Lab Coat Agents Podcast

On this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff talks to Benson Juarez. He is from Denver, Colorado. A licensed realtor, investor, and co-owner of a platform called Privy. Privy is a platform that helps investors locate and find investment deals. Tune in for his great insights!   Episode Highlights:  Benson went to school for technology computer information systems; He learned how to code and system design, but he was an entrepreneur at heart. He went into the military and was activated after 9/11. Benson would have three or four days off in the middle of the week. One of the original gurus back in the day was teaching people how to invest in real estate, and it really got him interested in business. He finally got licensed as a real estate agent, and then through all that whole process, he really figured out about the business.  For Benson, it was really solving a problem for themselves so that they could scale their business and not spend so much time behind a computer manually pulling comps, building CMAS, sending these properties to their clients, and then convincing the people who are completely detached from the process.  Jeff asks, “You mentioned you were slinging mortgages. You started to do a few deals while you were still in the military, but how did that evolve and what led you to the first business and then what led to this one?”  From thinking outside the box, he had just created a system where they are delivering value way above the average company. The serious investors are not investing in their own market, they are finding the right market to invest in, and it is actually quite doable from hundreds and thousands of miles away.  Many of the strategies that investors are doing right now are based on after repair value. What about long-distance real estate investing? Lenders, property managers, real estate agents, are the four-core people who are your boots on the ground in that market.  You want to find an investor-friendly agent who understands how to do those types of transactions specifically. Jeff has been in the mortgage business side for 20-21 years. He has plenty of experience reading comps and reviewing appraisals and all that sort of thing.  Jeff asks Benson, “What kind of advice do you have for somebody who is an inexperienced investor?” Benson explains that Privy levels the playing field, so agents and investors are on the same page. It allows the investor and the agent to speak the same language more. Where are the money-driven activities located? Benson says they really help people focus on what is important.    3 Key Points: Benson says that the foundation of their platform is MLS data. They went directly to MLS and told them that they wanted to build an automated platform that would help them identify properties that were below market. Furthermore, they could leverage their data to basically comp every property out in the market 24/7 to find opportunities for ourselves and for our clients.  When you look on the map, you can see fix and flip opportunities in an area, and you can see all the before and after as real data that you can use to educate yourself on how to do deals in that local market. Benson explains that their ideal client is a real estate agent who is either working with investors now or they want to work with investors, and they are looking for a better way of providing deal flow for their clients. Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Benson Juarez | https://www.getprivynow.com/ | benson@teamprivy.com RedX (sponsor) Issuu Start for free or Premium Account 50% off with promo code: labcoat

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff talks to Sunil Saxena from the DC market. Sunil is a doctor turned real estate investor, home builder, renovator, general contractor, and bestselling author. He has 20 years of experience in the real estate industry and is an active user of Tik Tok. Episode Highlights:  Sunil talks about his transition from a doctor to a real estate investor. He is an Indian and graduated from medical school. He practiced in DC for about eight years and got really tired of the grind. He then decided to transition to real estate. Sunil says that only one insurance company is left that would ensure physicians as emergency physicians, and our premium went out four times that year. So, they were paying 4X on our malpractice insurance. There is no room at all to change the billing, so that it’s kind of like an artificial thing that the insurance companies and the government have created.  Jeff asks, “How far were you into your doctor career when you said I’m going to shift, and I assume this shift was – I am going to Tik Toking and keep being a doctor while I invest until I build up enough of an income or revenue stream that I can break away is that what you did?” Sunil couldn’t just leave medicine 100% and just jump over real estate. He was working in the ER and kind of built this business from the side. You don’t have to have money to become a real estate investor. You can build a capital base. But when you start doing rehabs and actually invest in real estate, you need some capital level. Jeff inquiries about Sunil’s strategy and recommendation to the young potential real estate investor on how to become successful in business.  Managing contractors is a job in itself, getting them to show up sometimes, going there and actually managing them to get the job done is also a task. He asks Sunil’s advice for finding the right contractors. Sunil has 200+ units in development right now with condos. They would overwhelm 11 plumbers with all the work. Talking about his career progression Sunil says, there are three types of rehabs: 1) You are just operating footprint. 