your niche. Stephanie has found hers and she does her team do a million things. But I would love to just talk a little bit about the opportunity that so many agents Miss around rentals, number one, by the way, and I want to just make this point and then I’m gonna let you fill in the rest of the gaps, you can actually make a really good living just doing rentals. And most in some markets obviously not if you’re in you know, rural Illinois, here we’re in Chicago, there’s a lot more opportunity here in the city. But if I was in Peoria where it’s where I grew up, that would be much more difficult to do but not impossible. But I’m curious, because a lot of our listeners probably haven’t ever done a rental. So can you tell us a little bit about you know why you see that it’s such a great opportunity for agents. Stephanie Spenner 38:36There’s so many things, I don’t know where to start. I really don’t know where to start. Kind of tying things together with in my first year as an independent contractor, leasing agent, after Marquis, like when I started my first brokerage with my partner at the time learning to post fake listings show and then going into Facebook groups, not having a full blown social media like Instagram that I do today. And by the D.J. Paris 39:07way, you really didn’t have a sphere of influence of any. I mean, you were here, you were working at a building, but you’re not from here. It’s not like all your friends live here. In fact, most of your most of the people you grew up with, I’m assuming are in Wisconsin, or maybe they’ve moved elsewhere. But it’s not like you’re like oh, I just you know, all my buddies needed apartments. And so I helped them out. Right, you had to find your own leads. But anyway, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, Stephanie Spenner 39:31yeah, and that’s exactly it. So like I’m that first year of like, finding all my own leads and figuring out like my own lead generation, tactics like and that’s where like when I have new agents that want to join my team or just want to get into real estate in general, I’m like, your number one job as a broker as a lead generate leads to get leads, how are you going to get leads, you know, and that’s what I asked myself and my first year I closed 96 rentals. D.J. Paris 39:56Okay, let’s pause and because I want everyone to take a breath In her first year, she closed 96 rentals that’s a rental every three days or so. So every three days, including the weekends, you were closing a rental with virtually no sphere of influence, very small sphere of influence, right? Because you’re new to the city. This is possible. And if we think about, and we’re most of these non MLS properties, okay, so for everyone listening, yes, yes. Okay, so Stephanie has a big smile on her face. And the reason why she has a big smile on her face is here in Chicago. And in many other markets, we have what are called, well, I don’t know what they’re technically called, I call them non MLS rentals, meaning they don’t show up on the MLS, when these properties are trying to rent out their their available units, but they still work with brokers or in Illinois, all realtors are called brokers. So realtors, they work with realtors, and they usually pay one month’s rent, sometimes more, sometimes less. But typically around one month’s rent. So if you are and there’s no listing agent, because it’s not on the MLS, so you are getting, you know, 100% of one month’s rent, as opposed to splitting it with the listing agent, because there isn’t one. So this is we’re talking Stephanie Spenner 41:13close, if you close, closer, and if you don’t, then you don’t get paid. So, you know, it’s a it’s a it’s a you have to figure out that game and how D.J. Paris 41:24it’s the most fair deal ever, because you’re either getting paid or you’re not. And it’s all up to you. But the opportunity is there. And that’s that’s what you have really seized. So yeah, let’s let’s talk Stephanie Spenner 41:36about with that said like the reason i So with those 96 rentals and majority of them not being on the MLS, there’s no way to track that if you if someone is trying to scout me, they’re not looking at me as a top producer. You can’t see my numbers like that anywhere. If you looked at my numbers on the MLS, you’d be like, how is this like, this is a joke, like, none of my numbers are on the MLS. So when I had the opportunity to talk to compass and potentially join compass, they, at this time, three years ago, they were hard and they still are, but you had to like be vetted by two agents to even talk to them, then you had to have like five rounds of interviews with them, you had to prove your numbers show your numbers show why your team players show this and that. And then you had to be vetted by like, once they thought you were good, then you had to have, they would call two random agents that you said you knew at Compass. And they would have to say something good about you. And but they compass won’t even at that point, I don’t know how it is now. But at that point, compass won’t even talk to you unless you’re like a top producer, unless you had x number of sales. And so my 96 rentals. In D.J. Paris 42:40my career translate really, you had to sort of Yeah, it Stephanie Spenner 42:43didn’t translate directly. But I had I showed them a translation, which was over $10 million in sales. If you break it down, D.J. Paris 42:52I believe. This is what’s so amazing about this is Stephanie flew really under the radar. Because those transactions weren’t on the MLS. They weren’t really public knowledge. But she was crushing a deal a rental every three days. All of a sudden, she now gets to bring that to a company like compass, which is taking over everywhere, and saying, Hey, guys, I know you don’t know that I’m a top producer. But here’s what I do. And oh, by the way, these are people renting pretty luxurious properties they’re going to be buying soon. So it’s a total no brainer. And I just I’m always shocked that I mean, maybe look, maybe if you’re lucky, and you get your license, and then all your friends are like, hey, I need to buy a million dollar condo. Maybe there are people that are fit into that category that are just kind of lucky. You are not that lucky. I am not that lucky. You have built everything up by starting the relationship as early as possible via renting, and then staying in touch with that person. And then oh, yeah, by the way, let’s talk about sales. So I just think it’s really but let’s I mean, 96 rentals in a year is exceptional. And it’s a pretty darn good living to write. So even though you’re a broker, you have this license, you’re not doing many sales, because you’re just doing rentals. Boy, what a wonderful career just then. And it only goes up from there because now these people are going to be rolling over every 12 months, maybe moving to another property, maybe they’ll keep renting or maybe make the transition to homeownership. I have a quick, quick question for you. And I’m sorry, I’m cutting Stephanie off and I apologize. Two quick, two things I want to go through before we before we get to the very, very end because I could have you on every single week because you have so much to say. And I love everything that you say. I want to talk about what the role of social media in in your business, and what suggestions you have for agents that are thinking about you know, maybe I should add rentals into my practice this year. Maybe that’s a good idea. So anyway, I’ll let you Stephanie Spenner 44:58so I think like That is that is part of the reason why I started my YouTube channel is because I realized not enough people, not just Chicago, mainly outside of Chicago did not realize that you could call a broker, and they will help you find an apartment for free. Yeah. And so that’s why i That’s why I got so into social media because I was like, I can tell so many people that I can help them and they’re not paying me the properties or paying me to bring them renters, you’re never paying me. And like a lot of people can just say that. But it’s like, how can you say it powerfully, consistently and clear and concise so that the client like I can say all I can literally say it five times in one conversation, that my services are free to the client, and that client will still go and like, call the building without me or walk into the building without me or call another broker. Or like I, you have to, like find the right way to communicate. So that it’s very, very clear to your audience, what you do and how you can help them and that you can call me any, like, don’t hesitate to DM me, text me Call me. Nothing. And so that’s leads into social media where like, I no matter what, if you’re doing rentals or sales, you know, don’t just don’t be afraid like be don’t be afraid to show your face don’t be afraid to be authentic. Stop thinking about what your friends back home and the state that you moved from, that aren’t doing shit with their life or thinking about you. Because they don’t care. And and what are they doing? Like, just try something new, do something different. And that’s when you’re gonna see like big like, with big risks come big rewards. And I can’t believe that I almost didn’t do live shy because I was thinking about are people gonna think I’m too hot shit that I’m too full of myself for like, what are people going to? What’s their impression going to be that I’m putting this out there? Like, I’m the rental queen? I’m the rental expert, like, but I’m like, why am I doubting that? Like, I know that I know, rentals, especially professionally managed buildings better than anyone else i in Chicago, like, you know, I know that. And so with with COVID when COVID hit, like there was for me, there was me and my team. Like, and I have never said this any other time. But when we’re candid on an interview, like I wasn’t worried at all. My team was not worried at all. We had no hiccups whatsoever. There was one day where like, it was March 6, march 15. I took a client to a property the next day they said we aren’t offering on site tours anymore any buildings. One half day, we’re like shit, what are we gonna do? Boom, next day, we’re doing virtual tours. And we have it all down pat, we have all the videos on our phone already have all the stuff. We know exactly how to build a rapport with the client, have them trust you right here virtually within minutes, and have them closing with you. Like literally signing an apartment with you virtually right here. I’ve had five deals within the last 12 months, where people have bought from me virtually completely D.J. Paris 48:06purchased without ever seeing without or without ever seeing Stephanie Spenner 48:09the property. Some of them have never been to Chicago, and none of them were renters of mine before. So these were like either YouTube leads, like social media leads, maybe referrals. But these people are crazy to me that you would buy something completely virtually. But like I you know, I did multiple things sent to her sent multiple videos. So yeah, I just I think there’s a really power power for rentals, because there’s like people are always always always gonna be looking to rent, weather, no matter what their budget is. And buildings, the buildings do come and go like some buildings will be paying one month’s rent one month, the next month, they aren’t working with brokers. So that’s where you really have to pay attention to the market to and also build the rapid like I always say to my team, like your client is not just the renter your client is the property manager is the leasing agent that you’re working with on site, it is the doorman because all those people matter, those people are going to squeeze you in on a Saturday on during the summer when there’s so busy because they know you’re going to close the deal. D.J. Paris 49:07How important is it with respect to leasing that the broker or the realtor? Well, I should say the realtor knows the inventory in and out how important is it for you to be the knowledge source of you know, you can’t know everything about every building. But tell me about that. Stephanie Spenner 49:27So for me, I would say like, like kind of prior to COVID I would say it was like less as important. Like just to know just the general stuff about the buildings. It’s good enough now because like with COVID and because we do things virtually like a lot more virtually, and we don’t like it’s kind of like 5050 like 5050 people want to tour in person if it’d be fun here like I’m doing everything virtual and they’ll put it right on their job form their rent their like lead form that comes through it. They’ll say how do you want to tour in person or virtual and they’ll say virtual and so D.J. Paris 50:02So you have to be really knowledgeable about the inventory, because because they’re coming to you to say, hey, help me figure out the right fit. And you don’t want to be touring the building at the same time they’re touring the building meeting for the first time, right? Like your team, you you pre tour buildings, you guys go in, you know exactly what because, again, Stephanie, really, and I shouldn’t put words in your mouth. But my assumption is, you want people to come to you with all questions, right? You, you guys are the knowledge source? Stephanie Spenner 50:36Yes, absolutely. And that’s what I literally on my discovery call with the client. Initially, I say, I know all the buildings like the back of my hand, from Uptown to South Loop street, or build to Logan Square, that’s north to south east to west everywhere you want to be I know, every single building like back in my hand, I can tell you that carpet in the bedroom, I can tell if it was recently renovated, I can tell you, like if it has a electric range or gas range. And that helps me help them like weed things out right away. And now I’ve narrowed it down to two buildings out of 203 100 400 buildings. And I’m like, this is the only building you need to see. And then on top of that, I think the biggest value that I add is knowing every single question that they are going to ask the onsite team and or that the onsite team doesn’t even know. So there’s things that I tell people. So for example, I have I have a client that’s looking to move in September, and they’re like, oh, is the price is is it going to get better. And I’m like, Look, what we can do is you can apply today for your favor, like, we’re gonna go to her four buildings, you’re gonna say, This is my favorite building, this is my favorite unit, you’re gonna apply for that unit, and you’re gonna sign the lease today for September 1, now, you’re going to stock the website. And if something else opens up in that building, before the lease starts, you can switch to any unit in the building with no penalties or fees, as long as you qualify for the unit. And as long as it’s, you give them enough notice to have the apartment ready for you to move in. But little things like that. And like most buildings will do that. I don’t know any building that doesn’t do that. So it just gives them peace of mind that they locked in their favorite building, and their favorite unit. But then if something else better opens up, or like better price better, bigger and or their budget changes in a month, they’re like waiting for a promotion to come through, boom, they can switch before the lease starts. And, and that’s what I did with my place. And I manifested this penthouse for during COVID that like I signed, I applied here four months before my lease was up. And I signed a different lease. And I stalked the website every day and manifested like the unit that I’m in now. So and that’s what I tell people like and I tell these stories, and I know like, and I tell them to like ask, I’m like, when I wrap up the call I go this is how it’s going to work. I explained the process from start to finish. So they know when I’m starting and when I’m going to be handing it off to like when the building takes over. And so they know literally everything and I say D.J. Paris 52:51well, we’re talking about what we’re talking about are systems, and you have a really impressive system. And you have this information, that you have so much information that nobody that your clients and your prospects don’t have to go outside of your world to get answers is kind of what exactly, Stephanie Spenner 53:13yep. And so at the end of that call, I say, I’m going to send you a handful of options and check all the boxes go through those. I can always send you more based on your feedback, then we’re going to come up with your top favorite options, I will schedule the tours to go see all of your favorites. And then from there, you’re going to apply for one, this is how the application process works. I literally walk them through all of that. And then I explain that you can take if you have a quick question, you can text me anytime. If you have a bunch of questions, just write them down. And we’ll hop on a quick call and go through them together. So then when I send you options, if you want to hop on a quick call and talk through your feedback, so we can talk through, like what I sent you together and help sort through your top favorites together and we’ll narrow it down and come up with a game plan together. And I think that’s a huge takeaway is like so many people are afraid to pick up the phone. And like if a client’s texting you and they’re upset about something they’re like, oh, like I didn’t get the lease yet. Or like what’s going on over here. They said they don’t have parking like yesterday clients like what the hell they have a waitlist for parking for a year, and I just signed a lease, like I need parking by August 1. I am not going to sit there and text him or book back like no just fucking pick up the phone and call them. And as I promised you it’s easier and like every time you’re going to be able to communicate all the points better if you can just pick up the phone and call them. So that just leads right into like me and my team. So like I like with social media and with the knowledge that I have. So social media is very powerful beyond just a lead generator for literally rental people that are looking for rentals or people that are looking to buy. It’s also it shows directly my business culture and how I work and how and what I know so every person on my team has come to me has been proactive. Had DM me has messaged me and has come to the YPN breakfast and talk to me after with a line out there. Doors and I want to join your team. And they have the balls to do that, you know, so I’m giving you a chance, I’m going to meet with you for 20 minutes at least if you reach out and say, I want to join your team, I’m gonna give you that 20 minutes, even if I know you’re totally not the right fit, because I want to let them know that they need to do this again and to not lose that like, you know, and so that’s how every like social media literally so my partner Kira Kira button, she is a absolute powerhouse. She has 24,000 subscribers on YouTube. Okay, we met a bout a year and a half ago, she randomly DM me on Instagram and said, You look amazing. Like you, I want you to be my leasing agent. I actually am a leasing agent. I saw you because I do the social media management for Alta Grand Central, and you’re all over their social media, blah, blah. And I’m like, I’m confused. You’re a leasing agent, like why do you want me to be your agent then? And I like Googled her name, and Kira and YouTube 20 4000s of followers. Before I even responded, I said want to meet for coffee tomorrow. Like, if you’re a leasing agent, and you’re asking me, for me to be your leasing agent, then you clearly are like not happy with your leasing agent role. And if you have 24,000 subscribers and you had the personality to DM me, like I want to talk to you. And literally she joined my team the next day, she was with another brokerage for three months had no idea what she’s doing did not know that she could show the building that she even lived in, which was the professionally managed building, didn’t know she get paid on those deals. She was had no idea what she was doing at the other brokerage because she was not on a team. She said, Hey, how do I pull availability for this and they said ask the CEO of the company ask the managing broker. And she didn’t close the deal. She almost gave up for four months, she joined my team. And after the first day like she joined my team, the first day we met, she closed the deal two days later, her first her first rental. And in her first year she closed 192 rentals, ah and I could literally like cry. Because that just is like it just so for me as a leader. Because I and now she’s I’ve made her a partner of my team, because we are better together. And we have the same type of like, and now we’ve created her YouTube channel to turn more into luxury versus like her niche before was the studio living. And so a lot of her leads were that but anyways, I she called 192 rentals, one because she did everything I told her to do. And she was consistent about it. And she just literally like wanted to be like me so bad. She saw what I like it’s like, and on top of that COVID. So not like she probably would have done at least 100 deals. But because of COVID She could close exponentially more than I could in my first year because of video tours. She has closed five tours right here in one hour. Right. And it would take me five days to do that. You know what I mean? On top of that, we have compass. So compass is great, where we have so many leads that our team, our team of 13 agents can’t take all them. So then if like when we can’t take them, then we overflow them. And we have this system set up. So like if somebody on my team doesn’t pick up the lead, then automatically like then my assistant pushes that out to this group of like 50 Other compass agents that are like rookies and other people’s teams that are hungry for these leads. And then we get the referrals off that. And then also I’m like all my agents on my team. I’m like, if even if you don’t want to do sales, get your broker’s license so that when your renters turn your buyers, you can at least get paid on the referral. And then we have people that we just like pay to do showings for us. So I’m like, okay, like, I like I’m going to do all the work for this. And I’m going to like put all these options together, I’m going to set up all the tours, I can’t take four people out today, I’m going to take these two that I need to see face to face. And I’m going to set up the tours for the other 2am I have another agent like another outside of my team because my team is busy better off spending their hourly rate is like $1,000 minimum. Whereas I can send it out to another rookie compass agent for $25 for showing like D.J. Paris 59:05yeah, it’s it’s it’s really incredible the systems that that you have built and I’m curious too, on how often the relationship transitions from renting to buying I mean it takes years right like I I know people that focused on leasing for like the first two or three years of their business. And then a lot of those people end up transitioning into buyers. What is what is your process to help transition people from renting to buying? Stephanie Spenner 59:37I think my biggest thing is that I’m just like super chill about it. Like I look especially because I really don’t care if you like rent again or buy again or like whatever and I think that’s why people feel so comfortable just flooding in the like questions and like and and sending me people like oh, I don’t know if you do this, but you told me anytime like And it might be Schomburg I do not do Schomburg but I can connect with an agent and Schomburg and I’m gonna get paid a referral on that deal. Absolute freakin loosely and everyone knows that I am with Compass and that I, I tell everyone I meet like I can connect you with an expert in any market and like I just I have a buyer under contract right now single new construction, my first new construction deal that is currently being built and that buyer of mine was my I rent it to him at marquee when I worked at marquee. He was my one of my first rentals. And then he then he lived at marquee for three or four years. Then he saw I was an independent broker he reached out I rented to him again at a different property in west loop. Then he’s like Steph, I’m ready to buy now we’re now we’re under contract for a place in Logan squares, new construction single family home. But right in between that he said I want to buy but we need to sell my wife’s house and Nashville, literally in a second connected in with a Nashville agent that agents sold their house in a week. And I made five grand for 25% referral doing nothing. Right. And that just is like the full cycle right there. That’s the full frickin cycle. So yes, like, just really quick touching back like yes, I I was new to Chicago, I did not have this fear that a lot of people do or that that should have had to have nine six rentals in their first year. But I do want to say I worked every single relationship that I had at marquee, like we met CITM the developers we met power the construction team. We met SCP the design team I am I sold a condo to Chiara Santini, who was our interior designer, SCB, who now has their own company like four years later, I am very good friends with the Executive Engineer of power construction, who has gotten me into one Chicago when the glass wasn’t even on the 71st floor. Yeah, I saw that building. Like before any other broker saw that building? I saw as it’s not, you know, it’s just like making those relationships with every single person. The door staff is like the most important person, like and people like people treat those people like shit. It’s like, and I was the door staff. I was the package person. I was the frickin janitor. I had to clean people’s apartments out when I evicted them. And I had to evict people. And I had to like the things that we did. And because this is probably one of the last questions, and just because we’re talking about it, just so I don’t forget, because we have so many great real estate stories. But when you get asked the question on the spot, I go blank. And so I’m like coming up, I’m trying to make notes to remember like, so and, and most of my stories are in property management. They’re like not even like in this side. But one of my favorites is when I was still in Wisconsin, and I managed that first building in the premier property. And there are some resident columns that hey, somebody’s parked in my parking space we had, we had an outdoor lot that was gated within the building that we had a parking garage. And I was like, Okay, let me go check it out. I go out there. And there’s like people standing outside of the car, and they’re like, just shooting the shit outside their car. And I’m like, Hi there. I’m like, I’m sorry, do do live here as it’s your space and like, no. And I was like, Okay, I’m so sorry. Would you mind like moving your car, like somebody pays for the spot, and she just gets all over my face. And she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, and she’s coming at me trying to bite me. And she’s like, screaming at me telling me I don’t even live here. I don’t even live here. And I’m like, That’s my point. Like, you don’t live here. You know, you’re and we come to find out like so. She had a warrant out multiple warrants out for her arrest for pimping and pandering. Oh, pimping and pandering. In Wisconsin, you can just look up people’s public records. And we found her name because she was a friend of a resident. That’s how she got into the gate. I mean, might not even be my best one. But a pregnant woman tried to find me and she happened to be a pimp, like, Well, that’s all figured Welcome to Wisconsin. D.J. Paris 1:03:55I’m glad I’m glad you’re still with us. That sounds like a dangerous position. But I think you’ve given our listeners really a tremendous amount of value, you know, for everyone out there. As the as the housing market is starting to cool a bit and we’re seeing you know, rates going up and, and of course inventory shrinking, or continuing to shrink, when there’s this huge opportunity in rentals and again, and there’s also a lot of people by the way that are selling their homes that don’t have a place to buy right now. Right to right, that’s huge because inventory. So you know, this is it might even be a reasonable strategy for a lot of sellers right now, to sell their property, rent somewhere for a couple of years, wait till the market readjusts and then come back into the in becoming a homebuyer. So there’s a ton of opportunity out there. Stephanie and her team, they do everything. Obviously they do a lot of rentals. They do a tremendous amount of sales too. And they do everything from Luxury to non luxury, they do everything. But Stephanie is also building this team. She has what 13 agents or I guess maybe even, she was telling me just before we started, she’s like, I’m bringing out a couple of new people this really excited. So her team is growing. And I know we have a lot of our listeners are local here in Chicago. So if there is anyone out there who’s like, I like what Stephanie is saying, I want that kind of career, I want to learn about Maven, and compass. And Stephanie, and what she’s done. And by the way, my, we were just talking offline, my girlfriend actually works at a building where Stephanie used to live. And so I’m excited to introduce my girlfriend to you, because you’re going to be interacting with my girlfriend, I’m sure at she’s a leasing agent at this other building. But if anyone out there is like, oh my god, I got to talk to Stephanie, I want to learn these secrets of how to build my business. Or maybe that she might, they might even be a good fit, like you were saying, for your team, what’s the best way someone should reach out to you? Stephanie Spenner 1:06:00I would say like DM me on Instagram, that’s probably just the easiest way to find me. I mean, it’s not, you know, Stephanie spinner, that I have three different social media pages, like separately, spinners, my direct page, I manage that page. Then there’s Maven underscore compass, which is my team page. And we have a social media manager that manages that page. And then I have live shy.tv, which is my brand, and my YouTube channel, the show live shy.tv. And that’s another Instagram page that another I have another social media manager that manages that. And so you can email me Stephanie dots mentor@compass.com, or DM me on Instagram, or any which way you want, go to live shy.tv. And you can find my cell phone number on there, that website is more so for renters and leads. So I tell my leads to go there, they can fill out the form to tour with me. And yeah, check out the any new agents. And if you do want to get into rentals, my channel will also help you to learn about the building. So when I met all my new agents, I tell them go see three new properties a week. And if you don’t know, like and watch all my YouTube episodes so that you can learn those buildings and then go see the other ones that are not on there. And now you’re going to start knowing a lot to be able to talk about with your clients even if you’ve never been to the building. D.J. Paris 1:07:27And just one last quick question. How often do you receive leads from these videos you’ve put out on YouTube about these buildings? Stephanie Spenner 1:07:38Minimum we get about 30 leads a month like minimum that that’s quality leads. I mean, these are like big budget leads Kyra just to like as a nother note, she gets about 200 leads from her YouTube channel that we pass around the team now hers are inching up to be more like, because she focused on studio small living. And so where that’s kind of the difference, but yeah, that’s kind of handle that kind of handle both? Yeah, no, yeah, that’s really cool. Because she her background is actually in influencing. So she’s like an influencer. And that’s why she was got into real estate because she was doing influencing marketing for another property. And so now, now that we have like, I mean, my team is exactly how I want it to be this is everything I’ve ever dreamed of this is like, it’s perfect. And it will continue to grow how it should. And it’s I truly think that her and I together are exactly alike. It’s everything I have ever wanted. And now we are social media. Now we are real estate influencers. We’re not just real estate brokers, we’re real estate influencers, and whether you’re actually good at social media or not. I think we as brokers are influencers and if you think about that, like we truly are guiding our clients and telling them, which, you know, I always say like, I’m your broker. It’s like being your best friend. And sometimes I’m going to know you better than you know yourself. You might think you want this but I’m I’m gonna I know you want this, you know? D.J. Paris 1:09:18Yeah, it’s, it’s so it’s so important. I just I love your energy. I love the fact that you have just really dug in to your business and you’re so passionate and excited. And it’s just It’s infectious. And so Stephanie spent her we are so thrilled that you spent an hour with us on the show and we will let you get back to your crazy, busy, busy, busy and productive team. But before we do I want to just ask everyone to do one quick thing. Please tell one friend about this episode. Think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great interview in conversation with Stephanie and send them a link to our show, you can visit our website at keeping it real pod.com On every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from their orbs pull the podcast app search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. I’m sorry, one more thing we’ll ask, please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. Whatever podcast app you might be listening on. Let us know what you think good and bad. We want to hear because the show is for you, the audience and we want to continue to improve to make it better. But Stephanie, on behalf of our audience, we want to thank you crushing rentals and sales and just process and doing so much with with social media as well. Everyone, please go visit live shy.tv l i v e ch i.tv. Stephanie also just brought her dog dying to say hi. Oh, that’s very sweet. My dog is dying to go to the bathroom. So I’m going to, but we want to thank everyone and we will see everybody. Next year. Thank you. And by the way, one last thing. If anyone wants to join Stephanie’s team reach out to her. She would love to talk to you as well. So anyway, I will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Steph. Stephanie Spenner 1:11:04Thanks, DJ.

Jen Dillard the founder of Jen Dillard Real Estate Team with Hasson Company goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Jen shares advice on starting/building a team and what she’d advise a newly licensed agent. Jen also discusses what her team is doing to keep active and motivated during these challenging times. Jen talks about open houses and their importance in this market. Last, Jen describes what she expects when interviewing a new potential team member. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Jen Dillard can be reached at (206) 697-0575. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Have you thought about joining a team? Or maybe starting a team? And you’re not quite sure where to start? Or 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. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, and I am your guide and host to do the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with superstar agent Jen Dillard. But before we in fact, here’s what we’re gonna be talking about, aside from how awesome Jen is, we’re gonna be talking a lot about teams today. And if you are a practicing agent, maybe you’re a solo agent, or you’re already on a team, or maybe you are thinking about joining a team or starting a team. We’re going to cover a lot of that today. So we are super excited to talk to Jen. Before we do that. Just a quick reminder, please, the best way you can help us aside from being a great listener like you are, of course right now is by telling another realtor about us. So just think of one other agent in your office. Or if you’re a solo person and you own your own firm. And it’s just you the next agent you meet out there. Tell them about our show. We appreciate it. It’s the way we’ve grown for the last five years. And it seems to be working for us. So we’re super grateful to all of you for continuing to spread the word. So share, tell a friend and also leave us a review whatever app you might be listening to my voice on right now. Let us know what you think of the show. Whether you’re on Apple podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher or Google Play Amazon wherever. Let us know what you think this show we read everything and then we want to get better and continue to improve. So enough for me but we’re going to talk about teams so let’s bring on our amazing superstar guest Jen Dillard. Today on the show our guest is Jen Diller from the Jen Dillard real estate team with the Hassane company in Hood River, Oregon, and the Columbia River Gorge area at the Pacific Northwest right. Let me tell you more about Jen Jen Dillard is a real estate mogul based in Hood River, Oregon. With over 200 million in lifetime sales. She leads a team of 14 agents that sold over $78 million in real estate last year. She runs an in house home staging company and is a busy mom of two. I always heard if you want to get something done give it to a busy mom gentle it is over budget. But she’s also besides that selling and staging are just part of Jen’s story. She’s also committed to sharing what she knows about building a successful team in real estate or any entrepreneurial environment with others especially female leaders and fellow moms. Please check out Jen’s website which is J D R E so Jen Dillard real estate so J D R e team.com. Please also follow their team on Instagram which is J D R E team and also follow Jen herself on Instagram which is Jen Dillard. We are going to have all of those links in our show notes. So you can just head to the show notes. Follow Jen there Jen, welcome to the show. Jen Dillard 4:33Thanks for having me. DJ. I’m so happy to be here. D.J. Paris 4:36Jen is so sweet. We had a plumbing issue at the office where the water was shut off. So everyone left and then I raced over here to do the interview. I was at home this morning. And then Jen and I were just about to start and the power went out. So I’m hopeful that we will get through this without any additional interruptions But Jen has been very patient and we appreciate that skill. in it. So it’s always funny to see sometimes last minute things how it gets gets a little screwy. Just like every sort of every real estate transaction, there’s always a bump in the road to I guess. So this mirrors, a lot of our listeners, you know, average day. But anyway, Jen, I would love to really introduce our audience to you. And I’d love to hear about your journey into real estate. Can you share that with us? Jen Dillard 5:27Absolutely. So I got started in real estate when I was 21 years old. So like two years ago, and I’m just getting I’m 37. So you did the math, but got started in real estate at 21. And got started in as a property manager and real estate and then after that, sold condo conversions in Seattle, and, and worked in the real estate market until about until the 2000 Oh, eight housing crash we all remember so fondly. And so once that happened, I dabbled in real estate, but I kind of shifted my focus a bit. And then fast forward a few years, and I had my two beautiful children. And when my daughter who’s my second child when she was about six months old, I said to my husband, you know, I really want to get back to work. You know, want to do something that fills my bucket and gets me excited and passionate again. And he’s like, Well, what was that? When was the last time you felt that passion and drive. And I said real estate. I just missed it so much. And so I got went back full force. That’s when I really took off, I got back into real estate I joined an independent brokerage in the Seattle area and, and then and then fast forward a few years from that I moved to Hood River and started my team. And here I am. D.J. Paris 6:52It for any of our audience that I wasn’t familiar with Hood River. But Oregon is such such an amazing state. It’s one of our most beautiful states, I think. And I come from Illinois, and we don’t have too much beauty here in Illinois. But but the the topography of Oregon is just incredible. But can you tell us a little bit about where Hood River is located for any of our audience that isn’t familiar? Jen Dillard 7:16Yes. So Hood River is located about 45 minutes to an hour east of Portland, Oregon, and about two hours from Bend, Oregon. So we are separated by the Columbia River. So the other side of the river is Washington. And we live on the Oregon side. But we serve as both Oregon and Washington. So most of our Realtors on our team are duly licensed in Oregon and Washington. D.J. Paris 7:40And so just out of curiosity, um, do you have to join two different associations then as well? Whatever the Washington one is and the and the Oregon or are they similar? No, you Jen Dillard 7:50do have to take the Oregon exam and the Washington exam. But you are but it is a reciprocal state. There are reciprocal states. So but no same association. D.J. Paris 8:01Oh, that’s incredible. Because here we are, the moment you join another state least the ones that border Illinois, you gotta join a whole nother Association as well. So one of the one of the other million reasons to maybe move to Hood River. Because oh my goodness, what a beautiful part of the country for anyone that is hasn’t been to Oregon. Just go, just go. But anyway, we’re not here to talk about Oregon, as much as I would love to. But I would love so Jenna in particular, aside from being a top producer, and a total superstar. She has this incredible team and mostly female, right? The vast majority of your team members are women. Which makes sense because most of most more realtors are women than men, of course, in our industry anyway. But you are very passionate about team building. And I think 2022 If nothing else is at least a year of the team. It seems to have been, you know, brewing for some time. And now, all our listeners keep asking me about is let’s talk about teams. So I’m so grateful to have you on. So let’s talk about that. What how do you think about teams because you run a really successful team? How do you think about it? Because you’ve seen there’s so many different ways to structure a team. And of course, you know, we just want to give a lot of great advice to our listeners who are thinking of either starting one or joining one. Jen Dillard 9:27Yeah, so I think that starting a team is a good time to know when to start a team is just really knowing when you’re feeling pushed to like if there’s you are not able to service your clients and you are feeling bogged down by you have too many buyers, too many sellers, you can’t really give everybody that great quality of service. Maybe it’s time to add a team member and so that way you can still provide that great service to and to more people. Another thing that another reason that I grew my team is that I can’t be everywhere. One Surprise, surprise. So there are clients, the Columbia Gorge area is a pretty, you know, good size area. And there are there are people that, you know, there’s areas that are 45 minutes an hour away that I don’t service. So we’ve, we’ve started growing our team that way by finding great agents in those areas and having them still be a part of the team but service all different areas of the gorge. D.J. Paris 10:26Yeah, it makes sense. And I think to what I’ve, what I’ve noticed that teams have started to do in the last few years, and I’m really curious to get your thoughts on it is I think a lot of times agents in the past would go to their firm, for training, support coaching, and, and many firms do provide that and I respect, you know, firms that that can do that. But it put a lot of put a lot of stress on the managing broker, because the managing broker or I’m not sure what they, if they’re called Managing brokers in, in, in Oregon, but here in Illinois, we call the managing brokers, Jen Dillard 11:02principal broker managing broker. Cool, yeah. So I D.J. Paris 11:05think they had to wear a lot of hats, right, they had to recruit agents, they had to take care of the existing agents, and of course, do all the training and coaching. And I think oftentimes, that would just be a lot and all the compliance stuff, too, right. So then, I think these teams have provided this other avenue for agents to really get mentored, get coached, get, get taught by people who are out in the field doing it most managing brokers, at least most of the ones I know, there, too. They’re sitting in offices busy taking care of everything. They’re not always on the front lines working with clients. So I’m curious to get your thoughts about that. Jen Dillard 11:38I think that’s so true DJ, I mean, they’re this market is ever changing. It’s always changing. There’s always something new and exciting, which is what I love about it. But also something that if you’re not in the field, and you’re not part of the change, and and seeing things firsthand and have your finger on the pulse, then how are you supposed to train and to educate, you know, the agents that are working for you on what’s going on, if you’re not actually out there and seeing it firsthand. So I think that’s very true. I love being an active agent. I think I’m out there, I’m working. I’m in the trenches with them. And we talk about it often. And we sit and talk about each scenario and what’s going on, and how can we help each other and collaborate. So D.J. Paris 12:22win win win us? Just sorry, what happened? I don’t know. It’s all right. Yeah, thank you. Jen Dillard 12:33Shake it off. Just jump back back in. Oh, good. D.J. Paris 12:37This is why I need a calming motherly presence. Not that your mother leaves with that you are a mom and your mother. I mean, it is like my take no offense. I am I am I am. I am a rough guy who gets ah, you know, and then Jen Dillard 12:55my team. You’re like, Jen, D.J. Paris 12:57you’re like, This is no big deal. It’s fine. So thank you. We went offline for a brief moment, probably due to the construction that’s going on here in the office. So sorry about that. We are back. Jen. I’m so sorry. Please continue. Jen Dillard 13:11No worries. I think just what I was saying is that we were talking about how being in the trenches and being a part of what’s going on in the market and having your finger on the pulse is an important part of being a mentor and a team leader. D.J. Paris 13:26Yeah, and I think too, that teams are are really a way to expand the services that an individual practitioner just isn’t able to do all by themselves. And if I what the question I was asking when we got disconnected that you probably didn’t hear was if you were starting over fresh today. And obviously there’s this part of you that’s been around for quite some time now. And been successful. Would you tell you the yourself if you were brand new to join a team day one, what would be your advice to the brand newly licensed Jen Dillard? Jen Dillard 14:05I would say join a team right away 100% I think I wish that I had I hadn’t been on a team until I started my own. And I think that for me personally, I’m a team player. I love being around other people. I love feeding off of their energy. I love the camaraderie we have such an amazing culture on our team. And everybody, there’s everybody gets along so well. We love to collaborate. There’s no drama. It’s just, it’s just a fun atmosphere. And everybody works really hard. We have all of our agents are full time agents, and they are all producing agents. And so it makes it really fun and exciting. And it’s I mean, what how great is it to be able to share your successes and share the excitement of it to have a transaction and then also when things don’t go well and being able to commiserate or vent or have a shoulder to cry on. Yeah, so to have all of that. D.J. Paris 14:59So Support, right? Like if nothing else, teams or at least healthy teams can provide a tremendous amount of support. And right now is a time when a lot of agents are wanting support because we know it’s a challenging environment right now, we just had an amazing, while I hate to say the word amazing because of course, COVID was was not amazing in any possible way. But the real estate market had a pretty good couple of years during that time. And now we’re starting to see the pullback a bit rates are going up buyers, you know, the amount they can, their purchase power is has decreased. And inventory is still pretty, pretty low. So this is a time where I think there’s a lot of and we’ve also been kind of hanging out with ourselves for the last couple of years, we’re now slowly starting to reintegrate to have interpersonal communication. But I’m, I think that is, is it’s often understated and probably probably more important than we realize, I suspect because you I saw it in your face, when you said it’s just fun to be around other people who are all working together, there is something to be said for one plus one equals three, right? Like the sum is greater than the than the parts. Can you talk a little bit about how you how that helped get your team through the pandemic? And through some of those trust struggles even today? Jen Dillard 16:25Yes, so we have a group chat that we it’s the JDRF team group chat. And if everybody luckily has an iPhone, so we can name it, because if they had an Android, D.J. Paris 16:37just go green bubbles on the JVR, etc. It’s Jen Dillard 16:39fine. Yes. So we have this group chat, and we stay in, in touch and and contact constantly throughout the day. And just hey, do you have a question? I’ve never had experienced this before. Have you guys ever What do you do in this situation? Just answering questions, or, Hey, I’ve just closed on 123 Banana Street and everyone’s like gay high fives, great job. And it’s so important to have that and to have that support whether you’re in person or not. And so yes, we meet in person we meet once a week, our office is actually pretty active. We have people in the office, a lot of time, I think for a lot of brokerages people aren’t in the office as much as they used to be, but our our team likes to hang out at the office. And so we have that, but just having that constant communication through COVID. And through those times where we felt isolated, but we still had the support of our team, I think was really, really helpful. D.J. Paris 17:36You know, I love that so much the idea of support. Again, it’s it’s not I don’t mean to, to to get stuck on a particular topic. But I think for a lot of our listeners, you know, there so a lot of our listeners are in teams, a lot of them are solo practitioners, too. And, you know, we don’t really need support when everything’s going well, right? When things are going great. It’s a party we’re celebrating, we’re having a good time, where we really need the most support is when things aren’t going well. And I I’d say joining the team, or if you don’t have the ability to do that, or don’t want to do that finding a peer support group where you can do these kinds of things, hey, guys just got a new lead or just had a listing presentation or heading into a buyer consultation, wish me luck. Those are the kinds of things that not everybody wants or needs. But a good percentage of us, really, and I wanted to say one more thing, I read this study, and I have to I don’t have it in front of me, I apologize. But this is for many, many years ago, there was a study that was that really speaks to your group chat, your group text sort of system that you guys have set up that even if you witness to people being kind to each other or supportive of one another, even just the act of witnessing that creates almost the same benefit as the person who’s receiving the support. So you have created this, this hub of constant reinforcement of great job, we’re here for you. We’re together, we’re all in this we’re all a team. And boy, I just have to imagine that really keeps everyone’s spirits up when things are challenging. Jen Dillard 19:12It really does and I think that you can see it in. We’re active on social media and video and all of that. And I think seeing even photos or doing videos together I think you can see and you can feel that we actually as genuine, we have fun. We enjoy being around each other. We work hard. All of it is clear. It’s easy to see that and I think that’s probably why the team has grown. I haven’t recruited once I haven’t called and tried to recruit somebody from another brokerage not because I don’t believe in that but because it I haven’t had two people call me and they say hey, I saw your team looks like so much fun and like the culture seems so amazing. I’d love to join the team and I think that’s just because we put out that energy that truly is genuine D.J. Paris 19:59and right now As I’ve meant to get back to my point of things are challenging things aren’t picture perfect today, right? Low interest or high interest or rising interest rate environments, I apologize, rising interest, still pretty low interest rates, but rising interest rate environments, buyers are freaked out buyers purchasing power has gone down low inventory. How are you guys working through that? What are what are you guys? And I say guys, of course, I mean, men and women, what is your team? What are you? What are you doing to keep your team cohesive during some of the struggles? Jen Dillard 20:33I think just continuing to meet regularly and to train and talk about just talk about what we’re going through talk about scenarios. If this scenario comes up, this is what you do in this scenario, if this scenario comes up, this is what you do. And also Hey, what are you guys see? What are you feeling? How are your open houses last weekend? Tell me about that. Just talking about talking it out and being able to sit in the room with the whole team. And everybody just pitches in and talks about what they’re going through? And what’s what they’re seeing out there. And then being able to come up with solutions and go around and everybody pitches in their thoughts. It’s powerful. D.J. Paris 21:10It is I we do we have managed meetings, in my, in our company here and our management team, we have about 10 people, and we get together. And I’m constantly amazed. I’m on the marketing side of how many great marketing ideas I get from people that aren’t marketers that are you know, different roles. And they’re like, Oh, I’ve got an idea. And I’m like, well, it’s better than what I could come up with. Because that really does groupthink kind of thing is is it can be a negative, but it can also be a real positive in just getting more ideas to people. And in your case, you know, yeah, all these agents are having different experiences. And right now things are goofy, right? Like I I can right now. Today, the stock market fell substantially. So I was thinking, I wonder what financial advisors are getting all these probably really urgent phone calls from investors going where’s my money is going, you know, and they have to have responses to that. Well, of course, real estate has similar sorts of things with interest rates going up, and inventory being being tough. I have a question for you about if you were looking to join a team, and you were a brand new agent. So back to this idea that you just got newly licensed, or you know, maybe you’re in your first couple of years as a solo practitioner, and you’re like, I think I need to join a team. What would you look for? And because we know that most most markets in the country have lots of different options for teams, what might you suggest to yourself to look for in a team, Jen Dillard 22:37I would recommend doing your research, making sure that you really dig in and ask for recommendations from people, not other realtors, but people in the area. Who have you worked with who have you had a great experience with as a realtor. And And then furthermore, just really making sure that the culture go to a team meeting, go to a you know, a meeting and make sure that you really liked that culture and that you fit in you resonate, your your personality fits in you resonate with them. That’s those are really important things. These are the people that you’re going to be surrounded with all the time every day. So making sure that you really feel comfortable is important. So those are some a few of the things that I think are. D.J. Paris 23:21Yeah, I think that’s a great point, like making the list of all the people that you’ve worked with that you go, I liked that person I liked the way they did business, I really thought that they had a lot to offer their client. And maybe I’d like to, you know, start to experience, you know, what, what they deal with back in the back office. I think that’s a, it’s a great, great understand. And I’m curious too, so you’re, you’re a very successful team lead. And I think a lot of realtors think, Boy, I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call Jen Dillard. She’s way too busy. She’s got a million things going on. She’s running this massive team. So I’m curious. What steps might somebody take to you know, if they say, Oh, I really want to join Jen’s team. Obviously, they can go to your website and fill out a form, which by the way, anyone is around that area and Oregon where Jen and her team work and are looking for a different option or different team maybe that might better meet their needs. certainly reach out Jen and her team would love to speak with