Category: Podcast Episodes

Stefanie Ridolfo, founder of Liv Real Estate Partners at Keller Williams, started her real estate career shortly after delivering twins. To fund her business she sold her home and moved the family in with her parents. Two years later she became a top 1% producer, and ever since has become one of the top brokers in Chicago. In her four years in real estate, Stefanie has built up a successful team and teaches other brokers how to duplicate her success. Learn how she grew so quickly and why going “all in” made all the difference.

Stephanie Ridolfo can be reached at 630.200.2120 and stefanie@livrealestatepartners.com.

---

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for brokers all over the country. That’s our new tagline as we have listeners beyond the Chicagoland market. What we do here, if you’re new is we feature top 1% producers in the Chicagoland area and ask them how they became successful as we are coming up now on our 100th episode, we’ve Gosh been featured on lists that say we’re one of the best real estate podcasts in the in the country. I’m not sure if that’s true, but we certainly do our best and our listeners seem to really find a ton of value in listening to these top heavy hitters in Chicago. Today is no exception. We have Stephanie Rodolfo, coming up in just a few moments. But I also wanted to mention a couple quick things. First, please continue to share this podcast with other brokers that you think could benefit from hearing from top producers, also our Facebook page, we are now starting to add more content. So you can find us on facebook@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod, we are almost trying to produce one post a day of something very helpful, just like our interviews that brokers could use. For example, today, I found a great thread on Reddit about the importance of doing open houses to find clients. And it’s an awesome thread that someone sent into us. So we wanted to pass that along to everyone as well. So if you’re not already a follower of our Facebook page, please do. Also remember you can find us on Facebook, I just I just mentioned Facebook, but on our website, you can stream every episode we’ve ever produced, which is keeping it real pod.com. So find us on Facebook, find us online, send us your suggestions, we are a sadly we are very behind. So everyone that’s submitted a suggestion. If you haven’t heard back from our production team, we apologize we have, I think we’re over 100 people have been suggested to be on the show. So quite a backlog, but we appreciate it. We appreciate all the fan mail, and all the great suggestions. And if you ever have questions that you’d like me to ask, Are these top producers, please send them in because I’m always looking to increase value for you. You This is for you, not for me. So anyway, thank you for listening as we approach episode 100 Keep listening, keep telling us how to improve and we’ll keep making these episodes. So now on to Stephanie Rudolfo.

Okay, today on the show, we have Stephanie Rodolfo of the of live partners, which is you can find her. I’m sorry, let me start that over my apologies. I can’t read my own notes. Today on the show we have Stephanie Rodolfo of live partners, Keller Williams. Stephanie is a mother of three wife and also an entrepreneur. She got into real estate because she didn’t want to leave her babies for a career she wasn’t passionate about. She started her career in real estate 44 years ago, right immediately after her twins were born, and quickly realized that real estate wasn’t just about helping somebody buy or sell a home. She believes real estate is about the people and their life stories and the events that trigger a real estate transaction. Her goal is to become the number one real estate team in Illinois, also creating a space that allows everyone on our team to thrive in their specific roles. And lastly, to provide endless opportunities for her people to follow their dreams and live out massive lives. So thank you, Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stefanie Ridolfo 3:52
Thank you.

D.J. Paris 3:54
So tell us and by the way, you have an amazing reputation. We’re so honored that you’re taking the time to spend here with us and tell us but how did you get into real estate?

Stefanie Ridolfo 4:05
Yeah, so like you had mentioned, you know, I got into real estate four years ago. So how it came about was I got pregnant and found that I was having twins, which was very exciting and scary at the same time, as you can imagine. And so I you know, was looking back and just kind of reflecting on, you know, my life and where I wanted to go and you know, now becoming a mother of twins. And I just I couldn’t find it in my heart to go back to my corporate job. Because I would have to leave my you know, newborn babies, and that just really didn’t sit well with me. And so I kept thinking, Okay, well, what could I do that I would actually be passionate about and it would drive me enough to actually want to leave my children. You know, obviously no one wants to Leave them. But you also have to put, you know, foosball tables. So I just knew I couldn’t go back to the corporate world because I wasn’t passionate about it, it felt like I was going to a job every day. And that’s not I felt like there was a void, there was something missing. So I started just like soul searching, and, you know, figuring out what I wanted to do. So I started talking to my friends and family. And I started thinking about, you know, opportunities. And my brother actually said, Well, what about real estate? I go, Oh, I was like, Yeah, I was like, that sounds really awesome. And I had no idea what without even meant, or what, you know, real estate agent did at the time, I had bought one house. And so but I didn’t even have a realtor, because it was new construction, which we know is a big no, no, in this business. I know that now. But at the time, I did it. And so I was like, Yeah, that sounds like something I could definitely see myself doing. So then I started just, you know, talking to some people that were religious, and in the business already, and really liked what I was hearing about the, you know, potential opportunities, flexibility. So I decided to, you know, get my license. So studied, took the test passed on my first time, which I was really proud of, because that test was, in my opinion. And so, and I knew that when I got into the business, that it was going to be, you know, a career for me, it was going to be for the rest of my life. And it was a, you know, a big deal for me, because I wanted to make sure that people could trust me off the bat. And so that was always something I was worried about was that, you know, hey, I’m brand new in this business, how are people going to trust me, you know, so I, you know, hired on a mentor to really get me started and walk me through, you know, my first million in sales, which was really helpful, because I’m a very hands on learner. And that would, was really gave me the confidence I needed to really jumpstart my business. And so I think the biggest thing too, is that, you know, when I decided to get into real estate, I wanted to find something where it didn’t feel like work to me. And I wanted to love what I did every day. And that was really the reasoning behind it, and why I got into real estate. And literally, ever since I made that decision, I don’t feel like I’ve ever worked a day in my life, because I truly love what I do every single day. Obviously, it’s very hard work, but it doesn’t feel like work. You know what I mean? Yes. And so

D.J. Paris 7:43
that’s a very, I’m sorry to interrupt that that’s a very common sentiment that all of the top almost all the top producers we’ve ever had on the show really seem to have in common that obviously they love what they do, they love being helpful and of service. But also, they’re incredibly hard workers. Because but they love what they do.

Stefanie Ridolfo 8:01
Yeah, exactly. And so if you love what you do, it’s, it’s a natural byproduct that you’re gonna work your butt off to make you know, your dreams come true and accomplish all your goals and helping others do the same along the way. And that that’s really what you know, motivates me every day, that I’m able to impact people’s lives in such a positive way, whether it be with real estate, or growing them on my team. But um, when I, I want to mention this too, though, because this was a big factor to me getting into real estate, was that, you know, me and my husband, both were working at the time. And I knew that if I was going to go full speed ahead with real estate, you know, I had to quit my full time job, which meant that income was not going to be coming in. And so a lot of people think that they can get into this business and do it part time. And to me, that was not an option. Because I felt in order to give people the service that they needed, they needed my full attention. And so a lot of people getting in the business think, Oh, I could just do it on the side and do it part time. And in my opinion, you’re not ready to get into the real estate course yet, because you need to build that nest egg before you jump into real estate, because it’s not, it’s not the right service that you’re gonna be providing to your clients by trying to do you know, give 100% to two things. So what we did, what I did is that I sold my house because actually my house was the first house I ever sold. So I had my twins, got my license, and then I knew that in order to not feel the pressure of like having a mortgage payment and paying all the bills in order, you know, to just focus on real estate and not worrying about am I going to get a paycheck this month and having that stress because I never wanted to go back to the corporate world. We sold our house First home I ever saw was my own so sure, and then moved in with my parents. And then

D.J. Paris 10:07
I love that. I really do love that. Yeah.

Stefanie Ridolfo 10:10
And so that’s, you know, the kind of sacrifices that I think people need to know that these sacrifices happen along the way. And it’s not, it’s not easy to make those decisions. But if you really want something in your life, then you’re going to have to sacrifice something. And so in this case, it was sacrificing our, you know, our house, and then we were going to my parents, so that we could, I couldn’t, I didn’t have to worry about having the pressure of if I was going to sell something. And so that, that lasted about six months. So my first, you know, way of really building this business was all through Facebook. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 10:54
how did you how did you do that? If you don’t mind me asking.

Stefanie Ridolfo 10:56
Yeah, so I just, I was a very private person on Facebook before getting into real estate, I didn’t really post a lot. So the whole Facebook space was very intimidating to me. And I’m a perfectionist. And so I wanted every time I posted something for it to be perfect. And so because it’s a brand, you know, I’m branding myself and anything I’m putting out into the world, people are going to see it. And I was very cautious of that. But I knew I had to do it. So I had to go out of my comfort zone and start putting, you know, my life on Facebook, which was very uncomfortable for me. But I knew I had to do it because I had a lot of people that were watching. And so I slowly started overcoming, you know, that fear of mine and put stuff on Facebook, when I was out doing an open house if I was out showing clients. And then every time I had, you know, sold a property to help someone buy something I would put out, you know, hey, just, you know, a picture with me and my clients and, you know, close this home or help someone buy this house. And so I just kept creating this story on Facebook. So people saw what I was doing, and I was staying in front of them in an organic way. And so that’s really what jump started my career because people started you know, my sphere of influence, started seeing everything I was posting about. So I started getting, you know, people reaching out to me saying, Hey, I saw that you’re, you know, you’re in real estate, I’ve got a house I gotta sell or I’ve got a house I’ve got to buy. And so that’s how I started building my business initially.

D.J. Paris 12:42
That’s what you just said so much. I want to touch on a couple of those points that you mentioned. Number one, I love the story of going all in, right? You’re like I am willing to sacrifice my own residence and do something that’s in the short term uncomfortable, I’m assuming somewhat uncomfortable to move back home. But yeah, you’re starting a business. That’s what entrepreneurs do. They go all in. Yeah. And and by the way, this is not a 20 year journey. This is a four year journey. So far. And you are already I mean to to really to tell the listeners, what Stephanie has accomplished in four years is truly remarkable. It’s not just because she’s on the call. I’m mentioning this, like if you actually look at her numbers, incredible. Nobody does this in four years. Nobody builds a team that quickly. Well, you’re the one who’s done it. So congrats to you. But yes, I’m glad to acknowledge it, because it’s such a big deal. But how many people are willing to go to that, that extreme that that length to build a business? And that’s I think a good point about part time versus full time is technically Can you sort of dip your toe in both waters? Yeah, I guess so. And you can do a handful of deals a year maybe. But at some point, you have to make a decision of what do you want to do you want to make this a career or not? And, and I think that’s really, I’ve never seen anyone really successfully do it. Who also had another career, it just seems to be too difficult.

Stefanie Ridolfo 14:03
Yeah, I agree. 100%.

D.J. Paris 14:06
And, you know, also people you talked about having a mentor when you first started, I think that’s really helpful because everyone’s fear and we have a lot of brokers who listen who are new to the business, their fear is very warranted. It’s like what happens when I don’t know the answer to something that my clients ask, it’s like, that’s gonna happen all the time. That’s normal. So you better have a support system in place where a mentor somebody where you can say, Hang on, let me double check on that and get right back to you or if somebody even come with you, if possible. Yeah, and, but and also, like Stephanie was saying she was her own first client. Another really good idea because we’re gonna screw up you might as well screw up your own deal. Oh, I

Stefanie Ridolfo 14:44
learned a lot. I learned how to deal with the difficult seller which was my husband who wanted to price our listing and I was like, What are you thinking? Like, no, we can’t price it here. It’s like, well, let’s just see and see, you know, what we get and of course, you know, then we had to do an adjustment to the price. And so that was it was actually a really good learning experience because I learned how to handle right away. Sellers that wanted to overpriced your listing and, and what what happens when you do that? So it was a great learning experience for me.

D.J. Paris 15:14
Yeah. And just because we get this question a lot, you know, how do you handle that where somebody says, Hey, I understand I’m gonna list it up more than what, you know, even somebody who’s rational and reasonable goes, let’s just try it for x amount above. How do you do? What’s your sort of philosophy on what to do in that scenario?