2) Expanding the footprint -that’s adding a family room or kitchen or adding square footage in some way. 3)  You scrap the house completely, and then build something new.  Simple rehabs can be like relatively quickly. You can get started in them, but if you want to graduate to Level 4 and 5 which are bigger projects, you need that experience to be able to do this. Sharing about his TikTok journey, Sunil says, they hired a full-time social media person because their end game with social media is raising capital. If they get more capital, they can raise more projects. That is how they monetize it. Sunil shares how he is using Instagram in comparison to TikTok. Sunil talks about exotic cars and social media content. Jeff says, “As an owner, you are doing something with cars that most of the world is not, which is getting into an appreciating situation versus a depreciating one.” 3 Key Points:  Sunil builds condos.  Material costs have gone up 10% this year in the last six months, so he will go sell that condo for 10% more. In medicine, you can’t do that. The insurance companies tell you what you can charge. Talking about his recent projects, Sunil says they are doing between 6-to-50-unit buildings in DC. Last week they purchased a 36 unit building to turn into 36 luxury condos.  While providing details of TikTok, Sunil shares insightful details about the benefits of the platform.  Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Sunil Saxena |  Website | Instagram | TikTok  RedX (sponsor) Street Text (Sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer talks with Jonathan Martinez and Andrew Coca, two real estate agents turned software tech geeks that are on a mission to make the consumer and real estate agent interaction seamless.. These guys have built a platform that some of you may have heard about already called Showingly. Tune in to hear about their all-in-one solution! Episode Highlights:  Jonathan and Andrew were in accounting and the CPA world. They used that as a leverage to start working for some startups in New York City. Andrew says, being a realtor or growing a team seemed like the easiest thing to do in terms of not having to think too hard with opportunity waiting for you.  He further adds, “I think coming into this world, it was like people weren't necessarily thinking too creatively, but they had so much more focus, purpose, and precision than all of these kinds of loopy entrepreneurs had in the Northeast.”  Jonathan says they were in production until around the time COVID hit (about 3-4 years) and then it started to become considered a conflict of interest.  If you had a gun to your head and someone said you have to accomplish your 10-year goal in three weeks. What would you do? You always see people at events or speakers, and they talk about how successful they were in their industry, and they left to go do X; whatever it is to build a company or coach or whatever. Jeff says the question here is “If you were so successful.. Why would you walk away from that? Why would you leave? Why wouldn't you just scale a team to run itself and then move over to another venture? What's your guys answer to that?”  Jeff says, “I don't think it is a bad thing necessarily when you are in the real estate space. Selling something to the real estate world and not competing with them. But then on this side of the coin, there's something to be said for still having a hand in the cookie jar.”  During the pandemic when the business suffered Jonathan and Andrew leaned on the self-development business principle. Jonathan and Andrew talk about their journey and how they sailed through the pandemic. For them it wasn't fun and it wasn't easy, but now they have a great team of 35 and growing. Andrew explains what Showingly is; It is the comprehensive solution for an agent to quarterback their entire business. The vision of showingly is to be able to get a platform to manage your entire business and not have to go into any other platform. You can stop paying for them all and you can run everything right here. Jeff curiously asks, “What piece of the software, technology or what drove you to want to create this? Was it all just you were sitting there one day and thought why couldn't there be an all-in-one solution?  Unlike companies that sell leads or that try to take your listing data and use it against you, we take the data for agents, and Showingly makes it valuable for them, connecting them exclusively to their consumers and their clients so that they can connect with anyone else or be sold to anyone else, says Jonathan. Andrew explains where technology is lacking for agents to have one single identity point of social media.  Jonathan says,” We have some really brilliant people on the data team and one thing that we have been able to do that many people have not been able to do is percentiles in a very easy to understand way because it is one thing to know that I have sold $3 million; It is another thing to know that place means the 89th percentile in my MLS.”   3 Key Points: Jonathan and Andrew share their experience as  realtors, what led them to vacate real estate, and what led them to where they are now. Agents should be focused on their relationships. They can't focus on the relationships, though, when they are worried about their overdue tasks on their CRM or worried about world class marketing materials so as to get some business.  There is no united technology front that professionals present to consumers and it is so complicated that you might have 1000 agents in a market, and you might have 25 different client facing search apps. That or websites that are presented to a consumer, so none of them are going to remember any of these at that scale.    Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Showingly | Facebook | andrew@showingly.com | jonathan@showingly.com

