Welcome to the November episode of Learning With A Lender with Joel Schaub!
In this episode Joel Schaub discusses the recent rate cut by the Federal Reserve and how this is NOT necessarily going to reflect mortgage rates decreasing. Often these cuts are predicted (in-advance) and lenders already have baked them into current rates. Also, Joel provides a strategy about asking your loan officer for a no-cost loan, and why that often is preferable than the lowest rate (plus fees). You’ll be able to call your contacts with this information and provide incredible value!
D.J. Paris 0:00 This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email joel@rate.com Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the show.
Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate brokers for real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your guide and host through the show today we have our our regular episode learn with a lender with Joel shop. Now if you’re not familiar with Joel Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He has been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And it’s gotten to that level because of what he does directly for his agents. And what he does is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer your client on every transaction. Last year alone, Joel gave back over $271,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% nationwide. Now out of 380,000 loan officers in the country. Joel is ranked number 181 year to date, he has done 268 transactions for just under 98 point 6 million in closings. In the month of October alone, Joe’s closed 14 million in sales averaging over 10 million a month. And by the end of this week, Joe will hit a huge milestone in his career, and it will close over $100 million in one year, not even a full year in loans truly incredible. If you’re looking for a mortgage professional, Joel is the very best in the industry. And he can be reached at joel@rate.com Again, joel@rate.com and also on telephone and he answers the phone at 773-654-2049. So let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan that I know Joel Schaub Good afternoon.
Joel Schaub 2:39 Thanks for having me on DJ every time I hear the numbers, it just reminds me of how much We’ve both grown since the first time I’ve done the show,
D.J. Paris 2:47 we were just talking about this, I couldn’t believe that you’ve grown to $100 million. That is, it’s almost like a fantasy number. And you’re there. So this is what you’re 16 for you in the business, something like that.
Joel Schaub 3:01 16 years, it doesn’t happen overnight. But it’s all about that giving back and teaching and educating. And that’s really what we pride ourselves in. So it’s not just the numbers and the accolades. That’s all great. But you know me, you know me off air. And it’s I’m the same way on these as I am. If you meet me in a room, I’m I’m open, I want to give back and want to see how I can help these agents achieve the numbers that I’ve been doing. And I think we got a good show today. We got some good stuff coming up.
D.J. Paris 3:33 Yeah, and I’d like to tell the listeners because this is a big milestone for Joel hitting 100 million in 11 months, which is truly incredible. And I just want to tell people who might be newer to the show how Joel got to be on this podcast, talking about giving back. I met Joel at an event that he was a sponsor for. And I didn’t know Joel and Joel certainly didn’t know me. And I knew he was working the desk when people were coming. And he was saying hello, he was greeting people and giving them their name tags, because he was one of the sponsors. And he said to me, he says, I listened to your podcast, you don’t have a lender on your show you need I need to be on your show. I have so much great information to give to your audience. They need to hear this. And it was I will tell you, I’m listeners that every single day, a lender will reach out and say I want to be on your show. I want to be the next guest on your show. And but what they never say is here’s all the great information I offer. And as soon as we met Joel, we’re like, Well, that’s it. Joel is our guy. And that is his passion is really giving back. And as Joel will tell you, he is a lending nerd. And so he comes on every month and tells us careful, be careful. Hey, I love nerds. I’m a nerd too. Yes. So we’re excited to have you. All right. What do we want to talk about today? Oh, actually, I would I have a thing I want to bring up so and I want to get your thoughts on this because I did a little research on what’s going on in lending right now. And I saw an article on MSNBC just published today that said refinances are up. As of last week, I believe up 188% over last year. Can we let’s talk about that.
Joel Schaub 5:13 No, it’s absolutely true. I mean, the roadmap for the show today is I am going to talk about the Fed cut that just recently happened. I’m going to discuss the winter market and the opportunity for buyers and some things that they actually don’t think about. And then I’m going to wrap up with a prediction on rates for 2020. Just so that we can kind of get a roadmap of where we’re going. And you’re right, the refinance volume is up almost 200% year over year, and to kind of do a little deep dive and kind of understand what that means. I was telling a story last week, and and this really hit home to the buyer. I explained remember when you bought in 2018. And our focus was all about the rate, isn’t it? So true. DJs people are just so focused, when they’re closing, what are your rates, right? There’s 100, things that go into a transaction or more, sometimes they just get stuck on that one number. And they feel like I gotta call five different places and find the bank, that’s gonna give me the lowest rate. That’s not necessarily the best way about going about it. We’ve discussed this in years past on the show, maybe finding the person that has the lowest rate is equivalent to finding the cheapest eye surgeon
D.J. Paris 6:25 Exactly. And I will tell you, when I got my laser eye surgery done 10 years ago, I did not go with the lowest cost provider. And there are places that we were doing it for pennies on the dollar. And I spent a significant more because I wanted the surgeon that had done 1000s of these. And he charges a little bit more because of that experience. And that was worth it to me.
Joel Schaub 6:47 So what happened here was no matter what year, you know, what they bought in the last three years, so 2015 1617 and 18, that’s four full years. Rates today are better than any time they close. That means all of the time that they went in, they spent shopping trying to find the lowest rate, just with one simple phone call today, the market rates because of the recent fed cuts three in a row, the markets better. And so there’s an opportunity, and that’s why people are flocking back and taking advantage of the refinance rates right now.
D.J. Paris 7:20 So what should Realtors be doing to not take advantage of have the courage but but to see the opportunity that lies in this scenario?
Joel Schaub 7:32 I have my agents going through and doing a very specific thing for most of you, you’re looking for touch points, if you’re a good agent, the idea that you could reach out with some value is paramount. Can you find something that you could reach back out to those clients that you closed? And provide them some value? Okay, so how many agents? Do we have that? They’ll call back? And they’ll say, Do you know anybody buying or selling? I’d be a great referral.
D.J. Paris 8:00 That yeah, I’m never too busy for your referrals, that kind of thing? Yeah.
Joel Schaub 8:05 That one? Well, sure. Yes, I bet. But that doesn’t, that doesn’t do anything. For me, I loved you when you helped me buy the house. So I’m a big fan of educating the buyers and providing something of value. So the conversation looks like this, you take your list of the last two years, and now that it’s getting close to the holidays. In even if you’re a really busy agent, you don’t have hundreds of closings, right? You take the last two years, if you have 50 or 100 clothes, you’re You’re doing good. For the average person, you might have 50 clients that you closed over the last two years. It’s a really manageable number. Okay. And the conversation goes like this, you reach out to them and you’re providing value, and you’re letting them know something that you learned today. And here’s the takeaway. You can refinance your mortgage, you can lower the interest rate, but nine times out of 10. When you call the bank, they want to charge your fees, right. And that’s the way they advertise everyone advertises interest rates, okay. They rarely talk about closing costs, they want to kind of bury it, or hide it or not talk about it. Okay. So here’s the takeaway, there are two different types of mortgages that you can get when you refinance, the one that makes the bank a bunch of money, and the one that’s better for the client. So let’s think about it. If the best rate in the market today is three and a half percent, and you call up the bank, they want you asking for that three and a half percent rate, because they’re gonna charge you two or three grand and fees to refinance your mortgage. And they’ll say since you’re at four and a half, it definitely makes sense to go from four and a half to three and a half. And you’ll make that up in a couple of years. You know, maybe you save $100 a month and over $3,000 It’s 30 months if you’re going to be In the house for 30 months, great. Okay, that’s what the banks want you to do. Okay. And here’s the little secret. Once you call your own bank and you say I’d like to refinance, you ask them what the best rate in the market is no, provide it. And then you’ll say, now what rate? Can you get me if you don’t charge me anything, and you cover all of the costs, the title fees, the appraisal and the lender fees? Bingo. Now, the now the mortgage guy will go, okay, yeah, I’ll tell you what that is. And the idea there is maybe it’s 375, or 3875, maybe it’s more than the three and a half percent. And they will be. But I can go from four and a half percent, down to 3.875, for free. And I’ll still save $150 a month, or I could pay a ton of money and take the best rate in the market. Now.
D.J. Paris 10:53 I will take the gamble that you’re going to be there for that amount of time before the break even.
Joel Schaub 10:58 I love a no cost refinance, I love being able to educate clients on a no cost refinance. I think that most mortgage guys don’t want to talk about a no cost refinance, it makes them a lot less money. In the end, that’s the reason that I do so many transactions in a month, you know, it over 14 million, that’s a good year for a lot of mortgage guys.
D.J. Paris 11:21 And that’s a that’s a just an average month for you.
Joel Schaub 11:24 That’s a good month. That’s that was you know, that’s it’s because of the education piece of it. So here’s the second piece of what we were talking about here. So now that you know, you can do a no cost refinance, I talked to agents all the time. And they say, and I didn’t know that or I thought about that. But I didn’t know the components or the exactly how that worked. And so again, it’s very straightforward. It doesn’t have to just be me, whoever you got the mortgage through, you call up the mortgage company and say, What’s the best rate you can get me right now? Once you determine that, you’ll say now what rate can you get me if you cover all the fees? If the rates lower than what you’re paying, it probably makes sense to take the no cost rate, especially since we think rates may be continuing to come down. So we don’t want to pay for a rate that a few months from now or next year, we could get for free. And we don’t want to just wait. Okay, everyone says Should I wait, hey, things are gonna go down further. They might, but there’s a very good chance that they do not. So let’s take the best way you can where you’re not paying anything right now. If it goes down further, great. But at least you didn’t pay any money and you got instant savings.
D.J. Paris 12:33 That makes perfect sense. And I want to let’s bring that I want to bring this back for a moment to the listener because Joel just said some really profound things. So we’ve always said whenever rates have dropped, I’ve always with the brokers we haven’t even our own company and certainly other brokers I mean, and on the show though all of our listeners we say call your clients call everyone you know that owns a house and is paying a mortgage and say hey, rates have dropped great time to call your loan officer and see if rates refinance is a good idea. But what Joel just gave you a second level conversation, that by the way, this is not an email, you should be sending your client Hey, great time to refinance. By the way, here’s how you want to ask for a no cost loan. And here’s how to compare that is not an email that is a phone call, and maybe even an in person meeting if, if, if possible, but certainly a phone call. So this goes so far beyond Hey, great time to refinance. And by the way, when you call your your lending institution, here’s what you want to ask for. And boy, Joel, that is really, really great.
Joel Schaub 13:33 Take two three hours, guys, literally, this is an action plan. After you listen to this. You get your database for the last two years that people that had closed, okay. And the conversation is as follows. I know rates are down, you probably see it everywhere. I was just listening to a podcast, I got some really insight information, some real high level details. Did you know that you could call your mortgage bank back in once you get the best rate in the market? Ask them, what’s the rate you can get for free? Right now there’s a really good chance that you can actually save some money. Okay, that right there leads to one or two things. Wow, that’s so great. My sister is getting ready to buy a place. Can you help her? Right? This is what it does. givers gain if you literally are out there providing value and I am a dork for this type of stuff. But if you’re out there literally giving good to the universe and you’re giving back in all these ways. Agents tell me left and right. I took one of your techniques. And I have three new buyers or I got a new listing off from it. And you have to you just have to set some time. And while it’s slow, this is a great phone call. And that’s how you do it. That’s the easiest one. Right now rates are low. I want you to call back. You know Jim who did your mortgage remember he helped us he was great. Call him. But do this trick where you ask him what’s The fees, what’s the rate you can get with no fees?
D.J. Paris 15:03 Why what is it’s great. And this is again, this is why Joel is on the show. And I will do I want every one of our listeners to consider using Joel for their clients, or even their own transactions with their own investor, or just pricing or refinancing their primary residence because by supporting our partners like Joel, you help support our show. And it keeps Joel wanting to come back. And he has got deals from people who have listened who have reached out to him. So Joel, what is the best way that one of our listeners can reach out to you to to start that relationship?
Joel Schaub 15:37 And I’ll say it, but I want to preface that it’s not a sales pitch for us at all. I really want you guys, if you had a good relationship with that last lender, that’s what you do, you stick with it, you’re build loyalty, you have a relationship. And that’s paramount having that. Now if you have a really bad lender on the last one, call me, I definitely want to help them out. If it’s a brick and mortar bank, and they took a long time to get your paperwork or nobody answered at seven or eight at night or on a weekend. I’m here to help those types of things. So yeah, people can always reach me, I mean, it’s joel@rate.com, it’s J OEL at r a t e.com. And the direct line to me from 9am to 9pm, is 773-654-2049. And the focus here on that phone call guys wasn’t to say, Hey, call Joel, it’s literally you’ve provided value. And what I want you guys to get out of it is it really truly will pick up, especially around the holidays, you’ve called them before, they get to see friends and family and they have people in their house and they’re traveling. And if they actually take advantage of this, and do the work and make a phone call. They’re going to be talking about it around the Thanksgiving Day table. You know, hey, my realtor called me and gave me some real value. And now my payments down $150 Less. Don’t you think that’ll get you some more listings?
D.J. Paris 17:07 I would certainly hope so. And guys think about this, too. So the the holiday seasons coming up, we have Thanksgiving, we have the December holidays, and everybody who sends out something sends out a card on the holiday at the holidays. And by the way, that’s great. That’s fine. That’s better than nothing. But now you have this great opportunity before the holidays to do what nobody is doing. And I’d say even if it’s not somebody that you worked with, in the past, just call everybody you know who owns a house and say, Hey, I don’t know your mortgage situation is certainly none of my business. However, I’ve got this little trick that you can use to take advantage of the current dip in the rates. And here’s what you want to ask for. You know, I want to just pass this over to you thought you’d find it helpful. By the way, happy holidays, right? That’s so much value you’re providing. And the funny part is, what’s that expression, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. Just like Joel said, spend three to four hours. I mean, if it was me, and I was a producing broker, I’d spend like three to four days doing this because it is the biggest no brainer win in history, right? It’s a reason to pick up the phone and deepen that relationship.
Joel Schaub 18:15 That’s exactly what you do, you’re gonna get a lot of voicemails and just so to add a little extra value here, what it sounds like is Jim Suze, it’s Joel, I’m giving you a ring, hey, give me a ring back. I just wanted to connect with you. I know there’s a lot going on interest rates in the news, I have something that would be very valuable to you. Give me a ring back when you have a moment. And then you get them on the phone and you go through it, you’re going to get a lot of voicemails people don’t pick up I don’t pick up the phone. When it’s the cell phone, right? I pick up my business phone all the time. But these are consumers, they just bought a house, they’re not like us as far as real estate professional, so you’re gonna get a lot of voicemails, and you just, you provide the value, you let them know I have something that would be helpful for us. Can you give me a ring back and then you can share that information? Beautiful. Alright, so there’s that. I’m excited. Okay, can we talk about the Fed cut?
D.J. Paris 19:09 Let’s do it. So this is the big news, right? The Fed just cut rates. What does that mean? Okay,
Joel Schaub 19:15 I’m gonna blow everybody’s mind here for a moment. And I’m gonna let you know that just because the Feds cut rates that didn’t have an impact that they had mortgage rates that one bit,
D.J. Paris 19:27 but it’s, it’s every headline, every headline is saying that the Fed cut rates and you’re saying Yeah, well, maybe that’s not so important today.
Joel Schaub 19:37 So let’s talk about why what did the Fed do the Fed that day cut the prime rate, okay, Prime was at 5% and they lowered the 475. Remember, rates are already below four. Okay, so mortgage rates right now are in the threes. They did not call the mortgage banks and say, Please lower your rate today by point two 5% Okay. But that’s what the headlines say rates are down. So everybody that’s buying a house tomorrow, they think, Oh, my rate should be a quarter point less. And that’s not the case. Okay? Those rates have been baked in for months now, we knew that the Fed was going to be cutting rates DJ. So that’s a little bit of controversy where people think, Wait a minute, the Feds cut rates in the mortgage rates didn’t move. It’s really true. What we knew that was pretty baked in meaning there was no announcement, it actually that they slightly worked against mortgage rates, because we kind of have an administration that wants us to cut rates even further. Okay, I won’t get into all the politics buying anything, I always like to stay right in the middle. But since the Feds didn’t cut rates more, that’s why the rates were slightly flat to the upside.
D.J. Paris 20:54 Got it. So the bottom line is, don’t be that concerned about rate movement. As it’s happening.
Joel Schaub 21:05 REITs speak with a trusted professional know exactly where you stand. And the point is like on a 30 year fixed rate. If the rate is 3625, or 375, it’s still so much lower than it’s been, at any period of time, don’t get caught up in these small little moves. It’s a long term thing that we’re looking at right now, the trajectory is flat to lower.
D.J. Paris 21:31 So this could also go into the voicemail that you’ll likely be leaving, as Joel said, you know, people outside the real estate world don’t always answer their phones. So you have to figure out a strategic way to leave a message that’s engaging. And again, this is something to mention and say, Hey, you might have seen news about the recent fed cuts, I actually have some insight, or I wouldn’t say inside a fridge, but I have some additional information that I think would be really valuable to you, that can help you possibly even save, give me a call back. So
Joel Schaub 22:00 it’s exactly right, DJ, you’re providing value. And you’re making sure the agents know exactly what’s going on in the market.
D.J. Paris 22:08 Well, this is a great, I don’t I want us to end at this. Because at this point, everyone listening should have a whole bunch of great, exciting work for them to do, as we all know, as real estate professionals, that one of the hardest things to do is think about reasons to contact your existing clients that have already bought a home from you six months ago, it’s like, okay, why do I call them? How do I call them, we know that if you stay in touch, you’re gonna get referrals. But as Joel has said, time and time again, every month, you have to come with value, you have to bring something of value, otherwise, you’re just asking for referrals. And nobody really wants that. Nobody really wants to be asked for referrals. They want somebody in their life that’s consistent as providing value, as Jill just said. So this is by the way, how did Joel get to 100 million in 11 months, it wasn’t by accident. It’s because Joel is constantly providing value, not just on this show, Joel is on WGN. Constantly, he is out and about. Everybody here in our local market in Chicago obviously knows him. Because he is constantly out there and what he’s what he doesn’t do self promote. Nothing turns me off more than self promoters, right. That’s just me personally, but I think it’s a lot of people. What I love is people that come with value. That’s what this show is all about. That’s what Joel is all about, which is of course why he’s such a no brainer to have on the show every week and every month rather. And if anyone listening is looking for a new lending professional, Joel is a great fit. He won’t do a commercial for himself. But I always will, because I’m his biggest fan. So Joe, one more time, if anyone out there is looking to speak with you what’s the best way should they should reach out?
Joel Schaub 23:47 If you found value in what was going on today, it’s fine. Let’s reach out and just have a conversation. And I want to hear more about you and what you’re doing in your business. And we can do some of these many one on ones where I can actually help you in the buyers that you have navigate the mortgage business in a much easier way than what you’re probably used to. So 773-654-2049 or just an email. It’s my name, Joel JOE l@rate.com.
D.J. Paris 24:18 And by the way, for those listening who aren’t here in Chicago, because our podcast is listened to nationwide, but I guess worldwide, really, but nationwide. If you’re somebody who’s not here in Chicago doesn’t matter. Joel can help.
Joel Schaub 24:31 We’re licensed in all 50 states. When I started there was 171 guys at the company and now I’ve helped build it up to over 5700. We have 300 offices nationwide. And we’re all about value. It’s trust. We are one of the biggest mortgage companies that you’ve never heard of. So that’s what we do.
D.J. Paris 24:49 Well here in Chicago, everybody knows the name guaranteed rate because they just have come in like like a hurricane or a slow hurricane and just come pletely built up. And so if you’re not familiar with them, they’re huge. I’ve used them in my own refinancing, and they were amazing. And again, you should use them too. So reach out to Joel and, guys, everyone who’s listening couple of quick items, before we wrap up, please tell a friend. So as I’m saying, reach out to Joel for all your mortgage needs. There are lots of realtors out there that need to hear this information need to hear what Joel just shared. So please, if you know any other realtors that could benefit, pass this podcast over to them. Boy, that would really help us out we’d super appreciate it. So definitely send that over. Also, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done, including all the jewel episodes from our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And lastly, and we’ll talk about value, how do we bring value to our listeners? Well, obviously through these episodes, but you might not know this, every single day, our producer Liz goes online and looks for an article Realtors could or should read that will actually give you an actionable strategy that you could take advantage of immediately to help grow your business. And we post it on our Facebook page. So Liz was just in here an hour ago. And she said you have to tell the listeners to start following us on Facebook. So go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And every single day you’ll get a tip that shows you another way to grow your business. And Liz also does her weekly Liz lesson video, which we’re going to post shortly as well. So guys, tell a friend, follow us on Facebook. And of course, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, anywhere, Spotify, anywhere podcasts are found. And Joel, thank you once again for being a part of the show. We couldn’t do it without you. You’ve been a great partner, and we want to keep doing these episodes. So everyone listening. Thank you and Joel, thank you.
Joel Schaub 26:43 Thank you so much for having me on every time we do it. It is absolutely a pleasure. And just big shout out to you. It is what you do that keeps everyone tuned in. You’re amazing. And I look forward to doing it again soon.
D.J. Paris 26:56 Well, I will say we were both amazing. That’s easier for me to say. But I’m just the guy who asks people like Joel to be on the show who really provide the content. So guys, again, thanks for listening, Joel, thanks for being part of it. And we’ll see everyone next month.
Gogo Bethke arrived in the U.S. with only $6, no sphere of influence, and English being her third language. She proceeded to get her real estate license and start marketing on Facebook. Within a few years she sold 45mm in real estate and today commands a team of 110 agents. In this episode the social media queen talks about how most get brokers get social media wrong and provides best practices that you can implement today to find more clients online. We’re HUGE fans of Gogo and you will be, too!
DISCLAIMER: Gogo’s 30-day moneyback guarantee is no longer valid.
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 another episode of Keeping it real the largest real estate podcast made for real estate agents by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host for the show and coming up in just a moment. We have gogo from gogos boot camp. She is a social media superstar in particular on Instagram. So for so many realtors out there wondering how do I get my social media to actually work for me? How do I find clients? Gogo is going to show you how to do that here in just a moment. So in addition, I want every single listener to think of another realtor that you know that could benefit from hearing this sort of interview right where not only do we interview top one percenters, we also interview social media experts gogo is both a top 1% producer and social media expert. We’ve got over 117 of these episodes. So I want everyone to think of someone that could benefit that really wants to learn from top producers how to go about building their business and send them a link to this podcast, you can simply send them a text with the URL, keeping it real pod.com. That is right for our website, podcast. Every episode, you can stream directly from there. You also please everyone follow us on Facebook, we are located@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pot every single day, we find an article online about helping you grow your business and we post it there and we also do a weekly video. So follow us on Facebook. And lastly, thank you for continuing to listen, we really appreciate it. We’re going strong. Now if you are by the way, if you’re a sponsor or somebody who would like to be a sponsor of our show, let us know we’ll definitely can tell you more about how that works. But guys, thanks again for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Thanks for following us on social media and onto our interview with Gogo.
Today on the show we have gogo Beth key from GoPro boot camp.com Gogo came to the US in 2003. To build her American dream she was broke, she had no sphere of influence, no experience barely spoke English and only $6 to her name. So that left her with nothing else but Facebook to grow her business. And that’s where she started. She created gogos real estate and her real estate career began with the power of social media gogo has sold over 45 million in residential real estate transactions. She shares the good the bad, and the ugly side of real estate and her honest snippets into her everyday life to her 10s of 1000s of followers. And in the real estate community she earned the nickname the social media queen. After being asked to present at various realtor events. She built a social media bootcamp which is called a Go Go’s boot camp.com. This is for realtors, and today she has a team of 109 agents growing nationwide and her goal is to help as many agents and brokers as possible to forge and create a name for themselves in real estate and if she can do it, she’s this girl from Transylvania, with from Romania with no US education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience and an accent than anyone can do this. Please follow gogo on Instagram at gogos real estate gogo Welcome to the show.
Gogo Bethke 4:20 Oh my gosh, I think this was the best description of me ever.
D.J. Paris 4:24 Well, I’m pretty good at it. So no, no, this, I am so excited. I have to before we get started, I just want to tell the audience, this is a really big deal for me. And so gogo is so sweet. And she’s too busy to even do these kinds of things. And the fact that she’s taking time is we’re so honored. We get requests every single day, really, like legitimately every day from people that say I want to be on the show. And you know, most of the time 99% of the time we say hey, thanks. But a lot of times, you know we’re not sure about what kind of value they can bring. So we turn people down. And gogo is one of the first people she actually made me a Video, which is so cool. And nobody had ever done that. And sometimes just going the extra step, because normally, we probably would have passed, not anything personal to gogo, but just, we weren’t sure it would fit our model. And she sent me a video and he she goes, here’s what I can do for your listeners. And it was exactly the perfect way to, you know, get our attention. And this is exactly what she does and how she has grown her own real estate business. So I just want to honor you for that. Because I will tell you out of the hundreds of other people that we’ve turned away, nobody has ever made me a video and said, Here’s the value I can bring to you. So thank you for doing that.
Gogo Bethke 5:38 Well, that was a really good idea. Just as you said, it’s always better to send a quick video because that way your clients, your potential future client can see a face with the name versus just being a realtor out there that just left him a voicemail. So I try when I have a minute to send the quick, you always want to keep it less than 30 seconds. If possible, just do it, I want you to have a face with the name this is gonna go, I would love to be a real turnoff to have the opportunity call me back, this is myself. And
D.J. Paris 6:03 I love it. And I bet you less than 1% of all realtors do that. So what a great way to separate yourself, especially to if it’s a purchase to lead if it’s through Zillow, or op city or, or any of the different lead providers realtor.com If especially if it’s a purchase lead, because they definitely don’t know you.
Gogo Bethke 6:22 Exactly. And you’re just one of those emails that ends up in their spam you out of the 100 other ones that are going to send them an email at the same time. Not only that, but if you think about it, text message gets open 99% of the time, email gets opened less than 2% of the time. So there is your rate right there. Which one’s going to have a higher rate of return.
D.J. Paris 6:41 Yeah, and by the way, you can also send a link to the video in via text as well.
Gogo Bethke 6:46 Yeah, I usually just shoot the video, if you keep it less than 30 seconds, you can text it directly to them. That’s a very good point, too. Yeah. So you don’t have to upload it to YouTube or whatever, you just send them directly the link.
D.J. Paris 6:57 So I want to go all the way back to 2003. When you came to United States, I love to hear how you got to where you are today. If you don’t mind starting us at the beginning. Can
Gogo Bethke 7:07 I step back a little bit further. So you understand why I’m in the United States. So back into the up until 1989. It was communism in Romania, which means if we’re cut off from the Western world, so finally when when communism ended, and we got access to the Western world, I remember my dad coming home with a colored television and a VCR player. And he brought two VCRs home it was the 48 hours by Eddie Murphy.
Unknown Speaker 7:31 Everyone, everybody thinks like it’s
Gogo Bethke 7:33 coming to America. It’s not that movie that made me come to America. It’s actually Eddie Murphy is 48 hours. I just thought he was the funniest human being I’ve ever seen. He was the first person that I knew that black people existed because when you are in the Western world, or Eastern world, I should say and cut off from the Western world. All we knew is white, like there’s no there’s no diversity. There’s zero diversity. As diverse it gets as we have gypsies, it’s pretty much as diverse it’s going to get in Eastern Europe. And so opening my eyes to I’m like, hold on a minute, like there’s a whole other kind of human being out there. And to me, he was so funny. I that was my first recollection being eight years old. I’ve thinking that I’m going wherever that man is that coming to find out it’s America. So that’s my recollection, I’m going to I’m going to America one day, and then it’s very hard to get a visa to the US. So I was 21 I was in college in Hungary actually. So I was raised in I was born and raised in Transylvania, but I’m Hungarian by nationality. So I went to Hungary in college in Hungary. And in the third year, we were supposed to take an English exam. And my professor said to me, I’m never got to speak English, like literally failed English. And I said, Okay, well, that’s going to have to change because I have to pass that to get my diploma. So I figured the easiest way to learn the language is to go and live with the ones that speak it. So that was my second kind of action of okay, I’m going to America, the only way at the time was to be an au pair. And so I applied with an Au Pair agency, a family here in Brighton, Michigan picked me and that’s how I ended up in Brighton, Michigan, out of all places.
D.J. Paris 9:02 What and then how the move to real estate from being an au pair.
Gogo Bethke 9:08 So I press like a little bit of a process of elimination. You know, I tried anything from data entry in a warehouse to sales in a jewelry store, to coding company, to being a waitress. I mean, I’ve done a little bit of everything trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And I was a stay at home mom at the time when my neighbor who’s the marketing director of Capitol title came to me and she’s like, you’re so social. You have so many friends. You should be a realtor. I already talked to real estate one, go and talk to them. And so I was like, I watch HGTV. Sure sounds like a great idea. Like that’s, that’s all I did. And they look make it look so easy on HGTV like it’s a walk in a park. I joke and usually say Jurassic Park, but it’s a walk. It’s a walk in the park. And so I went in and talked to real estate one. They are one of the largest real estate companies here in the state of Michigan. But They’re family owned, and they are only in the state of Michigan. They offered me the job. They said, If I pass, they will pay for my school. So I paid upfront, but they reimburse me with my first closing. And so I was with them for six and a half years I was the baby, I was about 30 years younger than the average agent in the office. And I really had a really good like, I always joke and say, I could get away with murder, but I really could just do whatever might be the heart desired. And so that’s where my real estate career started.