Stefanie Ridolfo 15:34
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is just always to remember to become very prepared and know your market and know the traps. Because if that person sitting across from you is an analytical person, and you can show them the data that proves otherwise, I always look to the numbers, because numbers always tell a story. And so I do try very, very hard to help them understand why it’s important to list at market value, and what happens in the event that they don’t. And so, you know, like anyone else in this business, I’m sure you’re always going to have those clients are like, No, I want to test it at this price. So if they are very adamant about testing at a certain price, I say, okay, that’s fine. We’ll test it at your price for two weeks, we’re going to monitor the activity. And we’re looking for five to seven showings a week to indicate to us that it’s a successful launch. And so at that point, now, every week we’re having conversations with them saying, are we hitting our benchmarks of five to seven showings a week? Now, in some cases, if it’s overpriced, we will hit those five to seven showings a week. But at the end of two weeks, let’s say we’ve had 12 showings, we hit the benchmarks, but no offers are coming in. That’s an indication that the markets rejecting our price because we’ve gotten this, we’ve gotten the showings, we needed the activity but the offers aren’t there. And so now we’re having that conversation of adjusting to the price that you know, we recommended initially.

D.J. Paris 17:04
I love that I love all of that. And in for the listeners, just in case anyone listening doesn’t know this as an option. You can actually via M read, you can see how many eyeballs have looked at the property on the MLS, right? You can’t see what Zillow those numbers, but you can see how many brokers have shown either shown the listing to their clients buy an email, or it was on a search and it came up. So if you’re getting hundreds and hundreds of people that can that see the property, you know, online on via em read and nobody’s scheduling appointments. Obviously, that’s an indicator as well. So a lot of brokers probably don’t know you can see that number, right.

Stefanie Ridolfo 17:41
There’s prospecting. Yep. Well, oh, by the way, the actual activity, like the physical showings that a listing is getting, because views to me don’t mean anything. It’s all about what is the actual right action that’s happening. It’s all about the actions.

D.J. Paris 17:58
Absolutely. And that’s the thing is, if you’re getting 1000s of views, and no one’s coming to see it, there’s a there’s an issue, which, again, that’s data. So you can actually go back and say, Hey, here’s the here’s the reality. And you know, so that’s awesome, and awesome. And again, you have a whole process. In fact, I want to before we continue, because I forgot to mention this at the beginning, I want to talk about you have a really cool website, by the way, which is live with live without the E live real estate partners.com. It’s one of the better real estate websites I’ve seen, which by the way, everybody should have a cool real estate website or business have a website. And but I want to talk about your team because you guys, as you’re always expanding, you are also looking to add on more team members. So can you tell us sort of what that looks like?

Stefanie Ridolfo 18:44
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So just to kind of get back into where I left off, because it’s like, you know, go to how I started building the team. So my first two years in real estate, and again, this is just for all those listeners that are new in the business. It is a lot of hard work. I mean, I worked seven days a week, a lot of days, like eight till 10pm at night for almost two years straight. And so that was really hard because I was a new mom, I had twins and then I also got pregnant again. And so I was pregnant. With my third child, I had, you know, 13 month old twins and I was working, I would say eight hours plus a week. And so, you know, that’s when I got to the burnout phase. When I was getting my business was building, which was so exciting and loved every minute of it. But I just there was no more time for my family and my family then started to become what I was sacrificing. And I at the time understood that you know, because I wanted to be build such a massive business, I knew that I was going to have to sacrifice time away from my family. And so I would say, you know, if you’re, whether you’re the husband or the family, the wife or the family, or just your own self, just know that you’re going to have to sacrifice time away from people that you love and you care about, in order to build the business that you want, just to know that you’re doing it. Because five years from now, my goal was always that I wasn’t going to have to work nights and weekends anymore. So that was kind of like my driving factor was like I’m putting in the work now. So that we can build this team so that don’t have to work nights and weekends for the rest of my life. So I really got to that burnout phase, at about two years into the business, I was doing about 10 million in sales by myself. And that’s when I knew I could no longer continue at that pace, and continue to grow the business because I didn’t want the customer service to Slack, right. And that was really important to me, it was always putting my clients at the forefront of everything. And so if I ever felt like I couldn’t give them the service I needed they deserved, then that was the that was where I was starting to get to that point. And I knew I had to start building out a team to gain leverage. And I will tell you, I did not build my team the right way from the beginning. And that was one of my big failing forward. You know, lessons that I learned and I wouldn’t take it back. Because I learned really valuable lessons. And I’m still learning every single day about, you know, building this business, but I didn’t hire properly. The first I hired was not an administrative person. And so that was my biggest mistake. And I did end up hiring administration. But it was a part time. And it was also a shared admin. Sure. which I also was a big learning that, yes, it got some things off my plate. But the big picture was that I wanted this person, you know, the admin to be also a branch of me, and they didn’t have client facing. And so that was then put back on me so that yeah, they could do some of the paperwork, which is great. But it wasn’t really the ideal situation.

D.J. Paris 22:29
That’s still not giving you back your nights and weekends. Correct.

Stefanie Ridolfo 22:32
Exactly. Yeah. So So then, I really decided at that time, like I need to know how to do this the right way. And so Keller Williams, you know, I knew was a company that was number one for training and leadership. And I knew that they had already created. They had the systems, the tools, the processes to build out a team, that’s what they’re known for. Right. And so I decided to move my business to Keller Williams because I was like, why am I trying to reinvent a wheel that’s already been created? Right, you know, so that’s what I decided to move my business to Keller Williams. And, you know, the first day I went to Keller Williams, I saw Lance Logan. He is a big, mega agent, and Keller Williams out of Houston. And I saw him on a panel and my life changed that day, I heard him speak and my mind was expanded. And once your mind gets expanded, it never returned back to its original form. So shout out to Lance, because you know, Lance, and Karina, they’re, they’re amazing. And so he talked about building a team and how it was the hardest thing he ever did in his life. And at the time, I was just like, Oh, it doesn’t sound that hard, right?

D.J. Paris 23:53
You just hire somebody to help out? It should be easy, right?

Stefanie Ridolfo 23:57
Yeah. And at the time, I think they were doing like 300 million in sales. And so at that point, I saw a light bulb switch. And I realized that real estate, you know, was so much bigger than just you know, helping people buy and sell homes. It’s about building business, a business big enough so that you can hire amazing talent and help other people accomplish, you know, their goals and their dreams. And so like that, at that point, I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I am so grateful to be here and hear this. And from that point on I started following the Keller Williams systems and models for hiring a team. I read the mrea book, which is the million Millionaire Real Estate, by the way.

D.J. Paris 24:43
Well, let’s pause for a second. Everybody should read Gary Keller’s millionaire effect. I think it was recently updated in the last year to it and he also has another book called The one that he’s a few other books but the one thing that really great I mean everything Gary Keller’s written you everyone should read.

Stefanie Ridolfo 24:57
Yeah, I mean the Red Book Um, the MRE a book is by far the number one book every single real estate agent should read, because it lays the foundation of how to run a successful business. And I think that, um, a lot of people don’t understand the difference of being a realtor versus running a business. And so if you’re sitting there right now thinking, Oh, I’m, I’m just a realtor, it’s like, no, you’re running a business. And if you’re not running it, like a business, then you’re doing it wrong. Right. Agree. So. So that was my big, you know, kind of like Pivotal, pivotal point in my career, was starting to build the team,

D.J. Paris 25:40
right? It’s sometimes to building a team also is sacrificial, right? You, you might sacrifice some income initially, you might sacrifice some control. It’s a scary, difficult thing in you know, sometimes you hire the wrong people, like you were saying, happens. It happens to everybody who builds a team, but also realize that’s another point of sacrifice, at least for a short term.

Stefanie Ridolfo 26:02
Totally. Yep. And I think the biggest thing for me is I’m always a believer, like, if you build it, they will come Yes. And so but, you know, at the time, my husband was not in the real estate world with me, you know, he was working a full time job staying home with the kids on the nights and weekends. And then I go to him, and I say, hey, I want to hire an assistant that’s gonna cost me, you know, 30 $40,000 a year. And he was like, Whoa, right. You know, so it was a lot of, you know, just believing in the process. And I think people sometimes they’re very fearful of that, of making those decisions that it’s going to change their business, because they’re like, Well, you know, if I spend all this money, that means I’m gonna have to sell more houses, and how many summer houses and so it seems like, you know, they just keep postponing it, and they don’t ever get the chance to actually peel back the onion. And hire out that leverage to let to give them the ability to grow. And that’s something that was really, really changed my business when I hired the right, you know, person to help me it with all the administrative work. Yeah, absolutely.

D.J. Paris 27:18
I the interview that is being posted today that just before yours will drop next week. Gentleman, his name is Nick vellum, and he had the almost the exact same experience. He’s like, I want to reclaim my nights and weekends. And he said, he realized the only way to do that is to build a team. And to make all of them so incredibly successful, that he was able to reclaim more time for him. And he has three kids as well. So his his family. So it’s, it’s a concept, but you have to be willing to take the leap and just trust the process. And I guess, you know, you’re you’re accustomed to, to, to taking a pretty scary leap. And the good news too, is if everybody for example, they just read Gary Keller’s Millionaire Real Estate Agent, that is pretty much if you only had to read one book about how to be successful in this business, that that’s the one and just do everything in that book and be willing to just trust the process. And you’ll probably be fine.

Stefanie Ridolfo 28:12
Yes, exactly. If you build it, they will come. So but it’s scary to do that. It’s really scary. And a lot of people don’t do it, because they’re there. They’re fearful of it. So I would just say, you know, this business is all about taking risks and stepping outside your comfort zone. Because if you know, if you’re comfortable with your, with what you’re doing everyday, that means you’re not growing. And if you’re not growing, you’re not building a business.

D.J. Paris 28:39
Yeah. And you’re supposed to be scared. Fear is completely in fact, if you’re not scared, I’m worried. Because fear is a good thing. It’s a totally good thing. And to find the courage to sort of live and coexist with that fear and trust, that it’s all gonna work out because you’re doing the right things. I want to actually transition that into something that I think you do. That’s super cool. And I suspect to you, you probably don’t even see this as all that, you know, different from what other realtors do, or maybe you do. But I love that you have a process for everything. So tell us about the process. You were talking to me before about how you work with home sellers because I just think even having a process like this is sadly sort of unique and also elevates you among all the other brokers maybe so you talk a little bit about that.

Stefanie Ridolfo 29:29
Yeah, I would love to see so. So while you know on this journey of of, you know, working with sellers so in the Red Book, Emery book, they talk about, you know, leads listings leverage and so one of the biggest things that I realized that if I was gonna, you know, have leverage that I need to bring in more business and so, you know, sphere and referrals were about 80% of my business last year and then fizz bows and expireds started becoming the 20%. Prior to that, it was all sphere and referrals. So last year, my husband actually joined the business, got his real estate license. And he’s he started with me, and he started as an ISA, which means inside sales. And so that was really also key to the growth of our business because he came from sales and quickly learn the scripts, how to call fizz bows how to call expireds. And so his role on our team is to call these homeowners and set me up with listing appointments. And so because we want, you know, to lead with listings, that’s the way you grow business. And so he started doing that. And, you know, when you meet with your sphere, or your referrals a lot easier, I wouldn’t say easier, but it’s, you know, they’re not going to be interviewing as many agents or they’re not going to be, you know, beating you down with commission as much. And so when I started going on the fizz bows and expired appointments, I quickly realized, like, I need to really differentiate myself and bring value and show them why they want to hire me, and why they want to hire me for, you know, 5% or 6%. And when they’re, you know, used to paying, you know, three and a half percent with a discount broker and nothing when they’re a Fizbo.

