Welcome to the August edition of Coaching Moments with Ryan D’Aprile!
What if canceled, FSBO & expired listings weren’t as difficult to convert as most brokers imagine? In this episode Ryan discusses how to approach these challenging prospects and how to convert them into clients. He also recounts a story about how he turned 12k into 150k in his first two years in real estate through a monthly mailing strategy. That’s a 1,150% return!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.492.7900 and execassistant@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by brokers for brokers, which isn’t true, but we haven’t come up with a better tagline yet, but we might be the biggest podcast out there for brokers by brokers. So we’re very excited because we are doing as per usual, our coaching moments with Ryan D APR segment. So Ryan is on the line. Let me introduce Ryan before he says hello, if you don’t know him, or aren’t yet as familiar as you should be, he comes on once a month and does a coaching session. And the reason why is this is what Ryan does professionally in his own company. So he owns a brokerage firm here in Chicago. They have 13 offices in the suburbs city, actually in three states, I believe, and Ryan actually in their 400 Plus brokers. And in addition to running the business, Ryan also travels, the majority of his time is spent traveling from office to office training his agents and coaching them, and he is generously doing the same for our listeners. So actually, before I bring Ryan on, we should promote as if you’re interested in and you’re a broker or a client, somebody who’s looking to work with a broker, looking to work with somebody from Ryan’s company go to Depot properties.com, which I will also post a link to in the podcast notes and Ryan’s team. They’re always looking for more brokers and their brokers are always looking for clients. So if you’re interested in either of that, contact Ryan’s team at Depot properties.com. Welcome, Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 1:39
Thanks, TJ. Thanks for having me. It’s always it’s a pleasure. I look forward to these.
D.J. Paris 1:43
Yeah, we’re excited to to have you on we get a lot of great feedback for doing these episodes, in particular, because every broker out there whether they’re a top one percenter, like the ones we interview, or maybe a listener who wants to be a top one percenter, everybody needs coaching, you need coaching, I need coaching, we all need it. And the fact that you come on once a month to provide it is really a big deal. We’re really grateful for
Ryan D’Aprile 2:07
that. Thanks. Oh, pleasure. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 2:09
so Well, I’ve at our firm, we have hundreds and hundreds of brokers, you have the same, and Ryan and I were just talking offline, and he’s like, What are you hearing at your firm? Like, what are what are people say? And, and I said, Gosh, not that much. And then I realized, well, that’s because people are pretty busy. It’s the summer, there’s a lot of activity, I see it in the number of transactions, not even just at our firm, but just across the board and Chicago transactions are up, up, up. So people are pretty busy. But I wonder if it’s easy to neglect doing the fundamentals that help keep you busy when things maybe aren’t as active. So maybe we can talk about that. Absolutely.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:45
And you know, it’s funny, before our call, it’s about seven o’clock at night when we are doing this podcast before I got home, probably around six o’clock, one of my favorite things to do is turn the garden hose on and just take about a good hour just water the yard and water the plants and I phone stays inside. And I was thinking about the business and what we do for a living. And here we are. And it’s you know, it’s August. And it’s the last day of July or whatnot and all my flowers, my hydrangeas and roses, everything is bloom, it’s beautiful. When I’m out and I’m watering it and and the reason I’m watering it, it’s the same thing as the business that we are in today, you’ve got to water your business all the time, even when it’s in full bloom, you can’t neglect the basics that you have to take care of. You have to take care of your business, you have to take care of plants, even when you are in the busy growing season where we all think now’s the time to harvest. And there’s a time to harvest. But you always got to be taking care of your farm your business and what you’re doing planting the seeds because there’s always tomorrow, there’s always next week, there’s always next month, and we have seasonality to our business. But the seasonality does not mean and does not have to mean dead slow, nothing going on. But when you’re busy, and if you neglect those important activities that we’re supposed to take, then when the quote unquote, seasonality comes, that’s when people start to panic. And the worst thing about that is, then you’re worried about panic and business that you don’t have versus being strategic about growing for the next season. Does that make sense?
