Joanne Bolt the founder of RealBossWomen discusses the limiting beliefs and how these ideas limit the development of your business. Next, Joanne talks about how do you decide what do you want to become and what keeps people from being at the top. Joanne discusses the importance of a supporting tribe and how she provides one. Another very important topic for Joanne is realtor safety and she provides suggestions on how minimize the risk on your everyday endeavors. Last, Joanne discusses her podcast and the conference she’s hosting in March.
Get your ticket for Focus Conference here.
Listen to Joanne’s B-Word Podcast by clicking here.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Joanne Bolt can be reached through email by clicking here.
This episode was brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of 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 today’s episode, we’re going to be speaking with Joanne bolt from the B word podcast also real boss women.com. We’re going to be discussing limiting beliefs of real estate agents and how to overcome them. But before we get to Joanne just a couple of quick reminders, please tell a friend I think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from listening to our show, send them a link to our podcast, you can shoot them right over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, and I think we’re right around 350 episodes now somewhere around there. They’re all there you can live stream them. You don’t need to have a special podcast app, you can just listen right from your browser. Or if they are a podcast person just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real hit the subscribe button. And last please leave us a review. If you are listening through a podcast app whether it’s Apple podcasts, iTunes, Google Play Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, etc. Let us know what you think of the show. It really helps us to keep improving, but also gets us more visibility among those podcast directories. So spend a few moments let us know what you think of the show. We really appreciate it but now on to our interview with Joanne bolt.
Today on the show, we have a returning guest Joanne bolt from real badass women.com also the host of the podcast, the B word which we’ll talk about in a moment, but let me first tell you more about Joanne Joanne bolt is a Top Producing real estate agent, a business mentor, a top podcast host and also a speaker. She’s fiercely committed to supporting other women and invests her time and mentoring women in the real estate field and all things they need to know in order to be successful. She’s real engaging, and she tells it like it is with no nonsense and all fun. After seeing numerous women in her life stopped short of seeing the full potential of their careers because of limiting beliefs. She saw the need for more honest conversation about the ups and downs of being a female in real estate in order to show women that they don’t have to have it all together to be successful and get started. She understands that every broker can show you how to do a listing presentation, but few agents will talk to you about the reality of running your household and real estate empire at the same time. From there the real boss women community the annual events and the B word podcast were born with a motto that we show women the shit they don’t they didn’t know they needed to know. Now visit Joanne at her website which is real boss women.com And also please subscribe to our podcast b word which is available everywhere podcasts are served Welcome once again Joanne
Joanne Bolt 4:23
Hey, thanks for having me back. I love it.
D.J. Paris 4:25
Yeah, you know I really happy to have you on the show. again and we there’s always so much to talk about I always think to being a woman obviously I’m not a woman in this industry is such a unique experience. And I think women account for like 66% of all realtors are
Joanne Bolt 4:45
667 According to Nar it’s
D.J. Paris 4:49
amazing to me because there is like a national association of of women realtors, which is amazing. But there really I don’t think is enough conversation around the experience of being a woman in this industry, and I have I talk to top producers, well all the time on our show, but even just in my private life, I’m shocked at how often I will hear them say, and these are top producers like yourself, they’ll say things like, you wouldn’t believe the way sometimes men speak to me. And I go really even as a top producer, and you’re like, yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes it can get tricky. And so I think, you know, it’s, it’s something that doesn’t get discussed as much,
Joanne Bolt 5:28
it really doesn’t. And that’s what I found. When I, when I started coaching and mentoring agents, I really discovered that there’s this common theme that happens amongst the women, realtors, and it’s sometimes we just need to talk about the shit we’re not supposed to talk about, you know, and it’s, it’s not stuff your broker can help you with. It’s not stuff that’s going to get taught at any other conference or a class you’re going to attend. But it’s the reality of being being the girl in real estate.
D.J. Paris 5:54
Yeah, well, it’s amazing to because women, I mean, we all know the pressures that women face in our in our society, which is, you’re all you’re supposed to be perfect in every possible way you’re supposed to is Oh, and you’re supposed to have an amazing career. So if there’s children, you’re supposed to, you know, be in charge of all of that. And you know, and right now, during the pandemic, a lot of it has fallen on women’s backs to take care of the education and making sure that you know, the kids are sitting in front of their zoom meetings, although hopefully, some of them are back to school at this point, not all God. But it’s still it’s an amazing amount of work. And I’ve also always heard the expression, if you want to get something done, give it to give it to a busy mother. So so it is it is amazing, and which is a cute thing. And we all laugh about it because it is true busy moms just get a lot done. And of course, not just not just mothers get things done that are women. But this idea that a woman can run her real estate career, have a family or a home life or a primary relationship that also gets the attention it needs, and really do everything in a way that’s healthy. Again, yeah, you’re right. I don’t think it’s talked about enough. And it’s like really hard to do.