D.J. Paris 31:34
Yeah, and let’s pause for a second because for people who are listening brokers who are listening, these are the toughest phone calls and toughest in person appointments you could possibly have. These are people that have already decided, if they’re Fizbo, for example, they do not want to work with a realtor, they don’t want to pay those fees, and is a massive mountain to climb. But those are people that probably need your help the most, because they likely aren’t having success on their own clearly. So

Stefanie Ridolfo 32:01
and raising their hand saying, I’m trying to sell my house. Yeah. And I’ll never forget the first Fizbo appointment I went on. I went to the appointment, and I, you know, they signed with me on the spot, my first ever and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like free money, like, free money, like, Bring it on. And so it really was exciting. So for anyone that’s brand new in the business, I would definitely recommend like, if you don’t have you know, your sphere, big sphere of business right now the easiest, the again, easiest, you know where it’s hard work. But the the number one thing you should be doing is contacting those fizz bows and expireds. Because those are people that are raising their hand, it’s a low hanging fruit, it is a challenge. They are going to be your toughest clients, but it’s going to be a great learning experience. So

D.J. Paris 32:59
Oh, yeah, just just for the sake of learning how to call strangers and ask something that likely is not going to be received well, by a majority of them. That is a great experience, too, because it teaches you how to have conversations with people that aren’t as your sphere of influence who probably wants to work with you, because they know unlike you, these are people that don’t know you, maybe will like you, maybe they won’t. And it’s just and by the way you can purchase expireds and fizz bows for almost nothing. They’re really affordable.

Stefanie Ridolfo 33:33
Yeah, yeah, we use Vulcan seven, is about welcome. Seven. That’s the best system that we found with the most accurate numbers. So yeah, so just to kind of sew back to that. So when I again, when I first started the business, I would I did have a referral. That was a cancelled listing. And I you know, I was trying to figure out like, why didn’t they sell the first time? What happened? What What was the reasoning? And I walked into the home and I you know, have an I guess you could say that for design and for you know, I can I have a vision for each home, I walk into a what it can look like. And so I’m sure everyone has seen those photos online where you know, the house looks like a mess. And the photos aren’t done properly. There’s, you know, things everywhere and the house looks outdated. So that was what I noticed with this house. And I was like, you know, I was like, if you guys can do me a favor. Let’s walk through every room and let’s talk about what items we can remove from the home so that way, you know it looks different, it looks fresher. And we’re just gonna move things around so that the space feels larger. And so I did that with the sphere. But then once I started meeting with the fizz bows and expired I realized that that was the value I needed to bring. I needed to bring something different that other Realtors weren’t bringing. So I developed the three step process. And so I also noticed that when I was going into a lot of these homes, I was like, Oh my gosh, if this red wall was just gray, or if you know, the trim was painted white versus oak, or the white, or the OIC, outdated cabinets were painted white, that this house would literally like transform. And so I started slowly by testing the waters. And I would talk to sellers about, you know, a budget, did they have a budget that they would be willing to invest in their home, in order to prepare it for resale that they would be comfortable with? And if I could guarantee them a return on that investment? You know, how would they feel about that. And I found that about 50% of the time people were willing to invest in their home. Because again, you’re dealing with people that want to get top dollar, they want to get that unrealistic price. So to get them that price, then I would say to them, well, we have to do XYZ to your home in order to give it that same look, that the other comps are showing a demand in this price. So so that’s it kind of like slowly started evolving. And so then I would, you know, started walking in these houses at these listing appointments. And I’d say Okay, I think we need to paint your home Gray, I think we need, you know, your cabinets painted white, we need to replace your carpeting. And people started, you know, doing what I was telling them to do. And then I would go through the home, and then I would declutter, I would walk through room by room and say, okay, remove this piece of artwork, remove all these family photos, remove this, you know, let’s rearrange the couches like that. And so they started doing it. And then I was able to elicit the price they wanted and get them, you know, the value that they wanted, because they listened to my recommendations. And so that was really cool to see that all happening. And so then the third step in the process. And the final one that we’ve just really started building on about a year ago was was staging the homes ourselves. And so that now what we do is we have a staging division. So we have a warehouse with inventory. And now we’ve been have movers that we hired to stage our homes. And so the goal is, is to really build out our staging division, even from where it is just today.

D.J. Paris 37:38
That’s incredible. So how often do you find you you end up staging homes is it every time,

Stefanie Ridolfo 37:44
time. So there’s two different kinds of staging. So again, so the three step process is number one, I come in for the listing appointment, I go over, you know, all the updates that the home needs, I get a budget from the client, and then we prioritize based on their budget, which items need to be done to the home. And so typically, I like to look for like a three to $5,000 budget, sometimes homeowners, you know, it’s a $10,000 budget, sometimes it’s 15, depending on, you know, where we want to price it, right. And so that’s step one, is the updates. And then step two is to redesign the declutter removing everything from the home that needs to be removed. And then step three is the staging and bringing in those personal items. And so that is our process every single time.

D.J. Paris 38:32
Wow. And I just love that you have that process. I don’t think we’ve interviewed anyone yet on the show, who had that specific of a process and that comprehensive. So that’s incredible. And, and I love that you’re able to go in and say it’s almost more like a consultant than it is anything else. Right? You’re going in saying, this is I know how to do this, you have to trust my process here. And, and that

Stefanie Ridolfo 38:57
I mean, not every seller, is the right fit for us. Sure, no, because there are people that say like, Oh, I’m not investing $1 I want to listen at this price. And you know, it’s just totally unrealistic. And so, you know, not everyone’s a good fit for us. And that’s okay, because we want to work with the people that understand the value that we bring to the table because every single time that someone follows our process, we’re able to get them top dollar and sell it in 11 days or less. And that’s the average days on market.

D.J. Paris 39:31
Wow, incredible. Well, I know you are looking for team members to continue to grow tell because we have 1000s of listeners, almost all of which of course are brokers. Tell us what you’re looking for in a team member and how they should reach out if they’re interested.

Stefanie Ridolfo 39:45
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re always looking for top talent. For people that are very hardworking, that are driven, self motivated. They want to win In, and they care about people. Because when somebody enable it has the qualities of a go getter and wants to win, but they don’t care about the people, it’s not going to work in our culture, because that is all have everyone on our team right now. They embody that. But the number one thing is, is that we always want to do what’s best for our client that comes number one. And so in order to, to have that kind of soul, right, you have to love people, right? You have to care about people, and you have to put their needs a lot of time before your own. And so we’re looking for those people that you know, want to grow, have big dreams want to have, you know, accomplished the world with us. And give them a space where they feel like, they can have a voice and help make decisions and really just are a part of a family because that’s really what we are. We’re like a little family, you know, and we want people that can come into our family, and, and help us grow and take us to the next level. And while they do that, they’re doing that for themselves.

D.J. Paris 41:16
What and what’s the best way for a listener? Who says that’s me? That’s where I want to belong to a team like that. How should they reach out?

Stefanie Ridolfo 41:24
So yeah, I mean, just contact me directly, or email me. So my cell phone number is 630-200-2120. And then my email address is Stephanie with an F. I will say I’m an ephah. As she s a n, ie at live li ve real estate partners, one word.com.

D.J. Paris 41:51
We should also want to mention your website. Again, everyone should get to see what a cool real estate website looks like. And when that’s useful and helpful. Go to live real estate partners, again, live without the E live real estate partners.com. Also, I want to make sure we mentioned Stephanie’s Facebook page, which is live partners. Just type it into you’ll find it also there’s a link to it from her website, and Instagram. And that’s Stephanie. Is it separate auto or it’s stuff for Adolfo? Yeah. So

Stefanie Ridolfo 42:21
I’ve got my personal one that I do a lot of like, you know, the process of what we do for listings on and its staff STF, Adolfo God, that realtor

D.J. Paris 42:32
Perfect. Well, this has been so helpful. And I know and by the way, again, I just want to congratulate you on behalf of the listeners of all the success and the sacrifice that you’ve made. We so rarely, and it was a good reminder to me to talk about sacrifice a lot, because of course, that’s a huge part of it. And obviously, you’re a great living example of how to have success through sacrifice. And the success you have had in a short very short period of time is nothing short of astonishing. So we appreciate by the way, Stephanie’s too busy to do this. To do that. She’s that busy. But she took the time out of her day just to help our listeners. So we we thank you on behalf of them.

Stefanie Ridolfo 43:16
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me. And I hope that you know, I helped at least one person out there today. So that’s that’s always a win. Right?

D.J. Paris 43:25
Definitely did and it was more like 1000s of people who listened. So thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. And we’ll see everybody on the next episode.

Stefanie Ridolfo 43:34
All right, thank you go get them guys.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Nick Rendleman of the Nicholas Ryan Team at Exit Realty believes that his job is to uplift lives through service. We talk about his previous career in ministry and why he believes that the same objectives and skills apply in real estate. His top 1% team evaluates their performance on client reviews and he encourages brokers to ask, “If I were only receiving compensation if the client gave me a glowing review, how would I act today?” This is an interview not to miss!

Nick Rendleman can be reached at 630.631.8600 and nick@nicholasryanrealestate.com

---

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s keeping it real episode is brought to you by not standard a premium luxury custom menswear experience in Chicago with the highest quality fabric source from the top mills in the world and more than 7000 customizable details each not standard product is as unique as you are booking an appointment with trusted stylist Lauren Lipton at not standard.com That’s kn o Te standard.com forward slash Lauren, L A u r e n, and mentioned in DJ Paris, me to enjoy a complimentary shirt and 15% off your first purchase.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast that features the top 1% of Chicago realtors in the industry. And I’ve just changed the tagline there on the fly. Because we used to say it’s made for Chicago real estate brokers by Chicago real estate brokers, which is true, but we have listeners now from all over. So it’s not specifically just for Chicago realtors, although that’s what we focus on the show today, we have Nick Randleman from exit, who is going to be talking about how he built his business. It’s it was a great conversation coming up in just a few moments. I want to encourage everyone who’s listening as we near our 100th episode, which we’re so honored to be able to say we’ve done as people seem to continue to listen and our view or listenership continues to grow. So thank you for everyone who listens. And also thank you to everyone who is telling a friend anyone you know, who’s a realtor who wants to learn what these top one percenters are doing, how they grew their business, what they’re doing today, what mistakes they’ve made, send them a link to our show. And they can of course, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play Stitcher, and anywhere else podcasts are served, just search for keeping it real podcast. Look for the one with DJ, that’s me. There’s a few others named keeping it real as well, but only one with my name. So you’ll find me pretty easily. And also, you can visit our website, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done, which is keeping it real pod.com. Also, please like us on Facebook, we are@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And as we post links to all of our episodes, and also links to all of our guests, their websites, their social media, etc. You can check out to see what they’re doing. But as I reflect back on these 100 or so almost 100 episodes, I want to encourage everyone to go back and listen, if you have time. And you’re so interested to go back and listen all the way from the beginning. Because the advice and information provided here by our guests is really is timeless. Very rarely do we ever talk about current conditions in the market. Of course, we have Kerry McCormick on every month. And she does do that, outside of that every other episode we do is really extremely timeless. And we’ll talk exclusively about how these how these top producers built and manage their business. And I promise you will learn and if you go back through, you will have so much great advice that you can achieve what they have achieved as well. A whole idea of doing this was not so much to even create a timely podcast where every week we’re talking about what’s going on today was really to create a library, you know, I know that there’s look, there’s 41,000 realtors in Chicago. And I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to go to a library and pick out the top 410 of those producers, were they, in their own words tell you what they did to grow their business. So obviously, that’s what we’ve done. That’s what we’re continuing to do. Thank you, by the way for all of the suggestions. And we get suggestions every single day from brokers saying you need to interview so and so and we haven’t yet got to even maybe one 100 of them, but we’re working on it. So keep sending those in. Also send us your questions. If you’re on our Facebook page, you’ll note that I announce Hey, I’m going to be speaking with a particular producer and you can obviously submit questions there as well. So okay, enough of me talking. Let’s get on with the show. We have Nick Randleman from exit coming up next.

Today on the show, we have Nick Randleman of the Nikolas Ryan team at Exit Realty Nick is the team leader of the Nicholas Ryan Real Estate Group. At exit he believes in creating the best client experience through utilizing a synergistic team model and procuring the most hardworking, honest and gifted people in the industry. Besides building his own team. He has also helped many transition into a successful career. are in real estate, Nick’s integrity is foundational to his success. Nick resides in the lake. Sorry Lakewood Balmoral neighbor Balmoral neighborhood on the north side with his wife, Emma, their baby girls, Penelope and Scarlett, and their Bulldog Oslo. Nick is a top 1% producer, you can visit him at Nicholas Ryan realestate.com, which, by the way, is one of the best looking real estate websites I’ve seen. And we should also mention that Nick’s exit office, which is located in Wicker Park is ranked number one in Illinois, which is a very, very big deal. So welcome, Nick to the show. Hey, thank

Nick Rendleman 5:35
you, DJ, glad to be a part of the show today.