D.J. Paris 10:25 So how did you with really no sphere of influence? And I mean, other than, I guess you knew the family that you’d worked for, and you had other jobs but but really no established base of clientele. And also brand new to the industry? How did you build your How did you find your first client, for example?
Gogo Bethke 10:42 So you and I thought about this, I don’t remember who my first client was. And I have to go to the files and see who they were and how they got to me, but probably, within so let me tell you this story. So I was so excited. When I went into the office, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is gonna be awesome. It’s so easy. I watch HGTV is going to be just like that. And I think give me an office and it had a window and I was like, whoo, I made it. It’s not a corner office, but it has a window. So it’s not a cubicle, I’m doing good. And yeah, I you know, I’m very social, like I’m a social butterfly, I’ll talk to anyone. So I went around at every office, and I introduced myself and I talked to them, and I wanted to pick their brain and see how they do things. And I remember my excitement went lower and lower with every door I opened, realizing that hold on a minute, everything they are doing, or I don’t feel comfortable doing or I don’t have the budget for it. So many of them were you know, cold calling. So every day they would call call from at less than three hours a day 250 calls, maybe you know, 24 of them will answer seven of them, they get a face to face, one out of the seven will actually sign as a client. And I can not call it God like it’s so it’s against every bone in my body. It gives me the heebie jeebies. I cannot beg someone for their business, I was like, I can’t do that. So then went to the next office. And then she was like, well, we spend $4,000, our marketing budget this month. And I was like, I just want to make $4,000 Like, I don’t have $4,000 to spend. And so slowly by you know, entering every door, I was like, okay, hold on a minute, like, this is not gonna work for me. And so I figured out I also knew I’m a researcher. So anything I put my mind to, I will get to the end of YouTube and and Google to see what it’s truly about. And I realized that 80% of the agents will give up in the first two year. And I’m also very competitive by nature. So I’m no loser. Like, if I start something, I will finish it. And I will finish on the top. So I was like, okay, so I cannot be part of that statistic. So what I know what I’m not willing to do. So I’m not door knocking, I am not cold calling. I’m not spending $6,000. I’m not buying Zillow leads, I’m not doing this and that. So what am I willing to do? And so and what I can’t, what can I afford to do? And that what came down to Facebook? At that time? I was like, Okay, I start a page, which probably I was one of the first ones that had a Facebook page at the time. You know, what, eight, eight years ago? Yeah, nine years ago, something like that. Eight years. Yeah. 2011. And so that’s how I started, I just started posting everything, posting things. And I’m like, This is what I learned today. Because a lot of things that you imagine this is how you go, how it’s going to be in the real estate industry and come to find out nothing like it. So I would share things like that I would share silly things that I saw at homes and pictures of like, What the heck is this? And then people would comment, or that’s an old gas tank or oil tank from the 1800s. You know, I mean, so things like that would would keep them entertained. And it wasn’t just like, oh, this is my newest listing. This is the, you know, the open house I’m holding this weekend, it wasn’t like that. And to be honest with you, it wasn’t like that originally, right? Because I
D.J. Paris 13:29 didn’t didn’t have things to brag about.
Gogo Bethke 13:33 Exactly. So I had to post the stuff that this is what I learned this is what’s going on, this is my hustle, that kind of stuff. And it just kind of realized that that’s the that’s the stuff that gets the interaction. When I did started getting listings that I would post that it would maybe get one or two likes, never really gets a comment. Nobody really cares that you got a listing because they not on the market for a new home. They follow you because they find it exciting to see your progress in an in an industry. And so that’s pretty much what opened my eyes to what’s working and what doesn’t because you see the interaction. Yeah, I just want to pause for
D.J. Paris 14:01 a second because this is my belief. And I want to get your opinion on this. And because I have this in again, my backgrounds, I’m a marketing guy, I was in the IT field, I worked in health care I was in anyway, I couldn’t be further away from real estate. And, and when I when I got into real estate, and I started paying attention to how realtors use social media, it was mostly Hey, look at my new listing or look at my award that I’ve won. And look and that’s nice and fun. And there’s you know, nothing inherently wrong with doing that. But there’s a little part of me because you talked about hey, there were things I don’t do or I won’t do it just doesn’t fit my personality, cold calling door knocking buying leads you didn’t have the budget for but these were things that just were like, well, that’s just not me. And I always thought when I looked at realtors and it seemed to be that’s about all they posted were Hey, look at this new deal I just closed. There’s a little part of me that was turned off by that. And I don’t mean to for our listeners who do that. Like I’m not here to judge that if that works for you. Great. But there’s I, as a consumer and somebody not from this industry always thought, well, like, I don’t brag about all my awards and things for my career. So I always felt that was sort of a strange thing to do. And I don’t I wonder if it even turns people off a little bit? Possibly. I mean, again, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just, I’m just have that opinion that I’m not I don’t really love it when people brag on Facebook.
Gogo Bethke 15:24 Yeah, so I think if you don’t show the process, because I show the process of how I got there, it’s exciting because they can all celebrate with me, because they all follow the process. They follow the ups and downs of it. You know, I mean, like, I just met with somebody and they’re like, did you get that listing? Because I posted the video how one of my listings expired, my very first listing that ever expired, and it’s a hit to the ego. You know, I mean, like, I tried everything I possibly can. And I could just not sell that house, I can tell you why. So in the meantime, my husband got licensed, and he was like, Do you mind if I take a shot at it? And I was like, No, go ahead. He’s like, can you come to the appointment with me? I’m like, well, that’s kind of uncomfortable. Exactly. And my husband is like, Are you seriously going to put your ego in front of a paycheck in front of putting food on the table for your family? And I was like, You know what, you’re right. So I ended up going to appointment with him. I created a quick little video prior to that I do most of my bragging so seven worst of my life, you know, showing my life in real estate and Instagram that automatically feeds to Facebook. So it did this little video, I said, Hey, we are heading to a listing appointment. It’s kind of painful, because, you know, this listing was mine, and it expired. And now my husband’s taking a shot at it. And so this was couple of weeks ago, I’m in New York meeting with an agent who I’ve never met. First question out of his mouth was did you get the listing? And I was like, wow, like it does work. People want to read you. And if you share the process, not just like, hey, I’m the best in the industry. If you don’t, if you don’t show the process, how you got there to be the best in the industry than it is bragging. But if you show the hustle in the meantime, and you’re celebrating what
D.J. Paris 16:58 people want, and you know, study after study, and just we all know this in our heart that everyone wants to connect in the way that we connect is through vulnerability, right? And so you had the courage to say, Hey, guys, this is kind of a painful thing. I wasn’t able to sell this home, but and probably nobody ever posts about that. That is never done right. Everyone just posted their success but that’s what everybody wants. People want to connect because that’s real life, right? They want to know your actual real life.
Gogo Bethke 17:30 Yeah, yeah. And I also don’t like when all they do is negative logo. This doesn’t work out on my deal fell apart or you know what I mean? If things like that, that also doesn’t work. But if you’re just truly showing your hardship not to be negative Nancy about it, but you’re showing that hey, listen, yes, my my listing expired. But here I am, put my big girl pants on and put my ego aside, I’m back I go. I’m trying to get the listing for my husband this time. I think that just shows you that you’re human, you’re not perfect. And even though I tried my best is wasn’t good enough. And we are still plugging away at it. We’ve tried to sell that home, because at the end of the day, that’s my sellers best. That’s their need. And our job is to get me donate.
D.J. Paris 18:10 So yeah, let’s talk a little bit about social media and how you think about it. So what I don’t know if you want to start with a particular, you know, medium, like if you want to start with Instagram, or Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever, but or just your overall philosophy, but what what do brokers Miss? What are they doing wrong? Other than we just mentioned, only posting, hey, look at this great new listing. And if that’s all you do, you know, there’s more you can do. So tell us a little bit about your thoughts and how you grew your following.
Gogo Bethke 18:40 Yeah, so I originally, as I said, it started on Facebook. So I created a Facebook page, and I was a little bit more careful. I was that I wouldn’t want to say that typical realtor. But yeah, I posted my listings in my open houses. And in between I posted this and that it was more personal than more most agents make it but I still had that homes and open houses stuff. And then about four years in, I started getting to the point where most of the people who followed me on Facebook for my clients, and I was getting to the point where I needed to, can I use this word bitch beep it out if you have to. I just had to like vent a little bit and Mitch a little bit about the process because there’s the ugly side of real estate, the cutthroat side of real estate, the ones that if you don’t have thick skin, you’re never gonna make it. And so I felt like I needed to talk about that I just kind of released that because if not, it piles up and you’re gonna blow up and leave the industry. And so I wanted to release it. So I started my Instagram account. Same thing goes real estate. All platforms are Google’s real estate. That’s very, very important, by the way that all of your names are the same on every platform. We can talk about that in a minute. But so I started Instagram, just so I can vent and because I was showing the good, bad and the ugly side of being a realtor on Instagram, most of my following on Instagram automatically just became Realtors because they were the one being able or entrepreneurs I should say because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs as well, business owners that just can relate of dealing with clients and and egos and how that goes down on the day to day basis. So, um, yes, I started Instagram. And a few years later, I always had a LinkedIn. But I didn’t have a huge LinkedIn presence because I wasn’t posting very often, I just had it more. So if people Google me, then I look legit. And now I also feed everything over to Instagram, from Instagram to LinkedIn. So usually, I make my posts on Instagram. And then I choose which one goes where. So for example, let’s say if there is a selfie, or I’m on a beach, enjoying the fruits of my labor, that works perfectly fine on Instagram, but it won’t go very well on Facebook, and it really not gonna go well on LinkedIn. So you just kind of have to understand the three platforms and how they work and how they are different from one another. LinkedIn is the most professional one bathing suit photo is not going to work on their Facebook, it’s okay, but bathing suit photo, it’s kind of pushing it. And Instagram just kind of goes whatever you want to do. So you kind of feel your audience and each platform. So because I post everything from Instagram, I pick and choose of which one I’m going to send where. So sometimes I send it to all three, sometimes I like not LinkedIn material, I’m not going to push it over to return. So as soon as the more time you spend on these platforms, you realize how you fit in, and what you should and should not post on these platforms, and it will grow your audience because you are posting the stuff that they want to see.
D.J. Paris 21:23 Yeah, I mean that for all of our listeners, you should constantly be thinking just as you think about when you work with your clients, and you say, I wonder what it’s like for them to go through this home buying or home selling process. And in particular, if it’s somebody who’s buying their first property, we know how scary that is. Or at least you should know how scary it is because it’s very scary. And it’s a huge deal for any first time homebuyer and brokers always need to remember just how difficult that is for the client. And they can then you know, have empathy and compassion and actually communicate in a way to alleviate a client’s fear, right? So we all know that we’re supposed to do that. Put yourself in the client’s shoes, make sure they’re comfortable, walk them through everything. Same thing goes for social media, right? So if you know, hey, what do my Instagram followers want and need? What is my Facebook followers want need? You can start developing content based around those needs.
Gogo Bethke 22:16 Yeah, so it’s kind of it’s it’s kind of cool. Because when you create a page on these profiles, so I don’t have personal, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have personal accounts and all of these profiles, but I do not do business on personal. So everything real estate related my business life, my hustle is on Google’s real estate, which is a business page. Now when you have a business page on these platforms, it gives you what’s called the insight. So these are the numbers in the background. This is how if you want to invest, and ads or boosting, then you know where and who you need to target and what time of the day and what city because you see where your audience is. So because you see the inside, you see what they liked how many people commented, you know what to post because the proof is in the pudding. It shows you this have the biggest head so you know, I need to post more like this.
D.J. Paris 22:57 Yeah, so this is really important for everyone listening. So all social media platforms, especially with the business, like for example, I use Facebook a lot for our podcast. And every day we post links to articles that we find online that would benefit broker realtors to grow their business. And but then we were always looking at our insights and some of our stuff gets no likes at all. And I go, that’s unfortunate, because this was a really great article. Well, guess what? DJ, nobody cared. So. So as much as I think it was cool. Turns out it didn’t work very well. Okay, no big deal. Now I have that data. And sometimes when we’ll post like a little silly meme, well, that might get more traffic. Okay, well, people seem to like, you know, that sort of thing. videos get a certain certain type of reaction. So the good news is, this is all free, these tools are free, the analytics are free. And if you’re not looking at it, and it only takes a minute or so every week to really look at it. I mean, it depends how often you’re posting, but you need to know what your audience is responding to. Otherwise, you’re just throwing darts in a dark room at a dartboard? You’re not even sure where it is.
Gogo Bethke 24:00 Exactly. So I love the fact like I speak three languages so for me numbers come very quick if you if you think think about it, I still think in Hungarian translate and speak in English, there’s a you know, three second delay. When I look at numbers, I don’t have to translate numbers numbers make sense? In the same language no matter what language mind you’re looking at it numbers number. So when I look at it inside it, it’s just it’s awesome. I can understand it right away. It shows the backside of my business. It shows that if I want to throw 10 bucks at Instagram, where should I spend it, you always want the best return on your investment. So you want to spend the least amount and get the best return and insight allows you to do that allows you to see who’s following you what is their age range. Where are they located? What time of the day they look at it what they looked at, and then you know what type of people to target when you are boosting something?
D.J. Paris 24:45 Yeah, let’s talk let’s talk about Instagram. Let’s let’s focus on that because obviously it’s one of the biggest players in the social media space. realtors use it and but very few realtors use it in a way that’s really serving them. So We’ll talk a little bit about mistakes that you see Realtors make and maybe some solutions.
Gogo Bethke 25:06 So one of the biggest mistakes I mean, let’s let’s let’s dissect it. So open up your Instagram and go to your profile. Most agents don’t even say that they are a realtor. Huge mistake, because they don’t say where they are realtor, that’s even a bigger mistake. Because if I’m looking for a Brighton, Michigan realtor, I’m going to go to hashtags and I’m going to put in hashtag Brighton realtor, writer, Michigan realtor. So then everybody who ever used that hashtag is going to find me same with your Chicago realtor or Chicago real estate. I’m going to go in there, I’m going to hashtag Chicago real estate search for that hashtag and see who pops up anybody who ever used that hashtag will pop up. That’s how they’re going to find you. So if you don’t put that into your bio, if you don’t have hashtag realtor, when somebody searches for realtors, you’re not going to find you. It think of it as Google search words. If I’m going Google and I need a Chicago realtor, I’m probably going to put in Chicago realtor. And I’m going to click in the top three, that’s going to pop up same with Instagram when you hashtag that it’s your search words when somebody hashtag or searches for that word, you’re going to pop up as a result. And that’s very, very important. Also your brokerage. I work with exp so for me it’s very important for people to know that I’m with exp. So it says my name gogo Baqi, how I hold license and it says brokered by exp. And I think every agent, no matter if they’re kW, ReMax, whatever whoever they are, where they should be proud of that. And I also think it’s I don’t know if it’s the same in every state, but it is a state regulation in Michigan where you have to disclose who your brokerage is. So if you have a business page, you should have your brokerage under because in the end of the day, you work under their umbrella. So you should if you have any links, so for example, Instagram only allows you to have one link in your profile. And one link for us is never going to cut it because there’s so many different things that I do. I mean, there’s public speaking events, there is giveaways that I do there is my websites than I do. There is my blog was bootcamp than I do. I mean, my listings, my open houses, my team, you name it, if they if someone wants to plug themself into my calendar, there is access to my calendar, because Instagram only allows you to have only one link. Most people don’t even go further to figure out is there a way for me to include multiple links? Yes, there is. It’s called link tree. So it’s li n k, t or e. So you go to link tree, that platform allows you to add multiple links to one link only. So then after you created your link to go back, you plug that into your profile. Now it looks like you have one link and when somebody clicks it, it’s going to take you to the profile, take them to your profile, it’s going to show you all of the different things that you provide.
D.J. Paris 27:36 Yeah, I’m actually looking at link tree right now because I was not familiar. So guys, just Google link tree and look it up. Because this is a funny, this is really funny. So before we were speaking, before we started recording, I are actually yesterday, go go had said, Hey, what’s your guys’s Instagram, I want to take a look and see what you’re doing. And I said, we don’t have one. And I knew that she was she was so polite, because I knew she was about to say, Hey, dummy, you need to do that. And here’s what I said. I said, Well, the reason we don’t have one is because it’s really hard to link to our things. Because it only has one link, it’s in the bio, no one’s gonna see it. Yeah, you could put the link in the comments, but I don’t know that anyone’s gonna see it. And you were very quiet. And I knew you were just being polite. And I was like, I should probably ask her, there’s gotta be some solution. Yeah, and
Gogo Bethke 28:22 you can do and you can do swipe ups as well, you can create ads with with swipe up. So in order to swipe up organically without a fee, you have to have 10,000 followers. But if you create an ad, you can do a swipe up if you’re paying for the advertising. So you can always do that if you don’t have 10,000. But as soon as you have 10,000, then you can do organically a swipe up and just take them directly to this. So right now we could have taken like a call on Instagram, for example, where your face and my face is on the same screen, we could have screenshotted that and we say hey guys alive. Come see us. Here’s a swipe up listening to our podcasts and you take them directly to the site where you want them to listen in, which I did or that are already a couple of days ago for you. I just didn’t know, I just didn’t know when we’re going live. So as soon as I know the date, then I can disclose it again. And they can go and go to the direct episode. And listen.
D.J. Paris 29:10 So this is huge for us too. Because you know, and I’m somebody who I do all of the social media for our company and also for for this podcast. Well, we I have some help with that too. But this is something we’re not doing. And this is an opportunity because, you know, I didn’t even know myself How should I be using Instagram for this podcast? So this is yeah, I can I can hear you. Well, you’re already helping our listeners. So guys, what let’s just recap a few things that gogo sets, you can actually take this and start using it right. So as the first thing she said is you need to work on your bio. So go into Instagram, go into your bio, you of course want to want to use link tree to be able to link to various things, but you want to make sure your hashtags are there. And just because you don’t search by hashtags and Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, other P or LinkedIn even other people Do right so so go go. You might say, Well, gosh, you know how many people are searching for Brighton realtor? Well, I guarantee at least one person is a month and it’s probably more than that. And I guarantee that probably go goes the only person that has that in her Instagram profile.
Gogo Bethke 30:15 I mean, I got a I got a message couple of days ago with somebody from Brighton Michigan annoyed that my posts always pop up in the Brighton Michigan area. I was like, I’m gonna you know, you don’t have to look at it like you can skip it, you can unfollow me, because well, why do you always hashtag Brighton, I said, because my business is in Brighton. So if I have something going on in Brighton, I’m going to, I’m going to tag the location because I want everybody from Brighton and their mother know that I’m a realtor in the Brighton area. And if I happen to be in New York, then I’m going to tag New York because I want everybody in New York to know that I exist. And if I can help them with their social media, then they can find my existence. You know, I mean, so there’s so much power in social media. And I wish I could go through all of these, all of these tabs for you. But I’ll give you two more tips that are very, very important. That comes with your Instagram bio. So the photo, the photo has to be and I emphasize has to be the same on every platform. You can if you Google me, you will see the lady in the red dress and every single profile that I have. If and when I decide to change it, I’m going to change it on every single profile as well. The reason why I do that is because you want that brand recognition. If you close your eyes, and I say imagine Starbucks, can you imagine it? The target logo. So that’s what you want to achieve. You want people to close their eyes. And imagine that lady in the red dress, and her name is Gaga.
D.J. Paris 31:36 I will say that gogo chick has shown up already in all the communication you and I and our team has had. It is the lady in the red dress with the blonde hair. That that is you. Yeah, it’s my cross. Every
Gogo Bethke 31:52 email signature is my yard sign. It’s my Instagram profile, my LinkedIn profile, my business cards, my you name it, it’s it. And you want people to recognize and I also do recommend have this photo 30 years from now. So if you don’t look like that lady anymore, you have to change it. I also meet with agents, they look nothing.
D.J. Paris 32:10 Oh, and by the way, let’s talk about that for a moment. This is a little bit of side two from social media. But if you don’t look like your picture, because by the way, I understand the inclination to smooth out every wrinkle and to look perfect. And but if you don’t look like that, don’t use it because you want to look real, right? Because when people
Gogo Bethke 32:28 that’s the way I look at it when I run into an agent that looks nothing like themselves. It’s their high school photo. And now they’re 62. And I meet you You already lie to me. Exactly, exactly. You already lied to my face. So why would I ever take you seriously if you look nothing like that person. I’m not saying if you follow me you will say thank God for Mako of course, because you will see a lot of videos and I look here at and then you see a lot of videos when I look at. And it’s thanks to makeup, it’s really the only thing in between. So you do have to show your real side, I’m just saying Don’t show your side from 20 years ago, show your current side with or without makeup with or without bra, whatever is your daily style is just your real sight. So then they don’t feel like you already lied to them when they need to.
D.J. Paris 33:09 And we need to remember and everyone needs to remember is people don’t relate to perfection. They relate to imperfection, people connect, they connect with real when gogo made the video for us. I mean, she looks nice, she always looks nice. But she there’s I don’t know, if you’re wearing any makeup or very little makeup, you looked like a real person. And you said, guys, here’s what I think I can do to help you. Do you know how authentic and honest that was, it wasn’t a sales pitch. It was hey, I’d really love to get on your show. I think I have some value to add. And let’s do it. And it was so refreshingly honest, and not polished. But really, it was your authentic self coming through. And that’s I think one of the biggest lessons in social media is tell the real story tell the truth.
Gogo Bethke 33:53 Yeah, so when you decide to take the route of social media, you also can’t fluff numbers, you can’t, you know, make things look better. You just have to show the good, bad and the ugly, like the true side of your business, and then he never bites you in the butt. The problem is when you try to fluff something, because it makes it look better about yourself. And then the truth always comes to surface and that is just, it’s going to bite you. So don’t do that. So if you decide that you want to take the route of social media, you have to disclose right away, then you always will say
D.J. Paris 34:21 that I don’t want to go back to you posting, you know, content around not being able to sell a property and how disappointed you were in that that result. And I will tell you Look if I’m looking to hire a realtor, and obviously I want somebody who knows what they’re doing and is successful, but I love the fact that somebody would be upset and willing to share that gosh, you know, this didn’t work and I we’re not exactly sure why and I’m really upset about it or I’m sad about it.
Gogo Bethke 34:48 Can you imagine showing up at that appointment
D.J. Paris 34:51 and the appointment going
Gogo Bethke 34:55 on? My husband is pitching everything that he can bring then I couldn’t do
D.J. Paris 34:59 it again. That’s life. And that happens, right? And so instead of pretending that everything doesn’t go that everything goes perfectly which it never does, you know, people connect to the, to the real stuff. And, and look, we feel sad when our friends are sad. And when somebody’s you know, struggling in whatever way, we want to know that so we can provide support. And even though your social media followers aren’t necessarily your friends, although some of them will, can and will be, they want they want to cheer you on, and they want to know what’s really happening. So I love the fact that yeah,
Gogo Bethke 35:30 I met so many awesome people through and that’s the other thing, so many opportunities come of it. Some agents were like, well, I posted and I didn’t get a lead, when it doesn’t work like that. You know, I mean, I posted I actually did the math one time I posted I think over 37,000 times in the last eight years. And that, you know, that took me to about $45 million in production. So I broke it down to what does that and how many posts I had in this time. And then what does that mean income mean and commission. So it comes out to be about $32 a post. So the way I look at it, it’s not necessarily that you’re going to get a lead from this. From one like, I got an opportunity to go to a Tony Robbins event for free as Tony’s guests because of Instagram, I get free stuff, I get invited to events I get, you know, I get access to places and people that otherwise I would have never know of their existence, they would have never known of mine. I have people reach out to me all the time. They are in like North Carolina and like oh my gosh, I wish you were in our area, I would love for you to be my realtor, we are buying our first house or whatever the scenario may be. And I usually I’m like, I know I can be the leg on the ground. But guess what, I have an awesome team member in the area, then I would love to make the recommendation. Can I have your number and email address and I’ll introduce you guys and they usually give it to me, I introduce them and that right there is a 25% referral fee. So that’s money that you’re able to make by all you need to do is respond to someone’s message by letting them know that you’re a realtor, they reach out to you. And the next thing you know, you make the introduction and 25% of a referral fee, it ends up usually being 1500 hours or more. I mean, that’s 1500 hours that you personally didn’t have to work for all you did is made an introduction right.
D.J. Paris 37:01 Well, let’s talk about the content. So aside from we sort of joked about posting some of the hard stuff, you know that the challenges but but on a day to day basis, what do you recommend for for realtors, to what kind of content? Should they be curating and producing? And how often?
Gogo Bethke 37:21 Yeah, so for me, social media is not for everybody. So if you want to take it serious, so the way I look at it, this is my job. So when I decided that I’m not going to cold call and not going to Dornoch, I decided okay, for those three hours where the other agent is door knocking at cold calling, that’s what I need to do, I need to do social media. So then I would post I would comment on other people’s, they would respond to mine, I would create video content, things like that. So I look at it that it’s my job. This is how I’m going to feed my family and continue to have money coming in. So I take it very seriously. So if somebody wants to build it to this level, then I recommend them to look at it. And it’s their job. And definitely post stories every single day. So at least 10 stories a day, you have your cell phone with you, I never go anywhere without my cell phone. So whatever is happening, I literally just grabbed my phone and take a quick video or take a quick photo, or things like that. You can do swipe ups, you can take locations, you can take people your way, you can steal their audience, and they can steal yours, you can show the events that you’re going to so you can gain the expertise. So set in their eyes, because they can follow along of your progress posts, I usually do the actual so there’s a difference between story and feed. When you visit someone’s profile, the photos and the videos that you see on their profile that’s called their feed, that is going to be there forever. The stories are the ones when you visit someone’s profile, you click their profile photo. And those are 15 second little video snippets into their life into their daily life. So you actually get to follow along with their days. So those stories, I would recommend at least 10 a day, make it as personal as possible and add a bunch of selfies, you actually have to show who you are and talk about what you stand for and show your hustle and your ethics and all that. And then posting probably once or twice a day into your actual feed.
D.J. Paris 39:07 Yeah, and so for those of you that aren’t familiar with Instagram Stories, this is a way to tell your ongoing narrative, right? This is what’s happening to me, you know, today, and just you can just repeat that and it can be these short little snippets. I always say imperfect is better. So the lighting doesn’t have to be exact. You know, you can have the shaky camera and just get out there and tell what tell what’s going on in your life.
Gogo Bethke 39:35 Exactly. Exactly. And the stories people you showing your real sight so people get to relate. So they follow you because you’re not selling them something, you know your value because your life is interesting.
D.J. Paris 39:46 Yeah, and we should also we should also mention that that you do not live in a place if you live in a lovely area, but a very a place where there’s not it’s not a lot of what’s going on. There’s not much going on. All right, you’re not you’re not in a major city. There’s not you’re not showing this, this sort of glamorous, exciting fly by the seat of your pants life, right? You’re out in a rural area.
Gogo Bethke 40:11 Yeah. So I’m in the boonies of Michigan, we live off of a dirt road, everybody around us have at least an acre, takes 15 minutes to get to the highway. So it’s, it’s totally not that gated community fancy schmancy with chandeliers and champagnes all day long. So it’s not nothing like that. It’s, you know, like we were listing a house today, it’s $182,000, it’s pretty average for this area, nice home, two bedroom, all that. So when my husband goes out there, and for the photoshoot today, of course, he’s going to take photos and videos of that. So we let the market know that this is coming, he tags me so I can share it as well. So there’s just so much you can do with the power of social media can potentially sell it before it even hits the MLS. I mean, we get the the three day prior to he just listed period, you can also do that. I mean, this way you don’t have to buy from the Zillow is and the and the other lead generating sources, when you can become your own lead generation system.
D.J. Paris 41:03 How long should somebody? So I’ll give you an example of our podcasts because one of the questions that people will ask is, okay, so I’m posting on a regular basis to my Instagram, or Facebook, or whatever social media platform that that you find works for you. Or rather, maybe none of them are immediately working for you and you but you like one better than the other. So you commit to Instagram or Facebook. And and this is the same thing that happened to our website, or sorry, our podcast, when I first started it, I told my boss, I said, I really want to do this, I think it’s a good thing for the industry. And I won’t even mention where I work. So I don’t want people to think I’m using this as a recruiting platform, I’m legitimately just going to try to provide this value. And I hope people like it. And he said to me, Hey, that’s great. It’s a good idea, and we should do it. But you have to commit for a year, you have to do it for a year. And by the way, you know, doing couple episodes a week for a year with no listeners is not the most fun thing to do, right. But as a result now now all of a sudden, we have 100 plus episodes, we have national sponsors, we have an audience of 1000s and 1000s per episode, I never thought it would get to the level it does. And and now I’m going to obviously continue to do it. But it took at least a year before we saw any real major growth. So how do you find that that works in social media?