D.J. Paris 4:23
It does. And I’ll tell you I was just at a panel event earlier this week. And I listen to Matt laris he speak for those of you who aren’t in the Chicago area or who are in aren’t familiar with him. He’s one of the top producers in the entire industry here in Chicago. And he said I don’t believe in seasonality and the whole crowd went where I grumbled and he said no, here’s what I mean. It doesn’t matter to me what’s going on in the market, I have to consistently tend to my business every single day as if it were busy and slow at the same time, which I thought was a really interesting way of putting which is basically what you just said,
Ryan D’Aprile 4:56
Absolutely. You always have to be focused on it. Finding somebody who wants to buy or sell a home, in your business, or if you’re in the mortgage lending business, finding somebody who wants to refinance or purchase a home, or if you’re insurance, or if you’re an attorney, or if you’re a doctor, so on and so forth. I mean, the fundamentals are the same across the board, you have to be finding somebody who needs your service, you add value, adding value typically comes naturally to all of us, what doesn’t come naturally to all of us is taking care of ourselves. And a lot of us put ourselves last and we put our business last, it’s a very dangerous thing to do. But it’s natural thing to do, because we care so much about our clients. But if you put yourself last and don’t focus on yourself, then you’re not gonna have the clients to take care of. So that’s where accountability and coaching really comes into play. Take care of yourself, find the coach, find accountability partner, be with an organization that provides consistent coaching. It’s not rocket science. It’s consistency. And like Matt had said, regardless of the season, it doesn’t matter, you have to be working as if you don’t have a client and generating the next lead or sale or what it might not be for the next month or two to come. A great. So what are the some of things that you’re hearing in your office?
D.J. Paris 6:21
Well, gosh, let’s talk about what people could actually do when they’re busy. So we know that, you know, if customer service is the bulk of time you spend on your business, maybe if you’re working an eight hour day, and that may be a bit low for a lot of successful realtors or people who are, you know, just worked retreating, like a full time job. But if we wake up at an eight hour day, and we say, Okay, well, customer service, meaning once you acquire the customer, all of the work that is included, maybe that takes up six of the eight hours. So then the question is, okay, well, I’m pretty busy, because I’m, it’s that time of the year where I’ve got a lot of clients, what do I actually do with the other few hours, I have to help 10 that garden?
Ryan D’Aprile 7:06
Well, so you have to have, you know, a couple of strategies, I think your number one focus should be your network, your network is your net worth. But then there’s other things that we can do such as farming, we could focus on a campaign for cancelled expired or fizz bows, you could look at open houses, and you have to really plan out and map what your strategy is going to be. So I don’t think you should be doing everything but you pick a couple. So I always think your network should be at the foundation. Some people do purchase these big purchase lead strategy, some picture to farm, some people do cancel expires. So let’s just grab three, let’s pick a network, which I think should be the foundation of your shores. Let’s pick a farm. And then let’s pick a cancel and expire strategy.
D.J. Paris 7:54
Yeah, you can we start with with with canceled expireds and fizz bows. Because if I don’t know if you want to lump all those into cancelled, expired and fizz bows altogether, but this is always a question that comes up, especially for newer brokers who, you know, they they read about this idea, or they hear it from a coach. And they’re not entirely sure, because these are difficult calls. But I like difficult calls. So I like the idea of at least getting, you know getting a few of those under your belt. So can we talk about your thoughts about canceled expireds fizz bows? And if you are doing them how to have success? Yeah.
Ryan D’Aprile 8:29
And here’s going to be something that most people are going to be very shocked when I hear when I say this. Forget about the call. You know, and I know there’s a lot of coaches out there that teach, you know, four hours a day on the phone pounding the phone calling canceling expireds that’s not my strategy. I think it’s a more sophisticated approach my strategy, but perhaps it’s more geared towards an individual who isn’t the type of I’m not I’m an extroverted introvert. Okay, so, I like to solve. I like to work with individuals and I like my marketing to do my sales for me, I like to be top of mind so that when somebody has a need, they have a relationship with me either directly or indirectly and that I am that call to come so when I take my cancel the my expired strategy, I do it through a direct mail approach versus the call. So I think we’re all used to hearing some of the coaches that are out there and they have black times you pick up the phone you call for three hours. I think that’s exhausting. That’s just this DJ this is my opinion though. And so I don’t want to cast judgment I don’t want to offend anybody who’s doing this either. So well
D.J. Paris 9:48
but But what if we just think about it logically. So here’s how the the average broker who is working fizz bows expireds cancelled do it. They purchased they purchased these lists that are readily of vailable from lots of different providers online, it’s very inexpensive, you can buy these for next to nothing. And they’re purchased by many, many brokers and 90, I’m guessing, but let’s say 98% Of those, that activity is going to be phone calls. So what Ryan is saying is actually makes a lot of sense, because how many people are going to be mailing something out to those fizz bows? Very few.
Ryan D’Aprile 10:25
And it and it should be a campaign and should be coupled with a geographical farm. Right. So um, so, you know, if I’m going to take my efforts, and I’m going to take my time, I’m going to apply it statistically, to the best return, the best return is your network 16% of your network transacts every year, so when I take my so there’s a limited amount of willpower, we have
D.J. Paris 10:56
a finite amount of willpower and, and you want to make sure you have to be very strategic about how not to deplete it too early in the day.