D.J. Paris 5:37
Well, we’re really excited to have you and I know we were talking offline. And what I’d like to do is just to start out to give the audience a sense of who you are, although a lot of our listeners will already know you. Tell us, you know how you got into real estate?

Nick Rendleman 5:53
Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t really know. I just kind of woke up one day and found myself selling homes. But it was it was not planned. I didn’t go to school to be a realtor, shark, even a businessman or, you know, an entrepreneur, and actually studied theology, and did my undergrad at Moody here in Chicago, and was actually in vocational ministry prior to getting involved into real estate. Wow. And through some Scituate on unforeseen situation or circumstances with, you know, being married my first year and trying to work through how to be a good husband and juggling a thriving ministry at the time. You know, my wife, and I just decided to take a step back. And we didn’t leave the church or anything, but we just decided we would reevaluate some things. Sure. And, you know, I didn’t really know where to go at that point. Because, like I said, I didn’t, you know, my, my degree was very specific to just with basically ministry and that sort of thing. Sure. So I thought I, you know, take a shot at real estate, got licensed, you know, I got licensed in about 30 days. And I’m like, Great, I’m licensed, you know, go go sell homes now. And, and that was basically how I got started first six months. It was it was a beast, man. Sure. If you wanna know how much money I made, I would love to know. Yes. All right. I’ll tell you, goose egg. Nada, not a penny, not a cent, not $1. And I had a lot of people basically saying, Hey, man, are you sure you heard God correctly? About? Like, you’re supposed to be a minister? Why are you trying to sell homes? This isn’t gonna work. And it made me think and kind of doubt a little bit, too. But sure. I think deep down, I just had this conviction that I was in the right place doing the right thing. And so after six months, I got my first deal, which was about 23,000. Nice. Nope, not commission. Oh, that was the

D.J. Paris 7:55
sales price.

Nick Rendleman 7:56
Yeah, I set you up for that. But that was the sales price. So the commission was about 800 bucks, I think. Sure. So it was a slow start for

D.J. Paris 8:05
me, DJ, but you were on the board. At that point. You’re in I was on the board.

Nick Rendleman 8:08
And since then, I don’t believe there’s ever been a month in the last five and a half years where we haven’t, you know, made money in closed deals. But, but that was kind of the start. And that’s sort of how I got into the industry.

D.J. Paris 8:24
You know, it’s it’s such a not uncommon story, right? So we only feature top one percenters on the show, and almost everybody has that same first year story. And I think with the exception of maybe one person who said, Oh, yeah, close to deal and like the third week, which is super unusual, and it was probably their best friend or something who you know, is already ready to buy something cash. Everyone else, even the owner of the company, I work out who’s also named Nick, who ended up being this is like 2003, he was he wasn’t the Rookie of the Year with car, but he was like the runner up Rookie of the Year, he didn’t close the sale till month seven, either. That’s super common. And for everyone listening, it is certainly common. And also, understandably, not a fun way to start. But it’s, you know, this is what every almost every top producer, you know, that’s the that’s the path. So I

Nick Rendleman 9:17
and I really think DJ, that’s probably why there’s such a high percentage of people who drop out of real estate first year. Yeah, because at some point, it’s just like, you know, if you don’t have the savings, if you’re not prepared, if you don’t have the mentality, to really persevere through that, you know, basically just the whole startup of real estate, then, you know, you you get discouraged and you leave the industry. So, yeah, I relate to it. I was there.

D.J. Paris 9:44
I know, I would really love to find out, you know, and I’m assuming there’s natural similarities between your previous path of ministry and service and being a realtor. It’s got to be so synergistic, I would think.

Nick Rendleman 9:59
Yeah, It really is. You know, I think for me, what I’m really passionate about is, is helping people. And I just have that innate in me since, you know, I started following Jesus about 20 years ago this year. Yeah. So, so I, I really believe in helping people helping them holistically, helping them spiritually helping them, you know, in any way I can. And so, real estate is really a platform for that, because you’re basically dealing with number one, it’s a need that all of us have shelter. Number two, it’s most people’s largest purchase of their entire lives, right? And so, when you’re dealing with that kind of fiduciary responsibility, a lot of other things open up to you. And if you’re, if you’re listening, if you’re dialed into the person, not just the transaction, but you’re really dialed into the person, I think you really find how much is going on in someone’s life and they open up and they let you know, kind of the deeper things of their heart. And so yes, there’s a lot of there’s a huge Nexus when when I think of real estate, I think of ministry in fact, now, I really don’t see them as is different. I think your ministry is all of life whereas before I thought of it as maybe a career or something that I was paid to do. Whereas now it’s like every conversation I have with any person is actually an opportunity for ministry ministry is just basically serving someone it’s meeting their needs. And yeah, real estate opens up that door all day long.

D.J. Paris 11:37
Wow. I don’t know that I could have been better said I think that’s really important. And it’s also seems to be in study after study whether National Association of REALTORS does it or other groups where they survey buyers and sellers and say, What are you looking for in your realtor? Number one is always somebody that listens and understands me, for sure. And, and it is something that I think, probably a lot of realtors struggle with because they have the knowledge. And it’s probably easy to forget, especially if somebody’s purchasing their first home. Just how clueless we all were unless we were in the business when we purchased our first home. I know I relied upon my realtor when I bought my condo many, many years ago. And I didn’t I had no idea what was going on. And and it was scary too. Because of course it is like you said a huge purchase. It was the largest purchase I had ever made at that point. So yeah, so I think that’s, that’s really important. So in your Sony, your first year, you struggled like everyone does the first six months and months seven, you got your first sale, then how did it sort of proceed from there was were you working mostly by referral at that point? Were you still hustling to to meet people? Tell? Can you if you don’t mind sharing a little bit of that process?

Nick Rendleman 12:51
Yeah. So subsequent to year one, which was I wouldn’t say a disaster, but it was kind of a rude awakening that, you know, this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk for me. And sure. You know, several years ago now going back about, I don’t know, 10 years, I was actually in the restaurant industry for a stint of about a decade. And in the restaurant and the restaurant industry. You could kind of call it sales in a sense, because, you know, I would, I would so whatever I sell food, I sold nice bottles of wine or whatever. So I had like, I had sales enemy. But when I actually started to try to translate that to real estate, the thing I didn’t realize is that you need marketing. So marketing was was a missing link to to my success. And so one of the first things I did because at the time, I didn’t really have the savoir faire and knowledge of how to do that myself as I just basically turn that over to third parties like Zillow. And at the time, Zillow was a goldmine. Zillow was very affordable. And Zillow did a great job getting me leads. And so I began to work the Zillow leads, and you know, again, just kind of come at it with this mindset that I’m going to I’m going to help these people I’m going to serve them as though, you know, they were a family member or a very close friend or whatever, I’m going to really do my best job. And that began to you know, I began to get some traction with that I began to get some referrals and close deals. And then once we started to have a steady book of business, I leveraged my administrative stuff with my wonderful, lovely, devoted wife, Emma. And she actually quit her job or she went from full time to part time and she was part time my assistant and then she quit her job and became a full time assistant and leverage the administration side so I could focus more on the client, which was great. So then I was able to do even more. I think our business doubled that first year that she started helping me so and I had more leads than I could handle and began recruiting my friends from other jobs and other industries. And just basically said, Hey, man, look, this is an awesome opportunity. To be able to have a ton of freedom in life. And you know, people are so afraid about being paid with by commission or whatever. But sure, I’m paid every month. It’s as dependable as any nine to five job. And it’s, it’s making me a better living than I’ve found anything else would you be interested in meeting with me and so I met with a lot of people a lot of friends this way, and just kind of pulled them into the industry, and basically showed them what I was doing, they copied and pasted, they found success, and then I kind of kicked them out of the nest, and they launched their own book of business. That’s how we got going doing this thing. So I quickly implemented the team mentality. You know, it’s, it’s interesting how you look through at other industries, and who really operates any successful organization without a team. I mean, everybody operates by a team, that’s just, that’s just the preferred method of doing business. And yet, so many people in real estate operate solo. Now, I’m not knocking that I’m not saying there’s definitely a lot of different ways to be successful in this industry. But something that was very important to me early on DJ was, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to work seven days a week, 24/7, I didn’t want to constantly be doing the real estate grind, I didn’t constantly want to be having to deal with deals, dream about real estate, wake up in the morning and make calls and never have a break, right. And so I just began to leverage and build a team. And in doing that, it allowed me to still be successful, but not have to work around the clock. So in the last few years, that’s kind of been the evolution, I started out solo, just trying to get some deals, I got some deals, I leveraged it with an administrative assistant, who was my wife got more deals more than I could handle began to leverage it with building the team and having other oshs outside sales agents, take the overflow of the business, and just have continued to leverage until the present.

D.J. Paris 16:46
That’s amazing. And we should talk about exit because it’s such an interesting company with their the way they got their structure. Talk a little bit about that, because some of our listeners probably aren’t as familiar with exit.

Nick Rendleman 16:59
Yeah, hands down exit is the best company for rewarding you in recruitment and training of other brokers.

D.J. Paris 17:06
Right. Absolutely. That’s

Nick Rendleman 17:07
my opinion is, you

D.J. Paris 17:08
know, your, I believe I have the same opinion.

Nick Rendleman 17:11
Yeah, because they give you basically 10% of the agents production, up to $10,000 a year. So if you just recruit a few, you know, promising agents and train them, you know, in my expectation for anybody, and everybody that I bring on my team, or I recruit to exit is that they would at least gross $100,000, which is extremely attainable. In real estate. I mean, most of the people that you interview on this show DJ have probably already hit that by now. So to make $100,000 in real estate a year is extremely attainable. So as long as the recruits are doing that, and they really should do that, that’s $10,000 to recruit. And so, you know, look, it’s not about that, but it’s a nice incentive. I love seeing people succeed, I’m so passionate about people reaching the apex of their potential. That is just why I wake up in the morning. But to be rewarded in financial ways, is just icing on the cake. And then they know if they recruit people, and they are able to, you know, basically have the recruits gross 100,000, they’re also making $10,000 a year. And so that’s just been a nice sort of residual income for, for me and for many others that exit

D.J. Paris 18:27
well at that. And a coupled with the fact that you at you know, and I don’t know if you still have an overflow of leads, but you’d mentioned that was part of the reason why you brought on team members. So you were able to show someone not only here’s the path, but also here’s a little help along the way, which helps keep them engaged and motivated. So I think that’s awesome.

Nick Rendleman 18:46
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s yes, we still have an overflow DJ in the craziest thing. This is very crazy. But I will tell you, sometimes I pull back on my lead generation out of fear that I won’t have enough manpower to service the leads. I remember, I don’t know how long ago it was, it’s probably months ago now. We had a, like a $1.5 million buyer who needed to, we needed to meet with him on a Saturday and there was nobody to do it for my team. I mean, everybody was booked, what an amazing problem. Right? It was, it was a crazy problem. Yeah, amazing problem. And it’s still

D.J. Paris 19:22
a problem, still a problem. And so

Nick Rendleman 19:25
sometimes I actually pull back on my lead generation, because for us, getting leads is not the issue we can do. We just have a couple of things we do here and there’s some Facebook ads, whatever and blow the thing up and have an abundance of leads. But it’s just always that challenge of having the skilled people to receive those leads, and everybody at some point has a capacity level. And so our team right now, we’re I’d say, you know, capacity is we’re pretty full, for the most part. So we’re looking for more qualified people to join our team to help with The overflow, train them, equip them, you know, raise them up, just help them be successful. That’s what we’ve been doing the last few years. And I won’t

D.J. Paris 20:07
do why we should mention too, because it’s an obviously you guys are successful, you obviously are doing a great job for your clients. But we should also mention that this is a big deal. And Nick didn’t send this to me, I just noticed it on his website where he links to his Zillow profile, they have 100 190 reviews, average rating, five stars, in other words, they have 195 star reviews, that goes to show you just how well they treat their clients, and how and from, you know, Nick’s direction, I’m sure. So, you know, if there are brokers out there that are looking for, you know, of those kinds of opportunities, where you’re on a team that clearly does a good job, you know, Nick would, you know, be honored to speak with you. So we should definitely make sure that the listeners know that you are expanding, and that’s a good thing.

