Danielle Dowell is one of the most successful Chicago brokers, but perhaps the most incredible part of her story is that she moved to Chicago knowing only ONE person. After a year in real estate she became a top broker and has remained one for the past twelve years. As her business grew, she realized it was time to add more staff. Danielle founded The Dowell Group in 2015 which now has ten members. She’s routinely asked to speak at conferences, television, and now, on our podcast. In this episode she explains how she found success and how you can, too!
Danielle Dowell can be reached at 312-391-5655 and ddowell@thedowellgroupre.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Quicken Loans real estate professionals. When you work with Quicken Loans, you have an agent relationship manager available to you and your team. These dedicated experts are part of the agent relations team. They serve as your single point of coordination so you can count on them to keep you in the loop throughout your client’s entire home buying process, call 888-980-2891 or go to real estate dot Quicken loans.com Today, call for cost information and conditions equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states NMLS consumer access.org Number 3030. And now onto the show.
Hello, and welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for brokers by brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we have an interview with the great Danielle doll. Before we get to Danielle, a couple of quick items. Everyone who is listening, you need to follow us on Facebook. So go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod why? Well, we wanted to make give you an actual reason to follow us on Facebook, we post daily content, we find articles all over the web that will help you build your real estate business, we post one of those a day plus, our producer, the great Liz Lape does a video once a week called Liz lessons where she for about a minute or two talks about something that you can take action on immediately to grow your business. So again, go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And also if you want to stream all of our old episodes, which you can also find on Facebook, go to our website, right, which is keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve done, we’ve done well over 105 or six of them at this point, you can go back and listen to every single interview we’ve done and learn how to grow your business like the top 1% producers do. And then lastly, don’t forget to tell a friend the way that we have grown this business by spending literally $0 Since we started is by word of mouth. So if this content is valuable to you, and I suspect it hopefully would be if you’re listening, make sure to tell every other real estate professional, you know this exists. And also if you have ideas of people we should be interviewing and talking to on the show, send us that information as well. Again, we always say thank you to our listeners and also to our wonderful guests who take time out of their busy day. And they don’t have time to do this right. The people we interview are way too busy to talk to a dummy like me, but they do it anyway. And we’re super grateful so and we also of course are grateful to all of you who listened. So thank you guys so much. And now on to our interview with Danielle doll.
Today on the show, we have Danielle doll of the dowel group. Daniel is a top real estate broker since 2007. She founded the doll group in 2015 with a goal to provide consistent service for clients from the city to the suburbs. And their group actually is pretty interesting. Instead of having everyone do his particular role. What they prefer to do at the doll group is match clients to agents and brokers based on personality, price point and area. Adele group provides attention to detail to all their clients aware that the business they love is dependent on relationships, they will always go the extra mile Whether you’re buying, selling, renting, investing or building, they are there to lessen the stress of Sodhi associated with your real estate transactions. You can follow them at the doll group r e.com. Go to their website. Check it out. Also they are on Facebook, Instagram, just search for the doll group. It will pop right up and today. As I mentioned, we’re talking to Danielle who is the the lead the team leader, the founder and somebody who is a huge powerhouse in this industry. So welcome, Danielle. Thank you.
Danielle Dowell 4:15
Thank you. Thank you for having me on your podcast.
D.J. Paris 4:17
We are so thrilled to have you. You’ve been on our guest list for like since since the beginning. And so we’re so grateful that you have the time to do this. You have such an amazing origin story. Tell us how you got into real estate.
Danielle Dowell 4:32
So I got into real estate I was in the hospitality industry and I lived in a couple of cities Dallas, San Diego St. Louis was the last city that I lived in before moving here. And I didn’t like the hospitality industry. I was 24 I think and I thought man, I don’t really like the late nights. I had an associate’s degree I had. I was supposed to play sports in college decided not to last minute which was I think the best thing I ever did But I didn’t have a bachelor’s and I thought, well, what can I do to make the most money and that I’m going to like, and that wouldn’t be all these nights. And at the time, I had some friends of mine girlfriends owned an appraisal company in St. Louis. So I kind of helped them out decided that wasn’t for me. My brother was in mortgages at the time, he was younger than me. And so I thought, well, I’ll get try to get to cells. So I moved to Chicago. I didn’t know anybody. I knew one person. And I got onto Craigslist. They moved in 2007 2007, like late 2000. I think late 2006. Actually, like I want to say I moved in like November. Yeah. So I got on Craigslist, in which I still hire off of Craigslist. I love it. But so I got on, and I kind of looked and I found a woman that was a top producer. And she was looking for an assistant. And so I went in and interviewed with her. And then I became her assistant for probably a good, I would say probably two and a half years, if not a little bit longer than I helped her with showings and things of that nature afterwards. And then stayed on her team. And then my sister moved here for a while and helped me for about five or six years. And then we just kind of decided that we were ready to do our own thing. And so we went off. And that’s when we started the dowel group.