Gogo Bethke 42:21 Let’s see exactly the same. I mean, it takes time for people, you have to create the content. So just by creating one folder and posting it, you’re not going to have the 40,000 followers show up on as your content goes viral, and you just did something so out of the ordinary which most people don’t feel comfortable doing. So it is a progress. I mean, just like any other job to become good at it, you have to give it some time and effort. And you have to be consistent, just as you said. So yeah, try it for a year. And especially if you do a page you see your results. So when you post something you realize, hold on a minute, this didn’t work. So don’t do any more things like that, post something else and see how that works. So my butcher, what do they call it error, trial and error. You’ll figure out what works, what’s your style, or people that your people your, your crowd wants to see and listen to. And you post more of that. And eventually, I mean, it’s not like I woke up one morning and I have 40,000 followers like this is seven years in.
D.J. Paris 43:12 Yeah. And I want to I want to tell listeners a great story. And we’ll call this the myth of going viral. And this relates to something gogo said earlier about getting to attend a Tony Robbins event based on her her Instagram. And so a very similar thing happened to me. So in this, I totally forgot about this until you just said it. But it’s a great lesson for everyone. And so I went to a Tony Robbins event, I don’t know, let’s say 10 years ago. And back then I was writing a blog, and I need to get back to writing my blog. But I would a pretty successful blog, me successful meaning I had 1000s of people that read it. And I was posting almost every day, it didn’t make any money. It was more just for fun, but I had a decent following. I never figured out how to monetize it. But that’s okay. It wasn’t really trying to. But I got back from this Tony Robbins event. And I thought of a really funny thing that happened at during the event. And I’m a humor writer. So I wasn’t trying to write a motivational piece. I was just sharing this kind of interesting, funny thing that happened. So I wrote it didn’t think anything of it. Well, somehow. And of course, I promote all of my blog posts on the various social media channels. And at the time, Instagram really wasn’t a thing. So it was Facebook, LinkedIn, I had not even LinkedIn it was Facebook and Twitter. So Facebook and Twitter is where I posted it. Well, somehow it got to Tony’s people, they sent it while they said they sent it to Tony, who actually knows but somebody saw it. And then Tony Robbins tweeted it out. And I didn’t ask him to just kind of randomly happen. And what happened is he has millions of followers on Twitter, of course. And so immediately what happened is they sent me a message they said, Tony just tweeted out your story. We just wanted to say thank you. He thought it was funny or whatever. So again, who knows we actually wrote it, read it, but they sent out a tweet from his account about my story. And I thought oh my gosh, I this is amazing. And I was watching my analytics and all of a sudden with about 10 minute period 30,000 people visited my website and it safely, it didn’t crash, it almost crashed. Because when you have that kind of traffic 10 years ago, I didn’t have the bandwidth to support it. But thankfully, it didn’t crash. So all these people read my stuff. And I went, Oh, they’re going to fall in love with me. This is amazing. I now have made it, these people are going to read every word I wrote. And then here’s what happened two days later, it was back to the normal traffic, right? Because it didn’t change my life it and I realized, okay, I have to go back to the drawing board and just keep writing content. And I you know, so it’s not like gogo had this unbelievable picture or video on Instagram, and all of a sudden got 20,000 additional followers, she posted 30,000 times over eight years. And and even if you did go viral once, maybe that would have like, it happened to me, it just kind of falls away after a few days and life goes back to normal.
Gogo Bethke 45:49 Yeah, I mean, I do get when you have your insight, you see what’s you know what’s there. And in weekly basis, I reach about a quarter million people. So in a month, about a million people that I reach. So that’s a huge amount of touch. I mean, just imagine I’m nobody, I’m a little girl from Romania, Transylvania out of all places. So if I can do it, anybody can do it. But that shows you right there. If if I can reach a million people a month, imagine what everybody else can do if they just put their mind to it.
D.J. Paris 46:14 Right? But the in the secret is you have to commit to consistency, right? So like gogo said, look, make sure make sure your profiles are set up correctly, have a nice picture that looks like you and make sure it’s consistent. It’s on your website. It’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, everything is consistent and the same. Now I want to talk just real quickly about content. So aside from stories, you say, hey, a couple times a day on Instagram, you make a post? What do you recommend as far as content for realtors to sort of talk about an Instagram, which is a very visual, obviously, it’s a visual medium. So what do you sort of suggest? And what don’t you suggest?
Gogo Bethke 46:51 Well, I do a little bit of everything. So I do usually six photos and a quote. So every six posts I do is a quote usually my quotes or something I come up with about probably 75% of the time. Sometimes it’s called done, I still sometimes it’s a meme. That’s really funny, just as you said, I posted when a couple of days about a couple of days ago about an offer being sent over via fax. And I was like, listen, Susan, I can’t fax from where I live. And she goes, where do you live? Like I live in 2019 you can fax from here, but he just said listen, Susan and I just thought it was so funny. So I shared that and he got a huge I think over 12,000 views and stuff. So things like that. So every six is a quote I think codes just show who you are and shows your character and people get to relate to you and so if they if they’re quirky, just like you are you just found your own monkeys, you just found your own group of people that if you were to put in the same room, you could talk until the end of the world and nobody would be bored. So that’s why that’s why I do the quotes because I want people to get to know me and how I work and what I stand for. And then find photos so to be honest with you, the ones that you are in personally works the best so if you have a listing let’s see that comes up make sure that you are in the photo take the photo in the best part of the house let’s see is the kitchen the best part of the house then you take a photo in the best part of the house maybe you sit on the kitchen counter with your arms up in this you know in a Fest and you’re like oh my gosh I’m so excited I just got this listing is going to be listed for 430,000 is three bedroom two bath 1500 square feet located you know walking distance from downtown Dallas or wherever you’re at. So this way they actually something captured their eyes because they happy for your excitement. Most people are in the market in average every seven years for six months for a new home. So your newest listing is no excitement to them at all whatsoever if they’re not on the market for a home just like that, or they might not even be in your area. So why on earth should they follow you and your newest listing and Pinckney Michigan, you know, I mean, so you have to give you have to be in the photos and you’ll see the more you share about yourself and your success and downtimes in the real estate market, the more followers you’re going to have. So I do probably out of the six I probably do three photos of me one quote and two photos of like interior design or travel or something like that, then, you know, even though I’m a realtor, I love traveling. I mean, I work to travel so I can spend my money in other places and countries. And so that’s that’s my what is it that dangled the carrot and the end of my success rope. And so I share things that you know, excite me and whatever I stand for. So I think it’s very important for the agent to be in about a good 50 60% of it. And by
D.J. Paris 49:26 the way, you can always turn the camera on yourself to if you’re in a property that that your your listing or you just listed and there’s something really cool or unique about it. Like gogo was saying at the beginning. She would take pictures of cool things she saw in homes and say, Hey, what did does anyone know what this is? Or this is really cool. You can literally turn the camera on yourself and highlight something say guys, I just have to show you this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And you can show that right and that again, whatever gets you excited comes through and it has to be authentic, right. It’s so so so that’s something that you can do it Every single listing, there’s something in that house that you think is already on the outside of the house, or the landscaping, that something is cool. And you really should get excited and say, Guys, I’m so excited about this listing. Let me show you the garden. I have to show this to you. And then
Gogo Bethke 50:14 yeah, when I had one of my one of my videos that went viral, it was also I don’t know, if you saw it, it was a while ago, it was talking about I got so sad, discriminated against. So we go into multiple interviewing process for a listing, and they narrow it down to me and this other guy, and then they end up calling me. So it was the grandstand and I was talking to the grandstand cause because while grandpa grandma really likes, likes you and would like to work with you, but they were wondering if you have a different business card, because your business card is a little rusty. And I was like, okay, caught me off guard for a second. And I was thinking, hold on a minute, what do what do my boobs have to do with my ability selling their home? My boobs, the fact that I’m a woman, and I have the absurd and I’ve canceled out my brain. Okay, you can have you can have both you can have booze and brain at the same time. It’s not against, you know, biology. And I was thinking for a second and I told the guy who said he listed? So since my body parts is that question here it, it really, it’s a decision making factor, and my ability of selling their home? How big is the other guys? How big is that? Since we’re talking about how big my boobs are? How big is his, and I use the D word to be honest with you. And it caught them off guard and guess who got the job? I did. Because in the end of the day, really all you’re deciding if I can sell your house, based on the fact that I have boobs? Did you did you ask him to show his his size or it’s only just my boob size that is questioning question here. So by showing what really goes down in the real estate market, and what it takes to get a listing and the discrimination and the and the thick skin that you have to have some times in order to make it, it just really shows all the other agents that they are not the only ones that are going through this because trust me, we all go through this in order to make it you go through a whole lot of I don’t even know what the right word is to use here. It’s not all roses and pink butterflies to make it in this industry. So I think if you can share all that the truth, everything that really goes down, not just the pretty bad, the ugly to it will get the other agents and the end the industry and everybody that has any interest in in real life to follow you. Because it’s interesting.
D.J. Paris 52:21 And had you not got that listing, I imagine that becomes something you content for your social media to write Had that not fall in your way if somebody decided, well, you know this, for whatever reason, they just didn’t like the way you physically presented yourself. And you know, that could happen, right? And that’s outside of your control. And somebody just goes well, I don’t like the fact that she’s you know, looks a certain way, then you can talk about that. That’s content, you can say, Hey, I just had a really unfortunate thing happened to me. And it sort of bummed me out. And here’s what’s going on. And boy, every woman on the planet would relate to that story. Right?
Gogo Bethke 52:58 Exactly. And I feel like you know, we talked about 2019. Gosh, we almost in 2020. And the fact that I’m supposed to hide my body, because that makes me look smarter. I can’t believe you’re having the conversation in the end of 2019. I’m like, Are you kidding me right now? Really like my education and brain capacity. And everything that I bring to the table now is suddenly washed away? Because I have boobs?
D.J. Paris 53:20 Yeah, it’s funny. I think a lot of people think that women who look a certain way might have it easier because they look a certain way. And the truth is, in some cases, in some ways, it’s because
Gogo Bethke 53:30 they assume that I’m because I’m blind and I have the herbs. And because sometimes they are out there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can follow me they’re not out there. You know, I mean, but I might have a lower cleavage or something where you can actually see that I’m a woman, God forbid, it’s not a turtleneck. You know, I mean, and I feel like in some cases, some people just assume if you’re blonde and good looking that you must be a bimbo. Like you can’t be smart, too at the same time, somehow one cancels out the other.
D.J. Paris 53:58 Yeah, and that probably forced you to work harder as well, because you had more to prove you were like, I am more than my looks. And it made it a little bit harder. And as a result, the perseverance is there. You’re like, No, I am going to make it and obviously you have and yes, you are not selling sex appeal. Right? That’s really important for the listeners to realize is this that’s not what gogo does. And it’s it’s apparent if you follow her that she doesn’t do that. But yes, of course, you know, you have to be very conscious of, you know, especially in social media, as it is gogo said at the beginning, you know, is this what audience is this for? What do they respond to,
Gogo Bethke 54:36 but I think that’s why video in my case, it’s so important because if all I did was, let’s say photos, and no video to come along with it, they may not be able to tell that I actually have a brain. You know, I mean, so if it’s just photos that you do, then you might come across as you you know, they might just assume certain things about you that it might not be true. And by doing videos and then not only see your looks but they also get an insight so they don’t only Getting the book by the cover, they actually able to read the content. And I think it’s really important if you take the social media out to show your brain, not just your looks.
D.J. Paris 55:09 Well, I think this is a good place to really talk about gogos boot camp, which by the way, everyone should be checking out Go Go’s boot camp.com. This is a social media program, it’s dozens of hours, when you factor in all of the extra freebies, it’s literally a step by step process, from A to Z, where realtors can figure out how to create, manage, and and, you know, consistently give great social media output to actually increase their fan base, and the people that follow them and eventually get more deals, and you need to have a structure, you shouldn’t just try to wing it. But here’s what I love the most about gogos bootcamp.com. And I haven’t yet got a chance to go through the program, I’m very excited myself to do it, because I need help with even our podcast getting it out there more than it is. And what I love about it is and it is you know, there’s a cost to it, just like there’s a cost to anything valuable. But here’s what I love 100% guarantee. And the reason for that is gogo is very confident that you will not need to exercise that 100% guarantee because the content is so strong. So for everyone who goes to the website and thinks, Well, you know, if I paid that, and it’s not good. Well, if it’s not good, you get your money back, but that’s not going to happen. So everyone needs to go to Go Go’s bootcamp. But can we talk a little bit about what people receive when they sign up?
Gogo Bethke 56:23 Sure, sure, absolutely. So originally started out I mean, I have clients now when I started at when he was 49 hours a series. So we started out with three series and each series got released. Originally, the very first series is about social media, they it has a ton of different videos, probably 10 different videos of explaining the basics of social and what you should and should not do, and how to use all of the features of social media. And then the second part is operation. So what it takes to work in your business, so anything from creating a CMA, what do I take the listing appointments, what are my closing gifts, everything CRM programs, how to use them, smartphone numbers, things like that. And then the last one is eventually get to a point in your career where you want to remove yourself and you want your business to function without you. And that is systems and how to when to hire an assistant how to pay an assistant how to structure that CPAs CPAs, financial advisors, anybody that legal advice, anybody that you need to run a business, because eventually it’s not just you anymore, you know, you need all of those outside third parties to make sure that the money that you make is invested properly, and you’re paying your taxes properly and not paying too much, and all that stuff. And then this assessment, you know, you realize you’re a certain way, and the people that you want to work with naturally you are drawn to the people who are just like you, if they are just like you do, you should not hire them, because that’s not who you need. The reason you need somebody is because you don’t want to do certain things or you’re not good at doing certain things. And so you have to hire somebody who’s not like you at all. So that’s where this assessment comes in. So it’s pretty much just explaining business from start to finish, how everything happens here and Google’s real estate and then how they can take their businesses to that point. And if they are already there, then maybe I can just add certain things to that. That will help them with the whole social media aspect of it. There’s so many Rockstar realtors out there that do hundreds of millions of dollars but have zero social media presence. And when it comes to the millennials soon if you don’t exist on social media, you don’t exist to a millennial, they are not going to call you they don’t want to talk to you they will maybe DM you and asked you know they text you best case scenario where they will not hold the phone call with you. And if you think about it, that’s our one of our largest population that is going to buy now their first home and soon upsize and so you need to be in front of them. And then we also have what’s called the workshop. So the workshop is Margie and myself. We do what we did, I should say a 10 week series. And each is about an hour. So the whole bootcamp it’s probably over 20 hours of videos. And each week we just covered a different subject in different parts of the being realtor. And that’s the workshops I’m trying to go to the list. So the first week was branding, and pretty much how to brand yourself and you know read name recognition, brand recognition, photos, videographers, all that stuff. Second week was social media then CRM program and database management, buyer’s agent strategies, Listing Agent strategies, Open House strategies working on your business, hiring the perfect assistant how to build a team and building residual income. And so it’s pretty much each of these are an hour class that we shot in our brokerage and they get access to that.
D.J. Paris 59:30 Yeah, so guys, again, check really in all you need to do is go to Go Go’s boot camp.com Watch the videos, read the copy, read the website, read everything, see if that’s what you need, because I know I am going through it myself, because it is what and I’m not a Producing Realtor, but I’m going to use those same strategies to help promote our own business and the podcast. So it’s it’s something that no matter how proficient you think you are, here’s somebody who’s actually having tremendous SAS, and you know, gosh, I would pay a fortune for that information. And people, you know, people are, thankfully it doesn’t cost a fortune, it’s actually quite cheap. For for what you get, I mean
Gogo Bethke 1:00:11 to say it’s 497 right now and we are coming out to sometime in November. We are coming out with Google’s bootcamp 2.0. The reason why is because this class is about a year old now. And Instagram has changed their algorithm a couple of times since. So there’s a few things that I need to update. And also, because in the first time when I did it, because social media comes so easy to me, I don’t know what you don’t know. So I am explaining it at a level that might be too high for some people who are brand new to it. So the 2.0 will literally walk you through like step by step how to post an IG TV video, how to tag a person how to tag location, why, to tag that. So literally step by step I’m screen, I’m sharing my phone screen and walking you through all of the different buttons, and these platforms to make sure that you’re doing it properly. So that’s 2.0. Also another series getting added to it. It’s called the mindset series, it’s over 50 videos, I realized that a large percentage of your success is your mindset and the belief of what you believe of yourself what you’re capable of doing and what you can imagine yourself doing down the road. And so there’s a few life lessons that I learned in my life. And I want to share that with everyone because I feel like if they could learn from my life lessons, then hopefully they don’t have to learn it the hard way. And so that is going to add it to be added as well. And then when the two new series come out, then the price will go up. But everybody that purchased it in the past, if they get it at 497, then they are just automatically going to get everything added for free.
D.J. Paris 1:01:35 Or that that’s that’s wonderful. So basically guys, just to recap, if you buy it, now you’re going to get the future updates. And there’s there are a tremendous amount of updates coming a 50 videos just for attitude and mindset. The bug gogos bootcamp 2.0 videos are going to be redone with updated information about how to use the social media platforms and even at a more remedial level. If you’re like, you know, I don’t know how to tag people, I don’t really understand even the basics, she’ll have it covered. So now’s the time to get in so that you get those updates for free. Thank you great well, and by the way, I am going to try to convince gogo to come on here more often, because I think this can be a regular series on our show. So I’m gonna do my best to persuade her to do that. But we are so grateful that you took the time to even do this episode. So go go, I think this is a perfect place to talk. We went almost a full hour and there’s so much more to cover. So we’d love to have you back in the future. So everyone who’s listening, go to gogos boot camp.com Buy the program, what do you have to lose, it’s a money, there’s a money back guarantee. To me, I love things that have very few things in life of a money back guarantee. And especially when you’re paying that, you know, a sizable amount of money, which I don’t think this is sizable, but for some people it will be this is a no risk situation. So I couldn’t recommend it more. She knows her stuff, she gets results. And she’s been doing it for the last, you know, gosh, I don’t 15 years really in real estate. And now she has a team of 106 agents. Her network now is 106 agents nationwide, at her at her office and as a recruiter, I know how difficult even that is to do. So this is somebody that you want to follow because she gets things done, and she does it the right way. So go go. Thank you so much for being on our show.
Gogo Bethke 1:03:23 Thank you so much for having me. You’re awesome. And I did the math while you were talking. So the 45 million and I sold with everything that I learned on social media generate over $1.3 million in commissions. So I would spend 500 To make 1.3 If it was me. But I’m not saying they will make 1.3 I’m saying that if they implement everything, there is a very easy way to double their income of what everything they’re doing already.
D.J. Paris 1:03:47 Well guys, you just heard it here. And this is an important thing, you could legitimately Double Your Income simply by by purchasing this course. And again, you have nothing to lose, it’s a no brainer. So anyway, we’re so grateful that you came on the show. Again, thank you for spending the time that I know you don’t have that you’re willing to do just for our audience. And I love that thank you so much and we’re gonna have you on again so guys go to Go Go’s go to gogos boot camp.com and go go and I will hopefully see you in a future episode. By the way before we go, everyone follow us on Facebook and I’m going to start an Instagram account based on what I’m learning gogos boot camp, but for our Facebook for now go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod, which is where every single day we post an article that we find online that we think is actionable, something you can do immediately to grow your business. Obviously we post the links to all of our episodes including this one that will be that will be coming shortly as well as all of our previous episodes and we also do a weekly one minute video which I should also put on Instagram, but I don’t for now it’s on Facebook, which is just a quick little tip are one of our producers does that and she’s wonderful. Her name In this list so guys, follow us on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real powder. Just search for keeping it real podcast. Also, you can go to our website and listen to every episode we’ve ever done, stream it live from our site, keeping it real pod.com and also a follow find us on iTunes, Google Play Anywhere you are using an app to listen to podcasts, just search for keeping a real podcast, we pop right up and subscribe. And lastly, tell a friend, that’s the best way you can support this podcast is tell more brokers, realtors agents that could benefit from hearing from people like go go about our show and really appreciate it just if you tell if everyone tells one person. Well, we’ll double our audience. So please continue to do that. And go go thank you again, and we’ll let you get back to your busy social media empire.
Gogo Bethke 1:05:46 Thank you. Thank you so much. And if I may, can you guys also follow me on Google’s real estate on all platforms?
D.J. Paris 1:05:52 Yes. So find her on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter everywhere guys, Go Go’s real estate. Just do a search for it. And we’re gonna post the links to all of that too. In on this in the description here of this podcast episodes. If you don’t know where to go, just look at the notes from the podcast episode. They’ll all be right there for you. So go go. Thank you so much.
Gogo Bethke 1:06:11 Thank you guys. Thank you have a wonderful week.
New weekly feature! In addition to continuing to produce long-form interviews with top 1% producers, we’re also going to serve you up some bite-sized audio goodness!
Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business.
In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses best-practices regarding stigmatized properties!
Transcript
Liz Lape 0:04 Hi, this is Liz lake, a producer for keeping it real podcast and this is a live lesson. A stigmatized property is one that may include a less than attractive history, like the like a death on the property or even the supernatural. You know if your clients believe in that sort of thing. In Illinois, you’re only required to disclose anything that has a physical impact on the property. Anything else would be considered a psychological defect or stigma. This can be a major deciding factor for clients. Even though you’re not required to disclose everything. We encourage you to disclose everything. This actually benefits both you and the buyer. Because disclosing as much information as possible can help you avoid a lawsuit and also helps to build trust. In addition to this, the truth will often come to the surface anyway, neighbors always talk. So if the stigma is big enough, be upfront with the buyer, have a neutral and respectful conversation about everything you know about the property. They’ll definitely appreciate your thoroughness and honesty. This has been a Liz lesson and I’ll see you next time.
Haley Levine and Tony Mattar met years ago while working for a top 1% real estate team. They instantly bonded and in 2019 decided it was time to open their own brokerage, HomeCo Chicago. In this episode Haley and Tony discuss why they started a firm, what it takes to be a top 1% broker and why client events have been a critical component of their success. They also talk about what most brokers miss about social media and how to attract younger clients. Their passion and excitement shines through and you’ll understand why they’re the hottest new brokerage in Chicago.
D.J. Paris 0:00 On 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 on to the show.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and guide through the show. Coming up in just a moment, we have an amazing interview with Tony matar and Haley Lavon, from home coach Chicago. And before we get to their interview, I want to mention a couple of quick things. First, we have you know, I should I should mention this because we’re here in Chicago and our listeners are largely in Chicago, however, we now have received some national attention, which we’re really grateful for. And it’s opened us up to an audience outside of our local metropolitan area. So what does that mean to you? Well means we’re going to start including guests from outside of the Chicagoland area. So at the very beginning of the show, I mentioned, we’re the largest podcast made for real estate brokers, by real estate brokers, but not every state has real estate brokers. So that might be confusing to some of you. So in Chicago, we don’t use the word agent, it doesn’t exist anymore. So everyone who’s a realtor as a real estate broker. So if you’re in a different state, you’re like broker, that’s just real estate agent or realtor. So same thing. Also, we’ve now been getting some attention from national advertisers. So if you are listening, and you are an advertiser, or would like to be an advertiser on the show, let us know find us through our website, keeping it real pod.com. And you can submit a request to be considered to advertise on one of our shows, where I will read a 32nd intro, and we’d love to promote your service or product. And lastly, please remember to subscribe on iTunes, and Google Play. If you’re an Android user, you can also stream every episode we’ve ever done on our website, keeping it real pod.com. And guys, please follow us on Facebook, it’s really our primary source of getting information to you not only about the show, but every single day, our producer Liz create finds a great article to help you grow your business. And she posts it on our Facebook page. So you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. So find us get and stay in touch with us. Tell a friend continue to listen and support our sponsors. We appreciate it. And we’ll keep making these great episodes. And lastly, if you’re in a different area, again, we’re here in Chicago, but we’re heard all over the country. If you have a successful broker in your neck of the woods that you want us to speak to send us a message right you can do that right through our website or through Facebook, let us know who we should be talking to and we’ll reach out and get them on the show in the near future. Thanks for listening again, guys. We really appreciate it. This is I think our 100 and 16th episode, and we never thought it would get this big. We’re going to keep making more if you keep listening so Thanks in advance and on to Tony and Haley.
Today on the show we have Hayley Lavon and Tony matar from their newly created real estate firm home co Chicago, Hayley and Tony each come from a long line of entrepreneurs. The two met a little over five years ago while working for one of Chicago’s top real estate firms and instantly bonded over their commitment to infusing their charisma, mindful strategies and design capabilities in to bring their clients real estate dreams to life. This bond culminated most recently when the to open their own independent real estate brokerage home co Chicago, just recently in 2019. Welcome Haley and Tony.
Tony Mattar 4:30 Hey, TJ, how’s it going? Good.
D.J. Paris 4:33 And we should mention, by the way, hello, Haley. Hi. We should mention that Haley was late but only for like the best possible reason you just came from a closing
Haley Levine 4:43 I did. I’m sorry to be like, no, no reason if any. No,
D.J. Paris 4:46 this is this is what top 1% producers do. They are busy and so we’re so grateful that you guys took time out of your day in between closings, which I know is not always the easiest thing, especially when you just started your firm, which was you know started earlier this Year, which is super exciting. And I definitely want to get to, to that. That sort of big event. But first let’s, I’d love to talk to you guys more about how you got started, because I’d love to hear both of your origin stories. So let’s go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Great
Tony Mattar 5:15 question DJ. So, um, my kind of origin story in the business as what I like to call a bit of a happy accident. I was working a job my first year out of school, and it was not necessarily something I loved. And I had become friends with a top producer here in Chicago, who owns his own firm, and kind of just through happenstance, I ended up going to work for him and decided that, you know, worst case scenario, I would learn about an industry that I knew nothing about as a 23 year old Sure, and best case scenario, I would figure out that I loved it and would continue to do it. And luckily, the latter is what happened.
D.J. Paris 5:53 Wow. And and how in how many years now? Have you been in the business?
Tony Mattar 5:57 I think about six now. I always track some days. But
D.J. Paris 6:01 and by the way, we should I want to the listeners probably know this. But just in case, starting your own firm and six years is unheard of like the fact that that Haley and Tony have done this is remarkable. And Haley to tell us about how you got started in real estate. Yeah,
Haley Levine 6:13 my story is actually very similar to that. But I am through college, I leased apartments kind of for extra money in the summer. And, you know, it turned into something. It was also a job I didn’t really like right out of college. And I was like, what if I tried to do real estate full time? What if I went for it? And I did. And I was also lucky enough to have some amazing mentors, you know, top producers, and learn the right way. You know, by a year and a half in working with top producers. I had seen over like 70 transactions in a year. So I learned a lot really quickly. And really grateful for that. But it turned from something that was a side hustle into a full time life. Really?
D.J. Paris 6:56 Yeah. Which is not easy to do. There’s so many part time brokers out there who have never, you know, are able to figure out how to make it a full time gig. So we’re always so impressed with people that do that. So talk to us about starting your own company, why and how and all of that. Yeah,
Tony Mattar 7:13 so I think something that Haley just mentioned mentioned is actually kind of worth like, looking back at, which is the fact that both her and I were fortunate enough to be on many different top producing teams throughout our career that kind of primed the pump and allowed us to get to this place. It was really, in my opinion, I think an accelerated growth trajectory that we were on because like Haley mentioned, rather than kind of, you know, hustling it out to close 510 deals a year, maybe 15 deals. Instead, we were on teams where we were a party to 7080 90 transactions within a year where we really got to see all the ins and outs, all the ways that deals can fall apart, how you should talk to your clients, how you should lead generate, and how to really run your business, like a business instead of like, you know, a solo entrepreneur. So that I think was instrumental in our kind of being able to take this step relatively, quote unquote, early in our careers.
D.J. Paris 8:11 Yeah, it’s interesting. So we’ve interviewed a lot of people on the show, and a lot of them will talk about that point where they get to, and usually it’s a volume that the number they give me is like, not necessarily number of transactions, but maybe it’s like 15 million, 20 million, whatever that number is, and all of a sudden, they’re like, I need to I need to, like figure out a better system here, because I’m killing myself. And you know, and then you guys were able to see how these top producers were able to manage just, you know, dozens of clients at the same time and how challenging that is, but also how to do it, which is huge.
Haley Levine 8:45 Yeah, when Tony and I kind of made the decision to team up, we came to the conclusion pretty early on that it would be a lot more impactful for the consumer and for our clients. If we just went out on our own your own brokerage. I think as agents it’s really clear cut to us that I work at whatever brokerage and I have this team, but to the other people out there, you know, our clients and the consumer, they don’t really understand that right? They care about you. Yeah. So it’s hard to say like I am on the Leviathan matar team at you know, whatever brokerage sure is being able to say this is our business. We started this just had a really big impact off the rent, and then we really, so that was the first decision. We’re like, this makes more sense. And the second part of it is we just realized how much more we could bring to our clients. You know, a lot of brokerages offer a lot of things and they do come at a premium but great things. But over the years, we’ve kind of realized what our clients need, right? And our database is millennial. It’s different. It’s marketing to in a different way. And we wanted to go full force with that and opening our own brokerage kind of allowed us the funds to do that and just you know, being able to kind of own all of it in a way we wanted to do
D.J. Paris 10:00 Yeah, I think that’s a really strong point is probably most firms haven’t updated the, maybe the marketing materials they offer to appeal to a younger demographic,
Tony Mattar 10:11 or even the channels on which they market, right, you know, do do sellers really care about a hardcover property brochure anymore. You know, it’s that type of stuff that you’re paying for at some of the other firms, which is, can be can be, you know, really a value add to certain types of clients. But when we looked and assessed what our client’s needs were, we felt like this was the best way to meet those needs.
