Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
Ryan and DJ discuss how you can use negative news stories to reassure you clients and provide value. Ryan also discusses why you shouldn’t always see a property as an investment. As the new year approaches, Ryan discusses what agents should do at this period and how to plan their next year. Next, Ryan discusses why he thinks that going to the office is the best way for agents to be successful and why working from home doesn’t work. Last, Ryan wants to remind everyone of the importance of their “WHY”.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April series. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re just new to the show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at depot properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style, and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and he also has offices in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida with hundreds and hundreds of top producers. Disciple properties is really a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focused on business planning, coaching, and accountability if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need from your current firm, check out D APR properties, visit D APR properties.com. And welcome once again, Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:40
Hey, DJ, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure being with you, again,
D.J. Paris 2:43
pleasure being with you, we should also mention that you have other companies. So we we aren’t necessarily just talking to real estate agents, you also have a lending institution Midwest lending. So I know this podcast gets gets listened to by by some of your loan officers. So if there are any loan officers listening, shout out here because again, a lot of what you talk about is really applicable against across all sorts of sales, you know, jobs.
Ryan D’Aprile 3:10
It is I’ve spoken to many companies and help them sell hedge funds. I’ve actually, in financial planning institutions, I’ve actually been a guest to speak to their sales force. Yes, I we have a mortgage company, I have an insurance company and the principles of philosophies that we teach are the same across the board. So yeah, so that’s, that’s it’s, the more things change, the more they stay the same as what I tell everybody. And the principles are really, that are identical, quite honestly, it’s a process. I think it’s more of a system than it is an art, there’s a little bit of art in it. But it’s, it’s really being aware of what your craft is and what it is that you’re doing and then improving on it day in and day out.
D.J. Paris 3:52
I also think too, I think what you said is really important. So we’re talking about process. And I like to call them fundamentals, because it’s always it seems to be that there is no magic bullet to becoming successful in this industry. Or at least if there is I haven’t found it. But the fundamentals or the processes are great. And you mentioned that there’s a little bit of art to it. What I found so, so exciting about figuring out somebody’s processes, what what is going to be successful for them is that frees up a lot of their time to where they now can focus on the art artsy sort of side of it, that putting their personality and because their systems and processes are so in place that allows them to have more time to focus on sort of the personality side
Ryan D’Aprile 4:34
of it. Yeah, and I think what you need to do is you need to process and systematize how you interact with your network. And I tell everybody is like, I’ll draw on a whiteboard, network and drive and I’m writing right next to each other. And I’ll ask people, What can I coach to? And a lot of people think it’s Dr. Like, I can coach you to network and country to grow network, and I can’t coach Dr. And that’s, that’s the number one thing for anybody who’s listening whether you’re alive Under, you’re an insurance agent, your real estate agent. I truly in my heart of hearts believe success is easy. 80% of it is just showing up. That’s a cliche for a reason, because it’s true. And you can’t coach drive, you can’t coach, Coach hunger. But if you’ve got the drive, you got the hunger, then all you gotta do is follow a system. And every year that goes by it compounds, and it gets easier and easier.
D.J. Paris 5:25
It does, because you have a bigger supply of previous clients in the wake of your business that are satisfied and happy and know like and trust you and then refer business. And I, to all of our listeners, if you’re new to this, this series that we do monthly with Ryan, he’s a big believer in having systems around communication. So making sure that your clients are getting touched every single month in different ways. And one of the ways sometimes I know, you know, we get feedback from from listeners who say, Hey, I and not necessarily because of what you’ve said, but they say hey, how do I stay in touch with with my sphere of influence? What are some of the things I should be doing? And you’ve touched on those one thing that we might not have touched on yet is, and I learned this back when I was a financial adviser, they would say read what your clients are reading. And so I saw an article today on CNN that, you know, whatever people’s feelings about CNN, are I, I just happen to be on the CNN website. And I saw this article about
Ryan D’Aprile 6:25
finding that you had to say that in today’s age, you have to say, Yep, I get you,
D.J. Paris 6:29
you have to say that. And I don’t have any particular just happened yet, but it was about the possibility of a housing crisis or a housing bubble that possibly could be bursting. And there’s different. In this article, they said, Hey, there’s no consensus on this. And lots of people say everything’s fine. But as interest rates, maybe go, you know, up to now 4%, or rather, lending rates go up to maybe 4% or so, there may be in a price correction. And anyway, these are the kinds of headlines that I don’t know, they got my attention, and they probably get your clients attention. And so I see it as an opportunity to reach out and do one of your touches and say, Hey, you might be seeing some news about this. But I’m curious on on your thoughts about how to use, you know, and I don’t want to call it a negative sort of Article, because I was the intention of it wasn’t to be negative. But But that’s gonna scare a lot of people. And I’m just curious on how you might take that information and, and reassure clients or sort of give them an action. Sure.