D.J. Paris 6:16
Wow. And how many team members do you have today?
Danielle Dowell 6:20
Right now we have 10. So we have two office managers who are licensed everyone in our team is licensed. And then we’ve got eight agents.
D.J. Paris 6:30
Yeah, and that’s, and we should mention to all our listeners, and normally we wait to the end, which is really stupid of me, because not everyone makes it to the end. Because, you know, they don’t want to hear my voice for 45 minutes. But Danielle is team is always looking for brokers that might be a good fit. Can you tell the audience a little bit about what you’re looking for and who might be a good fit for your team?
Danielle Dowell 6:52
So yeah, so I’ve never really recruited, but I’ve come through different avenues of finding people and some people have reached out directly to us. So right now we’re looking for we do city and suburbs. So we’re trying to build a little bit more in the suburbs right now. So in the suburbs, I definitely am looking for someone on the North Shore, also looking for a western suburb agent. And then in the city, we definitely looking for someone on the south side. So that’s kind of who we’re looking. But even if you’re anywhere else, if you think you would be a good fit. If you think the personalities would match, like I like to sit down with everyone. And it has to be a win win. So I have to be able to give someone that’s coming on the team something and they’ve got to I’ve got to be able to see that they’re going to be able to give something to the team.
D.J. Paris 7:36
Sure. And the best way they could reach out is just through your website, or through social media, I
Danielle Dowell 7:41
guess. Yeah, I mean, you can call me you can email me. Yeah, either way, social media is fine. If you’re interested, one of the best hires that we’ve had over the years, she actually had reached out to us two years before I hired her. And she was asking if I needed a buyer’s agent. And that’s not how our team works. Exactly. So I said, you don’t that’s not how it works. But I said, I’ll meet you for you know, I don’t know lunch or, you know, for breakfast, or coffee or something. And she said, Oh, it’s okay. And she came back a year later. And we ended up connecting at that point. And she’s been on the team for a while, and she does an amazing job.
D.J. Paris 8:18
Yeah, that’s really important point, too, is a lot of teams are not structured the way you guys have structured, which is everyone has their own agent, and you’re matching the client up to the individual versus hey, this person is the transaction coordinator. And this person is, you know, the person who has the showings. And is that is that? Do I have that? Right?
Danielle Dowell 8:36
Yeah. So I mean, I felt, I think what we do, it’s not the easiest, and I guess, the most proficient way financially to do it. It does cost more money, I think, than how other teams are structured. But I think it gives the client more individualized. You know, we’re know the client better everyone is on the same page, they’re not getting passed off to someone that they’ve never met or haven’t been dealing with along to the transaction, which I always felt strange when that happened. So kind of how we put together is it’s to two agents per team, and then an admin, so there’s always someone that can answer an email a question, there’s always someone that can show the property because we probably do about 75% sell side. So there’s no reason for us not to be able to show something I mean, and if if anything happens, even if those two people can’t at least there’s someone else on the team that can and I just think it’s for us this you know, type of clientele that we have, it makes them feel more at ease. They’re always getting consistent feedback. And so my thought processes, give more feedback, give people more information than what they know what to do with and then usually they won’t, you know, try to call you.
D.J. Paris 9:49
That’s actually so my my boss who was my real estate agent back in like 2005 When I was in the IT world. He had a philosophy that he told me said Is that he said, I never wanted a client to have to call me first. So which I think is a great customer service philosophy like I will I will give all the information. So I know and I never had to call and say like, what’s going on? What’s, what’s the next step? He just always told me?
Danielle Dowell 10:15
Yeah, I think that’s great. Because, you know, when people start calling, there’s a reason why they’re calling because they’re not getting something that they want. So if you’re giving everything to them upfront, and you’re giving them the ideas that you think that they need to do, but letting them make the decision on them, I filled the transaction goes much smoother, and everyone’s always happier.