Nick Rendleman 20:57
And DJ, let me just say something about Zillow reviews, so 190 isn’t bad. But we’d love to see a lot more. But, you know, I’ll tell you that, you know, a five star review is all about an exceptional experience, you can get a transaction done, you can sell a home over list price, you can you can hustle really hard and find a client a dream home. But But the funny thing is, that won’t necessarily automatically equate to exceptional experience. And so we really try hard to find ways to sort of like if you will marry the hospitality, approach our hospitality industry with the real estate industry, the approach that you would find in the hospitality industry really rolling out the red carpet, little things, noticing client’s needs really learning the person, we try to incorporate some of that mentality into real estate, you know, and it’s not an easy thing to do. And we’re still learning more and more, but like a simple thing, do they prefer sparkling water and then throwing that in the car? But um, yeah, we just really try to focus on that exceptional experience. And what I tell my team is, look, if you are only compensated for five star rewrites, repeat business and referrals, how would you conduct your book of business? Like if the money wasn’t a thing? Like, okay, great, you close the transaction, but you were paid on five star reviews, referrals and repeat business? How would you treat the client? What would you be doing differently? So that’s really our mentality. In the Nicklaus Ryan team, our mission is to elevate lives to real estate, to create raving fans who repeat business, right, five star reviews, and refers to others. And so that’s really how we measure our success. It’s not so much by weather, we’re the top 1%. Producer, which is great. I’m glad that’s got us some airtime with you guys. And this awesome show that you’re doing this awesome podcast, but like for us really, the the measuring tool we’re using is is the reviews is the referrals is the, you know, repeat business,

D.J. Paris 23:00
as well. Yeah. Boy, again, so well said and so important. And isn’t it cool? I think this industry, and I’m not a producing broker, but I’ve interviewed enough of them to know that, generally speaking, top producers have a very similar mantra, right? It’s, we I want to help, I want to go the extra mile. And then the business typically, and the income follows. And I think, isn’t that cool that those two things are positively correlated, the more you care, the harder you work for your client, almost always the more you’re rewarded financially. And, you know, it’s it’s funny, you had said something earlier, I just want to touch on and I’m going to reference another interview I did with a gentleman named Craig Falco. He’s a dream town broker out of Park Ridge, I believe anyway, he’s been in the business like 30 years, nicest guy on the planet is all about helping people his son had come in to the to his office, I think his second year in the business and said, Dad, I want to I want to close 100 sales this year. And as Greg said, he said, I told my son to turn around, go back to his desk and figure out how to help 100 People next year, you’re not going to close, you’re literally going to figure out how to help 100 people. And if you go from that mentality, you will get to 100 Yes, so good. And it’s a simple switch. But I’m going to tell you about an amazing customer service experience. I apologize for making this about me. But I wanted to share this because you were just talking about this. And I will give you a really simple example that has never happened to anyone who’s listened. And it just happened to me. So I ordered a bed that’s being made of like reclaimed wood, the company that’s making it they’re like a real relatively they’re small business, but they have a good presence online for making these reclaimed pieces of furniture. And anyway, so I ordered it, and they said it’s going to be here in four weeks, which is really fast for furniture. And then four weeks came and went and then I said, Well, I’ll just check in with them see what’s happening because I hadn’t heard anything, since they had already initially contacted me. And I said, Hey, just out of curiosity, you need an idea when you know, and they said, Oh my gosh, we had a family emergency. I guess it’s a family business. And we’re so sorry. It’s gonna take another two Thanks. Just you know, thanks for being patient. I said, No, no problem. It’s fine. So then two weeks came and went, and then I went, Oh, I guess I’ll check in with them one more time. So I checked in with them a few days ago. And I said, Hey, I’m not trying to be a pest. Just curious if you have an ETA. And they said, Oh, my gosh, we’re so sorry. It will be there. April 1. We are so we never miss deadlines. And and this was on a chat chat thing they have. And they said, we feel so terrible about this. Can we treat you and a guest to lunch? No, by the way, this is there in Arizona, but they said, Can we treat you and a guest to lunch? It would make us feel better about it? And and I thought in and of course, I said, No, you do not need to do I don’t even know how that would happen. But I said no, no, no, thank you. But I just thought, How amazing. I mean, every furniture order I’ve ever placed is come late, that’s normal. And to have somebody say, we feel so bad about this, that we want to like, you know, send you a gift card for lunch. And I just thought, wow, going that little extra step was so huge for me. And it made me feel like these people cared. So silly example, but it was absolutely yeah,

Nick Rendleman 26:04
that’s really good. No, that’s really good. That’s really good. Because I think, you know, many times, it’s, it’s not our fright when things go wrong. Many times it’s a circumstantial thing. You know, someone if there’s a emergency in a family, you know, in real estate, I there’s just sure number of circumstances that can work against you or whatever. But at the end of the day, the clients looking to solve the issue. And it may not have been your you may not have been the impetus for the issue, you may not have been the one who caused the problem. But if you can, you know, this, your story is just so great. If you can find a way of helping, even if you can’t make it go away, just helping things to feel a little bit better introduced some kind of an exceptional experience within that, you know, treat them to lunch, treat them to dinner, send them a gift card, whatever, like you’re talking about going extra mile and doing something special, I think it really goes a long way. And it helps the client to sort of palate, the situation that may be a little bit unpleasant. And we’ve done we’ve done similar things. And I find it has a really good just has a really good result.

D.J. Paris 27:12
Well, in even back to the Stillwater versus sparkling example, it Damn, it’s a big deal, even though it sounds like a small little nothing thing. And it ultimately is easy to do. Anyone could do it, but just to care enough to go, Hey, I’m gonna see you tomorrow. And whether you drive somebody around or you just meet them at the property, hey, what do you prefer still or sparkling? You find that out? And then actually show up with that? I mean, almost nobody even does that. Yeah, that’s huge. It’s huge. Absolutely.

Nick Rendleman 27:37
Absolutely.

D.J. Paris 27:39
I would also like to hear about your guaranteed sales program, I know this is a huge differentiator for you. So do you mind sharing that with you? Yeah, that’s something

Nick Rendleman 27:46
that we just started doing. And it just makes a lot of sense to us. Because there’s a catch 22 In real estate, when people go to, you know, buy a home, they have a home to sell. And so we just basically, you know, tell the seller, look, we have a guaranteed sales program, it’s going to give you peace of mind, if for some reason, we can’t sell your home, and you move up and purchase one of our homes, and we can put a guarantee on your home. And it sort of eliminates the catch 22 So, you know, we’ve been doing business long enough, we have, you know, line of credit, whatever. So we can we can handle this, but it’s just a real nice way of us to eliminate the catch 22 in real estate.

D.J. Paris 28:29
Wow, that’s really smart. I, I’ve I’ve feel like I’ve maybe seen one other broker do this. This is very, very uncommon, but it’s certainly a wonderful idea and just provides a lot of peace of mind. Yep,

Nick Rendleman 28:42
absolutely does. And that’s and that’s really why we do it, you know, and we’re, we’re just very confident with our listings, we, we don’t take listings that we don’t you know, we wouldn’t take an out of out of town listing in some suburb that we don’t sell in we wouldn’t even do it in a neighborhood in Chicago that we’re not familiar with. So when we take a listing, we take it with a lot of confidence we know the market, we know what we need to do to sell it and we know that it’s going to sell and so it really is just a way for us to communicate to the seller our confidence and provide them a program so that they know at the end of the day no matter what happens you know their house is gonna get sold one way or another

D.J. Paris 29:23
well and I’m sure it also enables the you guys like you were saying to walk away from deals that aren’t you no realistic and also like you said where you’re not an expert in every neighborhood in every suburb isn’t there’s nobody could be so the confidence in Hey, this is what we know it also probably helps you dealing with with with the owners or the buyers to really instill the confidence in them that you guys know what you’re doing

Nick Rendleman 29:50
it just it just gives us a little bit more skin in the game. I think yeah, owners feel like we’re we’re owning this with them and we’re not just you know, salesperson, but we’re really taking on all the risk and removing the risk from them. And people love that they don’t, you know, selling your home is a scary thing sometimes, and people don’t have the best home to sell. And sometimes it’s the wrong market to sell it or whatever. There’s really no wrong market to sell, but you get you get my drift, like kids sure virus or whatever. So they can be upside down, etc. So, yeah, like I said, it’s just all about the client, it’s just about easing their mind, so that they know, everything’s gonna get, everything’s gonna get taken care of, and we’re gonna get their home sold one way or another.

D.J. Paris 30:36
Makes perfect sense. I always forget to actually bring these up while doing these interview interviews. And the feedback we always get is, you know, don’t you ask people for like their funniest experience. So we always do. And I always forget to ask, so you have a particularly great one. So I definitely want to hear about the time you almost bought the wrong house. Oh,

Nick Rendleman 30:55
yeah. It’s very embarrassing, actually. But I just, I just, I just made this colossal mistake. And I don’t to this day, I don’t really I don’t even know how it happened. But when we this was like, probably in the first year of me doing real estate, we were working with a client showed him a home, he liked the home, we put an offer on the home. And I don’t know if we actually went under contract or not. So it was either during the inspection, or perhaps we were just getting ready to sign the contract. And he just wanted a second look. So we went back to the house again. And again, this is just like, I don’t know how to explain this to you other than this is what happened. When we went into the home. The second time was a condo, it was a totally different condo. It’s amazing. Yeah. And I don’t know how to explain it. Because we look back on our scheduling. We looked at the unit number we looked at the agent, we couldn’t we still can’t piece together what happened. The only thing I can really think of is the first time we probably saw the condo, I have a feeling that it wasn’t another condo that was being sold. It was a rental in the building. And somebody was probably there waiting for another agent and thought we were that group. And they showed us their unit. And of course my clients had loved it put an offer on it. But really it was the wrong condo. It wasn’t the condo that was for sale. But it was it was in the same building. Yes, it was it was in the same building. Yeah. So that is that’s incredible. Yeah, yeah, it really was. I mean, what are the chances of that that’s never happened since? And we’ve taken some measures to make sure that wouldn’t happen again.

D.J. Paris 32:42
Well, I mean, I don’t even know if you have to take measures because that will never happen.

Nick Rendleman 32:47
Struck by Lightning or something, but it’s amazing. We’re looking at each other like, what just happened like what we just did somewhere else like this is this is the same this is the same kind of like this is not the same condo. So anyway, even in a bind it he canceled his contract. And we moved on, but that was probably the most I don’t know if it’s funny or not. It wasn’t really funny at the time at all. No, I’m

D.J. Paris 33:11
sure it wasn’t but experience. Well, well, I love it. Oh, did he end up buying the one that was for sale? No, no, that’s

Nick Rendleman 33:19
the thing. He didn’t actually want that one. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, it was an inferior condo. So the one he wanted apparently was already rented, or? Yeah, who knows? Oh, my gosh, that’s great. played a prank on us maybe.

D.J. Paris 33:33
And I know you also had an experience when you were working with a convicted felon, which is not a funny experience, necessarily.