Joanne Bolt 7:04
And most of us are doing it between the hours of nine and three. Yeah, because the reality is, once the kids are home from school or off their zoom, you can tell them not to come into your office, all you want, you can tell them not to interrupt you all you want. But yeah, they’re going to. And so we do most of our work from 9am to 3pm. And then after that, we really have to juggle all the things in order to make life run. Well, I
D.J. Paris 7:31
would love to dive right into today, which I know we wanted to talk about some limiting beliefs. And I don’t know if these will touch on this idea of perfection that that we expect from from women, which is completely unfair and unrealistic. But I would love to get into some of these limiting beliefs that I think are that you think are really holding women back in this in the real estate space. Yeah,
Joanne Bolt 7:54
so my, my biggest limiting belief I see women have is this doesn’t need to be the primary career for your family, that it’s a side hustle, or that they’re just doing this to pick up a little bit of extra money for the family to take a vacation or to pay for, you know, your spa treatments that you enjoy having and you don’t want your husband to always know about that you’re spending money on No, not like I’ve ever done that. And their limiting belief really does prevent them from doing the business at the highest level because they don’t see themselves as the breadwinner of the family. And whether they are are it doesn’t matter, they don’t see that they should or could be and therefore they miss a lot of opportunities to grow their business. Because they don’t, they don’t do all the lead generation and they don’t sit down and do the p&l, and they don’t look at it as a business business. They look at it as a side business or a hustle. And there’s a huge difference between that
D.J. Paris 8:50
I’ve never been a huge fan of the word side hustle. And I feel like maybe that words thankfully starting to phase out a little bit. But for many years, it was a real popular and I heard it more with women, especially busy moms who wanted to pick up some extra income on the side. But I don’t know how many people were successful with their side hustle. I think eventually, side hustles ultimately can turn into full time businesses, but it is really tough, right? Like really tough. We know, work so hard. Now Yeah.
Joanne Bolt 9:21
If you don’t give your mind fully to something to do, then it’s never gonna get to where it could be. And you never know the full potential of it. And so there’s no reason to sit back and say, Oh, well, this isn’t the primary for my family. This isn’t anything but a side job or a side hustle.
D.J. Paris 9:38
So if you were to replace that for some any of our listeners that, you know, sort of our I would assume the vast majority of our listeners maybe well, I don’t know maybe they do think that way I don’t know because we don’t get too much demographic information about our listeners. But I’m curious on if you you know, what would you say as a replacement belief for that?
Joanne Bolt 9:58
That this is Mike harir Yeah, flat out. And I know that that sounds simple. And it sounds like, you know, a lot of people are saying that they, they kind of look me with the dog look on their face. But a lot of them don’t ingrain that in their brain, they look at it and go, Oh, no, I picked this career, because I can go, you know, to the preschool during the day and drop off muffins with, you know, mommies and muffins, or because I can go play tennis three times a week, or because I can because I can. And they don’t recognize that that career really is a career. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter. If you’re working five hours a week, or 50 hours a week, it is still a career, and you need to look at it as such. So the obvious is the career,
D.J. Paris 10:41
it is a career. And we’re not necessarily saying career has to be full time, right? Because most moms, you know, working moms, you know, that’s a lot to juggle, and it doesn’t mean you’re going to be putting in 90 hours every week and not sleeping. I mean, you could certainly choose to go that route. But that’s not what really Joanne is talking about, we’re talking about creating just a healthy understanding of here’s how much time I can put into my business, or here’s how much time I’m willing to, and I’m in whatever amount that is assuming it’s a reasonable amount. I can that is my career.
Joanne Bolt 11:14
And honestly, that leads me into my second limiting belief, which is that you in order to be a super successful agent, you have to work 40 hours a week, or you have to work on weekends. Yeah, the truth is, a successful career for you is whatever really does meet the needs of your family, whether you become the primary breadwinner, or it meets whatever financial goals, you and your partner, or you and your kids, or you yourself has set for you. And you can sell 100 homes a year and not work on weekends, it can be done, I’ve done it. So that limiting belief that in order to be that top agent, or that super successful agent and not look at this as a side hustle is that I have to give up all my spare time and, and devote myself to the job that I’d like to shatter that belief because I know a lot of agents that literally do work from 10 to three, four days a week, and sell 15 million in the first quarter of the year. I myself haven’t worked a Sunday in four years. And I’m at the top of my field. So Don’t set yourself short by saying I have to work so much.
D.J. Paris 12:23
So now what what I’m hearing from our invisible audience at this moment is that sounds great. However, what happens when I have a client who says I can only go look at properties at Sunday at noon or 12? You know, 2pm and you are like, Hey, that’s my mom time, or that’s my family time or whatever, you’re busy, you know, and you’ve said you haven’t worked to Sunday. So how do you how do you work with that? Because I know realtors, often one, it’s one of the great reasons that realtors are successful is their people, people pleasers, right we want to be, we want to meet people where they’re at and whatever time they have. Realtors are notoriously challenged around setting boundaries. So what we’re really talking about is setting boundaries. So you have somebody who says, Hey, this is what I can do. And you now it bumps up against. Well, no, that’s my that’s my chuck, you know, I’m going ice skating with the kids or something. How, what do you do in that scenario?