D.J. Paris 10:33 Well, usually what I find, too, when I when I interview people for the show, as they end up creating all their own material anyway. So you might as well, if you’re going to do that, then you know, if you’re doing most all the work yourselves, makes perfect sense to open up your own firm. And as Haley said, be able to own all of it, right? Yes, that’s
Haley Levine 10:49 really, you know, the driving force, I think, a lot of our business, over 25% of it comes from social media, from Facebook, and Instagram marketing. And that’s a thing that no firm was really offering. And especially in the way we wanted to do it with our voice and with us, and to make it genuine so
D.J. Paris 11:06 and that’s, that’s huge, I definitely want to make sure we touch on that. And just to give our listeners some awareness of how they might start to look at social media as a way to generate leads. So for sure, I definitely want to come to that. I do want to mention before I forget that for everyone listening, you need to check out their website, by the way, which is one of the cleanest, simple minimalist, but like super chock full of great information, websites. So guys, give your web address.
Tony Mattar 11:33 Yeah, it’s home Coach chicago.com. And I just have to really quick say that that website is due in full part to Haley and that’s been her baby, did
D.J. Paris 11:42 you feel that
Haley Levine 11:43 I can take full credit for it. My fiance and my soon to be brother in law, I have a good tech network that was able to help me out with that he’s a designer. So we got you know, we’re fortunate that
D.J. Paris 11:56 it’s a really good lesson for our listeners of how to build a strong website that is very clean and easy to navigate. So home co chicago.com. So I just wanted to give you guys credit there because it’s really cool.
Haley Levine 12:07 I will say to you, our website is built in Squarespace. So it’s really something that anyone can do. You don’t need, you know, a life partner that is a designer and paring it down. And one of the things we invested in and good money was a really good video, that video is awesome, highly produced video, I think is the future, it makes people feel like they know us on the page. So we were like, if we’re gonna have anything, we don’t need all these crazy search tools and all these widgets and to put all the info but like one video where you really get a feel for us and what we’re trying to do, we feel like
D.J. Paris 12:39 works the best one what they did, just to go to like I’m a web designer myself. So I get really caught up in this and probably a lot of people don’t care. But what is so cool about their website is literally the video is the first thing you see. And you almost can’t proceed, or you don’t want to proceed until you check out their video and yeah, whoever you guys had a film that inlet it like the lighting is amazing. Anyway, I’ll stop because probably nobody cares about me. But that is such a cool thing. It’s one of the best videos I’ve ever seen. Yeah, so congrats on on your website. But yeah, can we go back to social media for a moment, Haley said that, you know, a quarter of your business comes from there, like tell us what you’re doing, or at least maybe your your philosophy around how to how to communicate via social media.
Tony Mattar 13:26 So I think we’re doing a couple of different things social media wise, you know, I know that Haley already mentioned, we’re two millennial co founders of a brand new business. And so as such, we both have kind of grown up on social media. So before we even were doing any type of social media advertising or anything like that, you know, it’s really important to just build your own personal brand on on a platform like Instagram or Facebook. And I think, you know, finding out what is my niche, you know, who are the people that are going to follow me etc, is really important in terms of building a big following. And when people in my experience, I think a lot of realtors out there focus a lot on how to create how to how to make their current following then become their clients. Right? For me, I think about it as how do I get more followers? Because, like, organically a certain percentage of my followers are going to turn into business for me. Sure. And so it’s a numbers game. It’s a numbers game in terms of increasing the number of people that you’re reaching with the same content that you are versus trying to tailor your content to try to convert more business out of a fixed set of people Sure.
Haley Levine 14:37 And you know, on our homecare account to are not really going for a ton of followers, like that’d be great, but it is also the content that we’re sharing back on our individual Instagram pages. So we’re going after to markets with our social media people we already know in our sphere, it’s reinforcing it and then driving like ad paid traffic to those two, but we made a couple key things when we decide Uh, about social media like our voice, we wanted to be genuine to who we were. And we wanted to think about the person who’s going on there to look at it before us. I think a lot of agents post a lot of just listed just saw, nobody cares. Nobody cares. I mean, I mean, like, great, that is good for you and you’re doing business and I think in our minds are like crazy to all my followers are gonna see that I’m closing all this business. Imagine if every time your dentist clean someone’s teeth, or like your mechanic every time they did an oil change, just like another oil change. Great. You’d be so you wouldn’t follow that we really go on social media for two reasons. One to creep on people, right? And to to be entertained. So you know, we thought how can we entertain people, and a lot of that is us just every showing we do without our phone doing a video to people like it, they engage with it, right? Yeah, you can go
Tony Mattar 15:50 on, go on a showing with us without even stepping foot out your door, you know, by checking out our story on Instagram guys do that every show him?
Haley Levine 15:58 Or a good number of them? I’ve heard you on everyone, but a good number of them. I don’t know anyone that does that. That’s huge. Yeah. And then what’s awesome about all the analytics we have now is we can go back and see, you know, who watched this for more than 10 seconds, right? Who engaged with it, and then we can target them with something else. So it’s kind of this idea, instead of us being on a park bench or like in line, you know, the checkout at the grocery store, like on those little bars. We’re everywhere. Every time you open your Instagram or your Facebook, there’s either a paid ad or something else that we’re there. So you’re thinking about us,
D.J. Paris 16:29 and we should tell everyone to follow them on Instagram. So the home coach Chicago is also their Instagram account. So check that out. And also do you can visit you can blame for that right from their, their website as well. So let’s talk about we were talking about this before we started about the events you guys, do we actually have one coming up very shortly. But I wanted, you know, a lot of our listeners, you know, they they have never done client appreciation events or client education events. He talked a little bit about how that factors into your business.
Haley Levine 16:58 Yeah, I think I will say first, I’ll admit this, I was always terrified to do events, I was always worried no one’s gonna show up at my party, I’m going to look super lame. But then when I started looking at it from a different angle is a lead generation source, it totally flips the table. So you know, with our events, we don’t really care if 200 people show up or 15, because it’s a tool to lead generate, right? So we come up with an event that’s providing something value base to our network. And then we’re calling them about it, it’s a great reason to pick up the phone and say, Hey, I wanted to make sure you got an invite, right? sending them an email about it, promoting it on social media. So it’s a great reason to reach out. And most of the time, we’re just looking for something that’s a great idea where someone’s like, oh, that’s like so cool. Even if they don’t show up, right, we’re still getting business from it is what we’ve found.
Tony Mattar 17:48 Yeah, I mean, I think Halley’s point is super important in that it doesn’t matter how many people actually come to the event, it matters how many people we have the opportunity to call and get on the phone. Because, you know, just this past week, we were gearing up for our event that we’re doing this Sunday, which is we hired a professional photographer, we’re going down to Tom Paine park on the south side, which has a beautiful mural and we’re building it as like a holiday photo event or headshots or, you know, just a family portrait if you want. And I was on the phone with someone who can’t come to the event, and talk to me about listing their home this spring. And so I would have never had that conversation or I might not have had I not picked up the phone and invited them to this event, which gave me a reason to reach out. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 18:31 yeah. And just back to social media for a second too, even if you the listeners are a broker and you’re not creating great content on social media, which is really what you should be doing, even if, as Haley said, like, one of the ideas is other reasons use social media to creep on people. Well, you can also use it as a tool to find out what’s going on in your clients lives. Right? So as Tony just said, Hey, it’s you know, having these events are a great reason to pick up the phone. Another great reason is looking on social media and saying, Oh, here’s what’s going on in my prospects or my clients lives, or their kids just went back to school to that time of the year. Maybe I should pick up the phone and say, How are the kids doing?
Haley Levine 19:07 We actually do a lot of that. And I think it’s kind of funny, I got a text from someone just yesterday where they had a baby and we send a little you know, gift right and part of the gifts as the baby’s weight and length. And she texts me she says one this is so cute that you sent us this thank you for congratulate SB two, I must have still been drugged up because I don’t remember telling you the baby’s weight. And I did my Oh, no, no, no, we saw it online. And she’s like, Oh, of course that makes sense. That’s so thoughtful. So I think we all know that we’re creeping on top of each other and like use that as a tool. She wasn’t offended. She was like, That’s so thoughtful. You
D.J. Paris 19:42 can send me a gift anytime I always take
Tony Mattar 19:43 a good note and I’ll keep
D.J. Paris 19:47 well, hey, I appreciate any and all attention. I’m just I’m just that insecure. So I need it. But let’s back to events for a moment because I think this is such a big big thing and probably 99% of brokers probably really don’t do events, which is sounds crazy, but they most don’t. So how often do you try to host an event? Like
Haley Levine 20:09 we try to do an event once a quarter? Yeah. And the thought, you know, they’re usually seasonal based, like Tony said, our next one’s a photoshoot that you can use in time for your holiday card if you want. But just something we can promote once a quarter and get out there, people are looking for things to do. People love any type of event. So I think it doesn’t even have to be a thing that costs you anything. But something that goes seasonally, along with what’s happening that they wouldn’t have otherwise thought to do is normally what we’re going for.
D.J. Paris 20:41 Yeah. And if you’re if, to the listeners, if you’re thinking, Well, gosh, I would love to do an event like that, but maybe I don’t have financially it’s not something that I can hire, you know, so and so to help work the event. You know, that’s where strategic partnerships can come into play, too. If you have relationships with lenders, for example, or attorneys, title companies, you know, insurance people, whoever, there’s there maybe would also help offset costs. So for everyone who’s listening and thinks, Oh, I couldn’t do that, well, maybe your partners would help, you know, offset costs.
Tony Mattar 21:12 So I think that’s a good point, TJ. But I also would caution people against spending a lot of money on these events, you know, for example, the photoshoot event that we’re having this Sunday, all in, I think it’s been about $350, we hired the photographer for a couple hours, we’re going to a free Park, and we got some donuts and cider from Costco. So I mean, no more than $500 For sure. For this entire event, which again, you know, how many appointments did we set from calling people to invite them to the event? It’s, it’s awesome. Yeah, I love it.
Haley Levine 21:43 I also think it’s okay to make people pay for something, sometimes it gets them to show up. Not the whole thing. But like, if you were going to rent out a movie theater, maybe you’re providing the ticket, you know, they’re buying their own snacks, or maybe they’re buying their ticket, but you’re renting out the entire theater, you know, something that goes along those lines, people are really just looking for something to do, and they takes the work out of thinking about Sure. So,
D.J. Paris 22:10 yeah, I love it. I think events are so important. And I’m so glad that you guys are talking about that. It’s probably the least talked about idea on our show. And I don’t know if maybe I’m just not asking the question, or if people aren’t doing it as often. But I think it’s such a cool idea. And in my life, I’m trying to think if anyone has ever offered me, because I need headshots once in a while for my own business here and or holiday photos, right? And no one has ever been like, Hey, I’m going to take care of that for you like that is really cool. That’s a huge deal. So that’s, I love the idea. I would love to pivot just real quickly to talk about systems. I know now that you guys have your own firm, you need to probably build and maintain your own systems. Can you talk about like that process and, and how that’s helped you be more efficient and effective?
Tony Mattar 22:59 Yeah, so I think that this has been, you know, this past a year, when we opened our own firm, it was really eye opening for me in many ways. And one of those ways was, you know, making sure that you have systems in place that are going to allow you to not run around like a chicken with your head cut off. And that goes throughout I mean that that permeates throughout all aspects of our business. So that means systems when it comes to lead follow up, that means systems when it comes to lead generation and time blocking for your calendar, that also means systems for, you know, having a payroll company that we use rather than me, you know, cutting checks and not have it not knowing how much to take out for taxes and all of that type of stuff. Having the right tools and systems in play, allow us to do our job better on a daily basis, and then allow us to train people to do their jobs in the best manner as well, which just makes the entire team run that much tighter and smoother.
D.J. Paris 23:53 Yeah. Are there any systems that have really like made a huge impact that you guys could talk about?
Haley Levine 23:59 I think our best system that I don’t even know if you’d call this this system is really that we run now our business, like a business, we have operating hours, and we know what we’re doing every hour of the day. So we really adhere to a time block schedule. And you know, our admin staff, their number one job is to make sure that we’re doing the things we’re supposed to be doing and the right time, so not bending to other people all the time and saying this is you know, the times we do things, this is the system we run on.
Tony Mattar 24:28 And also, I mean, there’s so many tools out there that can help with a myriad of different things. So, you know, we use Slack for communication so that we’re not getting lost in group text message threads with each other. We use Trello for you know, to do lists love Trello. Yeah. So different tools like that, you know, utilizing our CRM to its fullest and I totally agree with the sentiment that the best CRM is the one that you’ll use. So I’m not about to recommend one CRM over another, but having one that you just live and breathe in that has has been a huge change for me over this past year, as I’m obsessed with our CRM. Now, you know, not a day goes by that I’m not putting in someone new or cleaning up some information because that’s a moving target, right? You know, your CRM is never at 100% accuracy or completeness. And so you can always be improving it. And the more that you put in it, the more that you improve it, you know, the more output you’re gonna see in terms of business and productivity.
Haley Levine 25:22 Yeah, we decided early on that we wanted to run our business like a startup. So implementing technology to help us do that. Like Tony said, Slack has been like life changing. I think sometimes we do get inundated with, there’s so many different tech products for, you know, for real estate. And I think really the best ones, and the systems we’ve implemented aren’t even real estate specific. It’s just, you know, how, as a team, do we all talk to each other and keep it organized? What’s the tool for that doesn’t need to be real estate specific, right, like Trello has been life changing for us, you know, it’s great. So seeking out things where you’re really defining what’s the problem I’m having? And how can I refine it? Instead of looking for this real estate CRM that does it all? It’s, you know, made just for you, right? Yeah.
D.J. Paris 26:07 Yeah, when I started the podcast, we, myself and our producer, we use Trello, because and we just make it and for those who are listening, Trello is a really a to do list system, project management system. But it’s a visual system, which is really cool, because you can just see everything. It’s almost like a giant whiteboard in a way. And we just move from from little like board to board or I forget what they’re called. But we just moved people from, you know, like out there at this stage. They’re interested in joining and wanting to be on the podcast. Great. Now we’re going to skip scheduling, we move them and we just keep moving them down the list until they get to finish. So you guys are somewhere in our process right now, with your headshots and all the things you provided ahead of time. So I wanted to ask you guys, I always like to ask like funny experience. So you guys have something called the snow storm incident. I don’t know what this is. So are you guys willing to share that
Tony Mattar 26:59 that story? Yeah. So when you asked for a couple ideas about a funny story, I sort of started having PTSD now that these past couple of days, it’s been getting a little bit colder. There was a listing that we had a while back a couple years ago, this was actually prior to us teaming up and they were tenants in the home, it was a single family home. And when they were supposed to close, you know, we represented the seller, and they were closing in like January or February. Well, turns out that the tenants moved out and they had been paying the gas bill. So they had stopped paying the gas bill, I went over there to check on the home prior to the final walkthrough happening. And of course, the night before, there had been a four and a half foot snowstorm. So I ended up spending three hours shoveling through the driveway and through the walkway to get into the home. And once I was in there, what did I find, except for all of this crap in the basement that me and my former team member, you know, the guy whose team I was on had to carry out to the trash. So cut to me then shoveling up half all the way to the back yard to the alley. So needless to say that was a very much a full service moment for my clients. But you know, I think everyone in our industry will agree that you’re willing to do what it takes to get the job done under most most instances.
D.J. Paris 28:20 That’s a no, that’s Well, you certainly earned your commission on that one. That’s amazing. And then also guys tell us the bunk beds story.
Haley Levine 28:27 That one’s mine. So this was probably almost six years ago, I got a call from a out of state investor who had been leasing out an apartment unit in Wicker Park wanted me to go take a look. He’s thinking about selling it or maybe renting it out again. So I went over there, got the keys. I opened the door to find literally this unit. I think it was like a two bed, one bath, you know, vintage apartment and it probably had about 30 bunk beds on it. But current tenants he hadn’t been there in years. Yeah, the landlord was running any leisure stall. And it was all a palooza weekend. So there are like kids in there too. And like empty cans of alcohol, like just everywhere. And I call them he had no idea like they were running. So they’re charging by the bat. Sure. And I mean no joke, like 30 bunk beds like 60 beds. Yeah.
Tony Mattar 29:22 That’s a fire hazard.
Haley Levine 29:25 Definitely a one time experience. Yeah, that
D.J. Paris 29:27 guy must have made that was a good weekend for the lieutenant. amazing amount of money. Well, guys, I wanted to ask you, so the large number of people who listen to our show, who are brokers who are wanting to know like, okay, Tony and Haley have had this amazing success. They’ve opened up their own firm, they’re doing all these cool things. What advice do you have for somebody who’s maybe they’re newer, or maybe they’re not newer, but they’re just wanting to get to the next level. Do you have any suggestions for what you might recommend to them?
Tony Mattar 29:59 Yeah, So my recommendation and this is kind of bringing this whole conversation full circle back to what we talked about at the beginning is, I think the best way. I mean, I know the best way in this industry to, to gain to gain knowledge and to gain success, whatever that means to you is through experience. And so the best way that I was able to gain experience on an accelerated path was to be on teams of top producers. You know, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong for anything wrong with, you know, not trying to figure it out on your own from day one, because it’s a really stressful and scary business or it can be. And having that support system, having that mentorship and guidance, I think is invaluable, and really allows you to put the pedal to the metal, so to speak on your growth, growth track in the industry.
D.J. Paris 30:52 Yeah, I think that’s a that’s a great idea. And, you know, we’re trying to do our little part of that with this podcast is getting people access to the minds of some of these top producers. But yeah, this is one thing that almost all top producers we’ve had on the show talk about is there, maybe they’re not always looking for new members to add to their team, but they’re always looking for people who are super motivated, who want to work for someone like that. And the as Tony just said, the experience you get from working with a top producer is I mean, there’s no comparison because they know how to do everything. And then you don’t have to start over and figure everything out. So yeah, yeah. Any other suggestions? Guys have what like, aside from somebody joining another team, maybe what they could start doing?
Haley Levine 31:35 Yeah, I totally agree with Tony, man, we’re definitely both products of that get a good mentor early on. But I would also say, build your database from day one. Yes. So go through and make a list of everyone you know, whether you know, they’re going to be a home owner or a client or not sure, their name, their email, their phone number, preferably their mailing address, and then also come up with a way that you’re going to add to that database. So we make it a goal each to meet three new people a week. So they can be doing anything, right, like go through someone, you know, looked on LinkedIn look anywhere, and just how are you going to get coffee with three new people or even one new person a week and add them to your database? Because eventually, if you know enough people, and if you’re engaging with them and touching them in a genuine way, every year, it’s going to turn into business. So doing that early on, and knowing that that’s something you have to do is just gonna make, you know, awesome.
D.J. Paris 32:28 Yeah, early on. When I started the podcast, one of my first interviews was with Josh Weinberg of Josh and, and Tommy. Yeah, yeah. Everyone knows Josh and Tommy good
Tony Mattar 32:39 friend of the podcast. Yeah.
Haley Levine 32:40 As on Josh and Tommy’s. Yeah, well,
D.J. Paris 32:43 there we go. So yeah, so so we have a lot of experience here with with Josh and Tommy, but I when I was asking, Tommy wasn’t on the podcast, he was busy being the president of car, whatever he was doing at the time. And it obviously very, very busy. Both guys are extremely busy, and very successful. And I asked Josh, what are your like production goals for next year? And he says, Oh, we don’t think like that. And I said, Okay, well, how do you think and Josh goes, we only really have one metric. And it’s how many new people Tommy can meet in a year. So he says, like, I forget what it is, I think it’s like five people a week, or whatever the number was, he’s like, if Tommy does that, we will hit every single one of our goals. And I loved it. Because those guys, this was not their first year in the business. This is like their 10th year in the business or whatever. They’re extraordinarily successful. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s right, because that’s a good fundamental exercise. And that drives everything else. So Haley, I think you’re so right. Like,
Haley Levine 33:37 I have to admit, Tommy and Josh, are the people who told me to do that. And it took me a couple years to actually do it to the fullest, right? So makes I’d meet with someone, someone I wouldn’t. But the minute you do, and you’re deliberate about it, and you’re saving their info, you just like skyrocket. So yeah, do it early on, and take the advice and
D.J. Paris 33:54 don’t stop doing it. It’s kind of like a pushup, it’s just a good exercise that we should always do. And it’s just one of those core fundamental activities that will always yield a good result, Ryan de April, who does the show once a month as well is is famous for saying on almost every episode 16% of your database is transacting in real estate this year. So if you know 100 People, that means at least 16 of them are doing something buying selling, renting, and some of them are even doing two transactions, right? They’re selling and buying. So he’s like it might be 16 to 32 transactions for every 100 people, you know, so by adding more people to your database, obviously the math is pretty, pretty simple there. But yeah, and it’s just one of those easy things to forget to do. Right? Like it’s hard to meet three people a week. It really is like you have to really think about where am I going to find these people. Now once you figure out and you realize how important it is you can come up with a million different ways to meet people, but I think that gets lost and while I’m already working with all these clients, I don’t have time to meet new people. It’s like make time for it. It’s it’s if you’re only even doing that like a half an hour a day that may be your MO Most important half an hour,
Haley Levine 35:01 I would say find a niche. Something that’s like, you know, genuine to mine is women who own businesses, right? So I talked to one woman, and I’m like your boss is that? Who shall should I talk to you? I want to help your business grow, who’s another woman in business? And they always connect me with someone else. Who else should I be having coffee with? And it kind of doesn’t become work. People just start sending you people that you should know and me. Yeah,
Tony Mattar 35:29 yeah. I mean, I couldn’t agree more of everything that you both just said, and I just I, Haley and I kind of bemused on this pretty often, and that we feel like we know exactly what we have to do to be successful. And I think that in our industry, we’re in a completely unique situation in that, truly, we all do know exactly what we have to do to be successful. The question just becomes, are you willing to do that stuff? How important is it in relation to the other things going on in your life, and how committed are you going to be to it, and if you create those systems, and those tools to be able to follow through on the things that you know, are going to bring you success, money, freedom, a big life, then I mean, you’re golden.
D.J. Paris 36:12 Yeah. And I also want to say that maybe some of the magic that the two of you have, and this is just what I witnessed, even before having met you, really just seeing it on your website, it was so clear and apparent. And in I was talking about how great the video looks, and how well it’s shot and the lighting. And that’s all true, but the actual genuine affection that the two of you have for each other as, as partners in this business is really like palpable, it’s very obvious. And it’s very, it’s just very attractive, it’s a quality that you would want if you’re like, Oh, I’m going to hire realtors to help me buy or sell a home, I want to that seem like they’re having a ton of fun, but that they’re very serious about the business. But there they come. Your your personality and affection for each other really shows up. In really today, it’s shown up, of course, and then as well, like in all your marketing, so it’s really a big deal.
Tony Mattar 37:03 I have to say it’s completely genuine, because we’ve been friends for you know, five or six years now really good friends and, and we used to joke way back in the day about, you know, what if someday we own our own brokerage, and at the time, it would have been, that would have been the completely wrong move, because we were out messes and didn’t know what the hell we were doing. But, you know, for us to continue to grow that friendship and also to be a support for each other, in a professional sense, while working parallel to each other and not in an official capacity together, really just built the foundation for then when we did eventually decide to realize that years long dream.
Haley Levine 37:41 Yeah, it’s definitely a value proposition to our clients in a weird way to our friendship. I think that you know, a home co client is both of our clients. And they really work with both of us. And they come to really love and be friends with both of us do, you know are two for one package, we do have our moments, I think like any, like our marriage, this fight like anyone, but you know, the end of the day, we really love each other. And we really love what we’re doing. And our visions are definitely aligned. And I think that shines through.
Tony Mattar 38:09 I wouldn’t be standing up in Haley’s wedding in January if she didn’t like me.
D.J. Paris 38:15 That’s true. Well, guys, I think you’ve really you’ve set it all and we want all of our listeners. By the way, before we get to we wrap up, I want to make sure that we if we have listeners that are interested, then you know, not just brokers who listened to our show, we have buyers, sellers, renters investors, really all sorts. And the reason I know this is every time I do an episode, once it’s recorded and published, oftentimes, almost every time the person who I interviewed calls up weekly, and it goes I just somebody just listened to it. And now I’m working with them. So I want to speak directly to those buyers, sellers, renters investors, you know, if you’re looking for a real estate team to work with, guys, what’s the best way that anyone who wants to work with you should get in touch?
Tony Mattar 38:59 Yeah, um, so the best way if you want to work with us is to reach out directly through the contact page on our website, which is home coach chicago.com Or you can DM us on Instagram and I would say my advice speaking directly to the people on the buyer side of things would be it’s never too early to have an initial conversation with us and start to get those wheels turning and start to get the right education that you need in order to hit the ground running down the line. What would you say to sellers,
Haley Levine 39:26 sellers the same thing I think meeting early on and talking about you know what the market we’re in how we’re going to market your home in the right way use you know modern technology and targeting to do that. We’ll have that conversation with you now even if you’re thinking about selling a couple years from now, you know I’m kind of set you up for success and you can use all the mediums Tony talked about and you can also just email Hello at home coach chicago.com Yeah, so
D.J. Paris 39:51 everyone go visit home coach chicago.com also follow Tony and Haley on Instagram which is home coach Chicago, find them on Facebook as well, and you can hit all their social media right through home coach chicago.com as well. Well, guys, thank you so much for being on the show. This was a lot of fun. And the three of us are crowded around my little makeshift studio, which isn’t much of a studio. It’s just my office, and they were so sweet to come in and do this. And we’re so proud of you guys for having starting your own firm. That’s a big deal.
Haley Levine 40:22 For having a student
Tony Mattar 40:24 it was it was a pleasure to be all snug and cozy in here in your office with you. Yes,
D.J. Paris 40:29 we we are definitely like it. It’s hot in here too. So I’m sweating. I don’t know if the other if Haley and Tony are but we appreciate you guys coming in. And congrats on the success with the business and all your production. And just everything you guys are doing everything right. So it’s so cool to watch that. And thank you for taking time out of your day to come talk to our listeners.
Tony Mattar 40:48 We’re super grateful for your DJ and we hope that all the listeners out there at least got one little nugget that they can take away from today. Thank you. Oh, they
D.J. Paris 40:56 got more than that. So thanks, guys, and we’ll see everyone on the next episode. Bye guys. Bye
Melanie Giglio-Vakos of Team MVP at Compass is not only a top 1% agent – she’s currently the 12th highest producing real estate broker in Chicago (out of 45k brokers). Melanie talks about how a bad buying experience motivated her to get her license and how hard work is her secret weapon. She also discusses how she continually evolves her business to reflect the ever-changing market.
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 under the show Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate brokers for buy real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host and guide through the show. And coming up in just a moment. We have an amazing interview with top producer Melanie Giglio. Before we do, I’m going to ask you for a huge favor. Everyone who is listening, of course you’re listening. If you’re hearing this voice, I want you to close your eyes. If unless you’re driving, I want you to think about one broker that you know could benefit from hearing interviews like the one coming up here with Melanie top producers sharing their secrets, think of one broker in your office or maybe at a different office that could really benefit and as soon as we’re done, I want you to send this episode over to them. And we would appreciate it. And if every one of our listeners did that, we would of course double our listenership and be able to help even more of you and produce even more of these episodes. So by doing that you’re really helping us grow. And so we can continue to provide this content for free for you to help you grow, as well. So thank you in advance. Also, please follow us on Facebook every single day, we post an article that we think we’ll help you grow your business. And then we also do weekly video on there, too. That’s only 60 seconds long. And it’s a summarizes what we’ve been talking about on these podcast episodes. So also, if you want to follow us, in addition to Facebook, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from our website, keeping it real pod.com. And if you’re using a podcast app, just search for keeping it real podcast, and you should be able to find us. We’re on iTunes, we’re on Google Play. We are also in Stitcher, Spotify, any podcast director you should be able to find us. And lastly, just thank you so much for continuing to listen support our partners, and it’s telling a friend so let’s get to our interview with Melanie ganglia.
Today on the show, we have Melanie Giglio Makos, who runs the MVP team at Compass before I get into her bio, this is a very exciting episode for us because Melanie was at the very top of our we need to get on the show list when we first started like a few years ago, so we’re so excited to have her but if you’re not familiar with Melanie, let me tell you a little bit about her. She has built a reputation of excellence and professionalism among clients and industry peers alike by sharing her marketing expertise and dedicating herself to the highest level of service with over 16 years of residential real estate experience and a passion for helping clients achieve their real estate goals. She has been in the top 1% for nine over nine years consecutively. Melanie is very hands on effectively sets expectations and responds personally to all inquiries, ensuring that the process runs seamlessly from start to finish. As a longtime resident of Chicago, Melanie has watched the distinct neighborhoods of the city develop over time and places a premium on staying current on inventory pricing and trends. She brings an impressive network of experts to the table from mortgage consultants and lawyers to home inspectors and handyman. Her hands on approach has earned her not only repeat business, but enthusiastic referrals from satisfied clients. Also please visit her team website, which is MVP, Chicago real estate.com. Melanie, thank you so much. Welcome to the show. Yet we are thrilled to have you and we know just how busy you are. So it’s a big deal for us that you took a few minutes out of your week to do this. So for everyone who is listening who probably knows your name, but maybe don’t know your entire history in real estate, do you mind sharing with our audience like how you got how you got into real estate?