D.J. Paris 10:35
Yeah, more communication versus letter more information versus less, I guess, isn’t that probably
Danielle Dowell 10:40
for sure. I mean, even if you have something sitting on the market, give them ideas of things to do. They may say yes, they may say no, but at least you’re still trying to work on it. And you’re trying to push them past the goal line.
D.J. Paris 10:53
Yeah, and we should mention that you are just an amazing worker, like, in addition to building your own business, you have a development company in Missouri, you’ve got another you have a home there as well. And you just you’re a you’re a good worker, obviously. You wrote something super funny. So I would Daniel’s permission, I asked you if I could read this just because I thought it was super cute. She goes I have no kids. No and nor am I married, nor do I have plans to and I thought that was funny because I was I was actually just on my way to Tiffany to get you a ring.
Danielle Dowell 11:25
That I wouldn’t take the ring.
D.J. Paris 11:26
Okay. The good news is it’s 17 Karat. The bad news is it’s cubic ciconia. So well, that’s that’s the trade off. We just were just keep that to ourselves. And yeah, that’s okay. All right, then I’ll just I’ll keep the room for someone else. But anyway, no, but that was it was very cute. The point is, is Daniel treats this like a business because it is her business. And she’s incredibly busy. But also, you know, finds the time to give back to our podcast. And she you just did actually WGN thing with our managing broker and Joel shop, and which I saw a few weeks ago. And anyway, you’re you’re out there and constantly giving back. And I think that’s really, really a Hallmark and really consistent among all the people, these top one percenters I’ve interviewed, they always find time to give back. I think that’s really cool. So thank you.
Danielle Dowell 12:14
Yeah, I think you should it’s, I think it benefits everyone. I know, when I was first in the industry, I was trying to talk to as many people as I could to figure out how they can become successful, or I just watched a lot of people. And so I think by having these certain outlets, it’s good for anyone that’s coming up to be able to understand what they can do better, or how they should go about proceeding. Because the one thing in real estate is everyone does it differently. So there’s not just one way to do everything. So I think it’s really important too. I like working with a ton of different people too. So I can see how they all work. Because I take a little bit from everyone. And then there’s some stuff that I don’t like the way they do. So I don’t do it. But in the stuff that I like, and I’m like, oh, that’s genius, I should add that into my plan. So I think you constantly have to be learning. And so these type of things are very, you know, you can turn on the podcast, you can listen to a bunch of these top producers, and take little bits and pieces that you like.
D.J. Paris 13:07
Yeah, that’s the whole intention of our show here. And obviously, a lot of the other things you’re that you’re involved with is listening to you know, you’ve been on a lot of panels, and discussions about how you built your business. Can we talk a little bit about that? So you moved here, and I understand you were an assistant, so you probably got a great education with the person you were working with. But you know, at some point, you did decide to go off on your own at that point. Did you know a lot of people in Chicago, were you still was your network still pretty small? Or how did you build it?
Danielle Dowell 13:39
No, at that point, it wasn’t I was we were like my sister and I were already producing fairly well, just on a team. And so I we never I never had thought of building a large team. I went off thinking me my sister Assistant, we’re just going to do our thing and just continue on. And then I had people contact me, oh, hey, can I be in our team or, you know, I need to sit open houses, you have a lot of open houses, it was just really random. So I just kind of hired whoever came to me within reason. And most of them I had known were like friends in the industry usually hadn’t been in the industry that long. And we’re just looking for a little bit more help and mentorship. So that’s how it started. And then since then it’s been a massive learning curve. So now it’s just not the same way. Now we’re much more particular about who we hire, we want to make sure that they get along with us cultural wise, because our team is very tight. We have a really good team, we spend a lot of time together. And I am very aware that like one bad apple can really do horrible results to any sort of group or any sort of whether it’s a company or industry or whatever. So I want to make sure that everyone’s on the same page and they understand that what we’re all doing is for a common goal for everyone. And then also, like I said before, I want to make sure if you come on the team that you’re not just coming on the team blindly like there’s something I need to be able to give to you and there’s something you need to be able to do To me, because that’s the only way that a team’s really going to work where relationships really going to work. It has to be a win win for both parties. Yeah, I
D.J. Paris 15:07
think I think that’s right. And I think that’s a really great attitude. And we probably attract a lot of great people as a result of not only your reputation, but being able to offer that to to someone coming on board and saying, look, it’s a symbiotic relationship, you know, what can you do? And here’s what we do. And let’s make it work. I have a question for you. Because you’ve been you literally moved here knowing nobody, or one person, I guess, but And you came from a tiny town too. So it’s not like all your friends in town moved to Chicago, you know, from Missouri, where I grew up in Peoria, which is, you know, a moderately, like, sizable town in Illinois. But a lot of people I knew moved to Chicago, you probably knew nobody that moved from, you know, the Ozarks up to Chicago. So if you were newly licensed, and you were listening, and wanted to hear like advice from you about or someone at your level, what would you tell somebody to do, who’s either new to the business or really wants to, like, take this to the next level.