Ryan D’Aprile 11:04
Well, that’s exactly right, seven o’clock, you know, a little, it’s a little after seven o’clock right now. And I came home when I was at my garden, and I had a beer, I was watering my grass, I, I should go work out, I could go work out I’m strong enough to go to the gym. But I don’t have it in me to go to the gym. And I won’t, I’m done. My willpower is completely depleted. And so when I go and I look at my business, I have to, I have to value my energy, my resources and my time. And I’m going to take that, you know that that Herculean amount of energy that people are taking and calling strangers that are cancelled expired, and they’re pissed off in the first place, because our home isn’t sold, I’m not going to put it at that because I just, I’m not that strong. Or I don’t have that amount of willpower to face that type of rejection day in and day out. So I’m going to take my time and my effort, I’m going to apply that to my network. And I’m going to call them and develop deep relationships with them. We ask them how they’re doing, how their kids are gone. It’s all about them. It’s not about me, my marketing will take care of the rest for me. Now. Coming back to the castle expireds. I do think it’s a wonderful strategy. I think it’s something we need to focus on. But there’s a different way of going about it, I believe it’s coupling it with a geographic farm. Now you gotta understand, this does take money, in effect, everything takes money. And everything in our life is a gamble. You gamble your time you gamble your money, I cannot believe how many people I see out there that they spend one to three months to get their real estate license, six 700 bucks for the class, they spend 1000 to $2,000 for the association, but then God forbid they spend 10 bucks or $100 on marketing themselves. Right? Right. And they’re not valuing all the time it took for them to get the real estate license, and so on and so forth. So this takes a little bit of time, and it takes a little bit of money. But I look at my business as a my network. That’s the first foundation then I’ll look at a geographical farm. And then I’ll coupled with a cancel expires. So if I have a geographical farms, they have 500 residences, right? So I can live in a condo building with 200 units in it. And there’s another kind of building next to me with 300 units in it. So there’s my 500 residents I’m going to hit or I live in a community and there is a geographical circle around my home. And I picked 500 homes, that’s a farm. Okay, now your return on that it’s going to be about 2%. Okay, so if you farm, okay, let’s describe what a farm is, you send a postcard every single month. Okay, that’s what we’re defining as a farm, send a postcard every single month, after 12 full months, the second year, you can expect about 10 leads from that. But what you can expect for the first 12 months is that getting 10 leads from it. And you have to understand, it’s like, you know, planting, you know, planting a flower, you know, you could take care of it, it’s going to take 12 months for this thing to bloom. Does this make sense to you? Yes. Okay, so I think a good farm and cancel expired strategy
is going to take a good two years, the first year, you’re gonna plant the seed, the second year, you’re gonna harvest and then you need to continually plant those seeds in the second year for your third, fourth and fifth year. And then you have what we call the snowball effect it gets easier and easier. So what you’ve done the farmers you create a brand name for yourself in your community. Okay, now these are not people in your network. They maybe should be in your network but to geographical farm and you’re starting to put yourself out there now in that farm. People hire other real estate agents I know right stabbed in the heart. Oh my god, they picked somebody else. I don’t know who they are. I should quit this business is not working out. Of course they have Here’s somebody else, don’t worry about it, don’t be so critical on yourself, relax, give it time. But what’s going to happen is sometimes, sometimes the home doesn’t sell. Right. And sometimes it’s it has to do with the sellers willingness to listen to the agent, pricing it properly or whatnot, let’s not speculate on white and sell, let’s just focus on the fact that it’s in itself. Now, you have been farming this home, in your radius for say, 1314 months, and it cancels, or it expires. This is where you jump into action. Now everybody else picks up the phone and makes a phone call. I like to put together what’s called a listing book and a well written, handwritten note. Your such and such I noticed your home has recently expired, I’ve been admiring it from afar to a beautiful home. And I would be very interested in meat with you, if you ever consider going on the market again. And then I send it either, you know, first class, you know, FedEx, USPS or UPS, I send it in a package to them. Now, remember, they’re consistently getting a postcard every single month. Then two weeks later, I will send them either a bio book on myself, or a Real Estate Report. And I’ll continually send them items of value in the mail for the next year. Does this make sense? TJ?
D.J. Paris 16:33
Yeah, and I want to pause for a second because I want to give you my own experience with where I live. And you’ve you’ve been in the neighborhood I’m in I’m we’ve met Ryan and I had drinks at theory Cafe, which just happens to be thankfully right next not not next to where Ryan lives. But he was nice enough to come in. But right next to where I live.
Ryan D’Aprile 16:50
That’s where my daughter that’s my wife and I that’s where I grew my business. And that’s what’s right.