Joanne Bolt 13:23
So there’s two things I normally do. And the second one is going to blow a lot of agents brains out there. Okay. The first one is I’m always upfront with my clients, I don’t work on Sundays, this is my family time. And this, you know, and I don’t really have to explain it. But please don’t ask me to show a home on Sunday afternoon. If it truly is the only time you can see a home maybe because today we’re in the market where if a home comes on the market, it’s gone four hours later, I will have someone in my organization or team who can meet you. But you need to know ahead of time that it’s not going to be me. Are we okay with this. And if we are we can keep moving forward. The second one, the one that
D.J. Paris 14:04
I just want, I want to pause for don’t forget your second one because I apologize. I’m interrupting Joanne, which is a horrible quality of mine. So I apologize. Interrupting women, by the way is also never a good idea I’ve learned in my life having been in relationships with women. So I apologize. However, I did want to say this is what she said is very, very profound. And I just want to pause for a moment and realize what she did is she didn’t say she gets the phone call on Sunday morning at 9am and says hey, I want to go see this property. And the person goes, well, I want to see it at noon and she goes well that says my date day off, or my day with my family, not a day off and probably never a day off from others. But this idea that she initially when she’s talking to her clients, she sets the boundaries. She tells them hey, here’s what I’m available. And oh by the way, if you need something at a very specific time, it’s the old anytime it can be done, I will do my best to make sure I have somebody to assist you with that. However, this is when I’m available. So there is no misunderstanding, there is no miscommunication. Now, again, you might have clients that test those boundaries, of course, like children, their parents, yeah, but but this is really, really critical. And I think a lot of agents are afraid to to say things like that. And I think most human beings are reasonable people, not everybody. But I think most people most of us go if my accountant, for example, who I would never expect to work on a weekend, by the way, because that’s not really when accounting stuff happens. But if if all of a sudden on a Sunday, I needed and she has never told me Don’t bother me on a Sunday, but but if I did, I wouldn’t expect to hear back from her. But if she wrote back and said, even on Monday, hey, I got your message on Sunday, I wasn’t able to get back to you as my family time. Just so you know, here are my hours. I’d be like, that makes sense. I get it. So I think most people will be understanding of that. But anyway, I just wanted to pause because I think what you said was really, really profound. But she didn’t wait until Sunday morning to then tell somebody Oh, I can’t do it today. I’m sorry, go ahead with your second one, because that was so good.
Joanne Bolt 16:10
So here’s the brain, mind blown moment, right? If you don’t want to adhere by those rules, I don’t work with you. Yeah, and it really is that simple for me, because I have nailed down who my niche client is who my ideal client is. And I let go of that limiting beliefs. So here’s the third limiting belief that I have to work with everyone in order to be successful. And the truth is, if you can’t respect that, I’m not going to work on Sundays, that you’re probably not going to be the client I’m going to enjoy working with, we’re not going to have a great relationship. And you need to go find an agent who works better to suit your needs. And I’m okay, letting a client go to find an agent that they’re better suited for than to keep a client that we’re both going to have a bad experience because I get resentful always having to tell them I can’t work on Sunday, and they get resentful always having to ask me to. And part of that really comes with, I’ve done a really good job over the years of defining my ideal client and, you know, catering to is the wrong word. But I know who I want to work with. That’s who I’m market to. That’s who I advertise to I have defined that and niche down into it. So honestly, most the time, if I get a client, I don’t actually have to have that conversation. They know enough about me to know, I’m not going to work on Sundays, and it’s okay.
D.J. Paris 17:32
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think we’re moving on, you know, we, we get so scared as agents to ever say no, to a client request, especially if we’re newer to the industry, we want to close every deal because probably we don’t have so many deals coming in at the beginning. And you know, it’s it’s, it can be very difficult to say, you know, I’m sorry, I can’t meet meet that need it. But once you learn how to say no, what I think that ends up doing, as long as you have reasonable sort of boundaries, you know, things that are reasonable, like if you tell your client, hey, by the way, here’s when I’m available to, you know, respond to a text message or an email, or by the way, here’s the best way to reach me, you know, don’t text me because that doesn’t work for me, or don’t email me or don’t, you know, you can tell your clients the best way to reach but I think, you know, setting boundaries around oh, by the way, if you text me at 11pm at night, guess what, I’m asleep, my kids are asleep, I won’t be responding to that. Now, there are plenty of realtors who just go screw the boundaries, I’m going to I’m going to respond at you know, 2am in the morning to sorry, 2am No matter what, because I want to be that fast. And that’s great and fine and whatever. But I suspect without healthy boundaries, you’re going to burn out, you’re just going to as an agent, you’re just going to get to get to a point where your clients, they know they can reach you at anytime, day or night. And now there’s an expectation that you have to respond because you have them. Because if all of a sudden if you respond at midnight, let’s and again that’s a really extraordinary thing. You’re going to date that Yeah, well, let’s just say you do one time. And then all of a sudden, what happens the next night if it comes in at 10pm. Well, that’s even earlier than midnight. And now all of a sudden you’re like, gosh, I was watching a show I was relaxing, I was having a glass of wine or whatever, or I was just playing with the kids or hanging out with whoever. I better respond. And so I think it creates this vicious cycle of you got to you got to be able to say look, any other profession. You can’t just like call an attorney up at you know, midnight on on a Wednesday answer. Yeah, they’re not going to do that. But we all all we automatically know that sort of in our society. We’ve been trained that a lot of professions are nine to five and real estate oftentimes isn’t. So I think this is really important is defining it for your clients. And you do it in and you get them to sign off
Joanne Bolt 19:51
and given yourself permission to define it. And that I think is where a lot of agents go wrong. They they really do They, you know, they can’t see 90 days out, they can only see in 30 day increments because that is the average contract that we do. They get scared that next month, they don’t already have closings on the books. So they therefore are terrified at 90 days out because they really don’t have anything on the books. And oh my gosh, I depend on commission, and they don’t give themselves permission to set the boundaries. And let me tell you something. Clients are like puppies. Okay, if you send a puppy to boarding school, and it comes home or training school, and you’ve done training, and you tell that puppy you can’t get on the couch, you can’t get on the couch if you can’t get on the couch. And then one night, you have a glass of wine and it’s cold outside and you want to snuggle up with the puppy on the couch and you let the puppy on the couch. Good luck getting that dog ever off that couch again, because that puppy is like, Nope, she broke the rules. All I got to do is give him my puppy eyes. So they’re the same thing. If you tell a client, I’m not gonna go out on Sundays. And then you go out on Sunday, guess what? You’re gonna keep expecting it.