you. But you know, agents come to me all the time. They’re like, well, I don’t really know how to how to how to go up to somebody and say, Hey, I’d like to join your team that really does take a certain amount of courage and vulnerability Jen Dillard 24:38and so I’m curious why not on a date? It is. It is. Yeah, so I would I like when people are persistent. I think that persistence, and you know, send me a message on Instagram. That’s great. But if you also follow it up with a phone call or an email and you know, two different areas of can munication that’s where it really gets my attention. I’m like, okay, this person is serious, this person really is interested. And I always my doors always open to have a conversation. And I think that if we you come in you have a conversation with us, you feel like it’s a good fit. We feel like it’s a good fit. And I think that yeah, we are always open to grow. As long as it feels like it’s a good, it’s a good, it’s a good fit from on both sides. D.J. Paris 25:28I agree. And I’d love to get your opinion about leads, because this also becomes a big topic. And of course, every team does it differently. Some teams have leads, of course, some don’t. And I’m not here to suggest teams should have leads or they shouldn’t. But I’m curious, I know sometimes. Individual realtors will think well, if I join a team, that’s going to be the solution to my marketing problems, because they probably have a lot of leads. And that’s going to be my savior, so to speak. So I’m curious to get your thoughts on leads and the team’s sort of role in that. Jen Dillard 26:06Yeah, I think that being on a team sometimes means you get leads, which our team does, you know, give leads out to our agents. But I think that being able to prospect and come up with your own, you know, go get your own business, that’s what really incentivizes me to give leads, if you’re out there, and you’re killing it, and you’re, yeah, I can see that you’re active out in the in the market, you know what you’re talking about, you’re doing well, your clients are loving you, then I’m going to keep giving you more leads. If I see that you’re just sitting there, and you’re just waiting for a lead to come to you and you’re not going out and finding your business. I’m less in I’m less interested in giving you more leads, because I how do I know that you’re going to take great care of the client? So D.J. Paris 26:53that’s such an important thing you just said and I know it’s probably self evident to you. But I think it’s an important point that I want really to resonate with our audience that what Jen, Jen just said, is it in some for some of us might be counterintuitive, like, hey, the busier I am and meaning not busy as far as having clients, but the more active I am in building my business, the more that attracts more business to me, because people like Jen go, Hey, DJ is really on top of things. He’s racing around getting business. I want to reward his effort with some leads. And I think that is how most team leaders think about it, too. So I don’t think this is just a Jen Dillard thing, I think. Yeah, and but I’m so grateful that you said it because it is absolutely the truth. It’s sort of like givers get right like that, that sort of idea of putting yourself out there and giving as much as you can actually met see a lot of stuff too, without that being the main intention. So if you want more leads, go impress other people in your company with how much activity you’re putting into generating leads, because and I also think, and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take over the interview. But I also think sometimes when people are doing, and I’m curious to get your thoughts, when people are doing certain activities to generate leads on their own. And then they bring that to a group or their office, sometimes somebody will be like, You know what, I have a little tweak for you on this. And that might just be the tweak that is needed to make it even more effective. You know, this idea of like, Oh, I’ve done that before. But try this instead of that. Jen Dillard 28:30Yeah, I like having the other agents on my team come in and do trainings for the rest of the team. I like them to do the trainings, I have one agent on my team who’s amazing at cold calling, he was in sales, that was his background, that’s where he got started. And that guy is incredible on the phones. So I love to have the team sit and listen to him and to you know, and to do a calling challenge and things like that, like just having Listen, I have another agent on my team. That’s amazing at reels, she does a great job. So having her come in and do a training on how she does reels. And because we’re on a team, and we’re collaborative, we’re not competing with each other. We’re collaborating with each other. It’s great, everybody’s happy to share. D.J. Paris 29:12I love that and having people with different specialties, even though they might still be doing all of their own business. But maybe they’re really good at like you said social or they’re good at open houses or buyer presentations or listing presentations or whatever. And then saying, hey, let’s let’s do some best practice sharing. I absolutely just think that is just the fastest way to get good at something. And I would love I am about to ask so I’m gonna ask you a question. I’m going to take a quick break. While so you can think about the answer. I don’t think you’ll need any time to think about this. But I would love to hear how important today so it’s now the middle of June to 2022. How important are open houses today for lead gen nation. So before you answer that, I want to take a quick moment to highlight our sponsor, we love our sponsor, and our one of our favorite companies in the entire real estate tech space is follow up boss. Now I’ve interviewed hundreds of top Realtors in this country for this podcast and the CRM that is used by more than any of my guests 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. Don’t take my word for it though, Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States, he’s his follow up boss. And he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your existing tools and lead sources. Also the best part they have a seven day a week support. Because we know real estate happens nights and weekends. So you’ll get the help you need when you need it. And let’s get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to continue to use their their services, they’re going to give you for a limited time. They’re going to give keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice the amount of time they give everybody else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free, but only if you visit this special link but visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with a follow up boss. Okay, Jen, let’s talk about open houses. How important are they in 2022 Jen Dillard 31:35open houses are back and they are in full force. Open Houses are critical right now. Because, as you’ve mentioned a few times in this interview, they the interest rates are rising, buyers are getting a little scared things are slowing down a little bit or neutralizing I like to say. And so having an open house creates this kind of it allows people to come and look at the house without feeling pressure to reach out to an agent and to engage in that sort of, you know, relationship, but it’s kind of like risk free. They can go they can look at the house. And I think that that it’s back and I think that it’s doing they’re doing very well right now because of that, in my opinion. And D.J. Paris 32:21do you get a lot of unrepresented buyers coming Jen Dillard 32:25in. So open houses are great do open houses all day long, but most important is making sure you’re tracking who’s coming into your open house. Are you writing? Are you having them fill out a form that their you know, their name, their email address, or phone number? Are you following up with them follow up us. You know, making sure that all those that’s so important. Yes, you have these phone numbers, you have these email addresses, but follow up and make sure that you reach out and you even if they weren’t interested in the house, they’ll remember you if you call and you follow up with them, and you stay, continue to nurture them. D.J. Paris 33:02So I want to drill down just a little bit. So when do you tell your team so someone comes in unrepresented to an open house, one of your team members is doing an open house, they fill out the form name, email, phone number. Okay, what’s step number one after they leave, and how quickly, I would love to hear what you recommend. Jen Dillard 33:22After the open house, you send an email individually personalized. Thank you, Jeff. And Jodi, thank you so much for coming to my open house today. It was a pleasure to meet you by law. If you’re interested in this house, please let me know. Otherwise, I’d be happy to set up a search for you. And, you know, so engage in conversation, and then and send that to each person that came into the open house. And then D.J. Paris 33:50I’m sorry to get so granular but or next day or what’s the same day? Jen Dillard 33:55100%? Yes, same day, and then you give it two days. And then you follow up. Jeff and Jody, this is Jen Dillard, I reached out to you after my open house, I just wanted to follow up make sure you got my email as if there’s a phone number you call you got to go to all the areas of communication that you have access to. If they don’t respond, maybe send a text some people just have to find their way of communicating. Some people prefer to communicate via text. Some prefer to commute and you can even go a step further with your with your sheet. You can say what prefer What is your preferred method of communication D.J. Paris 34:37yeah, that’s, that’s a it’s a really great idea because to assume that everyone wants text or phone or email, of course we’re all different and wow, that’s really smart. So yeah, add that checkbox everyone listening to your open house sign in sheet, preferred way of communication. I do really appreciate that when I fill those forms out online like for a doctor’s office or They oftentimes will will ask that same question. So following up, I’m curious, have you do you have a general idea of the and of course, every, every individual person is different. But the average time from the moment somebody walks into an open house, and obviously not everyone who walks out of the open house ends up becoming a client. But for those that do become a client, what’s the lead time because we’re talking about following up? How much time is typically required. And again, I know, it could be two days, they could buy a home two days later, but what’s the average time that you see, and this will just give our audience a sense of how long they should expect, on average, to stay in touch? Jen Dillard 35:39Six to 12 months? Perfect. Six to 12 months? And again, it can be the like you said, they could be like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t like this house. But I just saw this house, this is the one can we go look at it and boom, and that does happen. But I would I would, I would plan for six to 12 months? D.J. Paris 35:58And do you have like, do you recommend people create a schedule so that for the next six or 12 months, they know for sure, here’s, you know, the general guidelines of how I’m going to stay in touch? Just curious how if you use technology for that, or if you do it manually? What is sort of your thoughts on that? Jen Dillard 36:15We do we have it. So we break it down to we use monday.com. That’s the software that we use, which they can and we break the break it down. And so there’s steps for everything. Okay, you just engaged with a buyer, here are the steps, okay, you’ve just engaged with the seller, here are the steps. Okay, you got a listing contract signed, here are the steps. Same for buyers. And so we break it down and make it foolproof. D.J. Paris 36:42I love that. So systematize, we’re talking about creating systems. And then all you have to actually do is run the system. Right? You don’t have to wake up and think, What am I doing today? What should I do? Jen Dillard 36:57Yeah, like, and how satisfying is it to check a box. D.J. Paris 37:02So I love it as well. And it just makes it you know what I’ve realized about life, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, because it took me to I’m 46 now, which is depressing. But I, so I’m older than you. So I can say that. Jen is still super young, she’s in her early 20s. But But But But But for real, what I’ve realized is systematizing anything in life really reduces anxiety, and it reduces clutter in the mind. And it just actually makes life easier, it’s sort of the irony of it is creating a system actually makes you gives you more freedom. Jen Dillard 37:45I feel like that was the biggest growing the growing pains of the team growing at the pace that it did. And in our in, you know, our transactions growing at the pace that they did is that is the growing pains of the systems and processes because we had to implement new systems and processes and we had to do them quickly. And we had to hire and we had to so that I feel like was the biggest stressor was was getting those systems and processes in place. And now that they are and we have the people to support, it’s like such a breath of fresh air. D.J. Paris 38:18And as a new agent, Wouldn’t you love to be plugged into a team that’s kind of already got that all figured out. And you don’t have to rebuild all of it. Because there are so many ways to build those systems and so many different variables, and software providers and just lots of different tools. Wouldn’t you love just to plug into somebody’s system, and you maybe make modifications if you need to. But like, that’s another major reason to join a team is it just helps. Assuming the team has systems, it helps get your systems in order. Yes, Jen Dillard 38:52I completely agree. D.J. Paris 38:55And one last thing, if you were interviewing a team member, what do you look for in a team? In somebody that says I want to join the Jen Diller team? What are you looking for in that individual? Because I think this will help our audience when they go to really they’re interviewing sometimes for these positions. So what do you recommend? Jen Dillard 39:15I am looking for somebody who knows about the team show that you’ve done your research and that you you know, who are we have you done? Your research? Have you looked us up online? Have you looked at our website? Have you? Are you familiar with us? And then next I want to know, I want you to show your personality. I want to see how you’re going to interact with clients. are you just sitting there waiting for me to ask questions and just answering them with boring answers? Probably not the right bit. Show your personality show what’s different about you why why would somebody pick you to be the realtor? Show me that I want to see that. So those are some of the things that I love to see. I love to see passion and drive and somebody that’s going to reach out to me like I said for a difference Social media or social media and different communication channels, that I know that they’re really interested in they they’re really excited about the opportunity. I love those people. D.J. Paris 40:09Yeah, it really is like asking someone out on a date, like you said, you have to put your your best self forward. And that doesn’t mean you have to look a certain way. But you have to make sure that they know who you are and what you’re willing to bring to the table. Jen Dillard 40:24Do you come dress professionally? D.J. Paris 40:27Yeah, boy, there is a huge variance in in how Realtors dress, right? We, we have 800 agents in our company here. And so we certainly see a wide range of choices in dress. And I always say there is no downside to dressing really well, there’s actually no very little chance of having a negative impact. However, on the other side, if you dress maybe a level lower than what the client expects, then you know that you’re going to have you’re gonna have a tougher hill to climb to win that person over. Yes. Yeah, so dress dress for success. It it’s it’s not gone away. But I think the main message, Jen, that that you’ve been describing is, teams can be a real force for good and they can actually give provide more value to the client. Also, to the realtor, the realtor now has hopefully additional better resources, people to support them in the tough times, and just place to bounce ideas off of. And boy, I’ll tell you, if I was a realtor starting out, and I was in the Bend, Oregon area, I would well I guess I’m sorry. Yeah. If I was, obviously, in between Portland and Bend, Oregon, and I was living there. I heard Hood River District, I would be reaching out to Jen because not only and I think, Jen, you just said something really important in it. And if you go to Jen’s website, which I’m going to encourage everybody to do in just a moment, you will get a sense of what her team is like, just by watching some of the content that they’ve created. There, you can see just in the still images of the fun that they have, and also tracking them on social, you get a good sense of what the team is like. Now, it’s not everything, of course, you want to meet them, too. But I think that’s such a really good idea as getting a sense of the culture. And I think by watch, you know, that’s what’s really cool about social media and also having a web presence is you get it, you get a little glimpse into someone’s culture. And I think this is a great opportunity for individual agents to explore other teams cultures and see what feels like a good fit. And then just like asking out someone on a date, you have to find your courage and then reach out and say, Hey, I would like to talk to you about opportunities. I am such a big fan. And by the way, if there’s any buyers, sellers, renters investors in in Jen’s neck of the woods. Boy, her and her team would love the opportunity to to work with you directly. They’re one of the very top teams in their area, and very well respected. They’re amazing. And Jen, do you mind just sharing? What What’s the geographic boundaries of what your team sort of deals with? Jen Dillard 43:17Yeah, so we service pretty much everything from from Portland all the way to Golden Dale Lyle area. So yeah, those are that’s pretty much what was that? D.J. Paris 43:33I was just saying no, that’s that’s it’s a huge area, the area up huge team. And I think it’s a really great reminder that if you are thinking about joining a team or thinking about maybe changing teams, now’s a good time when things are maybe a little bit slow, more slow than they were a year ago where we didn’t have time to do that. But for anyone out there who is interested in working with Jen, or learning about her team and how its structured, please visit their website which is J D R E team. Again, Jen Dillard real estate. So J D R e team.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And also please follow them on on Instagram, which you can find them at J D. R E team. And at Jen Dillard. We’ll have links again in the show notes. Jen, thank you so much for being on our show. I appreciate you. Hanging with us through some of our tech difficulties today. Thankfully, we got through without the power going out good. Jen Dillard 44:31Yeah. Thanks for having me so much. DJ was great. D.J. Paris 44:35We’re super grateful. And for everyone before you sign off, please, we only ask our listeners and viewers to do one thing, which is tell a friend to think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this conversation with Jen and send them a link to this episode. You can find us on our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is there and we have about 400 episodes there now. So Jen, thank you so much. We are huge. Fans have you and your team and your company and we wish you all the best. Thank you for taking time to be on our show. Jen Dillard 45:07Thank you

Welcome to our quarterly feature, Social Bootcamp With Gogo Bethke! In this episode, Gogo and DJ discuss the importance of determining your hourly rate. Gogo also discusses listing side hourly rate vs buyer side hourly rate. Gogo and DJ guide you on how to start hiring people to help you out when you’re just starting your business in real estate. Last, Gogo talks about the importance of outsourcing your work. 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 0:00Do you know your hourly rate? We discussed that today and why knowing this will help take your business to the next level. 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. Welcome to 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 and today is our monthly series called Social bootcamp with gogo Beth key. Let me tell you more about GO GO GO GO came to the goal. Let me let me back up go go back he came to the United States in 2003. To build her American dream, she was broke. She had no real estate experience and no sphere of influence barely spoke English and only $6 to her name, which left her with nothing other than Facebook to help build her business which is where she started. She created gogos real estate and began her real estate career. Now with the power of social media gogo has sold over oh gosh, these are old numbers. It’s well over 100 million in real estate transactions. She shares the good the bad and the ugly of real estate and her honest snippets into her daily life is earned her 10s of 1000s of social media followers in the real estate community and as she’s earned the nickname The Queen of social media she’s actually even been presenting at conferences and events with realtors and she’s She even has built her own social media Bootcamp for realtors called Go Go’s bootcamp. Today she has a team of of 800 agents nationwide and 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 United States education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience and an accent. Anyone else can do it too. Please, please follow gogo on Instagram. You can find her at at gogos real estate that’s Gee, oh gee Oh s real estate. We also have a link to that in the show notes. And also please invest in her bootcamp. She has an amazing social media bootcamp if you want to learn how to do more on social to attract clients deepen relationships, and you can boy, if I don’t, every one of our listeners could probably use a little boost in their social media sort of acumen. So definitely sign up for Go Go’s social media bootcamp and you can find that we have a special link. If you go to Gogo podcast.com Gogo podcast.com That will take you right to the special keeping it real link we get a special discount. Gogo. Welcome to the show. Gogo Bethke 3:57Hello, thank you so much for having me. D.J. Paris 4:00I am I am your biggest fan and we I have not seen you in some time because you are so insanely busy. It is. I am so impressed with what you have accomplished. It was just a couple of years ago where you did not have a team. You had no agents. And now you have how many agents do you have now working with you? Gogo Bethke 4:21930 D.J. Paris 4:23Oh my god. Oh my god, it took me in Gogo Bethke 4:27one month we’ll hit 1000 agents. D.J. Paris 4:30This is this is we should talk tell our audience about this. So what we’re talking about gogo works with EXP and she provides for her team. Incredible training support. She provides access to her programs. She is amazing. And she obviously is amazing because she has almost 1000 people on her team. And by the way, if you are out there listening if you want to join Go Go’s team or learn more about Her team, maybe you’re not getting the the training or the support or the coaching that you need. Go go if one of our listeners wants to consider joining you. And by the way you can be from any state in the country, you don’t have to be in Michigan where gogo is, you know, technically located right now. You can be from any state, um, how should they reach out to you to see if they want to join? Gogo Bethke 5:23Yeah, the easiest way is my name.com. So go go back to that calm. When you go to my website, you’re going to see a tab that’s called ESP partner with me. And then go there, watch the videos and see if you like what you see, when we call team gogo is not a team, as in most real estate teams in the nation, we do not take a cut. So I don’t become your team lead, I become your business partner, and you owe me absolutely nothing. So everything that the company has to offer on top of everything else, that we in the teamwork organization, bring to the table with the bootcamp and the weekly trainings and all that you get for free when you are business partners with us. And you’ll never have to give me a penny. D.J. Paris 5:57Yeah, it’s an awesome platform. I am a big fan. And I am somebody who recruits Realtors all day, and we only have you’ve actually surpassed me we only have about eight. You did? Yeah. So go Go is in she’s going to take over the show now. And I will be her guest and she is the No, Gogo Bethke 6:14I’m not competitive at all. I’m so excited. Because you’ve been you’ve been ahead of me all this time D.J. Paris 6:22I have I we only have 800 agents here. And now I feel like a big loser because you have 950 agents. So Gogo Bethke 6:29but in one location, oh, don’t forget to man like that’s insane to have in one local market that many agents like I could never do that in my neck. I don’t think we have 800 Each Well, I’m D.J. Paris 6:41glad you’re not in my local market, because I would not want to compete with you. Because that’s how amazing you are. But let’s talk to our audience today, which are from all over the country as well. And, you know, we You’re the queen of social media, but I think it would be really cool to talk about something, it’s one of those things that it’s a topic that we hear about. And then you sort of like, it’s not that important, but it really is important is determining your hourly rate. Let’s talk about that. Gogo Bethke 7:12So, you know, we are faced with so many different shiny objects and so many different things that can help you in so many different apps that you can buy and so many different things, right. But the thing is, you don’t know if you need that a number two, you don’t know if you can afford that. And what I mean by that is there’s there’s a break even point in your career at some point where for a while, you should be doing all of those activities because you cannot justify or afford to hire somebody to do those activities for you. Right. But the question is, at what point can you afford it? So in order to know that you need to know your hourly rate. So what I want you what I would like to talk to you about today is your hourly rate on the listing side, and on the buyer side, you need to figure that out because it’s different for most people. And then also to figure out how to hire a virtual assistant, a personal assistant, a transaction coordinator, should you hire that? Maybe a buyer’s agent? At what point should you hire that right? And what is that look like money wise. So I have also an exercise and I call the red light green light exercise. So we can go into that later, that will help you create the job description for that VA that you’re going to hire in the future. So let’s get started. You’re ready. D.J. Paris 8:16Let’s do it. Gogo Bethke 8:17So what do you think a nationwide commission is in average, on the listing side? D.J. Paris 8:25So I would think that Gogo Bethke 8:285% Total something I mean, not in dollar amount. Oh, okay. D.J. Paris 8:32I $7,000 Maybe, Gogo Bethke 8:35oh, that’s I think that’s really low. I think it’s more like 12 Nowadays, D.J. Paris 8:39well shows you what I know. Let’s go with 12. Gogo Bethke 8:41So let’s meet you in the middle. Let’s say it’s 10,000. And let’s say tab. And then let’s say 7000 on the buy side. Okay, great. Usually buyers, you end up with less, you’re more buyers heavy than listing heavy. Okay, so if it’s $10,000 Think of it this way from the moment that you are on that initial phone consultation with that seller, then you go out to the appointment you and you’re gonna do some comps, maybe it’s gonna take you 20 minutes, right you’re gonna do some comps, then you’re gonna go out to the sellers house, you’re gonna have a little bit of a, a nice, meaty area to your conversation, then you are going to tell them how much is what then they’re going to tell you. Yep, they’re going to list with you, then you’re going to go home to the paperwork, they’re going to sign it with electronic signature, send it back to you, you’re going to plug it into your analyze, then you’re going to do a little bit of marketing a little bit of negotiations, you might drive out to the property a couple of times to do an open house or maybe you drive out to meet the appraiser and then you’re gonna go to the closing table. Alright, in average, if you want your sufficient if you’re really good at your job, I asked say we’ll take you about seven hours to work with the seller. Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds about right. Okay. So if we take $10,000 And then we divided by seven hours, your listing side of hourly rate is $1,420. Wow. So every time you’re working with a seller, your hour is worth $1,400. Now that’s calculated on the buy side and the buy side, the sudden average commission would be about 7000. And the buyer side, in my opinion, you work about 12 hours with a buyer, you will work because you’re going to drive around, you’re going to show them how it says, in some cases, you might even move work more than 12 hours because the markets so hard, and you might have to, even though you work one out there, and they’re ready to make an offer on the first house, they see it might take you 237 offers before they actually buy one. So let’s say it’s 12 hours. But if your hourly is longer than that, then do the math separate, right? So take your average by side commission and divided by the 12 hours or how many hours you think you’ve worked with the buyer. In this case, the buy side commission per hour or hourly rate is $583. So just from this math, $1,420 versus 583. Were Who should I work with sellers or buyers? Sellers. Right? So now we know that I should be concentrating on sellers and listings, because that’s where I make most amount of my money for the same time spent, right, because we’re gonna spend an hour here make $583, you’re going to spend the same hour here make $1,400 When you hear, right, you make more money for the same time. Now the next thing is paperwork. That should be the first thing that every agent removes from their plate, there is this thing called a TC, a transaction coordinator, it’s going to change your life if you’re not using one of winters wait on to start using when you’re going to start loving real estate all over again. So yeah, go ahead. I D.J. Paris 11:35totally agree. This is something that agents oftentimes think I can’t afford to hire an assistant, I can’t afford to have a transaction coordinator. I’m new to the business. I can’t do that. So how can they do that? How can they hire somebody when they’re just starting out? They have no money. Gogo Bethke 11:53Okay, so I’m going to show you why you are losing money by not having one. You’re losing money. Because here’s the thing, right? Do you know how transaction coordinators get paid? They do transaction for you get paid off of when the transaction closes. So if the transaction doesn’t close, for whatever reason, your buyers got called fee, they no longer qualify, the seller no longer wants to sell whatever the basement flooded, and the buyer doesn’t want to buy it anymore. Whatever the reason is right? It doesn’t matter if you don’t get paid, they don’t get paid. So it is not a cost to you. You only pitching out that 350 bucks, $400 whatever they charge big are the only pitching that out if and when your transaction actually closed. In most states, you can actually charge what we call a broker fee or transaction fee. If you get to charge it like in Michigan, we get to charge it. So I charge 6% on my listings and a 495 transaction fee, my TC actually gets paid out of my transaction fee. Right, it’s not a cost to me, it’s already built into our model. Now I’m just using it for service. And now I’m going to show you how you are losing money by not having a TC. So number one, you’re not paying your TC is not an upfront cost. Only if and when the deal closes. Number two, think of it this way. Truly, if you thought about your listings and your biocides all of the people work, right. So on the listing side, you have to create the listing paperwork, then you have to plug it into the MLS, right? Then you have to negotiate back and forth and then you’re going to have some attendance, then you’re going to look at your closing CD and make sure everything’s on there. So me doing those, I would say you probably spend a good three hours through the lifetime of the file on paperwork. Okay, so now on the listing side, we know three hours for you on the listing side is 1428 times three is $4,314. Is what it’s costing you to push your own paper. Because if you took those three hours, and you went and got yourself one more seller, you do whatever you did to get that last seller for three hours and you got to yourself another seller, you’re gonna get yourself another $10,000 commission. So it’s costed you $4,314. Suppose you’re on paper, you try to say 400 or 350, or whatever it is he costs in your neck of the woods. Right? And you lost 4314? D.J. Paris 14:12Yeah, so let’s let’s pause for a moment because that’s really, really important. So what Google’s really saying is, we get excited, right? We go to a listing presentation, we win the deal, we win the listing, and then we come home and we send all the paperwork over via dot Luber or DocuSign or whatever system we’re using. And now we’re in the paperwork game. And guess what? Yes, it’s exciting. It’s fun. But is it the best use of your time? Well, we just proved that it isn’t. And wouldn’t it be cool if somebody could do that for three to $400 And oh, by the way, you only pay when it closes. So if it doesn’t close as gogo said, almost all Tec companies I’m aware of do not charge. So it is a total no brainer and we should also talk about what transaction coordinators actually do aside from paperwork? Gogo Bethke 15:04Well, depending if they’re licensed or unlicensed, right, but if they’re licensed, they can pretty much do everything you can. They’re not going to negotiate for you, right? They’re not going to show up at the inspection and negotiate the sellers concessions for you, right? That is your job. But when let’s say you did the home inspection, you call your TC on the way home and say, Hey, we did the inspection, everything was fine. We agreed on a $5,000 seller’s concession, can you please put together the addendum and just say all parties agree that salary has been 5000 seller’s concession that goes into the buyer, and then send it out to all parties? Done, it took me two seconds, right, I’ll give you a voice note on the phone. And then it’s done. She’s going to type it up, she’s going to send it out to all parties and all the signatures are and she’s going to read you know, resend it back to everybody. Again, make sure that it’s updated your file with your broker, and voila, it’s probably going to take this person an hour or two. And in the meantime, go get goes out of the house, go get another seller. D.J. Paris 15:56Yeah, and, and they can also help with important dates, right? Like all the important dates of a transaction, they are going to the transaction coordinator is going to know in advance what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And they will help keep you on track and they’ll just keep the paperwork out of your hands into their hands. Gogo Bethke 16:17So hire it out because you are losing money. And I’m by sight Okay, nice. Are you losing less because it’s $583? So 583 times the three hours so you’re losing 1749 Are you steal? Because if you promise yourself that those three hours that you just save for yourself, you’re going to spend it on lead generation, you’re going to easily make another at least another commission. D.J. Paris 16:44Right. 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. Gogo Bethke 18:06So don’t lose money. Make money, right? It’s just mad. The next thing is Okay, so who should be your next hire? Let’s say you already have a TC. Right? So like, I already got that go grab you using a DC for the last five years. Congratulations, you’re smart. Okay, the rest of you. If you don’t have us DC and you’re wondering where you should go, you can check out smooth dc.com It’s smooth DC that calm. The next hire should be a va, a virtual assistant. I have like 30 Plus, and I love it. Now in some different positions, right? Your first word. So your first virtual assistant should be your executive assistant. That should be the person that takes the everyday tasks off of your plate. So the reason when I realized finally dawned on me that this is stupid, it was LinkedIn. Not it’s not LinkedIn fault. I had 946 messages. I think when I logged in one day to LinkedIn, I’m like, oh my god, I have to check all these messages out of the 946. I had four. Then I truly needed to address the rest of them. Were all like, oh, so nice to me connected, or could you come on my podcast? Okay, blah, blah, right? Like no, not in and it was so important. Like I had four in there that I truly needed to address. And I was like, it took me like two and a half hours and I’m never going to get back. And I was like, do I don’t do these messages needs to be checked because I didn’t want to miss those four. Yes, they do need to be checked. But do they need to be checked by me? D.J. Paris 19:30Right? Do you need to sift through 950 messages to find the for No, not a good use of your time? Gogo Bethke 19:36Not a good use of my time somebody else can sift through them and then leave those for unopened. Right. So then I know when I log in, I only have to check those four because the rest was already checked and taking care of these four they couldn’t address on their own. So I can log in there take care of it. Maybe it was personal. Maybe it was like a big decision that they couldn’t make on my behalf or things like that. But other than that our virtual systems, checking all of my DMs the only social media do And then I personally check his my Instagram, everywhere else and every single email and every single DM on every single social media Facebook group or Facebook page, I have a virtual assistant. So let’s do this exercise so you can figure out what type of assistant do you need for in the first place. So there is an exercise called the red light green light exercise, I want you to take a piece of paper and clip it to your clipboard and draw a line in the middle and the left hand side you’re gonna see a red light on the right hand side, we’re gonna say green light. And you’re going to walk around with a clipboard for a straight week. It’s going to be attached to you by the hip. And every motion you take every action you take every call you make every email you answer every open house you hold, when you brush your teeth manual, do your when you run a load of laundry, when you show houses, right, everything that you do is going to be on that spreadsheet. Red light means you can stop doing it. Stop it right now, because you can hire it out. Those are your DMS, your emails, those kind of stuff, right? The green light is brushing your teeth. Can you hire somebody to brush your teeth? I mean, if you probably could, coming to America, right? You probably could. But other than that, you could probably brush your teeth for the rest of your life, right? walking your dog? Do you? Does your dog need to be walking? As does he or she needs to be walked by? You know, that’s red light. Right? I have somebody in our house assistant. And that is her job she wants Charlie now on the weekends. Don’t get me wrong. I work, Charlie, right? So you have to separate the things of like red light, green light green light for me is social media, my posts, I will always make the post, could I hire it out? Absolutely. I choose not to, because I will lose my brand. I built a brand around my own self, I built a brand around my knowledge, I built a brand about my work ethic and united in my mindset. So I can’t hire that portion out. Because there’s somebody else that are typing up things that I usually want. If I would, it wouldn’t be me anymore. Because it’d be in your voice, it needs to be my voice. So that’s not something I can hire out. But I only make one post and it’s on Instagram. And I do have a social media virtual assistant who takes it from Instagram and then plaster it everywhere else. She takes that post and I wrote and I posted on Instagram and puts it on LinkedIn, she takes the same post and puts it on all the different Facebook groups, she takes their posts and puts it right. So she helps me spread the world everywhere else, but I make the initial post. Right, so there’s a million ways how you can do that. So walk around with a clipboard red light green light exercise. And in the end of the week, everything that you put in your red light is going to be able to be broken up into two different sections. Number one is going to be anything that can be done online. And number two section is going to be things that are going to have to be done in person. So like dropping off your dry cleaning, walking your dog doing a load of laundry, grocery shopping, right? That’s in person, my virtual assistant from Brazil cannot grocery shop for me, I guess she could like the Kroger app and shipping to my house like you know, there’s always a way with that. But like the in person physical stuff like walking your dog, you will have to hire somebody for that in person, right? So you’re gonna put those aside for a minute, because those are the ones that gonna cost you more, we’re gonna talk about the virtual stuff, that’s where you can get a virtual assistant, a virtual assistant in average is going to cost you about four bucks an hour. Yeah. So if your hourly rate is 14 128 hours, right or under $20, let’s see how many hours that is 1428 divided by four, a virtual assistant would work for 357 hours for the same amount of money. Or look at it this way. For one hour, you could hire 357 virtual assistants who would get paid the same amount as you get paid for that same hour. D.J. Paris 23:41So where do people go if they want to find these virtual assistants? Gogo Bethke 23:46So I started out, I’m going between myself and my business partner Sammy, we have about 10 years of experience now having hired virtual assistants, you can start out on Upwork. So Upwork up wo rk.com, you can go on there, make a job post and they’ll apply and then you interview them right? And then you have to give them access to things and then you have to train them and you have to have SOPs and yada yada, you can absolutely take the route. Or you can hire us we have a company that’s called V clone knew that calm because the goal is they have a bunch of many years, right? So it’s cloning you and for exactly what job capacity you need a virtual assistant for, they already come trained and they come with all the SOPs, so and we guarantee them for 90 days. So if they don’t work out in that certain position for whatever reason that we replace them for you with another one. And then also they come with the SOP so in the future, you don’t have to come back to us. Right and it’s a video based training as well we explain it from the high the employee and the employer side of things. Right so for the employer, we talk about things like you know what, what kind of pay structure, what kind of access you should give them, how to pay them, where to pay them, those kinds of things that and the virtual assisting side they don’t need on a day to day basis. So on the virtual assisting side, they will get SOPs and video based training on how to do their job right Right. On this side on the employer side, you get SOPs and video based trainings on how to maintain having virtual assistants as employees. D.J. Paris 25:08Can I tell you, I’m a huge fan of virtual assistants, I have a virtual assistant that I that I chat with every single morning. And she and I go through my two dues every day. And she says, Here’s what you’re doing today, DJ now. And she’s amazing. And she, we go through that we prioritize we, and then I have another virtual assistant that every Saturday after in the morning, she goes through all of my expenses with me. And she goes, Hey, I noticed the spending trends, I’d like you to save a little bit more. So it’s like, Gogo Bethke 25:43DJ, you went this week, three times. D.J. Paris 25:49My one of my virtual assistants, just this week went through the entire here’s where I live in Chicago, we have all these amazing festivals going on over the weekends. She said, You know, I bet you guys want to go to a bunch of festivals, my girlfriend and I this this summer? And I said yes, she goes, I’m gonna go through all of them. And I want you to tell me which ones you want to go to? And I’m gonna set them up for you. It’s like these are you can even have been doing other tasks. If Gogo Bethke 26:17you haven’t. Yes. Love it. D.J. Paris 26:21It’s amazing, I think because if I if I go through all of those festivals that will take me a couple of hours. It’s Gogo Bethke 26:29and then you can if you will say, Oh, yeah, I want to go on here. Oh, nevermind. We are in Florida at that time. Right. So. So not only do you have to go through it with the idea of like, Do I even want to go into it in the first place, then you have to match it up to your calendar. Right? And that’s the part. Okay, I’ll show you. That’s the part where it’s really hard for me. D.J. Paris 26:48Yeah, yeah. It’s it this is this is what what we’re really trying to do is tell every all of our listeners that this is a mindset that you can, you know, if you don’t have to control and do everything, right, and this is what we’re talking about is outsource some of this stuff. I might my virtual one of my virtual assistants even gives me date night ideas. She’s like, hey, this upcoming weekend, here’s five date night ideas. That’s really helpful for me, that’s super useful. Yeah, Gogo Bethke 27:22she makes you be the best boyfriend ever. That’s, D.J. Paris 27:26well, you know, here’s another thing a virtual assistant is doing for me. Now, I don’t practice real estate. But if I did, I would use this in a different way. I have all my friends and my and my close, you know, relationships. She went in and put everybody’s birthday and anniversary date in my calendar. So that I and a week before each of those events, she, we have a task. Okay, so and so’s birthday is coming up? Are we going to do something for that? Think about as an agent, of course, go go. I’m sure you’ve already done this. But you can do this for all of your clients. Right? You could say, here’s their home anniversary date. Here’s, you know, here’s what they purchased the home last here’s their actual wedding anniversary, here’s their birthday, here’s their kids birthdays. And now you have you can have all this information. And you can use that to then deepen relationships with people. Gogo Bethke 28:17Absolutely. So we have what’s called a favorites list. And we do we fill that out for every client. So that’s how we find out I mean, we know the closing date, that’s their home anniversary, right? But like, you know, what is your favorite sports team? What is your favorite coffee shop? What is their favorite restaurant? What is do they have any allergies? How many kids do they have? What are their ages? When is their wedding anniversary where other individual birthdays, we plug all that into one in our CRM program into the profile and then we set reminders, and then it’s our each of our agents responsibility and our team to keep in touch with those clients. D.J. Paris 28:48Yeah, it’s really the best way to reach out to somebody and not be salesy and go, Hey, you’re ready to buy a home. You want to call and say, Hey, I know it’s your child’s birthday today. I just wanted to call and say happy birthday to your child. Like that’s a huge thing. It was my friend’s 40th wedding anniversary today. I sent them a text and they said every year DJ you send this and you’re the only person aside from their closest family members that knows that and it’s only because my virtual assistant put it in my calendar. Gogo Bethke 29:17That’s amazing. Yeah, we do that for our agents everybody’s birthdays in my calendar we create a happy like Happy Birthday music or picture all that then we posted so yeah, we tried to do a lot of things and you definitely cannot do this on your own. Right. So if you want to if especially if you have a massive database, if you have like 10 clients Yeah, maybe you can remember on your own right. But if you want to grow this to the levels that where you are making multi millions, you know, you’re you can’t possibly do this alone. It takes a village. D.J. Paris 29:45It takes a village and the good news is the village is the entire world. We now are connected through technology. And we can hire people virtual assistants from other parts of the world where the cost of living is substantially different. And, and very cost effective for people to hire some of these these intelligent, wonderful workers to you know, you’re you’re helping them by giving them income, and they’re helping you by making your life a lot easier. So if someone wants to sort of explore hiring some people to help with with tasks, you know, whether their business tasks or home tasks, what what what do you recommend? Gogo Bethke 30:27I mean, you can ask, I always go to YouTube for everything right. So first go to, you know, maybe just start watching some videos to even understand how people use virtual assistants. But I can walk you through a few different job titles that we have, right. So on my local team, we have a virtual assistant, and her job duty is to take care of all the leads, right and keep the database maintained. So when the Favorites list comes in, update everybody’s profile, set those reminders like those kinds of things right when a lead comes in, respond to them right away before an agent can respond to them. So we don’t lose them. Because our agents our market is crazy, right? They’re out on the market, they don’t necessarily have the ability to get back within five minutes, every single lead. So then this way, we earn ourselves some time by the virtual assistant responding to them. Then we have a numbers guy on our team and his name is Saeed. He runs all of our like, I’m the biggest nerd you’ll ever meet. i My trackers have trackers, right. So I drove on track everything from every angle you could possibly track it from. So he runs all of these reports. And then once a week, we have a kind of like a reports meeting, we go to everybody’s tabs right on our spreadsheets. And then once a month, we have like an overall to see what money came in what’s going out. What’s our retention, only those kinds of things, right. So that’s our numbers guy, then we have a few tech guys. So technology, I think it’s very important, especially if you start running a team, right? Because you’re going to have issues with like not all agents are created equal, right. So some of your agents are going to need more hand holding than other agents, some agents might not even know how to access the Google Calendar on their phone, right? They never use the calendar, and suddenly all of their appointments are going to be set up in a calendar, they don’t even know how to access right. So then you’re gonna have what we realize is even though I gave my Google Drive and all of my trackers and all of my apps and systems and contracts, and you name it to my overall downline, right, we realize that when they open my lead tracker, it’s 17 tabs, they’re like, but how do I use it? And what things go go, but how do I use it right? So then we do trainings on that. So have yourself a technology person, even if it comes easy to you, if you want to grow a team, right, you’re not gonna have time to show Joe Schmo How to Download Google app, right, you’re not gonna be able to do that. So have a tech person who can help your people. The next one is you of course, you should always start with an executive assistant like that should be the first thing you remove from your calendar, all the emails, the DMS, the nonsense that is just clogging your phones and your databases. And then we have a design assistant. And her job is we celebrate birthdays, and top agent attractors and top producers and icon agents and all of the celebratory things, right, all of those things have to be designed, all of those posts need to be made, right. So we have a design girl. And her job is to make things pretty. So if it’s somebody’s birthday, she creates a as these icon pictures, right? Or does birthday pictures, and then we post it. So that is her job, her job is designed, make things pretty. And then we have social media girl, her job is to take my posts from Instagram and plaster it everywhere. And then respond to those DNS and respond to those posts. And, you know, keep all of those accounts live because I am everywhere, but I can’t possibly be everywhere, right. So if I just think of it this way, if I make a post, my account reaches over 2 million accounts a month, if I make a post on Instagram, and let’s say 200 People respond. And I’m going to make that same post on Facebook, and let’s say 200 People respond, and I’m going to make that same post on LinkedIn and 200 people respond that is 600 people. Right? And I don’t want to take I mean, it’s impossible to respond to everybody. But there are some really, really good meaningful comments in there, that I would like to get back to them. So they know that it meant something. Right. So then now I’ll get back to them, maybe if I can uninstall them, but everywhere else, everybody else gonna get back to them. Right. And then same with DMS, like all of these accounts, if you want to play the social media game, all of your accounts have to stay alive. In order to stay alive, you have to go you have to have the back and forth the communications the posts, the people actually taking time out of their day to watch it to come in to like to share to follow right so in order for those things to happen, you have to keep your accounts alive and for that to happen you have to post and if you want to do it all it’s impossible. D.J. Paris 34:33It isn’t it is impossible and and that’s so what do you so you were talking about when you post your social media content. That’s what you really enjoy. That’s the thing that that it’s uniquely you. And so that’s what you enjoy the most to right? Gogo Bethke 34:52Yeah, that is like it’s always been like I don’t like to say it’s my job, but it’s my job in the sense of when I decided to take an avenue Real Estate should not be a broker agent right to actually make money in real estate. I went through the process of cold calling, buying Zillow leads like I’ve never done those but I interviewed others right and they formed areas they bought leads, they cold, call their door knock their, you know all that. And I was like, I’m not doing that. So when I decided to do social media, that is my job, just like a cold caller takes their job seriously, in a cold call form eight to 11 every single morning, I do social media every single day, because that is my job. When because I love it, it doesn’t feel like a job. I truly enjoy doing that. But it’s still a job, I have to stay consistent. And I did for 11 years. D.J. Paris 35:35Yeah, it’s amazing. So what we’re really talking about our systems, right, so this is a conversation about having systems. So the first thing is go go said, you get the clipboard, you make the line down the middle red light, green light. First, let’s figure out what parts of your life we can delegate, we can take off your plate. And, and some of those things we’re gonna have to do in person, we just can’t avoid it. Other things, digital things, invisible things, we can do that we can hire that out for people all over the world who would be happy to do it for you at a very reasonable price. And then you just have to give them access and like you said, and then all of a sudden, your time now opens up. It’s a bit of a shift. And it takes it there’s a little bit of a barrier there to break through. Once you do it. I mean, I started doing it years ago, it was a total game changer for me as well. And it’s not that I don’t want to do things for myself. It’s not like I sit around now with all this extra time and just stare at the sky. Yeah, I know, I’m busy. But this there’s so life is really hard. And this is a way to make life just a little bit less hard. Like if you know, every single month, you should be writing. Like Brian Buffini would say, you know, these personal notes, right, Brian Buffini is all about personal notes. But if you if you say well, I know I should be writing 100 personal notes a month, but I’m not doing it, then maybe it’s time to hire somebody to help you do that. It doesn’t mean you don’t write them, it means that somebody can help you make that faster and easier and better. There’s all sorts of things that we can hire out for. And remember, we’re running a business. So let’s Gogo Bethke 37:25see, I mean, even like not to create yourself more work to, you know, for a while you’re going to create yourself more work. But eventually you’re going to get to the point where you’re like, I just want to gain an hour back with my kids. Yeah, I just want to sit on the beach for an hour and everybody lose my number. Right? At some point you just gonna have some one to do some time freedom stuff. D.J. Paris 37:49I think it’s great. And anyone who even if you’re not on a team, even if it’s just you and you’re the only one practicing, get yourself some help. It’s really it this is the job is too hard without it don’t be an island, right? They say, you know, be be get other. It takes a village as gogo says, so get your tribe. And the good news is we live in a time where we can get our tribe from all over the world and for reasonable prices. So tell us about the the the TC and the virtual assistant platform that you have. Gogo Bethke 38:26Yeah, so the TC one is mu TC and that started with the idea that people I go and you know, speak all the time. And I talk about these kinds of things like you know how to make more money and remove things from your plate and grow and yada, yada. And I would get asked all the time about like what TC company do I recommend and I really the TC company that I used for my local team was not taking on any more clients and I was like, I don’t know, I don’t like to recommend companies or systems and processes that I don’t personally use. So it was like okay, I guess it’s time for me to open one. So we do have a company called Smooth TC, you’re more than welcome to check us out. It’s smooth TC, that calm smooth came from the idea of smooth sailing all the way to the closing table right. So just check us out go to smooth tc.com and see if we will be a good fit. And then the the week one you kind of came the same thing we already have the boot camp right so we have the agent attraction boot camp and the social media boot camp. And even in the in both of the boot camps we have a lot of virtual assistant that helps us run it right and so our clients are used to seeing all kinds of or correspondence with all kinds of virtual assistants to the program and so they were always asking us so how can I get my own VA? Can you recommend a VA? How about every company and we would always send everybody back to Upwork because that’s how ours came originally right? And eventually people were just like can you just get me one trained like I don’t want to go through all the trouble of finding them and training them and a cultural differences and an hourly differences and how do I pay them and they were all coming back to us with a million other questions. So we created we clone you and we call you is very similar to all of my other boot camps where it’s a video based training right so I share my knowledge on the employer side of things and all of my ways share Are their knowledge on what they do for me, every single VA has their SOPs written out step by step instructions for every step that they take for me. So then the person who’s going to buy the program, if they decide to, they can literally buy it, own it forever and never have to come back to us to hire another VA, the next VA that they get, they could just go out on the market and say, Oh, you’re an executive assistant. Hey, log in here, watch all these videos. Here’s your SOP two weeks from now start working your job. D.J. Paris 40:25I love it. I mean, SOP for everyone listening to standard operating procedure? Yes, sorry. Yeah. So basically, you’re you’re creating videos so that if the virtual assistant doesn’t work out, you can plug somebody new into it. But I think that’s a great place to wrap up. So what we’re really just to recap what we talked about, first, we talked about how much are you worth per hour? What is your rates? What are you worth? And then where should you spend your time? Well, if you don’t have enough time, we just created a way to get you more time by hiring virtual assistants to help I guarantee you can earn back, I would say, at least an hour or two a day, wouldn’t you say? Gogo Bethke 41:05Easy? Um, depending on the help you have, right? If you have one person helping you for now, then yeah, it’s an hour. But imagine the growth that you can create for yourself when you have multiple of them right in different positions. Because at first the mistake I made is I hired one and I wanted her to do everything that I do is only one crazy person like me, right? So it’s like imagine creating a bunch of you that they specialize in that one thing, right? Because for example, nowadays, you can start doing things for you that you’re not good at. Like how about trackers that you want but you hate numbers, right? Well hire that person who’s gonna plug all those numbers in there for you. I’m gonna tell you in the end of the month, if you’re positive or negative, where are you blowing money? What are you not making revenue, right? So it’s like, they can do things for you. Not only they can do things for you that you already doing, but now they can start doing things for you that you never had the time to do. Or the talent. D.J. Paris 42:02Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. This is a great opportunity, everyone go out and consider hiring every single person who’s listening can afford to hire a virtual assistant, I promise you can. And if you if you can, so you just can and think about tasks that are dragging you down and just start slow, come up with a couple of tasks, have them do that. Even if it’s just one hour a day, even if they’re you’re just paying one hour a day wage, that’s an hour a day that you’re gonna get back. So it’s a total no brainer. I’m a huge fan. Gogo. Also, let’s talk about your boot camp. Tell us about your boot camp. Gogo Bethke 42:40So go goes with kim.com It started with the social media which we are updating right now actually we are stopped sales for a hot minute until we are updating everything then we start over. Then we have the agent attraction bootcamp. So that one is regarding that one is for agents or teams or team leaders or broker owners that want to grow their teams, right, or downline depending what brokerage they are with. And then we added on the TC company and the VA company so you can actually find everything that I do undergo was with Kim that calm, but also in the same time they each have their own individual company. So those websites and I said this new TC that we clone you they all pretty much need the you know, or what do they say All roads lead to Rome? Yeah, they all lead back to go was was given that karma eventually. Yeah. D.J. Paris 43:25I love it. So everyone, go visit Gogo podcast.com, because you get it actually a special discount for listeners of keeping it real podcast. So visit Gogo podcast.com, I promise this will be the incredible investment into your business. Everybody could use a boost in social media. And gogo has already paved the way so you don’t have to try and fail. And you just can learn from all of her trials and tribulations and she already knows what works. And she updates it all the time. I mean, gosh, I don’t know how many iterations of the bootcamp have already happened. But you have added dozens and dozens and dozens of hours since it launched. Just tons and tons of content there. So go visit go go podcast.com And also please follow gogo at on Instagram at gogos real estate that’s Gio, Gio s real estate. And also you can find her on our website, go go Beth key.com BETHKE, so Gog OBIEE thke.com. And check out everything related to go go. And if you want to join her team, if you think that she would be a great mentor to have and she would definitely go to gogo, Beth key.com. And you can find out more about joining her real estate team and she’ll help take your business to the next level. Gogo, thank you so much. Once again. You’ve been with us since the very beginning. We’re honored to have you and we were so thrilled to have you. Thanks for being such a supporter of our show, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks. Go go. Gogo Bethke 45:01Thank you. Thank you