D.J. Paris 16:54
You weren’t you’ve been right here. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. And so we I was just thinking about this recently, because I get postcards. But I have an look, there are 40 I think we’re up to 44,000 brokers in the Chicagoland area. That’s the number of brokers. And I’m the building I’m in. There’s a lot of transactions that happen. It’s a it’s a high rise. It’s a very nice building. And the number of postcards I have received in two years since I moved in. I bet I’ve received probably one a month, but never the same person. I think I’ve maybe gotten two postcards from the same person ever. Now, again, maybe they’ve did the math and learn that I’m in the business, but 99% chance they didn’t. Nobody is doing even the postcards every month. And I mean, almost nobody I know your agents do. Very few brokers do this. So even if you’re just doing that on a consistent basis, you’re so far ahead of the game.
Ryan D’Aprile 17:51
Well, let me share a story with you. I’m not sure how long we’ve been going for. And I don’t want to bore your listeners. But let’s just talk about the exact community that you and I had lunch in, in the school just a couple blocks south to the Fulton River District that your my wife and I lived at 320 North Clinton and townhome and that we lived at River Oh God, what was the name of Randolph place? 165 north canal. And then we had Samantha we moved to our townhome anyways, I got into the real estate business is 2004. And I started marketing I started my farm. And DJ 12 Months went by. And I sent a postcard every single month, you know, many phone calls I got in that first year?
D.J. Paris 18:34
I know how many none? Yeah, that sounds about right, that
Ryan D’Aprile 18:38
one. Now my business grew. And it grew such because I took such good care of my network, that I was able to leave the company that employed me. And I’ve never been employed ever since I’ve been self employed ever since then I’ll have to say that properly. All right. But that’s because I had a solid foundation of a straight network business. But I understood the importance of you know, more than one leg to a stool. And so all right, put in an open house strategy and put in a farm strategy to complement my network strategy. And 12 Months went by and I’m telling you about it, there are agents that want to stop after two months. And I explained to them a story. So let me let me tell you what it takes and what it could cost me if I stopped. So back then I was doing about 1000 Okay, I was really gung ho I wanted that in my day job. And I picked the 1000 addresses in the Fulton River District. And I send them a postcard every single month. And that cost me about $500 a month. I don’t spend that kind of money. It doesn’t have to be that big of a farm. I’ve only got so big that I realized I had a diminishing return. But for the sake of time here, I won’t go down that path. I just Stick with story 500 hours a month 1000 postcards I was sending out every single month 12 Once one phone call, but I knew that the return was about 2% In terms of the percentage of people that receiving my postcard, I should get 2% of 1000. I should get about 20 leads at some point. Yes, but it is a two year strategy. And the 14th month, which was the bleeding out this worked on a calendar year. So the 14th month, I think was February it was February. I had not gotten a call, March came sent out another hand got a call. And in April, I was faced with a decision. Do I spend 500 more dollars on the strategy. I’m three months into three, four months into a new year. I am 16 months in the strategy. I haven’t gotten one call. And I decided I’m going to do it again. And that month I got a phone call. And this individual call me said my wife and I are thinking about selling our home. And we know you sell all the homes in this area and we’d love you to come over and talk about selling our home. Now DJ been an agent for almost a year and a half. Okay. How many units do you think I sold in there kind of building?
D.J. Paris 21:19
Zero? Or how many not? Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 21:21
how many do you think I sold an entire area? No, gosh,
D.J. Paris 21:25
who knows how many not? Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 21:27
I was in network. Travel. I’ll go anyway, as a new agent. I was 18 months into it. But they said we know you sell a lot of the homes or condos in our area. We Yeah, because I hit given I built a brand it took right and built the brand. Anyways, I sold her condo for $400,000. And they bought a home for $1.2 million, referred me to their brother who bought a home in Lincoln Park for 600,000 hours, who referred me to their law partner who I listed their home up on Southport for 600,000 hours. And they bought a home in Oak Park on shit home Avenue. She’s a mouth for 800,000 hours, who referred me to their back door neighbor on Southport they lived on what’s a street behind Southport such that the W never beat the back door neighbor called and hired me. I sold their home for $600,000 They moved to Austin, Texas, but I put my For Sale sign on the fence and the stairs neighbor who she’s a cardiologist at Northwestern. And he’s a er surgeon in Park Ridge called me because he saw my name on a for sale sign. And I sold their home for $600,000 $150,000 in gross commission income I earned over the course of six months. Wow, almost didn’t spend 500 bucks on that postcard. Well, then let’s
D.J. Paris 22:49
talk about what that total return was. So if you if we figure you spent 13 or 14 grand $6,000
Ryan D’Aprile 22:55
a year, and that’s take it to that two years. 12 grand.