D.J. Paris 21:01
Yeah, it’s it’s the West. Speaking of puppies, I have my 13 and a half year old, old lady Chihuahua is underneath my desk right now, who has a whole sorts of health issues, but she’s hanging in there. Anyway, I could talk about that all day. But but when I first got her 13 and a half years ago, I hired a trainer. And the funniest part. And I think this is for anyone who has who has a new dog, please hire a trainer, because the trainer came in. And she she looked over the dog and my dog was Gosh, I don’t even remember how old you know, I don’t know, if six months, maybe nine months, something like that. And she goes, okay, yeah, your dog works perfectly. And I go, well, not really like the dogs. If she goes, it’s you. That doesn’t work perfectly.
Joanne Bolt 21:40
My trainer told me he’s like, Yeah, I have to train you more than the dog. I’m like,
D.J. Paris 21:45
Oh, 100% and dogs are you know, for you know, dogs, of course are a little different than humans. But but as far as behavior, you know, we learn by repetition, we learn by by consistency. And what you’re saying is so, so important. So it goes to my point about if you respond at midnight on a Tuesday, and again, you want to you’re doing it, there’s a real positive intention there of you wanting to help the client. But now you’ve also set an expectation that that’s when you’re available.
Joanne Bolt 22:15
And you know, you don’t have to come across as a unwilling agent, when you tell your clients like please don’t call me past 10 o’clock at night or nine o’clock, or even seven o’clock. I, I tend to be very real and authentic with my clients and think that they appreciate that more. So I will laugh with them and be like, listen, I could answer your texts at 10 o’clock. But there’s a high likelihood I’ve had a glass or three of wine, and you really don’t need me to answer your texts at 10 o’clock. And the minute you you know, you laugh with them about that they’re way more understanding than if you’re just like, I only work eight to five, don’t call me after no be human, be real with them. And they’re much more likely to respond to your boundaries in a positive way.
D.J. Paris 22:56
And for me 100% And just like with a puppy, I have my dogs now Now obviously, an elder canine citizen, but, but I still make mistakes, right? I’m still not perfect. So there are times where you might all of a sudden realize, oh, my gosh, I just now set the expectation that I am available at a certain time because, you know, I responded. And what you can always do if you’re transitioning out of always being available and people are still messaging is, is you could always if you want to until you really have those boundaries well defined, just say great idea or great question. I’ll get back to you first thing in the morning. Like, if that’s what you have to do to at least they will feel bad, they will automatically reply to you and go I am so sorry for bothering you. Because that’s what we do. When we hear somebody says great idea. Let me get back to you first thing in the morning or oh my gosh, I didn’t realize it was late or no problem. Have a good evening. And
Joanne Bolt 23:50
that remember, you have to train yourself to set boundaries because no one has trained you to do that. Yeah. Industry have trained you not to
D.J. Paris 24:00
what other limiting beliefs are coming out. I think we’re on our fourth one now. Gosh, there’s so many limiting what did we or did we hit? Do we hit on all of them already?
Joanne Bolt 24:07
Well, that’s a lot of my main four, I would say my other limiting belief, especially in the in the realm of being the girl is that we can’t be the CEO, we can’t really be the owner of the business. You know, we can’t separate the business from the personal aspect. And that comes a lot from watching. You know, the high D agents out there. They struggle a lot in their offices, because when you’re at the top, it gets really lonely. And so they tend to you know, they’re perceived as unapproachable. They’re perceived as not fun to be around, because they’re just doing all the things that they have to do to run the business. And so a lot of women stopped themselves from getting to the top level because they’re like, oh, I don’t want to be like that or I don’t want to be perceived that way or I don’t want people to think of me like I’m all All business and no clay. And the truth is if we just shatter that little limiting belief, and no, it’s all in how you react to people as to whether they perceive you as being unapproachable and cold at the top, and then you can start to see the opportunities around you. But if you don’t want to get there, because you’ve made a, you know, a decision about someone else who’s above you, and that you think you have to be that way, in order to be at the top, you’re never going to see the opportunities that are there.