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff talks to Pieter Limburg. Pieter became fascinated with radio frequency identification technology. He shares his experience in the technology world and how you can use it for networking, data ethics, and 3D printing.    Episode Highlights:  Pieter loves technology because it is practical. It frees him up for the things that he loves to do instead of the things that he has to do.  Online and offline have to be the same experience. If you have a card online, why can’t you get it offline as you get offline support for something that you buy online and all those things? Pieter left Shapeways 3D printing company in 2018 and launched his own venture MOBILO.  Jeff inquires, “When you were with Shapeways, and you were kind of looking ahead and trying to figure out where you want to go... You said you did something for yourself. Where did the vision come from to create what you have now created?” For consumer products, you just have to keep throwing things against the wall and see if it sticks. Time and time again, you might have to throw 1000 things at the wall before you find something.  Jeff says he goes to a lot of events and people ask him all the time - “Can I have your business card?” Jeff says “Yeah, it is called Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.. go find me.” Ryan Serhant mentioned his strategy of staying in touch in his book - follow up, follow through, and follow back. The business card is not only practical, it definitely is an icon of a representation of your business of who you are.  The digital business card is fairly simple: tap the card, it drops the contact, then you can save it to your phone, says Jeff. Pieter points out, “From two of my friends who I used to test this card, they gave feedback that I don’t want to share my social media details, what I really want is their contact details. I want to build out of my database, warm everybody up with an email every now and then, and make sure that I am top of their mind when they are ready to pull the trigger or looking for something that they think that I can help them with.”  Jeff inquires about the digital business card versus the social profile hub. Are these separate tools? When you are sitting down with a new client, new buyer, or a new listing, you are going to sit down with a listing agreement or a buyer’s agreement, says Jeff. Pieter explains the framework of MOBILO.Some people don’t like to bring a big stack of business cards; A group of people have asked them to develop something that doesn’t require a business card, but it is always with them.  3 Key Points: If you are not really adding value to a product, you are not able to charge a fair price for it, says Pieter. He further adds that if you cannot charge your fair price, you will always end up competing against other products that are similar, and therefore you won’t make money. If you program an RFID chip in a certain way, the only thing you have to do is to tap it on your phone, and it can trigger some sort of response. So, Pieter thought that it is a business card with a chip inside tapping on your phone, and he can share his contact details. It is a lot fancier than a paper business card. It does have a QR code on the back. The QR code and the tap RFID function do the same thing. This is compatible across not just Apple but also Android and whatnot.  We have built some of the cool things of office CRM that are way too complicated as well as the big Salesforce environments of this world into this business card, says Pieter.  Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Pieter Limburg MobiloCard| Facebook |  LinkedIn | Instagram | pieter@mobilocard.com Chime (sponsor) Follow up Boss (sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer  talks to Yishi Zuo. He is relatively new to real estate but not new to the tech side. Yishi comes with some strong credentials as he attended Business School at MIT a few years back and has a past career at Goldman Sachs. He has built a piece of technology for the real estate world that you will find fascinating!    Episode Highlights:  Yishi started his career in finance, initially joining Goldman Sachs Investment Banking, then worked for an investment firm for a few years. In 2016, Yishi decided to transition into tech entrepreneurship, going off to Business School at MIT Sloan. He started a business while working as a full-time student there. Last year, Yishi moved from Boston back to the West Coast and started exploring other entrepreneurial ventures, which is how he got into real estate.  Open houses are kind of annoying, especially during the sign-in sheet process. It is often difficult when visitors don't sign in, refuse to, or sign in with fake information, says Yishi. Yishi realized that their biggest competition isn't any other competing system. It's actually traditional, like pen, paper, and sign-in sheets. Some agents told us that they had achieved great success while doing $100 giveaways or $500 giveaways, and not every agent does this, says Yishi. In his company, Yishi has structured their system such that you can take your calendar or booking link through Calendly, mixed maps, or hub spot and put it in their system.  