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 4:47 Sure, sure. Well, first up I have been in real estate for over 17 years now. I’m sorry if something might not have been updated. Going on 18 years now. I can’t believe that’s making me sound so old. But I’m the CIO about, I’d say 19 years ago, or at 18 or so years ago, when I was, I was buying my first condo. And I was not in real estate, I had no intention of going into real estate. And the experience that I had was atrocious to say the least, it probably there was probably not one aspect of the transaction that was even remotely, okay. And so my experience from that made me decide to get into real estate, I decided that I could do this 1,000% better than my realtor that I had. And, and so that’s how I decided to get into it, I decided that I was going to going to help people with one of their, you know, big, biggest, you know, they’re their biggest asset that they ever would have, and helping them throughout the entire process and credit news, hand holding 100% and be able to walk them through the process and have them know and understand every single step of the way, and not be left in the dark like I was when I first purchased my first home. So I didn’t even my I remember my agent did not even ask if I needed to get an inspection. I never got your inspection done. I never did a final walkthrough. It was under construction when I first saw it. And the day that I closed, it looked exactly the same as when I one and only time. And I remember finding that property myself in the newspaper, which is hilarious. So you know, and I didn’t know any better. So that’s why I was like, You have got to be kidding me, there has got to be a better way to do this. So it was it was held. But I got through it and decided to do the exact opposite of what the what I had experienced in my home, purchase my first home purchase.
D.J. Paris 7:03 Yeah, it’s really amazing to me, because I remember when I bought my first condo, and I was not in this business at all, and I just didn’t understand any part of it. And I thankfully had a really good broker who now I actually worked for all these years later. But the the fact is that thankfully, he was so good, because I was so ignorant. And I think a lot of buyers are there first the first time. And I think the really successful brokers, of course, understand that and and walk them through. But it’s funny because we’ve interviewed a ton of people on the show who are successful, like yourselves, who started out for that exact reason. They’re like, I went to buy something horrible experience. And I was like, I could do it obviously much better. And then you started working under like a really successful team. I imagine that was probably really helpful to learn the business.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 7:53 Yeah, you know, I worked for a small, a smaller company called Sergio banks. It was my first company. And now they’re much bigger, but they’re so small company than the last and worked under the owner was basically you know, in her team, and she was hugely successful. And she needed help. And I was I was the person that took over. And I remember my first month in real estate, I actually, I sold nine properties my first month, yes. And that was with not knowing a single thing. I remember sitting down with my first client, and writing my first contract and thinking, oh my gosh, I don’t even know how to fill this out. And they’re just kept calling her everything is standard here. This is standard, this is standard, and I’m not knowing what I was doing. I’m laughing, you know, laughing at it all, because I just can’t believe how little I knew and how I got through all of that. But yes, times changed quite a bit. But I, I did I worked under a team. And, and it was That’s I think the only way to start in real estate. I think that anyone that thinks that they could do it on their own is, is doing a huge disservice to themselves. Because it’s not easy to do it on your own. You have to be able to work under someone and really learn from them and have them mentor you and, and, you know, learn the you know, learn the ropes of, of selling real estate because you certainly don’t get that in your you know, in your schooling. When you get your license. They don’t go through any of that they just go through all the legalities of it. So being able to learn from the best and just really being her right arm and our left arm. And you know, I never left her side. I learned quite a bit.
D.J. Paris 9:38 Yeah, it’s the biggest, most common origin story for all the people we’ve interviewed who are all top 1% producers like yourself, almost all maybe there was one or two that just started on their own and overtime figured everything out but that’s certainly the exception. So yeah, for our listeners who are brokers who are either starting out out or wanting to, you know, grow their business, it’s certainly helps to either join it a successful team that is going to let you you know, flourish and be a resource or find a company, if you are just individual practitioner, like find a company that has an amazing support team that’s available, you know, pretty much whenever otherwise, yeah, it’s really hard. Otherwise, because yeah, in your classes, they don’t I don’t remember anything I was taught in my classes.
D.J. Paris 10:27 much irrelevant. So when, how long ago did you start your team because your team has grown you guys, by the way, we should mention the listeners, there are what There you have 16 members or so on the team.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 10:39 I do have 16 Total members. So there’s 14 agents. And then there is one, marketing director and one Operations Manager. And so that’s, that’s our whole team. And so my marketing director, she handles all of my marketing full time agent, I’m a full time, Gal. And she’s That’s all she focuses on all day, all night, every day. And though I’m my operations manager, she just keeps she’s the glue. And she keeps everything together. And all the rest are licensed agents. I have agents that that have been with me since 2008. And then I have some newer agents as well. But most of my agents have been with me a long time. We’re family. And, yeah, we have an amazing team, we do. I never anticipated the team to be this big. As a matter of fact, I had zero plans of it, the team just kind of grew very organically. And I never once went out there and said, Okay, I need to find this person, it was just that this person kind of fell into my lap one way or another, or I might have been talking about, oh, I really could do some more help. And then someone would come along and say, Hey, I know someone that’s interested. And so it just kind of worked out that way. And the people that I had joined the team, were the people that were showing me the most interest and you know, being a hustler, I would, if they reach out to me and say they want to meet with me, I pretty much blew him off for a long time. And I wanted to see how much they were really going to, you know, reach out to me and show me how interested they were. And you know, when they were very, very persistent, that got brownie points with me. And then I sat down and met with them and got to know him and see if they were a fit for the team. So we have a certain culture, and I needed to know that they were going to fit our culture and be an asset to the team. And so that’s where we are today. But I started with a, I’d say a small, small team, like with an assistant, probably two to three years after I started in real estate. That was probably the very beginning of it.
D.J. Paris 12:54 Wow, yeah, look, I want to go back to persistence. Because this is so important. You know, whether you’re a broker looking to join a successful team, like the MVP team, or if you’re just looking to get more clients on your own understanding that that’s the one thing that all of us have control over is our persistence. And I’d say polite persistence, or you know, but it’s well, yeah, of course. And but it’s one of those things that is in sort of short supply. I think it’s, you know, maybe just human nature not not to stay on top of things. And the fact that you know, you obviously have and you require that of your brokers, which is because it’s your brand. And obviously, you know that and you want to make sure that their client clients are taken care of, because it’s your name on, you know, on the masthead. So that’s, that’s a great, that’s a great, important point. And by the way, it kind of relates to our podcast, too, because when we first started this podcast, I thought, well, this would be really fun to do. And a nice way to give back to the community. And I had to politely be persistent in have been our team to like get interviews because I thought, well, I don’t know if anyone’s even gonna want to talk to us, but we just politely bothering them. And then now, it’s so funny. Now we have a list of like 60 people who are like, How come you haven’t been on the show yet? We just got one this morning from somebody in the top 10. Not yourself, of course, but someone else who was like, How come you haven’t happy on the show. So it’s funny, it’s now paid off to, even with this silly little podcast that people now are, are so excited to be on it. So we’re super grateful for that. But it was because of our persistence, that that you know, people are willing to be on the show. So it’s a great lesson for everyone listening, whether you’re, you know, a broker on your owner or you want to join a team like Melanie’s you have to impress her Of course, and, and that’s really important and even like little things like personal notes, and, and all those little persistent touches that, you know, brokers, Most brokers just don’t do. Even internet leads. I don’t know if you guys do any of that, but it’s amazing how people will spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars every month and then a lead comes in and they call it maybe once maybe
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 15:00 So, yeah, that doesn’t work in my world, there is, you know, my job essentially is just to train the team coach the team, and lead them and making them the best that they can be my goal in life is to make all of them much better than I could ever be. And so I try and, you know, get all the gain all the knowledge and experience and all that and pass it along to them. And we have our weekly meetings every Tuesday morning. And that’s where we get to, you know, tell them about all the different things that I you know, that I think our best tactics in order to get clients keep clients and nurture them, you know, for years and years and years. So, you know, it’s, it’s important for me to, to educate my team on that and help them constantly. So, yeah, that’s that one call would not work in my world.
D.J. Paris 15:58 It just wouldn’t work for business anyway, right? Like, it just doesn’t work at all. And it’s a really important thing is the one consistent thing we’ve heard when this is, by the time we published, this was probably like, 100, and eighth episode or so. So we’ve done a lot. And what’s amazing is, every single broker that we’ve had on the show echoes that same exact sentiment, they wouldn’t be where they are, if they if they weren’t, you know, proactive and persistent, I would like to get your take on what’s currently going on in the market, specifically, like how things have changed, or that how they’re changing what your team is sort of how that how your team is shifted to meet some of those needs.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 16:36 Sure. So you know, the markets, it’s definitely changing, they were all feeling it, we’re certainly seeing things slow down, a lot more inventory in the markets that are certainly more of a buyers market. Now, so than ever, and we’re seeing, you know, prices kind of declining a bit. And I don’t want to necessarily say declining, because I feel like it’s just becoming more of a normal market. You know, you think about this time a year ago, we were all complaining that there was no inventory, we have all these buyers, but no inventory at all. Well, now we you know, we got exactly what we asked for. And so now we have this inventory. And, and so now things just feel differently, but I just feel that it’s just more of a normal market. You know, you hear about the big R word when talking about recession, but I don’t think that that is, has really an effect on the housing market, we’re not in a housing recession. And so I’m not worried about that people are still out there buying interest rates are still very low. And we’re certainly not getting into anything close to there’s no signs at all that are pointing to anything, like what we were experiencing in 2008. So I just I feel like things are just slowing down. And we just have to keep going with what we’re doing. And maybe do more of what we’re doing, you know, more follow up more consistency, just more of everything, to be able to stay relevant in the market. But we’re so busy, we’re extremely busy. So, you know, we’re seeing some pricing. You know, I think the the other important thing is, we have to really educate our buyers, I’m sorry, excuse me, our sellers, on what’s going on. So we have been seeing a lot of lower offers. And so with that, we have to tell our clients why they should be considering this lower offer. And not, you know, just blowing it off, because we don’t know when the next offer is going to come in. And that’s one thing I pride myself on in my team, I make sure that we are constantly giving our clients weekly updates every single week we give our clients an update, whether it’s good, bad or ugly. And I think that helps a lot.
D.J. Paris 18:50 I will tell you, I we were talking about this before we started that you’re obviously close with Matt, Larissa and I was watching him speak recently. And he has that same philosophy that every single client gets an update every single week. And it sounds so simple. And it’s like well, of course everyone should do that. I would bet and I’m just guessing you would, you’d probably have a better bet against that. I would but I would say 98% of brokers probably don’t do that. And so that’s like all you did.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 19:19 Yeah, I’m the second agent. A lot of times, sometimes even the third agent on a home. And the constant thing that I keep hearing is, yeah, I haven’t heard from my agent a month. Haven’t heard a few months. I’m like really, I would that just would not work in my household again, you know, I make sure you are you’re getting up to him. And even more so when things are not happening. I mean, listen, it’s busy and we’re getting a lot of traffic and interest and all that then the weekly market update, you know, might not even be necessary because they’re kind of getting that from from all the traffic that they’re seeing, but I still give it regardless, but it’s especially important when the market is slow down a bit. So so they can be informed of everything. And, and sometimes, you know, when you’re constantly given these updates, the sellers come back to you and say, Wow, maybe we need to lower the price. You know, it’s the point where I’m opening the door for them to see exactly what it is and, and make it see for themselves as to what probably needs to be done in order to sell their home.
D.J. Paris 20:21 Yeah, here’s a quick little pro tip for everyone listening. And I’d probably everybody knows this. But it’s worth saying in case you don’t, obviously Melanie knows, but inside of em read, which is not always the easiest thing to navigate. But M read will actually show you if you’re the listing agent, how many eyeballs have have taken a look at the listing? And if you’re thinking, Well, what do I call my client on every week and tell them if there’s no real update? If it’s a listing, you could say, Hey, by the way, 150 Realtors took a look at this property, you know, via emarat. Or, and we didn’t get we only got two showings, maybe that’s, you know, a sign that we need to adjust pricing. So if you’re ever looking for like a reason, even if you’re just calling in to say, hey, we had all these eyeballs on it, and we got some traffic or we didn’t. That’s obviously a huge conversation points. So just for everyone listening if you didn’t know that that’s an option inside Amazon. Of course, a lot of other reasons to call, too. But but that’s just one one example. I’m curious to know, if you’re seeing in your own clients and your team’s clients. And because we’ve I’ve heard this from other top producers recently that they’re seeing a lot of their clients downsizing in specifically like in the suburbs, maybe they sell their property or even the city and now they’re even moving to rentals. Have you seen an uptick in rentals at all?
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 21:40 I have seen an uptick in rentals. For various reasons, definitely seeing some have been downsizing just like that. And you know, some people just don’t want to deal with the taxes anymore. The taxes have been a bit a big factor. And just some people are selling and want to just don’t know where they want to go next. So they don’t want to make a commitment to anything, but they know that it might be a good time to sell. So I’ve had that actually a few times this year where they they knew that if they waited a year, it might not be as good of a time to sell. So they wanted to do that before the market maybe slowed down even more so. So they sell and just stay in a rental for bet and then figure out their next move. So I’ve seen a lot of different reasons as to why someone would go to renting. I don’t agree with any of them. But yes, I’ve seen it. I think it’s insane. Because the way that I see it is that if someone was to rent a condo, let’s say, downtown and within the amount that they’re paying in that rent, if they were to buy that same exact condo, I guarantee you their their mortgage interest, taxes and assessments are probably going to be less than what they’re paying in rent. And then hopefully they’re going to be building equity in their home. And you know it, you have a write off with a two, there’s so many benefits to homeownership that I just don’t see any reason as to why you would rent unless you just truly cannot afford to buy a home. You don’t have the credit or the money.
D.J. Paris 23:16 Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. And it’s it’s amazing. The tax deductions still is a nice thing to see every year too. So yeah, it’s it’s it’s huge. And we don’t worry, it’s funny too, for everyone listening if you’re if you’re working with renters, and you don’t have a conversation around why they might also want to be purchasing that, you know, most people who are spending 2000 plus a month in rent should be by you can have that conversation and rates are now at like a three year low just this week. So it’s a pretty opportune time, I think.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 23:51 Yeah. And they’re giving away money. Basically, they were not going to see them much lower than this forever. So it really is, it’s an ideal time to buy.
D.J. Paris 24:00 Yeah, I very rarely in whenever we do these episodes, I always never make it to like I always asked like, Tell me your funniest experience, and you have a really good funny experience. This was about you the home on the south side. So do you mind sharing, sharing that with that story, just because it’s a great one that I think a lot of people can somewhat relate to, but you actually yours went like a little further than I thought it would so you don’t mind sharing it.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 24:27 Yeah, as well. It would have been better obviously, if you were there to really see the whole the whole thing of how it played out. But, you know, obviously in 2008 when the market was turning, you know, I felt I remember the day I remember where I was I remember all of it and I was in freakout mode and I figured out a way to get an opportunity to put my foot in the door and get in to sell foreclosures, because that was about the only thing that was that was there that was going to be selling at that point. So because nothing else was selling so it was foreclosures or go get another job. So I was fortunate enough to get in with a bunch of banks. I won’t go into all of that. But, but the thing is I, so I got in, and then I started getting all these listings. And of course, the majority of the listings were not in the better parts of the city. You know, they were in some rougher areas, some areas that were pretty scary to say the least. A lot of crime was going on whatever. So it was just it was, it was crazy. Nonetheless, there was a day where and so once in a while, I would have my husband go with me to some of these properties, because I was terrified to go by myself. And I’d always find someone to go with me, or at least most of the time anyway. And so this particular day I had, I wanted to go and do a visit to a few different properties of mine to check on them, because you’re supposed to do that to make sure that they didn’t get vandalized, and they’re still secured. And then there was just one property that the neighbor had called me and told me that someone broke in it was pulling out all the copper plumbing. I’m like, Oh, boy. So first went to this one house, and we walked around the house to make sure we’re secured. And of course, I saw that this basement window was, was broken into. So it did step down the stairs. And then it was a little little window, very small window. Not anyone could, you know, go out of it. But anyway, my husband decided to step down, I was standing back, he looked in the window to see if the he could see anything. And when he did that a black cat, like went out, like jumped over his head. He screamed like a little girl. He’d kill me right now if he heard me say, but it was hilarious. But so then immediately after that, we went to the next property, where the property was where the neighbor was calling and saying that people were pulling out copper plumbing. So I called the police. I asked the police to meet me there. And I got there before the police. And I said to my husband, like, Come on, let’s go inside. And he’s like, No, we’re not going inside. So no, come on, we’re fine. We’re fine. Or please, we’ll be here any minute. And so you know, he was still adamant about it. And I was insisted. So we walk in there, and the place was a mess. You know, it’s just, everything’s ripped up graffiti everywhere. But that’s normal. It was a normal home. And a few minutes later, the police come in, and they’re like, put your hands up. And I’m like, I’m just a realtor. And so, I mean, literally, it was so terrifying. My husband, MF me for that entire day as it will never go to these work. And with you. How dare you? What is wrong with you? I mean, it was just crazy. So it was just one crazy experience after another of the fork. Like I felt like I could write a book with all the experiences that I that I had in, you know, in that world of those four years of selling foreclosures.
D.J. Paris 27:44 Yeah, no, that is super funny. And it and scary, too. And, you know, obviously, you made it through it, but it goes back to persistence, right? Like you shifted back when the market crashed. And he said, Okay, how can I do this? That’s funny, too, because this question comes up a lot, where even at our firm brokers ask somebody like me who I don’t know anything, and they’ll say like, how do you get foreclosures? How do you get these bank relationships? I’m like, I have no idea. But why don’t you start calling some banks and talk to them. But it is one of those things that I feel like if you have to ask how to do it, and I don’t, personally, personally know how to do that. But, you know, it would start with calling like 10 banks and going, Hey, I want to be I want to get your foreclosures, how do I get access to that? And persistence, right, and just developing.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 28:35 I mean, it is it’s all about persistence. And I, you know, I remember I had like kind of a lead, where they said, they were having this REO event, I think it was in Texas. And it was the next day and I’m like, You know what, I’m gonna go get a ticket, I was broke, because I, you know, so bad, the market was so bad, we’re at least we’re feeling it. And I’m like, I’m gonna get a ticket. I’m gonna fly there. And I’m gonna figure it out. So I went there. And I just started talking to everybody that I could, and asking questions and meeting people and met someone that I could get into this exclusive club. And I remember he was charging, like $5,000 for the club. And he allowed me to get in for 2000. And so it was just, I was investing in my business, I knew that I had to do this, I had to, if I wanted this opportunity, I had to go and go for full force, and you know, and it’s gonna cost me and that’s exactly what I did. And I got some leads through that and it just kept going from there. And then it takes doing a good job because there are people that started doing doing that, and they just failed terribly. Well. I had to build a team in a matter of a week. And as a matter of fact, the one guy that’s with me now on my team, my keys, he was with me during that time I you know, he was just getting his license. I’m like, Okay, you’re gonna help me you’re going to do my BPOS for me, which are these broker price opinions? Yeah. And then I had to hire someone else to do my bookkeeping hire bookkeeper, and then this other assistant and then a team to do all the clean out it was, I mean, I just had to figure it out. And it was zero sleep for a very, very, very long time. And I was selling like over 100 100 A year during the time, but they were all foreclosures, every one of them was foreclosures. Yeah, it was stressful. But
D.J. Paris 30:16 that’s again, it just speaks to you’re treating this like a like a business. And you know, shifting and making a jump, pivoting, I guess, is maybe a better word, and saying, Okay, how do we
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 30:29 evolve over time? So
D.J. Paris 30:30 here’s a question. So we get a lot of brokers, because the schools who did teach the real estate classes are very kind and push a lot of people to the website to hear, or sorry, to our podcast to hear people like yourself, you know, give them encouragement on how they should start. If you were just starting out today. Do you have aside from being persistent, which is we’ve we’ve had several times, any other ideas of what somebody who is new, or somebody who’s really looking to ramp up their business might do today to like, you know, six months from now really start to reap those benefits?
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 31:01 Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s easy, I see exactly what needs to be done. I think, unfortunately, the work ethic of many people nowadays is just not up to par up to my standards. But you know, what I see is that you’re gonna get your license, work with a top producing team, and be there be present every single day at the office, listening to what you know what these, you know, what the top producers are doing, listen to their conversations, listen to them on the phone. So like, I’ve had many people actually, most of them have joined my team. But when they first started, or they were thinking about joining a team, I said, follow me around for an entire day, you could just stay next to me the entire time and just watch what I do. And if you have any questions, let me know. And, and that’s what a few of my agents had done with me. And then they decided to join the team. So I just think it’s extremely important to be around top producers listen to them. And then then you cannot be afraid of working hard. I mean, I’ll tell you, I’ve been in this business almost 18 years now. I still have there is not one day that goes by that I don’t work 12 hours. And most days, it’s a 14 hour day, and some days, it’s 16 hours a day, I hate to admit that it’s pretty embarrassing, but I still just work so much. I put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I am here late night, many times, I’m the first person in the office and the last person out of the office. And you know, I don’t get to go on vacations every other month. I feel like that’s, you know, we just experienced a lot of that nowadays, people want to work five, six hours a day and call it a day and have weekends off and go on vacation every other weekend. That just doesn’t work. And you know how I like to operate. And I think if you’re willing to put in the work, and be persistent and get on the phones and stay on the phones all day and be around like minded individuals, you will set yourself up to succeed. Yeah, and
D.J. Paris 33:03 Melanie is way too humble to say this, but I will say this for her. Not only is she top 1%, which she’s been for like nine or plus years, which is like I mean, everybody knows her. She’s not only that she’s in like the top, roughly the top 10 have about 44,000 brokers in the Chicagoland area. So she’s right around that very top 10 list. So this is you know, we would call it rarefied air, except she absolutely earned her Okay, they’re doing BPOS do, you know doing foreclosures in areas of the city where, you know, you’re being accused of, by the way, any police officer reasonably think that you are stealing our pipes? I apparently I guess.
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 33:47 Well, it was dark in the place. That’s why he didn’t seem he just saw removing. So that’s why he did that. But I’ve had pleased I remember I got pulled over one time, hate to admit it. But I was driving my husband’s Mercedes at the time and this bad area. And the guy, the cop stopped me and said, What are you doing here? And he was Do you realize that there were four fatalities just on this block just today? And I go, okay, yes, you know, one of those things. So, yes, scary, scary stuff. But again, you got to do what you got to do. And that’s, that was my mentality. That’s always been my mentality, and I’ll do whatever it takes to succeed.
D.J. Paris 34:24 Yeah, and we should, that really brings us to, you know, wrapping this up with with a message to everyone listening, it’s like, Look, if you’re interested in working, if you’re a broker and interested in maybe trying to earn a spot on the MVP team, we Melanie said, like be persistent, like, you know, offer to, to, you know, reach out, reach out, reach out. I know, if I was a broker or practicing broker, and I wanted to increase my production what better way than to study under somebody who’s just killing it, but then also being really understanding that I’m going to have to be putting in all of those hours which He’s every successful broker we’ve ever had on the show does that so, but these, you know, you have to impress these people, if you they’re going to take you under their wing because they’re going to invest in you, and they’re going to make you successful. That’s what’s the like, the really impressive part we had on I think it was Amy kite, but I might, I might be wrong, it was a suburban broker think it was Amy. And she’s to say, she said that on her episode, she’s like, Oh, I will make somebody over six figures by their like, third year, if they do exactly what I told them. She’s like, Eric is I don’t know that everyone’s going to do and I tell them, but she’s like, I have the secret sauce. And it’s not secret, but like, you have to just be willing to work. So obviously, Melanie feels the exact same way and is living that every single day. And so but if there are any buyers, sellers, renters investors out there that wants to work with either Melanie or Melanie, someone on your team, what is the best way they should be reaching out to you?
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 35:57 They can reach out to via email at Team mvp@compass.com. So that’s just t am M vp@compass.com. And I am one of the crazy ones that gives their cell phone number out. I may not answer right away, but I’ll certainly answer respond in a very, very quick timeframe. And my cell phone number is 312-953-4998.
D.J. Paris 36:27 If we were talking about this, before we started that you get about 100 messages every hour or so so, So be persistent if you if you’re messaging her and you know she’s busy, as well. But that again, goes to show just how serious she takes this business. So she’s like, here’s my cell phone, I get back to people reach out to me. So if you’re somebody who’s looking for a broker, a realtor, obviously Melanie would be a great fit, or someone on her team. And also, if you’re a broker who’s like, I want to join that team, you know, go to their website, reach out to them and tell them why they should even consider you joining. But that’s MVP, Chicago, real estate.com. And other than that, look, Melanie is killing it, she’s crushing it, and we’re gonna let her get back to her busy 12 hour minimum. Focus. And by the way, that’s another one thing I want to just end on, which is been very consistent, obviously, among all of our guests, including Melanie is that they all seem to find time to give back in whatever way that they’re passionate about. And so when we reached out to Melanie, like she’s too busy to respond to our podcast request, and yet she did. And she said, Sure, I’d be happy to speak to your audience. And that goes to show you for somebody who is as busy selling hundreds of homes a year, just how you know how willing they are to give back. And so for everyone who’s listening, whatever you’re passionate about, whether it’s like a volunteer organization, or just you know, helping other brokers like Melanie’s doing right now speaking to you, they seem to always find time, which again, speaks to their generosity and their persistence. So on behalf of the listeners, and there are 1000s. We thank Melanie, for coming on the show. Also, on behalf of Melanie and myself, we thank the listeners for listening and continuing to support our show and it’s a lot of fun. And we’ll continue of course providing these episodes. So, Melanie, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. So
Melanie Giglio-Vakos 38:28 yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.
Welcome to the October episode of Investor Insights With Brie Schmidt!
Brie Schmidt is one of the most well-respected buy-and-hold investors in Chicago. Each month we discuss an investment topic brokers should master.
In this episode Brie talks about one of the biggest challenges when starting to work with investors – making sure you have boundaries around the amount of time you’re willing to devote. Without a clear set of expectations in place you may find that you’ll put in more hours than is reasonable. Brie shares best practices on how to make sure the relationship is worthwhile to you, the broker!
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 another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host and guide through the show and today we have our investor insight monthly episode with Bree Schmidt. Now if you’re not familiar with Bri, let me tell you a little bit about her. Bree Schmidt acquired her first investment property in 2011 and left the corporate world in 2014 when she became a full time real estate investor. She’s the managing broker of Second City Real Estate a full service brokerage working with new investors and seasoned investors looking to expand their knowledge of the industry and their portfolio for utilizes her extensive knowledge of building and managing a portfolio to teach clients all about all aspects of buy and hold investing. Bri teaches how to analyze potential properties, calculating your ROI best practices within marketing and leasing, and also how to be a landlord and build a portfolio. Her job does not end when you close on a property she is always available to help you throughout the process and scale your business. She is the co founder of the Midwest real estate networking summit, which is a nonprofit educational summit for real estate investors. It’s a three day annual event provides new to experienced investors with the tools and connections necessary to build a real estate business. And they just announced their 2020. Next dates. And so if you’re interested in you should if you’re at all interested in real estate investing or working with investors go and attend the Midwest real estate summit to get more information, visit Midwest ar e summit.com. Welcome Bri to welcome back to the show.
Brie Schmidt 2:41 Yeah, thank you very much.
D.J. Paris 2:42 It’s been a few months we should actually you just had a major life event. Would you care to share that with the audience? What’s happened?
Brie Schmidt 2:50 Yeah, so when we last did the show I was pregnant. And now I have a baby. She’ll be two months tomorrow. So it’s been a fun few months getting adjusted to not sleeping ever.
D.J. Paris 3:07 Congratulations on behalf of all the listeners as well as myself, we are thrilled to have you back. But we understand that time is more limited or in short supply these days.
Brie Schmidt 3:20 Different adjustment.
D.J. Paris 3:23 I haven’t been through it yet. And I’ve heard that it all gets easier after year three, so you only have two years and 10 months left before it gets easier.
Brie Schmidt 3:34 Oh, I heard that’s the worst year? Well, well, like
D.J. Paris 3:37 I said, I’ve never done it. So what do I know? My sister’s, hers is in almost approaching your three. So I’ll report back after she hits your three. So okay, so what do we want to talk about today?
Brie Schmidt 3:51 So one of the things I wanted to talk about, and it was kind of irrelevant, to me, at least right now is time management with investors, and how to how I deal with them. It’s in fact, the 99% of my business. And one of the things I actually just got an email the other day, from an investor who was looking, you know, they’re from Israel, and he’s looking to pool money from out of the country, bring it to the US, he wants to go do it in Chicago, you know, build a team out here, build a portfolio, and you know, through multiple conversations with him, we decided that it just wasn’t we were going to pass them off to someone else who a was probably a better fit in the first place. But be because you can’t always just take on every single piece of business that comes your way. What he you know, what they’re looking to do is extremely time, time intensive, and at the end of the day, not worth our time to do that sort of work. So that’s kind of what sparked this idea is you know, hey, you know, if you are working with investors or you want to work with investors, you know, how can you To manage your time with them to be more efficient.