D.J. Paris 22:59
Yeah, 12 grand to make 150 grand. Oh, and you have
Ryan D’Aprile 23:03
no idea how many referrals I’ve had from those individuals over the past 14 years. And the friendships I’ve gotten out of it, forget the money. Like I care about these people. I know their kids, right? It’s opened up so many wonderful things in my life besides just a commission check. But you got to be all in, you got to show up, you got to decide, is this what I want to do or not what I want to do, you got to have passion? Yeah, I saw my daughter and said, I want for you to have passion. I want you to have energy. That’s the two things consuming passion, confidence and energy. Those are the three things that could wish for you girls in my life, and just go out. And to everybody who’s real estate agent that wants to do this, you got to throw yourself in, but you got to commit and you got to show up. And you can’t give up after two three months. I mean, we’re talking about a two year strategy of your network, a farm or might be purchased web leads or may be cancelled expires or might it be open house, pick your strategy and give it two years give yourself two years because the serving the client but comes naturally just be yourself? Yeah, I
D.J. Paris 24:14
think you’re so right. I mean, between the two of us, we have about 1000 brokers at our firms. And what I found is I think about our brokers, you know, at our firm at least because I know them much better than your brokers. Although I know your brokers are very successful. I think gosh, you know, I think most brokers are caring I think their clients like them. And I think that part of it, they do pretty well. But but as a you know how are brokers? Are they doing mailers? Are my brokers you know, are they doing regular farming? Probably not. That’s the one thing that I think a lot of brokers maybe it doesn’t come as natural and you’re when Ryan says you got to go all in. It’s easy to go all in on the things you’d like to do and that come naturally but The things that are difficult but that are going to get you the best results are the things that are most important. Like Ryan said, he wrote a personal note, you know how many personal notes I’ve received in the last year, it from all the different services that I use, whether it’s my financial advisor, my insurance person, you know, the mortgage person, or just anyone just friends and family in my life, I’ve probably you know, I my birthday, I get a few cards from friends and family that’s about it. If all you ever did was write even everyone in your existing network your people in your that you already know and love and who love you, if you just wrote all of them a personal note to remind them that you’re in the business, that would be a huge
Ryan D’Aprile 25:38
reminder that you’re in the business, just write them a personal note, I get personal notes written to me, by my agents, and they are thanking me Yes, and it makes my day it only to everything to me. And it’s just such an impact you could have in somebody else’s life. Because what we’re craving more than anything, especially in the social media generation we’re living in is connection. Because everything else is just bullshit phony baloney, we’ve got to break through that we are becoming where I think we’re on a horizon of a whole new era of understanding of just the human experience. And we’re getting out of this 1718 years of social media and this pretend life, everybody’s having his breakthrough and have the human connection, if you have a human connection people and the amount of connections you have with them, like, you can multiply that and have more and more of those connections, the more value you’re going to get out of it for your life. So it’s, it’s to, to, to your point, deejays, stop and take time. And, and, and, and and connect with the people in your network. In writing a handwritten note, make a phone calls, send me a text message. But remember, it’s about them. It’s about them, and asking how they are, and really being interested. And then perhaps if you can give gratitude to them, but you got to find out, it’s got to be in the right context and how you’re going to do it.
D.J. Paris 27:04
Yeah, and I mean, for me, I’m a bit of a scatterbrain. So I know that this is not a professional thing I do. But I realized very early on as an adult that I am not great about remembering to stay in touch with friends that have moved away. And now it’s much easier with social media and text to be able to do that. But I like to talk on the phone. So I but I had friends that I was starting to lose touch with. And I realized I mean, guys probably aren’t as apt to call each other on the phone, which I understand too. But I thought I’m losing touch with my friends. And I very simply now just have repeating tasks. Every month, I have remembered a call, you know, so and so remember to call so and so. And I just it’s a system, and there’s no benefit for our business gain. But I but there’s a benefit for my life because I get to connect with these people. But I have to have a system in place, or I will forget to do it. It’s not because I don’t care. It’s not that I don’t like them. I’m just busy, you’re busy. We’re all busy. And having systems in place. Like if you’re a broker at Ryan’s company, for example, he helps you with a lot of the marketing, they do a lot of it for you. So you can focus on what you do best, which is servicing your clients. But and
Ryan D’Aprile 28:11
really, you know, rolling with those friends. Yes, yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s our job. And that’s what we have to focus on. And you do have to systematize it, and you have to track it. You know, hopefully you have somebody who’s looking over your shoulder, that you agree to surrender to and say, hey, help me, you know, one of the things that we talked about, or you mentioned about your agents, and then some of them do it, some of it don’t. And you know, you are questioning, you know, your hope some of them do it, I could tell everybody at my company and outside our organization, to agents who have surrendered and said, I’m going to follow the system, have them write SAS,
D.J. Paris 28:49