Jeff asks Yishi to talk about "What the options the business has and how is it that you are able to do this for free?" Yishi explains that Kagent has a very powerful free tier and how it works. A survey is completed at the end of the open house for every visitor, and as the agent, if you're using the free version, you only get to see the aggregated responses, says Yishi. Jeff says, "As a younger agent or if you are new to the business, one of the techniques that you can use to go out and try to drive your business is going to an experienced agent, either in your market or in your office." Yishi says, "Some agents are in the industry for 30-40 years. They have plenty of referral businesses, and they don't need to hold open houses. They don't need to get lead information. People come to them."  There are many ways and directions where Kagent’s product can go and really help the agents get more leads for better relationships, explains Yishi. Jeff asks, "Where do you see the industry going from a technology perspective or what are you looking at as you look out into the future?" Yishi weighs in with his insights and opinions. The best real estate agents are the best networkers to the best people, says Jeff.   3 Key Points: Yishi talks about two key features that make them different - the paid price survey gets the closing price and the free forever plan.  The younger agents are desperate or really eager for leads; it makes a lot of sense whether you use our product or not to do these open houses because open houses are a great way to meet potential leads, says Yishi. Jeff inquires, "What do you guys suggest to agents that are holding the open house to grab the open house attendee's attention with this?" Yishi replies, 'Every agent is different. Different agents have different tactics". Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Yishi Zuo   | Website | Twitter | yishi@kagent.com Chime (sponsor) RedX (sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer talks to Will Penney, a realtor who has been in the business since 1988. Will has a team of six agents and is handling over 200 units per year. One of the strategies that he employs in his successful business is Facebook groups. Tune in for his wealth of wisdom.  Episode Highlights:  Will got into real estate thinking he would get rich for all the wrong reasons because he was 19. He started at a large national brand, Century 21, with his nickname, “a flash in the pan Penney.” No one would help him at 19 years old.  He sold 17 houses in his first year, and then by the time he was 24, he achieved the Century 21 Centurion Award, which is 60 transactions. In 2001, Will started Penney Real Estate independent brokerage, and he has been independent ever since by design. He spent every waking moment trying to stay relevant. Will hired his wife full-time in 2017. She has been with him for 13 years. Will made another great hire in 2013 with a listing manager who got licensed as well. He has created a situation where they don’t have any interest in going anywhere else to get a better commission split because they are salaried.  Will would do open houses for other people. For him, it is all about communication, caring, doing what you say you are going to do, showing up on time, and being accountable.  Jeff asks Will, “What do you say when somebody says how long you have been in the business? How old are you? How many homes go back?”  Will would sit down and tell a young agent – “You need to pick a couple of things, really hone their skills, and really get good at it. Communication is the biggest thing for young agents.” As a young realtor  on a team, ask how you can bring value, do something for them that makes them want to keep you around. Then you get to pick their brain, learn from them and become as great or better than them. The agents selling ten homes a year never develop the muscle to stay in touch with people. A lot of the team leaders, the only thing they have to offer is the leads. They don’t have a lot of structure in their team, says Jeff. In real estate, it is a race. It is always who is going to bring the next shiny object or the next value. So, whether it is a team of six or well over 100, the same strategies apply to be a leader. It doesn’t matter what your title; when you have that title, you have to work harder. There are two reasons Will gives for why they sell so many houses: relationships and social proof. So, if you are an agent out there, you need to become a Google local services agent, and you need to get reviews there.  The three products that Facebook has are personal pages, business pages, and groups. Every major corporation, every university in the United States, uses Facebook groups to communicate with their students, employees, and customers.  Will explains, “If I call you every day, you’re going to call the cops. If I text you every day, you’re going to block me. I can’t email you every day, I can’t show up every day, I can’t put a gift on your front doorstep every day. I can’t mail you every day. There’s nothing I can do every day except a Facebook group.”  Having a group as a realtor or loan officer to get your arms around your sphere of influence daily is probably one of the absolute best things you can do, says Will. If you are using a Facebook page to communicate with your friends about your real estate business, posts you are putting on there are repellent. In this market, we were generally posting things about how many showings we had, how many offers we got, how much over list sold. You have to make it your job to like everyone’s post and to have the algorithm recognize you gradually.  Facebook groups are designed to have large numbers of people engaging about common interests and making sure that you see every one of their posts to keep you on the platform so they can show you more ads. You have to make posts, check people’s responses, and then you have to engage with them. Will’s team friend requests clients and invites them into the group as part of our business process.  