Danielle Dowell 16:03
So what I did well, back in the day, nobody did rentals. So the market was so good. So I emailed every agent in the office and the company saying I would do the rentals. And so I did that, that was a ton of my business. And a lot of that turned into buyers down the road or even, you know, sellers down the road. So that’s what I did, I also set a ton of open houses I would set for a weekend. So I set like two Saturday to Sunday, I would only set certain areas, mostly new construction, I would look off market for other realtors, I knew this whole new construction, ask them what they had coming up so that I had a list of off market opportunities to when I was at these open houses. And then I would tell these people, you know, hey, I can offer you information that no one else can have, we would probably go and look at some of these places, but they always ended up buying something on the MLS. So I had a really good year of where I did a lot of those and the woman that I was working for had those listings. And then I would just also anyone else in the company that had listings, I would just search, I would set myself on a search for like certain listings that I wanted in certain areas. And then I would ask them if I could do their open houses, which most people don’t really complain about. They’re like, yes, yeah. And by the
D.J. Paris 17:08
way, I’m gonna cry, because you just said something really brilliant that I don’t want to gloss over. So what Danielle says a lot of people listening are like, Well, okay, how do I get open houses? And here’s, here’s what Danielle essentially did. She went into the MLS and set up search. And you can easily do this, where she probably put her company name, she defined a geographic area, which you can now just draw, you know, in the, in the tool, geographically where you want. And literally, you could just get new listings, you know, sent to you every single morning. So you could do that. And then you can reach directly out to those brokers, even if you don’t know them personally, and they’re in your office or affiliated with a company and just say, Hey, I would love to do an open house for you. And Daniels, right like that. It’s usually a win win, because it makes the seller look great. I’m sorry, it makes the listing agent look great to the seller. Yeah. So if you don’t have this, like search setup, like it’s, it’ll take 30 seconds to set up. And then you get notified every time somebody in your office. It has a new listing in an area you’re interested in, like brilliant. That’s a brilliant idea.
Danielle Dowell 18:12
Yeah. And then I just kept those lists. So I think the first I think year and a half I was in I did not keep a list, maybe even tears, I could kick myself for doing it. But I’ve made every single person sign in. And I would have that list. So I still have those lists. And I put them into like, you know, I have a spreadsheet. So I have like a eblasts list that I continued to eblast. And just started to build people up that way. I always I was actually working at I worked at some bars to part time, I would always get people’s cards, I would always immediately go on to LinkedIn, and friend them. And that in all this stuff doesn’t it’s not going to get you business in like the first six months or a year. But like when people start to see your name and down the road, it’ll get you business the next two or three years. So if you plan on staying in the industry, longevity. It’s great. It’s like it’s you. You have like the spirit. And people at first are kind of like, yeah, this bartender just as such, he’s a real estate agent, sure, whatever. Everyone’s a real estate agent. Because I mean, that’s kind of what you know, everyone thinks, and it’s pretty hysterical. But once you start to get successful, you start to build a business behind you. Those people recognize it, and then they’re like, oh, wow, you know, and then you get to have their business. So it’s just collecting as meeting and collecting as much information from people that you can and just making sure that you input it. So I hear so many people to get business cards, or that said open houses and they never are consistent with keeping the information and put it into whether it’s a CRM and Excel spreadsheet, whatever you whatever you use. It’s just you have to be consistent with it. And it takes a lot of time and it’s super boring. And I remember when I first started before I had any sort of help or assistance. You know, I would get up in the morning at like six and work until 12 at night because I was consistent because I did everything I was supposed to do. As soon as I met someone for lunch or coffee. I immediately sent him an email that day follow up saying hey, it was Nice to meet you, hopefully we can do this business together, you know, how can I help you here? Like I was always very, very consistent. And I mean, it took for five years, I call it like my dark period, I really didn’t do much. I mean, you know, that’s I just focused on my business, especially not having anyone here. I mean, I didn’t go to college with people and couldn’t call them my family wasn’t in the business before. Like you said, I didn’t know a single person here. So I had to be very diligent on my, on the way that I kept myself organized. And as far as like contacts going, and knowing stuff and reaching out to people about certain things. So, you know, I saw something that that made sense for this person to see. So I would send it their way, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s that’s just doing being consistent. I think that’s the number one thing in the business, no matter whether it’s selling, marketing, whatever you’re doing, you have to be consistent.