Haley Cutter the founder of Cutter Luxe Living with Compass goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Haley discusses why she decided to build a team and how her team is built. Haley discusses what her team does to distinguish themselves from the competition and how they are educating their clients about the shift in the market. Haley also talks about balancing family/personal life and professional life. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Haley Cutter can be reached at 774-240-9174 and haley.cutter@compass.com. Please follow Elizabeth on Instagram and Facebook. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00How do you talk to your clients about the current market shift? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Haley cutter. Before we get to Haley just a couple of quick reminders please, as always, the best way you can help our show is by telling a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing the success strategies and tips from top producers like Haley send them a link to our website, right which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from a browser, or if the person you’re referring to as a podcast listener, have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button and last please leave us a review what other whatever app you might be listening to the show through let us know what you think of the show we read every review and comment and it helps us improve so anyway, enough of all that let’s get on to the main event my conversation with Haley cutter. Today on the show we have Katie cutter who’s a top 1% realtor and founder of Qatar Lux living with compass in Massachusetts. Now Haley cutter is the founder of Qatar Lux living with Compass after growing up in the Boston area and graduating from Emerson. She began her career working for a Top New York City advertising agency but returned to Boston to get her MBA at Northeastern. Once she graduated she shifted gears to the real estate industry in 2014. She co founded la live in luxury, sorry live in luxury real estate. It probably happens all the time. But let me start that one part over so I don’t screw it up because it is really cool. In 2014. She co founded live in luxury real estate at Douglas Elliman and in 2021 launched Qatar Lux living at Compass as the sole founder and managing broker which is now one of Boston’s top luxury real estate groups. And in December of last year, Qatar Lux living had a record breaking month, so not a year a month with 20 million in closings. This is absolutely incredible. Qatar Lux living serves Boston’s most exclusive downtown neighborhoods and surrounding communities all led by Haley’s driving force for a better client experience. The brokerage is currently expanding also into New Hampshire, and Florida. Please everyone visit visit Haley and her team at Cutter lux.com And that is c u t t e r l u x e.com. Again, Cutter lux.com. And by the way, unbelievable realtor website. I’m always impressed whenever I see a really great one. That’s a good one. Go check it out. Haley, welcome to our show. Haley Cutter 4:19Well, thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. D.J. Paris 4:23Yeah, I am so excited to talk with you. I am always you know, I’ve been doing these sorts of conversations for about four or five years now. And I never get tired, talking to top producers and finding out what it is they’ve done to get to where they are and what they’re continuing to do. And right now I think it’s particularly interesting time because I was with a couple 100 agents just a few days ago at an event with our local association. And you could feel the stress and tension in the room as people are realtors are it’s tough right now. You guys are crushing it so I’m excited to hear about what you guys are doing. But I’d love to see start at the very beginning and learn more about you because you didn’t you know, your path didn’t necessarily point towards real estate with with your education. So I’m excited to learn how you how you made that transition and why. Haley Cutter 5:12Absolutely. So yeah, not at all. I did not grow up thinking that I would ever be in real estate. It was not anything that I dreamed of as a little girl. I went to school I majored in marketing and advertising. Got my undergraduate degree at Emerson, as you had mentioned in Boston. And then I was off to New York City. I worked for a top agency. They’re great worldwide, and Oh, sure. Great, great. You got an account management working hand in hand with their Procter and Gamble team, Pantene Pro V. Had some great mentors, they’re really, really learned a lot. Learn how to interact with different people. You know, it was a great place to be and maybe from Boston on the East Coast, Boston’s a small city, but if people can after they graduate, I think it’s worthwhile for for anybody, even if you’re coming back to Boston to spend a year or two in New York City. It’s just such a eye opening, wonderful global experience. D.J. Paris 6:02I agree. I love both cities in Boston is one that my sister, she’s a brand manager and are well, yeah, she now she she’s a CMO. But she was work lived and worked in New York City as well in sort of the ad, advertising and marketing space. And so we used to visit there a lot. And Boston. I didn’t have as many close friends but I have visited several times in the last five years or six years. And boy, it’s just such a wonderful city. Boston is Boston doesn’t get its do because New York is so close. And it gets overshadowed sometimes. But I got I love Boston, it’s just a walkable, amazing city. Haley Cutter 6:40You’ve nailed that extremely walkable, it’s got great neighborhoods, they all have their own authentic flair. And it can become home where or sometimes New York might feel too vast. Boston becomes a neighborhood. D.J. Paris 6:53Yeah. So how did you make the pivot from from from being sort of in on Madison Avenue, maybe in New York City, making the switch back to to? Well, not just the Boston but of course, to a new career? Haley Cutter 7:06Sure. So I ended up coming back home, I really wanted to be closer to my family, there were a few things going on. And it was important to me to be here. So when I came back to Boston, I tried the advertising route. And I found that it just couldn’t compare with New York City. So at that point in time, my my fiance, who’s now my husband, he was in real estate, and I constantly found myself surrounded by him, his friends who were all in real estate, we were talking real estate, you know, every time went out for dinner every time we had a cocktail party, as we’re taking a walk in the park. And and I did enjoy it. And I thought, you know, what, if I can’t beat them, I’m just going to join them, because I was in it. D.J. Paris 7:41Well, to add also, I imagine I’m curious, because you’re really a marketer at heart. And that was, you know, your background, your training as well. I’m curious if you as my background is the same. And I’m curious if you ever looked at some of the marketing and the branding that was happening, the advertising in real estate in the realtor world, for example, and thinking I could do a better job of that, or I could have there’s a lots of room for improvement, I think, right. Haley Cutter 8:09And we’re going back to to 2008 2009. And all these great schools and apps that we have now where even if you have no advertising experience, you can put together a really cool ad, those didn’t exist. So some of the real estate advertisements just really weren’t that good. D.J. Paris 8:30Yeah, we didn’t we didn’t have Canva back then. Right? Like, he just changed the game for everyone who goes, I don’t really know how to use Photoshop and Canva came around and said, Oh, no problem, we can take care of that for you. And now. And now everyone can have cool looking stuff. Without really a design background. But you’re right back then you were really on your own. Haley Cutter 8:51You were you absolutely were. So I loved being able to put my advertising and marketing background to work. PR was also an area that I studied, and it was a perfect complement to to the real estate industry. D.J. Paris 9:05Yeah, makes makes so much sense. And I would love to hear about, you know, being that. That you’re you’re from that, you know, from the Boston area you guys serve as all of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, we should say. I have been as far west as which is not very far west as far west as Worcester. That is that is. But I know Massachusetts has got a lot more than just Boston in it. But you guys cover so much ground and your team. So tell us, tell us why you decided to build a team. And I always think this is interesting, because and and the reason I’m asking is there’s so many agents right now who are either solo practitioners, or maybe they’re already on a team. And they’re either thinking I want to join another team. Maybe this team isn’t the right fit or they’re not on a team thinking I either want to build my own team, or I want to join an established one I’m curious on on why you decided to build a team Haley Cutter 10:00So the reason that I was driven to grow and build a team is that I know my strengths, my strengths are in marketing, they’re an advertising, they’re in sales, but they’re not in so many other different areas. And I think that as Realtors as workers right now, we are not just being called on to go in open the door and show the features and benefits of a property. But, you know, we’re asked to be the financial analyst, and really, really diving deep into to all the trends where the price points, then mapping it out across the board. So finance side operations. When we work with new development clients, we’re partnering with groups that are doing visualizations. So it’s not as if a photographer can come in and just take photos. But we have members on our team that specialize in all these different areas. And my skills, that that’s not where I’m best utilized, and why I like a team and how we build our team is not just oh, you’re gonna sell in downtown Boston, you’re gonna sell in Beacon Hill, but what are the strengths and attributes that you can build? And how can we all be stronger together? D.J. Paris 11:06Yeah, that makes it so so the way that you have your team is our predominantly our people, our agents on your team? Do we? Are they do they have different roles? Or how does your team structure? Haley Cutter 11:18Sure, so it does differ project to project home to home, but I’ll give an example. So right now, we are in the process of bringing a beautiful, beautiful $6 million plus property to market. It is located in Newton mass, which is directly outside of Austin, one of the suburbs. It’s also abutting the beautiful golf course. And it is in the pre construction stage. So when we even when we pitched the developer, we’re bringing in our team members who specialized in the visualizations, we are bringing in our team members who have different speak different languages than I do. So we have manual, Cantonese speaking, specialists. We’re bringing in our finance team. And then we’re saying okay, so I’m going to be the one who shows the property 99% of the time, but, you know, Catherine is going to be helping and working with our visualization team, which is out of Vancouver. And interestingly, the team that working with this time is out of Poland, right. So we’re global it here. But no one person can manage all this and do it really, really well. D.J. Paris 12:22Right, it takes a village. Yeah. Haley Cutter 12:27What I’ve recognized and even in the last year is sometimes, you know, the question will be on a pitches, well, you know, I know that you have a big team, are you going to be the only one and what my response is, is, you know, I will show your home 99% The time but but my team, we are all stronger together than we are apart. And they obviously you know, I certainly can’t speak Mandarin and Cantonese, I cannot get behind the firewall on WeChat marketing homes. So, you know, we’re really, we’re giving the benefits of all of our team members and explaining why why we work together. And you know, the CEO of a company, he’s not doing every single job, but for whatever reason, our clients but they’ve worked for a while expecting that Realtors wear all these hats. D.J. Paris 13:12And I teams are a relatively new phenomenon. So I guess a lot of people had the experience of I had somebody who was a realtor, they seemed it seemed like they did everything and and now we have to almost resell our clients on this team base structure. Because you’re right, there’s there’s that fear that the client is going to think I’ve become so big, and I can’t really give them the personalized attention that they think they deserve. They’re gonna feel, and you’re right. So having that answer, ready and loaded. And of course, what you say makes perfect sense. Haley Cutter 13:43And it really is how we operate. You know, day in and day out, if you look at the projects that we take on, we’re putting the best team in place for every project to market and sell it and we do, I’d say probably 70% of our business is on the left side and about 30% on the buyer side. But on the left side, it is so so important to have the right people in place because you know, the social media, the brochures, the lifestyle videos, writing up the narrative, this is not like one, one person is not going to be the best fit for all of that. So my team and she previously she wrote for Bravo. So when we have to write narratives and property descriptions, she’s been a writer. Yeah, I can read. It’s not going to be as good as what Jen can write. That’s the reality of it. No, I know my strengths are and I think that my job as a team lead is really to understand the strengths that my team members bring and to utilize them appropriately. D.J. Paris 14:44Such a great answer and it’s such an important answer and what what I what I think is because I really want to get to this idea of luxury and luxury and working developments because I was in a Having it was at a breakfast with our local association. A couple days ago, a couple 100 agents in the room, mostly younger agents not younger, so much in age, although some of them were, but certainly younger or newer to the business and the whole, we had some speakers, some top Realtors here in Chicago, who were talking about luxury luxury rentals in this case, and the room was packed and standing room only because everybody who isn’t in luxury, who’s new to the business goes, I want to be in luxury. Can we dispel some myths about being in luxury? In other words, what I want to make sure our audience understands is what it’s really like to be in to be a luxury agent to work in that space. And it you know, while it’s something that I think a lot of people aspire to, I don’t think it’s the right fit for a lot of agents, would you agree? Haley Cutter 15:50I would agree. And to me luxury, it’s not about $1 amount. It’s not about wealth, but it’s about living a lifestyle that you feel uniquely abundant. And so when we’re marketing a property, whether it’s a luxury property or a $500,000 property, we are giving all of our clients the same white glove service, because I think that they deserve it. D.J. Paris 16:11Yeah, it i Absolutely. Believe that treating, you know, each each client, the same giving them a luxury experience, not only will of course, net you referrals and repeat business, but also will attract the I have the luxury buyers and sellers to write because that’s what they’re expecting and looking for from an agent. And also I want to also real ask you about competition, because obviously, there’s a tremendous number of agents in not only just the Boston area, but in the whole state. And of course, you’re in competition, I’m sure a lot of times with particularly with listings you do 70% of your business or listings, I’m curious, how often are you up against a multiple sort of interview? Sort of experience where they’re interviewing, you know, several different teams? Is, is that a common? Is that common for you? And if if it is, how do you go about distinguishing yourself from some of the other really amazing teams in your area? Haley Cutter 17:09Sure. So I think that my personal business, about 70% of it right now is either repeat clients or referrals. And thankfully, we’re it’s not necessarily an interview, they want to take the time to make sure that they they get to know me, they understand the process, but usually there’s not somebody we’re competing with. When we do really, once again, I think that cutter Luxe living utilizing all of our team members best strengths and grading the best team is nobody else is doing that here in Boston right now. So we have people who are the team members, they have the same role, right? So they’re gonna go in and they both go and the photographer comps, and they’re both fair. And they both go and they do the showing, because honestly, you know, team member a and team member B, they both feel that they should be there. So but when I started to restructure and rebrand Qatar Lux living, I looked at the way how we used to do things, and I thought, how can we improve upon it. So right now, I if I’m there meeting a photographer, I do not want another member of my team to be there, I want them to be working on visualizations, doing an analysis, making phone calls, it just, it doesn’t behoove anyone. So that’s how what I see right now in the Boston marketplace is most of the teams, they’re still operating almost as one unit. But there’s two three people, and fine, like you’re brand new, and you want to shadow and of course, that’s appropriate to do so. But I, I’ve really spent a lot of time this past year, I thinking long and hard about just the utilization of time, and how we can make sure that we have time for ourselves and our self care and our families so that then we can give back and really give 200% to our clients. Because at the level that I was operating at, you know, we did 150 transactions last year, not all sales, some rentals, but it’s impossible to do all that and you know, have an amazing family life and, you know, see your friends and enjoy hobbies, and all those things are really, really important. So just trying to do things a little differently this year. D.J. Paris 19:16I think it makes so much sense. You’re right. There are so many teams that currently exist that are really just a bunch of individual agents that get together. They keep doing their individual business, and I’m not here to say there’s anything wrong with that. Not at all. That’s perfectly lovely. Haley Cutter 19:30And it worked. It did. D.J. Paris 19:34But I really think you know, what you said is so important. I think as a as a society, I think, you know, we used to think things like multitasking worked and being a jack of all trades work. And then the science is now more available to everyone that is really, really clear that it does not work as effectively if you try to do everything well. There’s just a lot of things you’re not going to be good at. And you had talked about, hey, I’m a marketing person. I’m a brand Ending I’m an I’m an advert ad person. I know that side of it. I don’t I’m not a visualizations person, you know, and I, there’s certain your Haley Cutter 20:09I understand it. But you know, my time is not best spent doing that. D.J. Paris 20:13Right? Yeah. So I almost think, how did you ended up determining what was the best use of your time? Because I know right now that we have a lot of listeners who do everything themselves, and are trying to figure out, I’m not on a team, or a team structured like yours? How might somebody go about thinking, okay, maybe this part of the segment of my business isn’t the best use of my time, and not what I’m best at? Haley Cutter 20:38Sure. So I think for a solo agent, that the best opportunity, and the quickest would just be to outsource. So perhaps hiring on somebody to help with your marketing or administration, so start little by little, and those opportunities are available to everyone. And then I’d say if you’re a solo agent, and you’re looking to build a team, or approach it as if you’re building a business, you need a CEO, you need a CFO, you need a marketing person, you need someone who’s going to help out with a public relations, maybe maybe you just have three agents that all they do is sell and they sell really, really well. But if an event needs to be executed to promote the property, you recognize that that’s not their skill set, and you have team members that you can shift and actually in the pay accordingly. D.J. Paris 21:19Yeah, makes, again, makes so much sense. I am curious right now being that we’re in a shifting market, in particular, we know everyone listening, you know, pretty much everywhere in the country, here, at least the United States, we’re dealing with, of course, raising rising interest rates. So buyers price points are shifting, oftentimes not for the better. We have, of course, inventory issues, not as much on the market. And right now I imagine. There’s just a lot of client management that has to be done and expectation management and helping somebody understand the turbulence of what’s what’s happening. I’m curious on how you think about having those conversations and what you’re, you know, what you’re doing, you know, with your clients, when there’s the buyer clients, for example, which I know not isn’t the primary part of your personal business, but you know, still something you have to service and what are how are you talking to clients about gosh, guys, there’s just not much out right now. How are you educating your clients about the current conditions? So Haley Cutter 22:25when it comes to the buyer side, we are constantly speaking to the mortgage lenders, the banks and saying, what’s it as well as the listing agents? What’s making a difference? Why is client a getting the home over client B. And the way that offers are presented now have changed significantly in the last 12 months in the last six months, there are new vehicles and tools available to certain mortgage lenders where rather than just having a pre approval letter, you could submit an offer that’s completely gone through the underwriting process. So that did not exist, at least I’m sure Massachusetts in the pre COVID market. So it’s pretty amazing when you just look in, really these banks and these brokerages, they’re trying to figure out ways to make their clients shine and in winter homes, they know how important it is to them. So we do we stay on on top of our game, and we’re in contact with the mortgage brokers with the banks. Sometimes we’ve even asked not sometimes across the board, if we know that our clients are in a competitive situation right now, when we’re submitting the offer, we’re submitting a letter from the mortgage broker that is explaining, you know, client a has already gone completely through our underwriting process, their funds are strong, they’re putting down less, or they have more means and they’re even putting down so if something happens, and there’s an appraisal gap, so what an appraisal gap is right is if if a home right now is selling for a million, but the comps in the area really only support an $800,000 sale, then when a bank appraiser comes in he might only appraise it for $800,000. So it’s now up to the buyer to cover that difference. So we’re assuring the sellers that our clients are able to do that. D.J. Paris 24:08appraisal, appraisal Gap coverage is huge right now. Very common. Haley Cutter 24:13Absolutely. And we’re we’re setting the expectation for the buyers that this is what you need to do and right now we are in a market that in the HUD suburbs unfortunately, you’re waiving the inspection, and that’s a little scary if you don’t have any knowledge you’re not a contractor I’m not I go into home and I don’t know what’s in working order and what’s not of course, if I turn on the light and it doesn’t turn on I know it’s broken. But you know what’s going on between the walls so you know what an open house is actually the perfect opportunity if you would like to bring in an inspector your own Ah, that’s brilliant. I never thought ever it may be there’s nothing wrong with doing that. At least not here in Massachusetts. I’m sure every market is different. So I have seen in in our clients, our team members have physically brought inspectors. They’ve paid them for the day. Hey, we’re gonna go to open houses today. Please come with us. You know, no If there’s if there’s anything major, right, if it’s what’s going to nickel and dime right now, but But is this home structurally sound? Do I know what I’m getting into? Those are all really, really important questions for a buyer to ask. And they have the right to know that. D.J. Paris 25:14That’s a really great boy I have we’ve done almost 400 episodes, nobody has ever given that specific tip. And I want to just say it again, for anyone that might have not heard it, which was so, so smart, which is if you are in a situation where you’re having to waive the appraisal, or the inspection, you can if there’s an open house opportunity, you can just bring someone with you, do you ever get pushback from the listing agent, or, or as the listing agent and or whoever’s running the open house maybe not even aware, do you sort of do it on the quiet or Haley Cutter 25:47they think that they are aware, it’s not something that’s hidden. I know if we’re on the other side, we welcome it. And if I’m on the listing side, it’s not that I have a problem with an inspection, I want a buyer to go in with their eyes wide open. But the problem is, is that if you have six seven plus offers, sometimes 20 offers to wait the day or two, for the inspector to come in to get the inspection report some of those buyers, they’re going to find other places you’ve already lost them. So it really comes down to timing, the sellers just want to move fast. They want to know if it’s priced appropriately in the suburbs right now that if they go to market on a Friday, and they do open houses Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they’ll have an accepted offer, you know, early in the week, and they can they can make their next move, they can figure out where they’re going next. D.J. Paris 26:33It’s really interesting. Now what happens in a situation? And when I say what happens, I’m saying how do you, I would think a big fear as an agent would be when you aren’t able to bring an inspector and appraiser to an open house, maybe there just isn’t an open house opportunity. And you’re not able to get someone in there to really look but you do have to make that concession on on the offer, because you’re competing with other people that have already made that concession. So if that comes up, does that ever come up? And if so, how would you talk to the client, because now the client might have some additional fear about gosh, now I’m really not going to know what I’m getting into? Haley Cutter 27:10Sure. So maybe at that point, just go in with your eyes extremely wide open. If this is an older home, you know, look in the basement, look for signs of water damage, look for signs of termites, for any kind of you know, rodents, bugs, etc. Take pictures, open the bulkhead. If it’s a newer home, you know constructed here in the last 10 years, I worry less about that. But once again, just go in with your eyes wide open and look less at the shiny fixtures, the lights, the appliances, but but really the structure of the home, you want to make sure that the property that you’re purchasing is structurally sound. And if it’s not that you have a good understanding of the cost that it’s going to take to get it there. D.J. Paris 27:51Yeah, and I also think too, I’m curious to get your thoughts that if you’re a solo practitioner, and you’re not yet super familiar with what inspectors and appraisers actually look at, structurally, go, go hang out with one for a day or spend some time with them or pay them for their time and say, Hey, in case I can’t get a hold of you, or I need to just you know, if I’m not able to bring you here somewhere, what are like 10 things I should be looking for every time I go into a home. And I imagine that would be a great little just series of things that every agent should learn? Haley Cutter 28:21Of course, yeah, that’s a good question. You know, what I’m gonna call Lenny Lucario. To be sure and ask him he’s the best right now is, you could if you wanted to hire inspector to go out with you for a few hours on a Saturday morning, they have time right now, it was interesting, at the beginning of COVID, you could not book an inspector, they were just so booked. But now with everybody waiving the inspection, they are available, they would be more than happy to spend a morning you know, an evening going to some open houses with a potential buyer. D.J. Paris 28:48I mean, I would pay somebody $500 for a few hours of their time to do that, because it would it’ll end up it’ll end up just differentiating myself from all the other agents that exist. I want to talk about balance because you had mentioned this earlier. So we’re gonna I’m gonna change topics because so many of I, you know, I don’t have children, I don’t I have a girlfriend who lives with me. But that’s the extent of my account my complicated family life. But of course, you have children, you have a husband, you have a career not only as an agent, but as a as an as a managing broker, as a team leader. And then of course, your own individual business. How do you what what do you do to stay balanced so that you’re not burning the candle at both ends? And you know, being that you want to be there of course, for your family and for your team? And for your clients? How do you figure out how to how to structure all of that? Sure. So Haley Cutter 29:41no one’s perfect. And this is definitely an area that that I I worked at, I work every single day, but I do get up really early. I take time for myself in the morning. So I tend to rise about five o’clock and if I’m not going to work out Pilates or yoga then I’m just taking a nice walk in in my neighborhood and clearing my head so that when my children get up and really start their day, and they’re running, and they’re crazy, and they’re active, because they’re nine and 11, then I have the the energy and the mindset to welcome that. Whereas if I was just waking up at the same time as them, I wouldn’t have a chance to reset and refresh. D.J. Paris 30:18That’s a good point. So you’re like a big fan. For anyone listening? There’s a great book that a lot of realtors have read called the Miracle Morning. It’s not a specifically a real estate related book, but it is about how to take those first hours of the day for yourself. And, and, and do that before the chaos all begins. I’m curious about boundaries. And when I mean boundaries, I don’t mean personal boundaries more about work boundaries. So for you only because this question comes up so often, you know, if you get a text from a client late in the evening, do you have do you have special rules around? You know, if it’s after a certain time I, you know, I don’t worry about it, or are you Uh, hey, no matter if I’m awake, I’m responding. You know, what are your thoughts about Haley Cutter 31:01it, I’ll respond, but I also go to bed really early. And my team members know that. So sometimes, if they’re texting at 9pm, I might be up. But by 930, I’m asleep. And I’m up really early in the morning, I have a lot of responsibilities. And I don’t feel guilty about that. D.J. Paris 31:16No, and nor should you, I just think it can be very difficult for agents sometimes to feel like it’s okay to tell their clients, hey, I’m available from, you know, usually from this time to this time, if I’m up, I’ll certainly respond after that, if I’m not first thing in the morning. But so many agents have a hard time setting those boundaries with their clients. Do you feel that that’s appropriate to, to set expectations early on with the client so that they’re so that their expectations are, are in alignment with what you’re able to provide? Thank you. Haley Cutter 31:47And I know a lot of brokers that will say I’m available between x and x time. And if you set that if you set the framework in the beginning, then I don’t foresee any problems with a client. Yeah. That’s what I think I could get better at. And I noticed that sometimes people say like, oh, I respond to emails between X and X hours. I like the idea of it practically, I have not been able to find a way to make it work. But who knows, maybe one day D.J. Paris 32:12I I’m laughing because I have the same problem. I’m like, I know I shouldn’t be checking my emails all day long. I know, it’s not good use of my time. But it’s it’s addictive. And it feels good to immediately respond. Haley Cutter 32:24I don’t want to call these nines, like when I fall behind that gets overwhelming. Yeah, if I can just keep up throughout the course of the day, and it’s okay. D.J. Paris 32:33Well, I have a question I’m going to ask. And then before you answer, I want to I have to do a quick sponsorship read. But my question is about team members now. And I know you have a large team. And when you think about adding a team member, I’m curious to know what qualities and somebody you’re looking for not so much their skills, because obviously you’re going to you pick people with very specific skills. I’m more interested in qualities, because I am sure so many agents want to work with your team want to join your team, you guys are one of the most successful teams in all of Massachusetts. So I’m curious on what you look for, because I think that’ll help. And again, you’re you’re one team and there’s millions of teams that look for different things. But I’m curious on the qualities you look for in a in somebody that you’re considering to join your team. And I think that will help our audience understand what somebody at your level might be interested in. But before we do that, I want to take pause for a quick moment to talk about our episode sponsor. It’s one of my favorite companies out there in the real estate tech space, which is called follow up boss. And after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors all over the country for this podcast, the CRM that is talked about by more of our guests than any other Believe it or not, 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 with less effort and don’t take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States for real estate agents use his follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss also integrates with 250 existing external systems. So if you’re already using other pieces of technology for your real estate business, no problem follow up boss integrates with them you keep those tools too. But here’s the best part. Follow up boss has seven day a week support. We know real estate happens at nights and weekends right so they are available so you’ll get the help you need when you need it. Get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM and for a limited time, they are offering keeping it real podcast listeners a 30 day free trial which is twice as much time as they give everybody else. So oh and by the way, no credit card required. So they are so confident you’re going to keep using their systems and you will once you try it that you’ve they’re gonna give you 30 free days and then they’re going to ask for payment if you want to keep going but only if you visit the special link which is follow up boss.com forward slash real file 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 question. So when you’re looking to expand your team, what qualities do you look for in an agent? Haley Cutter 35:16So first and foremost is character, because if I’m bringing somebody onto my team, then they are indirectly but also directly linked to me. So that that is the number one trait that I am looking for in an agent. We want people who are go getters and are gonna go the extra mile, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, it’s not all what you see on selling sunset and the stiletto heels and walking around and pointing out the attributes of a condo, we’ve sold nine and a half million dollar condos, they’re beautiful, that’s great. But that probably is 1% of what we’re doing on any given day. So sometimes we’re moving furniture, and we might be moving furniture up the stairs. So it’s, it’s not all glitz and glam. And you have to work really, really hard and be willing to put your time in. Also, our team, we are large right now. And it’s extremely important to me that any new team member that we bring on has compatible. It really is competitive with our team has complementary skill sets isn’t directly competing with anybody. And it’s going to fit in and feel welcome. So something that we’ve done in this didn’t exist initially. But now if anybody does want to join our team, and initially I’ll have a conversation and interview, if you will. And if I think that the person would be a good fit for our team, our next step is that they come in and they attend one of our team meetings. So we meet at 11 o’clock every Wednesday on Newbury Street, it’s the one time that I’m in the Boston office, because otherwise I’m just running around home to home, showing and selling and everything else. So it’s a good opportunity. And we roundtable it’s really fun. Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. And, you know, first is just, you know, observe, see what’s going on? Like, does this seem too crazy for you? Or is it like these people? I like them that are my tribe, you know, where do you feel? And then after that the team, we as a team, not just me, but it’s Hey, you know, Sarah came in? And what does everybody think? Do we think that she’d be a fit? And the Fit goes two ways, too, right? So if we feel you’re a fit, like you also have to feel that you’re fit. And then we’re taking it even a step further. And until we formally onboard anyone, we’ll have a trial. So based on what’s going on, if someone’s traveling, maybe it’s a little extended, if they’re going to spend a lot of time with us, maybe it’s long. But that’s an opportunity for you to come in to go to our events shadow me or any of the team members on listings to help out and and then feel like is does this feel right for you? Because it’s so important right now that the team members we’re bringing in, we need we need the team to be strong. We’re currently strong. And we just want to make sure that if we’re adding it’s the right person, and it’s the right fit. We’re not putting on a team member just to get your ear, you know, you’re, what $10 million in sales that that’s, that’s irrelevant. D.J. Paris 38:14It’s irrelevant, and it doesn’t help the team necessarily, Haley Cutter 38:17it doesn’t. Do you have a skill that you can offer that we do not have? So when Catherine came in, and she could speak Cantonese, and Mandarin, and she has an amazing background, and she’s posting things on WeChat, that’s something that I can’t contribute. But that alone would not have got Katherine on our team, the fact that she fit in and everybody felt that are comfortable with her that she was willing to do anything like that’s what got her hired. D.J. Paris 38:43Yeah, it’s everything you said, just makes so much sense. And it’s a really great education for our listeners who are thinking about approaching a team and saying, Hey, I would like to, to work with you, I, I love this idea of you know, once they sort of get the initial Hey, we like this person, then it’s like, Okay, we’re gonna try, we’re gonna do a trial period. And that probably weeds out a lot of people as well, because there’s just not as many agents that are willing to do that. And I think that’s a really smart way to make sure that you have somebody who’s committed serious, coachable, because you’re doing your you’re making sure that that those people best represent Luxe living. Haley Cutter 39:24And probably the final step to as if somebody shadowed for a month plus whatever we feel is appropriate, if I’ll sit down with them, and I’m not just asking them what their goals and expectations are. I’m asking them what the goals and expectations are for me and for the team. Because I do not want to be bringing anybody on that I’m not meeting their goals and expectations. And I think that that’s a really important question that often is not asked. And I don’t even know if the agents Give It Thought until you ask. Because if somebody was expectation of me is that every morning, you know, we’re going to have a phone call for An hour, and then we’re going to recap for an hour in the evening. I apologize that I just don’t have time for that. Right? Right. But if it’s like once a week, we want to sit down, you want to do goal setting, if they want the opportunity to shadow, great, I’ll let you know. But but sometimes somebody might come in and they think in their head that their goals and expectations are going to be met by you, as a team lead or by other team members. And I just want to be sure that we’re all on the same page. You know, we take the professional photos, we have the ads and all the publications, the last thing I want is to put something out there, and then somebody’s you know, no, no longer part of the team. D.J. Paris 40:34Sure. I think you said something really, also really important, which is agents, you can ask those team leaders, hey, here’s what I’m looking to accomplish. You know, can you help me get there, as opposed to saying, here’s why I’d be a great fit for your team, which of course, you shouldn’t say as well, but also say, here’s what I’m looking for. And I’m really looking to accomplish this. Can you help me do XY and Z, and I imagine, you know, you get calls from from agents who are just looking for lead source and are unable to do that on their own. And so they’re like, Well, if I join a team, I might get some leads. But until you understand what that person really needs, and you you might not be willing or able to do that. But a lot of times you’re right, the agent doesn’t say, here’s what I need, right? There needs to be a fit. I think that’s really important is ask for what you need. And in you know, it’s okay. If the I mean, it’s like I, we get these calls, too, because I handle people who are interested in joining our firm, and we get that question a lot. I always say what are you looking for? What do you want in a firm? And if they immediately it’s like, Oh, I really need a lot of leads. I’m like, we are not the right fit. I wish we I wish we could do that. But the truth is, we don’t. And I’d rather you know that right now. And then otherwise join us. And then you know, photos, all the all of the things and then you’re like, oh, that person isn’t happy here and they leave or we’re not happy with them. And I would love to talk with the last thing I want to talk about is something you said earlier, which is about your referral. 70% of your business is referral repeat, you know, a business. What are you doing? This is what I’m always interested in, after the sale. What are you and your team doing to stay in touch with? With clients? Maybe they just bought a home and you’re like this person and this is their forever home? Or this? They’re going to be there for a long time? What are you doing to still stay, at least in the back of someone’s mind as they progress when they’re not needing your services right away? Haley Cutter 42:33Sure. So for us, it’s always relationship, not a transaction. So when the home has closed for still, we’re going to call we’re going to send cards, we do a weekly newsletter. And that’s just an opportunity for us to be top of mind. And sometimes if a client purchases in downtown Boston, they might not know that we have two new listings coming on and dentists on Cape Cod, but when they get our newsletter, they’re like, oh my gosh, really? I didn’t know that you service that. And you know what? My brother? He’s thinking of buying a house on the cake? Can you help him? So it’s little things like that. So some of it is just putting them on the newsletter list. And of course, if somebody wants to unsubscribe, it’s their right to do so. Please, by all means do but most people say how much they enjoy it. Yeah, and just if you were calling them, you know, every day, you’re not going to call them every day. But you know, maybe pick up the phone every few months. Or if you know that somebody really enjoys baseball, when the season starts, they like oh my gosh, you want on the baseball game? Like let’s meet up. Just keep it real. And don’t be fake about it. D.J. Paris 43:34I think that’s right. I think people can sniff out in authenticity, or non authenticity. I’m not sure what’s the proper way to say it. But But yes, I think being authentic and being gracious and also thoughtful, like in your case, every week sending them what Brian Buffini value, Haley Cutter 43:55they probably you know, they’re busy. They don’t want to hear from you every week. But every now and then, well, I’ve got a funny story. So go ahead. We have a client who has become a friend. But when we were initially looking for properties, and she must have purchased in Beacon Hill about five years ago now, we were touring some spectacular homes for five $6 million plus and for whatever reason in the Back Bay. A lot of the homes we went into, they were just staged a little funny. So there was this one that there was actual stuffed cats arranged on every bed with a cup fake milk in front of it. Oh, no. So she was like, oh my goodness, Haley, like, you gotta get me out of this house now like she’s flipping. He’s like, no, no, no, no, no. And they also had creepy dolls. So to this day, if she goes into a gift shop and there’s like a cat joke, like she’ll take a picture and send it to me and I’ll take a picture and send it to her. So it’s just that’s authentic. That’s real. D.J. Paris 44:49It is. It is funny. Realtors get to sort of see how the other half live sub dives do right. We’re like, wow, that person painted a sky on their ceiling with clouds and Okay. Hey, are there taxidermy? Yeah, it was, it was bizarre. But those those experiences really bite bind you to other people, right? Because you share that sort of intimate, funny experience. And then it becomes kind of a like a lifetime, a lifelong joke, right? Yeah. Haley Cutter 45:18Gifts to like, it’s not just me giving them to her, she’s giving them to me. Shared commonality, D.J. Paris 45:25I think it’s a great, great place to wrap up being authentic and, and having fun with with your clients and just being being yourself. And, above all, you know, you demonstrate and your team demonstrates professionalism. And I think that is, at the end of the day, what seals the deal with keeps everyone happy and wanting to work with you. Because I know there’s a lot of people I really like and I’m connected to, but I don’t trust their skill set. Right. And you guys do everything, you’re authentic. You’re a well oiled team, and you have really strong, not just you, but everyone on your team is really, really skilled. And I think I think that’s just an incredible combination. Obviously, you’re having incredible success as a result. Haley Cutter 46:11We also have a lot of fun along the way. D.J. Paris 46:14Yes, yeah, I get that as well. I totally, totally believe it. Just even looking at some of the photos, everyone in your in your staff, you can tell when people smile just for Team photos, but maybe not that way. You can see it in the photos, your photos, everyone looks legitimately happy. And you just said hanging out with everybody on Wednesdays when their team meeting. That’s a really, that’s your most fun thing to do. So, you know, boy seems like a wonderful environment. I want to to wrap up by saying if anyone out there if any of our listeners have have clients who may be vacation out in Massachusetts, of course, take QA there’s lots of wonderful places on the East Coast. Or if you have clients that are relocating to Boston or anywhere in Massachusetts, Haley and her team would love the opportunity to chat with you. Or if you just happen to be a listener and you’re not a realtor, but you live in that in the in the Massachusetts area. Or if you’re moving there, definitely check with with Qatar Lux living, they would love the opportunity to chat with you see if you’d be a good fit. And if they would be a good fit. And the best way to reach them. Obviously, you can go right to their website, which is Qatar lux.com. And that’s Lux with an E at the end Qatar lux.com. With compass in in Massachusetts. And Hailey is if anyone else is wants to reach out to you, is there a better way they should touch base? Oh, so Haley Cutter 47:31Haley dot cutter is my handle on Instagram as well as Facebook and or haley.cutter@gmail.com. D.J. Paris 47:37Wonderful. And we will have links to Haley’s Instagram and Facebook in our show notes. If you’re listening on a podcast app, just look in the show notes. And you can follow her on social and contact her that way. Haley, thank you so much. We are so grateful for your time we know how busy oh my gosh, you guys are so busy. And you took the time to really help our audience improve their business. And we are so grateful for you for that. So on behalf of the audience, we say thank you. On behalf of Haley and myself, this is actually Memorial Day weekend when we’re recording. So Haley, I want to hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend. Also hope all of our audience enjoys the holiday. By the time most of you here this Memorial Day be long gone. But I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend and we will see everybody on the next episode. Oh, one last thing please tell a friend about this episode. Think of one other agent that in your office that you know that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Haley send them a link to it. You know there’s a million ways to do that. So please let them know about our show. Haley, thank you so so much and we will say thank you so grateful to have you and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks anyway. Thank you bye guys.

