Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry

NLA Live Early Bird Pricing Ends Saturday       kW rolls out consumer app and agents are torn kW agents torn over the release over the new consumer app. Many agents claiming to love the app while many more agents seem to be frustrated with the app being branded to the company, not the agent. Other agents upset over the data being inaccurate (listing status) and the overall functionality and user interface not being very intuitive.   With any rollout, there are bound to be bugs, but many of these frustrations don't seem to be bugs as much as they are a business decision. What i'm hearing from some kw agents is they're tired of being told the company lines of "consumer research says this , or says that" Many agents have reported being tired of told to "stay positive" or "don't be frustrated" with their tech because that somehow makes them not a team player.     Wells Fargo agrees to pay $3 billion to settle DOJ, SEC investigations over fake accounts   Settlement resolves criminal and civil investigations   Earlier this year, Wells Fargo revealed that it had set aside more than $3 billion to pay for a looming settlement over the bank’s fake account scandal, and now, the other shoe has dropped.   The Department of Justice and Securities Exchange Commission announced Friday afternoon that Wells Fargo will pay $3 billion to settle three separate investigations into the bank’s practices that led to 5,000 Wells Fargo employees opening two million fake accounts in order to receive sales bonuses.       NLA Live Early Bird Pricing Ends Saturday

About the Episode On this episode of Next Level Agents, I’m joined by Sam Parr, the man behind The Hustle, the daily tech and business email. He calls The Hustle an information company geared towards youngish entrepreneurs, and people who are growth-minded.   Sam Parr is the CEO and co-founder of The Hustle, one of America's fastest growing media companies. Each morning they give over 1m users/day the important business news they need to succeed. The company generates 7 figures in revenue each month, and has grown to a team of 30 employees. The company also hosts Hustle Con a popular conference with thousands of attendees. The hustle is a fast-growing, profitable without any venture capital. Sam has also started and sold multiple companies, invests in real estate and startups.  Sam’s journey in business and the story of The Hustle is one of learning from some of the most legendary names in media like Ted Turner, and creating something that is so relevant and impactful right now. He understands the value of seeing trends before they are blatantly obvious to everyone else, and being willing to do things differently to how everyone else is doing. Add to that a sharp, brilliant and unique communication style, and you have an unstoppable media maven, and an equally unstoppable brand.   Building a business of note isn’t easy, and it requires us to constantly learn, develop, and iterate new pathways and approaches. The people who do this well understand that what really makes an impact is courage, mental and emotional toughness. As Sam puts it, business excellence is 20% intelligence and 80% emotional.  In Today’s Episode, We Talk About;   - The backstory of The Hustle and who the publication is geared to.  - Why Sam started a media company, why Ted Turner inspires him and how Sam honed the voice and tone of The Hustle.  - How Sam and his team built to a million subscribers in a short amount of time.  - Why The Hustle built their own email sending technology.   - How The Hustle grew to 7 figures monthly and a staff of 25-30 people.   - The value of seeing trends before they are blatantly obvious to everyone else. - The most misunderstood thing about The Hustle.  Guest Info   Sam Parr is the CEO and co-founder of The Hustle, one of America's fastest growing media companies. Each morning they give over 1m users/day the important business news they need to succeed. The company generates 7 figures in revenue each month, and has grown to a team of 30 employees. The company also hosts Hustle Con a popular conference with thousands of attendees. The hustle is a fast-growing, profitable without any venture capital. Sam has also started and sold multiple companies, invests in real estate and startups.    Website: https://thehustle.co/ GET 50% OFF WITH THE DISCOUNT CODE NLA  Twitter: @theSamParr

Ben Kinney launches new brand-agnostic platform Place Inc. will handle a variety of business tasks for teams, which will be able to keep their existing branding and remain in their brokerages.   The new platform meant to help teams deal with an array of business tasks while also allowing them to keep their existing branding.   The new platform is called Place Inc., and in a statement is described as “a full service real estate and technology platform that partners with the top 1 percent of agents and teams.” The idea, the statement continues, is to help agents become more profitable, boost their value proposition to customers and “grow their unique local brand, all without having to leave the brokerage where they are currently affiliated.” Ben Kinney In a conversation with Inman, Kinney said that Place’s goal is to help agents grow their business. “The majority of these individuals struggle with the business side,” Kinney explained. “They lose staff or can’t grow or double their business.” Place is meant to solve that problem.     Redfin blows away expectations, posts $233M in revenue The company's revenue jumped a whopping 88% year-over-year during the final 3 months of 2019.   $233 Million: Redfin’s 2019 Q4 revenue Between October and December last year, Redfin raked in $233 million. The company also had a gross profit of $40 million, and a net loss per share of $0.08, compared to $0.14 during the same period one year prior. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Redfin also claimed that it saved consumers “over $44 million in the fourth quarter and over $180 million in 2019.” Those numbers include savings the company counts from the refunds it directly hands over to customers after a deal closes, as well as from lower listing fees. During the first quarter of 2020 — which we are in the middle of now — Redfin expects to bring in between $179 million and $188 million in revenue, which would represent a jump of between 63 percent and 71 percent.     Jeff Bezos' $165M mansion deal shatters Los Angeles sales record Bezos bought the Beverly Hills estate from Hollywood mogul David Geffen in an off-market deal without the involvement of any agents. Amazon’s CEO and the richest man in the world just bought a Los Angeles mansion for $165 million, shattering a previous residential sales record for the city set just months earlier. Jeff Bezos bought the Beverly Hills estate from Hollywood mogul David Geffen and, in doing so, set records with the most expensive residential deal to ever take place in the Los Angeles area, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale took place off the market and without an agent.     KW Posts Net Agent Loss for 4th Consecutive Month in January 2020. Agent count has dropped by 3,499 over this span.

In Today’s Episode, We Talk About; - John’s journey as an entrepreneur prior to real estate and starting Yodle at 21. - Exiting Yodle and the importance of being led by value not the goal to exit the business. - Entrepreneurial PTSD and the challenges founders face - The journey of OJOLabs and why John chose it as his next venture after Yodle.- The difference between real AI and what people say AI is.- Scaling and its connection to a lack of entrepreneurial desire. - What John is excited about, what he has changed his mind on and something surprising about him. - The value of earned trust, and why it’s what makes a real difference in business. What doesn’t exist today is a consumer trusting a product or company  Guest Info John Berkowitz is the Co-founder and CEO of OJO Labs, an Austin-based company that has quickly become a leader in conversational AI technology. With the application of its patented AI, OJO empowers people to make better decisions through the fusion of machine and human intelligence by automating lead conversations for agents and creating data-driven, personalized experiences for consumers. John’s track record of building and scaling successful, mission-driven technology companies with award-winning workplaces paved the way for the formation of OJO in 2015. John’s dedication toward building a positive work environment led to OJO being named to Comparably’s 2018 Best Company Culture list, and Built In Austin’s Best Places to Work in 2019.  Prior to founding OJO, John co-founded Yodle, and was instrumental in building it into a $200M+ revenue leader in the online marketing space with more than 50,000 SMB customers and over 1,400 employees. In February 2016, Yodle was acquired by Web.com in a $342 million all cash transaction. Recently, John was named to Swanepoel’s SP200 and The Most Powerful Technology Executives in The Residential Real Estate Brokerage Industry list. John is actively involved in nonprofits, and currently serves as CASA’s board president, using his entrepreneurial background and resources to fight for the welfare of children in the communities he operates in.

All successful realtors have one thing in common.   For most of us, we learned this lesson early on...   For others. It took longer!    The good news is, that you can choose to dive into this today and see yourself up for success.