D.J. Paris 20:49
Yeah, no, you’re right. And what’s funny, we have Ryan to April comes on once a month. I don’t know if you know, Ryan, but he he does a coaching episode. And he has a statistic, which I didn’t know, which is 16% of your network transacts in real estate every single year, and some transact twice. They sell, sell and buy, right. So anywhere from 16. If you just know, 100 people that could possibly be 16 to 32 transactions in people you already know, but how often are you staying in touch? How often are you, you know, letting them know that if they ever do have those needs, you know that please contact you. And obviously you did those things, but a lot of brokers don’t. So it’s a good reminder of the fundamentals of like, stay in touch, make sure you’re consistently sending people items of value, as Brian Buffini would say, to make sure that they think about you and they actually eventually need a real estate broker.
Danielle Dowell 21:41
Yeah, and if you don’t have much business to or if you’re not from Chicago, so I called all my family and friends and people that I knew, because I’d actually lived in several different cities before this. And you know, at the time, we were younger, so a lot of them weren’t buying, but I still call them and I tell them, hey, if you need a top realtor, you know, obviously now we’re top realtors, but we can I can get you a referral. Sure. And so even be able to get like a 25 or 30% referral after doing absolutely nothing. I’d rather do that all day.
D.J. Paris 22:11
Yeah, me too. That’s, that’s a brilliant idea. It’s funny too, because like, I have my license, I don’t produce and I was thinking, I always use myself as an example. I’m like, I’ve probably too busy. I have a you know, sort of different job. But I said the reason why none of my friends have ever asked me to help them buy or sell a home is they have no idea. I’m a real, I have a real estate license, because I don’t do that as day to day. And as a result, nobody asks me to help them buy or sell a home, which actually is fine for me. But it’s a good example of everyone else should know what it is you do if this is your profession, even if it’s part time. And you know, it’s just one of those things, that consistency is everything. And just like you were saying, just reminding to reminding the audience to consistently stay in touch. Let’s talk about you know, in the gosh, there’s so many different brokers who do it so many different ways. Tell us a little bit about the client experience for your team. So you know, a buyer seller and investor or renter comes your way. How do you guys feel that you’re different from from other teams and other brokers out there.
Danielle Dowell 23:12
So we don’t do just buyer or seller. You know, I don’t have just the buyer seller agent, because in my mind, in order to be able to negotiate, you need to know how to do both sides really well. And when you’re on the buyer side, you’re doing the same thing you would on the sell side, but opposite, right? But you need to know how to talk to all parties in a way that you’ve done both sides. So for us, I think our biggest differences that we do, I put people together on the team, it’s not like a round robin, oh, you’re next to have the lead. It’s nothing like that. Like it’s all who I choose to put on to the different transactions and all of my transactions I could list with. So you’ll every transaction, you’ll see in them a lot size code list on there, it’s because I always call us with someone on the team. So, um, but yeah, so basically what we do is based off of where they’re looking neighborhood price points, and obviously you have clients to you have to understand that maybe they are going to want a little bit more of you, instead of having someone else. A lot of our clients now that we’ve worked with for years are like we don’t care, just give us whoever we know that will be done. Well, and I think we’re totally upfront about it, too. So we show up at the listing presentation, especially if it’s somebody that’s brand new with both people that you’re going to be talking to I don’t go to the listing presentation and then throw someone else on the deal because obviously I could see how that can be upsetting to any client I would be upset with it. So we make sure and put the extra effort in to have both people there so they’re meeting both people so they know who they’re working with. And you know, and then immediately everyone is CCD on the transactions, whether it’s text, email, etc. But I think matching up personality, price point neighborhood everything like that is really important. So you know, even from like if we go on, let’s say a cold listing presentation like we’re Googling and finding out all we can about the background of like who we’re meeting at their house because why would you not right The more information you know, when you have, you know, the easier it is to talk to the client and to find out like what you have in common. Yeah. And
D.J. Paris 25:08
by the way, I want you to pause for a second because not to disrupt your flow. But you just said something that triggered something with me that I thought would be really helpful to the audience. So Daniel is talking about, hey, do your homework right, before you go meet with your sellers, your buyers, make sure you know, at least enough make sure you know at least more about that person than maybe the other broker that you don’t know who you’re up against. Who’s an invisible person because they’re interviewing three realtors, right? So what like, what would that actually look like? Well, this just happened to me this morning. So I was publishing a podcast episode. And I, we podcast, we published the links, just like we’ll do for this one on LinkedIn, and Facebook and Twitter. But anyway, I was on LinkedIn, because I had, like, had to fix this link. And I and I always forget, this is a thing, that if you go to LinkedIn, and you go to the your little feed, you can see every one, I think they do it a couple times a week, everyone who’s gotten a new job, they just, they just aggregate it for you. And you could just literally click and part of doing your research, obviously, on your people that you’re gonna be meeting with is, you know, look them up, find where they work, maybe even find out a little bit about the company, they work for us, you have something to talk about, or what their hobbies are, or whatever. But even if you don’t have clients, you should be congratulating everyone, you know, on LinkedIn, whenever they get a new job i and i just realized like, oh, yeah, I you know, anyone could do that.