Elizabeth Averyanova the founder of Studio Classica talks about her background and how she got into brand management. Elizabeth also discusses talks about what branding is and what’s the role of the brand strategist. Last, Elizabeth discusses authenticity and picture-perfect presentation and also social media presentation and the power of videos. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Elizabeth Averyanova can be reached at elizabeth@elizabethaveryanova.com. Please follow Elizabeth on Instagram here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Have you ever wanted to explore branding or improve your branding for your real estate business? 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. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with brand expert or branding expert I should say Elizabeth Avery a nova, who’s going to talk all about real estate broker or realtor branding, which is something that we hear a lot we have hundreds and hundreds of agents in our firm. And that is really one of the biggest questions we get is How do I brand myself better digitally. So via social or in print, and in lots of different ways. So we’re going to talk about that. But before we get to Elizabeth, just a couple of quick reminders, please tell a friend about this show. Think of one other real estate agent maybe that needs help with their branding, and send them a link to our website if they’re not a podcast person, which they can stream all of our episodes right from a browser, which is keeping it real pod.com Is our website or they could just pull up any podcast app and do a search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button and let that last thing please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. We read every single comment. And we really want to keep getting better, right? We want to keep meeting your needs. And we need to know what your needs are. So let us know what you can do right from whatever app store you might have. Or whatever podcast directory system you might be using. So thank you for all that but enough for me. Let’s get to our main event our interview with Elizabeth Avery ANOVA. Okay today on the show we have Elizabeth a very Nova from Studio Classica. Now let me tell you more about Elizabeth. Now Elizabeth is a brand strategist, also a digital marketing expert, a web and architectural designer. And she’s also the founder of studio Classica. Elizabeth helps purpose driven entrepreneurs and industry leaders scale their online businesses with an impactful beautiful and df y design so that they can attract dream clients elevate their online presence and book out their offers with while creating a lasting impact in the world. She has fully transformed the online presence of many real estate professionals and experts. So Elizabeth knows what it takes to stand out, attract people who want to work with you, and close more real estate transactions. Elizabeth, welcome to the show all the way from Latvia. Elizabeth Averyanova 4:02Thank you so much, DJ, I’m excited to talk today. D.J. Paris 4:05I am a marketing person at heart. And I am going to do my best to not take over this conversation because this is your episode. But I live eat and breathe marketing. My sister is a brand manager or a CMO but started off as in brand management. So this is my wheelhouse. I don’t know as much as you but I am super passionate about this. And I’m so excited to have you because I think this is a conversation that Realtors oftentimes struggle with trying to figure out what is my brand? How do I present that to my audience? How do I demonstrate who I am on social on my website, in my print advertising, you know, and so we want to have those conversations with you because this is what you do. So let’s I would love Let’s start with your background talk. Tell us a little bit about how you got into brand management. Elizabeth Averyanova 5:05Yeah, perfect. So, so I’m a designer, like pretty much my whole life. And actually, my background is in architecture. And from, you know, from my education in in those fields, I, you know, I started my own design business 10 years ago, where we were serving in the architecture, space and design space, and really focusing on online services and reaching people pretty much around the world, through the internet, which is amazing. And in the past two years, I really decided to focus in on the branding side of it and the marketing side of it, because I also like you, like, I love marketing, and I love figuring out online business things and, you know, tying it together to really help people connect with their ideal client and help them grow their business to a whole new level. And so that’s how I got into branding through the way of wanting to really help people who are coaches in the space or who are industry leaders who are like, you know, really changing the game in their field in their niche and real estate came about because I have a brief foray into real estate. It was my only corporate job. And it was a pretty short experience, but really amazing, which is I actually was a was a research and advisory assistant at Colliers International. I get now it was like, wow, that’s really big deal. D.J. Paris 6:26It is a big deal. Elizabeth Averyanova 6:26At the time, I was just kind of it was 10 years ago, I was a lot younger, and I was just, you know, not quite, I don’t even know how it how it came about how I got accepted to this sort of position. But I, the catch here is I was in an international office. And, you know, in Riga, Latvia, and everyone only spoke Russian and Latvian languages. I’m a native English speaker, and I didn’t speak those languages. And it was a whole different experience. But that was my first initial like, delve into real estate. And I’m really excited. Now I get to tie all these past experiences together, to you know, really focusing on a big need a big area of our niche now is helping Realtors with their branding. D.J. Paris 7:15Yeah, I think it’s something that we we hear a lot from our listeners, which is, hey, I, I want to really, really revamp my brand, or figure out what my brand is. And then, you know, everyone, I think always wants to start on the design with the design. So they’ll say, Oh, I like this look. But I’m curious, when you start to work with a client, like a realtor, for example, or a team, a real estate team? How do you begin to sort of help them discover their brand? And what that sort of visual aesthetic might might look like? Elizabeth Averyanova 7:57Hmm, yeah, so I honestly, I’m kind of contacted every single week, pretty much by a real estate agent, who’s like, I need help with branding. But you know, they’re very overwhelmed. They’re very confused, they don’t really know where to start. And the biggest thing I see is that they’re afraid to really dive into what does it mean to figure out your brand name. And you know, so I have a lot of these conversations, but a lot of people are afraid to take that step forward of figuring it out. The very when I start with clients, the first thing I really need to know are what are your goals as a real estate agent or broker or realtor? What are your goals in the next six months in the next year, and in the next five years, the clients when we see have the most success are the ones who are very clear about their goals, and creating those smart, actionable, measurable goals. D.J. Paris 8:47So if somebody’s goal is I want to attract more home owners that want to sell, you know, sell property, right. So I want I want more homeowners to reach out to me, you know, to to, you know, sell my property. So is that a specific enough goal? Or are how specific do people need to be do? Is it better to say, well, here’s my current business, here’s where I’d like it to grow. I’m just curious on what the what that sort of looks like. Elizabeth Averyanova 9:19Yeah, definitely. So you know, we, you know, sometimes we do an audit of what are people currently doing? So we do an audit of, you know, of their brand and other business, but let’s just say like you said, that example if they want to reach more, I would get much more specific of of how many people but you also want to make sure it’s a goal within your control. You know, like, you want to make 20 you want to sell 20 houses this year. It what is actually in your control with related to that goal. D.J. Paris 9:49Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know what, maybe we should also define what branding is, and let’s, let’s talk about what is it and strategist do so let’s first define what a brand strategist does. I think that’ll give us a good intro to sort of branding 101 Elizabeth Averyanova 10:07Sure. So, you know, so my vision of what a brand strategist is, is, is diving into your representation on line and offline. And and you know, as a realtor, you have a very unique position where you have to show up amazing online and offline both places, you know, a lot of online entrepreneurs can get away with just showing up good online, but offline, that that is not even part of the conversation, really. So a brand strategist is somebody who really strategically knows your goals. Help helps you identify your goals, your ideal clients, and you know, what, who you want to serve and what and how you want to serve them. And it helps, and they help you bridge the gap between that and and how you show up online and offline. And, yeah, go ahead. D.J. Paris 10:58No, I think that’s important because Realtors do struggle with that. So the thought is, okay, you know, look, I have this professional presence. And we have this social media, these social media platforms that enable me to show my professional life as well as maybe my personal life. And I know realtors are always sort of trying to figure out, how do I, how do I stay on brand another way? Let’s let’s first, you know, what actually, I’d like to talk about is determining one’s brand. Can you talk about how you determine what somebody’s brand is? Elizabeth Averyanova 11:39So yeah, well, we can, you know, everybody’s definition of branding is different. But I like to see that branding is simply an extension of who you are. And it will just be professionally who you are and, and how you are showing up online. So branding does go beyond the visual side of things. It also includes the visual side of of your brand’s colors, fonts, that your overall style, but I think it also combined, the way you talk as much as you know, the way you talk. So your language, your your it also ties in your values and your mission. And your your vision for yourself and your business. And it ties in all these pieces and your brand, is it’s kind of a fancy word, but it’s extension of who you are, and how you want to serve the world. D.J. Paris 12:29That’s really important. And I think this idea of how do I want to serve the world is is so critical, because the branding ultimately dictates not just the look and the feel of the materials that realtors will put out there, whether their digital assets like social media posts, or their you know, maybe, you know, physical print assets. So it’s, it’s I know, we think a lot about well, I want my brochures to look a certain way I want my flyers to look a certain way I want my website to look a certain way. But really what we’re talking about is demonstrating some sort of lifestyle, right, and I don’t mean lifestyle in, it has to be like a luxurious lifestyle. But But there has to be some intentional thought about what realtors are putting out whatever content they’re putting out, whether it’s social media, or web, or website content, or print content, it has to be all aligned. Is that accurate? Elizabeth Averyanova 13:29Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, the biggest thing I see is that the there’s a real lack of consistent consistency in how people are showing up in the online space. And it’s, it’s, you know, I, you sometimes feel like, Oh, it’s a saturated market, maybe you and there’s a lot of real estate agents, but you know, there are a lot of realtors who are not doing it well. And I honestly think it’s not that hard to take some time, put some intention into it, and you will immediately stand out, you know, be that you’ll be in that 1% of visually sitting out with a solid brand. Well, let’s D.J. Paris 14:09talk about maybe what real estate agents aren’t doing well. So when you’re exploring the landscape, what are some and again, obviously, this is not black and white. This is good, this is bad, but what are some things that you see that are either inconsistent or maybe not hitting the mark? Not hitting the intended sort of audience result? Elizabeth Averyanova 14:33Mm hmm. Yeah. So I spend a lot of time auditing people’s brands and I you know, what that means is I go to your Instagram for me, I you know, my age or my just whatever, that’s the platform I use. Typically that’s the number one thing I go to to find people that I want to work with is Instagram. You know, so maybe your audience, maybe you have to figure out maybe your artist is on Facebook, or maybe your audience is on LinkedIn, and really knowing who you’re serving and where do they where they hang out, is important. So for me, I hang out on Instagram if you if you need to know. So I go and look at other realtors on Instagram and what that means I go look at their profile, and they want that first, in first impression that I get is oftentimes like kind of kind of confused, I’m not really sure, you know what they do visually, it’s not appealing. And you know, in real estate, you want to make things really appealing to the buyer to the sellers, right? Like, you really need that first impression to be good. And so on Instagram, I see very inconsistent posts, or maybe they’re taking templates from totally different sources. We can talk about Canva. But Canva is a design tool that you know, a lot of realtors use for graphics. And there’s a lot of templates on there that are free and great. But the minute you start to mix them all together, it just looks kind of like music. So you know, that’s one the very first mistakes I often see. The next one is, what if I want to work with you, or I want to figure out more what you do. And there’s that link in the bio of Instagram. And when I click that link, what happens? Where does it take me. So a lot of times they see that it takes you to a link tree, it’s like a service link tree. So you click the link, and it’s a link tree. So then more links appear. You know, I see them the default style, they’re not branded, they’re not consistent with your look, or they’re like really funky colors. You know, so So what I’m so what I do when I’m auditing is I go through that experience of clicking through to the next step to the next step until I try to figure out okay, how can I contact you? How can I work with your How can I see your website, and that map that journey, you know, that’s your client experience? So if I’m confused, somebody’s confused or overwhelmed, or they’re like, Am I in the right place, you know that I clicked the right link, and it doesn’t look consistent, that you’re gonna lose your clients that D.J. Paris 17:15way. I think that’s really important because a lot of us just post content on social media as one off content without a clear, objective, right. So we, we might put a really beautiful post together, but we’re just putting it there. And that’s really just step one. And not if you don’t think through, you know, and it doesn’t not that every post on Facebook or Instagram has to have an action step. But if you do have an action step, like you were saying about link tree, so this is a very common thing that people put in their Instagram bio is in particular, our link tree is what is a link tree, a link tree is really a series of So Instagram only allows you to put one link in your bio. So because of that there’s a link tree is a free service where people are I think there’s a pay service as well. But people can basically put a series of different links when you click on that link. And it shows up as different, like action steps, essentially. I’m curious what your thoughts are about link trees in general? Because I Yes, I see that they could be very valuable, but you have to be really intentional about it. But do you like Link trees in Instagram profiles? Or would you prefer just one link going one place, and not a second? Now I have because what happens when you click on a link tree or tap on a link tree is now you have maybe six or seven or 10 additional buttons that you now have to read through to click curious what your thoughts are just in general about link tree. Elizabeth Averyanova 18:44Okay, so thank you for explaining link tree and and my mission is to abolish it from any any client that works. Thought you might say that link tree. So I’ve D.J. Paris 18:58The reason being that you don’t like Link tree is what. Elizabeth Averyanova 19:01So I’ve gotten rid of quite a few of my clients link trees. If you listen to this, you’ll know. But one is it’s sitting your earned traffic. So you’ve earned the attention of potential client is sending those people to a platform that’s not your platform. So it’s sending it to a link trees platform is for example, it’s not sending it to your website platform where they could dive deeper into you. So they’re just sent a link tree. So I don’t like that. That’s one reason. The other reason is you can look because D.J. Paris 19:31you could lose people because they could get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options you have. And so there’s it’s it’s not a great I guess what I was getting at I’m curious to get your thoughts. I don’t find that like when I when I hit a link and it goes to a link tree. I get sort of turned off as a consumer I just started go. Now I have to make another decision and I have to read through all these button options. I don’t really want to do that. Elizabeth Averyanova 19:58Yeah, and so that’s the Second is that there’s too many choices. And I mean, not that you don’t have to do that. But there are a lot a lot of choices. And oftentimes I see that the specific text that the description that people use on those buttons are very unclear and really make you think and like you said, you don’t, you don’t want to do that. So you have to the language is not clear. It’s not actionable, like, what is what’s going to happen then. So that’s a mistake I see. And then it just number three is just, this is not always a branded experience for your clients. D.J. Paris 20:31Yeah, and that’s true, it’s not. And I think if you are going to use a link tree, as a realtor, you’d want to have just a couple of options. One would be I’m thinking about buying a home, I’m thinking about selling a home, I’m thinking about, you know, or I’m thinking about moving or you want them to be super descriptive, but we can move on from link tree, but but I just see it as so common and so popular. And again, we just what I love, Elizabeth, about what you said is that your job is to take the journey of a consumer, and basically be the consumer go through the experience and find things that could be modified and changed and shore, the shore and beat to make things more direct, more simple, and to give the client the actual experience that they want. Right. So let’s talk about a little bit about what good so we know that there’s a there’s a lot of problems with realtors just posting half Hazzard, images, videos, there’s no consistency. How important by the way is consistency in the visual. So the aesthetic, the vision that there’s consistency in the look, and also in the, the frequency. So I’m curious about frequency, because that’s another thing we hear on the podcast is how often should I be posting? And I know there isn’t a magical answer, but how important is the consistency from the from the style and design to the actual frequency? Mm hmm. Elizabeth Averyanova 22:03Yeah. So, you know, it’s as important as you want to make it and the reason you would want to be consistent, and you would want to post regularly, and by that I would mean at least once a week, but more like Lehigh higher volume, so two or three times a week, and that you consistently show up in your audience’s, you know, feed on their social platform, or in their inbox. If you’re, if you happen to be sending emails out on an email list, you both of these things are important, because then you start to gain recognition. Visually, people start to recognize you. Oh, that’s, you know, this post. Yeah, that’s her look, that’s Oh, you they don’t even have to spend, you know, more than a mil set a couple of milliseconds, saying, Oh, I know who was post that is, I’m gonna check it out. Because she always provides really high value, or he always gives really great tips about this or that. And so is she, you know, showing up consistently, you start to build that recognition. So you build that that no factor, you always hear about know, like, trust factor, but you build that no fat, no factor. So people start to know you, and start to build up that trust in you. Over time, when they’re ready for your services, you keep showing up, you’re gonna stay top of mind. D.J. Paris 23:29Yeah, you came from the architecture world. And we’re here in Chicago, one of the most prolific sort of architects here in Chicago’s history is Mies van der Rohe, who has a very specific style. And you can essentially, from a branding perspective, all of the buildings are I think, I’m not familiar with everything, he’s dead, but for the buildings, I know that he did, they’re all a very specific style, there are very specific brand. And you can look at these buildings here. And if you’re a Chicago person that’s listening, you know, what we’re talking about, because they have a very specific brand and style. And, you know, and so I’m curious, you know, just thinking about you in the architecture world. How can how can an agent because what you really want is you want somebody to look at something and immediately know that that’s you, right? Like, we want somebody to associate a certain look a certain feel a certain style to to a broker or to to a realtor. How should they start that journey? What’s the what’s the first thing that an agent should do to really start down the sort of branding, you know, exercise path? Elizabeth Averyanova 24:47Hmm, okay, so you made a really good analogy with architecture and you know it Chicago has a number of amazing architects in history and I love the history of Chicago, but Oh, The you want that moment that instantly they can recognize you. So it could be visually, but it also could be a specific color that people see that color. And they always think of you. Or it could even be a specific word or like a phrase. And they they think of you, you know, I have a client. You know, for example, like if I think of the word remarkable, or I think of like a deep, like a kind of a deep red color. We have a client, we work with Mark Kilimanjaro, D.J. Paris 25:28who has been Elizabeth Averyanova 25:31amazing. Yeah, I instantly think of her you know, so that is brand recognition. It can be a color or a word or something. So you have to think about you and what, what, you don’t need to think of 10 things, but it really is what it can be that one thing that is extension of who you are, what you like, and also relates to your ideal client was what can be the one thing that’s part of your brand? D.J. Paris 25:56And how would somebody determine, you know, what, or what’s a way somebody could determine what that one thing is? If somebody says, I don’t really know, you know, Marquis lemons, you mentioned has remarkable that’s her. Remarkable, right. That’s her. That’s her, her brand. And, and it works. But if for somebody that doesn’t have that, how would you suggest that they might go about figuring out what their brand is? Elizabeth Averyanova 26:19Hmm. Okay. There’s, I think, at least two questions. But you could ask yourself one question, which is, if you had the perfect birthday celebration, what would that look like for you? You know, maybe that’s, you know, a quiet evening with just your family, you know, with a with a glass of wine, and it’s very, you know, peaceful, maybe outdoor dinner with candle lights? Or maybe it’s a more like, outgoing type of party at night in the city, you know, what is? What would be your your birthday party? That’s one way to figure out, start to figure out your personality. Another question would be if you didn’t have, you know, all the work tasks on your to do list in your planner today, what would you spend your day doing? And think about that? And no, these are questions just to really start to dig in your personality. And, and, you know, we all we’re all multi passionate people, but that, you know, what is the one recurring theme that keeps coming up? If you’re more visual, and you just feel like, okay, I want to choose a specific color. You can say, when you go to your closet, what’s the number one color you see? For me, I have like a very neutral like monochrome, clean white style, I opened my closet, it’s 90% white clothes. D.J. Paris 27:40Right, that’s, that’s your look, you’re you, you enjoy monochrome. And, you know, we, you know, you also talked about what we’re really talking about, I think is authenticity. How important is it in real estate? Well, look, I mean, for being honest, authenticity for realtors has not always been a top priority. In the marketing side, right? We take pictures, and we Photoshop them so that we all look perfect, we erase wrinkles, we look younger, you know, we we want to demonstrate perfection in the photos of the listings that we have, we want to artificially fix problems. How important is authenticity? And when I mean authenticity, I mean showing some of the cracks, showing some of the faults, the fault lines, right the imperfections? Is it okay to show imperfections in and does do our audience? Do our audience want to see imperfection? Or do they expect everything to look perfect? Elizabeth Averyanova 28:46Well, absolutely, they just want to see real life, your real life. You don’t have to expose everything of course, but you know, they want to see reality more than the perfect world you know, that’s that’s absolutely I think it’s a non negotiable at this point when we all have smartphones all connected 24/7 And you know that yes, there’s filters on Instagram and those are great, but they really you really just need to show up who you are and not not change that. D.J. Paris 29:18I think that’s a really good point. So I know sometimes people feel insecure about you know, doing video or making you know, oh, I don’t know how to edit correctly or I don’t have the right lighting. But I My experience has been that as long as you’re providing quality content. You know, that sort of Trumps some of the imperfections maybe with editing or with shooting the you know, or even just taking a you know, an image Elizabeth Averyanova 29:49I think if you’re stuck in that, I don’t know how phase you know, go there are solutions out there. You don’t need to know all the answers because there are people teaching how to make Instagram reels for you know, as a real estate agent, we just created a course one of our clients created a course on how to how to master reels. You know, if you don’t know the how you don’t figure it, you can figure that out. But the best thing is just start posting and start getting out there and start getting that connection with with your audience. D.J. Paris 30:20I want to I want to talk about studio Classica. This is your company. And it’s Studio classica.com. And in Studio C L A s s I see a.com Let’s talk about this and what you do for for realtors 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. Elizabeth Averyanova 31:56Okay, yeah, absolutely. So we you know, we. So we help real estate agents show up more professionally online. And you know, even in offline space, too, but but mainly in the online space, because that’s where people are searching. And that’s where if you keep showing up regularly on social media, in a branded, elevated, beautiful way, then, like we said earlier, your clients start to recognize you. And they you stay top of mind. And when they’re ready to sell their home or buy a home, you’ve stayed in their mind, and they will reach out to you or they’ll reach out to your real estate team. And so we help we especially help real estate, men, real estate leaders in the space who who wants to start helping other real estate agents. So a big part of who we help is people who want to teach, teach how to build a successful real estate business, or how to add six figures to your real estate income in the next year. And so that teaching mentality that mentorship or if you know, people who want to create courses, and even if you don’t feel like you’re big in your field, yet we have, you know, people rising like rising leaders who they they’re ready to create a course because they start to get a lot of the same questions from their agents or from, you know, from people online. And that’s a sign that you can package up that knowledge you have that some specific niche of real estate. And there are other people out there who want to learn from you. D.J. Paris 33:27Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, you can basically so when people when agents work with you, when Realtors work with you, they you can build them websites, you can work with their social media posts. Tell us some of the services that you assist with. Elizabeth Averyanova 33:43Yeah, perfect. Yes, absolutely. So we help, you know, figure out your branding. So figure out you know, the brand strategy, but also the visual side of it. So the visual social media posts, your your profile headers on Facebook or LinkedIn. You know, we make sure it’s consistent everywhere you want to show up online. We, for example, create social media templates that then you can use and carry forward. Usually, we do that as part of a branding package. From there, we often build like your complete website, which is your personal brand website. I know a lot of real estate people have a website that there’s sort of given. And I generally think those are not so functional, especially if you’re trying to really build your personal brand and your identity in this space. So we build your custom website. And then from there, oftentimes we build, you know, for those who want to teach, we would build the courses or membership spaces in the online space. So a full branding and design services. D.J. Paris 34:41Yeah, it makes it makes perfect sense. And so you know, I would What are a couple tips that you have for anyone that is out there that is thinking of redesigning their site, redesigning some of their colors. What’s what’s in right now. What what did the public want to see when they’re hitting a website or social media? Like what are some aesthetic sort of trends that you know that are, would be helpful for our audience to know. Mm hmm. Elizabeth Averyanova 35:13So, you know, aesthetic trends I see are incorporating videos into your website and into your definitely into your social media. But if we focus on the website, you know, tying in video to your website, whether that’s sort of a video background that’s professionally filmed, or if it’s just a video of you sitting down in front of a camera, get a nice background, and, you know, talk about, you know, a two minute three minute clip about, about what you’re doing who you help, and including that sort of video, someone on your website, that video is a huge way to connect, you know, and really accelerate that that connection with somebody watching it. And you can really, you know, accelerate the speed at which they’re, they get to know you or feel like they know you. Because, you know, for example, we you know, I have a video somewhere in my in my onboarding process, when we start new clients, I have a video somewhere there. And people will feel like that people have told me Oh, I feel like I already know you already talk to you, even though we haven’t talked yet. So just bridges that gap. D.J. Paris 36:22Isn’t that ultimately the goal? Right? If if it’s a stranger, who doesn’t has not actually met the agent yet? If they can say, Gosh, I feel like I know you? That’s that’s a huge victory, isn’t it? Elizabeth Averyanova 36:39Hmm. So So the video is, you know, it was trending from 2020. But it’s not going away. So get on the video, bandwagon is the number one. D.J. Paris 36:50Yeah, start start making video. And I think we’re so lucky to have devices, you know, in our pockets at all times that produce high quality, at least recording. And we have the ability to produce content that our audience wants very inexpensively. But the if you really want to take it to the next level, you really need somebody to look, I was I’ll give you a really simple example, I I’ve been a writer for a long time. And I when I write a piece for a publication, I work and rework it and rewrite it and rewrite it, I think it looks perfect, then I send it off to an editor, and it comes back looking totally different. And the editors job is to make it look better for the audience that it’s going to be read by. And I am always like, I’m going to send this off to the editor, they’re going to send it back without any changes, and they’re gonna go wow, DJ, you are brilliant. This is just gonna go, we’re going to publish this just as you wrote it. And it’s never happened. They always rewrite it. And they always make it better. And my point by saying that is yes, you can put up all your own posts, you can use Canva. As we mentioned earlier, it’s a great tool. There’s lots of really neat functionality there. And it’s awesome. But you probably should run it through and not through an editor. Somebody like Elizabeth Pryor? Because she’s going to make everything look the right way. And, and and that’s, you know that that’s really important. And how important is it to have to have somebody like that, you know, to edit to be your consistency editor, I guess I would say, Elizabeth Averyanova 38:34hmm, yeah, I think if you’re serious about building successful business, about growing your real estate business, you know, is deaf, I’m totally biased, but it’s worth the investment to, you know, run it through professional like work with a professional for a period of time to get that visual look at that brand figured out. Because it is going to change the game and you showing up for your clients, you’re going to feel more confident putting those posts out on social media and you’re going to feel you know, much more direction and who you’re helping and how you’re going to show up online. And it will pay back dividends in your return on your investment. You know what you get, you know, you’re gonna hit to hit your goals because you’re you’re determined to do that, and you’re serious about it. So I think it’s a game changer, really. D.J. Paris 39:24And for everyone listening, the reason why we had Elizabeth on is she and her team have do incredible, absolutely incredible work. I really encourage everyone listening to visit Elizabeth’s website, just take a look at what she does for realtors and other other brands that she works with. It’s really remarkable. And notice as you look through some of her work, how you feel, as you’re perusing the different websites that they’ve created different brands that they’ve worked With notice the feeling that comes through. And if that resonates with you, if you go, Gosh, I want people when they visit me digitally online, whether it’s on social media or on my own website, if I want my clients to have a similar experience, I would encourage you, you don’t have to do everything yourself. Reach out to Elizabeth, she is awesome. She’s worked with some of the top Realtors in the country. She’s worked with people that have been on our show. And that’s why we have her on the show because she is so highly recommended. But I want everyone to visit her website, which is Studio classica.com. By the way, we have a link to that in the show notes. So if you’re listening on a podcast app, just look in the show notes for studio Classica. But you can visit it yourself to studio classic cut a at the end studio classic cut.com. And take a look at what they do. It is absolutely remarkable. It’s clean. It’s minimal. It’s absolutely on trend. I am Elizabeth’s like biggest fan. Because when you look at what she does, it is absolutely just such a clean and beautiful aesthetic. And she can help you do that. You don’t have to figure out how to do that yourself. By the way, creating clean, minimal, beautiful content is not easy. That’s why you hire somebody like Elizabeth, it’s actually difficult to do. So that’s why you hire her. But Elizabeth, you know, this is a perfect time to sort of wrap up our episode because I want everyone to go visit your website. And then I want everyone to reach out to Elizabeth to if you’re looking to hire a branding expert, I will tell you, branding is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy. It’s oftentimes overlooked. In fact, it’s almost always overlooked, because we just want to put out content. But if there’s no intention behind it, if there’s no cohesive strategy, you’re really going to run into some challenges. Hire somebody like Elizabeth, I really, really encourage you to do that. So Elizabeth, what’s the best way somebody should reach out to you if they want to work with you? Elizabeth Averyanova 42:02Well, thank you so much, DJ. And if you are thinking about what can we do with your branding or your website, the best way to reach out is, of course, our websites to classic.com. And we you know, go to our services page. And you can check out what more about what we do and check out our packages, you know how we can work together? D.J. Paris 42:22Yeah, I really encourage our all of our listeners to check it out. And I wish I wish you were an advertiser of ours because I am so passionate about your work. And maybe one day you will be but but for now I really encourage our audience to check it out. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for being on our show. We are We are honored to have you. And for everyone out there visit Studio classical.com. Please also tell a friend about this podcast. Think about one other agent in your office that needs help with their branding send them a link to this episode. They can find us at keeping it real pod.com all of our episodes are there can be downloaded and streamed right from a browser or just pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real hit the subscribe button. And please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of our show. So whatever system you might be listening to us on Apple podcasts, Google Play Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon wherever. Let us know what you think of the show. Leave us a review. Elizabeth, thank you so much all the way from Latvia. We are excited to chat with you. Thank you for taking time with us and we will see everybody on the next episode.