yeah, there’s just gonna be certain things that you don’t do, you can’t do it’s not in your wheelhouse, you’re not oriented towards it, you’re not wired for it, and you just have to go, I don’t do a good job of that. So I’m going to outsource it, or I’m going to have somebody else hold me accountable. And I’m just going to get it done. But Don’t torture yourself trying to force yourself to do something that you’re not going to do. You’re just if you’re not going to do it, set up a system to have it done for you or find somebody else that can do it. Well, and
Ryan D’Aprile 29:17
there’s two really basic things you need to focus on now, in terms of generating the business, right? There’s one is is is connecting with everybody here in your network, you know, once a quarter through communication that’s personally that’s personalized, it’s not selling. And the other one is marketing to them three or four times a month via direct mail, digital email marketing, social media, right. So, those are the two paths that you have to run parallel of each other. What happens is, you know, people try to come up with new concepts or, or they over analyze What they’re sending out? Right and I think I butcher this quote every time but Eisenhower’s Eisenhower said, a well thought out plan ever executed is way worse than a poorly thought out planned, well executed. And I Oh, absolutely, I heard that. But that is somebody else said to me a long time ago about direct mail is ship shit. And I just I was so fond of that saying and and what the person met when he said ship says just get it out the door they look at well, I
D.J. Paris 30:40
can also remember, they’re going to look at it for two seconds and toss it anyway, it’s not that important. What’s on there? What’s important? Is that correct for two seconds before they throw it in the garbage. They go, Oh, yeah, that’s right. Ryan’s a broker, and then let’s write garbage.
Ryan D’Aprile 30:55
That’s it. And by the way, chips, it’s just an expression. But in short, you don’t have to write a dissertation here on what’s going on, it’s marketing, stay consistent, be in front of your network, three to four times a month, and never miss a month. And if you miss a month or so, you know, basically starting all over again. Because that’s what happens. People get going home, they start three, four months, and they stop. And then a year goes by. And then they look over the shoulder. And there’s somebody’s been the business for 18 months that surrendered and follow the business. And also on their side six, seven $8 million of real estate a year. And this person is struggling with what I gotta do like, well, you know what, even though you’ve been in business for 1314 months, you’re starting over, because you didn’t let the system work. If I didn’t email, if I didn’t send that postcard, it wouldn’t have led to those 14 transactions in a six month time period. That equates to about 150,000 hours of gross commission income. And by the way, that was from one strategy, one of three strategies that I executed that year. And I think I did about 15 or $17 million. And that was my second year in the business. It’s not to say it’s incredible is that it’s really not, and it’s not complicated. What is incredible, you know, is I don’t know It’s incredible, but it’s stop thinking. Just stop thinking and just do it.
D.J. Paris 32:15
I gotta tell you so the last episode, if anyone’s listening, go back and listen to the episode just before this one because I interviewed 22 You’re gonna love this. These two guys, Greg and Zack, they are 22 years old and they’re at Keller Williams, but it gets better in Barrington, right? You could not ask for a tougher place to start in real estate that in the Northwest suburb of Barrington as a 22 year old, this is a very wealthy area, if anyone’s not familiar, and a 22 year old has a hard enough time getting clients, these two guys, here’s what they do, you’re gonna love this. So I’m just going to we’re going a little bit out of order. But I wanted to get back to farming because I just remember that with these guys. You’re gonna love this. So Ryan talked about hey, mailers and writing handwritten notes and doing all those in, that’s all great. Here’s what these guys did, are doing every day, since they have nothing else to do. They have no clients, although they’re starting to really become successful. They’re the youngest two brokers in an office of 300. By the way, what these guys did is they go, no one’s going to give us their business. We’re too young, we don’t know anything. They literally walk the streets of Barrington knocking on doors and saying, Hey, we’re from the area, this is where we grew up. This is our neighborhood. And we wanted to come and just say hello and let you know, we’re a team. And we’re young, but we’re really eager. And we would love to earn your business. And we just wanted to give you some information if you’re ever in the need. And this is what they they film it to. And they put it out, I’ll send out their videos. But these guys are fearless. And this is what they do all day. And they’ve gotten eight on of this, and they say they’ve never come across another realtor when they’ve done it.
Ryan D’Aprile 33:50
Well. And you know, I you know, kudos to those guys. And I’ll tell you with the farm and cancel expires strategy that I’ve implemented in the past, and I do now with some of our agents, I do it because I don’t have that I couldn’t do it couldn’t knock on somebody’s door. Sure. And, and I’m not saying don’t do it. You know, I’m saying that’s wonderful. But you don’t even have to put yourself out that much more successful. What you have to do is you got to pick a plan, what fits your personality, and then you have to execute it and you got to give it a couple of years you’ll have success. If you don’t deviate. If you don’t change you know, if you don’t change courses and try another strategy and then what’s the next newest trend and once an excellent trend and axing know who you are. And I know how I am I’m an extroverted introvert, and that I’m going to let my direct mail do my marketing for me. And then I’m just going to focus on being a good conversationalist being focused on the person I’m talking to, and track my actions and activities and know the people I’ve talked to record the notes so that when I come back and visit them again, they are significant because I bring back up who their spouse is or what they did and but that’s my style everybody has different styles and I I don’t want to go you know down too much in a row but it’s just part of this is get to know who you are and what works for you and what you’re comfortable with.