Ryan D’Aprile 7:30
Yeah. Well, so I would tell my clients and I’d tell, you know, agents and loan officers, anybody in the back, of course, there’s a market correction coming. There always has been there always will be it’s cyclical. And so and I would say that directly to a client, and then I’d get to what the most important thing again, the reason why, right, all these quote unquote disruptors to our industry who’ve been around since the early 2000s, that, again, you’ve heard me say this on the show before, they’ve lost quarters of you know, hundreds of millions of dollars year in a year out working for free, trying to take us out of the marketplace, okay, and have yet to be unsuccessful at it. All right, is because of the emotional intelligence aspect of our business and what we need. And if you do not know why your buyer or your seller are buying or selling, then you’re irrelevant. And, and what I mean by that is, if a buyer said to me, Well, Ryan, a market correction is going to come. Do you think that’s true? And I’d say, of course, market correction is going to come. Well, why are you buying this house? Let’s have that conversation. Sure. Are you buying this house because it’s a part of your stock portfolio? Because I believe, you know, just like Kawasaki is a cow psyche Robert Kiyosaki, Kiyosaki, and I apologize if he ever hears this and apologize, I mean, I’m an idiot. Um, but, you know, your home is not an asset. It’s a
D.J. Paris 9:06
low I could not agree more. And I know there would be there’s a lot of pushback, but I always love this idea of assets, assets, shouldn’t lose money on a regular basis, which of course, it meaning not lose money, but but cost, you know, be at be costly on a monthly basis, upkeep etc. And it doesn’t generate income either. It’s only Oh, it’s a liability. It’s an asset the day you sell it, that’s about it.
Ryan D’Aprile 9:29
Well, it is, I mean, it’s an asset that they somebody else starts paying for it. That’s, that’s when it’s an asset and you continue to own it. And so my point is, is, look, my wife and I have a home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and we bought it 17 years ago, okay. I mean, we were 2829 year old kids with a newborn and we bought the lake home. And the reason why is because we wanted our children to have that lake life experience. Now, up until recently, until COVID, quite honestly, let’s say I paid $500,000 for the house, which is what I paid for the house. So I paid $500,000 for the home. Okay. And up until two years ago, you know that home was worth.
Unknown Speaker 10:13
I know I don’t
Ryan D’Aprile 10:14
$500,000 Yeah, exactly. Okay. did two years ago, you know, after 15 years of ownership, it was worth $500,000, I think I’d put $100,000 down on it. And over 15 years, I paid off 100 grand, but I pride paid in our $150,000 in interest. That’s not a good investment. Right. But I would never, I would not do it any other way ever again. Because someday I’m not going to be on this planet. Someday my children will be adults. Unfortunately, my oldest just turned an adult and she’s still my baby, say two years old. And I bought the summer home for the quality of life. You, if you were to talk to me back then 28 years old, you were and you were my real estate agent, which I was back then you wouldn’t know what my why is. And my why is, well, I don’t care what the market does. Here’s where today is I want in on the home. And I plan on living here for the next 15 years. And so
D.J. Paris 11:07
you really treat it like almost like a primary residence, even though it isn’t your primary residence. It’s just hey, this is this is where we live when we’re not at home.
Ryan D’Aprile 11:15
Hey, the same story, you know, from my home in Western Springs. Okay, I can tell you, I’m probably, you know, you know, you know, I live you live in the homes where you know, that I wouldn’t call McMansions. But these beautiful homes come up, you know, every three months, there’s a brand new, you know, home being built gorgeous, in my neighborhood, you know, million multi million dollar home being built. And, and my home’s value, you know, it’s not like when my mom and dad bought in 75, for 100 grand, and they sold in 2010. For $500,000. I think those days are gone, just because of how wealthier society is, and how fashion and trends change so much. And so the home that I’ve purchased in 2010 in Western Springs, okay. And then the amount of money I’ve put into that home, could I get the money out of it? No. But does that mean I would do different? No, you know, we’re dealing in residential real estate, I had a wife and three kids. And, you know, people are born and people die, people get married, and people get divorced, people relocate. And for our listeners here, when this market correction comes, and it’s going to come in like five years from now, I don’t know when it’s going to come. But it’s going to come, the transactions are not going to stop, you know, I cut my teeth, my third year in the business 2008. Alright, as it was the Great Recession, and 2008 to 2011. That’s like a broken record. But I crushed it during those years. I absolutely crushed it. And we had the great recession going on. So be apprised know what’s going on, read what your customers are reading. But again, and our industry. And I truly believe that a loan officers need to be able to do this just as much as a real estate agent. Because the same is true for loan officers so much emotional intelligence and balance you have to work with your, with your buyers on this, you’re gonna know why they’re doing what they’re doing, and then be able to relate them and then bring them back to that why.