Have a Facebook group with  consistent content and treat it like a client event or a social event. Actually engage with the people for 10 or 15 minutes a day; That is all it takes your referral business over time is going to skyrocket.    3 Key Points: Jeff asks Will, “19-years old and closed 17 transactions in the first year. How did you even do that? What did you do to get to that?”  Jeff curiously asks Will what he is going to teach kids who are in their low 20s? What to say or how to respond? Would he advise kids to just wing it? Will has got a Facebook group to help other agents. He has 122 agents there. They also have an amazing Facebook group for their clients, which is like a daily client event.   Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Will Penney | https://socialorchard.com/ | Penny Real Estate Friends & Family Group Page | http://www.penneyrealestate.com/ | https://www.facebook.com/socialorchard RedX (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer talks with Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr, partners in the company called BrandFace. They are the wizards and the experts of branding! Jeff knows there are a lot of self-proclaimed experts, but Tonya and Michael are the real deal. Tune in now! Episode Highlights:  Tonya is the founder of Brandface; She shares how her corporate journey began many years ago. At first, she sold vacuum cleaners door to door, during college. Later, when she learned about radios, she noticed personal branding and how it can make such an impact on a business.  Tonya dragged her clients into the studio one by one, teaching them how to cut their commercials and be the voice of their business. Later, she got into other forms of media like television and newspaper; This was even before the Internet. Gradually, she learned how to help people become the face of their business. People don’t do business with a logo; They do business with a person. Michael was a real estate auctioneer since 1991. He opened a brokerage in his hometown and hired her niece, Tonya, because she owned a full-service marketing company at the time out of Columbus, Ohio. Real-estate agents often forget to inject the personal end of their brand. Some might think that putting a photo is personal enough, but that’s not enough for people, especially in the age that we live in now, says Michael.  Tik Tok has taught many real-estate agents how to express their personal brand and their story through social platforms. Michael points out that we all have a background and the things that helped develop us into the path in life that we have taken. Tonya shares that they have an agent who got her brand identifier as Empowerment Agent. She is a cancer survivor. They have quite a few of those in the program who have learned to embrace that because there are so many people who identify with that. Some real-estate agents who have a photo, a logo, and a clever tagline, think that their branding is complete. Those are branding elements, but they do not constitute a full brand. How do you touch on all elements of branding? As a real-estate agent, it is important to figure out why someone should you over everyone else, recommends Michael. Brandface comes up with brand identifiers for a living. Your marketing cannot stop with your photo or with a catchy tagline, people need to know why it matters to them. As a real-estate agent, your story is exactly what is going to get you to develop that out.  Full brand development is not just the thing that gets people to stop for a second on their social media scroll or something. It’s so much more than that.  Many real-estate agents settle for “Ditto” instead of different.  The reason people don’t always know what to say and they’re gun shy is because they haven’t defined who they are, says Tonya. If you don’t put a little risk in the game, you probably aren’t going to be successful because you are not committed. The greatest brokers are the brokers that want what is best for you.  Facebook and social media platforms are essentially billboards but 10X more powerful than a billboard because you can be in front of them forever. It doesn’t matter what roads they’re driving, as long as they go to the app. If you’re playing the game correctly, they always see you, and that is the name of the game.   3 Key Points: Storytelling is illuminating how you can help your people, your clients, and why that is important to them. Great branding isn’t about being known for your profession, it is about being known for being different in your profession.  A lot of people post their results and facts but they don’t infuse their brand and tell behind the scenes or what obstacles they might have overcome to get there. That’s part of their story. People want to be more personal! Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter BrandFace   | Website  | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook Brandfacescore.com Tonya Eberhart  | LinkedIn | Michael Carr  | LinkedIn |