Nick Rendleman 33:39
But I’ll show I’ll just I’ll just I’ll just tell you and then you can decide if you want to keep it in are sure Sure. I will go into many details here. But it was bizarre to because we had some clients that were purchasing a home with us and they had to sublet their place. So we got them a sublet, right. And my buddy noticed. You know, he kind of like Googled this, this sublet a little bit and shot some concerning stuff online. And I was like, What on earth is this, you know, something about, you know, like, conviction and yeah, kind of a big scam under the guise of con artists. Oh, wow. We we hadn’t even run his credit or taking the application yet. So this is this again, this was the guy who’s going to sublet so right, it’s gonna be attendant and we were acting on behalf of the buyer and out on behalf of landlord. But anyways, long story short, we did run the credit and a bunch of crazy stuff came up. And so we you know, of course, we told the landlord like here’s the crazy stuff, and we kind of figured it out and they were willing to take the risk and have this guy come it was just a debacle and a nightmare, but I don’t know, probably two or three, three weeks after that the FBI called me. No, yeah, yeah. As the Have you ever called you before? No, I wonder how many listeners ever gotten a phone call by the FBI? You know, they’re like,

D.J. Paris 35:06
just you that’s like it? No, it’s gotta be terrified, terrified, terrifying, terrifying,

Nick Rendleman 35:12
you know. So, of course, I, they were just wanting to ascertain information about this particular individual. Because he was literally weeks away from being sentenced. And I guess they were ascertaining information to find out if, you know, he was on his best behavior. And the fact of the matter was, he he actually wasn’t he actually tried to play all of us. And so it was just, it was really a bizarre, unusual real estate experience that I hope to never have again. Because, you know, we were careful, we check credit, but the guy was very polished at his craft at the shore. And it ended up with this guy, you know, going to jail and, and us getting a call by the FBI to get more information. And, and that was, that was unreal man, I didn’t expect to be talking to the FBI over real estate transaction,

D.J. Paris 36:13
I have a I have a friend who’s a federal prosecutor for the state of Illinois. And he’s an attorney. And it’s a very coveted position. It’s like about as a anyway, it’s a very big deal to be a federal prosecutor. And so he works for the feds, but he works in Illinois. And he had to, of course, do his own FBI background check. But they also then interviewed a lot of his friends. And I was on the list, but the FBI just never contacted me. But a lot of my friends got contacted to answer questions about his character and history. And, and so I was I sort of wanted the call just to like, be able to say I talked to the FBI never got it, though. So you got to talk to the FBI for obviously,

Nick Rendleman 36:53
they were surprisingly calm and cool. And like, I felt like, you know, they might have been, you know, just buddies. Sure. But I was like, you know, I just kept telling myself, just tell them the truth. Meaning I’m telling the truth.

D.J. Paris 37:10
Oh, that’s funny. Well, I think that’s, that’s a great place to pause it. And let’s I also want to mention it in let’s recap here, you know, Nick is it has his office, Wicker Park for exit, he is looking to expand his team, Nick, if there are brokers, listening, who would love to work with someone like you, and get mentored and coached and join your team? What’s the best way they should reach out?

Nick Rendleman 37:34
They should just call me 630631 8600. And you know that you can you can text me, you can call me that, just call me directly. And we’ll send you a personality test and have you fill out a resume a couple things in interview. And, you know, I think the main thing on my team DJ, just as just as you know, wrap this insurance, I’m just looking for people that are ready to grow, and they’re teachable. I used to kind of go after the giftedness thing and try to find the most, you know, try to go after rockstars. And now I just, I’m more so I’m concerned about people’s mentality and their teachability and their heart. And because we can train on the rest.

D.J. Paris 38:14
Yeah, I mean, attitude is everything, right? Like, I’ve noticed that too. And our company when we hire for certain positions, you know, management or admin, its attitude always trumps everything as if somebody is just going, Yeah, I’ll do it. I know, oh, okay, I’ll do that. We’re like, Oh, thank God, because everything else can be learned. But well, that’s great. And also, by the way, we should also mention that we don’t just have brokers that listen, we have buyers and sellers. And if you’re looking to work with Nick, or someone on his team, that Nicolas Ryan team, contacting the exact same way, you can also visit their website, again, Nicholas, Ryan realestate.com. And you can learn all about their team and what they’re all about as you as we’ve also heard on the show. So on behalf of Nick, we also want to thank Nick, as we do all of our guests, because these are people that are too busy to do the show or, and we know that because of how much production they do, and they still find the time to give back to the industry. We’re super grateful for that. So thank you, Nick, on behalf of the listeners, and also before thank you to the listeners for listening and we’re coming up on our 100th episode, which is crazy, but it’s a good that Yeah, it’s fun people like it and we’re grateful for that. So keep sending us your suggestions. If you are a listener and aren’t yet subscribed, you can find us on iTunes Google Play Anywhere podcasts are served just search for keeping it real. Also our web a website keeping it real pod.com and also find us on Facebook just search for keeping it real podcast you’ll you’ll see us and subscribe please. So on behalf of Nick and myself thank you for listening. Thanks Nick again and I know Nick by the way is is leaving here to go cook at a previous client turn friend home for them. So what a cool another act What service you’re doing, I guess. So that’s awesome. Thanks, TJ. All right, but

Nick Rendleman 40:04
you’re on the show. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 40:05
Thank you so much.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brother and sister top 1% producers Sophia Klopas and Jason Stratton of the Klopas Stratton Team at Berkshire Hathaway continue to grow their business year over year. In this episode they talk about how their skill sets compliment each other such that clients truly get two-for-one for the best possible consumer experience. They also talk about how knowing their hourly rate and becoming hyper-local doubled their production. Last, they discuss why they never perceive discount firms as competition, and why it’s okay to walk away from clients that aren’t a good fit.

This episode is brought you to by Knot Standard custom men’s clothing consultant Lauren Lipton. Mention D.J. Paris to get a custom shirt free with your first order!

---

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by not standard a premium luxury custom menswear experience in Chicago with the highest quality fabric source from the top mills in the world and more than 7000 customizable details each not standard product is as unique as you are booking appointment with trusted stylist Lauren Lipton at not standard.com. That’s kn O T standard.com forward slash Lauren and mentioned me DJ Paris to enjoy a complimentary shirt with your first purchase.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers also brokers who listen from all over the country. So I should probably update that. But we interview the top 1% of Realtors in Chicago, there’s 40,000, we only talk to the top 400 And ask them how they built their business and what advice they have for other brokers who may be listening. And they share their strategies, their secrets, and what has made them successful. So we gosh, we’re coming up on 100 episodes, and we keep getting more listeners. So we’re super grateful because we have as we spend no money on marketing, but I would like everyone who is listening, if they want to help us if we’re helping you. Here’s a couple of ways you can help us number one telephone if you know any other brokers in the industry that would love to hear what top producers are doing so that they could replicate that success. Tell them right anyone in your office, you know, give them a link to our show. The more listeners, the more people we can help second, go to our Facebook page. So it’s facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod why because we post links to all of our episodes, exclusive content, and just a great way to stay in touch to find out what we’ve got going on. And then third, if you are an I an iOS and Apple user, subscribe to us on iTunes, do a search for keeping it real podcast. If you’re an Android person, you can go to Google Play and do the same or just use whatever podcast app podcast app you have. And search for keeping it real podcast, you’ll find us subscribe so you never miss an episode. And then one last thing, this is kind of cool. You know how you have an Alexa at home? Probably everybody does. And it just sits there and you don’t use it. I use it to turn my lights on and off. And that’s literally all I use it for. Well, you can actually now use it to play our podcast. So there’s one step involved, which means go into your Alexa app on your phone or your mobile device and go to the skills and do a search for keeping it real podcast you’ll see we have a skill you have to activate that skill takes two seconds. And then you can simply ask and you know how to activate. I won’t do this in case you’re listening at home. But you would ask play keeping it real podcast right and it will just play the most current episode. So it’s pretty cool. I don’t know if anyone’s using it that way. But you can and maybe I’ll even start using it. So up in a few moments. We have another great interview this time with Sophia colobus and Jason Stratton of the Clovis Stretton team at Berkshire Hathaway they did an amazing job. So without further ado, let’s get to Jason and Sophia.

Today on the show, we have Sophia Clovis and Jason Stratton of Berkshire Hathaway and this is the corpus Stratton team. So let’s talk about Sophia Sophia has a master’s degree in interior design, which assists her buyers and stepping back and noticing the appeal of different properties. Her approach gives buyers a unique vision of their property and a great understanding of what will help in a resale later on. On the selling side, she’s able to look at a listing and tell the owner what is needed for a quick and profitable sale. Sophie and her husband moved to Bucktown over 19 years ago, on a hunch the neighborhood would come around hopefully, rather happily they were right and still call Bucktown home today. Now Jason, Jason comes from a finance background has been heavily involved with the real estate market since 1998. Since stepping into the Board of Trade 19 years ago, Jason has kept an eye on the housing market and himself is was required acquiring real estate his first year in the financial market, Jason prides himself on examining a client from heart to mind. Understanding the passion one has for piece of property and assessing properties felt fair value. He understands that not only will his client consider their place their home, but for most people their largest single financial investment. Jason lives in Bucktown as well with his wife Nikki their three sons and their dog Jerry and we should also mention that this they are brother are in sister Sophia and Jason. But you can check out their website as well at corpus stratton.com. But anyway, welcome both of you to the show.

Sophia Klopas 5:08
Thank you. Thank you.

D.J. Paris 5:10
Oh, yeah, we are so excited. This is the first not only the first brother sister team, but we’ve only ever on the show had a handful of, of teams where both team leaders were on the podcast. So we really appreciate it, it gets a little tricky. If it’s both they’re both male or female. This case, it’s pretty easy to figure out who’s who. But Sophia, let’s start with you. I’d like to hear about how and our listeners would love to hear about how you got into real estate.

Sophia Klopas 5:37
Well, as you said, in my bio, I started out with a degree in design. And I was working at a design firm and ended up doing a model for developer back in Oh, two in the South Loop. And asked me if I wanted to stay on over the weekend to host an open house. I and I was working as a developer’s rep, so I was unlicensed at the time. Wow. That’s legal if you’re, of course. Yeah. And I think I still two or three condos on the opening weekend. Sold.

D.J. Paris 6:15
This is her, I could do this.

Sophia Klopas 6:17
My my drafting pencil and went to get my license. And that that is my story.

D.J. Paris 6:24
Wow. That’s, that’s, that’s amazing. It’s an incredible first weekend in the business. Right?

Sophia Klopas 6:30
Oh, two in the South Loop. So you know, we still had the mayor down there. It was a hot and happening place, as it still is. But it was just starting at that point.

D.J. Paris 6:38
Well, I even remember back then people would be buying pre construction and then even reselling pre construction. I mean, it was incredible time back then. And that in the South Loop in particular.

Sophia Klopas 6:49
It was it was so yeah, that that was how I got involved. And I know it, you know, somewhat is related and that it had to do with homes and aesthetic values. And I mean, even till today I use what I’ve learned in selling.

D.J. Paris 7:06
That’s great. And Jason, but I think in your backgrounds, it is different. So could you explain about how you got into real estate?

Jason Stratton 7:14
Yeah, I mean, I was I was actually really interested in real estate more as a hedge against inflation. Sure. The stock market. And I started looking at acquiring properties. And you know, kind of like looking at stuff that was happening I loved about town. At the time, I was Sofia and I had purchased a house together. So we were living in the same house, I was in the lower level. So it was upstairs, I was training, and then started buying. And then, you know, just to not get too long into Visio. So much other stuff to hit into. At that point, Sofia was pretty established. And she had reached out to me because one of her partners was leaving for California. And she knew I love real estate. And I love the tangibility of the asset. Like I love the fact that it was a house right or, versus what I was doing, which was kind of just not speculative. But it was basically account to account. You never really saw anything because you were in and out of trades throughout the day. And the opportunity arose. This is like hey, I need help. I’m you know, I’m getting very busy. Is this something that you would like to do? And I started doing it just helping her and open houses and you’re in there. And it just completely took off. And one of the first projects that I helped Sofia on was a big 50 Right. 50 unit building, and Lincoln Park on diversity. Wow. And literally, all of my business started from that building. I mean, I have people that are like that fourth, fifth sixth generation of buying or selling or referrals. And it all started from a 50 unit building from like, that was my fence a bit gave it to me, but that was my was my break came from that that building. And as that book of business got so big, you know, I slowly just walked away from the floor because I just loved real estate

Sophia Klopas 9:10
we needed we needed to be together full time or else. Much work. Yeah, or one person.

D.J. Paris 9:17
That’s incredible. We should talk about your team. This is probably a good time to mention this and talk about how you guys have How long is the team? I guess it’s been in effect for gosh, how many years now?