D.J. Paris 5:04 And this is a common question I even know here at our firm, I’m sure you got you get probably these calls all the time, because you’re so well known in the investment space, we get them here at our firm as well, we’re where somebody will just call up randomly, seemingly randomly and say, Hey, I’m an investor, I’m looking for some deals. Can you Patch me through to one of your brokers, which of course we do. But we’re always like telling that broker, hey, here’s how, and we don’t have a great set of guidelines to help a broker, especially a newer broker who’s like, I’ll take any any lead you have. And it might be an investor who, you know, ends up taking maybe more time than it’s worth. So how do you go about evaluating who you work with? And what kind of time you spend?
Brie Schmidt 5:46 That’s a Yeah, so that’s a great question. And I’m sure you guys get a ton too, and how, you know, everyone wants to be an investor, and especially now in the cycle, the market cycle, where when we’re at the top of the market, everyone jumping into this business, it seems just like we see an influx of people becoming real estate agents, we also see an influx of people becoming in real estate investors. So one of the first things I do understand that I manage a team of six. And the way that we are structured internally, is we all work in areas that we personally invest. So the first thing I ask them is, what’s your budget? What area? Are you looking to make sure that either Am I the right person? Or is it better off to go to one of my team members, who has you know, handled that area, we’ve gotten someone that handles you know, Berwyn, Cicero Forest Park, we have someone that handles the south side, North Side suburbs, we have it all structured based on our own area of expertise internally, once they’ve kind of gone through there. The second question I ask, what’s your budget? And that’s a really, I think, a really important question. And if they don’t answer that question, I don’t move forward with a conversation. I want to know exactly what’s your budget, like? And how are you paying for this? Are you have you been pre approved? Right, I want to see your pre approval, I want to see your proof of funds. Because I find a lot of times people are like, oh, yeah, you know, I, my budget is $800,000. Like, great. Let me see your pre approval. And then I get the pre approval, and it’s 400,000. I’m like, Well, how are you going to buy $100,000 property if you’re approved for 400. And their response is always well, rental income, because you can use rental income to increase your qualification. And I’d said, you know, no rental income and no Chicago property will ever increase your approval by that much. Generally speaking, you need about 70 $100 of rent, to increase your approval by $100,000. In funding financially with DTI calculations, and all that. So that’s step A. And I said, I used to be afraid to ask them off the bat what their approval was, and ask them like, you know, Hey, have you been pre approved? Let me see your qualifications before even taking a phone call, but I find that it helps me lead out half the people upfront, who just like, Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine. You know, great. If you’re sure you’ll be fine, then go talk to the bank and then come back and let me know. And a lot of times, I think people don’t understand the core competencies of approvals, which is debt to income ratio. And if they don’t understand debt to income ratio, they don’t they just think like, Oh, I’ve got a good job, and I’ve got good credit. Well, they don’t realize that they’ve got a bunch of debts, they currently have a mortgage that eats up 50% of their DTI. There’s no way they’re actually getting the approval anywhere close to what they need to afford. But secondly, I also asked to make sure they understand realistic expectations, you know, as at least least once a week some of the messages me and says, you know, my budget 650 And I want to be in Bucktown. Right? I was fine and say that’s not
D.J. Paris 8:52 you can buy a condo for 650. That’s about it.
Brie Schmidt 8:56 You know, if and that’s always my response, like that’s not realistic. Are you open to other areas? You know, and if they’re like, Well, I really want to be in Bucktown I’m like, well then I can’t like that I physically cannot help you. That is just not realistic. Linkin Park, obviously. Same thing too. But you know, if you’re looking for a cash flowing investment at 650 or more Avondale, Irving Park, Albany Park sort of areas, you’re definitely not in the Bucktown Wicker Park areas at 650. Unless your rehab budgets about $400,000, which typically,
D.J. Paris 9:29 So how often do you get calls because I know we get calls like this where somebody says when we asked those questions to qualify before we pass them off to one of our brokers and they go, Hey, I’m looking, I’m just looking for deals. Right. So that that’s a very common response. What do you say to that?
Brie Schmidt 9:45 Though, it definitely goes back again to what if they’re in my specific area, so I cover the north side of Chicago. I was explained to them that the average deal is typically 98% of list price. And a vast majority of my clients are volved in multiple offers over asking price. So if you’re looking for something that pennies on the dollar, then Chicago market is not for you. That’s my exact explanation. The north side of Chicago is not for you, if you’re looking to get something that 70 cents on the dollar,
D.J. Paris 10:15 or if somebody says, Hey, I’m looking for a short sale, you probably get that question a lot, too.
Brie Schmidt 10:21 Not really. And I try to explain to people that you can’t, you know, going into this as an investor, the more the more like pigeon holed you are with, like a has to be this neighborhood, or it has to be a, you know, brick gray stone, or it has to be too bad. Like, the more like, two bathrooms, whatever it is, the more focused you are in those capacities in the beginning, the harder it is to find your investment. So I always try to explain to people, you shouldn’t go into this with an open mind. And I always explain to people that it’s similar to having a pie, right, and you have a pie, you can cut your pie into four pieces. And the four pieces are cashflow, Condition, Location and price. So if you want cashflow, to be the biggest piece of your pie. The other pieces have to be smaller. That’s just how it works. There’s only so much pie you can have. Same thing like with location and location is the biggest piece of your of your pie. The other pieces need to be smaller, you’re going to sacrifice on price, it’s going to be expensive, you’re going to sacrifice some cash flow, and then you’re going to sacrifice on condition because location is the biggest priority to you. So going into it, it’s up to you to figure out, you know, hey, what’s the most important part of this is it going to be you know, I definitely want an X amount of cap rate slash return. Or I definitely want a project that’s value add, or I want a project that I don’t have to do anything to because I work full time and I want something turnkey, these are all variables that go into the puzzle, which you don’t necessarily need to know off the top, you know, off the front base of it all. But it’s something that you need to know before you make the purchase, though short sales fall into that. But I also as everyone you know, any agent knows Short sales are not what they used to be. They’re you know, they have not been for a very long time. You know, these smoking hot deals where you’re again, getting things pennies on the dollar, it’s just not realistic in this market cycle a It’s not realistic. And then in the areas of Chicago that I deal with, it’s just not realistic. We haven’t seen, you know, hugely discounted properties and least five years.
D.J. Paris 12:28 So once somebody passes the sniff test, we’ll call it as an investor. And you say, okay, they understand their budget, they understand approximately what they’re looking for. They seem serious, I’ve seen the documentation, then how do you go about determining how much time to spend with them.
Brie Schmidt 12:46 So one of the things that we do, especially before we even do a phone call, and I always say phone call, because I don’t do in person meetings, I think in person meetings are a huge waste of time, I will meet them at the actual showings when it’s time. But anything as far as conversation about, you know what to expect, all those things can be done over the phone. And
D.J. Paris 13:08 well, and plus, there’s just real quickly Sorry to interrupt. But there’s also safety considerations. In particular, if this is not a referral or someone you know,
Brie Schmidt 13:15 correct, of course, on. So that’s one of my rules that I only do, I only do phone calls until we actually go to do showings. But before that phone call, what I do is I send them an email and I have it I actually have uploaded on bigger pockets as well as a document. Every year, I go through all my sold, my clients sold investment properties. And every year I pick out five properties that I think are average. And I think that are a good representation of what you can get, you know, in a shorter period of time in Chicago, so I don’t want to show them the home runs. And I want to show them different price points, different neighborhoods. And I put all my my calculations as far as returns, what the cash on cash is going to be what the cap rate is going to be what the investment down payment is going to be. I put all of that into an excel sheet, and I tab it out by loan product as well. So I send them a document, I usually send them the last two years of examples. And I like to explain to them that, hey, these are property examples, which are a good representation of what you can expect in this market. Review this first before we schedule a call. So they’re able to go back and see 10 properties that clients have acquired, that my clients have acquired, and what the actual returns are for different loan programs. So if they’re thinking I’m going to do FHA, or I’m going to do 25% down, this is what the actual numbers look like. And I find specifically with out of state investors, that conversation almost always stops right there. Because they’re always looking, you know, from out of state, they’re looking for at least eight 9% cap rates, if not tons. 10s always the number that I hear like I want a 10% cap rate. I’m like I want a unicorn, that’d be great, you know, tick cargo is more like a six, potentially is seven realistically, but it’s more, you know, it’s a five to 7% range. It’s definitely not a 10% range. So I asked them to go through and write notes back to me, I know we can discuss those notes on the phone call a i, that gives them the opportunity to do their own due diligence and sort of create creating their own opinion of things we’re looking at picture. So looking at room sizes, they’re looking at rents, again, what the returns are, and then coming back to me and like, so which one of those is your favorite is the user may 1 question, you know, because I want to see which one, they picked a just sort of determine their personality, but be which one they picked, to make sure that they actually did the work. Because if they’re not going to do the work, I’m not going to do the work either. And that leads the conversation. You know, which one was your least favorite? What did you think about the areas? Where do you think about the returns the condition, and that guides the conversation, which usually leads to a pretty in depth hour long conversation about expectations in this market? Not from a return perspective, but like, hey, you know, this means that you want to live in, you know, you have to be in your transportation, like, let’s talk about this. What’s your future plan? Are you gonna live there for a year? Are you planning on living there for five years? You know, what deal? And that’s kind of our jumping off point of starting that conversation with all potential clients.
D.J. Paris 16:25 Yeah, that makes sense. How much time do you spend sourcing inventory for the investor to review is that the bulk of the time that you spend or not.
Brie Schmidt 16:40 So that’s also something in friars time management to discuss. So once we’ve, once we’ve understood that they can a afford, the areas that we are working in B that they understand what kind of returns are to be expected. And we tend to be very conservative with our projections, just you know, I don’t want to it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Then it comes to you know, now let’s now we can start looking at properties, right. And so, I’ve gotten my team is all focused by area. So I definitely do this for myself on the north side with my partner, Charlie, and my other agents are getting better at doing this. But how we work things is because we cover essentially from Pilsen to Jefferson Park up to Evanston is basically our our main focus area. So every day, we get every single MLS listing three times a day of every single multi unit in that area. Charlie and I both independently go through and analyze each every single MLS property that covers our area. And we’re analyzing it in what we call, it’s like a preliminary projection, right? We haven’t seen the property. So we’re just guessing, we’re guessing on rents, right? We’re using what the agent list, the rents are, we’re using a site called rental meter. And then we’re using our market knowledge. I mean, I’ve looked at every single MLS listing on the north side of Chicago in the last eight years, every single one of them. So most of the numbers are in my head, just based on experience. And what Charlie and I each do independently is every single day, we go through the list, and we put it into a calculator for us. And once the list, once we’ve got good properties in the list that we think clients will like, we send it out to our entire client database.
D.J. Paris 18:26 And this is really important. This is a huge distinction from what brokers who are maybe new to working with investors or wanting to invest themselves may think is especially if you’re wanting to work with investors, you might think well, how do I find investors? Would Bree will tell you that’s actually not the hardest part, the hardest part is finding the the the deal to, to to send to them, which makes sense. So that’s why she’s analyzing she knows the investors will show up once you can bring them something that makes sense.
Brie Schmidt 18:58 Absolutely, um, you know, there’s been, there’s definitely been times where we’ve had a client pass on a deal that we we thought was a great deal. And nine times out of 10, we’re able to sight unseen, have another client write an offer on it, just because based on our our level of experience and our ability to analyze properties, so Well, if it’s good, we’re selling it, you know, that’s how we see it. But that’s one of the differences. So when people when eight when clients come to me, one of the things that we discuss on our what we call our onboarding call, and I explained to them later, like it’s like, Hey, should I be getting a daily alert from the MLS? I’m like, honestly, I don’t set Anyone up for a daily alert on the MLS. I think it’s a waste of time. There’s no context,
D.J. Paris 19:48 right? They can’t and they can’t do the math that you can do.
Brie Schmidt 19:51 Correct. I can do it a lot quicker, a lot faster. But especially if you’re newer to intermediate investor. You know, you might not know that At the rents and the school district, which is right across the street, from and out, you know, are different than the school district across the street. There’s so many things and it’s so intricate that if you’re or if you’re just going to use a site, like centimeter by centimeter is a great website, but it’s the problem with that is it’s not super accurate. That’s the issue, because it’s that if you it only goes by bedrooms, bathrooms. So if you put, you know, I’m looking for a rent comp, and it prints out a really pretty report and all this data and it’s great. But if you’re putting a two bedroom in Lincoln Park, right, it’s not differentiating the difference between a two bedroom and a high rise, luxury condo, and a vintage two bedroom by the Paul, you know, that hasn’t been updated since the 80s. It’s, there’s no distinction between those two, and those two are gonna even though they’re both two bedrooms, there’s no you know, they don’t take consideration, square foot condition, all those things. So it’s a, it’s part of the tools that we use, but it can’t be the primary tool and I find that a lot of investors will use that as their or like Zillow, you know, well, Zillow, random, it says that it’s supposed to be this, you know, and that’s not necessarily accurate. And then it will throw off your numbers, and it may or may not be a good investment. So we like to take that off of the hands of our investors, especially in the beginning. But we also encourage them, like, Hey, I would set up your own alerts if you want. And when you see something you like, send it over to us. And in the beginning, you’re going to send it over to us with just a link, you know, hey, what about this property, and then I’m gonna come back with my notes and my calculations for you. But then as we start growing in our process, I want you as the investor to start putting together the preliminary analysis and sending it over to me, because what I’m doing is I’m teaching you, at the end of the day, I’m teaching you, right, I don’t want you to take my word and say, Hey, this is what I should do. This is what I you know, this is what briefings is right? So I should buy it. It’s not, it’s not realistic, I want you to know that it’s right, that it’s the right investment for you. So my goal is to teach you all these things throughout this process so that when that time comes, you’re ready to make the decision for yourself. That also helps us speed up for the second time around to most clients, it’s the first time we might look at 50 properties. The second time, it’s always less than three. I don’t know why. And it’s the weirdest thing, but they’ll you know, they’re ready for the next one. But because they’ve learned it all on the upfront, you know, they don’t need to go see 50 properties to know what they want. And to know what a good return is at that point. You know, they just need to see a couple in there. Now, they don’t want to go on as many showings because they’re preliminary, looking at the preliminary numbers up front, and they’re able to look at, you know, oh, you know, I don’t I know this location, I don’t like it, I’d been there before, or I don’t like frame houses on a slab, whatever it may be, you know, or I really can’t do Plex up that attic, whatever it is, they’re they’re not, they’re getting more fine tuned with their expectations. So they don’t want to go see as many properties anymore. They only want to go to the ones that they really think will be a good fit for them.
D.J. Paris 23:05 Yeah, that makes sense. And so for the brokers who are listening who are thinking, Well, how do I get this information? How do I learn how to analyze properties, really, this is a great opportunity to to promote the Midwest real estate Summit, because this is exactly what you learn. In this seminar, I was fortunate enough to get to go for a little bit to the last one. And it was amazing. And the speakers you have are amazing. And she brings speakers from all over the country, maybe even all over the world, really. And people come in from all over to attend this. So please, guys, if you’re interested, and you really, because it’s a really good point, back to the idea of putting somebody on an MLS search, you really don’t want to do that, right? Because you’re gonna get a million emails and questions and phone calls going, what about this property? What about this property, whereas you want to tell them, hey, three times a day, I’m looking at multi units or whatever your processes, and here’s the general process I use to figure out if this is a good opportunity, and you know, but if you don’t know how to do that the Midwest real estate summits probably the best place that I’ve ever been exposed to, to teach a broker or an investor, how to actually start analyzing properties.
Brie Schmidt 24:17 Absolutely. And there’s, you know, literally hundreds of investors that will be there. And it’s a very network centric event, meaning we do a lot with promoting networking. And most investors are very, like laid back type people where if you ask them like, you know, hey, what, what criteria are you looking for? Any experienced investor will tell you in five seconds. I’m this is I’ve got three things I look for A, B, and C, you know, and then again, if you ask them to, how are you getting, like how are you determining those numbers? Almost all of them everyone does things a little bit differently. But I’ve always experienced when I was first starting out, you know, I not ask people they would Grab a napkin and start telling me how they run their numbers and why. You know, and it’s a great event Yes. For learning all those things, and for networking with other investors and getting involved with the community.
D.J. Paris 25:11 Yeah, great. So everyone who is listening, go visit Midwest, ar e summit.com. Right now it we’re updating the site for the 2020 dates, those aren’t there yet. But if you scroll to the bottom, there’s a email form, put your information in because Bri actually sent out an email recently, in the last few weeks announcing the new dates, do you have the new dates in front of you Bri, I actually don’t have them in front
Brie Schmidt 25:35 of me today. 16th and 17th 2020
D.J. Paris 25:39 is going to be held in the same location.
D.J. Paris 25:45 And it is a neat space. That is a it’s a big space, there’s hundreds of people that attend, there’s vendors you can talk to. And of course, the speakers. And the networking opportunities are really unbelievable, and you absolutely need to go. So get go again to Midwest RV summit.com. We’ll also post a link in the show notes. And any other final advice for not letting investors eat up more of your time than is appropriate.
Brie Schmidt 26:13 The only other piece of advice I have is, one of the things I’m really big on personally is that business hours. And I know my hours are from nine to seven, Monday through Friday, I work 10 to two on Saturdays, I do not work on Sundays. And I’ve had to fire investor clients because they just weren’t respectful of my time. So it’s one of the things that that’s a big indicator to me, is if you you know most investors want to invest to be what we consider lifestyle investing, you know, they want to have the financial freedom to be able to do what they want. And though if they can’t respect my personal time, then they aren’t people that I want to work with. And I have found it took me years to do it to fire my first client. But I can’t tell the story before the day that I fired my first client. Like I swear that the clouds parted, and the sun just shone down on me. And it was such a glorious day because he was always, you know, texting me at 10 o’clock at night. And then if I wasn’t responding at 10 o’clock at night, he would call me. And you know, that, to me is just a huge sign of a time waster, if they can’t respect my boundaries that I lay out for them, then they aren’t someone that I’m going to want to work to. And they’re just going to drain my time. Also look at your client base, it’s one of the things that I reflect on, if I noticed that one client is taking up a vast majority of my time, and we’re not and it’s not in a you know, we’re not under contract, or we’re not, we’re just seeing properties every single week, I’m 10 times a week, sort of thing. I quickly determine if it’s going to be worth my time to continue with them or not. And if it’s not, or if they’re taking up too much of my time, I just tell them, I think they need to work with someone else.
D.J. Paris 27:57 And you get to do these things, really, when you start having the knowledge that other people don’t have, right. So you always of course want to be smarter than your investors not smarter, but but more experienced. You want to have your systems in place. Because, you know, I talked to a broker once who charges 7% as their listing Commission, which is higher than than the average. You know, the average is probably I don’t know what 5%, maybe, maybe 6%. But she charges an additional percent. And I said, Geez, how do you get? How do you how do you sell that to your to your sellers? And she she looked at me like how do I not sell that, of course is she had so much value that she was bringing, she said, This is what I offered. This is why why it costs the way it does. And by the way, she was a top 1% producer. So she’s able to say here’s why my clients choose me. And here’s why they’re willing to pay a premium. Now, we’re not exactly saying that exact message here. But if you have this sort of information, and you’re actually over time develop this expertise, you have a stronger ability to be able to set these, these these boundaries around your work and say, here’s what I do, I won’t work with you until X, Y or Z and here’s the time I can give to you and and usually it works out great, but if you don’t yet have the all of the expertise, this is where you you know, you join bigger pockets and you start you know, participating and listening to their podcasts and asking questions on the forum and reading. Bree is very prolific on bigger pockets and is on a lot of podcasts and is also very active in that community. And then she also started Midwest real estate Summit. Another great place to learn but it all starts with you becoming the knowledge source.
Brie Schmidt 29:39 Well, yeah, but on that point too as well. I mean, I think that the the time sucking clients and and we all buy say those words we all have at least one in mind. Like oh my god, that client was just non stop. Yo, and if it was one of the most glorious things when I started firing them And it wasn’t just because of my, like I was experienced and I, you know, an experienced investor that relates to anyone, if you there’s the 8020 rule, right? What is that 8020? Rule 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. You know, if you’re finding that you are running around ragged on a specific client, you know, and what is it really going to? Is it really worth your time? Is it affecting your other clients? That’s a big question, too. You know, if one client is taking up half of your time, which makes you not able to serve as your other clients, is that client really worth it? My pain? The answer’s no. That’s just straight up a business decision, regardless of if you work with investors or not. We even have one right side. And so we review our clients as well. If someone is starting to, you know, seem like a tire kicker, will will then re engage a conversation about expectations, especially for guys to have a multiple times the same thing. You know, we have that a lot with it with investors, especially when it comes to rehabs. You know, they’ll they’ll go into a property and be like, Oh, this is like a $20,000 cosmetic job. Um, like, this is a $200,000 project, no, like, no if ands or buts about it. And we’re not seeing eye to eye and they’re like, and they want to do an FHA loan with, you know, 3% down and they don’t have any money to rehab, then why are they looking at a $200,000 rehab project? And if they keep sending us those, and we keep explaining that this is not what is out of their budget? How are they going to pay for this? And they keep doing it? And then we’ll just we’ll just let that client go.
D.J. Paris 31:38 Yeah, I mean, this is the same that non investor brokers have with sellers who price their home too high and say, do your magic get it sold. And the broker is desperate for the deal or wants to try and isn’t able to because the price isn’t, isn’t reasonable. And then the seller blames them, and they lose the client anyway. And they’ve just now wasted a tremendous amount of time. So the ability to say no, you know, in a respectful way, is definitely a huge power, a huge amount of power to reclaim for yourself.
Brie Schmidt 32:12 Yes, and we, if that’s what you just said, definitely one of our personal struggles of when we go up against other brokerages for listing agreements, because we don’t sell sunshine and rainbows, we will, what we think is absolutely like will tell you, this is what we think is realistic, this is what we give them three ranges, what you if you want to sell it tomorrow, here’s what you listed at, if you want to sell it, what we think it will do within you know, 30 to 60 days in the market, and then what we think will be high or will sit for a few months, you know, but that’s what we think is on the high end, and we’ve lost plenty of listings to agents that will, you know, sell them the pipe dream of what their property’s worth. And then, you know, we obviously we watch them, and you know, 3456 months go by, and then the price drops come. And then they ended up selling for around what or less than what we projected they’d sell for in the first place. And it gets very frustrating, but just epic. Like, I just can’t go in there and be like, I think your property is worth, you know, 110% of what it’s worth just to get the listing and plus a fee, right? It’s a waste of time, but it’s a struggle when other agents do that. And then, you know, you’re stuck having to think, you know, lie to them, essentially, in my opinion, sure. Or be unrealistic will say that’s a nice word or a nicer word.
D.J. Paris 33:31 Yeah. So hopefully, this has been really helpful to our listeners. And you know, these are the kinds of topics that we want to cover, right. So with respect to investors investing, there’s so much to go over that is not really taught in a traditional real estate firm, right. So the vast majority of our listeners do not work for investor focused firms. So this is why Bri is so helpful and useful. And our listeners love it. So we want to need your questions, right? So Bree and I will definitely sift through the feedback we’re getting and deaf and bring these up in future episodes. So everyone who’s listening, whatever you would like to hear from Bri about investments investors, definitely send us messages you can contact us directly through our website, and you also stream every episode we’ve ever done, including all the episodes with Bri at keeping it real pod.com You can also and please follow us on Facebook this is where we post daily content to help brokers with their business in addition to of course all of our episodes every single day there’s a we have we source we scour the internet looking for one good article to post to say this will help you so that’s facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod or just search for keeping it real podcast. And of course find us on iTunes, Google Play any podcast app or directory you use. You should be we’re on Spotify. We’re everywhere. So just do a search for keeping it real podcast subscribe. And lastly, tell a friend right investors need to hear what Bri is talking About as well as other brokers in your office. So anyone that we think would be interested in this kind of information, you know, we have spent exactly $0 promoting this podcast, we now have 1000s of listeners. And it’s really because of two things. One, people like Bree, who come on, even after just giving birth, and sharing her knowledge, and also of course, our listeners sharing this with a friend, so please continue to tell a friend. We will see Bree, thank you again for coming on so quickly. Bree barely got any sleep last night. So this is a big, we’re so honored that and she probably hopefully will go right back to sleep after doing this. But we’re so honored that she comes on this is a big deal for us. We’re so grateful. And also thank you to all the listeners for continuing to listen, Bri everyone go visit Midwest RV summit.com Sign up for their mailing list, and we’ll be promoting this as well on our Facebook page. So Bree, thanks again.
Welcome to the October edition of Coaching Moments with Ryan D’Aprile!
How important is attitude? Ryan maintains it’s your single most valuable internal resource. Your attitude will provide you with the energy necessary to continue to scale a mountain while the rain is pouring down. It’s perhaps the only area of life where we have complete control. Ryan discusses how you should choose your attitude carefully and have it work for you, resulting in achieving more of what you want in life.
D.J. Paris 0:00 On 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 another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and once again this is our monthly session called coaching moments with Ryan de April. If you’re not familiar with Ryan Ryan de April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style and his dedication to training. Ryan has partnered with Lindsay Miller, who’s the CEO of depot properties to build a dynamic organization based on a foundation of culture, character and community a depot properties has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and is also in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, you can learn more, or to join depot properties, visit them online at D APR properties.com. Ryan, thanks again for being on the show.
Ryan D’Aprile 1:49 Thanks, TJ. Thanks for having me, I enjoy enjoy meeting with you on a monthly basis.
D.J. Paris 1:54 Yeah, this is a lot of fun. And our audience loves it because they send us all emails almost every day, going back through your all the episodes we’ve done. So it is very much appreciated. So on behalf of the listeners, thank you, what would you like to talk about today? So we went
Ryan D’Aprile 2:10 over a lot of skill set training I feel in the past few months. And so what I thought today might be a good topic would be talking about mindset, and a good attitude and an attitude of, you know, an attitude of gratitude and how you can really become more and more successful in life based upon your internal belief system. And how you look at life in general, your business, your home life, your personal life, and all these things I think they are. I wish we could silo our business and keep it separate. But it really does. It really does intertwine with our entire life. So I think something that’s very important in our industry, where it’s a very high EQ, emotional intelligence type business is how do you get back and kind of replenish your energy? And your thought process? And how do you focus on an attitude of gratitude? And how do you focus on being positive on a daily basis, so that you can do the things that you need to do because it’s really your attitude and your internal belief system that are going to propel you to take the actions that you need to do to be more successful in this business and in life in general. So that’s my thought DJ, I thought we would kind of go over that.
D.J. Paris 3:30 I think it’s a great place to start and a great topic. And it is made all the difference in my own life, as much as I would love to say that. It is my skill that has got me where I’m at. And certainly that has helped tremendously. But it is my attitude that has essentially landed me every job I’ve ever had. And also within the job the success I’ve had, I was thinking about this earlier that and I’ve been in a number of careers now I been in marketing, essentially for 20 plus years, yet I’ve never taken a marketing class. It’s not what I studied in college. And the fact that I’m in it is kind of funny, but it has been because of of opportunities that have been presented to me because people thought he’s got a good attitude, we want him around. And I’ve developed skill as a result of that in marketing. But I think attitude is so important, you know, in this business and really just in life in general, so great, great top.
Ryan D’Aprile 4:21 It’s it is it’s actually I believe it’s 80% or more of what we do, and I’m going to relate and to myself in my life so I could help you know, help others kind of see to perspective where I’m coming from why it’s so important. So I’m going to dive back to my earlier years and even my my my high school and when I entered high school I was 15 1415 years old. And at our high school, I went to lions Township High School, and my daughter goes lions Central High School, my other two girls will end up going there. they’ve changed it around. But believe it or not, is a very similar system, just different definitions. And what I’m going over right now is to show everybody here how important your attitude is. So to me, what’s very important to my core and to our core values of our company is creating what’s called a ripple effect. So we are a coaching company. But our biggest Why is to help everybody in our organization to come over their self doubt, insecurities, because we all struggle with it. The key is to be vulnerable, and discuss it and understand it, because then that way others can help you and then you could help others. So one of the things we’re looking for is that ripple effect that Shawn acre, and so many others talk about in their books, which I’ll go over that as well with you. And it comes down to children, because I experienced this now I have three daughters. And they’re all experienced in this at different levels. So when I entered my high school freshman class, we had our subjects we had health science, social studies, math, English, literature, etc. I’m sure all those subjects you had DJ at your high school as well. And next to every subject, was a letter that the school administrators assigned. And these are grown adults that are teaching children that are raising children, some of them have PhD, and they’re, they’re in academics, and they’re in, they’re in what do you call the superintendent administration. And they’re essentially responsible for our children for a long part of their lives from, you know, from first grade through high school, and then beyond. And I entered the high school and next to every subject line was a letter. And the letters would go from AP, I’m sure you’ve heard of AP, have you heard of AP before?