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer is excited to talk about marketing, advertising, video, and branding with guests Dan Schepleng – Founder of Kapowza; a creative agency company. Dan is going to challenge the way you think about what you could be creating. You are going to want to follow this guy and this company because they are doing some pretty amazing things!   Episode Highlights:  Dan launched Kapowza 6 years ago and pretty soon hired other talented people. Kapowza is a Baltimore creative agency delivering work in video, digital, and print. How do you simplify storyboarding and figure out what a message needs to be? How does it play out with an individual versus a team? How do you advertise myself? How do you market yourself? How do you brand yourself?  For real estate agents looking for marketing, think about budget and what you’re comfortable with suggests Dan.  If you are comfortable with writing, then have a blog. If you’re witty and interesting, use a Twitter account. If you are good with photos, add an Instagram account. There are ways to market yourself for free, and it’s just kind of a matter of figuring out what you’re comfortable with and honestly which you would enjoy. Because if you enjoy it, you’ll keep doing it.  What do you think is wrong with real estate advertising? Dan and Jeff discuss their insights. If someone wants to hire Kapowza, how does the process start? There are a million ways that Kapowza works with people. It’s not just big-budget commercials. They don’t do as many big-budget commercials as people think just because they are big line items. Most brands are only doing them once a year, and it is kind of a big event.  Marketing and advertising starts with what is realistic? What makes sense to you? How can we do what we do best?  As a real estate agent, you have the ability to shift the way your audience thinks about you and it is up to you to deliver that message. This is exactly what Kapowza does. Jeff asks Dan to tell the audience a bit of the other commercial that his company is well known for - the one where the kids are drinking coffee.  Talking about the cost of advertisements, Dan says it depends on what the goals are, because a commercial can cost $10,000 or it can cost $200,000, it could be one day, it could be 10 days. It’s always just a matter of what the goal is. Real estate professionals are self-proclaimed for the most part, and it’s a lot of learning as you go and creating your own stuff. Some are amazing and others are just a bunch of followers, but it’s the beauty of the real world which is very innovative. Jeff points out that unlike most industries, the real-estate industry accepts and evolves quickly, and it is like the innovator of all industries with everybody following later.  3 Key Points: Dan shares about Kapowza, a creative agency that is more about making an emotional connection. Whether it is funny or heartfelt, they make a connection with the brand and its audience through storytelling. What is a good starter question for an agent to get the creative process flowing? The real estate industry, especially the last five or ten years, has seen so much outside competition with large companies, realtors have to be able to market on the same level.    Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfizer  | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Dan Schepleng  | Website | dan@kapowza.co https://www.northroprealty.com/ Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff  is interviewing Michael Bernoff, the author of the book called, Average Sucks. He is a neuro-linguistic and language patterns specialist, among many other things. Today’s episode is special because Jeff and Michael are going to reveal the secret about how to get past average!   Episode Highlights:  Michael understands real estate really well because he is an investor. He shares about his background and motivation to succeed. His parents always told him to work hard and be a good person. Michael studied the behavior of humans; His background in psychotherapy analysis and neurolinguistic programming helped him to understand what makes people do the things they do. There are two reasons we procrastinate: 1) We think we are perfectionists and we are actually just procrastinating playing the part of a perfectionist and 2) A language pattern you use wires your brain to respond in a particular way. Your biggest challenge is your average, it dominates every single thing in your life. What happens when we develop an average for ourselves?  What if you stop looking at what others do best and start looking at yourself? Talking about real estate, Jeff inquires, “I would like to know what is one of the biggest objections or the things that you feel like an average real-estate agent needs to overcome to get to another level?” Michael suggests, “In order to get where you want to go, one of the first things you should do is look in the mirror and ask yourself a very simple question - Are you where you want to be?” Michael recommends, “Do not beat yourself and accept you are not where you want to be. If you want to change, you have to like yourself.” In order to step out of the average mindset, people should figure out, “What was their original reason for making money?” Michael explains how he has worked through this question. Jeff  asks, “How do you keep somebody from talking themselves out of what they’re capable of doing?” Michael shares tips on how to redefine what a person’s real average is. What is the one thing you do more than anything in the world all day long?  Jeff and Michael discuss hacking your brain by evaluating what you do automatically and how to change the patterns. Michael has worked with about 50,000 real estate mortgage people, and over the years, the results people have received are amazing. Michael guarantees that participants of the Average Sucks Challenge will get more done in five days than they have in five months. He says, “You will love who you become by the time it ends.” Jeff wonders what the end game is for Michael; He asks, “Why are you giving the Average Sucks Challenge for free? Michael says, “The biggest thing we are fighting is an idea that we had that we thought was a good idea years ago.” He explains how your brain adapts to that idea. What was your original reason for doing the thing that you’re currently doing? It all starts there.    