D.J. Paris 25:27
I think, too, I think you’re so right. And I had a very, very smart person in my life, many years ago, who was a really skilled coach. And one of just the wisest people I’ve ever met. And he had said, most people really aren’t afraid of success as much as they’re afraid of sorry, I said it backwards. They’re not as afraid of failure as their of success. Because as you said, they might see somebody who has what what in their mind, they think that would be great. And then they go, but look at all this stuff, I have to give up, look, we will who I have to become, now I have to become the unapproachable person now other people are going to resent me and envy me, maybe in my office, they’re going to look at me and go, Why is she doing? So? Why are he Why is he? Why is no? Why is he so lucky? Yeah. Why would I want to be? Why would I want to have? Why would I want other agents to be like, she got another listing? Or, you know, whatever. Yeah, I mean, these are, these are real things that happen, let’s not pretend that people at the top don’t have, you know, some arrows kind of being pointed at them. Of course they do.
Joanne Bolt 26:36
Let me tell you, when I was running my team at one of the brokerages, I was the number two team in the office, and I never let myself get to number one. And I never went to the monthly team meetings to accept the awards. Because what I found was, the more I did that, the less the newer agents wanted to pop into my office and ask for advice, the more unapproachable, they thought that I was, and I wanted them to come in, like I love mentoring agents. And so clearly a super nice person, I mean, you know, but you can be perceived all kinds of ways. And so I quit doing the things that put me at the top, because I just didn’t want agents to not feel that they could come approach me. And when I did that, it actually did make a difference. And so, you know, we all carry our own limiting beliefs on how high up in this business, we can really get in some of its our own myths, misconceptions.
D.J. Paris 27:28
I also, I think, I am so glad you had the that you had the vulnerability and the courage to share that because I am an awareness of what stopped you and not that you need to be number one, of course, nobody needs to be anything. But if you want to be at a certain level, I think too. And I’m just going to interrupt myself, because I’m curious to get your take on this. I really think the business planning portion of being a realtor is not talked about as much. There’s a lot of people that do talk about it. But it isn’t really built into a typical curriculum of like how to be a successful realtor. It’s like, what do you want your life to look like? What do you want your the perception, you know, to be of you as a as an agent, from your clients from other agents? It’s really, what are the clients I want to work with? You talked about having a well defined list of even who you want to work with. I think most people haven’t even figured that out. And I’m not saying, Look, I know why they haven’t figured it out. It’s not really taught that much. So can we talk a little bit about sort of defining what you do want in this business so that you can start moving toward, as opposed to just going well, I don’t want to be, you know, I don’t I don’t you know, there’s a lot of like, I’m worried about sort of what’s going to happen to me. So how do you sort of take ownership agency of that and go, here’s what I want to become?
Joanne Bolt 28:52
I think the first thing you have to decide is what you don’t want to become? Yeah, you know, like, I didn’t want to become the agent who worked seven days a week, and who looked up and realized my kids went to college, and I don’t remember their baseball games, you know, because I only got to attend some of them. And so when you start with what you don’t want to do, then it becomes a lot clearer on what you do want to do. And when I looked around and said, You know, I, I’m not going to work seven days a week, I’m just not going to do it. I thought okay, of my last eight years in the business, which clients were more likely to call me on a Sunday. And I found that there were two categories and I’ll be open about that. It was the men, you know, the corporate men, sure, or it was the new young first timers, because they are all hopped up on like the, you know, the high and the euphoria of buying a home. And so they they’re the ones who are getting on Zillow at three o’clock in the morning and calling you at, you know, 10am
D.J. Paris 29:51
they have all the time in the world,
Joanne Bolt 29:52
time in the world energy and yeah, and it’s funny that I kind of gave up the corporate men and the first time homebuyer And I really started focusing more on the families that are kind of in certain stages of life. And they were more close to my stage of life, and what I was going through at the time, and I found we had more to talk about, they were more flexible with how I wanted to run my business and the time involved. And they were more interesting for me to work with, quite frankly. And so I started really defining that, and niching down into that, but it really also is taking ownership of a p&l and understanding as a business owner, that if I want to make this amount of money, and I’m gonna spend this amount of money on admin, or broker fees, or whatever else it is, I might have to give up doing this piece of the business, because I’m not going to work on Sunday. And so I’m going to give up some business, you know, or I might want to give up going to this conference, or I might want to give up this event in my life. But I need to add in this, this and this in order to achieve and being open to, you know, coaching, and mentors who have been there and done that guiding me along the way and building the business, you cannot do this by yourself.