Danielle Dowell 26:24
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we definitely should. And I think LinkedIn too. I mean, I think it’s getting used more often now. But for while they’re, you know, people randomly I think you said they didn’t use it as much. So when you did respond to someone on LinkedIn, in my opinion, you got a much better response than you would like on a Facebook or Instagram or something like that.
D.J. Paris 26:42
Yeah, for sure. But yeah, so you know, what Daniels team does that I think is really interesting. And again, not the way that the vast majority of teams I’m aware of work is, you know, they meet as a team, they figure out who would be the best fit, and then that person takes the lead. And then Danielle is always there to assist if she’s not the primary person. And yeah, that’s huge. And tell us a little bit about how you feel you’re different than other brokers, like what are you guys? What do you feel that you guys are doing? That maybe sets you apart from aside from the team structure?
Danielle Dowell 27:15
Well, I think there’s, you know, a lot of things. I don’t know, it’s, you know, I think it’s gets a little bit too hard. It’s hard to differentiate yourself sometimes. Right? So it’s just kind of who you are, and like, how you think about things and what the bigger picture is. And so for me personally, and I think what I try to, you know, tell the team and explain to the team is like, with real estate, there’s so many ways to make money. And so like, even within our team, like we talked about doing some rehab work together, like I do some flips a couple of year, you know, someone on the team is like, hey, like I can do one with you, I maybe can’t put as much money in. But you know, I’d like to experience it, I’d like to do that. So that kind of stuff we’re trying to do more of. Also, I always thought like building the team. And this is just kind of internally more than like, I guess, externally for the clients. But I think it does help the clients out too. I mean, when we have people that know construction from the beginning to the end and know how to rehab a home, that’s only going to help our clients out. But so a lot of its internals, what I’m saying about the team, but like even for Timo, you know, when I started, I worked so many hours, I mean, it was insane how many hours I put in and how hard I worked. But I’ve always been a hard worker, I’ve always had like two or three jobs. I played sports competitively on tons of teams, like that’s just always been my natural personality. I assumed that that was everyone else’s personality, I realized that Absolutely. Is not everyone else’s personality.
D.J. Paris 28:37
Expression. It’s never crowded along the extra mile, right?
Danielle Dowell 28:40
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so what I found, though, is that plenty of people are really good at what they do. It’s just you have to kind of help them find that spot. And you also can’t expect people to do as much as you do. So what I did is I thought, well, if I you know, on the team, if we can have a system and granted, this is still in the making, and it will be for a while. But if we can do something where everyone can still come, they can still make good money, but they can actually take a vacation, which I don’t think it took a vacation my first five years. You know, if they can have that downtime, I know that that downtime allows you to really be creative and to be able to come back and do things in a much better way. Whereas I think just working people to the bone, I mean, people will do it. I mean, I’ve done it, but I don’t think it’s the it gets you the best benefit. And I don’t think it actually it doesn’t it doesn’t end up helping your clients outright. So to me, like it’s just a lot of things internally in the team that I wanted to change that I wanted to be and make really positive inside in order to hopefully create that positivity and to carry that outside to our clients. So it’s not so much what we do differently to our clients. It’s know much what we do inside differently that then helps our clients.