D.J. Paris 13:27
Yeah, I think you’re right. And that that’s the same thing I did. So I started reading this article, and I was like, Oh my gosh, of course, correction. I just bought a home and then I went, Well, what do I care, you know, I’m probably not going to be there in three or four years, I don’t have any control over this anyway. Plus, it’s not an investment, it’s where I live, and I’m going to have to live somewhere else after that. And it’s I just, I just, um, but But again, I had to talk myself down, and you know, have an opportunity to reach out to your clients and say, Hey, I just want to, you know, you might be seeing some, some stories about this. And I want to, you know, sort of make sure that you’re how, you know, talk check with how you’re feeling about where you’re living, and you know, and just it’s an opportunity to connect.
Ryan D’Aprile 14:09
Absolutely. 100%.
D.J. Paris 14:12
So, Ryan, some thoughts on because you coach agents, you’ve coached top producers, you coach new agents, you know, gosh, you guys have such an impressive, you know, set of agents at the April properties here in the Chicagoland and other states. What are you telling agents to do for the last two months here of the year?
Ryan D’Aprile 14:30
Yeah, well, actually, it’s a great segue because we have a CRM that we use, it’s proprietary that we built and our CRM actually shows you what your business is going to look like next year. And it times it out. So for individuals right now, as we’re coming into November, we have 60 days left of the year. I do say that the year is over. But if you click on your prospects, and you go to the timing that we have, which ours is cool Closing next year cold, not certainly going to hire me warm closing this calendar year, you look at cool. You I see agents with 5 million 10 million $20 million in leads from primarily their network, or their network referring them. Okay. I had a coachman with another agent regarding online leads, I’m going to talk about that for a second. But this is the time and you need to have a CRM, you need to be tracking this information. And most real estate agents, I feel fail at this because they don’t spend time working on their business and looking at this data. But anybody that we’re working with with our CRM, they’re looking at that bank account of business for next year. And they are looking at their data last contact, what was the touch? What are they doing, and the biggest thing that I’m always working on is grabbing somebody’s bank account and be like, Hey, get out of your active clients tab, get out of your under contract Clients tab, look to your left versus prospects, look at this bank of $14 million of business that you think you’re going to have next year. And look at that you haven’t talked to these three people since July, these four since March, like you are going to be leaving a lot of money on the table right now. If you’re not getting prepared, right now for the string market. And you already know those individuals who they are. Right? You already they’ve already identified them in your CRM. Now you need to be making the frequent reach out touch base, touching up with them, keeping it personal, making it about them, understanding their why. And if you don’t, you’ll be replaced. And then they just walk into an open house and find something or their neighbor down the street happens to be a real estate agent that shows them around. That’s where most people lose a lot of money in this business.
D.J. Paris 16:40
Yeah, and these touches can be can be phone calls, they can be text messages, they can be emails, they could be replying to or commenting on someone’s social media posts. You
Ryan D’Aprile 16:50
know, I think yeah, exactly. I think direct messaging and social media, I try to tell people don’t think of commenting on a social media as a, a touch. My birthday was the other day, I was sick as a dog under the covers. And, and I had it for like three or four days in a row. But I think I had like 400 happy birthdays, I didn’t even see one of them. Right? I tried, I couldn’t keep up. And it plus I had aches and the chills, was the worst. I think I got that rhinovirus. And everybody was getting, I got tested for everything, but it was a virus. Regardless. You know, a direct message is equivalent to a text message or a phone call. So your your follow your reach out, should be a phone call, or a text message, or a or a direct message via you know, whatever it is Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, however, whatever social media channel that your, your client, your network uses, right, you have to use them all and adapt to it. And direct message and don’t fall in the trap of by, you know, writing on their wall. Oh, so cute. You know, the dog you just posted right writing that on the wall. That’s not gonna You gotta actually got to connect with them, and try to create a dialogue.