D.J. Paris 31:07
And I think that leads us into something that I know you’re super passionate about. And I have the exact same feelings, which is finding a supportive tribe. In this in this industry. Can you talk a little bit about what that means and why you’re why it’s so important to you. It
Joanne Bolt 31:23
again, it goes back to my days in the office, I found that I was super lonely at the top. And I think I think it’s super lonely at the bottom too, by the way, because we by nature are we come from a or we’re told to come from a thought process of abundance. But the truth is, we have a scarcity mindset because we never know where the next client is going to come from. And so if you hit struggles, you had no one to really talk to, if you had successes, you had no one to really talk to. Or if you had the random crap that you’re like, I don’t even know if this pertains to the business, but I just need to vent and get it out of my system. I didn’t have those people. And I’ve always heard you know, you are the sum of the five you surround yourself with. And I really struggle with acts, I was like, Listen, I want to hit here in my business. And I’m just not sure there’s anyone around me at that level that can really push me to that next one. And I kept having to go seek them, seek them seek them. And when you start finding your tribe of people, you start realizing they have the same struggles you do they have the same insecurities you do. They’ve been in your shoes or, or they need to hear from you because you’ve been in their shoes. And it really gets to where there’s no judgment. There’s no hypocrisy, there’s no gossiping, it’s just hey, this is what’s going on in the business, what’s my next step and even talk about it. And when you can do that you can hash out those thoughts about the business and what you want to do or what you’ve been through and kind of get it off your shoulder. And the path just clears a little bit more for you. And it’s a lot easier to walk down that path.
D.J. Paris 32:57
I could not agree more. And I for those who are listening who are thinking, Well, how do I how do I do that? How do I start finding my my supportive tribe, you have some suggestions or advice about what they might do to start finding those people that they can share, share their life experiences with and support each other.
Joanne Bolt 33:16
You can go on Instagram, you can go on Facebook, you can go on Google, and you can start hunting, read some books, let’s listen to some good podcast, you’re gonna get some great, great people that come on podcast and speak and, and you might be able to follow something that they’re leading. I lead a group called real boss women, I’ll be open and honest. It’s a broker agnostic group. I started just for the women in real estate, or our industry. And we have a lot of conversations about everything from what’s the best way to do social media to run your business to, hey, I’m a team owner, and I just had a team member leave and she was with me for four years. And I just want to curl up in a ball because emotionally it wrecks me that she left my team, like we’ve got all those conversations that go on. And you can find your tribe in any of those groups, you just got to keep bouncing around until you find the one that fits you.
D.J. Paris 34:10
What’s great, too about about having a tribe and I have a men’s group that I meet with, it’s the same men’s group I’ve met with I meet every other Monday. And we talk about our lives and our lives. And one of the expressions we have in there is all of you is welcome here meaning your anger is welcome. Your fears are welcome. Your sadness is welcome. And also all the good stuff is welcome to the fun stuff. But it’s a place where you can bring the hard stuff. And most of us especially if you know our partner isn’t also in real estate or isn’t isn’t of the same gender or gender identity and is just having a totally different experience because of the way we differentiate how we treat you know, different genders. And so this is a really important need and to be able to have those kinds of communications with other people. People who are just like you who want that, that connection and the ability to say, I need help, and not so much I need, you know, professional help, but just I just need somebody to talk to about this thing. And it is it’s, it’s, it’s intimate, it’s vulnerable, it’s healing. And, and it’s in, it’s also being of service to others. And it’s, it’s really just, it’s transformed my life, I’ve been doing it for 10 or 11 years, I wouldn’t change it, it’s, it’s just about the most important thing in my life. So I could not agree more and real boss woman has that, that that group they have, they have that function. So we really encourage, I think everybody needs support, everybody needs help. And this is a great opportunity to feel like oh, by the way, I’m not alone.
Joanne Bolt 35:47
And the thing I really set out to do in this group was established subsets within it. So we’ve got a monthly mastermind for our moms, we’ve got one for our team owners, we have one at the beginning of the month, where everyone comes together, and we do some form of industry learning or teaching kind of moment. I mean, this month, I taught on systems and apps that you didn’t even know you needed in your business, you know, and so and then we get to talk about all of it. And sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry, and sometimes we you know, have to pull our big girl panties up and just move on with the business because someone will tell us that we’re being stupid, you know, and, and we’ve got that and the best thing about that it in my world is it doesn’t matter what broker you’re at. So don’t come at me just from a, you know, a REMAX perspective, or just from an Anthony Atlanta perspective, or just from a kW perspective, you know, perspective, I’m exp, I don’t care, because we are all doing the same business. We’re just choosing to do it in different platforms. So we’ve all got the same issues.
D.J. Paris 36:49
Yeah, I really encourage everyone to find a tribe, or certainly check out Joanne’s website, real boss woman.com and join join Joanne’s group and really get a good sense of, of women supporting women. I just think, you know, it’s so funny to like, us men. I don’t think we’re smart enough to put something like that together. Right.
Joanne Bolt 37:10
There’s a Women’s Council of
D.J. Paris 37:12
work. Yes. Yeah. Maybe we’re smart enough. But we’re, no, no, I would say we’re not smart enough. Because there is like there is a Women’s Council of Realtors, which is such a wonderful organization. There is
Joanne Bolt 37:21
no, that group I do. And it’s you know, and I’ve learned a lot from that group. This one just we get a little bit more. You know, I mean, last month, we laughed with the moms group over mom guilt for not wanting to go in all the time and doing muffins with mom. Yeah, like, yeah, these are the kinds of things that yet we’re gonna teach you this stuff to move your business forward and laugh with you about the other stuff. And that’s kind of the difference.