In our June episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties discusses the shift and the slowdown in the real estate market. Carrie shares tips on what agents should do when there is a slowdown in the market. Carrie also emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with good people and being positive. D.J. shares his marketing tip of the month. 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 0:00On today’s episode, one of the most successful realtors in Chicago for the last 20 plus years is going to give her take on what’s going on with the market and what she sees coming up in the next year. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast for real estate agents and by real estate agents My name is DJ HARRIS I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group here in Chicago with at properties at properties Christie’s international I should say. Carrie is a top 1% producer in the Chicagoland area with over 20 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months, there are by the way, 44 I think actually now 45,000 Real estate agents here in Chicago Carrie is ranked in the top 15. And I don’t mean 15% I mean the top 15. That is just how successful and impressive she is. She is a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. She also works a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments. By the way, I happen to live in a development that Carrie represented. And that’s an I could not be happier. But please visit Carrie. And on Instagram it she has one of the most impressive Instagram accounts I’ve ever seen for a realtor. And she does it all herself. So follow her on Instagram, which is at Carey McCormick real estate. There’ll be a link to that in our show notes. So you don’t have to type it in. Carrie, welcome once again to the show. Carrie McCormick 2:58Well, thank you and I’d love just real quick since we talked about developments, we are getting ready to launch a new development in Chicago. It’s called Wolfram 18. It’s 18 single family homes in Lakeview. So if anyone is looking for a new construction home or has buyers, please reach out to me I would love to tell you more about that development. D.J. Paris 3:21And in Lakeview, it’s really rare where there’s new developments. So this is this is a huge deal for Chicago. Carrie McCormick 3:27Yeah, no, it’s excellent. And I wanted to also kick off by telling people that if anyone is looking for a job, I for the first time I’m going to be hiring. I am a solo agent, as a lot of people know. And I’ve got a wonderful support team that works with me, I’ve got, you know, some assistance and contract people and I would love to hire a new person for my team and it would be in a support role of Contract Administrator operations, some marketing, a little bit of everything, and I love teaching and training people. So if anyone’s looking for something new and exciting, I’d love to talk with you. D.J. Paris 4:15And I think to just to be able to absorb some of your practices, which I think are obviously successful practices. You know, somebody out there is thinking, you know, should I join a team obviously, you can always do that or you can also work directly like under somebody like what Carrie is is suggesting and an admin position because you’re going to learn everything and you know probably was such a such yet for some nice success in the future. So definitely reach out to Carrie if you are interested in that position. So yeah, so what’s what’s going on this this month, what are Carrie McCormick 4:52we what should we be rounding out May here may 2220 22. And the big headlines you No late this month are sensing a shift in the market. And I know that for the last couple of months, we’ve been talking about inventory crisis and you know, being a seller’s market, and I don’t necessarily think that it’s going to shift to a pure buyers market. But there definitely is a market of a little bit of a slowdown. I tell people, you know, again, we’ve been going the brakes a little bit down to 100, maybe 90, you know, so the market is still moving. But you know, we’re sensing in The Usual Suspects, we obviously have some interest rates that have gone up, almost doubled. And then we’ve got inflation, we’ve got fatigue in the market. So we’ve got a little bit of the stock market hasn’t been doing well. So we’ve got a little bit of everything coming at us. And it’s slowing down. And I am also you know, I’ve got partners on the East Coast and the West Coast, they are feeling the same. So it’s not just Chicago, we do think it’s a national slowdown, except our friends in Florida. It’s an Arizona, they still seem to be, you know, pumping out those crazy double digit numbers. So But anyways, you know, I read reports from Fannie Mae, I read from Zillow in men just announced something today is talking about the shift. So again, we just as brokers, you know, we have to prepare for it and gear up. And one thing I was saying to DJ earlier is, you know, because I’ve been in the industry for so long, and I was saying, it’s just incredible that I’ve been in it for 22 years, and I’m only 25 years old, right? So just unbelievable. It’s, I really hate saying I’ve been in it for 22 years, because then I can see people look up and trying to do math of how old I am. Tell anybody but anyways, you know, and I’ve been in the market for a long time, and I’ve been through several different, you know, turns in the market, you learn something from it. And I look back to a lot of you know, my successes, and you know where I’m at today. And it’s that perseverance through some of the hard times. And again, not that I’m predicting that we’re going through a hard time, but you’re going to learn just different skill sets. And a few things I wanted to talk about is what do we do in a time where we do see the slow down and one is going to be focused on your database. Everyone tells you that and you know, I know it sounds like an easy thing to do. But just think about all these people that you’ve worked so hard to get as clients and they sit there and your database or you haven’t talked to them in a year or two, and you’re just out busy looking for new clients, nurture the ones that you have, you know, you spend all that time and money getting those clients, nurture them, you know, send them updates of what’s happening in the market. You know, set them up on a search, you know, even though they may not currently be you know, looking to sell or buy, but set them up on a search it starts getting them you know, engaged. You had mentioned what was your stats on Zillow? What were you saying? Yeah, so D.J. Paris 8:09So Zillow, Zestimate is you know, something that agents you say that word and agents either go, I hate that or they have some sort of very visceral reaction. And whatever our listeners who are like largely going to be Realtors think about Zillow and Zestimate. The fact is 200 million unique views or users per month, visit Zillow. Now, not all of those are from the United States, but let’s assume 90% are, we only have what 450 million or so maybe 500 million people in this country. So maybe close to 30% of them are checking Zillow every month, maybe 40%. So we know that this is where people are going to look. And they are they are seeing that Zestimate and unless their agent has told them, you know, that’s not very accurate, they’re gonna think that that’s accurate. Right? Carrie McCormick 8:59Exactly. So you know, with all these consumers going to Zillow, and just kind of peeking out, whatever it is, you know, their home value, you know, get in front of them, you know, before another agent does. So, again, focus on your database, keep your existing clients updated of what’s happening in the market. The other thing to focus on is education. Again, every day, learn something new, there’s always something new and exciting coming out. So you know, continue to learn and don’t ever stop learning, you know, and push yourself push the envelope into doing different things with your marketing and in how you brand yourself. So again, education is going to be important during this time, and networking. You know, early on in my career, I was such a great networker and I would go to everything and then it just I kind of just stopped doing it. And it’s, um, you know, getting back into the swing of all these different networking events and connecting people and it’s just one of the best things to grow your business. Not everyone’s a buyer right now or right now. But I will tell you that you mentioned the word real. People want to know, and just educate them, you go to a networking event and just, you know, again, not talk about yourself as a broker, but you need to talk about the market talk about something that, you know, brings value to them. And it definitely works. There was a saying that says what you focus on will expand. And that’s 100%. True. You focus on your business, you focus on whatever it is, and you stay full, you stay focused on it’s going to grow. D.J. Paris 10:39Yeah, I agree. I think by focusing on it, it helps sort of block out some of the noise that might be happening, we could keep ourselves busy all day by following every moment of the news and what’s happening in our industry. And in, you know, obviously, there’s there’s lots to focus on outside of our industry news as well. And I’m not saying people shouldn’t follow that, but be mindful of how you spend your time and where you put your attention. Because if your business is struggling, obviously, you want to put your attention on business building activities as much as you can, so that you can keep going through, you know, a challenging time for agents right now. Carrie McCormick 11:20Right? Right. And just and I always say to people just be kind to each other, you know, the world is, you know, as goes in our ups and downs. And in, I’ve noticed, you know, when you give kindness to other people it gives it gives it back to you. So we all go through, we’re in sales, right? There’s ups and downs. And there’s some days, I mean, believe me, there’s days that I’m you know, it’s just you and I were talking about this before, there’s days, I’m just like, I just can’t I just can’t get up today, like, I just don’t even want to do do anything today. But you know, it’s, we all go through it, and you just have to remain positive and just surround yourself with good people a good team. And, you know, just keep it positive and be kinder to each other. D.J. Paris 12:07Yeah, I think I think you’re right, that kindness thing, and the giving sort of nature is seems to really work. My friend Joel from guarantee rate always, he always says it says givers givers gain mentality, like, give as much as you can and wait, just watch and see what comes back to you. And it’s almost always more than you think. Carrie McCormick 12:28But I though to just real quick, quick segue is Joel is such a great guy. And I called him, you know, one day out of the blue, he didn’t have to pick up the phone, he didn’t have to give me the information. He you know, he didn’t have to do what he did. He took five minutes out of his day, he gave me everything I needed and just was a great guy. And, you know, I remember the way that he treated me and was very respectful and his tone. And you know, I’ll always remember that. So he definitely does what he says he’s doing. D.J. Paris 13:02Yeah, he’s he is a great guy. And he’s a good representation. And we’re glad to have him on our show. He’s a good representation of, of just how to stay positive, through, you know, challenging times. Because in the mortgage side, they’re, they’re starting to experience some challenges. Not not Joel himself, but the mortgage industry. It’s with rates going up. It’s tough. So I was at a, I was at an event yesterday with about 200, I think, younger realtors, and I don’t mean younger in age, although some of them were young and age, but new to the business young to the business. And I was sitting amongst people who I did not know a lot of realtors who I just hadn’t met yet, from all sorts of companies. And I was asking, like, how are things going for you? Right? I’m just curious, like, how are you doing? Most of these people were in their first couple of years. And the the the consensus was, I just could feel the stress and tension that every buddy I talked to was feeling it was either there’s no inventory or rates are going up and my buyers are freaking out. Or, you know, I can’t seem to convince any of my owners, the people I know who own to sell, because there’s no inventory to buy. And it just felt like everyone was collectively just clenching and just being stressed and I get it. And I don’t have a solution for that. But if you are finding that you’re overly stressed right now, because of course, things can be challenging in the industry. And if I think stressed and busy is different, it’s probably better than being stressed with nothing to do. So if you are in a position where you’re like, I have a lot of free time and nothing’s really happening. What I might suggest as a marketing tip, and this is such a simple tip and I’ve given it before but I really think it’s a good idea is we talked about Zillow and there’s estimate well Zillow believes their Zestimate is within a couple of percentage points now plus or minus two. I talked to one of their data scientists and I said How accurate is estimate and when they first started it I forgot when they launched it like 2007, or something like that. And he said we were about, I think, Boy, I’m gonna get this number wrong, but I think it was 14% accurate. So we were 14% plus or minus which, that’s 28% swing. So it’s not that accurate. And they said, We think we’re down now down to based on our data about 2% accuracy. Now by saying that plus or minus 2%, of what it actually would sell for a home. Now, people listening might go, that is absolute BS, it is never within 2%. It’s always wildly off. So Carrie McCormick 15:32call me if you don’t like the number of people love to say it’s right. I I know that. D.J. Paris 15:39That’s very good point. But regardless, we know that this is what our clients or our prospective clients are looking at whether it’s accurate or not, is probably not super relevant. But what is relevant is that you can do what Zillow can, which is really look specifically at each one person in your database. You know, if you know their property, you could actually run a much better comp most likely, right? You can look and see what sold the last couple of months that are there. And you’ll probably hopefully you would do a better job not you carry but our listeners would do a better job than maybe what you know, an algorithm could spit out. So here’s what I was thinking as a homeowner who doesn’t practice real estate, I love to find out what my home was worth. And I don’t really know how to run comps that well as an agent. So I just go to zest I go to Zillow, I don’t know if it’s all that accurate, but I just use it because it’s easy. And you know, what I would do is do that for every single person you know, that owns a home and say, Hey, I was just looking on Zillow. Zillow says your home’s worth this, I wanted to see how accurate it was. So I actually went in and ran what I think is maybe even a more accurate quote. And here’s what I think. And you know, just wanted to let you know, and if you’re ever interested in exploring the option of maybe, you know, making a transition, I’d love to talk to you. But regardless, I just wanted you to know what your home was worth. Because you might be hearing a lot about inventory shortages and homes are appreciated and appreciated, etc. So will that get you more business? I don’t know, it certainly isn’t going to hurt. And I think you know, if owners are going to Zillow anyway, to see what their home is worth, then you’re just doing what they’re already doing. And just going a step a step beyond. Most realtors will never do this. So I think this is just a good tip to keep the your your sphere of influence saying boy, Mike, my agents, right on top of things are really thinking about me, Carrie McCormick 17:31right. And that just goes back to two of just education is, you know, anything that you learn, or I learned in the market, share it with your clients, you know, because that’s what route reading is, you know, whether it’s the whatever it is, you know, share it with your clients, and whether it’s on social media, or you send them a letter, send them an email, text, there’s just so many different ways. Another one, just to to piggyback on that is you can send a quick video I’ve gotten a few of those from like mortgage lenders or just I love those Yeah, no, I can’t I can’t do it quite yet. But is they you know, sent me a quick video of just, you know, like, Hey, I was on, I’m just making this up, you know, I was on Zillow and your Zestimate was x, you know, give me a call when you can and it was like, I don’t know it, you know, just even that more personal touch of seeing their face on my phone. It was just it’s, it’s it’s good, there’s possibilities are endless. You just have to put the effort into it and stay driven and stay focused. D.J. Paris 18:28And by the way, if you don’t have a sphere of influence that’s really sizable to do these sort of Zillow estimates. And then rerunning comps, you don’t it doesn’t have to be somebody you know, that’s probably the best place to start. But you could literally go into the MLS, see all the homes that were sold like two years ago, three years ago, in a particular area, and then you could just literally create this for that homeowner, and hand deliver it if you’re comfortable knocking on doors, or hand delivering it to their porch and saying, you know, there are, this could be a way to introduce yourself to somebody and most agents once the sale is over, you know, struggle with staying in touch with their clients. So this is a great way that even if you didn’t have a sphere of influence, and you’re brand new to a city and didn’t know anyone, you could do that on your own, you know, it’s a lot more work and you won’t have as much success as you would if it was your own sphere of influence your own past clients, but it is, it is not a bad idea. Believe me, most homeowners are not getting this information just randomly sent to them in the mail. They’re getting all sorts of postcards and things like that, but they’re not getting a hey, I put a little report together for you. We’d love to chat about it with you and even just hand them the report or you know, definitely another idea. So anyway, I think those are some great some some good advice from both Carrie and myself for for this month. Also. You know, it’s Memorial Day is coming up in in a couple of days. And you know, if nothing else great opportunity to wish Happy Memorial Day to not only all of our listeners, but our listeners should be wishing that to their sphere. of influence, you know, let that make sure people know, you know that you are, you know, thinking about them and thinking about their holiday weekend and just shoot them an email, or a text message or phone call or whatever. All right, well, I think that’s a great place to wrap up for this month. By the way, if anyone out there is looking to either if you’re a realtor and you’re not in the Chicagoland area, but you have clients that are either moving to Chicago, maybe they’re being relocated, or they have relatives that are, you know, here in Chicago, Carrie would love the opportunity her and her team would love the opportunity to chat with them. Or if you are a buyer or a seller and investor or renter that is looking to work with a top Realtor in Chicago. Carrie is great option. I’m Carrie, what’s the best way that someone should reach out to you Carrie McCormick 20:45always call me 312-961-4612 or shoot me an email it’s Kerry ca RR ie at properties that come. D.J. Paris 20:56And remember Kari is looking to add somebody to her team. So if you are a local Chicago realtor, and you’re thinking might be a good fit for Kerry reach out to her she can explain more about the position. And I know if it was me and I was practicing, I would want to work with a very top producer because I imagine a lot of their practices would rub off. So definitely reach out to Carrie if you’d like to consider being being a member of her team. Carrie, thanks again for all these years of service of our show. And we ask our audience to support Carrie follow her on Instagram find her at Kerry McCormick real estate on Instagram. That link is in our show notes. And also like I said, if you know anyone that needs help in Chicago, she would love to chat with them. And on behalf of Carrie and myself. We thank our audience for continuing to listen and support our show and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Carrie. Carrie McCormick 21:46Thank you

Jon Lahey the founder of The Fine Living Group at eXp talks about his transition from IT into real estate business and what kept him motivated to build his career in the business. Jon also describes how he built his team in 3 different locations and gives tips on how to search for the best matching team to join. Jon shares how is he keeping his team motivated, engaged and positive in the current market. Last, Jon shares his tips on how to get your offer noticed. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Jon Lahey can be reached at (301) 900-3178. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00There are so many real estate teams out there. How do you select one to join? We’re going to discuss that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now 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 Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer John Leahy from Washington DC. Before we get to John, just a couple of quick reminders for everyone listening right now please tell a friend about the show. That’s how we grow. It’s how we reach more. More listeners and we can do more episodes when we get more listeners. So tell someone else in your office who wants to learn from top producers about keeping it real. And also please leave us a review if you’re listening on Apple podcasts or maybe Spotify stitcher Google Play Amazon wherever. Let us know what you think of the show. We read all the reviews and comments and that’s how we continue to improve hope everyone is having an amazing summer. And you know what you’ve heard enough of me let’s get right to it my interview with John Leahy. Today on the show we have gotten laid fine living group with exp in the DC metro area. Let me tell you more about John John Lee. He is a best selling author and experienced speaker and the founder of the fine living group at exp. He was born in Indonesia. But John moved to the US as a child in 1990 and was inspired by his parents strong work ethic to achieve homeownership. He earned his BA in information systems and management from the University of Maryland. He launched his real estate company in 2010 and is a certified proctor coach who mentors every single member of his team. Since choosing to focus on real estate. John has consistently finished in the top 1% in the nation. As a realtor selling over 200 homes per year. John’s network has grown rapidly growing from approximately 20 realtors to 60 realtors in just a year. And before I actually bring John on going from 20 realtors to 60. What I do all day is is recruit realtors. That is an incredible feat. So John is amazing. We’re so happy to have him please visit John at his website, which is the Leahy group L A Hey, the the Leahy group.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. John, welcome to the show. Jon Lahey 3:57Hey, thanks for having me here. DJ. D.J. Paris 4:00So grateful to have you. I first you’re in one of my favorite cities. Oh, and I think most people love, love the DC area. And not just the city is so cool. The surrounding areas. I know you guys sort of tackle all of it. And do you do you end up just had a quick question? Because I know I have friends that are attorneys in that area, they oftentimes have to take the bar in different states because of course the border a border, a few of them is the same The same thing happened for for real estate where you have to get licensed in each state. Jon Lahey 4:31So I just laugh because not because of that. But if we were known as like, the area with the most lawyers was attorneys. So yeah, in real estate here, I have to get my license in Maryland, a DC license of Virginia license. And the best part is the continuing education or education for all three, and only a few of the classes like overlap. So most of the time, what are the classes I’ll have to take like the actual classes um Every time I ended renewal is different years. So something I don’t look forward to is that D.J. Paris 5:05is it? Is it three different MLS is as well or is it a one is Jon Lahey 5:09only 1am? I? Oh, thank D.J. Paris 5:11goodness, one. Anyway, I was just curious. I know that that’s not the reason why you’re here. But I did want to I was curious because of course DC is such a complicated area. And they probably should just make it its own state. But we can that’s another conversation for another time. But I would love to talk to you have done so much since since since you started in real estate, but you started out as an IT guy. So I like the I am so always loved some how people transition into real estate. You know, you were you originally when you were at University of Maryland was the thought to become a developer or to work in the tech space, or were you always thinking real estate. Jon Lahey 5:49So the funny thing is, real estate was never, you know, in my mind, I remember it was like four or five years after I graduated high school, I came back to my high school for my sister’s graduation. And I met my close friend my like one of my best friends from high school. And he had became a realtor. And I looked at him like what’s wrong with you? Like, why would you give up like your your engineering? He was an engineer, I’m like, Why did you give up your engineering degree to become a realtor? I’m like, That makes no sense. Like, I trashed the guy, right. Two years later, I was licensed. Like, I never had any plans of becoming a realtor. You know, it’s kind of like I don’t want to say it’s by accident. I believe it was my destiny. But it was never planned. It was never planned I, I worked as I work in IT company. And my job was to train like all these end users around the world. So I was working overnight overnight shifts with my clients in Germany, my clients in Hong Kong, and I was just always available on their hours. And then during the day here, I would show houses. That’s how that’s how I was juggling between the IT world and then the real estate world. And then just, I was I just I looked at my numbers couple days ago. And the funny thing is my first four years in real estate, I sold a total of 11 homes. So I had no business like even surviving in real estate because for years, I sold 11 homes. And then on my fifth year, I decided to go full time into real estate. Which if you think about it, it’s crazy, because D.J. Paris 7:23that is crazy, based on the previous four years, right? And I’m like, Jon Lahey 7:27I don’t know what I was thinking. But something inside me was like, Hey, you should go full time with real estate. And so I did. And thank goodness, I have a family who supported that idea and didn’t call me crazy or stupid or dumb. And my wife’s like, you know what, if you believe that, if you believe it’s time to go to real estate, I’ll support you. And my first year in full full time in real estate, I sold 11 homes and I’m like 11 is like the number apparently, you know and um, and then from D.J. Paris 7:54by the way, that’s not a bad number for a first year in real estate. It’s it doesn’t make me feel good from a bank account perspective. But that’s not an uncommon and again, I know you had been doing it for several years part time before but really it’s not a terrible first year but it’s not an easy first year. Jon Lahey 8:12It’s not an easy first year and I thought you know I’m sure a lot of the listeners have probably thought the same thing. We unlike that I just need one just like million dollar sales and this will be an amazing year and that million dollar sale never happened and I’m just like I just need one more deal one more deal it was it was like an up and down every two three months. There’s no deals right and yeah, it was a hard first year full time in real estate for me but hey, I survive and that’s where I am today so I’m so D.J. Paris 8:44what do you think made the difference? You know having look you had a great job you were well you’re really doing two jobs but But you had a great career in the tech space you know and and certainly that was your your training was was to stay you know stay in that world then you decided to dabble in real estate you know in your in your off hours which you really didn’t have many and then you said I want to try this full time. The first year you know 11 deals pretty good first year not a fun maybe not a fun first year but but you know, numbers wise, not terrible, but not not enough to really you know, maybe replace the income maybe even from that from the other job. So so when you got past that first year, was there anything what kept you motivated? You know, did you just see that this is going to get easier and better? Or was it like I’m just did you try different things? I’m just curious what made the difference for you? Jon Lahey 9:39I always believed that failure was not an option. You know, I learned early on that once you made a decision burn the boats you can’t go backwards. So I I’m like alright, well there’s no going back. I’m just gonna have to make this work somehow. After that first year, I met a mentor. And I can tell you right now you know any But who’s listening today? If you want to go to the next level, find somebody who’s already doing and accomplish what you really want to do and just find that person and hang around that person and pick up the clues, because success leaves clues, right? Figure out how to think, figure out what they’re doing, and just copy it. And so that’s what I did. My, my first year, I sold 11 homes for first year full time, I barely survive. My second year, I met a mentor. And then I just spent all my time just learning from this person. Actually, I met a couple of mentors. And so I was I was very fortunate to have met multiple mentors. And, and that really made the difference in that my second year, my third year, I went from selling 11 homes to 22 homes to 44 homes. And then it’s just that’s the rest of you know, that’s that’s, that’s the history is I just kept on doubling my production. But the doubling of the production got XL acceleration in that process, because I met somebody who’s already accomplished it. And all I did was I was like, Alright, let me just copy what you’re doing. Let me just copy how you think. Let me just copy how you troubleshoot things, you know, coming from an Information Systems background, the way my brain works is always like that, you know, if the systems follow the systems follow the outcomes predictable, because that’s the, that’s the that’s the system’s processes, right? So with that mindset, I’m like, Alright, if I just follow their process, my outcome should be the same. And so I started doing that D.J. Paris 11:27makes all the sense in the world. And it reminds me of that story of Roger Bannister, who I think it was Roger Bannister, who run the ran the first four minute, mile mile. Yeah. So they’re just not that I’m going to go through a whole story. But my understanding is whatever year that was, I want to say it was in the 70s. But I could be wrong. But whatever year it was that he did that. Nobody had done it prior. And then literally that next year, because he had done it. And he talked about success, success leaving clues. And I’m not sure that people necessarily knew what his regimen was, but just also even knowing that it’s possible, which is essentially what having your mentor was like, Oh, you did 11 homes I did 75 or 100, or 200. And you’re all of a sudden, you’re like, Oh, it is possible. So and then you got to actually watch what that that mentor did. And you know, and you’re so right, success leaves clues. And it probably saved you countless years, I would think of trial and error, because you already had somebody who had been through the war. Jon Lahey 12:29Exactly. I don’t have to I didn’t have to recreate the wheel. And I didn’t have to go through all the failures. I mean, I failed a lot to you know, that’s the other reason why I was successful. I don’t mind trying. Other people are telling me, Hey, don’t do that don’t do that’s not gonna work. And I’m like, Well, how would I know? It’s not gonna work if I don’t try it? So I’m like, let’s try. And so I realized that the more successful the person is, if what they don’t tell you is all the failures that they have along the journey that they don’t, that’s not don’t go on social media, by the way, I don’t post my failure stories. My close friends know my failure stories here on this podcast, I’ll tell you my failure stories. But it’s not something where we just tell you stuff on stage, like, oh, yeah, by the way, let me tell you about how I felt on that one, and that one and that one, but all the people who are successful in life, I bet you there’s a boatload of boatload of like less successful stories along the way that they keep on getting up from, you know, and D.J. Paris 13:26I was gonna say, I actually, I actually think I actually think really successful people fail more. And meaning there’s just because they’re doing more, they’re failing more. And as a result, they’re learning because you only learn when you fail, or when you make a mistake. I mean, it’s really the only way we learn. And so the idea of failure is the feedback loop. I mean, you’re a systems guy, you know, failure is is the way to improvement. And so it’s sort of the irony is failure stinks. And it’s not fun, but it really is the key is fail as much as you can just learn from it and make adjustments. Jon Lahey 13:58Tony Robbins said this, right, Tony, I’m sure you know who Tony Robbins is awesome and never ending improvement, which is part of the never ending improvement. It’s also there, there’s gonna be failures and stumbles and, and other things along the way where it’s not perfect. So, I mean, I love it. Somebody says, If you want to be successful, fail, and when you fail, you’re gonna, you’re gonna fail, you’re gonna fall forward, you’re not falling backwards, you know. And so every time you’ll fail, you’re just gonna get there, get back up and fail again, get back up again and fail again. And you know what, I’m more sick. I’m more proud of my failure stories than where I am today. Because the failure stories defines who I am, because I have every single one of those failure opportunities. I keep on getting getting back up and everybody who’s successful has those in their, in their part of their process. It’s like, alright, where is this part of the journey? And you just keep part of a D.J. Paris 14:49part of the deal. As part of that. Yeah. And and also, resiliency is what you get when you bounce like you were saying, you got back up, you kept going, and all of a sudden you build the Those muscles in those calluses where it’s like the failures, don’t, you know, you’re like, Oh, I survived that. And then it’s like, Oh, it didn’t kill me that I lost that client. Okay, I guess I’m okay, I can dust myself off and keep going. And then those failures get easier and easier to handle, because you’re building that resiliency muscle and I talked to, I talked to had recently talked to a therapist about this. And she’s like, the most important skill that she thinks people don’t often develop when they’re younger is resiliency, it’s this idea of being able to fail, and then learning how to, like, soothe yourself so that you go, Okay, it’s gonna be fine. You’ll you’ll you know, and then you make some adjustments you try again, and, but the resiliency and also I love the fact that you cut off any other option to which which we don’t ever, we don’t talk about that much in our at least in our society of cutting off, like you said, burning burning the bridge behind you. It’s like, you didn’t really burn a bridge, but you’ve just like, This is it, this is what I’m doing. Of course, you I’m sure could have gone back into the IT world if you really wanted to, because of that’s your training. And that would have been a fine career too. But realizing like, I’m going to figure this out, people figure this out. And probably people a lot less intelligent than you figure this out, too. So it’s like, wait, I can do. Jon Lahey 16:15Exactly. And I just wrote on my paper, you know, the failure makes the success sweeter. It makes it so the celebrations much sweeter when you remember where you came from. Imagine you just get into real estate and boom, the next thing you know, you already made a million dollars, but there’s no journey to the story. What do you celebrate, you just celebrate getting there. And then you’re like, Alright, so what’s next, but the really the success, the happiness, the satisfaction is in the journey of getting back up, up and and trying something and not working. Just keeping keep going at it. You know, the determination of thinking Grow Rich, one of the first thing they said is the reason why Henry Ford, Henry Ford is successful, is because of his his determination. That’s really the secret. Yeah, determination. D.J. Paris 17:01Yeah. And Henry Ford would say I’m not the most intelligent person. I’m not the smartest guy in the room. In fact, I think he would have a panel of buttons on his desk that would summon you know, this is before the internet, but he would summon people from from other departments. He says I don’t need to know everything. Because I have people in my life that I just push a button. I mean, you could call that a mentor, you call that a co worker, whatever I can I can get the answer to anything by pushing this button. He but his point was like, he’s like, I’m not the smartest guy. I’m just maybe really determined. I’m going to figure it out. And I love I love that, that you have that. And I because you’re a systems guy. Our audience loves hearing about systems. So I’m curious if you know, we’re not asking you to share your secret sauce, of course. But any system ideas, you have that agents when you’re coaching agents, when you’re talking to him that you feel, gosh, I see this a lot where they’re just not they don’t have this part of their process really well defined. Or I’m curious if you have any suggestions for our audience for systems? Jon Lahey 18:02Oh, absolutely. So it was maybe like eight years ago, and I had just fired my third assistant in like, two months. And I was standing outside the restaurant. I’m a foodie, right, I’m sitting I’m standing outside the restaurant and my third assistant called me and I think she’s, I forgot if I fired her or she quit. And I thought to myself, I’m like, that’s gonna be a better way. Like, why am I why am I attracting the wrong people? And then I realized it’s probably me, like, I didn’t D.J. Paris 18:28have a common denominator. Jon Lahey 18:31Them it’s me. I’m the reason why it’s not working. It’s not so. So I realized I didn’t have a system, I didn’t have a process for people to follow, which means I can’t leverage the things that I shouldn’t be doing to grow my business to the next level. So I can focus on the high dollar productive, productive activities, because I’m doing everything right. And I realized that I’m the reason why this is all failing. I remember I got on a plane the next day, and I was in DCAA, Reagan National and I was flying to LAX. So it’s a good five and a half, six hour flight. I was sitting on the second second row, middle seat. So I was stuck in the middle. And this is before like internet was like common on flights. So I can’t get on today. I can’t get on the internet. And I was I was stuck in the middle seat and I pulled up my notepad, my yellow notepad. And I thought to myself, Okay, what would have to happen what happens every single time I get a client I start writing it down paperwork and sending an introduction email and making sure the listing agreement gets sent on to this person and that person and this person and I created an actual checklist system for my processes, the things that are the lowest dollar producing activities I put on paper and then when I got back home I put it all into a checklist system in my in my I use Infusionsoft. So I put everything into Infusionsoft that triggers automatic emails and you know when people follow the checklist, What I did is I can, D.J. Paris 20:02I’m sorry, I’m just gonna say, it’s so funny because as you were saying that I was realizing, and I hope our audience was thinking the same thing that I was thinking in my own business. And again, I’m not a Producing Realtor, but I do other things, very similar to what Realtors do. And I was thinking, Oh, what are my low income producing? Or what are my non income producing, you know, process or sorry, tasks that I have to accomplish that I should consider giving to someone else? So I’m sorry, go ahead. Jon Lahey 20:30Oh, so So that’s exactly what I did. And then I get back home, I put everything into Infusionsoft which is our CRM slash data process systems and, and I called the local high school. And I said to him, like, connect me to the counselor, and the counselor, but then I said, Hey, can you get me a student who needs extra hours, and I want to train her to run my system. Because I looked at it, as you know, McDonald’s, McDonald’s is run by systems. And the thing with McDonald’s is, no matter which McDonald’s you go to, you can go to McDonald’s in Chicago, you can go to McDonald’s, in Rockville, Maryland, you can go to McDonald’s in LA, you get the same stuff, you get the same process, you get the same output, because the system is predictable, right, the, the outcomes predictable. And so I called the high school, and I said, Send me a student, a smart girl or a smart person. And I’m like, Just give me somebody who needs extra hours. And so I gave her mice the key to my kingdom, which at the time was we had like four or five agents. And I said, All right, you’re gonna run my system, this is how I know if the system is going to work or not. Because when a system is followed, regardless of skill set, the outcome should be predictable. Right? And so I gave the keys to the kingdom to a 17 year old. And I said, I’m gonna train you to run my company, based on this checklist that I created on a plane. And I know it sounds funny, right? But I said, Alright, let’s try it. And then I went on a trip. So November, December 2020. What is it 2015. December 2015, we flew to Bali, we actually went to Bali. And we left and we stayed in Bali, for four weeks, flew back home. And we had $7.9 million in ratified contracts while I was out in Bali, because one of the systems follow the outcomes predictable. And I look at it, I’m like, did a high school girl just manage my team, and we just had our productive month ever. It’s incredible. And, um, and so that’s my system story. If there’s one thing that somebody who wants to scale up and first off, find out what, what things are bogging you down, that’s not really high dollar producing activities. And give it to somebody else and create a checklist system that checklist ism is the easiest way to do it. Just make a checklist of the things that has to happen every single time. Something happens, right. So that’s what I created, I gave it to somebody, and I taught her how to do it. D.J. Paris 23:04I love that because and also back to the McDonald’s sort of reference is McDonald’s Restaurants are essentially run by 17 year olds. Exactly. So so that’s sort of the genius of it is like, well, if they can, you know, and I’m not here putting 17 year olds down, they’re just you know, they’re just 17 year olds, they, they, you know, they can follow processes, they’re probably not great innovators of that age, or who knows, but they’re able to follow instruction. Clearly fast food restaurants know that. And so that is an incredible, I’ve never heard of anyone. I’ve heard of people hiring like an experienced person to then run their systems. But I love the fact that you’re like, I want to see, the probably it was the most sort of true test is like, I want to get somebody who really has no business running any of this. And it works. And that’s incredible. Jon Lahey 23:53We’ve always had good agents, but I didn’t hire a high level director, leader manager, until we were selling like 150 homes. 180 homes at that point, I’m like, All right, for us to go to the next level, I do need somebody who’s actually a high level like leader, because at that point, we get a double we need I need I need leaders because at that point, it’s more than just a system. We need leadership to go with it. Right. But until we were selling 150 homes, 120 150 homes, all of my all of my stuff was run by just systems and and assistants. D.J. Paris 24:31I love that and we’re so lucky now in this time to be able to with technology now we can get connected to help from all over the world and we can we are not limited. You know, simply to like local high school kids if that’s not what what somebody wants for their business. I mean, you can hire people from all over the world to assist and we’re I feel like a lot of realtors have yet to really adopt that and they they I think it’s scary to give up some of that control was that hard for you to even though you knew that this system likely should work was It was scary for you to then hand that over to somebody because I know a lot of our listeners, that’s that’s the feedback we get, as we say we should hire an assistant for and you can hire them relatively inexpensively if you look globally for people, but they’re like, Well, I just don’t want to I’m afraid they’re gonna say or do the wrong thing. I’m curious if you had those fears as well. Jon Lahey 25:30Obviously, I didn’t, because I hired and fired fast and then realized it was my fault, right? I really the thing is, if you have a at least a checklist or a process in place, you can you should be able to plug in any individual to help you with those processes is the key is you just have to know what needs to happen every single time. That’s really the key if you have the system and process in place, finding a person to plug in there shouldn’t be a hard thing. Right. And the reason why I did it that way is like I know some people like you should just hire somebody high level in the beginning. Well, the problem was I didn’t have any money. It’s not like I started and I was successful immediately right there. Another reason why I started this way was because we were limited in budget. I was reinvesting I was reinvesting a lot of the money that we were making on commission to for systems and technology and also for lead generation. So it’s not like I had a lot of leftover money to just hire a high level assistant. That was the thing. And so when COVID happened in 2020, we were very fortunate because we had been running in the cloud since 2015. Like all of my assistants, were in the clouds we were we were in the Philippines, we were in South America, I hadn’t we had zero like we didn’t have any transaction coordinator that’s local, we have nobody on Listen coordination, that’s local, all of my assistants, were running oversleep, everybody was like somewhere else. We were always running in the clouds based on systems COVID happen office shut down, D.J. Paris 26:59I was like, system doesn’t change anything Jon Lahey 27:03was the same, we have all the processes in place already. So I can say, you know, I’m very fortunate that that was the route that we took back in 2014 2015. As we were building the systems out, that we took that way instead of, you know, the paper, D.J. Paris 27:21I am such a big fan of, of hiring virtual assistants, for all sorts of areas of life, I actually have somebody that I hire, and I, which is basically she goes through all of my to dues with me every morning for an hour, we categorize them because I’m not good at staying on target with my two dues. She also helps with I mean this, I’m only saying this because I think this might be helpful for audience I have. So it part of my you know, my struggles is my work life. I’m pretty well, on top of things. But even in my home life, that’s where I struggle. And so I even have somebody or I say to them, can you come up with like 10 date ideas for this week. So I can then you know, organize something for my girlfriends, so that come up with like, restaurants that we should go to. And since she sends me a list of things, and it’s it’s the it’s some of the best money I spend, because I just Yeah, so it doesn’t even have to just be work, I have systems, I have systems to make sure because I won’t remember to do anything. So I have to have those kinds of systems. So I love that But enough about me but I want to tell talk you talked about, you know, you’ve become not only a top producer, but really a leader in the field. And, and I have to give you a huge shout out because you were a panelist at Rizz. Ras media’s 33rd annual CEO and Leadership Exchange, by the way rismedia We are i We’re in communication with them right now to to work on a project together as well. So I’m very excited. When I saw that I was like, Oh, that’s so cool. I’m a big fan of them. But I would love to hear about how you moved even from just, you know, hey, I’m just you know, I’m a Producing Realtor. I’ve got a team, too. Now I need to share some of this with with you know, the broader a broader audience. Jon Lahey 29:07You know, it’s a it’s exactly what you just said, How do I share this with a broader audience? My vision, you know, since like, 2017 2018, I was attending a conference, I was attending a Tony Robbins conference, and it was the last day and Tony was like, he shut the lights off, right? It was dark, pitch dark. And he’s like, alright, imagine where you are in five years. And I’m like, Oh, well, what’s Alright, let me imagine that. It’s like dream bigger. Like, is that it? And so, first, I was like, Yeah, I’ll sell like, 400 homes. And he’s like, dream bigger. And I’m like, Okay, I don’t know what that means. But he kept on challenging me to like, expand, like the goal and I was like, Alright, maybe I’ll open up and I started naming cities. I said, maybe I’ll open up in Florida. Maybe I’ll open up in San Diego and I started naming places that I want to like expand my brand might want to find living brands who which We never had that vision until like that conference. And that he’s like, where do you want to be? And I’m like Toronto, New York, Chicago, and I started naming like major cities. For out like West Palm Beach, Miami, San Diego, guess what? We’re open in San Diego. We all know, and thank you. We’re open, finally meaning group, Miami slash West Palm Beach, like that whole area, we have a team down there. We have a team in Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland. And we’re and we’re continually expanding. And so it’s it started with that, that dream, that vision that was just birthed out of a moment where, where he challenged me to dream bigger, and I’m originally my dream was, I’m just gonna sell like, a few more 100 homes, which is like, alright, we can just do that. But it’s like, Is that all you want? And so, and I think that’s what the moment I knew what we want to do what, what the vision was, it was a year and a half ago, I realized my old brokerage was just not the right model for that, that really fit that vision of expansion. And the reason we want to expand is not just to make money, it costs money to change people’s lives. But we want to expand for like, more than that reason, right? We want to change people’s lives in these marketplaces, we want to have more influence over over all these other people’s lives, and over the market, in all these markets, and and so realizing that I was not in the right brokerage, we had to make a really big and hard decision, because I had been at my old brokerage for like 11 years. And we had I had grown from like a nobody to ranked number 23 In the world of brokerage, and I’m like, gosh, like, my ego is kind of hurting here. Like I, I’m not number one, yet, I really my ultimate goal is to become number one in the world. And I’m like, Yeah, I think it’s time to go, you know, I think we found a model with exp where expansion was possible, where growing in San Diego was actually very easy to do and opening up in Florida was gonna be very easy to do. And we had the right people in place in those two markets. And so just having that vision aligned with the model in place, and the company that have the same mission, everything is accelerated. And this is pretty cool. Because media, they they saw what was happening. You know, they know they saw that the number one REMAX broker owner team in Maryland shut down. And then the next thing, like six months later, we have two other teams, which even I couldn’t have predicted that was, I had no idea it was gonna happen that fast. You know, it was a vision. But what was cool is, it just happened so fast that the people were ready. The vision was there, we have a system that we’ve been testing for, like ages, you know, with our team locally, and then we just planted the system in Florida, we planted the system in San Diego, and then boom, now we’re opening three locations. And then rismedia saw that and they’re like, Wow, I guess we should see what’s actually happening here. Because we went from 20 to 65. In 65 Real estate agents in such a short period of time. I’m very fortunate. I’m grateful for that. And I have amazing people. I’m really fortunate because I have amazing people with me. Hang around people who believe things are possible, by the way. Like if there’s one thing just will just hang around people that believe that there’s nothing impossible and impossible things will start happening. If you hang around people who just will put you down and be like, hey, that’s impossible. That’s stupid. Don’t do that. Then you’re just gonna be stuck not growing. So if there’s one thing I can like, share today, like my vision was my vision. But hang on people who believe in that vision. Hang on people who believe in the impossible, because they’ll you’ll go far with those people. D.J. Paris 33:51Yeah, it’s really interesting. I, I think you’re right. It is Oh, I know. You’re right. It’s this idea of being around people who go Oh, yeah, there’s a way to do that. Instead of Ooh, that seems like oh, my gosh, that’s, you know, that seems tough or not possible. Just somebody who goes, Oh, yeah, that can be done. And that’s why being around people who are doing better than you is always so encouraging, because you’re like, oh, oh, that person figured it out. And there’s a way to do that. I want to talk since your team has grown substantially. You have 65 agents. Now. You know, last year you were at 20. So So again, as somebody who spends eight hours a day recruiting agents, I know and that’s I know, you’re not spending eight hours a day recruiting because you have a million other things to do as well like running a team and doing your own production and all of that, but and speaking and writing and all of the things you do, but I want to talk, we’re going to take just a quick little commercial break for one of our sponsors. And then when we come back, I want to ask about how you go about finding people to attract to the team because there’s so many of our listeners who are looking to either join a team or maybe start a team themselves. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on, you know how they should select a team if they want to join an existing one, or maybe even create one of their own. And before we do that couple, just a quick quick note about our favorite sponsor, which is called follow up boss. So, I want to this is my favorite CRM that exists. And I’ve interviewed hundreds of top Realtors like John in the country for this podcast over the years and the CRM that is used by more than any of our guests follow up boss. Now let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level, we all know that follow up boss will actually help you drive more leads in less time with less effort. Don’t take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the United States use his follow up boss and he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with 250 different systems so you can keep your current tools and processes in place. Also, the best part follow up boss has seven day a week support. Realtors work on the weekends, right. So this is this is great because you can get the help you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that they’re 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 who visits their website. So but you have to go Oh, and by the way, no credit card required either free 30 day trial, no credit card, so you don’t have to worry about them charging you on day 31. Just but you do have to go to a special link to get the 30 day trial, which that link is follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real, you have nothing to lose your check out their CRM, they’re so confident you’re going to keep using it that they’re giving it to you totally free for 30 days, follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And but now let’s get back to John. So let’s talk about recruiting, and also retaining. But we’ll start with recruiting because and I don’t know that that’s even the right word, but how we attract talent to the company. And that’s maybe a word I would suspect you would probably use over recruiting. So if someone’s out there, and they’re listening, and they want to join an existing team, maybe maybe your team even how would you recommend that they might start to explore existing options teams like yourself? Jon Lahey 37:17You know, there are different kinds of real estate teams, right? There are different kinds of things that they offer. Some teams offer lead some teams over appointments, some teams offer support, some teams offer system, some teams, offer coaching, some teams offer everything. And of course, depending on what you need, you need to know first of all, what do you need to take your business to the next level? Because just because there’s an awesome team out there doesn’t mean that fits what you need. And then you need to know also like, ultimately, what you want your business to look like long term, like, is there a growth potential or growth opportunity for you to join that team and actually see you hit your vision, your goal long term? Or is this going to be like a temporary stay where you learn for next six months to two years, and then take what you learn and build your own team elsewhere. So kind of like know, first off, know what you want, know what you need. And then if you have that, the next part is not as hard. The hard part is if you don’t know what you know, you don’t know what you want, and you don’t know what you need, then really, there’s no good fit out there. And it’s just gonna be like, you know, you just have to test different teams. Okay. So that’s the first thing from the perspective of the team leader. For us, or for me, at least, what I’m looking for are agents that fit our core values, you know, because like I said, I have competition out here, if we have competitors that offer the same thing. So just because they fit me doesn’t mean they’re going to fit the other team and vice versa. And so looking for agents that fit our, our core belief, our core, our core values, to me is more valuable than the skills the skills I can teach. I can I can teach them scripts, I can teach them how to overcome objections, I can teach them kind of like some of the mindset things that we believe in. But if that’s not their core, it’s not sustainable, long term. Like they’ll, they’ll go back to like who they really are long term. Right. So like, for us, the number one rule that we’re looking for, or like the number one kind of like, core value we’re looking for is we love, we care we serve, we love we care we serve, we’re looking for agents that just embodies that and live and breathe and believes that the most important thing to do to one another, and to their clients is to love care serve. And it’s really easy to it’s a really easy way to measure that. Those agents that believe in loving and caring and serving, you can see their success because they’ll get more referrals. They’ll get more repeat clients, and they get more five star reviews. And then you have the other agents who just sell, sell, sell, sell, and they get none of those things. Right. So that’s something that that just we just learned along the way that there’s a lot of producers out there and there are probably other agents that do They don’t fit our culture, but they can sell a lot more with us, but they just don’t fit our cultures. And we don’t really want those agents. We’re looking for agents who love care. So like, that’s our number one and most important role on the team. D.J. Paris 40:13Yeah, I love that. And it’s not just a slogan, right? It’s like is ever you probably put every process and every action through that filter. First, I imagine is does this does is every action we take under that love care surf umbrella, which probably helps, it probably makes your life your job a little easier. Because sometimes when we’re not sure what to do, if we push it through that filter of that’s my highest value, that’s it probably makes it more clear what to do. I imagine that really brings things into focus about what to actually do. Jon Lahey 40:53Exactly, we hire we fire based on that value of love care serve, and we make decisions and we implement programs and systems based on that core value. Will this help us love care serve our clients more? Is this going to help us show that we love care? And so let’s somebody said this before and Maya Angelou it was Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou said, people don’t remember what you say, people don’t remember what you promised them. But but people will remember how you make them feel. And I was like, you know, that’s genius. Just make people feel special, will be super successful, because people will just recommend us everywhere. They’ll remember us, they’ll recommend us. It’s and I I was in line at Disney World. You’ve been to Disney. I have it’s like 105 degrees in South Florida, right? And the line few hours long, two hours long. And it was like, Oh, I know, two hours long. And I’m like, why are all these people like smiling and happy and they’re willing to line up for an experience that they’ve experienced before. It’s because they don’t remember the line. They remember how they felt. They didn’t remember how Disney made them feel. And so they keep on coming back. And I thought to myself, What if we create a process and a system where our clients feel the same way, where they don’t remember how much money we sold their home for, they don’t remember how much savings they get from us. They don’t remember how much more money they got from us because of our amazing systems. But they remember that we carry D.J. Paris 42:28Yeah, I one of my favorite little Disney things. And I don’t know if this is still in effect, but it used to be a rule and probably still is at on at the park down in Orlando, which is if anybody from from staff, whether it’s the person sweeping up the, you know, the cigarette butts on the or the wrappers on the floor, to the people in the Mickey Mouse outfits walking around taking pictures, anyone on staff, apparently, if they came within if they come within, now, if you have the Mickey Mouse head, this wouldn’t work. But for people that you can see their face, who work at at the park, if if if a guest if one of you know, a visitor comes within 10 feet, they have to smile at the person, they have to make eye contact and smile. And it really goes to what you just said, it’s like that’s such a simple thing. And you don’t really think about it, except that makes people feel good. It’s it’s pretty easy to do. It’s doesn’t cost anything, it’s you don’t even have to talk, you just have to smile. It’s this idea of We’re glad you’re here and we want you to feel good. And so you’re essentially doing that same version of that with love care serve. And it’s it’s really it’s again, it sounds simple, it’s actually pretty hard to do. But when when you do it, it probably just ultimately makes everything a lot easier. Jon Lahey 43:47It’s easy to do when the things are good when you know, easiest situation when somebody that left your team and try to recruit from your team. Like I found out 24 hours ago. And then I had to go through that. And at the end I said to my staff and my leaders, I was like hey guys, we love we care we serve. Just don’t forget that. That’s not easy to do. No, it’s easy. When things are easy. It’s not easy. When it’s a really, really tough situation. You just have to remember your core value and as a leader, like I have to remember that you know what? People look at me and they’re waiting for me to fail to they’re like, let’s see if John’s gonna embody this love care serve belief? Or is it gonna go the other way and start like trashing someone else? And I’m like, I gotta make sure that if I preach it, and if I tell people hey, we’re all about loving and caring serving, I have to keep on showing that. Yeah, D.J. Paris 44:45yeah. And ultimately, you know, by focusing on your core values, and again, you know, if your processes weren’t strong, you know, then then when things shake up the business, you know, the top producer on the team leaves and if tries to recruit or or you know, people away, and there’s there’s a shake up. It really helps to, to be able to go back to that because that love care serve model because it really goes, everything’s gonna be okay. This is this is you know life has ups and downs and people are involved. So you know, people are the most random things on the planet, we don’t know what anyone’s going to do at any given moment. But but you built something without any any agent, right? You were just you. So you’re like, well, I already know I can get more agents. And so but yes, it’s not doesn’t mean it’s easy. And it’s certainly, I’ve had that exact experience that you’re referencing so many times. So it’s one of those. And I used to get very, very upset about it. And then I sort of went, That’s okay, it’s all gonna be fine. But it is it certainly can be challenging. So I would love to talk when we’re talking about challenges here a challenge that most everyone is facing. And I know you can’t solve this problem. But I’m curious how you cope with this problem for you and your team. Since you are the leader, we’re dealing with a shortage of inventory pretty much everywhere. Rates, of course, are rising, they’re still pretty historically, they’re still pretty good. But they don’t feel good in the moment because of course, rates were so low before. So you have this sort of, you know, difficult time for agents that don’t have a lot of listings, and maybe are working with buyers. So I’m just curious, what are you? How are you keeping your team motivated, engaged and positive? Jon Lahey 46:33I tell my, my client, my agents all the time, be be the resource, educate your clients, and, and regardless if they’re a buyer or seller, position yourself as the expert by providing valuable, valuable information, right, whether it’s through videos, whether it’s through social media, don’t just be like any other realtors saying, oh my gosh, we’re in a crazy market, they already know that. But instead, how do you educate them that how do you prepare your offer so that you win. And so we do videos, every single every week, we have a new video that we send out to all of our whole database. And we treat everybody the same we I mean, we segmented the database, but we get our whole database I treat as if they’re gonna buy and sell today. Because all these people who are afraid right now who’s hesitating, they’re looking for somebody to tell them what to do. Right? People love being told what to do. People love that the decisions are made for them. And so we tell them like, Hey, if you are still thinking of moving, here’s five costly mistakes that you need to know this week, so that you don’t end up losing your dream home. Here’s the 10 things that you shouldn’t do if you’re thinking of selling your home. And so we just become a resource, right? Because you know what, if they do want to buy and sell, you have to educate them anyways, you have to tell you need to show them so that they listen to you. And so we we believe we come in with the belief that hey, just be a resource. D.J. Paris 47:56You demonstrate you demonstrate that you have that skill on social media and also to your existing sphere of influence your contactless. You’re consistently reminding them we have information not so much, hey, if you’re ready to buy or sell where you’re at, I’m sure you, you say that too. Or maybe you don’t but but that’s not the main message. The main message is I have something you need to hear, I have something you need to read. And so it’s amazing how few realtors do go that route and become the place that people will tune into to get knowledge versus Oh, I’m thinking it’s time for me to sell my house. I need to find a realtor versus I’ve been following this guy for a while. He’s great. And he’s constantly telling me what to do and what not to do. I’m just gonna go with him. Jon Lahey 48:46Exactly. And so we’re getting, we’re getting clients are buyers and sellers calling us. They’ve been on our database for ages. And they’re finally like, coming back. They’re calling. They’re like, Hey, I’ve been watching your videos, I’m ready to go now. So we treat everybody the same. And then every seller, oh, well, not every seller, but the majority of sellers are buyers. So if you have a database of buyers, essentially you have a database of potential sellers in that database. So we just, we just educate them as if they’re buyers. Because most people don’t wake up in the morning. They’re like, I gotta sell my house. Most people wake up in the morning, like this home is too small. I need another house. So that we create a video Hey, if you’re waking up this morning, and you realize that your home is too small, you need to watch this video. Here’s three costly mistakes, people have people and we give them content based on that and because it’s their thought people don’t wake up in the morning saying I gotta sell my house. D.J. Paris 49:42That is that is a I’m gonna pause for a second that is a brilliant insight that you just said that I’ve done about 400 episodes. I don’t think anyone specifically ever said in that way and I want to I want to sort of just go over that again because that’s really important. Yes, people might look up their home value on Zillow. Lower that, you know, they might do little things like that. But you’re right day to day people aren’t thinking about whether they want to buy or sell, but they are thinking about whatever challenges they’re having. And so you’re basically saying, Hey, if you have this challenge, I’ve got a solution for you. And that’s, that is a great way to think about creating content, thinking about what are the actual challenges that my audience is experiencing, and then here’s some knowledge or some solution. Boy, that’s a brilliant strategy, I love that. Jon Lahey 50:31Just be a resource, provide information, provide solutions, and then when they’re ready, they’re gonna raise their hand, they’re gonna be like, hey, DJ, I’m ready. I’ve been watching you for the last eight years, I’ve been in your database, you’re, you’re the man like you have all the content, I’m ready to go now. Right? That’s how we do it. Now, we do create that database, we do have, you know, we generate a lot of buyers, a buyer leads and seller leads, but not everybody’s ready. Most of them just goes into our database. And then we put them into our follow up process, including content, videos with content and things like that. D.J. Paris 51:06I love that any make you try to make a new video weekly? Is that’s that’s the schedule. Jon Lahey 51:11Yep. Every single week, we’ll have a new content coming out. And my assistant will make sure I do that. She’s like, hey, you need to do more videos for for next month. I’m like, Alright. Yeah, D.J. Paris 51:25just out of curiosity, how long do you do you have a specific length that you try to hit your videos? Do you not worry about that? Is it more about the content? Or do you try to just because I know you’re a process guy. And I know you’ve looked at all the all the data from your videos and all the engagement metrics, curious if you found shorter videos, or longer videos tend to work better for you. Jon Lahey 51:45I use right now all my videos are usually between three to five minutes long. But my ironically, the video that has the most views is like 15 minutes, which I can’t figure out, but that one has, that video, I think is how to sell your home without an agent. And that one has the most views. But that’s like a 15 minute video that I can’t redo. It’s just too long. D.J. Paris 52:09But it works. And that’s that’s the other thing too is, is I think when you’re when our audience is trying to put out content, you can experiment, experiment with long form, experiment with short form, you know, and see what what works. But I love that you’re you’re you’re really you think of yourself, I imagine you consider yourself more of a consultant than a realtor is would that be fair to say? Jon Lahey 52:31Very, very accurate there. I see myself as a consultant to agents, and I’m the consultant and the content for homebuyers and homeowners who’s thinking to sell. And then oh, by the way, I do sell houses like I am a realtor on the side. But I, I provide information and I consult and that’s what I do. Advisor, I’m an advisor. D.J. Paris 52:53And you’re always tracking with how your agents are feeling and how the clients are feeling right. Because that you were talking about making sure that there’s as many positive feelings associated with the process as as possible. And and that can be tough, right? Because with every single real estate transaction, there’s some wrinkle that’ll happen, or we can assume there’ll be a wrinkle that will cause some stress and frustration. Right now a lot a lot of that right. We’re still in a high bidding situation, lots of multiple offers. And I’m just curious if you had any quick tips since only because you mentioned it about getting an offer noticed, is there anything that you’re doing that you could share with our audience a simple way that they can, you know, have more success, having their their offers highlighted, I guess versus Jon Lahey 53:42I think the first part is building rapport with the listing agent. Like if there’s anything you hear from what I say today regarding like, offers, that rapport with the listing agent goes a long way that actually that report will get you a call back versus a straight on rejection. Right, you could be the second third fourth, like on the actual chain of offers, but if there’s a report and they like and trust you, you’re gonna get a call back and a lot of times you’ll get an opportunity to get to up your offer. Okay, I tell my my agents that all the time build rapport, the most important thing in your offer is you have to build rapport with the person in charge of presenting the offer. If you have a poor you have a chance if you have no report, you can be the best offer but they don’t like you who to say the agent wants say one tell their their seller and and say hey, I don’t mind this agent. Don’t work with this agent. Right? And who does say that that agent that listing agent won’t call the second highest offer and say hey, listen, I don’t like the highest offer. Can you beat it? So that report goes a long way. There Yeah, that’s my that’s my one tip. D.J. Paris 54:57It’s It’s the greatest tip you could have given because Um, and I just I’m 45 or 45, I think about my age, but I really just, I didn’t figure this out, I read it. But being likeable is really a lot of what we’re talking about when you’re talking about rapport. It’s like, well, how do you build rapport with agents? Okay? Well, if you there’s a lots of different ways to do that. Lots of books, and there’s whole fields of study on rapport. But if nothing else, if you’re just a nice human being, and you are authentic, and genuine and a good human being, and you are pleasant, and happy and excited, that works for the vast majority of people in this, you know, in, in society as if you’re just a nice human, it’s kind of like, about twice a year, I’ll pass somebody on the street, and they smile at me. And I noticed that it only happens a couple of times a year. You know, it, but when it does, it’s such a magical moment where I’m like, I don’t even know that person. And I liked them, just because they smiled at me, we’re talking about the Disney thing, right? It’s, it’s but it’s like, you know, even just being a good hey, I’m so excited to be able to give you this offer, I think it’s pretty solid, I don’t know you but I want to I want to get to know you, Mr. And Mrs. Other agent, you know, Listing Agent and, and, you know, you can build a relationship, a professional friendly relationship that way and, and just be a good human. And they have to deal with so many other stressed out realtors who are not super pleasant, who you know, don’t smile, don’t do the little fun things when they’re emailing the offers. And it’s just here’s the stuff, you know, and and it goes a long way just being playing nice in the sandbox, they say, Jon Lahey 56:34right? You never know when you’re going to encounter the same agent again. D.J. Paris 56:39If you will, well, Jon Lahey 56:41you know, as the market turns, the good agents are gonna stay, you might as well make friends of those good agents, because you’re going to see him again. And it might be if you’re the listing agent today be nice to those buyer agents, because there’ll be a time when that buyer agents now the listing agent, and you need your offer to be reviewed. And if you’re a meeting before they’re going to remember because people remember how you make them feel. D.J. Paris 57:06I would love to just just ask you because we asked, we do a pre interview with with our guests, and they send us some some stories, and I rarely ever get to them. But I love this one, I would love to hear about where there was we’ll just I’ll just tee it up by saying this is that you have a long lost family member, can you tell us that story with real the real estate story? Jon Lahey 57:27Oh my gosh, the long lost family member. And then this has nothing to do with love care. And so this is the this is I think maybe eight years ago or so. And I was at the time we were a small team. I was the buyer’s agent in this transaction, and I was showing my buyer homes all around like gaithersburg. And I got to this one house and this long lost family member that’s related to my wife. We hadn’t seen in years, just disappeared. We didn’t know where that person went. Wow. Like, I mean, we knew he was alive. But we didn’t know where he went just like disappeared. And so this Saturday morning, I put the key in the you know, in in the key and the door handle I open and and this man was trying to behind the door and he tried to open the door for me. And I looked at was like, Are you freaking kidding me? This is your house? D.J. Paris 58:19It was you had no idea. I had Jon Lahey 58:21no idea because I don’t go out there. I don’t ask the buyer agent. I don’t I’m not researching who owns the house. And I didn’t know where he live. I thought he moved out of the area. And and yeah, he he appeared and he stuck around after that, like we read you know, we we got reconnected and now we’re you know, we’re all good and fine again. But that was Saturday morning. A long lost family member that we hadn’t seen in years, was behind the door not knowing that I was the buyer agent that was going to show his house. And then we got reconnected and I remember calling my wife was like you’re not gonna believe who I just found? D.J. Paris 58:57Well, and there’s only millions of homes in your immediate area. So the odds of that happening are so astronomical. It’s it that’s never going to happen. Except I did. Jon Lahey 59:08What’s the first time I met my niece was right there when he opened the door. I was like oh, well, hello. D.J. Paris 59:15Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s I just had an almost identical very similar experience, not with a family member, but I was at a party this week. And this made a little bit more sense. Yours is like amazing that that ever happened. I was at a party and an old fraternity brother of mine who I didn’t know knew the new the people that were having this party. I didn’t know they were connected in any way he walks in and I and and and we reconnected and so it this really is a it was a kind of a business II sort of thing. And so it was fun. It’s like this is such a cool business because there’s so much good feelings between agents. You know, it is called a cooperative commission when agents work together when the clients get their needs met. When people are moving into their first and Home ever or their next home when they’re selling. There’s so much excitement and yes, it’s stressful too. But boy, are there some some wonderfully great feelings that go along with this business. And I, I think agents maybe could focus on like you do focusing on the feelings really helped get you through the tough times and it is it is challenging right now it’s it’s it’s tough. But but if you if you focus on those feelings and I know your team does that I’m curious, are you guys doing anything to to help owners understand the market right now meaning, right like great time to sell tough time to buy because not as much inventory. So I’m curious, how are you coaching the sellers or your agents to coach the sellers? What are you telling them to do? Because there’s probably just a lot of people who are scared, like I want to sell and make a big profit. But then I don’t know where I’m going to live. Jon Lahey 1:00:56We give them market data, right? We can, we can’t change the facts. But we can help interpret the data. So we give them the data like, hey, markets are increasing. Right now. That’s one of our last messages. We actually just picked up a listing this morning, I did, where the seller said, Well, I don’t really want to move until maybe October or maybe next year. And I said, that’s fine. I’m just here to be a second opinion for you. And I said to him, I’m like, alright, well, let me just tell you about the current market conditions. And then you can decide whatever you decide, I’m not emotionally connected to the outcome of what you decide. I’m just here to provide you the market information. And but because if I don’t give you the market information, and then you realize three months from now that the market has shifted, and you just lost the opportunity to sell, then it’s my fault, right? So we just come in from the perspective like, Hey, we’re just here to provide information to educate to give you all the all the latest, and then you decide what’s best for you, including staying. So I said, Alright, here’s the here’s the truth. rates have increased, the number of buyers that used to be able to qualify for your home have also decreased. And so if you sell today, here’s the current market price here we saw in October, I really don’t know. And I said, if but you can see visually, because it’s a very visual person. I said, Imagine the pool, the circle of buyers decreasing from this big to this big. And the more demand for a home, the higher your price is going to be now that that number of pull buyers now smaller, what do you think’s going to happen to your price, and of course, I’m not going to tell you, it’s gonna go down, but you can figure that out yourself. And he said, Oh, that makes sense. And his need and again, his need was he needs to sell his home for a certain number. And I said, Well, if you sell it today, I know I can get you that number. If you sell in October or next year, I really can’t guarantee that number. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen with I mean, the stock market’s crashing. You know, rates are, who knows how high it’s gonna go, I can tell you what’s happening today. And I’m here to provide you information based on today’s data. Tomorrow, I’ll give you tomorrow’s data in next next month. I’ll tell you next month’s data next month. But today, I know what’s happening today. You know, so that’s, that’s how we come in. That’s how we we provide information to our sellers. And then of course, if the end of the day, they’re like, Well, what do I buy? Well, let’s talk about what you need to buy. Let’s see if what you want is there. Because if what you want is not there, we’re also here to provide that information to you. So that’s really the angle we come in. It’s not we’re not there to make decisions, we’re there to provide the information so they know how to make the right decision for themselves. D.J. Paris 1:03:37Let’s deconstruct let’s just I want to just step on this a little bit, because you just said something so incredibly valuable. I want to make sure our audience got it. Number one. Here’s what I heard. When John goes into a listing presentation or a buyer consultation. He’s like, hey, almost not that he doesn’t care what decision they make. Because of course he does. And he’s running a business and he wants clients. But the message he gives across is, hey, you get to make the decision. If you want to list your home, great if you don’t define I’m going to be with you regardless, I’m not I don’t have any particular feeling of disappointment, should you decide to sit on the sidelines for a while I’m still your guy, I’m still going to hang out with you and give you anything you need. That is a really different and if we think about it from the customer perspective, because I am not a Producing Realtor. I’m thinking myself as a customer. I would go Oh, thank God he’s not trying to like he’s not going to be upset if we don’t move forward. I just because there’s pressure there as as a consumer to go, Oh God, no, I have to pretend like I’m going to do this. And then I have to think like I would I love it when sales quote salespeople unquote, say I don’t care whether you buy or not this product. I just want you to have all the information so you can make the right decision, which is exactly what you’re doing. And that is such a simple answer. subtle but crazy powerful thing for customer experience. It is. It’s also by the way. It’s it’s also very, very thoughtful. And it’s empowering to the person because you’re like, I’m going to empower you to make the right decision, Mr. or Mrs. Client. And again, not every client wants that, but most of them probably do. I just wanted to sort of take a minute to talk about that. Because that was that is so important. And again, I know it’s just part of your process. But boy, is that a powerful thing to to be able to get across? Somebody is, yeah, whether you buy or not, if now’s not the right time, no problem. I just want you to have all the data so you can make the right decision. Jon Lahey 1:05:38That’s exactly what it is. And so, when when nobody wants to be sold, right? I mean, do you ever go to the car dealership to be hated? No, you go to the dealership, to test drive the car. Just like the people, when they call us for a listing appointment, they’re testing you out. But at the same time, they don’t really want to be sold. If they feel like they like you, and you give them enough information, maybe they’ll want to be like, maybe they’ll come into that agreement. But the moment you just tell them upfront, like listen, and they can feel it. By the way, if you’re going out there to close, versus you’re going out there to provide information. Regardless of what happens, I’m just here to help you, they can feel that, right. And the moment they know that you’re not out there to sell them and chase them and close them hard. And you’re just there to provide information, their guard goes down. Because before that they’re all guarded up. They’re like, I don’t really want to trust you. I don’t really want to open up really what’s important to me, because I don’t want you to sell me anything. I just want to get information. So if you just upfront be like, Hey, I’m just gonna provide you information if you decide to move with me to move and sell with me. Love to. But if you’re not ready, I’m here to provide you information today. And I’m going to help you come to an agreement as to what’s best for you, whether it’s buy, sell or stay. People like that. D.J. Paris 1:07:00They absolutely do. It’s respectful to it’s it’s this i i You know, yes, I will be able to provide ideas and suggestions and I have guidance and I have opinions. But Mr. And Mrs. homeowner or potentially homebuyer, I want you to make the right decision for you. So I’m here as as a knowledge source. I’m here to make sure you have everything you need. That is very different than I have to win this listing presentation. Right, which is how most, not most I don’t know what what most agents think. But I think a lot of agents go in going, Oh, my God, I hope they like me, I hope I am. And the way that they’ll they’ll like you is treat them as an equal. Show respect. And also say, here are all of your options. And you and you have opinions about those options to Well, here’s what I think makes sense. Here’s what might not make sense. But this idea that hey, if by the way, if you decide this isn’t the right time, that’s totally cool. Like, you’re not disappointing me, we want you to do the right thing for you. So we’re going to be with you regardless. And then you end up getting the sale anyway, whether it’s right then or two years from now. That’s that’s the genius of it is it works every time. It just doesn’t always work instantly. Jon Lahey 1:08:16Right? Exactly. D.J. Paris 1:08:19Yeah, boy and I for anyone listening who might be thinking, well, easy for John to say he’s doing 200 sales a day 200 Plus homes sales a year he can afford to not win every listing? I bet you were doing that at the very beginning. Jon Lahey 1:08:34Is this a mindset I just believed that was the right thing to do from the beginning. Now, not to say that if I realized they’re actually ready to go, and you know, they’re financially able to buy or sell, they’re interested in working there, realistically, they’re motivated, I’m gonna close them, surely I will close them. I don’t, I will not walk out of the room without a present without my paperwork sign. You know, but that’s secondary. The first part is like, I’m just here. Number one, I also get to gauge if I want to work with D.J. Paris 1:09:01them. Right? If I right, so if you’re interviewing them to Jon Lahey 1:09:05me, I’m like, I don’t want to close somebody that’s gonna give me nightmares. So I want to make sure they’re the right client that I can help. Just because they’re a client that can be helped. That doesn’t mean they’re the right client for me. So I want to make sure they’re the right client for me that I can really help and support and, and provide all the information they need and all. That’s the first part and then of course, then I do close up. Otherwise, if you don’t close them, we have no business. D.J. Paris 1:09:33Right? It just makes it a lot easier to close. Once you’ve given them all the information that they that they want, because you’re not restricting information. A lot of realtors do that they sort of, you know, they sort of say, well, you know, they have their own secret sort of processes to restrict information and as opposed to giving as much as possible so that the client feels informed, engaged and then you can make the decisions together. It’s really, really brilliant. Well, I feel like we’ve talked about this enough. But I want to make a point as this is not only what John does with his team, so the other agents in his company, but also he, this is what he teaches the, you know, the, to the consumers, too. So this is a great thing, if you are not getting this kind of coaching and support from the firm, or from the team that you’re currently with. John’s going to train you, that’s what he does, he’s going to teach you these systems, all based around these values that he’s developed. And he he’s been attracting agents at an incredible clip based on some of these values and processes. And John, can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what when an agent joins you sort of how what you do for them, not so much like leads, and, but just teaching them processes. Jon Lahey 1:10:58So we do some processes, we teach their mindset, we teach them scripts, and we coach them. But really, we we start with core values. And then we ask them, What do you actually want, this time next year, you’re smiling ear to ear, and you feel like there’s the best decision in your life? What just happened? And I’m like, write it down. Because if I don’t, if they don’t know where they are, and they don’t know where they want to go? Like, then how are we going to get them there? Right. So we help them with goal setting, we help them figure out alright, my currently my production is at this level. And I want this quality of life and this quality of production, this level of production, let’s put on paper and let’s create a roadmap from where you are now to where you want to go in the next 12 months. And let’s really break it down how many appointments you need, how much how much, how much growing, you need to do, how much time how many times you got to make phone calls, how many appointments, you have to go on how much what your conversion rates going to be, and we start tracking that. That for me is measurable, because those are all measurable numbers. But if you don’t know where they are, and you don’t know where they want to go, and they don’t tell you where they want to go, I did tell you, Oh, I just want to give me one dollars. Okay, well, I do you wanna make a million dollars, right? And then what does that give you? What will you do with a million dollars you go deeper, and this, you have to go deeper with the questions for those agents. So goal setting, and really, like planning for the future vision, vision casting with them. And then we also show them our processes and systems, okay, and show them also how to we call the fine living system because we’re called fine living group. So we have our fine living system on the first part is our lead generation system. Show them how our lead generation system work. We show them how our social media system works, we show them how our inside sales department will help make phone calls for them and convert the leads into appointments. And then we teach them the actual part of the process where our agents step in, which is the face to face consultations. So we teach them the presentation, how to build your poor, how to connect how to educate and how to close. That’s it? D.J. Paris 1:13:07Well, I think that a lot of our audience is going to want to reach out to you to learn more about your processes, your team, and whatever coaching opportunities exist, and maybe even joining your team. So for anyone out there who is interested in working with a team like John’s, or maybe you have clients moving to the DC metro area, or San Diego area now and as John’s fine living group continues to expand, you know, they would love to talk to you too, because again, there’s referral opportunities there. So John, what’s the best way that our one of our listeners can connect with you and either to get advice or maybe just to find opportunities that would work for both you and the end listener? Jon Lahey 1:13:51Send an email to John Jalen at the fine living group.com, J O N at the fine living group.com. All right, and send an email there. And we’ll connect or you can go on Instagram. My Instagram handles foodie realtor. Alright, I’m the only foodie Realtor in the world. So go to Instagram and send me a message there. And we’ll connect. And if you’re local, we’ll meet up somewhere for a drink, or grab lunch. And we’ll we’ll we’ll talk and see if what I’m doing is a good fit to help you grow your business. If you’re not local, no problem. We’ll zoom we’ll connect on Zoom. And we’ll do a zoom call and we’ll talk and we’ll do a consultation. I’d love to see what I can do to help grow your business. And really, I didn’t talk about this earlier, but it was one of our mindsets from early on. If you help enough people get what they want. You get what you want. And it’s just been our process. Our whole process is based on just help people get what they want. You want to attract good agents, figure out what that agent want and give that to them. And if it’s money, if it’s a feeling if it’s accomplishment, if it’s whatever they Want to figure out how to give them that, and you’ll attract the right people? D.J. Paris 1:15:05It’s really funny. I was I was with my parents in just recently a couple weeks ago. And we’re my mom has recently retired. And she was very successful in her her career. And I was asking her, I said, you started a curiosity, what was the most important part of sort of you feeling? Like, you were happy in your job, and she said, you know, it never was the money. Now, some people it is money can be the, I’m not putting a judgment on whatever anyone’s motivators are. But for her, she goes, it really wasn’t the money. I mean, the money is nice. And I’m glad that they paid me well. But she goes, you know, what I really cared about more than anything was recognition from the company that I was doing a good job. And she goes, I know, it sounds kind of silly, because the money’s the more sort of exciting thing that you can, like use this buy things with, but she goes, I really just care that they that they thought I was doing a good job. And so John, what John’s talking about is really important, right? Because that’s a great way if you have a team out there, or if you’re looking to join a team, or even just for your clients, understanding what they really want and need. And then like John said, then you give that to them, you give them what they actually want and need, and everybody’s different. So you get to sort of make that distinction between each interaction you have. And, and so anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there because I was like, Mom, you the money wasn’t the number one thing she was like, nope. And it wasn’t like they were throwing millions of dollars at her it was she had a normal salary. But she goes, you know, what was bro more important was recognition. It’s like, oh, okay, cool. So if you know that about somebody, then you can you can give them the recognition they deserved thing. Yeah. It’s so funny. Well, everyone out there who is listening, and I mean, think about the feeling you got from listening to John, during this this last hour, you probably felt great. John is a happy, positive person he doesn’t he deals with adversity. It’s not he’s not immune to challenge. But think about how he made you feel during this interview. Did you feel good? Did you feel power empowered, maybe a bit resilient and motivated? Well, that’s a feeling that you’re getting from listening to John, imagine what it might be like working with John or being one of John’s clients, right? So this is a great opportunity to to reach out and find people if it’s not John, like John to be hanging out with and learn from, but John is all his team is always growing. So check them out the fine living group, again, the fine living group.com Also the Lahey group.com. We’ll put these in the show notes. So you can find John, he just gave his email address, please reach out to him, he would love to talk to you, John. It was a pleasure. On behalf of our audience, we want to thank you for spending an hour with us today. This was incredible. What a great episode. And on behalf of John, we want to thank our audience for getting all the way to the end here. And we asked everyone just to do one thing. Number one, checkout follow up boss, two things. I’m sorry, one first checkup follow up boss free 30 day trial. Second, tell a friend about this episode. Just one other realtor that you know that could benefit that needs to hear what John said today, send them a link to this episode. Easiest way to do that keeping it real pod.com that every episode we’ve ever done is there. Or you just pull up a podcast app, send them a link to our you know our channel. So John, on behalf of everyone, thank you. Thank you, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, John. Thank you

Beth Benalloul with Corcoran in New York describes how she got into real estate a built her career. Beth discusses the changes in the real estate market she’s seen throughout her career, focusing on the changes brought by Covid-19. Beth also describes how interior design integrates with her real estate career and how these two complement each other. Last, Beth discusses open houses and how the whole concept has changed recently. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Beth Benalloul can be reached at (917) 749-6522 and beth.benalloul@corcoran.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Have you ever wanted to work with developers? Well, today we discuss how? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Beth battle specifically about developers and how to build those relationships. Pardon the pun on build there. But yes, how to develop Oh, another time those relationships. Sorry, no more puns. Not sorry, probably everyone’s like, Alright, no more puns. But before we get to Beth, please, as a quick reminder, tell a friend about this show, specifically another realtor and other real estate professional or somebody that would love to hear top producer interviewed so that they can learn, for example, how to work better with developers, tell us send him a link to our podcast, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is streamed there. But if you’re listening through a podcast app, take just a moment and leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. So we can continue to do more of what you like and improve the stuff that you don’t like because this is for you. This is your show. It’s not mine. I just talked through it. But I only do things that our audience says hey, do more of that or less of that really, really helps. So please leave us a review. But enough about that. Let’s get to the main event my conversation with Beth Bendele. Right today on the show we are back from the Corcoran Group in New York City. Let me tell you more about that. Beth battle is a highly accomplished Manhattan real estate broker who’s received coveted awards for her fine work that include membership and Corkins prestigious President’s Council, placing her among the top 25 brokers in the entire company, but has also been recognized numerous times as a top producer when the Wall Street Journal’s real estate, sorry, the Wall Street Journal real trends. Additionally, she’s also earned the status in the Corcoran group’s multimillion dollar club every year since 2005. Beth listens and pays close attention to her clients needs. She’s on top of every detail of their transaction. She’s sold condos, coops and townhomes all over Manhattan, she delivers superior results to both local and out of town clients. Working with buyers, she has an uncanny ability to find the perfect property for their budget and lifestyle. Beth has even sold properties to buyers sight unseen. Sellers respect her outstanding track record for selling her exclusives quickly and profitably. Please, everybody follow Beth on Instagram, which is at Beth Sinaloa, which is b e t h BENALLOUL. And I will have a link to that in our show notes. So you don’t have to spell that out and Instagram. Just go to our show notes. Click click the link and you’ll be able to follow her and see what she’s doing. Beth, welcome to the show. Beth Benalloul 4:21Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here. And you know, ask away. D.J. Paris 4:28And I’m glad we’ve had a couple of your friends on our show to which Beth was nice enough to tell me and probably even more more than that. So we are excited. It’s funny at you know, it really is even when there’s one point I think it’s 1.6 million realtor or something like that maybe 1.4 in the country. It’s like it’s funny so often, people who are you know, these top 1% agents like yourself really do know agents and I know of course there’s lots of you know, people in New York that you would know just because you come across them but it’s amazing to me how Often, people we have on the show no, even people we’ve had on the show from other places. It seems like a small community of top top producers. So we’re grateful to have you. I always Oh, you’re welcome. Well, we bet this is I’ll just give our listeners and viewers a little behind the scenes. Beth is actually at a sales office right now she snuck into a, a conference room. And this is how busy she is. She’s a working mother, she runs a group, a team. She’s one of the top agents in New York City. And she’s at a sale center in between appointments right now. So we are really lucky to have her. And so thank you, thank you. Because, again, I don’t know how you have the time to do anything that you do, but you do it. So let’s start at the very beginning of your career, because I first would like to know, how you got into real estate, why you got into real estate? And then what did you do to get started? How did you start building your business? Beth Benalloul 5:54Okay, so I have been in the real estate business for a little over 17 years. I’ve been at Corcoran the entire time. Yeah, which is, which is very unusual. Most brokers jump around, but I’ve been at corporate for a very long time. I originally started after my husband and I bought our first apartment. And I had gotten pregnant, and I was frantically looking for an apartment. And I started you know, at the time, everything was in print ads. So I used to go through the Sunday newspapers, and I would scour all the ads for apartments. And it became like, my second job in life was to find this an apartment. Anyway, we ultimately bought our first apartment here in New York City. And I gave birth, and at the time I was in the fitness industry, I was doing personal training and teaching spinning and all sorts of aerobics classes. And I, after having a baby, I was like, you know, I really want to do something else, you know, something that was maybe a little less physical that I could, you know, grow into, you know, more of a career. And that was when I decided to get my real estate license. So I got the license. And I had a, actually a client of mine, one of my personal training clients knew somebody at Corcoran, so they connected me and I went in for an interview, I had no experience, I really, you know, besides buying my own apartment, really didn’t know what I was doing. But I sort of jumped in from the ground up, and, you know, started started working. And that was in 2005, the market at the time was very, very difficult for a new broker. Because every single apartment would go into multi beds. So you know, and at the beginning, when you’re first starting, you work with a lot of buyers. So you know, I would go and take my buyer out and she’d find something you know, she’d like, and I’d run back to the office to write up the offer. And by the time I got it to the broker, they would say, Well, you know, sorry, we have 17 other offers, and this one’s cash. And this one’s above ask, and, you know, here I was, you know, advising my client, let’s go in 10,000 below the Ask let’s dancing contingency. You know, I was I was really winging it. But I’ll never forget that the first sale and this shows you how hard I was working the first sale that I did. At the closing, my client bought me a gift. Because she said she had never seen someone work so hard to make a sale happened that she came with a beautiful Tiffany bowl and gave it to me at the closing. Oh, it was very funny. D.J. Paris 8:30That is very, very funny and very sweet. And we should also just for anyone who’s listening who isn’t all that familiar with the New York market, sort of explain and not in any real detail, but just obviously we know that New York is one of the most expensive markets in the country to live, which is why the vast majority of people rent and and even rentals are oftentimes Realtors exclusively might even focus on rentals because that of course is just a bigger market. There’s more and more people to to have as clients on New York of course very expensive to own. And I remember speaking of New York in 2005 Just because you mentioned that that time my sister and I bought bought she bought a condo in the West Village I bought a condo here in New York or in Chicago and hers was only 475 square feet it’s a one bedroom floor walk up the West Village no air conditioning everything was kind of miniature miniature like a smaller fridge a small everything was kind of skinny and small. And although when when she sold it you know five years later let’s say something like that. She sold it for like $100,000 profit I sold mine for like, you know I lost money on my so it’s but but the funny part is is then she was like well now I’m priced out of the neighborhood. I can’t I can’t afford to live here anymore. But But it ended up working out but the New York market is is really challenging. Did you start out doing rentals at all? Or was that just not a thing that that appealed to you? Beth Benalloul 9:59I never Because I never did rentals. I mean, I do them now. But I really do them primarily for clients of mine who buy apartments as investments, and then I rent the apartments for them. But my business has been primarily sales. And it was basically that way from the beginning. And I’m not sure, you know, I did a few rentals here and there, but for the most part, I focused on sales. D.J. Paris 10:20Yeah, it’s funny, you were talking about, you know, 17 years ago, working with your first buyer and being in multiple offer situations. I remember I bought during that time, low interest rates. And and also, we’re sort of in a slump. I mean, rates are rising. Now, of course, but but we’re sort of in a similar is it? Does it feel similar now than it did when you first started? Beth Benalloul 10:41Well, it definitely feels similar. And I feel like at this point in my career, I’ve been through a few market cycles. And, you know, it’s interesting, because sometimes broke, you know, brokers who just start will say to me, like, you know, does it get easier? Does it get, you know, and obviously, certain markets are easier to make deals than than others? There’s no question. But it’s always, you know, the real estate business is always challenging, because it’s either a supply issue or a demand issue, or an inventory issue, you know, so I feel like in a market where things move very quickly, oftentimes your buyers get outbid. And then, of course, in a market that moves slowly, if you’re working with sellers, you know, it’s hard to manage those expectations. Why isn’t my property selling? So I would say the market that we’ve been in here in New York for the last year has felt more similar to 2005, in the sense that things are moving quickly. Although to your point, now, with the increase in interest rates, I’m feeling it’s cooling a little bit. You know, New York is also in my mind, very dependent on the stock market. We have a lot of Finance, Financial people, Wall Street people, and the markets obviously been, you know, in freefall, D.J. Paris 11:51tumultuous, tumultuous. Yes, yesterday, I believe was the single largest drop it since 2020, which again, just a couple of years, but it was, it was a big drop yesterday. Beth Benalloul 12:03So I think that that also has a direct effect on our local market, probably more than other places, you know, feel it, especially in the luxury market. D.J. Paris 12:12Yeah, that makes sense. New York, certainly known for finance and market related it, you know, jobs. And, and also, you know, with a pandemic, and the fact that, you know, going back to sort of market type jobs, securities, jobs, you know, people who trade and are in that space, and not and I know, this happened in Chicago, because we have, we have an options. We have a whole Mercantile Exchange here, and, you know, similar to what New York has, and now a lot of those jobs where they be on the floor trading, and really, physically, there are now algorithmic and so it’s computers doing a lot of it. So I’m curious have, have you noticed that the financial part, you know, with COVID? Are people, you know, working more remote? Where is that affecting your business at all, or Beth Benalloul 12:59so, I mean, certainly in 2020, I think New York was probably the most affected by that, because we had a huge, you know, number of people who sort of fled the city, whether they went to, you know, south or to The Hamptons, or to New Jersey, or just the outskirts. I think a lot of that did reverse in 2021. And we saw a lot of those people come back, I think it was a variety of reasons, the schools in September of 2021, no longer offered a remote option. So even if you were only part time in your office, if your child was in school in New York City, they had to be here five days a week, which I think brought a lot of people back. But yeah, I mean, we’ve definitely seen the market has shifted because of the pandemic. And it’s shifted, you know, I would say, in a variety of ways, some people who were in smaller apartments and then fled the city only wanted to come back to larger apartments or apartments with had an outdoor space, or, you know, something that had an extra room that they could work from home in. And I think even now, you know, two years after the pandemic started, there are a lot of people that are still working. I don’t know if it’s full time from home, because I think a lot of the businesses now are hybrid. We’ll see how, you know, we’ll fast forward another two years and see how that goes. I mean, some people think it’ll be less hybrid more in office. And then you have other people you speak to the thing quite the opposite. So I don’t know. You know, I don’t have a crystal ball. But I do think it’s not wise to bet against New York because New York seems to be very resilient city D.J. Paris 14:32very resilient. Yes. Yeah. And, and there’s just a finite space, a very finite, finite amount of space where people can live of course, within within Manhattan and, and and a lot of people and so is it is it more difficult now finding properties that do have more physical space for people to work at? I would think it would have to be although, again, you play or you play more in the luxury space where maybe that’s more more calm. And then, but curious if that’s changed for you, are you looking for different, different qualities now in properties for your client, Beth Benalloul 15:06we say there’s, there’s definitely been a shortage of inventory and certain, you know, price categories or room sizes, or, you know, apartments with certain three, four or five bedrooms, obviously, those are limited. But you know, the other thing we’re starting to see now is you have people who moved out of the city, who don’t want to commute even two or three days a week. So I think we’re going to probably see an increase in even smaller apartment sales, where they have a place to crash two or three nights a week while they’re here. Because they’re going to want to have, you know, even if it’s not a huge apartment, if they’re living out in Westchester, they may want to have a place just to stay for a couple nights. So, you know, again, that brings up the smaller units, and then those people who are training out of those can trade into the bigger units. D.J. Paris 15:52I have a question about coops in New York. And again, most of the country, I think our listeners aren’t that familiar with coops, New York is kind of the co op hub of the country. To my to my understanding Chicago has, we have some but not not very, you know, less than probably 1%. I am curious with coops because for those of you that aren’t as familiar, there isn’t a sort of an interview process that a buyer needs to go through with a co op board. And you know, it depends they’re going to talk about financing, they’re going to talk about maybe even income and just just a general get to know you. Do we like this person? Do they seem like they’d be a good fit? Has it ever happened? And I I’m just curious, and you don’t have to give exact specifics, of course, but has it ever happened where you get all the way to the coop interview. And then in that interview goes south for some reason where maybe it’s a personality clash, or the coop boards kind of goofy or something just goes wrong, or the coop board goes, you know, where I don’t think we’re gonna move forward. Has that happened ever to you Beth Benalloul 16:51know, it’s happened to me twice in my career. And so what I will say is that both times in my mind, so typically, you won’t get to the phase of an interview, like an in person interview until they have reviewed your package. And in your package, you have already laid out all your financing, all of your, you know, your financial qualifications, you’ve put in personal reference letters, you’ve basically told them who you are. So I had it happen once years ago on a very, very big sale. And I had the listing and the buyers came through another broker. And after the interview, I got a call from the seller. And the seller says You won’t believe this. I thought they were a shoo in. They were the most qualified, perfect couple. And I said what do you mean, what would I believe he goes, they’re rejecting the purchaser. I thought he was joking when he said it because it just was unfathomable. So I said What do you mean, they’re rejecting the for the purchaser. He says they walked into the interview. And within five minutes of them asking questions, the wife burst out in tears and says, we’re in a terrible marriage and we’re getting divorced. No, I laughing I didn’t know at the time. I wasn’t laughing. And I said I had to ask again. Are you serious? And he said yes. Apparently, they were going to buy this apartment. And I guess over the course of the process of the transaction, because oftentimes coops take some time to put together the package and go through the board. They decided they’re getting divorced. And they asked the board to please turn down the application so they wouldn’t have to go through litigation for that deposit. Well, that D.J. Paris 18:31makes sense. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, what? Uh, yeah. Gosh, that is that is interesting. So that really adds another layer. And you said it’s only really happened twice, but still twice. Beth Benalloul 18:42Yeah, the second time, I also think it was the situation. The woman who was buying the apartment was very eccentric. And the board was very conservative. And I think she must have said something in the interview that they just really didn’t like. I couldn’t I wasn’t there. So I can’t pinpoint what it was. But you know, I was nervous for her to go into the interview. That’s not a great sign. D.J. Paris 19:08Maybe we can hire somebody to play you and send you to there’s a lot of actresses in New York. Boy, that is? Well, I did not mean to bring up any any negative experiences, but but I always wondered Beth Benalloul 19:21that level of complexity in terms of Yeah, D.J. Paris 19:25I remember my sister when she went for her Co Op interview. She had my sister’s totally normal and fine and did fine. But I think I remember her saying it’s sort of feels like I’m going in naked. And they’re they’ve already looked at, you know, everything about me. And I just hope that they say good enough for us. And of course, but I would so you started out in in really in fitness, right? You started in fitness, and then transition to a totally different career. And by the way, I’m going to pause for a second I have a video that I’m going to share I was telling Beth just before we started about this fit He or she made, and I apologize, I forgot the name of it already, but I’m gonna put it in the show notes. But it’s kind of a very simple intro to bath and sort of who she is what she’s about. It’s very cool. It’s very fast paced, but but fun. And I think it’s such a great example of what any one of our listeners could consider putting together for themselves. And I love it because she just like, here’s what I’m into. And of course, fitness being being a big part of your lifestyle. And you’re like you rattled off two or three different gyms that you’re like, Well, I go to one of these three places, because, of course, you know, you’re really into into staying in shape. I am, I am curious. So this this video is awesome. So look for it in our show notes, and definitely click on it, it’s just such a such a cool thing. And I don’t see a lot of sort of little, you know, video clips like that, that Realtors do. So I think that’s really cool. But I’m curious. So you made this transition from fitness to real estate? You know, you had your first client had some challenges, but got it done, then how do you keep growing from there? Were you part of a team? Were you just on your own? I’m curious on what you did. Beth Benalloul 21:06I was totally on my own. And at the time, like it’s this, it’s really the same advice that I would give somebody who’s starting on my team today, right? Like, where are you getting the clients from? And how are you growing the business. So and I sort of, you know, obviously, things have changed, and the business has evolved in a lot of ways. But I would say the, the main way is to be in front of people, right. And that can be your own sphere of influence. So for example, someone who just started on my team, I told her to go through all of her, you know, personal contacts, past business contacts, you know, people from her children’s school, anyone you know, at any sort of, you know, arm you can reach out to, and put together your mailing list, you know, you do a monthly newsletter every month, I personally do that. The other thing, which really helped me at the beginning, which may be a little bit less fruitful today, just the way open houses are handled that you know, during the pandemic, but every Sunday, when I started in the business, I would do an open house, and I didn’t have listings of my own. So I used to run them for other agents. And the way it works in New York is if you run it in the you know, for somebody else, and there’s a buyer who doesn’t buy that apartment, you can work those buyers. And so at the beginning, I did a lot of that. And I would, you know, you chase a lot of leads that don’t go anywhere, because there’s a lot of lookers, so to speak. But that was, you know, one of the ways that I got started, and I did a couple of my first deals from there. And then of course, you know, family and friends and referrals, and then you start getting business from other business and things like that. So, you know, it’s not, it doesn’t happen overnight. But I would say if you just keep grinding, little by little, it’s like you get something from here, and then you list something and then you get another listing from that listing. And that’s sort of the it’s an organic growth, I guess. I am D.J. Paris 23:01I’m sorry, I’m gonna go just back to your video for a second. I forgot the point I was going to make. But one thing I wanted to mention, sorry. And I will get right back to two sphere of influence stuff and open houses because I do have a question about that. When you watch that video, and again, I’m sorry, I’m going a bit out of order here. But I wanted to make this point and my memory is terrible. So but what’s great is the very beginning shows the insight of Beth’s home, her and her husband and their children’s home. And it is absolutely breathtaking and gorgeous. But aside, you’re welcome outs aside from that, it really lets you sort of understand her style, which you’re only in your home for about maybe 10 seconds or so maybe 15 seconds. She’s not like doing a tour. She’s not she’s more just like okay, let’s go and she walks out the door. But you do get a sense of kind of who you are at home. And I think that is also super unique. So I if you when you watch this watch for those first 15 seconds. And notice what you think about Beth. And she by the way, she’s in like almost like a casual, almost like on her way to the gym kind of like outfit. She’s not she’s not dressed up. I mean, there’s other parts of the video where you’re really dressed up and look, you know, like you’re on your way to a showing or something. But this is just you in the morning, hey, this is me with your cup, like I think you might have even had coffee with yourself. And I thought that is so cool, because and not of course not all of us have homes that maybe we want to show off. And not that you’re showing off but just just demonstrating like this is who I am. And it really like I saw that and I immediately thought wow, she knows how to style a home. And that would be really valuable to me if I was a buyer because she’d be able to look at rooms and say I know what we can do with this and I know you’re not an interior designer but the fact that you’re that you renovated your own home which we didn’t talk about but you did. And you I’m sure you you know designed it and it is it is really a great little subtle thing to learn about your skills inside of a house. If that makes any sense at all. Beth Benalloul 24:59Yeah, well That’s definitely true. That’s actually my third house that I’ve done. And I’m extremely into it. I’m not a designer, I have no design training. But I spend my day with floor plans and finishes. And I’m very good with that. And usually when I’m out with one of my buyers, I can definitely like show them how to re envision the space or change the floor plan to make it you know, more optimal. So I would definitely say that’s one of my, my stronger points. So it’s really impressive that you picked up on that, D.J. Paris 25:30well, I’m a marketing person. So I’m always looking at things like that saying, like, what are the feelings I’m getting, as I’m watching. And of course, we learn a lot more about you other than just the few seconds that you’re in your house, but those few seconds. And I think that the fact that you did that first is almost like a really interesting first impression. I just thought that was a really smart, interesting way. Again, I, I’m always thinking of branding and market. But anyway, I want to also talk to you about something that you are also really well known for, which is working with developers, this is this is oftentimes thought of as like the Holy Grail for realtors, it’s like, oh my gosh, if I could just sit inside a sales center at a development and you know, take walk ins and win that business from the developer. Boy, my life is on Easy Street. And I just want to learn more about how you started working with developers and any advice you have for our listeners who might think, Gosh, I’d like to develop those relationships, too. Beth Benalloul 26:25Yeah. So I originally started many years ago, when I was asked to finish the sales of a building. So basically, what that means is my company was handling the overall sales and marketing for the entire building, where they might have sold out 200 units out of 210. And there were what they call leftovers that were remaining. And instead of continuing having a full time sales team there, they gave it to a resale broker, which is what I am. And that’s actually how I initially got started doing it. It was many years ago. And it was on a project that had been very successful. And I took over I want to say it was five units at the time. And one of the units was the penthouse of the building. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it was a very big sale. And I remember at the time, the building was very far east, and every broker that had come to see the project was like, good luck, you’ll never sell that. Good luck. Good luck, people used to say you’re gonna have to put some a brown bag over someone’s head, so they don’t know where they’re located to get them there. Long story short, I ended up not only selling it, I sold it in a bidding war for I think $650,000 over the ask. And it achieved the highest price in that location that had ever been achieved. So it was a huge, huge success. And it was a great project. And I really enjoyed it. And from there, I went on to take other what I’ll call leftovers in a building. I then. So I had done, I’ve done a quite a few of these at this point. I was then approached to do a project from a developer, that was a ground up project. And I got in sort of the building the structure was up, but it wasn’t finished. And we sold that. And I will tell you, that was a very big challenge. Because we got into it. The market was softening, you know, and oftentimes with these developments, it’s timing, right? So you have a very robust market, things move very quickly. Obviously, various things go on different tax changes in New York City and things like that. And that one, I started more from the ground up, but it was a, I was on that project for three years. And it was a lot of time. So it wasn’t you know, I think sometimes people think, Oh, you just walk in and make sales. And it’s definitely definitely not that. I’m working on a project now with a developer that’s a hole in the ground. And that one, I’ve been involved in every single step since inception. So I have analyzed every floor plan every where every door opens where every sink is. And you know, we haven’t even finished the we haven’t even finished the finishes yet. We’re still finalizing the floorplans. But that one I’m super excited about because that one is the first one I’ve been in from day one. D.J. Paris 29:19How many years from the time that you started working with that till the time where somebody can actually move in? Do you have an estimate? I’m Beth Benalloul 29:26just curious. It probably three to four years. D.J. Paris 29:29That’s so you’re gonna work on this for three to four years. That’s amazing. And so this is not always quick, easy. Transactions, right? Beth Benalloul 29:41I would say the opposite of that. It can be that if you come in at the end and you get a swing on the market, that’s good. But if you’re really going after development, and you’re working with the developer who’s starting from day one, then there’s a lot of things that go into it that I don’t even think people realize, you know, doing spreadsheets so they can get fined answering and presenting to the bank. And, you know, going through floor plans, really, you know, we we had an on the building that I’m working on now, which I’ve been on for about a year and a half now. I mean, we just recently flipped half the building, because we realized that views on one side, were going to be superior to the other side. So all the floor plans we had done, we ended up rearranging half of them. So it’s really a lot that goes into it. Yeah, pricing it and trying to, you know, pin the pricing, when oftentimes you’re still a year away from launching. So you almost have to predict what’s going to be you know, so it’s challenging, but it’s fun. And it’s an it’s exciting. D.J. Paris 30:42I’m curious, I wanted to ask about the first development on your site on the far east side that you felt that or that other realtors who had tried said bad location? Not not great views? Yeah, how did you end not only did you sell it, but you had bidding war. So what do you think you did differently? Just because I know everyone’s wondering, I wonder what she did if there’s anything tangible, that you feel you did differently or better than the other agents that came before you. Beth Benalloul 31:12So in that particular situation, the developer was very open to making changes. And what we did was we hired a staging team, the apartment had not been staged, and it had sort of been shown under construction. So we ended up we decided we were going to pull it and then relist it when it was completely finished and staged out, she and I literally hand picked every single pillow that was in that apartment. And once it was staged, it honestly looked amazing. And when we first listed it again, it was a little slow at the beginning. And then all of a sudden, we had three parties who were all interested and had amazing outdoor space, gorgeous views. Really high ceilings, and the buyer who bought it I’m still friendly with her. She’s She loves living there. It was it was a really good success story. D.J. Paris 32:01I’m curious too, about staging. So when you’re listing properties that our resales Not, not new developments? What, and I just don’t know the New York market as well. So I’m curious, what percentage of the time do you bring in professional stagers or are staged it professionally? Versus just using whatever is currently in the in the unit? Beth Benalloul 32:23So I would say I mean, that varies a lot, right? Because it varies on so many factors, right? Is the person living there as the apartment already? Does it already look, okay? You know, and of course, how they live, and is there a tenant in place, I mean, so it’s there’s a big, there’s sort of a big net there, I would say almost every apartment I go into to sell, I do some elements of staging. But some element can be me having them go in clean out closets, change bed linens, put out white towels, you know, clearing things out and putting them to storage, and then it can go all the way to emptying the entire apartment and putting in all new furnishings, painting window treatments, and I’ve done both, you know, it just depends on the on the individual circumstances of the seller. You know, I ended up also selling a lot of estate apartments. And I always try to get them to stage if I can, not all the states will have the budget for it. But typically, what we do is we’ll empty the apartment, we’ll paint it white, sometimes we’ll do some like surface work just to make it look better. And then I can also virtually stage it from the back end. So that when people see the photos, at least it’s looked staged. So I would say almost every apartment that I sell, there’s some type of staging, it just can be very minimal, or it can be you know, the full gamut. D.J. Paris 33:49It seems like your ability to do interior design is really one of your sort of not secret sauces, because of course anyone can learn to develop those skills. But it seems to be a pretty important part of, of what you offer. Right? And I’m, I’m just curious, you know, how you started to learn, you know, interior design? Was it something that you just were into on your own? Or did you develop it once you became a realtor? Or how did you develop Beth Benalloul 34:20it? I’ve always been like this, I’ve always, you know, I’m very into home decor. And I would say it was even before way before I got into this business. And you know, I also think it’s how you know, maybe how you grow up like I’ll just give a funny example. But my grandmother bless her heart is still alive. She’s 98 and she lives alone. So my husband whenever we go to visit her, he always comments he’s like, I’ve never met anyone her age who lives the way she does. Everything is in its place. Everything is neat, and it looks completely formal right now. The place hasn’t been redone. D.J. Paris 34:55I think we might have lost you. Sorry, you’re still there. I just don’t hear your voice. Oh, Oh, there you are. Beth Benalloul 35:01Okay. Yeah. So I was saying that anytime I go to visit my grandmother, who’s 98, her house is in perfect shape. Okay. She has not redecorated in 60 years, but it’s still good. And my mom also basically lives that way. So I think it’s a little hereditary. Now. I spend my whole day looking at luxury apartments, and homes, townhomes. So I have like a pretty good eye for it. But a lot of my friends even tell me like you’re in the wrong business, you should be in house flipping, because you’re good at like going in, fixing it up. And moving on. So maybe one D.J. Paris 35:38day thought about doing Have you thought about doing some of that Beth Benalloul 35:40all the time, all the time. And I know there are brokers that do it on the side. But it really is a full time job to do that. If you’re gonna really do it, you know, professionally. D.J. Paris 35:51I want to take a quick pause for a talk about one of our sponsors. And then I want to ask Beth, a question about you’d mentioned open houses at the beginning. And I know that, of course, that that is such a so many of the people we’ve had on our show that is part of their story. And it’s usually almost 100, almost 100% of everyone we’ve interviewed talks about the importance when they started at open houses. So I wanted to ask a question about that. But before we do, I want to tell you just real quickly about our episode sponsor, which is one of my favorite companies in the real estate tech space, which is called follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for the show, which the CRM that’s talked about more than any from our guests 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 and don’t take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the United States uses follow a boss and he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 additional outside systems. So if you have other tools, you’re using no problem they can integrate with it. So you can keep your current tools and lead sources. And here’s the best part. They follow a boss a seven day a week support. You know, agents of course work on the weekends you need support during that time follow up boss will help you 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 more than twice the amount they give for anyone else. So and by the way, no credit card required, they’re so confident you’re going to use their system after the 30 days, that they’re just going to give you the 30 days to try. But only if you’ve visit this special link. So I want everybody to visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real to do your free 30 day trial, see if you like it, and then I know you will keep using it. So follow up like a boss with a follow up boss. Thanks for the pause there. Beth, I am curious, how important for agents who are really looking to get to that next level? Um, how important are open houses today? I know you’re probably so busy, you don’t oftentimes get to do as many as you used to. But how important are they for for lead generation to finding buyers? Maybe not necessarily for that property, but certainly, you know, for other properties. Beth Benalloul 38:13So what happened here in New York is a little different than I would think in most of the country. So during the pandemic, we were under a lot of restrictions in terms of showing apartments. And a lot of it had to do with buildings, right? So the building would restrict you, you could only bring in two people a day or three people a day and they had to be pre registered. And you know, it made things very difficult. Many of those restrictions have loosened. However, one thing that I have noticed that has stayed is that most open houses now are by appointment. So you actually have to schedule in advance that you’re going to come or send your buyers to those open houses. So for example, the first open house I ever did was in Mother’s Day of 2005. The broker who was running who had the listing said to me, okay, here’s a show sheet, and here’s a sign in sheet and he gave me one piece of paper, okay, and it had 20 slots on it. So I said, okay, okay, and I was very eager, and I had my pen and every person who came in, you know, I’d say, please sign in and give me your email and your phone number. We had 87 signings D.J. Paris 39:21on Mother’s Day, which you would think nobody’s going out on Mother’s Day, but Beth Benalloul 39:26Mother’s Day. So I was like, I didn’t I mean, I my head was spinning. You know, it was like my first weekend out. You know, today, I think that’s pretty much unheard of, and maybe maybe not in, you know, certain areas of the country. But in New York, I think that would be unheard of. You know, I’d be happy now if I got 18 people much less 87. So I think while they’re important, and I would definitely encourage new brokers to do them because I think it’s a great place to try to source active buyers. I don’t think they’re as important as they were just because I think there’s well less, maybe less people, right? So it’s like less people, your chances of converting are less. The only flipside to that is that if you’re going to an open house, you’re probably more serious. And it’s not just like a Sunday activity. D.J. Paris 40:14I think that’s good. I think that’s good advice still relevant. Maybe the numbers are different than they used to be. But and now that people are going back to in person activities, maybe we’ll see those numbers climb a bit who? Beth Benalloul 40:28Yeah, yeah, I D.J. Paris 40:29agree with what we should also mention that, that Beth, by the way, is always looking for, for, of course, new clients. In particular, for a lot of our listeners, if you have clients that are moving to New York, for example, and you don’t practice in that space. In that area, then, of course, you know, Beth would love the opportunity to chat her, she and her team. And also, if you’re a realtor in the New York area, and you’re looking to maybe see if there’s a group that’s a better fit than what you’re currently at, or firm. And of course, you know, Beth would be happy to take a look and see if you might be a fit for her team. But if anyone out there would like to work with you, whether it’s to send referrals your way or just to maybe learn more about your group, in case they want are looking to make a change, or just a buyer or seller out there listening to our show, who says, you know, I am I need somebody to represent me in New York, what’s the best way that any of our listeners can reach out to you? Beth Benalloul 41:26Honestly, I’m always, I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m always on my phone. So I would say call email text. And I’ll make myself available for anyone who you know, has a question or just wants to talk about the market or referral. I’m happy to, you know, work with you on that D.J. Paris 41:44as well. And we’ll have all of that information in our show notes. So you don’t have to write anything down. And I’m curious about too. How often because New York, of course, we know as people get older, oftentimes they go they moved down south, maybe make a beeline for Florida, which is probably the most common destination for New York residents. Yeah, yeah. How often? Are you working with agents down in Florida saying, I’ve got somebody who’s moving down there was looking for another property, or whatever it is, that’s got to be I imagine a big, big part of your business. Beth Benalloul 42:18I mean, honestly, I’ve had, you know, when someone sells here, they’re going somewhere, right. So whether it’s Florida, I recently had two clients move to South Carolina. I’ve had someone moved to North Carolina, someone moved recently out west. So I just think, you know, it’s sort of everywhere. I even had a client moved to Singapore recently. I mean, work related. But yeah, so definitely, if you know, I’m happy to meet anyone who could potentially be, you know, I could send a referral to So D.J. Paris 42:49yeah, that’s, that’s another great point. So if you are in an area where people retire too, or just get second properties, yeah, I just interviewed a an agent from Charleston, which you talk about South Carolina, just actually this last week. And he goes, Oh, my God, it is because of course, we know people are moving to Nashville, South Carolina, Idaho, lots of these places. So you know, Beth, would obviously love to talk to anyone who is considering New York, or is maybe just moving within New York. She is a great resource. And I want everybody to also follow Beth on Instagram, so you can find her. And again, there’s a link in our show notes. But as at Beth battling with her first and last name on Instagram, and you can take a look. And she’s got a website that is currently under construction. So we’re going to once that goes live, we’re going to make sure our audience knows about that. But Beth, I want to thank you for being on our show. You have been a fantastic guest. Really given our audience. Oh, you’re so welcome. Really, on behalf of our audience, we say thanks, because so much great content and advice and loved hearing your story, as well. And on behalf of again of the audience. Thanks, Beth. And on behalf of Beth and myself, we want to thank our audience for continuing to listen, watch support our show, the best way you can help us continue to grow is just tell a friend, think of some other real estate professional that you know that could really benefit from hearing this great conversation with Beth and send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that if the person you’re sending it to does not not a podcast person, no problem. Just send them to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is right there. Or they can just pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button. And also please last thing please leave us a review whatever podcast app you might be listening, whether it’s Apple podcasts or Google Play or Stitcher, Spotify wherever, Pandora, let us know what you think of the show. All suggestions help us continue to evolve. So thank you, to our listeners and audience for sticking around staying throughout this whole episode. Beth is amazing. We’re so glad to have had her on the show one of the very top agents in New York and within the Corcoran Real Estate Group, which is we know it’s such a powerful organization and but Wait. We are so excited to continue to watch your career from from here, wherever we may be in the country. So thank you, Beth. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Beth. Beth Benalloul 45:12Thank you. Thank you so much.

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com. Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses social media strategies that bring business to agents. Chris also emphasizes the importance of selecting the right social media platform that suits best the agent’s character and business. According to Chris, is it crucial for every agent to know where their audience is so their content is shared directly to them. Finally, Chris explains why agents should not aim to go viral. 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 0:00which social media strategies actually result in getting you more clients? We discussed that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast we hire real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the close. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the closed.com. And let me tell you more about the clothes the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals so they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Please visit the clothes.com That’s th e Cl O s e.com. To check out their articles. You can also subscribe to their newsletter when they’ll send you an email every time a new article goes live with us as always is crystallin Sal, he is the staff writer. He is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. When he isn’t writing you or servicing his clients, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theatres production. In fact, Chris just got back from a week of trout fishing. So very glad to have him back. Chris, welcome once again to keeping it real. We’re excited to have you, Chris Linsell 3:01DJ, thanks for having me. Yep. I just spent a week in the Blue Ribbon trout streams of Michigan, disconnected from all of you lovely people. So everyone who sent me emails, I’m working on it getting back to you, everyone who sent me, you know, derisive comments on Twitter. I’m probably not getting back to you. But I’m gonna read them all. So you know, keep it common. Yeah, D.J. Paris 3:25it’s, I am very excited to see what happens with Elon Musk’s Twitter bid, whether that goes through, I think that could really revitalize the platform that so many people just are not engaging with anymore. And I’m hoping that it’s such a great place to have conversations and some not so great conversations too. But but if they can clean up some of the toxicity of it and just, you know, somehow figure out how to have more constructive conversations. I think, I think Twitter maybe maybe due for a renaissance. We’ll Chris Linsell 3:57see. Thank you. Right. And you know, by the time this hits, the the podcast, the patent podcast services, we may know something else. My two cents is there’s no way this is going to close. But I hope it does, frankly. Yeah, I think it’d be pretty interesting. But that’s an interesting Convo relative to what we want to talk about today. What’s your social media, right? Yes. So I’m actually working on some content right now. Might be out pretty close to when this podcast gets released. So if you’re watching or listening on Facebook, got a little while to wait. If you’re checking it out on a podcast app, you this might be out now, but I’m working on some content for the clothes.com about social media content strategies, basically, some some ways that you can take social media content and make it more about your business and your goals instead of just, you know, random collections of likes and comments because one of the problems with so Some media content often is that we are measuring success with the wrong metrics. Like we think about a successful social media post is something that gets all these likes, and everyone is just in love with what you wrote, or the picture or the video you made. You get all these shares and all this social media accolade. And then most of us realize, at the end of the day, we say, Wow, that was just so fun. And I got no clients out of it, and I got no leads out of it. And I really have not advanced my business in any kind of measurable way. So what can we do to create content that actually does what we want it to do? D.J. Paris 5:42I absolutely agree. And let’s maybe define quickly, just what we’re talking about with, to sort of very common, and not that these are in any way mistakes, but but a common strategy for agents to use on social media, which is, I’m going to post because I just got a new listing, and I want to show off some photos of the home, I want to post because now it’s under contract, or it just closed, or I want to post because I’m heading to the gym this morning. And I want my, my my sphere of influence to see that not only am I a hard worker, I’m also staying in shape. You know, we I see a lot of those posts. It’s a lot of like, here’s what I’m doing in my personal life, or here’s the dinner I just made. Or here’s all the cool stuff I’m doing in my real estate business. That’s what I see more than anything for realtors. Chris Linsell 6:32Yeah, yeah. And you know, frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that content. There’s nothing wrong with the things that you said you want to do here. The only thing that I’m that when I hear those things that that I my ears perk up, and I say now wait a minute, let’s talk about this is why I didn’t hear anything in those in those those what I want out of social media that actually I would say are direct contributors to getting you to the closing table, that you can actually track towards building a better GCI, and a more dependable funnel of leads. And part of the reason that we we face that that challenge in social media content, as far as I have observed and and in my own practice, and in my practice of advising other agents is that most of us don’t have and this is this is one of the first strategies I’m going to highlight I want to highlight here is most of us don’t have a plan for what we want the people who are consuming our social media content to actually do after they after they read or watch or have, you know, experienced a post by us, most of us just think, Well, what I want them to do is like this, or comment on it, or share it. And those are okay things to want. But what else do you want, we should be thinking about social media content as not the end. But just as a step in our lead funnel. So for instance, if I’m posting about a new listing, my goal here should be creating content that is going to generate somebody’s somebody’s desire to click on the post to visit like the my website, the property web page may shoot even Zillow, if that’s what it takes. But we need to have some sort of plan for what we want these people to do after they consume our content. So if you this is my first strategy for folks, if you want to create better social media content, you need to think about your content. And then what’s the and then with your content, if you don’t have a clear, and then frankly, you’re creating a post without a purpose right now. D.J. Paris 8:56Yeah, so what we’re talking about is some sort of action step, whether it’s a direct action that you’re asking someone to do. If you’re making a video, perhaps say, Oh, by the way, I can help you in the same way for your situation. Here’s how to reach me, here’s how to, you know, reach out that that would be a call to action, right? Whether it’s a good call to action or not is debatable, but at least having something that they can do or like you said, visit my website, or perhaps even look at Zillow, having some sort of action step, either at the beginning of the content or the end of the content, I think can be very effective. Chris Linsell 9:30Totally agree. And I want to really encourage agents to not just have the step in mind, whatever that next step is, but to use that next step as your yardstick for measuring success. So for instance, if your post if you create some social media content and the desired next step is somebody to go to your website and fill out a form requesting information. Let’s say for instance, let’s say you have I’ve got a video on Facebook, all about how homes in a certain neighborhood of your target market have never been worth more. And so if you have a home in this area, reach out to me, let’s get a home valuation done for you. So you can at least understand what your options are. Your measure for success on this social media post needs to be how many people actually did this? It doesn’t that’s maybe not the only measure for success, because social media content is multi dimensional and has multiple purposes. But if you’re not actually measuring your success based on what you want to happen, it’s kind of like a runner, measuring the success of their training with metrics other than, well, how fast did they run the race. If you don’t think about how fast you run the race, you know, what you actually want to accomplish out of your training, then you are using the wrong metrics to measure your success. So make sure that you’re including that that next step as a metric for success. And if you’re not finding success, then you need to figure out how to adjust your content strategy so that you’re meeting those goals. D.J. Paris 11:14I 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’d like to just add a point to the measurement because I think so many agents put together a piece of content on social media, video, static image, post, something informational they’re super passionate about they take the time to make it, maybe they even edit it, they put it out there. And you know, maybe there is there was also an action step possibly at the end, and then they don’t get the results they want. And I think it’s important to remember from a branding perspective, you’re going to need to drip that action step likely on those that same audience, you know, maybe a couple of dozen times before they actually take action. So measuring just one video one post? Yes, over time, you’ll want to see which videos perform better, which which get you more clicks and action steps completed. But it’s gonna take a while to build up that brand, or do you disagree? I’m certainly happy to Chris Linsell 13:28hear either I think you’re right on that. And there, you’re right you we have to consider that social media is cumulative. Instead of is not these like sniper shots, once one shot and then you’re like jumping the entire funnel like social media bill is a cumulative strategy. Especially when you’re dealing with organic, non paid posting, like you’re just showing up in people’s feeds multiple times until they start to get the sense that this person knows what they’re talking about as I see them more often than not. But honestly, there are strategies within the social realm where your content is something that you should expect direct results from the first time like paid advertisement, which is very important on social media platforms. We’ll talk about that in a second. These are these you are paying for ads on these places, and you should expect an ROI. If your goal is to get form fills from an ad and you get no form fills this social media content was not successful. So keep in mind that organic strategy where you’re creating this, like consistent posting schedule of value that you’re delivering to your followers on a regular basis, that’s one thing but if you are if you’re paying to play, you should expect a return on your investment and if you’re not getting a return on your investment, you’re not doing it right. D.J. Paris 14:53And I also just a real quick pro tip if anyone out there is spending money on face Facebook, Google Instagram, certainly, you know any of the social platforms or even Google as a search engine themselves. If you’re paying for ads, and you’re not seeing the results you want, almost all of those services have free advisors that you can contact, who will literally look at your account, because it is complicated, it’s very complicated to set up these ads and understand the metrics and best practices. And they will literally I have done it, they will walk you through. And I, you know, I don’t know if everyone will get that kind of access, but you probably will, because they want you spending money on their platform. And they know that if you’re not successful, you’ll stop Chris Linsell 15:34100%. And I don’t mean to throw shade on real estate technology companies. But there is kind of this frustrating trend that I see, especially in the customer service, versus sales departments have a lot of real estate technology companies that they are very attentive, before you have signed on the dotted line, and then are a little less attentive after you’ve signed on the dotted line. The same is true when it comes to ad spend companies like but except you could always spend more with advertising platforms. So if you’ve got questions about spending money, 99% of the time, these folks are more than happy to answer, because they want you to keep doing that. So yeah, I wanted to hit on another platform, since we’re kind of talking a little bit about these, these platforms, another strategy, I mean, and this is kind of a call to the carpet, for agents, especially for those who, you know, have maybe one particular kind of content they’re most comfortable with. And they’re not really interested in branching out. The fact is, guys, not every social media platform is right for you. And I’m saying that generally. And for those of you who are listening, I want you to think about me saying this specifically to you individual listener, not every platform is right for you. And it’s not because you couldn’t be on there, you can start an account anywhere you want. But frankly, you might not be very good at the content necessary to be successful on that platform. And acknowledging that is really important. So why I use a pretty simple test when it comes to social media platforms, you want to if you can answer yes to the following three questions. You are in the right place. The first question is, Are my is my audience here? Are my are my clients here are my prospects are my leads here? Or is my audience on this platform? So as an example, if you live in Dubuque, Iowa, and you serve us, a lot of retirees or maybe farm buyers and sellers, Twitter is probably not a social media platform where you’re going to have a lot of success, because most of your audience is not their Twitter users tend to skew very heavily on the east and west coast, a little bit in the Midwest, but it’s mainly in cities like Chicago and Indianapolis and Cincinnati. But it’s a lot of Coasties. It’s a lot of younger, more affluent buyers, and sellers, it is very rarely the suburban or rural buyers and sellers. So Twitter is does not pass the audience test for you. That’s question number one is my audience here. Question number two is can I create the content that does well here, if you can’t do video comfortably, tick tock is not a platform for you. There is no other option on tick tock other than video and there are some people who are trying to like, like shoehorn bad non video content, like still D.J. Paris 18:53images that rotate or things like that. Yeah, that sort of stuff does Chris Linsell 18:56not do well on tick tock. And in fact, it is a like, if people laugh about it, you have a negative brand impact for being for putting the putting the content that does isn’t designed to be on a platform consistently on those spaces. So question number one is my audience there. Question number two, can I create the content that does well on these platforms? So tick tock, this would be video content, Instagram, this is a lot of photos and video, Twitter. This is a lot of text, some some images, but a lot of text, a lot of links a lot of what’s happening right now current events like in the market today, sort of thing. What are these Twitter’s is really runs the gamut but has a lot of like community oriented content. Pinterest has a lot of like home decor, Home Improvement home renovation curb appeal, a very visual search engine. YouTube is obviously a video a little bit longer form video, you need to find a platform where you know, you can create content that’s going to be successful there. D.J. Paris 20:07I’m just gonna suggest one quick one quick way, if you’re not sure where your audience, your, your, your previous clients, your existing clients or your, the people you want to work with, if you’re not sure where they spend their time, ask them send out a survey to everybody, you know, and say, Hey, I’m wanting to I’m looking to focus on one social media platform in the next year. And I just want to get curious, you can even make it anonymous. But say, you know, I’m curious on which platforms, we did this in a nonprofit that I helped with. And we found out that all that the vast majority of our, of our constituents, were on LinkedIn, we had no idea. And we went okay, well, we now have to now we’re going to publish more professional content on LinkedIn, because that’s where our audience hangs out. But we just assumed it was Facebook. And it turns out, it wasn’t, it’s, that’s a, that’s a really great point, your, your, your client base, the people who already know like, and trust you, they will respond to these sorts of questions. So ask them, that’s it. That’s a great, that’s a great, great strategy to use. So those those three questions it was, where’s my audience? Can I create content that does well on the platform, my audiences is where they’re living. And then the third question is, Can I do it consistently enough to meet the platform’s standards. So for instance, if you want to be active on Tik Tok, especially in the beginning, this is not a joke, you need to be posting five 610 times a day. Okay? If you want to be active on Facebook, this is a one post a day sort of thing. In fact, more than one post a day on Facebook is will downgrade you people don’t want to see that much from you. If you want to be active on Instagram, it’s more like to post three posts kind of depends on what you’re doing a little bit there. But you need to be able to commit to a consistent cadence, that’s going to give you the success that you want to have. Because if you are active in places where your audience is not, you’re not going to get any leads. If you’re active in places where your audiences but you’re not creating the content, they want to see, you’re not going to get any leads. And if you’re active in places your audiences, and you’re making the sort of content they want to see, but you’re not making it enough, you’re not going to get any leads. So use those three rules to answer the question of, should I be active here? Yeah. Or should I leave this one and focus somewhere else? The last question I’d like to ask you is around content. So that is that so once we determine our platform, maybe look at the frequency of posts, the type of posts we’re going to make, whether they’re videos, still images, etc. Now, we got to figure out, okay, we know where to go. And essentially what to do, we’re not exactly sure what content or you know, is is needed curious to get your thoughts on determining content ideas. Yeah. So every one is going to be a little bit different here. So I want to give a couple of kind of more general 30,000 foot view, pieces of advice. And hopefully, this points people in the right direction. So a couple of content rules that you should consider. The first is, you should always create social media content with your audience in mind, not with you in mind, you’re not making what you want to see, you’re making what they want to see, you have to remember, this isn’t your personal video blog, where you are like a video diary, where you’re writing down all of your thoughts or putting all your thoughts down on video. So you can your children can review it for posterity, you’re doing this to make money. So create the content that is going to elicit a response from your audience, not just from the things that will create or elicit a response for you. So that’s the first first kind of big rule. The second rule is, think about your content as an emotional trigger. Whether it is a happy trigger, or an angry trigger, or a motivated trigger or a sad trigger. Social media platforms are designed to prompt a response. And they want their users to then share that content so that it prompts a response in the their users circles. And so if you think about content that prompts a response, frankly, just a copied URL from your local MLS with new listing, there’s no response that happens here. This is boring. You need to create content that prompts a response. Think about what the emotion is that you want to prompt and create content around that. No more boring content. I see so much boring content on social media and guess what it has zero likes, zero shares, zero comments, because most people don’t even see it. They’re blind to it now. And then the last piece of content advice that I would give folks is, frankly, we got to stop trying to go viral. going viral is not a goal. It’s not a goal for you, it’s almost not a goal for anyone. There are very few people in the social media space, who should have a goal of going viral. And the reason here is going viral first of all, is extremely difficult. And it happens based on factors that are almost always out of your control. And to consistency is a much better way to drive action on social media, social media platforms, reward consistent posting of quality content. So instead of trying to make that one crazy post, that’s going to get shared 1000 times you should be shooting to make 100 posts that get shared 10 times. Because that sort of consistency is going to help 99.9% of agents level up their social media game. If you’re an agent like Tyler Whitman, or Ryan serhant, in New York City, and you have millions of followers, going viral is a little bit easier, because you’ve got such a bigger base to build from. But if you have a couple of 1000 followers, frankly, 75% of them are probably not very engaged in what you’ve got going on. going viral is very difficult. So you should work on consistent content that is going to regularly elicit an emotional response and is content that is in line with the platform you’re participating in. So without going too deep into specific content suggestions, because everyone’s market is a little bit different. If you follow those rules, your social media content will be more successful. Yeah, and just as a quick addition to that, for content, one content idea is to and there’s obviously a million different content ideas. But think about the questions you get asked by your clients throughout a transaction or prior to a transaction even starting. Those are all content ideas. They’re not might not be the right content, ideas for engagement with social media. But that is a great place to start. If you’re sort of thinking, Gosh, I don’t even know what to talk about. Well, what was the last question when your clients asked you and then turn that into a video if you want to. But there’s, we can talk about content ideas on on another episode too. But that was really helpful. In other words, just to recap, what we were talking about is choosing the appropriate platform that your clients are engaged with. And that also works for your type of content. So those are two different things. So we want to make sure we’re hanging out where our agents are, or sorry, where our clients are, and then giving content that is sort of best suited for that particular platform. And then also trying to come up with with a consistent model, a consistency model. That’s how we built this podcast. It’s how you guys have built the clothes. It’s all around a small victories as singles and doubles and supposed to homeruns singles and doubles will win the game. homeruns are great. But we focus on singles and doubles and will win. So consistency consistency, we are at the end of this episode. So I will we will say goodbye to our our friend and co host Chris Lynn, sell from the closed.com. Please everybody go visit the close.com. It’s just the best resource that we have found online for teaching agents how to grow their practice through best marketing, marketing practices, tech reviews, if you’re like thinking of adding a new system in and you want to see what what the experts say as far as different CRMs etc. lead sources, the close is the place they go deep and they go wide. And that is it is just they have great true journalists working there. So please check out the closed.com. And Chris, on behalf of everyone. As always, we say thank you for your contributions to the show. And Chris is now speaks all over the country. So we’ll have to have your calendar maybe put on our site so everyone can follow you and see if you’re coming to their town to talk because when Chris speaks people listen. And he has he just has great insight into what’s going on currently and what’s on the horizon for us realtors and the real estate industry in general. So, anyway, on behalf of Chris and myself, we also want to say thank you, and please tell a friend about the show. Tell a friend about this episode. Go visit the clothes.com and we’ll see everyone on the next episode. Chris Linsell 29:27Yep. Thanks, everybody. We’ll talk to you soon.