D.J. Paris 29:54
Yeah, I mean balances balances everything. It’s funny too, because I saw Daniel speak at um I’m at a an event just a few weeks ago, and she was on the panel with Matt Larose, who’s who’s not yet been on the show, it will certainly get him on, hopefully soon. But he’s, he’s an anomaly, right? Because he wants to work 24/7. And then it came to you after he was, you know, sort of shocked, like, stun the audience by saying, I just work around the clock, and I love it, it feels like I love it, too. But I also need time off. And having that balance, for sure helps you, you know, treat your clients. I mean, assuming you’re somebody that needs balance, which, you know, maybe Matt, you know, he’s happy working as much as he does. But yeah, I think I think you’re right, having that balance enables you to be a better broker, right?
Danielle Dowell 30:37
Well, yeah, and I just know, when I’m super busy, and I’ve got a ton of stuff going on, you know, I think that it’s you, you’re my emails are shorter, right? They’re not as the salutations aren’t as good. And no matter how much you think that you’re just getting the information across, at the end of the day, if you have to spend an extra two minutes to write a nicer email, people are going to remember that they’re going to remember that you said, Hey, how are you doing? I hope all as well, instead of just see a five, right? So, you know, that’s what I think is going the extra mile what make people pay attention, especially in a world right now where everything’s just so immediate. It’s just like, yes, no, yes, no, this that. Plus, you know, when it comes to a text and an email, you sometimes it’s hard to really read how the person is feeling, right. And so for our clients, we definitely don’t want them to feel that we’re being short, or that we don’t have the time for them. So you know, we want to go that extra mile. And which brings up kind of something that we haven’t talked about, but I’ve always believed in. And this is probably because honestly, I don’t have kids, I’m not married, I have probably extra income to do so. But hiring more people and doing it in a timely manner, so that you’re not playing catch up, and also that you have the time to do these really small things that actually matter that matter a lot, in my opinion. Yeah, can
D.J. Paris 31:49
you talk a little about a few of the small things that you now have more time to do?
Danielle Dowell 31:54
Yeah, so for me, I mean, even for me to be able to go and to do more appointments and to do more meetings and things that I need to do for myself hiring you know, another in house person that can sit and at the office, that can even if sometimes there’s maybe they’re they’re not doing a ton of stuff like they do enough, you know, and everyone that works for us is really good, because I have to say, the women that I have in my office right now are the best, I mean, they will work nights and weekends if need be. So if they’re not working at some point in time during the day, or if they want to, like stay home and say can I work from home, I don’t really care, I don’t care actually where you work from as long as the work is done. Now, granted, we do have to have people in the office for printing and for, you know, stuff of that nature. But I mean, at the end of the day, like to me, it’s just do the work, if you’ll do the work, I don’t really care, you know, per se when you’re doing the work, if that makes sense. So, but for me, I hire people beforehand, because I feel like I can always have seen when things are gonna get a little bit more heavier, it’s gonna be a little bit more busier. And in all honesty, I mean, we need time to train people to and to make sure that they know what they’re doing. You just can’t hire someone to expect for them to be ready to go. I mean, it takes months. So to me, I’ve always rather put money into the business, I’m also a person to that didn’t start making money. And they just went out and started like buying all sorts of crazy things. And not to say that I mean, everyone can do their thing. It is what it is. But I’ve always been more like probably because of how I grew up just a definitely more financially conservative within means. But if I know something could make me money, then I’m not financially conservative. That makes sense. Yeah. And for people
D.J. Paris 33:30
who are listening who may be, you know, feel like they don’t yet have the resources to hire people to help them you probably do because we are now in such a global gig economy that there are websites you can go to to say, here’s what I’m looking for, maybe it’s a virtual assistant, maybe it’s somebody to help with your marketing. And you can find people from all over the world that are incredibly inexpensive and effective. And so even if you just wanted somebody to, you know, help you with staying on top of your client, your your network, and making sure you’re, you know, staying on top of that they people can help with that. And it’s not that expensive, either. And then, you know, if you want somebody full time, you know, and they’re here in the office, that’ll be more expensive. And maybe you can work up to that. But you can always hire people ad hoc to on the way along the way.