D.J. Paris 6:50 I even took a couple of those classes. So yes, I do remember,
Ryan D’Aprile 6:54 all right, you took a couple AP classes, right? I never did, I was on the complete other end of the spectrum. So there was AP, then there was h and h stood for honors. And then after h there was S and H lines such high school in the 90s, early 90s stood for superior. And then there was our you know, our stood for remedial, regular. So you were in either regular math, regular science, regular English. And then there was GE Do you know what GE stood for? I thought it stood for good. You want to why? Every subject I was in had a GE next to it. And it was general. And essentially what I society, especially in my high school was telling me in almost every subject, I was below regular. Now I’m not placing blame on them. But I want everybody understand that we’re all facing challenges, and they really define us. And the question is, is how are they going to define you? Because it’s not what happens to you is what you do about it? And that’s what I try to tell everybody in life. And I think the journey of life is the challenges we face and how do you react to them. And so here I was 15 years old, walking into a school of a class of maybe 800 kids, and having publicly labeled below regular every subject and going through that for four years. And then going on to college. And I joke around but barely getting in and barely getting out. Look at academics just was not my thing. But after school, and mean, after college, I had immediate success in the corporate world. And I was rejected several times when I wanted to go into executive search. An executive search is essentially where a company hires you and you go out and you recruit. It’s a very simple concept. A company comes in, they hires you, they need a regional sales manager. And that’s where I started in the hardware industry, the Building Material industry and it worked for a company called Brooke Chase. And we would do searches for companies like RYOBI or USG Corporation, we did middle management, executive search. And then after that, I wanted to do senior level search. And I was a whopping 23 years old and I got this red book executive recruiters and I called all the elite senior level executive search firms. And everybody turned me down just like every recruiting firm in the beginning turned me down when I interviewed them, but I called the owners and the managing partners of each of the firms and one of these company, one of the companies that eventually hired me. They said to me, you don’t have the degree, nor the pedigree to work. And what that means is when we’re interviewing he says, Hey, what did your father do for a living? Is it my dad, it’s very proud of my mom and dad, Dad auto parts stores. So if we weren’t, you know, in a sport, we in high school, by 15 years old, we had to get to one of our dad’s auto parts stores and work it was a family business. And then they asked where I went to school and these guys went to really nice Ivy League Brown, University of Michigan schools which Uh, you know, I’ve never would have been able to get into and they said you don’t have the degree nor the pedigree. But Ryan, we’d like your tenacity. So at least it gave me a phone call back, right? They said that to me, and it was pretty chilling. And again, but I had been put through that my entire life, right? Imagine 15 years old walking in high school and being put at the lowest subject line for every class, right. But the point that I’m trying to get at is now as a 43 year old man, looking back at that 15 year old, and then that 22 year old and a 24 year old. One of the things that stood out for me now looking back is, this kid had a great belief system and himself. And it’s, I almost want to say, I was lucky that I had that belief system. And it’s probably because my mom and dad believed so much into me, and they always pumped my ego up, and everybody has different circumstances. But I didn’t put academics as the end all be all. And I just put down what came to me naturally, and my friend building a friendship, building ability and whatnot. I just felt really confident myself all the time. And so here I am, being told again, right? I don’t have the degree nor the pedigree, it’s just like, hey, so when you walk into the door, go left and go to your G classes. You don’t belong in the RS H AP classes. But they gave me a shot. And five years later, I’m 27 years old, and the partner in the firm says, you’re going to be my right hand person.
He literally, him and I just melted so well, I was making more money than I ever thought I’d make. Because making more money than my mom and dad made probably three years combined. I had been on private jets of fortune 500 companies and large, multinational privately held companies doing stop senior level executive searches. But what he said to me is, you don’t have a degree of pedigree, but we’d like your tenacity and and never let that go. And I really, truly believe all success is based upon your grit and your grind and your passion. And everybody has to understand that we all are challenge facing a challenge. Just like I face the challenge in those GE classes, somebody faced a challenge in those AP classes, but in a different story. Everybody has their story, right? But the purpose, the point of our session here is the importance of mindset, and a belief system, and you got to believe in yourself. But that’s not easy. And it takes time. And actually it takes a culture and it takes a community of people and surrounding yourself with the right people. So one more thing to end the story. Okay, and then we’ll go on to the next part of this is I started buying and selling real estate, right after college while I was doing my executive search business. And I had accumulated quite a bit of property, a big 20,000 square foot warehouse building and a mixed use apartment building. I own three flats and houses throughout the Chicagoland area. And at one point, I said to myself, I should get my real estate license. So I went and got my real estate license. And I went to some school and got my license. And then went into Chicago in the west loop in a interviewed with a real estate company. And they said no. And so he said, No, I don’t think you’re a good fit. But what you can do is you could just go sponsor yourself if you want. So I went back to Madison Wells 181, West Madison, where my office was, I went met with them during lunch, went to the 33/43 floor to my corner office. And I ended the time. And I had to deal with rejection again. I’ve been dealing with rejection my entire life. And all of us are, but I didn’t let it defeat me. I didn’t let it overcome me. I went back I sat at my desk I remember I was looking over Lake Michigan, picking up the phone and calling the Chicago Association realtors and the IDF PR to figure out how do I sponsor myself because at that point, I said, I’m done. If they don’t believe me, that’s fine, I believe in myself. And that’s when I started selling real estate back in 2005. And I started selling real estate for myself by myself. I wasn’t sponsored by anybody. And within two, three years during the Great Recession, I was ranking in the top 1% of the Chicago Association, realtors in terms of production, and that it has something to do with skill set, but it has more to do with mindset and attitude. And that’s what I want to share with everybody in this podcast is that there are a lot of books we could do there a lot of practices we can we there are a lot of practices that we can do to continually build up our own belief systems in ourselves and that you have to make this a priority because it’s the biggest differentiator out there. is your attitude.
D.J. Paris 15:03 I just saw, I just saw a I have a page a day calendar. It’s like a life hack calendar. And a lot of times they’re everyday, it’s not always so great. There’ll be little hints and tricks to make life a little easier. Some are better than others. But yesterday’s. I thought it was so interesting. And I wanted to just get your and I’m sure it’s a statistic that whoever makes the calendar just fabricated, but it’s a good statistic, that’s probably true. And it said 50% of any job and is being liked. And other words, your attitude. And and I thought, I bet it’s more like 80% of the success of any job is your attitude.
Ryan D’Aprile 15:39 Absolutely. I mean, one of the one of the benefits of going to one of the most prestigious schools out there is because of the network you have. Right. And that’s one of the things I think these great schools will give you a great network. But that’s just going to open the door for you after that you got to be liked. You have to have work ethic, there’s so much that goes into it. There are so many other statistics out there, DJ that back this I think one of them and don’t I mean, I’m being recorded, right? So don’t quote me as a silly statement. But I don’t know how accurate this is. But I think that the same goes 80% of first. Wait, what is it? It’s four to one, it’s a four to one chance that somebody immigrating to the United States becomes a millionaire, over somebody who was born and raised in our country, it’s a four to one. So if you immigrate to the United States, in your late teens or 20s, you know, in and English is not your primary language, you have a four to one chance to come in a millionaire over the children that are born and raised here. Have you ever heard
D.J. Paris 16:49 that? Yeah, I think that’s called like the immigrant effect or something. Because they are coming oftentimes from disadvantaged environments, where there isn’t as much opportunity, a lot of the freedoms that we, you know, will take for granted. They might not have and they come over here, and they’re like, Wow, I have so much that I can do here. And because their mindset is set to a much more disadvantaged environment, they come over here and just see nothing but opportunity
Ryan D’Aprile 17:20 to be here. Absolutely. They’re grateful to be here. And that’s where it starts. Now. Again, I’m going to come back to the high school and I’m watching my daughter’s and Junior High in high school, and I’m watching the subjects in the social studies subjects that they are learning. And it’s so interesting to see how I hate politics. By the way, this is my disclaimer, okay? I don’t get it politics. I stopped watching politics in 2007. It was the best thing in my life to do
D.J. Paris 17:45 what we should and let’s talk about that for a second. And Ryan, is it the reason Ryan has told me privately that he does not engage in a political discussion or even just, you know, reading about it is it affects his attitude,
Ryan D’Aprile 17:58 it does affects everybody’s attitude. And so you have to understand the business of politics. The business of politics is to get us to fight each other. Let’s say I’m left in your right, or let’s say I’m right and your left, right. We probably agree on everything but 3% of the time. Right. But it is it is it gives off I think, a very dangerous message politics. And here’s what the message is. Your life isn’t that great vote for me, and I’ll change it and hate message, no matter what side side of the aisle are on your life isn’t that great vote for me, I’ll make it better. And that’s the message of kids off and the anger people have when they get into politics. And they talk about it. It doesn’t just end when they’re done with the conversation. They’ll think about it for three, four more hours. And therefore they’re not putting their life ahead. They’re not doing the things that they need to do to take the life, what they’re doing is they’re dwelling on a politician or to when they hate one that they love, and how they’re going to advance their career and not their own. And, you know, even our children in our schools are being taught the politics and what’s good and what’s bad. And there’s an element you have to write you can’t be you can’t be an ostrich. So I’m not, I’m not. I’m not advocating total ignorance. Okay. What I’m advocating here, is being aware of what’s going around us and what other people’s agendas might be. And at the end of the day, you cannot help anybody if you don’t help yourself first. And that statistics at 41 immigrants over American Board says because millionaire, whether it’s accurate or not, it says something about, hey, they’re happy and grateful to be here. And you have all of this luxury around you. But you might be miserable. And you might be complaining, and you blink your eyes. 20 years goes by and now you’re 20 Now you’re 40 and you blink your eyes and 15 years go by On your 55? And did you spend more that time angry and bitter? And that focusing on how to get ahead? Or did you have an attitude of gratitude and grateful for what you have the clean water you drink? Right? Your health, there’s so much you can be grateful for. I think most people forget this. And I don’t think they realize how detrimental that can be to their success and happiness in life.
D.J. Paris 20:29 Yeah, it’s one of those things where you literally, you know, everyone’s situation is different. And people experienced challenges and unexpected things happen, that that are extraordinarily difficult, tragic. You know, and everyone goes through versions of that some people, of course, have more than others. But I had read once in a book, and I can’t remember which book? Well, there’s two things I wanted to mention. But one was that if nothing else, if you wake up another day, that’s a reason to say thank you, because a lot of people aren’t going to get to wake up tomorrow. And so if you’re, if you’re having struggling to find something to be grateful for, well, gosh, you just got another day to do something magical or just to do something to either help yourself or to help others. And that’s a reason.
Ryan D’Aprile 21:15 And then it’s even even going beyond that. What’s really difficult is how do you enjoy the downs with the off and how do you spin the downs? And really take the good out of it down. So I’m going to start plugging some books here. Okay. The entrepreneur rollercoaster by Darren Hardy. I think the last time I read it probably four years ago, but I just recall, listening to the book, and being an entrepreneur, then it’s still being an entrepreneur today. And realizing, oh my god, you had these troubles too. You had these ups and downs, you have these heart break, we all do. So it’s something that we all have to embrace. You have to embrace the roller coaster. Do you remember? Oh my gosh, I think the movie was called parenthood with Steve Martin. Do you remember canneries Kennedy’s was in that movie? Right? So I’m, I’m not the best movies. But this line stood out to me. I think I was in high school when this movie came out. But there was a moment where Steve Martin is in the kitchen and all the kids are running around screaming. It’s how I feel like when my family is over, and he could hear a roller coaster and he had his youngest boy was being bullied and you know, he had his job. situation. I think he was let go. And you could see like his vision going up and down. You hear in the background. They do this audio visual or this visual or excuse the audio of like, carnival and roller coaster rides. And then he comes focused and he looks at this 8590 year old grandmother. Do you remember her in the movie? Do you remember that? About stadia okay. Yeah. And he she was always bothering him and he and he couldn’t handle and she looks at him. She goes, she reflects and I remember exactly what you said she was, you know, life. I was a little girl and I go to the carnival. And she said something. And he’s he’s starting to roll his eyes. And and he’s like, What are you seeing now? She said, we went on the merry go round and went around and around and around, but loved the roller coaster when we go up. And we go down and we go up and we go down. And he realized that the wisdom that she was telling him that life is a roller coaster. And we have two ways of going about this. We can embrace it. Or we can wish for the boring miracle round. But the reality is we don’t want the miracle around. We don’t want the boringness. So when you get the challenge and you get the down, you get that gut punch and everything else. There is a way to step back and say, You know what, I probably wouldn’t have this any other way. Because I could have my boring office job somewhere.
D.J. Paris 23:48 Ryan Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite authors. I don’t know if you’re affiliated, he had a new book that just came out yesterday called stillness as the key. But one of his seminal works that everybody should read. And again, his name is Ryan Holiday is called the obstacle is the way. And it just perfectly sums up, Ryan, what you just said, which is the challenge is where the juice of life is. It’s certainly hard. And there’s, there’s, you know, certainly a lot of tough emotions with it. But if things aren’t just a little scary and a little tough and hard. Boy, that’s where all the satisfaction is as you persevere through it. It’s just where everything good comes from, from challenge
Ryan D’Aprile 24:29 it is it’s where all the meat in the marvelous isn’t the challenge. It’s not. It’s difficult when you’re in the situation. But when you look back, I look back at seven, eight years, I’ve been trying to grow this organization. And I could tell how I felt during the UPS or the down parts. Looking back. It’s like Wow, am I lucky to go through that? And that’s it’s Ryan Holiday and what’s it called?
D.J. Paris 24:50 Yep. The obstacle is the way I want to
Ryan D’Aprile 24:53 ping you after this meeting. I’m going to get that book. Another great book is the happiness of it. image by Shawn a car Have you ever read The Happiness Advantage? Yes, I have. Okay, so for the readers, I’m going to go over a couple points that Shawn talks about in the book. And So Sean, I grew up in Waco, Texas was going to be a firefighter and a whim, he applied to Harvard. And he got accepted. And so clearly he was in those AP classes and smart guy, and unlike how I was in school, and he went to Harvard, and he studied psychology, and he did his postdoctoral there and whatnot. I might be butchering this a little bit, but he became a professor there in psychology. And he realized that there were probably 20 to one studies on happiness. So there was drug addiction, there was you know, what other psychology right depression and trauma, trauma, all these things out there. And, and it’s kind of going back to what I was talking about, like, watching my children in school and what they’re studying about everything that’s wrong with our country and everything else. And like, Look, I’m not some like, you know, you know, I’m not mister like Patriot American states a great like, I know, we have issues. I’m just trying to talk about the mindset and how important it is that the messages we give across. And when you are I’m raising children, right? It’s like, how do you help balance this and show everybody how grateful you are, but he was going, going back to, to Shawn, he was talking about your 22, one studies on a drug addiction abuse, and all these other things, trauma, and there was very few studies done on happiness. And so he started a course called happiness. And he realized that there was a two year waiting list at Harvard, for his class. And he was like, Why could there be at the greatest university in the world? A two year waiting list for my business school, right? Sure. my psychology class on happiness. And so he went on, and he did a survey and he discovered that 70% of the student body in Harvard was unhappy or depressed. And do you know why they were?
D.J. Paris 27:06 I would guess they were stressed about performing well, in college.
Ryan D’Aprile 27:10 Here, these people are in the number one school. I mean, you could write your ticket, can’t you? You got to Harvard? I mean, it’s I would think so you would think so. So what I write, but, DJ, I’ve written my own ticket. Sounds like you’ve written your own ticket. Yeah, I think schools, right, right. So. So again, I’m even repeating these messages that our children are going to hear. And this were the ripple effect that he talks about, that I want to have, when I’m coaching my agents to have more of a ripple effect in our society, to measure our words, what we’re saying. And here is he’s like, you’re in the best university, but you’re depressed. And what they’re doing is they’re comparing, they were the number one student in their high school, and now they’re
D.J. Paris 27:48 in the other just one of one of 1000s. Correct.
Ryan D’Aprile 27:51 And so Comparison is the thief of all joy. And all of us are going to compare, and it’s one of the things we need to stop. And the only thing you should be comparing to is you the day before, the week before the month and the year before. If we could focus on comparing ourselves to ourselves and our past selves, then I think we’ll have the snowball effect on the happiness and Happiness Advantage that Shawn acre talks about.
D.J. Paris 28:20 Yeah, there’s a philosophy I found online, I’ll try to find the article where it was on a Reddit post of all places, and it was in a, a Reddit forum called get disciplined, and it talked about discipline. And it’s a great forum. If you’re a Reddit person, check out get disciplined, but the philosophy is called no more zero days to Ryan just mentioned, hey, trying, you know, the only thing you never compare your insides to someone else’s outsides. And that’s a very important and difficult lesson because it’s easy for us to do that, to look at other people and say, well, they’ve got it made, and they’re not like me, and I’m not quite there. And there’s something wrong with me because I’m not where they’re at at this stage. But all you ever have to do is compare yourself to yourself. And the no more zero days, philosophy is come up with a series of habits, behaviors, goals that you want to achieve. And instead of looking to the, I’ll be happy when I get to a million dollars or whatever x that is for you, for whatever goals you’ve set is say, okay, what can I do today? Well, if let’s say I wanted to, you know, be able to lose weight, and I say, Okay, well, I know I need to exercise I need to do some cardio, I need to lift some weights and I probably need to watch my calorie intake and then it gets to the end of the day and you go gosh, you know what, I didn’t do anything. I ate poorly. I didn’t exercise. You know, I didn’t get to the gym. But you know what, before I go to bed, I’m going to crank out one pushup. If that’s all I did, that is not a zero day I did one thing and then you can go to bed and okay, maybe tomorrow I’m going to do better. But never you know if you can just go to bed and never have a zero day do something. Just one thing. then you’ve you’ve improved
Ryan D’Aprile 30:02 many habits, a book, written by I can’t recall with author’s what’s called mini habits, talks about the one pushup a day. And at least you get down in position. If you get down into position. You might do two or three or four. That’s the big Yes, exactly. So another little mindset technique, and there’s so many things that are out there to help us is the 8020 rule. And that’s a Pareto principle. But where I’m going with that is it’s a Pareto principle, but it’s based on wealth in our country. So we hear that 20% of our population owns 80% Of all the wealth, correct? Correct, right. And then as that 20%, shrinks, their wealth gets larger and larger. Sure. Right. So then you have your one percenters in the world, right? The 1%, they have 99% of all the wealth in our country, correct? Right? And there is how do you look at that? Do you look at that as a negative, or you look at it as a positive? And then you get into policies and taxes and laws and everything else? Let’s not go down that path. Let’s just go back. And let’s look at the 20%. That controls 80% of the wealth. Sure. All right. So let’s take the 20% that control 80% of the wealth. What percentage of that 20%? Right, what percent of that 20% made it in their own lifetime? And what percent is that 20% are second generation, meaning they inherited it, it was passed down
D.J. Paris 31:28 to them, I would have to guess the vast majority made it themselves but actually don’t know.
Ryan D’Aprile 31:34 Yeah, so 80% of the 20% made it in their own lifetime. And 20% or 20%, inherited it. Now that’s a staggering number. And if you want to do like a little task, let’s just figure this out. Let’s talk about second generation people. That inherited money. Can you name one?
D.J. Paris 31:56 I have a few friends that have Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 31:58 let’s go big. Let’s go. Let’s go real quick. Let’s talk we’re talking about real money here.
D.J. Paris 32:02 Like the big Gotcha. Those are not my friends.
Ryan D’Aprile 32:05 They might be and maybe you might not want to say that out there. But let’s just think, right. Okay, can you say somebody’s name up that you can think of? That is a second generation, multi multi multi millionaire. How about habits?
D.J. Paris 32:20 Let’s say Paris Hilton, some somebody like that.
Ryan D’Aprile 32:23 There you go. There’s one Paris Hilton, right. Um, how about Pritzker? Our governor? Sure. How about the bushes? Sure. How about the Kennedys? Yep. Right. So a lot of them, you know, are in politics now. And they’re there. They’re making policies and they’re running our lives, right. But I’m just kidding here. And as both sides pile you could tell how I feel about politics, right? But really, so I’m starting to run out. I’m sure there’s more I could think about it. Now. Let’s go to first generation, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, Mark, human. Right, Will Smith. I mean, all of these individual can go on and on and on. It’s really easy to look at how you can make a life of your dreams on your own here and every reason to be grateful and excited about it. And the expression that I heard that I share with everybody, I’ve encountered them, you know, tasked with coaching or helping or getting ahead is Don’t overestimate what you can achieve in a year. And underestimate what you can achieve in a decade. Because all these people achieved it over time. And what they embrace more is the journey. And then a lot of these first generation people like gates, like, Oh, my God, what’s the Berkshire guy’s name? I can’t believe I can’t remember his name. They’re giving the money away. You could do all morning from all the wealthiest people in our country. Katzman 99%, take it all away from and redistributed. Eventually, it’s going to go back to those 20%. Because because of their mindset, exactly. They made it on their own. They’re grateful where it is. It’s the journey. It’s not the destination. And there’s a lot of things that we face. There’s challenges, there’s trials, trope trials, right? There’s also mundane and is boring. Yeah, for sure. I love real estate. Of course, it gets boring guys, what doesn’t after a while, but you’ve got to look back at and say how do I readjust my attitude and mindset? Oh, yeah, I get the common goal and I please, I get to be with my family. I am not stuck behind a desk for eight to 10 hours a day. If I don’t want to be stuck behind the guest. There’s so many ways to spin it. But that’s your job. That’s we have an obligation to shift our mindset and refocus on to the good. So then we do the things that we need to do to get ahead.
D.J. Paris 34:49 Yeah, it’s it’s funny. So we’ve done over 100 episodes of this podcast where we talk to the top producing brokers, and people also like Ryan, who have been top producing brokers. Now he’s running 14 offices with over 500 agents. And we, you know, as I start to think about what has been some commonality among all these top producers, and the biggest sort of takeaway of all is almost all of them are shocked that not everyone is a top producer, which of course, not everyone can be a not everyone wants to be. But they’re shocked because they don’t understand how people aren’t. And because they already have the attitude, they don’t necessarily think they’re smarter, more skilled. And they I’m sure they are very skilled, and they have great customer service. And they’re very good at their jobs, of course, but more than anything, it seems to be there, just the attitude. And it’s not even so much that they’re the hardest working, although, of course, they’re hard working. But there’s a lot of hard working people that still struggle. And you know, the attitude is, is so important. And it’s almost universal on all of these interviews we’ve done. And by the way, these are people that are not paid to be on our show. As such as Ryan, this doesn’t directly benefit Ryan to be on our show he he doesn’t plug anything, he’s not getting any benefit. He does it because he wants to be of service. And I’ve always thought maybe that’s the best attitude of all, is this idea of gratitude. And that’s being of service, you know, boy, I’m so lucky. How can I help other people, and especially in real estate, and I’m not a Producing Realtor, but everyone I’ve interviewed, that’s how they think about it, they’re not in it for the money, or the power or the fame, maybe they are and they just don’t mention it. But I don’t think so the vast majority of of everyone that we’ve interviewed, they talk about being of service, they like helping, and what a great attitude to have, if that’s your attitude, you’re going to wake up every day excited to start the day, and you’re going to get to get you through those challenging times when your best friend goes with another realtor instead of you. And you’re like, ah, that hurts, or your clients pain in the butt or a deal falls through. You’re just helping and you just help Help Help. And in this in this profession, you get rewarded for helping people how cool is that?
Ryan D’Aprile 37:00 Yeah, and you know, you have to be also have to keep in mind, so you want to give and you want to help, right, and it’s what drives us. But also, and I’m speaking to the majority of the real estate agents that are out there that put themselves last, you got to help yourself first. There’s a lot of real estate agents in our industry, that are that are mothers out there, and they’re just naturally prone to put themselves last, you can’t, you’ve got to put yourself first, it’s incredibly important, especially if you’re a parent to show your children how to succeed, you can’t talk you got to walk, you got to walk the walk. So what you have to do is take some time, and you have to help yourself. And that way you can help your children or the people that you love that you want to help out because they’re only going to learn from you by example. So you have to stop and you have to check your attitude. You have to do what we call the mirror check, do some tests on yourself, and ask how do you feel about this? And how do you feel that and if they’re overwhelmingly negative, you have to have a mind shift, you have to have a mind shift because you’re gonna have an effect on the rest of your day. So, so what else can we talk about? So we went over the mindset, right? Yeah. And talked about some some books everybody should read. Right. Daniel Pink is another wonderful author of, of my business and psychology. Shawn acre,
D.J. Paris 38:22 and what was the book that you Ryan Holiday?
Ryan D’Aprile 38:25 Ryan Holiday and what is the well, his
D.J. Paris 38:27 his book is called obstacle, the what is the way and one of the things that if anyone’s out there that’s interested in a really practical philosophy and it goes back 1000s of years, look into stoicism. The stoics were philosophers that that talked about challenge because we all experienced challenge challenges part of life is as Ryan just said, it’s the meat in the marble, right? It’s the juice of life. And the all that you can ever do in life, the only thing we really have control over is really two things, which is our well really just one thing is our behavior, right? That’s all that we really control our beliefs and our behavior. And so you know, life is just going to happen to us, the tough stuff is going to come our way. That’s normal. And it’s hard. And all we ever can do is answer the stoics. The stoics really interesting because they just go, you always assume the worst, assume that nothing’s ever going to fall your way that everything that that you’ve built up is going to crumble. People are going to leave, they’re going to die. They’re going to disappoint you, they’re going to betray you. Okay, let’s just because we don’t have control over any of that. So we’re going to assume that all the bad stuff is going to happen. And by the way, of course it won’t. But assume it’s like the Boy Scout Motto always repeat, be prepared. And because it Brian Tracy said this too. We all know who well, a lot of us know who Brian Tracy is famous motivational speaker. And he used to say, nobody is coming to save you. And I thought boy, that is a tough thing to hear. But maybe it’s the truest thing anyone could ever hear. Nobody is coming to save you. So yeah, and that’s the good news. The X Well, good news is no one’s coming to save you.
Ryan D’Aprile 40:03 Lines. I mean, that’s a great thing. And let’s, I gotta tell everybody it’s like so you can either control your life or have somebody else control your life, what would you rather write and you want to have control of your life, so then you can’t blame. All you could do is look in the mirror. And nobody’s coming to save you. It’s you have to do it yourself. But you know what, it’s a big responsibility. But it’s all the freedom in the world, or the freedom of the world’s corner to take big responsibility. You have to be responsible for yourself. Everybody has got to stop the blame game. And the best thing we can do is look for the magic in our life. Yes. You know, magic is real. It’s out there. And if you see it, you’ll see it every single day. Let’s just Let’s talk before it.
D.J. Paris 40:44 Let’s talk about magic. Because I was talking to you offline recently. And you were started a new, a new vertical in your business, a new a new department that you were interested in, or that you you had been interested in for a long time. And it’s finally here. And I said, How did you do that? And I expected you to say, Well, first I did this, and then I did this and and you just go oh, I visualize that. And I sort of laughed because I thought well, maybe he’s sort of kidding. Or he’s being just humble. And then you said something very profound. And you were not kidding. And you said, DJ, that’s how I’ve achieved everything in my life. I and I went oh, and it really took me aback. And I thought I got to ask him about this on the podcast. So can we talk about how you’ve used visualization to, to achieve things I can.