Drew Grossklaus the Director of Sales at William Means Real Estate, Charleston’s exclusive affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate discusses what’s it like to be an agent in Charleston area especially after Covid. Drew also talks about the importance of getting involved with the local associations and showing your leadership angle of personality. Drew points out the advantage of learning everything about the area you’re working in. Next, Drew discusses what the role of the firm is to the agent and the importance of the non-compete managing broker and also what is the role of the firm in helping agents generate or provide them with leads. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Drew Grossklaus can be reached at (843) 576-9483 and drew@williammeans.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00On today’s episode we discussed the benefits of joining a small boutique brokerage. 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 am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Drew grassless, who by the way is the Sales Director for one of the one of the largest producing small boutique firms in Charleston. But before we get to Drew just a couple of quick reminders, please, as always tell a friend about our show. Just think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing from Drew for example, and send them a link to this episode or right over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, can be streamed right there no podcast app required, or pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button and last please leave us a review. Whatever podcast system you might be listening to this on, whether it’s Apple podcast, Google Play Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, etc. Let us know what you think of the show leave us a review. This is how we continue to grow and get better and better to help better meet your needs. So enough about that. Let’s get on to our conversation with Drew grassless. Today on the show we have drew gross class from William means real estate in which is also Christie’s International in Charleston, South Carolina. Let me tell you more about Drew. DREW is the director of sales at William means real estate which is Charleston’s exclusive affiliate of Christie’s international real estate. He also serves as the broker in charge for the firm’s Mount Pleasant office. Now drew brings a wealth of strategic sales, marketing and analytical talent to the firm drawing on more than 20 years of real estate and development sales, also marketing advertising and promotions experience. He’s a licensed real estate agent and currently serves on the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors board of directors, which is he’s also he’s the treasurer actually of his local association, and also the South Carolina Realtors Board of Directors so he’s involved at the local and the state level. Drew graduated from the University of Northern Ireland, Ireland. My apologies drew graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a degree in accounting and received a master’s degree from Western Illinois University not too far from where I’m recording right now here in Chicago, but please everyone visit drew at his website, which is Charleston realestate.com. Drew, welcome to the show. Drew Grossklaus 4:06Thank you. Thank you. And I’ve never been to Ireland so I would like to also go there but no, it is Ireland but but thank you for that. D.J. Paris 4:15Well, I’ve been to Ireland I’ve not been to Northern Ireland though. And there’s you know, always debate about you know, when when or if you should go to Northern Ireland but I was thinking I just saw the movie Belfast, which is all about Northern Ireland about a week ago. It’s a fascinating movie. So I’ve got that on my brain. So my apologies there But welcome, welcome to the show. Thank you drew very excited to have you here. It was Drew and I were talking prior to us going live here and we were just talking about you know how Charleston is just on everybody’s must visit list and you know right now it’s it’s just been a darling of vacation darling for gosh, I don’t even know how many years but it seems like everybody I know especially Bro bridal parties or bachelorette parties, I should say, yeah guys guys big dude guys trips there, there’s golfing that area, it’s just got about everything anybody would want. Drew Grossklaus 5:12Yeah. And it’s really been amazing over the last 20 years. Conde Nast, travel and leisure, we’ve been the number one city in both of those publications for years. And it really it has exploded. And then you know, then we have some famous people Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively got married here. And then we’re a little nervous to say they got married and, you know, here because of the place they got married, but but but had famous people as well. And it really has become just a mecca for tourism. And it’s, it’s understandable, we have the history, the food, the beaches. So, so amazing real estate, obviously, when you combine all those things, but it is a place and it’s a place living here, and I get to visit lots of places, but and I always come back to where would I rather live than Charleston, and it is hard to think of another place. So so it’s an amazing place. D.J. Paris 6:08And I would imagine that since we’re we’re also familiar right now with places like Nashville, Charleston, Austin, you know, just just these places now that have been opened up for a lot of us that used to think we were chained to our physical location and through COVID started learning, oh, we can work remote. Obviously, the real estate agents maybe don’t have as much of the freedom there to do that. But as a lot of people are moving to Charleston, even just in the last few years, although it’s been going on lat long time before that, of course, I imagine. So it’s part of me thinks, Oh, it must be a great time to be an agent in that in that area, because there’s so much activity, and then I think, but there’s also got to be a lot of competition from agents as well. So I I’m curious, have you because you’ve been there for quite some time, you know, what’s it like now being an agent in that area, you know, than it was sort of prior to this big boom? Drew Grossklaus 7:06Yeah, so it really is, is a crazy situation to be an agent and a difficult one. And I tell agents who call me this all the time. Because it is a very sexy place, obviously to want to be because we do have and over the last couple of years remote people with remote and I’m moving from New York, Atlanta, Chicago, you know, I don’t have to be there, I want this place. It’s great. We have about 7000 agents, and we have a population of about in the Charleston Metro, you know, 400, if we expand it out 800,000 people, so that’s, that’s a lot of agents. And actually, you know, it was kind of interesting, we were up near that number in Oh, 809, the crash happened and we lost half the agents. And that probably is the number that worked out well. And now after the coming years, we built that back up to double again. So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s one of those things where if we have an agent truly relocate from somewhere where like you better have a plan for a year not to have any business, because it’s that competitive. And I will say this Charlson has a tremendous history. And there are a lot of things as far as where you grew up your name as far as the way you mark it here. So if you don’t have that you can be successful. We’ll talk about different ways I see agents being successful. But but but it’s a lot of work in Charleston, it really is. And don’t get me wrong as a real estate agent, you’re like, Well, why wouldn’t I want to sell real estate that has history and beaches and beauty? And I totally get it. But there are a lot of other agents that are saying the same thing? D.J. Paris 8:42Sure. Well, I think you brought up a really good point, I sort of started want to go back to it, because I think it’s not just applicable to the Charleston market, this this advice that you gave about, if you’re moving there, or you’re a new agent, for example, you know, you better have a plan, or you better be prepared to, you know, just work for a year or maybe without a whole lot of income, if any. And I think, you know, that’s probably not dissimilar from and, of course, increased competition where you are, but just in general, like newly licensed agents, of course, you know, probably no matter where they go, unless they join a team where there’s a lot of leads, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s important, as people ask me all the time, they just got their license, you know, when When can I start making money? And it’s like, just sort of depends, but, um, but I’m curious. So when you do have somebody who, who is relocating and isn’t, you know, somebody who was born raised has a great sphere of influence. And again, I think just talking about this relation to Charleston, I think is is applicable to a lot of our listeners for wherever they live. How what do you tell them to coach them to keep them motivated and sort of keep them engaged, even though it might be kind of a depressing, you know, first year or two? Sure. How do you do that? Drew Grossklaus 9:59Yeah, well, you know, Real Estate is sales. And so a lot of that you really got to understand a lot of things you’re doing may not show right away, right? We’re not making widgets, so you can make 10 of them and sell them right away. So I like to talk to people about building their real estate resume. And I think people, there’s a lot to that. And one of the things here, right, so an example with Charleston would be, you know, do you understand historic architecture, there’s books, there’s tours, there’s a lot of things that you can really learn a lot about historic architecture and historic real estate. And then you can obviously apply that further on to Okay, let’s talk about Beach Real Estate, it may be newer construction, but you’ll understand what to understand about hurricanes, Hurricane rated windows, and all that type of things to me, then you’ve got to figure out how you let people know that you’ve gained that knowledge. Again, I call it a real estate resume, it can have your bio of where you went to school, because again, all those little things that people find out that you know, have knowledge of or connections to you are things that you can use to help Garner business. So I usually tell them to add as well, when they go somewhere new, go to your local association and become involved in that as well get knowledge about what’s going on. You mentioned I served as treasurer, I’m actually currently First Vice President, I’ll be president in two years. Wow. I’m also on the South Carolina forums Committee, which isn’t necessarily a sexy committee to be on, when you deal with forms, but boy, do I get a lot of information knowledge about why we’re changing things that I can convey to the agents that we can talk about when they’re conversing with their clients about language and a contract. I was just at the NAR legislative conferences in DC two weeks ago, too. So and seeing kind of the whole process again, those things are time. And that’s not necessarily time to get business. But when you convey to people that you have a knowledge of the industry, it’s just huge, and it sets you apart, right, that’s how you really set yourself apart, obviously, then you add all that and if you get that resume, then it’s communication. And so, you know, I’m always however you have it an Excel spreadsheet, all the names, as much information about people as you can have, and that communication with those people. And again, then as you go to an NAR conference in legislative and you talk to people about what’s going on in the bigger world of real estate, you know, those people remember you more so than then maybe just receiving a postcard that they see from a lot of different agents that you have knowledge. So, you know, I just think doing as many things as you can be involved in to garner that knowledge that you can pass on to that client to show them hey, this is a person that knows what they’re talking about. I want to work with them. D.J. Paris 12:50Yeah, I boy, I couldn’t agree more, I just recently got involved. This is my second year of participating with committees at the local level. And I Boy, I wish I had done that a long time before. And just because, well, there’s a lot of reasons why but but I think you get connected to not only the probably the movers and shakers of your local market, or at least a lot of people, you just get access to people. And then also, I get connected to people who like to volunteer and also make things better. And that’s a fun energy to be around when we’re, you know, thinking about competing for deals nine hours a day, and maybe we’re in listing presentations, and we’re up against three other agents. And there’s just a lot of that competition and you know, cooperation thing. But getting involved is great, because, for me, I’ve just got access to to people who I wouldn’t have got had access to before and we get to share ideas and create plan events. And, and it also, one thing you didn’t mention, but I want to because you’re probably too humble to say it, but it also makes you look like a leader. I mean, if you now do have additional knowledge that someone else wouldn’t have who isn’t involved. And that goes a long way. I know our managing broker is very involved at the local level, we have some people involved the state level here at our company to and that does not go unnoticed by the community. And so I I could not agree more strongly with you to get involved. And it’s just a lot of fun to write. Drew Grossklaus 14:25Yeah, well, and I think any industry that you’re in, you know, you really shouldn’t want to engross yourself in that industry. Right? And so being a real estate agent, okay buying, selling, you know, customers, clients who get that, but to understand everything that goes on because it is your life, right? You are your own company, and you’re a company in this industry. So understand it the other the other great thing I would say and you make a tremendous point about showing that you’re a leader. It’s agents who can do this not just brokers, you know, that type of thing, but really agents And I think then that passes and shows leadership when a client wants is really looking for a real estate agent, they’re looking for someone to lead them with knowledge in their purchase. And so getting that experience as well and leadership, it shows your client that you’re, you’re a leader in getting their deal done as well. So it’s to me, it’s something that I think a lot of real estate agents maybe don’t think about and think of Morrow, okay, kind of the ball up the hill of making sales and getting listings. But But again, that bigger picture thing can really help expand your business. D.J. Paris 15:35And I think he brought up a good point, a really good point, too, I’d like to go back to about learning about your local market, of course, any reasonably decent real estate training program would tell you to learn your local market, but I liked what you said, which was even going sort of a step beyond and Charleston’s kind of known for all of this amazing history. And so there’s a lot of real obvious things to learn about. But it is really important that you know that history because of course, clients may ask about it, Charleston is rife with history, and to spend a year in not that you’re not also looking for business, but to really spend a year immersing yourself in that knowledge is going to make you so valuable, especially if people are moving from out of out of state, and maybe they’re not as familiar with the area, you now have this wealth of knowledge, I think it’s something that doesn’t get talked about as much as it probably should, for agents who are struggling, it’s like immerse yourself in this knowledge of the area, whether it’s historical or current knowledge, or just even studying the MLS, you know, of course, is important. Drew Grossklaus 16:38Well, and to add to that, right, what I say too, is think about that knowledge that there’s a tremendous amount of knowledge on the internet, right? And so these these clients now, yes, they’re going yes, they’re saying, think about what they can’t find on the internet, learn those type of things, right. So and that’s where, again, with Charleston, again, some historical architectural points, you’re probably not going to find that on MLS description of a home. Or even unless somebody digs really deep again, think about the information somebody can’t find on, you know, we won’t name the big name sites, but but something that’s in a description, that’s the type of information that people are looking for. And that doesn’t just apply to historical right, it can be okay things about a neighborhood. Sure, you know, some of those little factors of oh, there’s a great little wine and cheese place down the street. And again, that type of information where they can’t find it on the internet, and they hear you tell them information about that. And give that knowledge man that just goes so far to showing them that you know, more than again, they can just just find from typing into Google. D.J. Paris 17:44Right. And that’s, you know, those those big firms, or those big tech firms, which have, you know, our public and client facing that, you know, the entire MLS is not under lock and key. And it’s, it’s kind of neat, I think, and I’m curious to get your opinion, because clients, of course, now we’ll find their own properties, they don’t really need us to unless there’s something that isn’t listed. And of course, we have a mate, if there’s a private network of listings, they would need to use you, but But you know, really, you can bring all this additional knowledge that it frees up the time, I think for the agent, often, if the clients are already looking for properties on their own, they already have their list, they probably know those properties, maybe even better than the agent by that time. But they you’re right, the things they don’t know are that you know, those intangibles like what what’s it like to live in that area? You know, if you have a family and what’s, you know, what is it like for school? And what’s it like for socializing? And just having all of that knowledge is something that isn’t as easily find findable online? Drew Grossklaus 18:43Sure, no. And you know, a great a great one here in Charleston obviously talked about the story, but it’s travel time, right? Because you’ll see a lot of websites that say, oh, it’s eight miles. Well, you know, how is your life going to be right? Is that time taking kids certain places have you really looked at and you know, a real estate agent can say, Okay, well this is this may look like it’s a further distance away. But where are you the roads you have to travel in in Charleston where you need because we have a lot of water. So it’s very limiting. And so when you have that knowledge as a as somebody Yes, but that’s a that’s a 45 minute drive during prime time, versus this other area. That’s a 20 minute drive, but it may be 15 Miles versus eight miles, right. So because a lot of times people don’t know the weeds of kind of travel time and to me anywhere in most places we were everybody cares about travel time and that type of hiring. So you know, having that inside knowledge and say, okay, and or it might be Hey, you know, if you’re a retiree, and you really don’t need to travel these times, here’s a great area to be but boy, if you’ve got to get the kids to soccer, to valet, to those type of things, maybe we need to look in a different area, again, knowledge that you’re not just going to pop on Google, right and see that about an area. D.J. Paris 19:58I think too, you know, We’re sort of talking about it casually as having this knowledge. But I really think that knowledge, at least from my perspective, is maybe the knowledge that makes the difference. Oftentimes, it because I suspect many agents don’t. And again, I can’t speak for any agents in your area, but even we have about 800 agents in our company, and I’m just trying to think about how they, how many of them might go about it, and many of them aren’t going to have that knowledge. I think, I think if you go that extra mile to learn that information, and then be able to have those conversations, oh, my gosh, you are so valuable to somebody, it’s almost a guarantee that somebody’s going to go wow, I, I will gladly pay you or, you know, the Commission’s maybe aren’t going to be as important. If you can give me things that will save me 20 minutes a day on the road. You know, that’s a big thing. And it sounds like a small thing, but it’s really a big thing. buying the house is a huge thing. But all of those little things that you know, it’s like, here in Chicago, we have to think about, you know, when we buy like for buying here in the city, I thought about this, what I recently bought my places, and I’m gonna go buy, because I’m in this really high traffic, very social kind of area, very hip and trendy lot of bars and restaurants that stay open late. And I thought, I’m gonna come by before I buy this place, and see what it’s like Wednesday at 10pm. You know, is it? Is it crazy? Or is it totally quiet? And I wouldn’t really have known unless I did that. And so but you know, and I was my own agent. So I didn’t have somebody to ask, but but boy, that would have been great information for an agent representing me to be able to tell me, let’s I would love to talk about because of course, you you guys are facing the same inventory shortages, maybe even more so than then some other parts of the country because of how popular Charleston is. But I’m curious on how, you know, rising interest rates also are becoming a challenge. What are you doing? What are you saying to your agents to keep them motivated to sort of keep their business moving forward? Even though despite these real obvious challenges? Drew Grossklaus 22:02Sure. Well, you know, one of the things for me is with the agents is being optimistic. And so I just find negativity never gets you anywhere. So you know, one of the things in these times, because we hear a lot of the woe is me as real estate agents, and no inventory and whatever it may be. But But now, it’s such an amazing time to show your client, why you are so good at what you do. And so yes, with inventory, it is a little bit more of maybe knocking on doors and really, you know, under rocks, and really trying to find properties for somebody and really explaining to them how to make the best offer and how I can help you structure that to make the best decisions to try to get home. Now is such an amazing time again, for agents to really show because it’s, it’s showing them the value of an agent, it’s not just we go look at 10 homes, we narrow it down to five homes, we do second showings on three homes and, and we write a contract and we get through it, it’s really okay, I gotta dig in and work, we got to talk about maybe making some concessions on what we want. How, you know, how are we talking with the mortgage? And we structured it for us? Things like, you know, and sometimes difficult conversations like, Okay, we might need to remove appraisal, do you have cash on hand to do that? Okay, are we going to try to do an inspection report before we write a contract, which is typical here. But you know, it’s those type of things now, where if I’m an agent, I go, okay, now’s the time where I really get a shine and be amazing to my clients. And the other thing and jumping back a little bit to to, again, that knowledge that you have, and now these type of things. Those are then when the person calls you back in three years and says, Hey, we’re ready to change. And you were the one who knew the ins and outs, and you were the one who worked hard during the tough market, that now you know, we’re ready to upgrade or we’re ready to downsize. Our kids are ready to buy a home they’re calling you and that a big part of our firm is referral and repeat business. And it’s those things. Those are the reasons that people come back to us. D.J. Paris 24:10I agree. I think that’s very well said, I’m curious with your agents, because of course inventory is in short supply, as you mentioned, you got to, you know, be maybe sometimes more creative now to find some of these properties. Are you finding that any that agents are, for example, people that aren’t reaching out to their agent to say, I think it’s a good time to sell, I’m ready to sell. Maybe there’s, you know, there’s obviously people that need to sort of be prompted right and sort of need to be told a it might be a good time to sell and of course it might not be as well. But are your agents are you finding success with getting listings with people with homeowners that aren’t necessarily chomping at the bit to list a property? Drew Grossklaus 24:57Sure. It’s overdue. humming the issues that they have, right and how you do that. So, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, it’s great time to sell and I get it. But where will I go? Right? Okay, well, you know, let’s talk about that. And you know, there is some conversation to say, okay, but you always wanted this. And don’t get me wrong, we’re not going to be a sell high buy low situation. But it may be a great time for you if you really want it to be an X, Y, Z, and that we’re going to get the most for your home, and maybe I can find you this property we’ve always been looking for. So let’s try to create solutions or right, it’s the people who say, Well, I don’t have anywhere to go, Okay, well, right now we can get clients to really give us six months for you to stay in your home. So during that six months, we put on the push, and if we get to month four or five, we say okay, let’s go rent somewhere, right? Yeah. But you’re always in a better position to have that home sold, rather than trying to do the whole contingency, right? Because a lot of people don’t, that’s a scary word right now, and they don’t want to share it. It’s coming up with those solutions to people the obstacles to sell. And so that’s really again, where, you know, an agent can shine to say, Okay, there’s always a solution, right? The solution may not be great. And they might say, okay, that’s that, that makes me too nervous. But there are a lot of different ways we can structure things to say, Okay, let’s, let’s figure this out, we really can have some ways where we can design some things to get this done for you, during this time in this crazy market. D.J. Paris 26:30I’m so glad that you brought up the rent, you know, maybe sell high and rent if if you can’t find something to purchase, because it at first glance, I think that’s something that owners might have a visceral sort of negative reaction to, oh, I don’t want I don’t want to rent I’m, I’m an owner, I have this beautiful home and I don’t, I don’t want to go into a condo or you know, whatever else I might be able to rent. But it is kind of a, I think agents that bring that option to the table. I don’t think most agents tell homeowners that who aren’t necessarily looking to sell, I don’t know how often that’s brought up. And I think it’s a fantastic option to bring to somebody, whether they want to do it or not. I think just bringing that option saying, hey, there’s some luxury apartment buildings down here that would be you know, similar to your current lifestyle and in your, in your, you know, whatever type of home you have, or, you know, luxury or non luxury apartments, but there are options, like you said, Where let’s if we, if we run the numbers, I mean, my boss just did this, he had a home. Well, I won’t give specifics, but he had a home somewhere in the country who which appreciated an insane amount, like an insane amount where he, he’s like, I probably need to sell he had nowhere to buy. And, and he finally found something sort of last minute, but he was like, I guess I’m just gonna have to rent for a few years. But it was it was such a profit to him to do that, that and he has three kids and a wife. So, you know, but but they explored that. And I think that agents shouldn’t be afraid to have those conversations, because that that may be the best solution right now for someone. Drew Grossklaus 28:11Right? Right. And well, and it puts someone in a power position, right? It’s a low stress power position, especially again, in a competitive market of competitive offers, you know, not having again to have to sell that house or worry. Again, a lot of people in more normal markets fear that that to mortgage situation. But even if this, you know, okay, well, what if, you know, I get one under contract and the world changes quickly. And I have two mortgages. All right, well, if we sell, right, and we go to that rental option, you don’t have that concern anymore. It’s low stress, you’re in the power position. That’s a very big thing once people start to hear that explanation. Are there some inconveniences? Of course you know, if you have kids dogs, but you’ll find we always find it and we have a tough rental market too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, people are paying high prices. See that peace of mind and when we’re talking the amount of appreciation that extra little bit of rent per month really in the grand scheme of looking at numbers is not anywhere near but to be in that power position of being like at the snap of fingers say okay, yep, now we can move on this house that we do want you know, it’s it’s just a great position for them to be in a lot of people don’t think that way. They do think well, we got to stay in the home. We got to have the next home. Right. ready right away. We got to do a dual closing when we’re closing the same day. No, we you’ve got some options. D.J. Paris 29:34Yeah, I think that’s a really, really smart and this really brings me into this question that I would love. I very rarely get to speak to. While in Illinois, I always call everyone a broker because that’s the only designation we have here. So So I apologize for the people who are listening who might be confused. I’m just gonna say realtor just to make it easy, but I very rarely get to talk to broker owners or people in management like yourself, because I we traditionally We just talked to, you know, really just producers who are not in management. And I know you do both. I am curious to hear because again, from a, you know, not just an agent’s perspective, but somebody in management, what you think the role of a firm is to the agent? Because I know that, you know, our listeners are are always thinking, Am I at the right firm? Should I consider another option? Am I getting what I need and deserve? Or am I asking too much for my brokerage? And of course, we know that brokerages oftentimes can promise things that maybe maybe are exaggerated or whatever. But I’m curious to hear your thoughts, because you guys have this wonderful boutique firm, you had a very successful office. And I’m curious on what you think the role of the office is to churches? Sure, Drew Grossklaus 30:51yeah. And we have a probably a different thoughts in a lot of places. So you know, the big thing to start with is actually me, I am not, I do not sell real estate whatsoever. I am strictly Sales Director broker in charge. And to me, that’s very important. We have a lot of firms in our market where, honestly, the broker in charge is trying to get as many sales as the agents and to me, you know, that creates kind of a conflict. And I’m really available 24/7 to our agents, right? Because I’m not trying to work a deal. I’m not, hey, I’m in a closing right now. So I can’t get to your question. Because I’m having a problem with my deal. I’m helping with everybody’s deal. So and then I can also give perspective on pricing. And, you know, if they have trouble, or if I need to meet with clients to help them understand how our firm will help our agent, that’s the other big thing that I would say that I think an agent should really look forward to firm is somebody who can give you answers. You know, we tell our agents all the time. Never be somebody who goes and gives an answer that you hope is right. Always say, let me let me find out. That’s a great question. Let me find out. I’ve got someone I can call right away me. We have an attorney on retainer that I can call or we have state attorneys, like like other people. But I found as a homeowner, too, right? I had an issue recently, right? Where I had a pipe break, right? And if you’re a homeowner, and you go, Okay, wait, I’m in real estate, but I don’t know who to call right now. I need somebody to help me. And I need somebody to help me quick. And I need somebody who can give me an answer. And that’s the one of the worst feelings is when you don’t know what to do, who to call. And so for our agents, we give, hey, client, I know who to call, if you have a problem. They call me I know who to call, I have a problem and kind of on down the line. We also are a full service brokerage. And again, other business models are big smiles in great, but what we do, we have a marketing director, marketing coordinator. All we want our agents doing is working with their clients and listing and selling, we don’t want them writing anything for the MLS, we don’t want them taking any pictures for the love of goodness. You know, and so we just want them to focus on you know, that client, and we also are brokers, we don’t have a closing coordinator, because we’re like, we need you as an agent needs to be with that person all the way through the process. And actually, most of their clients become their friends. And you know, they’re having dinners with them after closing. And again, this is the referral repeat business. So our model is really give the answers have someone you can call at any time who can answer questions and be there. And again, I’m also then try to do things that show him on the local, the state and even the national level of being informed on how this business is going to operate. In unique times, like we have no, D.J. Paris 33:47I think that was so well said. And I’m going to unpack just a couple of things in in what you just said, because I want to make sure our audience understands. One of the things Drew said that is incredibly powerful. And also, and I’m curious to I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I’m gonna I’m gonna call it rare here in Chicago. I’m assuming it’s rare in Charleston as well, though you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, which is Drew said, Hey, I don’t go out and sell real estate and you have in the past but your role now is I am 100% dedicated to assisting my agents, which means I’m not out there working with clients, I don’t go to closings. You know, I you know, maybe if it was you buying or selling your own property, but but that’s probably about it. And and the idea is no, I need to be here for my agents that is often the term that I hear sometimes use, they call that sometimes a non competing managing broker or a non competing management team. These is incredibly rare. And I only know and I’m pretty well connected here in Chicago with lots of the different offices and I only know two offices. Aside from ours. We have the same philosophy that I don’t go out and practice as well. That is a huge thing. And it doesn’t get talked about enough because most firms don’t do it that way. But the fact that you are Non practicing or non competing is a enormous benefit to your age. Drew Grossklaus 35:05It is rare. And I will say this, we’ve had a couple other firms in Charleston, who have who followed our model. Right. And which, which is great, because that shows success when people imitate. The other funny thing that I will say about me that I think is important maybe to the listeners a little bit is I actually have never sold real estate now. I’ve never okay, I apologize. What and that’s, and that, I think the interesting part, and trust me, I’ve been so involved and so entrenched with agents, in getting deals done that I have worked with clients I have dealt with and, and but the other thing too, that is, in some ways, I bring a perspective also to the clients, right that there is someone when they have a problem that I am there, and I’m on conference calls, Zoom calls, right at their home, that they feel an assurance of that firm, they just don’t have a real estate agent, they have a firm that is working with them. And so that’s the other thing, not just about non competing and but but that there is somebody there with them who are helping them that are giving them advisement and again, using my education level experience level, right, that they go, okay. You know, even if our agent is saying the exact same thing as he is, you know, it gives them an insurance that, okay, they know what they’re doing. And I give the same answer. If they asked me a question, I don’t know, I said, I don’t know that, let me find out. Because always, you know, and we always do want to go to attorneys if we get in certain situations. But I can tell them, you know, even give them a pretty good idea through through my years of experience that this is probably what the attorney is going to say, we’re going to talk to him but but this gives you an idea so you can be prepared. So again, it’s that it’s that next level that you can add to somebody. And when you go on a listing presentation, whether you have somebody you can take with you to do that, or you just let them know there is this person. And we’ll have a lot of times where an agent will call me and say hey, I just had a listing presentation, I talked about you, the person like to talk to you give you a call, great haven’t given me a call. And then when we talk, I’ll be honest, pretty much 10 times out of 10, that person years uses our firm after they talk to me because I have that confidence level. D.J. Paris 37:17I’m almost curious if you see yourself more relating more to since you have have not been in sales, and I apologize for MS speech earlier. I wonder, because I’m the same way I’ve never practiced. I’ve been here for 12 years, I recruit agents, I consider myself a marketing guy. That’s my background. I know you’ve done marketing as well, and your background prior, which we didn’t we didn’t get into. But I know you’re a marketing guy, and then also an accounting guy. And so I’m curious, do you I always because I don’t practice real estate directly. Even though we have hundreds of agents here at our firm, I connect, or I see myself as relating more to the to the customer. So I think that and I’m not in the same role that you have where I have to provide that level of support. We have people, other people here on staff to do that. But But I always think I’m always more connected to the consumer experience. And I think that you feel I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But I’m curious if you feel connected to that consumer experience, because you consider yourself a bit of an outsider, even though of course you’re not really. Drew Grossklaus 38:18Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think, you know, from a real estate agent in this day and age, right, where they’re psychologists to their clients. I’m sort of a psychologist to all of my real estate agents, and then to sometimes to their clients. But one of the things I find and I try to make sure agents remember is what it’s like to buy and sell a home when you’re the person doing it. Right. So yes, I’ve got a showing and remember what it’s like when you had the two year old and the four year old and the two dogs and had to get them out. Remember that when you’re talking to a client remember the idea of okay, clutter, and how do I want to hear about okay, we might need to take down some of those family photos that line the stairwell. Right. And you can’t even see that there’s a wall behind an amount of pictures, right? So it’s kind of that, hey, you’re a real estate agent, you’re trying to get a contract, you’re trying to negotiate a deal, but but remember the humanity of it too, and the scariness of it too. And again, going back to those questions that you you, you don’t think of that you’re trying to help them remember, and be relatable to, hey, this process isn’t easy. But if that’s why you have me here to help you. Again, a little bit of psychology that you’re doing with your client and again, as me as a as a as a manager as a non selling broker, then don’t get me wrong. I have two agents who come in and sit down in my chair and literally we’re going to do a 30 minute talk just for them to vent about about a client and that’s you know, and that’s kind of so so maybe in the realm also, hey, it’s really hard to be a real estate agent to write I have to kind of help them through that. And again, that’s where some positivity comes in to get around that negativity and be like, we’re gonna get through this. And there’s options and there’s solutions, and we’ll figure them out. But do I gotta be, I don’t have a couch, I have a nice leather chair. But I probably could have that couch as well to kind of get get through some of those times. But but it really is that that psychology and remembering what it’s like to be, you know, that customer client and buying or selling, D.J. Paris 40:28I have to pause for a quick, quick break for one of our sponsors. And but I’m going to ask a question that I’d like you to think about. And we’ll we’ll break well, once we finished my little live spot here, we’ll we’ll answer, which is about leads. I know, as you know, you get that question, I’m sure when people are inquiring by agents, maybe considering joining your firm. And I know I get that question a lot, especially from agents who are struggling or newer, and of course, leads being one of the scariest parts of the business not having enough, where do I get them? So I’m curious to get your thoughts on what is the role if any of the firm with respect to helping an agent either pass leads to them, or help them generate leads, or a combination of both. So before we do that quick message from our, our, our amazing sponsor, which this is one of our favorite companies in the real estate space, which is called follow up boss. Now I’ve interviewed hundreds of top Realtors from across the country for this show. And this is absolutely true. The CRM that is used by more than any of our guests. Of course, it’s follow up boss and let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your real estate business to the next level. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Now don’t take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one real estate team in the United States use his follow up Boss, he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 existing systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. And the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help you need. Does Drew was mentioning he has seven days a week support for his agents they have seven days a week support for their agents as are their customers who are agents 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. No, this is twice as long as they give everyone else so but you have to follow this special link to get the 30 day free trial. And by the way, no credit card required, they’re so confident you’re going to continue to use their service, you can totally do this risk free, but only if you follow this special link, which is follow up boss.com forward slash real, again, follow up boss.com forward slash real follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episodes. So Drew, wanted to talk about how do you answer the Hey, I’m thinking about joining your company? What kind of leads do you have? Because I know you must get those calls just like we do. Drew Grossklaus 43:05Of course, of course. And leads are very important and follow up is very important as well. So you know, I would say and where we as a company know more and more of our money goes to the technology, right? It is it is the getting lead generation. Now, and especially given our market, we are a destination market. So a lot of people are searching for us, there’s no doubt about it, whether they intend to move here or not. Trust me when when it’s January, the lead numbers from New York and the Northeast are through the roof of people who are ready to get out from the snow and Chicago. It gets windy there I know. So but but what I would say to the to the lead, you know, the pie is only so big. And the competition for that pie gets more and more. So any in my opinion, these firms that promise you a huge amount of leads, that’s pretty difficult, because we’re all trying to get them in spending money to do it. We then say though, the leads we do get, you know, you’ve got to have the plan, right. So we have a whole plan that we give you of how to foster those leads, how to communicate with them. One of the things that we do that’s kind of unique and I think more and more people are aware that when they go to a website right there, we’re a little big brother ish, and that we can see what you looked at. When you you know when when you sign up. And so what we want to do, yes, we have the Hey, with the email that goes out to thank you for registering for that. But our agent gets that notification right away. We definitely are on the hey, you need to within an hour you really should be contacting them because those statistics are true, right? The sooner somebody gets to someone, the more likelihood they are to get them. But also you know, what is that first communication and what we kind of tell them Miz for example, you know, we can see where that lead came from, right? There’s IP addresses. And so if it is a lead in January from New York, your response might be the climate in Charleston, is, you know, we’re at 68 degrees today on January 3, right. And you might see also that they’re looking at a lot of four and five bedroom homes, you know, our schools important to you, ask them questions that make them want to communicate with you. And then with those leads, if you don’t hear anything, have that plan, right? And schedule it so that you’re not constantly looking through your leads list going, Okay, who do I need to communicate now, every time make a schedule, so Okay, two weeks, I’m gonna reach out to this person again. And again, with our system. And with lots of systems, right, you can go on the back end and see if they’re coming back what they’re looking at that type of thing. The biggest thing I would say, though, is have a plan so that you can limit your amount of time during the week, because really, our plan is that if you have two hours, one day a week, you can foster your leads and do a lot of communication that looks like you’re constantly looking at it. But if you don’t do that system, well, you’re going to be you know, we all get busy than with a listing or a buyer. And then it’s two weeks later, if you haven’t done it, you go God, I don’t know, I don’t know who to communicate with what to say, who to look at. So the planning portion of leads is really where it needs to be to be successful. D.J. Paris 46:29I agree. And you just said something that was very important, which was two hours once a week can really plan out your follow up protocol, whether it’s, you know, you’re posting on social, whether you’re writing personal notes, whether you’re phone calls, text messages, maybe you’re checking LinkedIn to see if any of your you know sphere of influence had anything major happen this week with professionally. And and but there are there are it what’s interesting is I think agents don’t realize that they can do it in a couple hours a week, they think, oh my gosh, I have so many other hats I have to wear. And now I’ve you know, I’m I don’t have any inventory. I’m trying to find properties and rates are going up and everyone’s freaking out. I don’t have time to follow up with people. I don’t even know what to say to people. Because you know, I don’t have a whole lot of great news right now. And I think that’s where someone like you or is so important way more important than, hey, I’ve got leads for you. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting some great leads from your, your managing broker, if that’s if that’s a possibility. But I think most agents know that that’s not really, for most firms where the value comes in from the firm itself that comes from having somebody like Drew who’s like, I will help you once you get a lead. You know, make sure we have solutions for your clients. And I’ll be there to guide you and them through the process. And let’s just be honest, too. I mean, not not that we’re not honest. But let’s just say it like it is most firms don’t have leads. So be very careful. Right? Anyone listening? Right? Yeah, Andrew, I don’t mean to make you agree with everything I said. But I’m curious if you know, people dangle the lead carrot, but some firms will dangle that, Drew Grossklaus 48:17of course, of course. And we don’t, you know, our firm is very much we’re trying to get you leads to supplement, right for our success. Again, we’re at Christie’s affiliate, you know, part of the reason you join us is for that name as well. But again, we want to give you tools and knowledge to help you get things the leads are just something that hopefully come in and we have had people who are very successful with leads, we have plenty of agents who don’t take leads, right? They’re like they we’ve got our own way we do business, that’s fine. The people that do have leads, though, we try to really give them okay, here’s communication plans, here’s timing plans, that you don’t get snowed under by leads, and you keep going well, every lead I get. Nobody calls me back. Nobody communicates with me. Okay, well, how are you communicating with them? What are you saying? What can you give them? Right? What kind of questions are you asking them that makes them want to interact? Not just the How soon are you moving? How much can you afford? Right? Those type of things are things that look like they were generated by a bot, right? And so it’s just like this form letter back to them to go, okay, you know, show you’re a real person. And again, that jumps back to what we talked about before the knowledge and those things they can’t find on the internet that information, ask them if they’d like to know more about that type of question. And that’s where you get those leads interacting with you. And again, you can show them, this is somebody that I want to work with. D.J. Paris 49:42I was just thinking while you while you were saying earlier about really immersing yourself in the local knowledge, right, making sure whatever area is your you know, area of serviceability that you know, the history and you know, a lot of facts and sort of day to day A few things that that, you know, somebody who’s might be moving into that area should know, I just had this thought and I’m curious if any of your agents have have started to do this. And I know we’re, this is kind of out of the blue. But I was wondering, you know, as you start to learn, like if I was to move to Charleston, and as I wanted to be a successful agent, they’re not knowing anything about Charleston and starting from scratch without any sphere of influence. I know one of the things that I would want to know, if I were moving there, just as a, somebody who is moving to the areas, I’d want to know more about the history. So I was thinking, Boy, it’s a great opportunity for agents to, you know, talk about this stuff on their social platforms, to, you know, if they learn a really interesting fact about Charleston, for example, in your, in your case for your agents, or a certain neighborhood, or really, they can, now they can, you know, we all have those the really professional recording equipment in our pocket, we can turn around and do a Facebook Live and say, I just learned the most interesting fact about X, Y, and Z, and be able to really share that knowledge with their social followers. Drew Grossklaus 51:02Yes, I mean, it’s become huge now to be able to show those pieces of information to people that make them want to use you to help them with real estate, again, they can get so much information. And that’s, that’s really the thing that people have a hard time with is okay, well, but I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know what to show him. Well, that’s where, you know, one we do live in a great area where there’s a lot of things to do, but this is where planning comes into place. Right. And even if you we like to tell our agents, right, you put things in the can, right? And so Hey, one day, it’s a beautiful day, you might shoot three things, and you’re not going to use those three until the next month. Right. But you know, you’re always thinking about that, that. And again, the amazing thing that people really love about social media that we try to say, and don’t get me wrong, high production is great. And we do luxury, but more and more people really want authentic, right, and they don’t need you to look dressed to the nines, or, you know, they like that you’re you are out for a walk, and you saw a beautiful flower box on a home. And you say this is an amazing, you know, piece of art. That is a flower box, right. And again, thankfully, we live in a beautiful place. There’s lots of things here, but also the being authentic, because we have a lot of agents who say, Well, I’m not an actor, or an actress, you know, I don’t do well on camera. And it doesn’t have to be some high produced, we and we do do some high production things we do, you know, have a company that will do the fly throughs, and the intro videos and all that stuff. And we do that a lot of times with some of our higher listings, but but the more of showing that you’re, again, down to earth person, that you see beauty in some of these things, and alley, a brick sidewalk, you know, those type of things. And you can take it in and show someone some things and again, any information that they may not know and give them a little bit of information. But this can be your kind of communication calendar to say, okay, hey, I’m going to walk on Saturday with downtown for an hour. And you might get eight things that you can use over the course of three months. So D.J. Paris 53:16yeah, yeah, you know, Drew, you just said something that’s so valuable to our audience is walking, walking in your local community. I mean, it even if it’s okay, so we don’t all live in beautiful Charleston, of course. But even if it’s your local community, and you go well, there isn’t a whole lot of beauty right now in my community. Okay, well, how about featuring local businesses? How about saying, oh my god, this is the best restaurant in this neighborhood, or this is my favorite, and let’s go talk to the owner, or let’s just show you what the inside of this, you know, whatever, you know, might might be interesting to the audience. And I think it’s a real cool way to show how dedicated and passionate somebody is it doesn’t mean you have to act passionate, but being able to say Look at this cool thing. In my in my area is very exciting to people and really demonstrates that you’re you’re all in as an agent. Drew Grossklaus 54:13Right? Right. Well, and and to that point, right, you know, you’re selling someone a house, but if you can show them where they live, right, you have your house, but you live well around the shops around you Around the restaurants around you around, it might be a lake or a water feature, you know, to be able to show them some of those things in a neighborhood or an area or downtown a place they can easily walk or bike. Again, those are the things that I know I’ve gotten back to this point. But again, people think they get so much information now. But when you show them where you really didn’t have all the information, they go, you know, this person gets it right. I have to I don’t always just live in the home. Oh, I don’t want to live, I want to live. You know what’s around me too. And they show me what that is. D.J. Paris 55:06It’s funny, I was thinking about this, as you were talking, as I didn’t realize that. And again, I’m not a practicing agent, like yourself. And so I was, I always think about this from the consumer perspective, when I, when I got my most recent place, there is a target a mini like a smaller target, not a full size target, but a mini target, we’ll call it right downstairs, it’s me know, 20 steps away from where I live. Now, that’s a real obvious thing to people who shop at Target, I think women tend to be a bit more connected to target than men, just generally speaking, of course, you know, just sort of speaking with stereotypes. But as a man, I, somebody who didn’t shop at Target before, I didn’t realize the value of having a mini target, which has a full, really nice, fresh produce section as well. I didn’t realize the value of having that right downstairs. And then once I moved in, I was like, Oh, that’s really important. Because if I need anything, I have that right downstairs. And it sounds silly, or not silly, but sort of obvious, but I didn’t think about it until after I’d already bought the place. And I that would have been really important to have an agent come to me and say, Hey, let’s just imagine it’s Saturday night, you’re making dinner for someone and you you missed an ingredient, or you need to run out and get a bottle of wine or whatever. Right downstairs is a target with a fresh food place. Like that’s, that’s valuable. That’s important. And it’s more of an intangible, a little bit. But boy, I’ve lived there for a year now. And I go there like three, four times a week, just grabbing things that I missed. I don’t normally shop there. So I’m just making that point that like, that was really important to me. i And and the person who was showing me that property. I mean, they mentioned it, oh, there’s target here, and certainly didn’t walk me through a real sort of scenario. And I think agents can do that. They get the ability to say let’s think about what it’s like to have this nearby and why it’s important, not just that it’s convenient and grab your stuff there. But let’s think about why that’s actually really helpful. Drew Grossklaus 57:09Well, think about doing that in a listing presentation. Right? So your listing presentation, and everybody wants to know how much you think it’s worth. But say you ask that seller, the question of why do you love it here? What differences does it make? Because I want to convey that to other agents and buyers that come here? Think about in a listing presentation, what that may mean to a seller and going yeah, you’re right. It’s not just my house, here’s why this was great. And I love walking here or riding my bike here doing this. And you can say, You know what, I’m going to do a video showing me riding from the house to hear and show how great it is. You know, that’s the type of thing where somebody in a listing presentation sets you apart from other people and those other agents doing that listing presentation. D.J. Paris 57:54Drew, I could talk to you all day about this, you and I are, are you and I are kind of marketing guys at heart. And when we think about it from the clients perspective, and I think for everyone who’s been listening, Boy, you’ve just demonstrated some tremendous value and given our audience a lot to think about, especially during those listing presentations. I think that is such a great point to end on. Ask the seller when you were there. What what is really cool about living here, yes, the interior we can we’re going to market the heck out of that. But I want to know what’s the what are things that people don’t know about living here that are really cool, because I want to make sure that anyone who comes in knows about I think just in I use it way more elegantly than I did. But whatever however you say that that not only is going to separate you but it’s really some of sometimes those are the little things that make the difference. Absolutely. Well, Drew i So boy, I could talk to you for hours. i But of course Drew’s busy running a massive, massive brokerage, a boutique brokerage, but with massive, massive sales, and drew is a busy guy. But I want to also tell anyone who is in the Charleston area who maybe you’re not getting everything that you feel you deserve from your current broker. And if you’re looking to see what other options exist, you know, you should consider speaking with Drew now of course, they’re not everyone is a fit for his company, but he would love the opportunity to chat with you to see if there would be some synergy there. So Drew Drew is by the way with William means real estate, also Christie’s affiliate Christie’s International, very white glove, luxury brand, Luxury Firm, boutique office. Drew’s a non competing managing broker, he’s literally there to help you succeed, and that is his only job. And that is a great position and 99% of firms are maybe I’m sort of making this number up, but it’s probably about 95 to 99% of managing brokers do not operate the same way. And I know this drew knows this. So this is a really cool thing. So if you’re feeling like you’re not getting the attention you deserve at your current firm Do you want to explore another option? DREW? What’s the best way an agent should reach out to you? Drew Grossklaus 1:00:05Sure. It’s just drew Dr. Ew at William means.com. And I’m happy to talk with people and I, I will add in this, this is for anyone, not just, you know, make sure you interview a firm. They’re not just interviewing you, you are interviewing them. And that’s what I always say, when people come in to talk to me is this is a partnership, you’re an independent contractor, and we don’t have success unless you have success and vice versa. So you know, remember that, that, you know, I feel like agents sometimes when they come in, they feel like their interview and in no like your interview the firm have questions, we find out how they’re really going to help you so and that’s what we like to do. I love to talk to anyone also, even if they have questions for me, that’s not related about joining William means please feel free to reach out to me, again, Drew at William means.com. And I’d love to chat with anyone. D.J. Paris 1:00:58And if there’s anyone that’s either moving to the South Carolina area, or sorry, well, I’m sure Drew can, agents can assist many different areas around Charleston. But if you have clients that are moving to that area, or if there is someone listening, who is themselves moving out there and wants to work with a top agent in the area, please consider reaching out to Drew he’s got an amazing team of Realtors, that William means. They are just some of the very top producing agents in that area. And they’re all helmed underneath drew who is going to help them as well as you if you are an agent. So Drew, thank you so much. Oh, by the way, everyone visit Drew’s website as well, which is Charleston realestate.com. Again, Drew would love to chat with you, whether you’re an agent looking for another office, or maybe somebody who’s looking to move or if you’re an agent and want to refer business to you know, my parents had a second place in South Carolina for many, many, many years. And so, you know, referrals are a thing, let’s, let’s build our referral network everyone and Charleston is a place where you should have some brokers that you can refer to because guess what, a lot of your peak clients might end up moving there at some point. So Charleston is a great, great destination. As Drew said, it’s a destination. Let’s build that referral network reach out to Drew and his team reach him at drew his emails drew at William means.com, or visit Charleston real estate.com. Drew, thank you so much for being on our show this You are wonderful guest and really provided some great insight for our audience. So thank you. You’re welcome. On behalf of our audience, we thank you. On behalf of Drew and myself. We also thank our audience for continuing to make it to the end of the show and continue to support us best thing you can do, or the only thing we ask our agents to do aside from supporting our amazing sponsors, is also tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this exact episode withdrew and send them a link. You can send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream right from a browser. They don’t need to be a podcast person. They can just pull up a browser click play right at keeping it real pod.com DREW thanks so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you