Sophia Klopas 9:31
Well, I was licensed in oh two Jason was licensed in oh four. We moved to kainic in Oh, six, seven. I can’t remember the exact time and it was just the two of us. And our managing broker insisted that it was way too much for two people to do and that it was time to loosen the purse strings and get an assistant. Thankfully we listened to her to Nancy and we did ahead. And as we got busier, they were extremely supportive and helping us find the right people. And actually, Chris was first Johnson, and he’s still with us today. And we have just slowly added, as needed. And you know, right now we’re at, there’s Jason and I, and then for other people,

D.J. Paris 10:25
that’s incredible. That’s awesome. And we were talking offline, and you guys have very specific beliefs around the team, best team structure that works for you. And your teams operates a bit differently than other teams. So can you talk a bit about that?

Sophia Klopas 10:39
I think it works for us, but it also works for the team members. Sure. I mean, I have an experience where you know, someone who’s not on our team and not in our company is calling and asking me for help on contracts, because they’re not getting the support from the team they’re in. So I think we Jason specifically works really a lot with the team members on helping them become higher in volume and closer to what we do it making them Park I mean, yeah,

Jason Stratton 11:17
we’re, I think the way we do it. And

obviously, we look for it to be Yeah,

I think every I mean, hopefully everyone that does what they do think it’s the best. So I’m going to tell you what, I believe it’s the best. I think it’s the best for the client. And I think it’s the best for the agent I have. And this is a probably a podcast in itself. I have, I have serious issues with the way that teams are built now, right? Where people are task specific within that team. I think that’s how I want to set your chords. For example, I did a sale in Linkin Park. And I met with the agent that had the the buyer, the agents that met with the buyer didn’t really know the buyer, they do the show. Right. Now, this is not what discount brokers do it the same way. But this was not what the discount brokerage I want to throw that out there. Now teams are being assembled now, which is a complete disservice for the agent and for the

D.J. Paris 12:29
so what we’re talking about for the listeners, if you’re not familiar with this is a team structure. This is not the way Sophia and Jason do it. But their team structure where their people are assigned roles tasks, they’re not full service, each member is not full service. So they get assigned, and they get passed from person to person.

Jason Stratton 12:45
Yeah, so what ends up happening is, is that there’s no relationship that’s built and no one’s driving the car, right. And I have noticed that these team members never get good at the craft, because all they’re doing is one aspect. And one task of the whole thing. I think as an early agent, if you’re in this type of team, you need to make sure that you don’t get pegged as a buyer agent, as a seller agent, as opposed to just goes and does inspections, opens the door or open Yeah, you need to know to be successful, you need to know from the rooter to the tooter you need to know everything. And I think how, how the how everyone is doing it now is trying to emulate kind of how some of the discount brokers are doing it and try to team up that way. And I don’t think it’s the best. I mean, as an agent, I don’t know how you grow, because you’re only doing one thing. And as a consumer and as a seller, how do you know that you’re being represented properly? Because who is your representation? Who is the person that’s driving the truck? And I will tell you, for me personally, dealing with those situations as a buyer’s rep or as a seller drop depending on what side it on the opposite side of the transaction. Thank you Sofia is extremely frustrating. And the success rate of those transactions is not

D.J. Paris 14:20
Yeah, boy, I I’m with you. I think that I think that’s right. And I also just think back to my own experience when I bought a condo million years ago that I had one point of contact one broker, of course, it’s fine to have an assistant and an admin and that sort of thing. But I’m glad I only dealt with one person who really understood me who understood the trend and held my hand every step of the way in particular because it was my first transaction

Sophia Klopas 14:42
you trust for sure. So you knew they were they wrote the contract and they were at the inspection with you and they went through the whole thing so that you formed that bond. And it really I mean it the biggest part about it now is having trust that someone is putting you in the right direction. And if your agent isn’t with you at the inspection, how can you talk intelligently to your client about what’s important and what’s not? If you weren’t there?

D.J. Paris 15:09
It’s impossible. Yeah, it makes, it makes it a lot a lot more difficult to build an intimate relationship when you there’s many different points of contact.

Jason Stratton 15:18
And that intimacy is what you’re really going to build your relationship on, for further referrals. Right? These people are not setting themselves up for referrals. Because when that person is at a dinner, and someone says, Oh, you just bought a place, or in five years, or 10 years, when someone’s like, oh, I want to buy a place. Listen, that person, remember six people they dealt with, they don’t remember the one point of contact that got them through everything, and that drove the bus? And how are you going to get referrals? When you’re only one part of what’s going on? I think it’s, it’s just, it’s a disservice to the agent to the client. But we’re talking to agents now to the agent that joins that team. And that’s how it’s set up. It’s a disservice to them, because they’re not going to,

D.J. Paris 16:07
I think I think that’s such a strong point. And Jason, I appreciate you sharing that, that it’s a disservice as well to the broker, because we’ve had other we’ve done other podcast episodes with people who have similar views about those types of teams, but they don’t talk as much about how it really hurts the person’s individual growth. Yes, of course, it’ll hurt the client relationship, potentially unlikely. But it does, you’re right. And also, if you’re just the CMA person on the team, or you’re just the closing person, or whatever, or you do the initial walk, you know, the showing, yeah, you’re not getting that holistic experience. And really, that’s what the, that’s what the buyer or the seller wants.

Jason Stratton 16:45
So our team is set up, as everyone is their own individual Cpl. Right, me as the FIA, excuse me, Sofia and I are there to help you through that process. And to make sure that what you’re doing is right, because, you know, overall, you’re representing Sophia and I and COPPA strat, so we definitely want to be there. But we want, like, I want you to know, hey, when I take this listing, I have to reach out to the management group, I need to get the assessments, I need to get the reserves, I need to get minutes, I need to coordinate the meeting everything from the big three. Yeah. And then I always say to Sofia, you know, like, and you hear it all the time, what you know, like, if someone if we teach somebody so well, and they end up leaving us because they’re super successful, I would never have any resentment that I wouldn’t be, it would be a testament to the job that

D.J. Paris 17:35
Oh, and those people are going to be your advocates forever.

Jason Stratton 17:40
Yeah, you’re empowering them to you know, it’s just it’s a completely, it’s a completely different model. It’s extremely, like time consuming for Sofia and I, but it’s not only the right thing for the agent, it is by far the right thing for the client. Well, yeah,

D.J. Paris 18:02
Sophia offline was sharing the story. And she actually shared a little bit of it here, but just to reiterate, she she knows someone who recently passed her exam joined a firm, not not there, your team or your firm a different a different company, and is now calling you with questions. Because maybe at the firm, that person is out, there’s resources might not be there.

Sophia Klopas 18:24
Yeah, she’s not getting the support or doesn’t feel comfortable for the support. So yeah, it’s just really important that they know that the people on our team, and the people that work with us know that they can ask us anything, no matter how, what they might think, is dumb. As long as it’s not the same question 10 times, because then that’s a little much. But in general, we operate with the concept that we all use the they all use our assistant, so Sydney so that everybody is doing the same thing. And that if my client happens to be in the hands of Chris, Zach shopper, Erica, they’re getting the same service, they would be with me. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 19:11
I just think the idea that they can reach you, somebody could join your team, you guys are a top 1% You know, your top 1% producers and all of Chicago that they’ve Of course, that’s all we ever interview on this show. So I think, you know, I didn’t mention that I should have but to be able to say hey, I’m on a team with top producers for a long, long time, who I can go to whenever I have questions. And in particular for newer brokers, of course they have a million questions that’s normal. And to be able to, you know, most most firms have some version of support some version of training. Some are better than others, obviously, but to also be able to say, hey, no, we’re, you know, and obviously you guys aren’t bragging about your success, but you have a tremendous amount of success. I’m sure your team members greatly appreciate just the experience that you guys bring to answering their their support and training class. Students

Sophia Klopas 20:05
also, Cana has a ton of I mean, the amount of training that’s offered to them, but it’s just the amount of training. I mean, you could literally go to a class every day and learn something new. So, you know, in downtime, I’m constantly telling them are you going, you know, I still go to the training courses, I mean, there’s always something new to learn. So, you know, pushing the education pushing, you know, learning about remain learning about, you know, how to do advanced CMAs new programs that are coming out CRM, all of that is, you know, your broker pushes you, but we also push them. So to learn the new technology that comes out,

D.J. Paris 20:50
yeah, let’s let’s talk about the client experience a little bit. And I’m always fascinated to ask this question. And everyone has a bit of a different answer. But what do you think separates you know, you guys from from other brokers, obviously, you see good brokers, bad brokers, successful, unsuccessful? What do you think makes you guys so different and unique?

Jason Stratton 21:14
Do you want to answer that? Or? Yeah, you can. I

Sophia Klopas 21:18
think a big part is not necessarily the sibling part of it. I think that’s out. People always find that to be an interesting aspect to it. It’s that we attack the same piece of property and from a I mean, I’m from the left, he’s from the right. So the way I will assess the property versus the way he assesses the property. And a lot of I mean, we sell it as your words, your package when you’re listing and you’re gonna get the analysts I mean, I’m analytical analytical, but not to the degree that Jason is and I am much more on the aesthetic side and feeling of it that they’re getting, like a full rounded to two headed monster for the

Jason Stratton 22:10
eye that that and then you know, like that you can just count Sofia, because we as a fuel will have. Listen, we have constructive arguments. And that’s why your partner right? I have three kids. Sofia has none. So we look at property that differently, too. Yeah. Huge one. So like, I’ll be, I’ll be like, Oh, this place is terrible. Oh, why? And she’ll be like

Sophia Klopas 22:30
this. I could live here tomorrow.

Jason Stratton 22:31
I believe her perfect. I forget that. Right? Because I’m so inundated with the fact that you know, I’ve read monsters at home. And she got into like, I kind of look at these differently. And a lot of my clients have kids and a lot of Sofia’s clients don’t. So it’s really cool. Like, you know, like that we we literally it’s Potato Potato I mean like it’s we look at the same thing completely different. So we can really hit every angle and every type of buyer that could possibly be that could

Sophia Klopas 23:02
possibly call. And a lot of times like there’s a buyer that I meet and I’m like oh my god you would work so much better with my brother vice versa something and then I ended up and one thing I do want to point out that we do do and we are pretty strict about it is if Jason starts the transaction he finishes it is confusing for the for the client. Plus we’re too busy to each take on each other’s work completely but once the transaction starts it start to finish with whom whomever they’re best suited or best man

Jason Stratton 23:37
Yeah, like we collaborate throughout the whole process of the process. And but once once the trains run in, it’s one person on that property, right? So like, I have a property in Wicker Park that I need help pricing, right, it’s my client. Well, I’m after here after this, we’re going there. And we’re gonna we’re gonna figure out how we like how we can price this better looking at it a different way.

D.J. Paris 24:01
Ya know, it makes sense. And you guys both have different backgrounds, different perspectives different you know, even just Yeah, and just different have different lives. So it’s, it’s, that’s huge. And again, the two for one thing is a pretty cool sales pitch. Right? That makes a lot of sense.

Jason Stratton 24:20
That’s fine for a second to short. Just one other thing for those that are new. I think getting back to and not even teams for people that are like, you know, hey, I want to concentrate on buying I want to concentrate on selling. You will never be a good agent unless you sleep. So it so I don’t listen, I love the agents that I work with, but when I’m on the phone with them, I’m trying to out hustle them and outmaneuver them and outsmart them. And if you’re only working with buyers and you’re only working with sellers, how the heck are you going to outsmart someone that you’ve never been on that side with? That’s my friends. I just I I think someone’s saying they’re only working with buyers and sellers is the most. I mean, I just don’t pull punches.

D.J. Paris 25:06
Yeah, well, it’s not it’s not a very holistic. Well, it’s just you just don’t have the experience to really provide full service at that point.