D.J. Paris 37:45
So the takeaway is, please find your tribe and.com robots. woman.com has a wonderful tribe to explore as well. And I want to sort of wrap up, I know we were going to talk about sphere of influence stuff. But I actually want to talk about safety. Just on the topic of I think women have to face this particular issue much more than men, I think most of us would agree, realtor safety. And it’s something that even on the show, we just recently had a safety expert Come on. But we’ve only done one episode on safety after over 350 episodes, so I need to talk more about it as well. And Joanne said something very important when we were asking her what you want to talk about today. She goes, it’s literally the most important topic that’s least discussed. And so I just want to spend a few minutes on this. And a lot of it too is please don’t skip past this as Oh, this is just common sense stuff, because it isn’t, and it happens. If you work in this industry long enough, you will be in a position at least once a hopefully never but probably once where all of a sudden you you know, you start to get a feeling like maybe this isn’t the most safe idea. And women have to just be more conscious of this sadly than than us man. But can we talk a little bit about what safety means to you? And maybe some suggestions you have,
Joanne Bolt 39:00
oh, my gosh, I could go on for this one for hours. It’s one of my hot buttons, because I actually left the industry in 2006 after being abducted by a buyer right out of my office. Most people who know me know that story. I know you and I have discussed it before. Yes. It’s still not talked about a lot in the industry. And I actually had a broker two years ago. Tell me I wasn’t allowed to give my speech to their office. Wait for it. Because it would scare women out of real estate and his job is to grow the office. Oh, sure.
D.J. Paris 39:36
Well, his needs are more important than yours.
Joanne Bolt 39:39
Clearly, you know? Yes, there are the standard thoughts of do not go meet a buyer that you don’t know that you haven’t checked out. I mean, yeah, we’ve all heard those. I got taken from my office at a buyer console. I mean, I did meet them an open house. I didn’t show up by myself. I went to the office. So if I could give you One biggest piece of safety advice is everyone in our family has live 360 on our phones, or on our watches, or on some, something that’s going to be on all the time that anyone else in the family can push a button and kind of get a general idea of where you are. So if I’m not home, by the time I told my husband, and he can’t reach me by text message, he can hit live 360 and get an idea of where I am. And if I’m not where he thought I should be, he can get a little concerned and, and I do tell that to a lot of women, and they’re like, I don’t want my husband’s checking up on me, or the guys are like I don’t want my wife knowing where I am all the time. That’s like stalker, you know, it’s a safety issue. You guys, when I was abducted, I did not have an opportunity to call for help. No one knew where I was, we didn’t have live 360 back then. But now you’ve got tools, there are some really fantastic bracelets out there that they sell now that look like really good jewelry. And you can literally just kind of press your hand down on it, and it will call 911 for you and alert them to your location. And it doesn’t even come across as a safety feature. It’s just, I’m not comfortable, I need some help here. And they’ll send help to you. So letting having the technology that we have today and utilizing some of that so that someone always can track you down. It’s just not a bad idea, especially as a female, because you just don’t know. And oh, by the way, just having someone call their lender and get pre approved means nothing. Because they can call the lender, they can give fake information, they can send a fake ID over, they can get pre approved and the person who meets you at the door doesn’t match the ID that got sent your lender and guess what, nine times out of 10 your lender doesn’t send you that Id anyway, they just send you a pre approval letter. Well, you think because your buyer took the time to do that, but they’re legit. No, that does not mean it. So unless you really do know them, you never show up somewhere by for the first time ever.
D.J. Paris 42:09
So what
Joanne Bolt 42:11
is right there and one
D.J. Paris 42:13
really great, really great advice. And I’m I you know and I really am saddened to, to hear again about about obviously we know you are okay today. But the idea that somebody would would do that in your office is is really, you know, unfortunate, obviously, and, and scary. And is there anything that agents can do prior to the meeting, to really get a sense of who this person is? To me, the first thought that comes to my mind, and I want you to correct me if there’s there, I’m sure there’s better ways to do this, is to even say, Hey, I know we haven’t met before. As a safety protocol, my office asks that I get a copy of your driver’s license or and I don’t even know if that would really be all that helpful. But are there suggestions you have that can be done in advance that agents can do to minimize the amount of risk? I definitely
Joanne Bolt 43:05
think that that is one of them, the more hoops your person has to jump through the less likely they are to, you know to proceed? We actually did get the driver’s license, it was not real of the person that took me because they were in it for the lot like they Yeah, they had really thought this through now they average I think person who’s going to do you harm, the more hoops you make them jump through the less likely they are to proceed with whatever you’ve got going on. But it’s just one of those things that the least amount you can put yourself in the potential for harm the better you are and not jumping up on you know if a if a buyer calls and says oh, I got your name from so and so and you happen to know so and so and like, Oh, I’m just gonna go meet you out here because this house has a hotline and we have to go look at it being okay to say no to a client until you hit figured out if it’s a safe situation is worth way more than that commission. I don’t care what that commission is. So taking time to slow down yourself as an agent and trust your gut instinct if your gut says it’s off its off period
D.J. Paris 44:12
yeah, I’ve learned that in life that my intuition is some is rarely almost never wrong. I might not always understand why I’m having the intuition to
Joanne Bolt 44:24
want to ignore it but it gave us our intuition for a reason.