Ryan D’Aprile 41:25 And there’s so many great stories out there and so many people that have created so much in this world, such as Will Smith, who I love and admire. He’s one of my heroes and talks about this. Jim Carrey talks about this as well. I take it back to childhood. I’m 43 years old, and I still feel like a kid I daydream all day long. It’s there is a I forgot what it’s called, oh, there’s a book out there. It’s a test. And it’ll give you your five traits. And one of mine is a futuristic. So I’m always daydreaming out there. But what that means is I’m visualizing. And then there’s something that I want, I will focus on it. And I’ll visualize it, visualize it, and it usually comes true. And so I said to you with all seriousness, because I feel like anybody had come in. You know, I come into that we’re in a busy environment, we’re having conversations, I feel like I owe it to them to share anything that I’ve done. That’s helped me to get where I want to be. So you asked me a question. I answered it with all seriousness, because I think it’s something that needs to be taken serious. And visualization is incredibly important. Michael Phelps talks, right, so we hear about it. So let me share a fun visualization story with you. Okay. And again, this is coming back to the magic in life, if you look for the magic in life, you will find it, but you got to look for it. You could also look for the tragedy, you look for the hang anger, you could look for the hate, you could look for the disgust you could look for it’s your choice, and happiness is a choice. And don’t forget that everybody has a reason. And people are fighting battles at various degrees scale of one to 10 Mine’s probably two, right there are people are fighting, bigger battles out there that I can even imagine. But most of those people that I meet, have got the best attitudes out there. So here’s a story of visualization. So I started in 2009, or 10, coaching a handful agents just by a whim, and it wasn’t 2012 that I decided, You know what, I’m going to grow a real estate company, I’m going to stop selling. And I’m just going to start coaching and teaching. And so part of my philosophy and part of my coaching and teaching has a lot to do with mindset and attitude. And so I’ve been doing this, I started with six agents, a couple years went by it’s 2012. And I said, I want to start start wanting to start doing this more. And so I bring more people in the company and just start focusing on coaching and training them. And one of these agents said to me, Ryan, there’s an individual that reminds me, a lot of you and I really want you to meet with him. I said, Sure, I’d love to meet with him. And he said, she said he wrote a book. And his book is about visualization. And manifestation isn’t sure I was intrigued. I would love to meet them. And remember I was up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We’re at our summer house, but it was the winter time. And she emailed introduced us. And by the way that summer house came through visualization because I always wanted to have it it was the first one I bought for other home but that’s not that’s not the story I’m telling. So I get introduced to him. And he says Ryan, why don’t we meet at Joe’s stone crab house, you know that is to ensure so we go we meet and I walk in and I am seated at the table and then here he comes. He’s like the six foot three slender built, probably in his early to mid 60s, man all put together in a suit Do you see me I’m always a jeans and a collared shirt type of person. We sit down and he gives me his book. And we just start exchanging niceties and having a very nice conversation. And he takes somewhat of a, he takes a lead of the conversation, and he’s interviewing me, and he’s very interest. He’s one of these great guy, right? They’ll ask you questions about you all the time. So he just, he’s just playing me at my game and right, and I’m just, I’m loving this guy, because I’m getting to talk about myself. And he’s incredibly intrigued. He’s very interested in me. And we immediately have a great connection, primarily because of what he was giving off to me and his energy. And he said, so and he asked me, Ryan, what did you do to visualize what you have? And and I start sharing some stories with them. And he says, Well, what are you visualizing right now? And I said, Well, it’s interesting. You ask that, because it’s 2013 or 14 at the time, I can’t remember what year it was. It might have been 14. And I said, you know, I have not flown in the airplane in eight years. I have studied abroad, I’ve traveled throughout Europe. I have my previous career before real estate. I was in corporate America, and I traveled once a week. I’ve been on small little private planes and big jets, but after our trip to Florida, with our oldest daughter, who by the way, DJ turns 16 yesterday, and one more time, Oh, happy
D.J. Paris 46:24 birthday,
Ryan D’Aprile 46:25 thank you. And she was a year old. And we were getting off the plane landed in Chicago from Florida. And excuse my language here, you might want to bleep this out. But we get we’re getting our bags, I handed my little baby to my wife and I looked at her I said, I never get on when these fucking planes again. I was having such horrible anxiety. Sure. And you know, I’ve always I’ve struggled with anxiety my entire life. And I, I feel obligated to coach and teach to help others with their anxiety. So but I’m telling him the story. I’m like, so you know, I haven’t traveled and I haven’t flown on a plane in eight years. And I have three daughters, and my oldest is eight. And then I want to take these girls around the world. They’re the loves of my life. I want to show him like, want to go to Africa, I want to go the Amalfi Coast, I want to go and I can’t drive our suburban there. I could drive down to Disneyland. But that’s about it. So I’m kind of in trouble here because I want to live this life when I’m conflicted. I’m scared. I have anxiety. And it’s you know, it’s so fascinating. Ever since I’ve been visualizing that I want to fly again. And I drive, you know, on to 94 North, I look at the planes and I go, Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to be on one of those again. That’s what I say to myself to help me get over my fear. As I was saying this to him, he had this puzzled look on his face. And he said, Ryan, do you know what I do for a living? Oh, wait, did I tell you? Oh, I sit. So as I told him I said, By the way, since this has happened to amateur pilots have joined my company. And I said, so it’s like all the signs that are coming replace, you know? And he looks at me says Do you know what I do for a living? I go yes, you’re an author, of course, because he was asking me all the questions, remember, and he was normal. First, I had a chance even ask him anything. And so here I am. I meet with this author. I have this hardcover, you know, 300 page book? And I’m like, yes, you’re an author. He goes, No, this is what I do on the side. I’m the most senior captain American Airlines. He goes, and I would like to meet you in two weeks. And I’m gonna bring you on a plane, we’re not going to fly and walk you up and down. I’m going to help you get over your fear of flying. Wow. And two weeks later, I met him and I put in visualization. I wanted to fly again. Two weeks after that my wife and I flew down to Florida to my childhood friend’s wedding, which, of course I was invited to and we were going to drive what we flew out. I don’t know. We went to New York City. Then we went to there and I traveled around all over the world. Now it might my children and I’m still nervous. I’m still afraid of it. But you know, you know, we’ve done Montana, we’ve done Jamaica, Punta Cana, we’re going, you know, we fly all over the place, and it still makes me nervous. But that’s just another story about visualization manifestation. So you asked me, How did I start this new vertical in our company how to do it? I daydreamed about it? I daydreamed, about it? I thought about it consistently. And the universe will align and put things in place for you and put people into your world to make things come true.
D.J. Paris 49:10 Well, it this particular vertical was even more magical, because I said, Well, how did How’d you do it? They go, Oh, no, someone called me. I said, Well, how did that happen? You’re like, I don’t know, they just did. But you had been visualizing it for how long?
Ryan D’Aprile 49:25 That one. And I want to keep that song confidential, because it’s a big corporate client and whatnot. I think I put it out in the universe about 18 to two years prior to that huge client calling us and it leading into one thing and the next one the next. And I was open to it, and I was looking for it. And then you can it’s coming in with an attitude of gratitude and being aware. And then, you know, you and your conscious and your subconscious and your brain will see all the things that are out there and that’s what Shawn Achor talks about in Happiness Advantage. He talks about if you have a positive mindset if you are a man We’re optimistic and you are feeling better, you’re going to see the clues that are out there, to put what you want in line to give you what you’re dreaming of.
D.J. Paris 50:10 Yeah, and I boy, I could echo that myself. I had a previous career where, where I was making lots of cold calls. This is a long time ago. And I started visualizing for 10 minutes a night, these big clients, like you were mentioning a big client called you, I was mentioned, I would visualize a big client call me and they had no reason to contact me, I was a nobody. There was a million other people they should have worked with instead of me, because of my lack of experience. I had no business ever getting a return call and 99% of the time I did it. But I started to put that out and started to visualize No, my phone is gonna ring one day, I’m just gonna keep plugging along. I’m gonna keep making these dials. Someone is going to call me and it happened. And that was when I was in my early 20s. And I couldn’t explain it. And it was almost accidental, except it happened. And so I thought, Well, okay, maybe this was just coincidence, and I’m making up a story in my head, you know, because I want to have superpowers, but irrespective it happened. And so I said, Well, there’s no there’s no downside individualization, other than, you know, having some sort of realistic expectation of what may come your way. And if all you do is visualize things that you want and do the work necessary, there’s a good chance you’re gonna, you’re gonna hit up, but Ryan was saying about having a negative mindset. And you don’t even have to, internally have a negative mindset, all you really have to do is turn on the news. And that is to say, you shouldn’t as Ryan said, You shouldn’t be Pollyanna. You shouldn’t be ignorant and not know what’s going on. But the News knows that that negative stories sell Of course they do so yeah. So it’s your
Ryan D’Aprile 51:48 Yeah, on the on the morning, local news. I mean, for somebody who doesn’t watch the news, and then I drove around, I slept over my brother’s house on Lincoln Square, about eight months ago with my youngest daughter who lines up with his daughter, and they had a sleepover rest day there in case she got homesick. Not that I’m a helicopter parent or anything. And we woke up, we had coffee the next morning, and he had the WGN GN news. And again, we don’t have we have one television, our house is rarely on, if it’s on we’re watching Netflix, as a family. And I just I just don’t like the news because of the negativity that spews out. And, you know, they’re just talking about, you know, a plane crash, and a little girl getting a try by shooting and like it was no big deal. And as my, my nine year old, the time was just staring wide I at the TV. And I was conflicted as like, am I shouting these girls too much? Or am I not as one of those as like, JJ crew turn this off dude for a second. And it and I ask myself, Am I you know, I debate with my mother, she’s like, you can’t have ignorant children? Like, what good are they getting out of this, I’m going to tell them what they’d be fearful of and what to watch for. But I don’t know, I just think negativity sells itself gets great advertising dollars and everything else. I just think I’m responsible for myself, my wife and my three girls, as they are responsible for me, they take care of me as much as I take care of them. But I just need to know who I am. And I know that 90% of my actions are based on my subconscious mind. So I just want to be very careful. When I do have conscious moments and decisions I get to make, I’m going to tune into the right things, not the wrong thing. Well, that’s right.
D.J. Paris 53:27 And look, if you want to study politics, like if that’s what you’re passionate about, you can go out and obtain that information about what’s going on politically. And you can find those those outlets that are going to write a more balanced reporting of what’s actually happening. And you can study policy and law. And if that’s your passion, again, you get to control what goes in or out. If you’re just a consumer, if you’re just wanting to look, I’m a marketer, I’ve been in marketing my whole life. We love it when people don’t go out and get their own information. Because marketers, we control the way you you. If you’re just a consumer, we control that experience. And you don’t want to be controlled. You want to control your own experience. So whatever your passions are, dive headfirst into them. But be very careful about what you’re consuming. That’s that that’s I think, the main point,
Ryan D’Aprile 54:18 yeah, and I don’t want to run too long here and the podcasts and but I want to do you know, here’s a little moment, I want to try a little ripple effect here. Okay. And this is a political movement, right for this. Here’s a person who is anti politics. I’ll vote for anybody right, left, up, down whatever side they’re on. I’ll vote for anybody who does this. Listen up. Okay. Make social media illegal for children under 18 years old. Oh, that would be great. It’s horrific. I have three children and everything that they see what they do, and it’s crazy. It’s like my grandfather was smoking at third grade, because there’s nothing wrong with it that it was socially acceptable. couldn’t imagine a third grader laying up a marble
D.J. Paris 54:59 wall. All right parents would be arrested these days when I was
Ryan D’Aprile 55:03 a little boy. And if my kids, if as a little boy and I was invited a kid’s house, I’d have to see all bunch of bikes in the front yard. And that was Snapchat, which grown adults are creating grown adults recruiting selling to our children, you could see where every kid is in the neighborhood, and you’re not left in or left that my daughter has been both sides. They’ve been the kids have been excluded. And they’ve been the kids have been included. They’ve been the kids who have executed kids. And it’s all available on social media. So it’s the one little political rant I want to get on Sunday, our children, I think, are the guinea pigs. But someday, some politician is going to say, You know what, this is a great thing. And it’s going to get me no office, you got my vote, make it illegal.
D.J. Paris 55:40 I love it. And it also it disconnects us because it’s not actual interpersonal connection. It’s it’s artificial. It’s not it’s not real, it’s a grown adult mind
Ryan D’Aprile 55:51 deal with that, right? And not a child, not allowing them because it will take your form away from your kid. Sure, great. You’d be a parent, tell me how easy it is. Right? It’s not. And so, you know, I always say I don’t want to take too much of this podcast on that. I just want to get my little plugin. And I always think if I ever had chance to say something that I’m going to put it out there to see if other parents buy into that belief. Or even get to be a parent to, you know, to care for what happens to kids in their. And their in their and their, their, their their mental well being, I guess you could
D.J. Paris 56:26 put it? Well, this is really interesting. Because before for the inworld, we’ll wrap up with this because before the podcast, I was asking Ryan, by the way, what Ryan does everyday. And I think this is always really interesting, because I suspect with all of the hundreds of real estate firms here locally in Chicago and really all over the country is that Chicago is probably no different. And there are hundreds and hundreds of real estate offices. But I suspect Ryan’s credibly unique here. He has 14 offices and what he does literally day in and day out as he travels from office to office, training his staff, and also the agents. And and I said to him right before we got on, I said why don’t you and I get it’s nice to do it, you know, face to face. Obviously, there’s value there. So why don’t you just do it online? Why don’t you just do it that way. And Ryan said, well, that because it’s a face to face business, and I want to be there and I want people to see me and I want to interact with people face to face. And boy, the more of that that we could all do in our lives, the more face to face connections we have, whether it’s in our business, or uh, personally, our friends, you know, getting off social media as much as possible and getting more face to face. Really just, you know, lots of opportunities come your way you’ll have better friendships, better relationships, every and better clients if you’re a realtor, right? So this is this is the way to do it, for sure.
Ryan D’Aprile 57:42 Yeah, yeah, you’re good. You’re good video. And there’s advantages and leverages to video and things and whatnot. But to handle a live interaction, even if you do it via Google Hangout, I prefer our coaching and training being one on one, we do group training, don’t get me wrong, but majority of it is one on one, we carve it out. And it’s face to face and face to face with between the computer screens, which are interacting with each other, and you’re having dialogue. It’s a it’s a simple business life isn’t simple. And is a business that lacks structure, and you can’t be successful without structure. So we just take the approach of high service, high touch, whoever comes to our doors, that’s a part of our team and our family. But that’s just our business philosophy. And it’s how we work
D.J. Paris 58:24 well and that’s a good good place to mention. If you are a broker and you’re looking for a new place to hang your license and a new firm to call home. Ryan would be honored and his team would be honored to talk to you again they have 14 offices, hundreds and hundreds of Realtors, a lot of them extraordinarily successful. And Ryan goes around making sure that his staff knows how to individually coach you and train you. So if you’re interested in learning more about depot properties, what they offer and I again, their differentiator is the coaching is the training and is providing a lot of the marketing the stuff that Realtors go I know I should do but I don’t do it or I don’t do it that well or I want to maybe help have somebody helped me with that. Boy do properties is the place to go. So go to Jaipur properties.com There’s a contact us form reach out, obviously they’d be happy. And by the way, this is another little plug for Ryan his company. Ryan would never ask me to say this because he’s too humble. But I asked him I said how do you guys do your recruiting? And he goes, we don’t it’s it’s just people join us. Or it’s word of mouth. And boy, what a great what a great compliment that is to the systems and the structure that they’ve created. So if you’re interested, definitely check out Depot properties.com. They always are looking for for brokers to join their team. So Ryan, what a perfect place we went almost an hour and I know this is a guy who does not have an hour to give and he gave it to us. So thank you once again on behalf of the listeners. And we’re so honored that you do this and it’s it’s just so well appreciated because we look at the downloads and you get a lot Got
Ryan D’Aprile 1:00:01 a DJ, really appreciate it and so it downers mine. Thank you so much.
D.J. Paris 1:00:05 Thank you guys. And thank you, Ryan, and thank you for our listeners. Again, we wouldn’t do this without your support. So if you’re not already on our Facebook page, that’s a great resource. We’ve even started doing one minute videos once a week one of our producers Liz gets on there and does a little tip of the week to help you and your business. Obviously post links to all of our episodes, as well as links from you know, some of the books that that Ryan mentioned, we’ll be putting on there. So visit us on Facebook as even though we talked about social media being being not a great place to interact with other humans. It is a good resource hub, at least for this podcast to learn about what we’re talking about today. So facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Otherwise, we will see everyone on our next episode, and we’ll see Ryan in a month. So thank you to everyone listening and Ryan.
New video feature! In addition to continuing to produce the long-form audio interviews with top 1% producers, we’re also going to serve you up some bite-sized video goodness!
Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business. It’s short, helpful, and also on video!
In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses how to market and retain Gen Z real estate clients through authenticity.
Transcript
Liz Lape 0:04 Hey guys, I’m Liz leg and this is your weekly list lesson. Attracting Gen Z buyers can be confusing. They’re new to the buying game and have different values from the generation before them. Take it from a fellow Gen Z or this generation values authenticity and personal connection with content, and they lose interest fast, especially online. This may come as a surprise but polished online advertising won’t cut it. Gen Z buyers tend to ignore online advertisements I reject the idea of being sold. Instead, create the personal bond Gen Z craves by sharing short videos stating your values as if you are having a conversation. This will increase trust and personal connection between you and the buyer. Another strategy is to try providing Gen Z buyers with online platforms like having your own Facebook business page, where clients can voice their opinions provided an opportunity to feel more engaged in the process. Thanks for watching those lessons and I’ll see you next time.
Welcome to the October edition of Monday Market Minute with Carrie McCormick from At Properties!
Fresh from her speaking engagement as a panelist at Inman Luxury Connect in Beverly Hills, Carrie McCormick tells our listeners some of the insights she observed. For example, the rise of the importance of staging – buyers expect homes to be move-in ready and staged. Also, how you can use video to tell a story better than pictures. I provide a marketing tip on how to personalize your holiday cards for clients!
D.J. Paris 0:00 On 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 another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate brokers by real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I’m your host and guide through the show, as always, today, we have the Monday market minute, which we do every month with the great Carrie McCormick. If you are a new listener and you haven’t yet got it listen to any of our Carrie money market minute episodes. Carrie is one of the top producing brokers in Chicago and this is a huge deal because there’s 45,000 brokers Carrie is always in the top 1% of 1%. She is literally one of the very highest producing brokers. She’s been a high producing broker for 20 years with App properties. And she just came back from Inman luxury connect where she was a featured panelist and speaker in Beverly Hills. So we are so excited to talk to you. So Carrie, welcome back to Chicago.
Carrie McCormick 1:50 Well, thank you, it was such a fun panel to be part of it was a privilege. I was seated next to Kevin Thompson, who I’ve never met in person. I’ve always seen him on panels or in, you know, different write ups. But he’s the Chief Marketing Officer of Sotheby’s International based in New York. So I got the privilege of talking to him backstage personally for a little while. And then of course, you know, seated on the panel with him. And then another gentleman that I was with is dusty Baker. He is a top producer from Southern California, also with Sotheby’s and, you know, talking to these two gentlemen that, you know, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast selling millions and millions of dollars of real estate it was it was such a privilege, and especially to be in Beverly Hills. I don’t know, you know, how many people been out there? I’ve been out there once before, but it’s, it’s kind of lala land. It’s really it’s really interesting place to be and, you know, millions of dollars of real estate are traded in that town. It’s unbelievable.
D.J. Paris 2:57 Yeah, so tell us a little bit about what you you know what you spoke about what you learned, let’s, let’s Yeah, the listeners. And
Carrie McCormick 3:05 so the panel that I spoke on was about, you know, luxury listings and how to market them. And the reoccurring theme between the three of us is how important staging a home has become. It’s the buyers in this marketplace have changed. And again, this is not just a local thing here in Chicago, it was across the US, there were people. Like I mentioned from New York, or agents from New York, there were agents from California and Texas that deal with these oil tycoons. The same thing is, is that staging matters, when a buyer walks into a home, it has to trigger an emotional feeling and that emotion needs to be I love this house, I can live in this house, I can move right in. And, you know, it’s our job now to create an emotion of feeling from these buyers. And that’s where staging has become key. Whereas before, you know, but like I said, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, you know, it just we didn’t have to invest in that we didn’t have to worry about staging, you know, we would just use what was ever in the home. But again, staging has become key, whether it’s real staging or Virtual Staging. For the people who are listening. Virtual Staging has become a huge hit for those you know, folks that don’t want to stage their home so I would definitely look into that if you haven’t already. The other thing that I opened up the panel with was about storytelling. I use a lot of video marketing in my advertising and marketing for a home and dusty Baker who is the gentleman I sat next to he disagreed with me. He said that he does not use video because he feels that no one is watching seeing the videos. So again, everyone’s got a difference of opinion on video marketing. But I love video marketing for two reasons. One, it does tell the story about the home because you can do B roll of neighborhoods of schools of coffee shops in the area. So not only are you marketing and selling the home, your marketing and selling a lifestyle, the neighborhood, what you know, when you walk out your door, what can you enjoy. And you can’t get that through just, you know, traditional pictures. So I love the storytelling feature of the video. And also, I love it just because the SEO rankings when Zillow or any other platform sees that you have a video content in your in your listing, it thinks it’s more important, it feels it raises you up a little bit on your ranking. So I think you get to fold with these video marketing. So that was, you know, between the staging and the video marketing, that became the hot topic of our conversation on our panel, we talked a little bit about print marketing, and we all agreed that, you know, if you place an ad in a magazine, there’s you’re not going to get a buyer for that home, you know, no one’s looking for a home in a magazine. I don’t want to name any but you know that, you know, you’re not working through a magazine and saying, Oh, look, look at this home, I wasn’t even thinking about it, I think I should buy this home. But we all agree that print marketing has become a way for branding ourselves as agents. So you know, our picture, our name becomes front and center in that print, you know, if we want to list a few homes in there to obviously show off our listings or you know, hopefully there is someone that does see a home that they may like and give you a call. You know, we’ve all agree that that has become a way to leverage the print the print part of it. But really it was, it was such an interesting place to be again, I was talking with people from coast to coast. And we all seem to be struggling with the same issues as far as the buyer market right now. You know, the market times are up. Again, this is across the United States market times are up, pricing is starting to level out. If you’re looking to move a home, you’ve got to price it right. It has to be staged properly. And you have to have an aggressive marketing campaign. Hands down.
D.J. Paris 7:33 Yeah, I have a few thoughts on on all this great stuff that you just said. And I wonder if a lot of it with a staging in particular, you know, we think about and we should really mention your Instagram account because it is one of the best if not the very best I’ve seen for what a realtor should aspire to do and Instagram, which is Carrie McCormack real estate. So go on Instagram and follow Carrie number one, everything she puts up is very professional, it’s a branding opportunity for her but also it’s there’s a consistency to the look the feel, and she does it all herself that she doesn’t have an agency posting for her. So it’s really very, very remarkable. And I wonder how much of this idea of now staging, whether it’s virtual or actual staging, I wonder how much of that has to do with the rise of the popularity of social media platforms like Instagram where we take pictures of our food, and we tweak it to make it look like it’s just absolutely incredible. And we post it and I think this idea of the pictures you know if you’re virtually staging, making the every room look perfect or again, actually staging so when somebody comes through, you know, I always heard years and years ago that you were supposed to leave the room as sparse as possible so people could imagine their own stuff in the room and I just don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think you’re right. You want it to look just perfect.
Carrie McCormick 8:57 Actually the moderator of our panel also brought that up is you know, she said Let we have to blame you know, these Instagram accounts and some of these. These TV shows like HGTV has some fabulous shows. But what the public is getting used to seeing is perfect rooms right with whites and these grays and these luxury this and luxury that and the consumers that’s in your face all the time of you know this is how a kitchen should be so when they walk into a real life kitchen that doesn’t live up to that expectation, the Instagram expectation or the HGTV you know kitchens, they get upset, you know and that’s what they want. So it’s it’s a hard dynamic to, you know, to work through. Another thing we all laughed about was that these and I love all these HGTV shows is you know they do these fix and flips and it takes you know you will I’ll just show for an hour, you know, the beginning to end the house has been renovated, but you know, in the show, it takes them two weeks. So when I coach a client through renovations, or how long it’s going to take or meet with contractors, you know, I tell them this, you know, this could take a couple of months, and they’re, they’re flabbergasted. Well, they did it in two weeks on the show, you know, how could that take, you know, six months for us to do. So it’s bringing, you know, some of these TV shows, you know, you gotta bring back the reality of, you know, what’s going to happen in the renovation. So it’s, it’s challenging.
D.J. Paris 10:36 Well, and also, for everyone listening, whether you’re a realtor who are looking for tips from from Carrie, or if you’re a seller going, oh, gosh, now I have to stage every room in my house. Well, the good news is, it’s never been more affordable. Obviously, you could always virtually stage it, which is, you know, very, almost almost a free service with photography studios now, but even if you’re hiring, you know, a staging company to come in and actually replace furniture and make, it’s not that expensive, if it’s going to yield a higher return. And I know many brokers and Carrie, I know you’ve done this as well, that will tell sellers, we need to get your stuff out and move stuff in sometimes. And and it’s just a great idea, because the the data suggests that help sells homes sell home quicker. And for higher price points.
Carrie McCormick 11:23 Absolutely. I’m starting to do that quite a bit. It’s I’ve got clients living in the house and will relocate all their furniture to one area. And then we stage a few other rooms. So they’re living in a half staged house, and you know, half of their furniture. So it’s it’s a really great concept and new new idea to sell a home.
D.J. Paris 11:46 Wonderful, any other takeaways that you could share with our audience from the conference?
Carrie McCormick 11:51 Well, it’s really like I said, it’s having a robust marketing plan. And the bottom line with a lot of this right now in the market is pricing home correctly. And giving feedback, I’ve started to give a lot more feedback on my showings to people and just, again, this was across the US agents are saying, Please give each other feedback after these showings, because it helps each other in our industry. communicate to our sellers of what’s going on, because if you do a showing, and then just go see each other, you know, and don’t give any feedback. It’s it makes more difficult conversations for our for our sellers. So again, just professional courtesy to each other, as you know, giving some good feedback.
D.J. Paris 12:39 Well, and it is called a cooperative commission. Right? So brokers are supposed to cooperate. And again, oftentimes, the broker might be too close to the situation to see something that other brokers who are coming in to do this, to look at the property with their clients might not see. So you have this opportunity to provide incredible feedback. And I don’t know what percentage of brokers provide feedback, but it’s not high enough for sure. So everyone listening, if you’re a realtor, and you get that little email saying, give us some feedback, please do that, or call the other broker and let them know. So that you guys can both work together and get some homes closed. Exactly. So I have a and I want to hear I want to get your feedback on this. So I have my marketing minute of the day. And Carrie actually gave me the suggestion, really, the credit goes to her. But I wanted to also get your thoughts on this because I was like, oh, what should I talk about? And the holidays are coming up, Carrie reminded me. And it was like, Okay, what what do brokers do? Or what should they do for their clients. And so I’ll just give you my experience, because I’m not a producing broker. So I’m really the worst person to ask, but I will tell you what I get in the mail around this time of the year. And I have lots of different professionals that have various services that I employ, you know, financial advisor insurance, you know, that mortgage, that sort of thing. And I really get very little, quite honestly, around the holidays I use, I usually will get a card or some sort of mailer. But it’s I can’t think of anyone and I’m not in any way insinuating the people that I choose for my taxes or for the other services I employ. I have no qualms with them. They’re great, I love them. But I don’t know that any of them really send me anything personalized. And so I was thinking about this and like sending out something is better than nothing. And if you’re just going to throw a holiday card in the mail, hey, that’s better than sending nothing. But I would think if you have the time, and you can start now because we’re only in in the middle of October is maybe even just write one or two sentences on the card specific to that individual. And again, I know if you have hundreds and hundreds of people in your database, that’s not going to be super easy to do. But I will tell you the idea of a handwritten note, and I’m not suggesting we all write handwritten notes for every single person for the holidays, but just a sentence or two about Something about that person, you know, even if it’s just hope you and the kids have a great holiday or hope you and your husband have a great holiday. And if you’re like struggling on what to write about, really, this is where social media comes in very handy, or LinkedIn, right? Go to LinkedIn, go to Instagram, go to Facebook, look up your clients see what they’re up to. And you could write on the Holiday Card, hope you have a great holidays. Oh, I just saw you got back from Barbados. That sounds amazing, right? Or that looked amazing. Anything like that? I think personalized is just because I get I might get 10 cards in the mail, but none of them have any personalization. So that’s just my thought, again, I know it’s a little bit of work. But I would remember that card would would mean a lot more to me, if someone took a few, you know, 30 seconds to write something
Carrie McCormick 15:46 that is a great tip. And that is so true. Because I do I get cards from like, the bank or tax accountants or whoever it is. And it’s just it’s, you know, got a printed label on the front, it’s got, you know, their signatures even printed. So it’s like, I’m sure they don’t even know that that card went out to me. And again, the gesture is nice. I’m glad I made their mailing list. But if someone wrote a personal note, even if it said Happy Holidays and had a hand signature, it goes much further. I love that idea, especially getting a little more personal with a trip or a baby or wedding or whatever it is. That’s that’s huge.
D.J. Paris 16:23 Awesome. Well, I think that just about wraps us up. But before we wrap up, I want to obviously remind our listeners, if you are a buyer or a seller and investor or renter, and you’re looking for a great realtor, if it was me, I would want to choose one of the top producing ones in Chicago, because that just seems like a good idea. So Carrie McCormick is at the very, very top of that mountain. So Carrie, if there are people that want to work with you, what is the best way they should reach out?
Carrie McCormick 16:53 Absolutely. So always call me I’m always working 24/7 So 312-961-4612 Or you can shoot me a quick email to Kerry ca RR ie at@properties.com. But please do if there’s any questions just about market in general, about the panel I spoke on about marketing. I’m always loving to give back and you know, give free advice. So anyone out there if you need anything, always just call me.
D.J. Paris 17:23 Wonderful. Well, thank you to everyone who continue to listen, we’re so grateful for our audience. So grateful to our guest host Carrie who comes on tirelessly and selflessly who does not have time to do this. We were actually supposed to book do this yesterday and she’s like, Oh my god, I have a showing and I was like of course you have a showing. That makes perfect sense. That’s how busy she is. So we’re so grateful to Carrie. So thank you on behalf of the audience and on behalf of Carrie and myself to the audience. Thank you for listening, telephoned pass this around to other brokers who you think could benefit from hearing from from from from Mavericks like care like Carrie and continue to listen and carry we will see you next month. Thank you
New video feature! In addition to continuing to produce the long-form audio interviews with top 1% producers, we’re also going to serve you up some bite-sized video goodness!
Keeping It Real Podcast producer Liz Lape is here to guide you on an actionable strategy to help your business. It’s short, helpful, and also on video!
In today’s Liz Lesson she discusses why real estate brokers should price their seller’s properties ONLY in multiples of 10k.
Transcript
Liz Lape 0:04 Hey, I was late producer for keeping it real podcast and this is a list lesson. Did you know that you should be pricing your listings in multiples of 10,000 for example, 300,000 or 310,000. The reason for this might not be so obvious. Let’s say someone is looking to spend 300,000 on home, and you’re selling a 300,000 home but President 299,000 to be competitive. The problem with this has to do with the way people search online. If a buyer is looking for a home on Zillow for 300,000, they might make 300,000 Their minimum and your listing will never be saved. In fact, studies show that by pricing and multiples of 10,000 these listings get 50% More views. So list all your homes for sale in multiples of 10,000 Thanks. See you next time.