Danielle Dowell 34:15
Yeah, I think a lot of people get scared about hiring someone because number one, it’s the cost that’s associated with it. But also it’s like, what if I don’t have the business, but I think the big thing that you have to understand when you hire someone is you yourself have to be organized. So if you’re not, it’s never gonna work, hire someone. So I get up at six in the morning every day to start sending out emails and to get my day plan for people that I have to get stuff to. So you have to be prepared to do that. Because hiring someone it makes life easier after a while, but it’s also another job. So now you’re having to manage and you know, take care of people. So it’s not as easy as like hiring someone and just throwing everything at them and saying like, Oh, it’s great. Now I can go hang out at the pool all day and go golfing. Like that’s not how it works. So you have to really be in it and a business sense and really understand what it takes to hire someone, it’s, it’s, it’s not definitely the easiest thing in the world. But once everyone’s trained up, then you can start seeing the levels of your productivity go up. It’s amazing.
D.J. Paris 35:12
Yeah, I’ve always felt like you should focus on the three things that you really love and are the most passionate about, and then get you the best results. And then try your best to offload them offload all the other stuff to you know, other people, you can delegate and delegate, it’s never been cheaper to be able to do that. And a lot of it is stuff that you know, the same skill set that is great for sales and marketing might not be the same skill set. That’s great for paperwork, right? So you can find places people to do that side of it. And you know, and then you can be out there doing the thing you love to do the best that probably will make you the most amount of money to absolutely. Well, I look, I think you’ve said it all. And I want to remind all of our listeners that if you are a broker and are interested, alright look, whether you’re a broker, or whether you’re a client, a buyer, seller, renter, investor developer that is looking to either work for Daniel’s group or work with Danielle and her group. Daniel, by the way, they can always visit your website, which is the dowel group rv.com. We will also put that in the notes. You can also find them of course on Facebook and Instagram, just search for the dollar group, it’ll pop right up. And then what’s the best way that someone should reach out to you? You mentioned phone and email before Do you mind sharing that with the audience?
Danielle Dowell 36:26
Oh, yeah, you can reach me on my cellular device anytime. It’s 312-391-5655. And then my email is D dowel at Danielle dow.com.
D.J. Paris 36:40
Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy busy day to do this. I know you do a lot of these kinds of things. So we appreciate it. And, again, we want also want to thank all the listeners for continuing to support us. We’re over 100 episodes now. So we’re super grateful that everyone continues to listen and share. Please share this with a friend if you know any other brokers in your office that might benefit from hearing from people like Danielle, obviously, turn them on to the show, I will not be giving this cubics akoni ring to Danielle. So if maybe a future guest will want to
Danielle Dowell 37:19
anyway, a Halloween costume or something. I can use it somehow.
D.J. Paris 37:24
You want to hear a really funny story real speaking of cubic zirconia. And before I sign off i a million years ago was in a different profession. And I had a woman, I’ll try to keep this vague as to not reveal who it is. But anyway, it’s a woman who was I mean, it’s not embarrassing. It’s just I don’t even remember this point really who she was she was married to but it’s a woman who was married to a professional hockey player. And she had this beautiful ring and we were just meeting to do a business thing. And I sent home that your ring is amazing. She goes she sort of like whispers it’s cubic ciconia. And I go Oh, really? She goes yeah, my husband’s like this big, big time hockey player. But she goes, I thought it was kind of silly that he would spend like 30 grand on a ring. So she goes so we got a fake one. And we just think it’s hysterical that everyone thinks it’s and I was like That is so funny. And there was like just a joke between them. But that was literally her ring. So I’ve always thought that was kind of a funny story. But
Danielle Dowell 38:15
I mean, whatever works for you. I think you know, I mean, see these aren’t bad. I mean, think about that, though. She’s out and about if someone steals it.
D.J. Paris 38:25
Yeah, I mean, you could just leave it at the table at a restaurant and wouldn’t feel too bad about it. Well, anyway, everyone who’s listening, work with Danielle, whether you’re a broker, and you’re looking to join a team, reach out to them to see if you’re a fit. And again, if you’re a client, obviously, their reputation speaks for itself. She and her group are in the top 1/3 of 1%. That’s how how a crazy amount of success they’ve been having. So they’re obviously doing everything right. So visit them on the web as well, doll group, the dial group, r e.com. And Danielle, thank you so much for taking time to be on the show.
Danielle Dowell 38:59
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me and for that new marketing statistic that will now be on all our posts.
D.J. Paris 39:05
All right. All right. Well, for everyone listening. Thank you and we’ll see you guys on the next episode. Thanks, Danielle.
Danielle Dowell 39:10
Thanks. Have a good one.
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