3 Key Points: Michael always wondered, “Why are people dominated by a magnetic force to be who they were yesterday, last month, last year?” So, he dedicated his life to help people break out of that mentality. Michael teaches about psychological triggers and how to move on from your past to what you want. When was the last time you learned how to market yourself? Communication is the most underdeveloped tool that we have and it has the potential to help us reach where we want to go.  Jeff inquires about the challenge that Michael has for everyone- the Average Sucks Challenge. Listeners can login to averagesuckschallenge.com/friends; it is over the phone, no zoom required. Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Michael Bernoff  Facebook | Instagram| YouTube | averagesuckschallenge.com/friends  Chime (Sponsor) LinkU (Sponsor)

During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff is looking forward to learning from  Richelle Delia, who is a chemical engineer who has now shifted to the real-estate world.  She is the co-founder of a platform called Housing Joint Venture, where she helps professionals explore income property ownership as a safety net to diversify or create wealth. There is a lot to learn today!  Episode Highlights:  Richelle says her profile is not as disjointed as it sounds; it is actually a very cohesive story. She studied chemical engineering. She completed undergrad and her Ph.D. Her dad told her that one should have their own financial resiliency.  Initially, she didn't have big real estate goals. Her idea was to earn money as a professional engineer and buy a few houses along the way. She imagined having about  10 houses by the time she retired. After completing grad school, her job was to look behind a microscope at water building materials, roofing shingles, insulation, all the materials used to make a building. She achieved professional growth early in her career and had 14 units within two years of starting her first-yard sale. Since she had reached her goal early, she had to re-evaluate her plans. She changed her vision and launched Housing Joint Venture. Jeff curiously asks, "How did you manage finance and then paying for rehab?" Richelle shares detailed excerpts about how she got commercial financing. Richelle highlights how climate change disrupts the supply and demand chain and ultimately increases building costs. Shining light on the state of our ecosystem, Richelle says "We are seeing severe weather patterns, more fire, more flooding." "We can't harvest, so when the demand increases, prices go up."  "With increase in digitization, labor cost is going up", says Richelle. She further adds, "We are all in a digital environment. We like to make money via podcast as opposed to with our hands. That means labor costs are much more expensive, and because it's hard to get people to want to do that work, it's just hard to find actual labor and skilled laborers." Jeff asks Richelle's prediction on the costs of material. Richelle says baby boomers are living longer, which is an absolute blessing. The flip side of that means that they are staying in their properties longer. So, where there normally would have been a turnover, selling and purchasing a property that's not happening at the pace that we normally would have liked to have seen it. Landlords are business owners, and when supply rates go up, you pass those additional costs on to the end consumer, hence the rent goes up. We all are trying to figure out where there is opportunity and where the leading-edge is. How do you handle the second-guessing and emotional drivers?  Richelle loves the concept of buying and holding property. She adds her valuable insights on ultimate net worth, cashflow, and upward trajectories. After hearing about the return on investments and business value achievement, Jeff asks, "Is that real estate what coaches specify when they talk about investment? Or is that what they're teaching?" Everybody wants to get rich very quickly, and they haven't done the proper diligence beforehand. She gives suggestions on how to make sure you know what you are looking for and maximize your time doing so. Jeff asks, "What would be the two or three things that you would recommend educating realtors about?" People don't necessarily appreciate what depreciation is and its ability to drive down your adjusted gross income. You can differentiate yourself by really offering a whole perspective that no one else has and no one else is talking about. Richelle's firm takes existing properties, renovates them, and then puts them on the market. They are not into affordable housing space but their renovated houses are budget friendly. She says their duty is to help other people learn how they can do well, and that's how they decided to focus on the education side of the business.   3 Key Points: Richelle Delia is going to educate buyers and potential investors about how they can be better investors. Jeff asks Richelle about the whole material science thing and what is happening in the world today? He says that building prices are going through the roof, and it is like 3-4 times the cost.  Richelle shares her opinion about what is going on in the world of building materials and what might happen.  Realtors listening to the podcast will learn about KPI, ROI, cash on cash, and cash flow.   Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents  | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Richelle Delia  | Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Housing JV Facebook | Housing JV LinkedIn