D.J. Paris 18:07
Yeah, and I have always thought LinkedIn gets really underutilized for this. Because just today, for one, one of the little companies I have an ownership interest in, I guess it was my work anniversary, which I had no idea. And I started getting just a handful of happy work anniversary. I’m like, I didn’t even know it was my work anniversary. And those didn’t really matter to me. But I thought, boy, if I really want if I was a salesperson, and I wanted my business for whatever, I would figure out a way to direct message me or to find me. I mean, I’m not easy. I’m not hard to find, send me a phone, you know, send me a text shoot me and say, Hey, man, just saw that you, you know, work anniversaries. You know, maybe that’s not such a big deal. But but you could say when somebody starts a new position when they get promoted, I just saw one of my friends at Zillow just got promoted, and I shot her a quick test matches like, hey, saw you got promoted. That’s amazing. And she was like, Wow, thanks. You’re the only person that texted me about it other than her coworkers. So, you know, and it meant a lot to her. And we’re just buddies. But I thought you know, that’s, that’s a great opportunity. LinkedIn actually tells you, when people have these major work milestones.
Ryan D’Aprile 19:11
I was having a conversation with a broker owner the other day down in Florida, and they went virtual, probably 3040 agents. And he made a great comment to me, he said, and they’ve seen a decline in sales, right? And he said to me, you know, you’re productive until you’re not, right. It’s like, wow, that just says a lot. What he was saying is, they went virtual, right? It was working until it doesn’t work. And now you’re going the other way. And I tell every person that works in our organization that, you know, we have these offices and we’re opening up more offices, because you gotta get out of your house. Yeah, you got to you’ve got to work on your business. You know, I started my My career as a real estate agent in 2004, you know, five, late 2004 2005. And I had an office, I went to 2021, right? How many every year years later is 16 years later, I still go to the office every single day. And I’m telling you real estate agents, like, you guys get the hell out of your basement, this virtual stuff, I don’t think it’s healthy, I understand there’s an element of where you can do it. But you need to run your business you, you don’t get paid in real estate, you don’t, you don’t come to a real estate brokerage, you don’t get a salary, you don’t have a manager, you are starting your own business. And the biggest thing I can tell you now that in November and December, what’s coming in for next year, get into the office, when there’s nothing to do get into the office, get into your CRM we have it’s called the dashboard, get into your dashboard, we’re kind of minimum three days a week, just like any other business owner who wants to keep their doors open, does. And, you know, if you were to try buy a storefront of a small business, and see that the lights were out, and the door was locked for days, out of the out of the week, right? You’d say so that guy is gonna go out of business, they’re not even open for business. Yet real estate agents stay home, they get in their habits, they work from home, and you know, damn, well what’s happening there, they’re doing the dry cleaning, they’re talking about their active deals, right, but they’re not working on their business. And you know, that’s going to catch up to you, and you’re productive until you’re not. And that’s where the peaks and the valleys of this business occur. And people got to pull themselves out of the valley. And you don’t need to if you could stay consistent, and get into your office three, four days a week and work on your business, one to two hours a day.
D.J. Paris 21:43
I’ve tried many times over the last Well, I would say 15 years to work from home. I’ve tried, I want to be able to do that. Because, boy, it just seems so great. It seems so efficient. I can’t do it. And maybe there’s that rare person that somehow can, but I don’t know how anyone’s more more effective and productive at home. So you know, even even, even if I worked at a company like exp where there aren’t physical offices, and you know, assuming I could afford it, I’d rent an office somewhere go to regional sir. Yeah, place like,
Ryan D’Aprile 22:21
yeah, you do you have to, you know, and and just ask yourself, is it working? And if it’s working great. And is it not working? If it’s not working? Are you working from home, your kitchen, table, your phone, in your basement, go to a place that’s going to get you into another mindset that’s going to have you focus on working on your business. And it’s nice to be an organization where you’re next to other top producers. I tell all my agents Yeah, you know, when I go to office office, see all the usual suspects. And it’s a top selling real estate agents there all the time. Hey, DJ, don’t you have a five o’clock arts that?