D.J. Paris 35:12
Yeah look if everyone who’s listening and I know nothing about sports right I don’t know if your sports not okay, good. I thought I thought we were saying there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I play tennis twice a week. So I but I don’t I don’t even know anything about tennis. But what’s funny is, if you if you’re everyone who’s listening should read any autobiography or biography on coach John Wooden, UCLA. He’s the winningest coach, I think he’s still the winningest coach in NCAA history. And he was all about fundamentals right? Just key never once this is true, he won like eight consecutive NCAA Tournament championships. Like that’s how successful this guy was. And he never once and this is true, never looked at the scoreboard, he didn’t care. He said, there are times when you’ll win, but you won’t feel good because you didn’t give it your all. And there’s times when you’ll lose, and you’ll feel great because you gave it your all and it just doesn’t matter. It’s up to the gods, let the score take care of itself. What matters is fundamental. And that’s what we’re talking about. That’s
Ryan D’Aprile 36:10
a great, that’s a great thing, it reminds me of another expression is don’t focus on the goal, focus on your activities. Just focus on your activities. Success is just a byproduct of that. So if you are focusing on the end, practice success, and, and even worse, comparing themselves to others, just focus on the activities. And if you really break it down, activities are simple. This guy doing five days a week, not 751 hour a day, maybe. But anyways, that’s network strategy. Coming back, circling it, kind of bringing it to an end, the farm strategy, I think should be coupled with a good and solid cancel expired Fizbo strategy. And I don’t think you have to do it with a phone call, I think you could have a another approach that actually would stand out from all the other phone calls that are hitting out there. And there’s from a listening book to a bio book to a Real Estate Report so many other things. But I guess we could pick that up for another podcast as for others, but in this time, where we are writing contracts left and right, and we’re getting listings, please don’t forget to be in flow with your network, and what other strategies that are out there that you’re executing, do not neglect yourself. And if you don’t focus on generating business, you’re neglecting yourself, I understand the importance of our clients. And we have to give our all our clients. And we tend to do that we tend to forget about who or who we are, and how we take care of ourselves and our families. Right now, in the busy season. Please know that you have to be in flow with your network and the other strategy you have. So that when the market slows down from seasonality, you’re not slow. Just the competition is
D.J. Paris 38:01
you Yeah. And taking care of yourself. You know, you’ve mentioned that a few times, I want to bring up just a simple strategy that I have done for a long time. Now I am not out there. As a practicing broker. I’m in an office all day I sit there. But one thing I did many, many, many years ago, I’m now about 10 years into this just because it made sense to me was I realized I was spending way too much time everyday trying to figure out what I wanted for lunch, right? Like I get to work, I start thinking about lunch around 10 o’clock, where am I going to pick it up from where am I going to order from where you know, what am I going to do and it was way too much energy. And we know we have a finite amount of decision making energy and motivation and discipline that we just have a sort of I went, I never want to deal with this again. And plus, I’m eating a bunch of garbage. And that’s okay, if that’s what you want to do. But I was tired of just that. It was just too much energy. And also I was eating badly. And then I would have one pass out by two o’clock. And if you’re on the road, because you’re meeting clients, or you’re just out and about, it’s even harder. I have been packing my lunch. This is pretty nerdy. But I make my lunch on Saturdays or Sundays for the entire week. And I freeze it. And again, that probably doesn’t work for everybody. But because of that now, I never have to think about lunch ever again. I have to think about it on the weekends. What am I going to prepare for the week? I think about it takes two or three hours of my time to prepare. And then I’m done. And I never have to think about it. And I can just work during the day. So if you’re, if you’re, if that’s a it’s a simple and it’s not directly related to real estate, but if you’re struggling or struggling with energy, prepare your lunches and ahead of time.
Ryan D’Aprile 39:31
Yeah, well, it comes down to business development too. If you’re struggling on what to do, you should have a you should have a CRM, you should have a dashboard. You should have a roadmap and it shouldn’t literally tell you what to do. And the activities should not take much more than an hour a day.