D.J. Paris 44:30
And that’s a really important thing it is it is a it is something inherent in us and it keeps us safe and also you know look do not meet a buyer for the first time unless they’re you know them at the showing right like go somewhere public where you know a Starbucks or whatever. And again, I know most people who have listened to this already know that but but really have a bracelet have an app that’s always on that and have safety people in your life that know your schedule, whether it’s family or whether you just have an agreement with other realtors who you go, you know what, here’s my scheduled for today, I’m gonna be checking in with you
Joanne Bolt 45:06
with you, even if it’s another email two on one is a lot more likely to detour someone than one on one.
D.J. Paris 45:16
And in the last few minutes we have I want to talk about, by the way, great, great safety structures, we want all of our listeners to have wonderful safe careers. So thank you for for making that a priority to talk about today. It really, really appreciate that. I know our listeners do. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about you know what you’ve got going on. So you have a podcast. Let’s talk about it.
Joanne Bolt 45:38
Alright, so I started the podcast is called it’s called the B word with Joanne bolt. The B word is a play on my last name is bolt. And you can kind of be a itch sometimes in this business when you’re a high D like myself. And so I started that podcast, we do two episodes a week one episode is an interview with another person in the industry. And then on Thursdays, I draw quick tips where I do give you just some good advice on being an agent and how to get your business up and running. You know everything from social media to what the heck your first admin should actually do for you, you know, because that is a question I get asked a lot. And it’s been super fun. I really enjoy it because I get to know my audience a little bit because we let them text questions to me for me to answer and, and I go through them and I go through all of them myself. And then I hand them over to my admin so if you ever do DM me or ask a question you want answered no, it I am actually looking at it. So
D.J. Paris 46:35
and you can subscribe to b word from any podcast app, just do a search cast.
Joanne Bolt 46:41
Yeah, Apple is probably the one that we have the most people on. But Spotify you know, Google is actually everywhere. But then Megan’s thing I’ve got going on. Yes, I don’t even know your conference is the conference. We are hosting our first spring conference March 23 and 24th here in Atlanta. Holy crap, do I have some good people lined up. So I went with the concept that broker agnostic, so we’ve got speakers from several major brokerages coming in, and I looked at who our audience is and what they need. So I can’t wait for this one. We’ve got keynote speaker Giselle, who karte she’s not even a real estate agent. She is just one of the biggest badass is on Instagram around and I happen to get to know her from Chelsea pipes, who’s a friend of mine. And they were both on Inman connects panel for social media. And so she’s gonna come in and she’s really going to talk about how to get on video, why to get on video, how to use it in your business. And then we’re always going to address because you know me, we’re going to talk about the girl stuff, we’re going to address the factors of things like you don’t like your voice, you don’t like your face, you’re scared to do this because of what you think you’re going to look like. So we’re going to talk about those things too, as well as show them how to really create some darn good videos. And then we’ve got some breakout speakers that are here just to help the moms figure out how to set their schedules own their mom, Enos as well as their business. And we’ve got some good women that are going to help our team leaders know how to run a team with Grayson indignity.
D.J. Paris 48:15
And this is at the hotel Midtown in Atlanta, and I have not been to the hotel in Midtown, but I’ve been to Midtown Atlanta. And it is just a super fun area as well. But yeah, lots of great speakers. I mean, look, this is something worth traveling to, as well, for anyone who lives in elsewhere in the country. This is Women Helping Women, top producers, people outside of the industry as well with all sorts of great ideas. And this is the focus conference. It starts in March, march 23 and 24th. In Atlanta, there’s plenty, there’s plenty of time to to register. But don’t wait. Because really make a commitment. Any conference like this, this isn’t a conference you want to attend. It’s not expensive. It’s totally reasonable. And you can actually get more information on it right at real boss women.com. So you’ll see there’s a link right there. And it’s really, by the way, very beautiful page for I mean, just from a web design perspective. I love it. I think it is so cool. But there’s couple different tiers. Guys, you really as you said guys, men and women, you really should
Joanne Bolt 49:20
come I’m not going to tell him no, he may you know find some of it interesting, but I won’t tell him no. And you’re going to sweat. Only pass for the conference speakers. I do encourage you to come the night before and grab the whole past because we’re going to have a Prosecco party at the top floor of the hotel and I went today and saw the venue and it’s it’s pretty kickin
D.J. Paris 49:42
Awesome. Well everyone please there’s so many opportunities here number one subscribe to be word podcast. Check out the real boss women website which is everything Joanne but real boss women.com attend the conference March 23 24th. In Atlanta, Georgia. You even if you just get one good idea which you’ll get about have dozens of good ideas, but even you just get one good idea. It’s worth more than what the small investment is. And you’re going to just be talking to lots of wonderful, powerful, successful women who want to help. So Joanne, thank you again for being on our show. I had a great time. I love having you on. You’re so much fun. You’re so great at this. And people really, everybody should be checking out real boss woman.com And subscribe to the B word. Sorry, not the B word. Subscribe to be word podcast. We’ll put links to all of this in the show notes. So on behalf of everyone listening, thank you so much, Joanne. And we’re watching behalf of Joanna and myself. Thank you. Thank you Please tell one other agent about this episode. They have one other professional real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from Joanne send them a link to our show. That’s how we grow and also tell them subscribe to be word as well. So please do that. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Joanne. Bye guys.
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