D.J. Paris 22:55
I do? I’m gonna I wanted to end with just one more thought. And yes, so thanks for reminding me my of my obligations. Because I had forgotten we were I was having so much fun with this call. And what I was going to say as is and get your thoughts on is you were talking about those producers you have who are going into their dashboard in your CRM and, and sort of seeing the most important maybe part of that outside of your active clients outside of the customer service stuff you have to do day in day out to close deals, but looking at your contact list your sphere of influence and saying maybe the most important metric there is when’s the last time you know, last touch, last last communication and maybe just everyone listening, make a pact that you will have no people in that database that doesn’t hear from you every single month in some capacity and 2022. And just see what happens by the end of 2022. I would be shocked if you don’t get more referrals, or more of those people in your database use you or both. And you know, I’m just using once a month as as just a
Ryan D’Aprile 24:00
no, it’s once a month. That’s the way to do it. And I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never ever seen anybody do it, and it not work for them. But I’ve seen people not do it. And they struggle. And I’m like, Why do you make this complicated? Why? Why is this complicated? And when I’m ever in a room of people, right? Say it’s 2020 people, right coaching, I’ll say 20 percentage, which comes to four, only four of you are going to do what I’m telling you to do. 16, you are going to get entertainment, what entertainment is education, with no action equals entertainment. So I’ll be your clown for two hours. But there’s four of you here who’s going to hear what I’m telling you, you’re gonna laugh at it. And you’re the these are the ones who can make 150 300 $450,000 a year. And it’s like a Greek tragedy, but it’s the 8020 rule and you can’t get you can’t get away from it. So I tried to bring everywhere like look at who’s going to be the 20% they’re going to walk out of the room and do what you just said for the rest of the year for the year 2022. Sadly, in that group of 20 there’ll be four and those are your top of the top. And what those four did what’s not hard. It was not hard, but you can’t draw, you can’t coach drive. You can’t coach drive, you can teach and show discipline over time. And if somebody’s willing to do that, and they get the right activities, they’ll become discipline, and that this just becomes autopilot for them.
D.J. Paris 25:21
Yeah, boy, it’s so well said and I will leave with one other idea that this I’m stealing this from my our guest Ryan, but it is if you are struggling with Drive, if that’s something you probably and Ryan, I think would agree with this, as you probably haven’t, or maybe you’ve you haven’t well defined, or maybe you did well defined this and forgot it. But you probably haven’t well defined your why, like Ryan has a very specific y for all of his different businesses. And they involve his family and the feelings he’s going to have with interacting with them and being able to have freedom to do certain things based on the success of his businesses. And he knows his why. He’s, you’ve talked about it many, many times here on the show. You know, if you need to write it on a post it and put it on your mirror, it sounds silly, but remind yourself of your why that will help I think give you a little bit more strength when you have those mornings were like I just don’t want to do anything.
Ryan D’Aprile 26:16
Yeah, and ask yourself how, how many hours of the day was I? Was I unconscious? I mean, literally, was I just not conscious of my actions, my behaviors? I mean, if you could be conscious and you could take conscious action, deliberate practice. Like oh god forget her name. Angela Duckworth said deliberate practice. If you could have deliberate practice one or two hours a day. I mean, that’s, that’s just to compound for you. And again, it’s easy, but it’s a choice. And most people unfortunately, horseshit choices, just terrible, terrible choices with their time. But success in No, no doubt, success is a choice. Either choose to average choose not to through your efforts.
D.J. Paris 27:04
Awesome. Well, this is a great place to wrap up this episode, we will see Ryan on next month’s episode of our coaching moments. We’re so grateful to Ryan, he is the one he’s probably the busiest person I know. And he takes time out of his incredible the busy schedule every month to be on our show. So please, if you live in any of these states, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Florida and you are like you know, I am not getting great coaching and support from my existing firm or you just want to see what else is out there. Check out D APR Properties, go to D APR properties.com. They just have hundreds of top producers. They’re amazing Ryan coaches as well. And he the coaches he hires I’ve seen I’ve visited his his headquarters, it’s just beyond impressive. So definitely check out Depot properties.com. Also, if you’re a loan officer and looking for see what other firms are out there, check check them out. Midwest lending is the name of the loan, the lending institution. So everyone go out there visit Depot properties.com. And on behalf of the audience want to thank Ryan for his time today. He always brings great content to us. And on behalf of Ryan and myself, we want to thank the the audience and our listeners and viewers for continuing to support our show. I think we’re at about 310 episodes. We have more listeners now than we ever did. That’s thanks to you guys telling a friend about the show. Please send this coaching moment episode to one other either loan officer that could use a little motivation boost or strategy boost or another realtor that you know that could benefit from hearing from Ryan and send them a link to our website, so you can send them right over to keeping it real pod.com all of our episodes are there. And also thanks to our sponsor follow up boss for continuing to support our show. So Ryan, thanks so much and we’ll see you on the next episode. Thanks CJ
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