D.J. Paris 39:47
Yeah, I wake up every day have a system in place that tells you what I used to do us that’s my system. Ryan’s got a system he’s created for his entire organization. In fact, that’s a good place to to promote Ryan’s organization. So if you’re out there listening no matter what field you’re in, and you want to learn more, either because you are looking for a broker who’s as disciplined as Ryan is, he’s got lots of hundreds and hundreds of them, or you’re a broker and you want to work with someone like Ryan, who can help you with some of these marketing efforts. So that you can focus on servicing your clients and expanding your network. What’s the best way they should reach out to you,
Ryan D’Aprile 40:25
you can email me Brian at diva properties.com. Either call my cell phone 312-590-6416 Or you could text me. And just we’ll take it from there, see what you’re looking for what your needs are, I’ll tell you who we are. We’re coaching companies, essentially the backbone. So a lot of people go out and they hire coaches and trainers, that’s what we are at our company. And then we’re backed by an unbelievable marketing team, where we’ll actually do the monthly marketing for you take it out of your hands. And make sure it’s executed consistently. So that when that 14th or 15th month comes like it came from me, you don’t have to think about it, decisions are done for you. And then if you focus on your activities, the results will come. But it’s it’s it’s a team effort. It’s it’s work on our part, it’s work on your part, but you bring it together, it’s it’s still at their 15 years of doing this, I still think is one of the best careers out there.
D.J. Paris 41:25
Well, and it’s such a neat career, because everyone has to live somewhere. And like 87%, I might have that number slightly wrong. I was just looking at it this morning might be 89% of people when they buy and sell a home use a realtor, in fact, for sale by owners are at an all time low, which absolutely is shocking to me. When I came into this business from a I have a marketing background in it. When I came in this business 10 years ago, I turned to the owner of my company and I said I don’t think realtors are gonna exist in 10 years. And he goes, You don’t know what you’re talking about. I said, No, I don’t. But that’s just my guess. And sure enough how wrong I have been. But not only was I wrong, it’s actually fizz bows have gone, it’s less than 7% of all homes sold or sold for sale by owner.
Ryan D’Aprile 42:08
Well, you know, what you and I should do is we should we should notate that. And we should talk about emotional intelligence for next month. And but we’re making a promise to the listeners. So you and I need to follow through with that. And that, to me, is such a fun part of the business. And it is a no brainer. And I knew this two years going into the business, it’s not going anywhere. Because it’s such an emotional transaction. Now we talk a lot about lead generation, how yet to focus on it. But there is an art to understanding and relating to relating to your clients and having to listen to them, we have, you know, two ears, one mouth, and one of the hardest things for us to do in our profession is to actually stop and listen. But it is one of the most, it’s the biggest value our buyers and our sellers get out of us. It’s that, that emotional intelligence and that human connection, and be able to relate with them and be able to talk them through, we actually just we facilitate the transaction. And as you develop that art and that skill set and that capability, oh my gosh, your referrals just continually grow and grow. So perhaps on our next session, we’ll, we’ll I’ll create a little outline, and we’ll talk about motional intelligence, okay, DJ, and I’ll give maybe a two to four point touch on how as a real estate professional, how much the consumer values, emotional intelligence, and how you can convey the value to them, either when you’re in the beginning stages with them, middle stages, or even an or even after part. And just we could also and it’s always really good to reaffirm what we do what good we provide, because selling the home is not I don’t think our main focus, it’s taken somebody from, we want to start here and we want to go there and say, Well, let me go on a journey with you. And let me talk you through every step of the way.
D.J. Paris 44:16
Wow, that’s yeah, that says it all. And by the way for all of our listeners, and we have 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of listeners. We’re so grateful for that. By the way, please send us your questions. What would you like to hear from Ryan? What questions do you have? Maybe it’s related to emotional intelligence, which we’ll cover on our next episode or what we covered today or in the past? What do you what questions do you have you can send those through our Facebook group everyone who’s listening needs to subscribe to our Facebook group because we post links to every episode and every single day our producer Hannah finds an article she sources it online of all the various blogs and different news sources related to how realtors can grow their business you know, we don’t post about hey, here’s that buyer lawsuit with the now Association realtors. We don’t focus on that, because that’s not going to help your business today or I don’t know, maybe it will but probably not. We focus on specific tactics. So every day, we give you at least one quality article that will take you no more than two minutes to read that we find online. And in addition to that, of course, posting links to the so you can send us notes through there saying, hey, I want to hear more about X, Y, or Z. Also through our website, keeping it real pod.com, where you can also listen to every episode right from your web browser. Obviously, anywhere. Podcasts are served up in whatever app you’re using, find us and subscribe there too. But on behalf of Ryan and myself, we really appreciate you guys listening. We also on behalf of the listeners want to thank Ryan for his generosity. He is way too busy to do this yet he does it every single month, and we couldn’t be more grateful. So thank you to everyone listening, Ryan. Thank you, Caleb and we’ll see everyone on in a month. Thanks
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