Jason Stratton 25:15
Yeah, I mean, it’s like as an athlete, you know, if you’ve never played defense, how you no offense. But I just didn’t want to forget that either. For people that are newer agents, I think that’s, you know, and

D.J. Paris 25:27
let’s talk about the rise. And I think this is all in the same vein as talk about the rise of the discount model, right? We have, there’s lots of companies that that are doing that Redfin is probably the most, most obvious, but there are others. And Jason said something before we got on that was he goes, I love these discount. You know, shops, because for brokers like Sophia and Jason, you know, who are full service and really value what they offer. They are not in any way concerned. But can you talk a little bit about that? Do you want me to it’s gonna?

Jason Stratton 26:09
No, I want it because first and foremost, if someone feels that have one basis at one point, so let’s say let’s take, let’s take a million dollar apps, right? If someone feels that saving 10 grand is worth having growth, people in a rotation showing their place. He’s all over, he’s all over the place, no one knowing anything about it. And having a person who gets paid $30 to open up your door. If that is what you think you want, right? You don’t want that clients. Right? So the type of person that like if I was saying, this is why I really want to go go ahead and skipping around and I’m one of the people you have to keep focused. So you’re back. I think that someone that’s looking for that it’s not someone that I want to work with.

Sophia Klopas 27:03
And that’s not going to value

Jason Stratton 27:05
the job I want to do. I want to work with people that want to work with me. And I want people to appreciate what I do. I think you know, not to get to, you know, all over the place. But life’s too short or work for people that don’t value what they do. Because let me tell you something, can we do? We all do. And if someone is not going to hire you over a point, you don’t want it. And don’t discount your services. That is a slippery road. Do not discount your services. Because, listen, would you rather have like, you know, don’t get into an ego battle? Would you rather have 100 listings at 4% or do other 660 listings at 6% You’re gonna work twice as hard for people that don’t care about you and don’t value what you do. Right for people and then work twice as hard. You work half as much and work for people that enjoy you and that you enjoy the work and there I don’t care what anyone says less like work. Yeah, it’s less than work. It’s people that are working. It’s a partnership people are working with you. They understand what they’re paying you for. Don’t get caught up into that. And I can’t think of anything better than I had a friend I have a friend who is who is a huge B cells. He calls it content because isn’t the best shirt. So he sells TV show. And we were talking about four or five. Man you know time flies, maybe 10 years. But anyways, you don’t want to be like Best Buy used to be don’t want to lose, you’ll absolutely lose your life and I’m not going to fight Zillow, I’m not going to fight these people. Because you’re going to lose what at Best Buy new because we’re not going to fight Amazon. We’re going to restructure at Best Buy. And we’re going to provide excellent service and thriving. If you are at home and you’re a new agent, and you’re freaked out about Redfin, you’re building your business.

D.J. Paris 29:03
And like you were saying, those are clients that aren’t going to value you anyway. So that you shouldn’t almost ever even bump up against it, right? Like it shouldn’t really even be in your periphery, unless you’re specifically going after, you know those type of clients and you’re trying to upsell them, which is tough.

Jason Stratton 29:24
What’s happening is what’s happening now. Oh, I got a bunch. I get a bunch of phone calls. Well, we listed with Redfin, last year, nothing happened. And of course, and you know, we need a full service brokerage. Are you interested in selling our house? Of course, this is what I do. This is what I’m going to do. If they don’t do

Sophia Klopas 29:45
better when they come from that environment actually, look up what you’re telling me.

Jason Stratton 29:49
It’s all going to happen, right because you know, the cream rises to the top Anyone, anyone can be, I will say, Sofia and I did like good business, the minute the market jar melted down, some businesses doubled.

D.J. Paris 30:09
Yeah, you there’s not a lot of competition at the top, there just isn’t and which is, by the way, evidenced by how generous Sophia and Jason and everyone else we’ve ever interviewed for this podcast has been. These are people that are like, like Sanjay Singh who are not worried about, you know, discount firms, they’re not worried about other brokers, they are just working on their own skill set their own relationships that are clients, and they thrive, despite the fact that there are discount firms doing it for a lot cheaper, right.

Sophia Klopas 30:42
I also think a really important thing to tell somebody who’s in the business, that starting out is don’t veer from your plan, you have to make a plan, whatever it is, you have to make a plan. And you have to stick with it. As tempting as it may be, to say, I’m going to take a listing that a I know that the seller is probably not the right person for me, B, they tried to talk me down on commission, it’s sometimes it’s hard to walk away from that. But you have to walk away when it doesn’t follow your business model. And I did it two weeks ago, I just said no, I won’t discount my commission. I’m not a discount broker. And I don’t give discount service. So I won’t take a discount price. I didn’t get the listing, but I was fine with it. Yeah, it was more than,

D.J. Paris 31:28
by the way, you’ll know, I’ve heard this from my own boss, who always said Never try to compete on price, you’ll always lose, you’ll always lose for a million reasons.

Sophia Klopas 31:39
You know, to take less. I mean, that’s not the word I use, but someone’s willing.

D.J. Paris 31:44
Well, I mean, if you think about like the the flat fee model was, you know, 10 years ago was sort of this thing that was seemingly pretty scary, because it was broker saying, hey, I’ll put your listing on the MLS for $300. And that’s it right? And then you, you know, I can still help you a little bit here and there. But, you know, the seller really does everything else. And, you know, I thought, well, this is going to be the end of the realtor, because it’s it, you know, obviously I was wrong. And the reason I was wrong is because you guys are so much more valuable than putting the listing on the MLS. In fact, that’s probably the least valuable thing you do, right? I mean, anybody can do that. But what the part that buyers and sellers need help with is like the other 99%, that can’t be automated and can’t be streamlined. And that’s where yeah,

Sophia Klopas 32:33
don’t give away your your, your go into a listing appointment, I don’t tell them off the bat, you need to do X, Y, and Z, and I’m gonna give you the pricing and all of the comps because then they can do that, like, my, my knowledge and my experience is worth something. And you know, like Jason and I will go into this, I don’t go in and just say here, I mean, unless it’s unless it’s a repeat client, you know, that’s a different story. But going and cold, I don’t, you know, I don’t give the milk away for free. I don’t do any of that until I actually you’ve decided you want to work with me. Like, I’m not going to buy a listing, which is basically when you you know, you say okay, we can list it for this, which is a ridiculous price.

Jason Stratton 33:16
Because the price is right when the price right is what it is. We are

Sophia Klopas 33:20
service, right. So we know, I don’t even like to talk about the price.

Jason Stratton 33:24
I mean, it can be $1 Give me 100 million, it’s irrelevant, you know, hey, listen, this is what you know, because at the end of the day, the owner is going to price their place where they want to price it. And then you can say, You know what, this is a waste of my time and money because it costs 1000s of dollars to listen writers and you’re writing it right? So it’s irrelevant. It’s you know, it’s it’s not worth take.

D.J. Paris 33:46
I was I was at an event, a year, a year, about a year ago and in New York, and they had the most successful realtor in the country. And I forget his name, he’s on a TV show as well. But he’s out and then so he’s out in Silicon Valley. And he said, you know, we were he we were talking or he was talking to the audience about what like what he does that’s so unique. Why is he so much more successful in his average sales, like God knows, I think it’s like $8 million, something incredible. And he said, well, on day two of each listing, he goes you can’t just put this these on the MLS and they sell like that’s not how it works at that price point. He said the MLS is almost irrelevant, you know, and he said, but on day two, I’ve spent 30 grand of my own money marketing this property because I know what I’m doing like people pay me a huge amount of money to sell these incredible homes because I put my own money and invest in you guys were just mentioning you spend money to and we know what we’re doing so that’s why and that’s what separates you from from somebody just putting it up on the MLS right.

Sophia Klopas 34:50
Listening to and you spend your I mean, what other there are very few professions where you actually potentially are working for free. Like you don’t get paid unless it sells. So to take a listing and spend all of that money, and we’re really talking about listings a lot here, but you take the listing and you spend all that money, you’re not going to do it on something, you don’t have the confidence in that it’s,

D.J. Paris 35:15
well, I admire your your both of your tenacity and persistence in your values and in how you guys run your business. And I love that you walk away. Hopefully, you don’t have to do that that often. But I’m sure you know, like you said, it happens. And you guys are confident enough that there’s enough business out there to be able to walk away from, you know,

Jason Stratton 35:35
they’re always right. So and, you know, I will tell you, like, I know, I know, when we Sofia, and I will have like a bad client, or we feel like we’re having a bad client, we’ll call each other. And she’ll be like, because we just did that recently recently announced, like, don’t take the listing. Here’s the problem is that time sucks. And I’m not talking. Not intentionally, yeah, emotional. So like, don’t get I’m saying it the wrong way. Like, it will, you know, a $20,000 commission from from just a rock your rice and will cost you 40. Because you’re not out there, and you’re not lively, you’re not you don’t have you’re skipping your jump, you don’t have anything because this person is beating you down, and it affects everything else. Like when you I will Sofia and I have all been there, but I’m telling you, as a new agent, don’t be afraid to fire somebody and walk away, and I’m telling you the next day, you’re gonna be like, I fired this person, I’m gonna pick up three other listings or two other clients, and I’m gonna be happy about it. And it’s going to alloy and remember that place. And I could say something else, too. I had a really, I had my financial advisor at one time was talking to me, who actually used to trade for me. So we’ve been knowing each other since we were, like 25 years. And one time I was I don’t know what I was doing something. I think I was like making high keys or something, whatever. And he said, he said, he said I had a one guy I had a guy once when I was training, who said to me figure out what this is great for us figure out what you make a writer. Yep, figure out the hours that you can make any set and any task that’s beneath that hourly wage. Yeah, delegate

D.J. Paris 37:28
it, if it needs to be done, find someone else to do it cheaper. Right, your service,

Jason Stratton 37:34
whatever, and stay focused to making money, like your hours should be focused on that hourly rate, not on a $10 task. It was one of the greatest things that someone said to me like four or five years ago

D.J. Paris 37:47
well and I think everyone listening whether they’re new brokers, existing brokers, even top one percenters, like yourselves, we all can always readjust and go you know, I just spent two hours doing this particular task that I could have outsourced or I could have had someone else in the office do and or just isn’t worth doing at all. And to be able to walk away from that it’s tough because we like to be able to get things done and do things it’s okay to to walk away

Jason Stratton 38:14
yeah, I think that’s I think that’s that was that and I think another thing that we learned I know we’re running short on time I think another I could tell you another thing is it’s hard to say this when you’re when you’re early agent you’ll take a listing because I did it you know and kingdom come you know wherever there’s a client I will be there at some point that hour and a half you’re driving is costing you way more than that commission check you’re getting at some point you have to become hyper local.

D.J. Paris 38:46
Yeah, I mean unless you’re moving there next year. Yes, probably not not the best idea but yeah fine. And also by the way, you can’t possibly know that that area as well as your own targeted you know area that you work most of the time right like how much value are you even really providing if if you don’t really do business out there

Jason Stratton 39:08
aerc Set Status down I want to say

Sophia Klopas 39:11
she was our broker

Jason Stratton 39:13
Yeah, I like like the three the three times that we had the hugest jumps in our in our you know in our production where the dropping oh a one in weeded out everybody and then the cream right the people that wanted to work no rice the top the second for me was was delegating and getting an assistant and the third which doubled our production was becoming hyperlocal.

D.J. Paris 39:38
Yeah, that’s boy, I think that is a great place to end because those are three really, really great, great points that we that I want the listeners again, no matter what level of production you’re at top producer to, you know to brand new. Those are those are great things and also I want to make sure a couple of things to finish up on Sofia and Jason do have a team and if you’re looking to work with a team like this, if you’re a broker, you’re listening, and you say, Boy, I’m not really getting this kind of support or service or these these two sounds really cool. And I want to work for a team like that. What’s the best way that a broker or even or if a buyer or a seller or renter and investor is like, hey, I need a new broker and I want to work with with the Copa Stratton team, what’s the best way that you know that people can reach out to you guys?

Sophia Klopas 40:26
Email in s? My first initial my last name s clo class at Kane, egg rube Lof. Are you bloff.com? Or sell 312-927-0334

Jason Stratton 40:46
Awesome and follow us on Instagram yet? Well, yeah.

D.J. Paris 40:51
Yes, club Australian underscore team, we will put a link to that by the way, they have an a fantastic Instagram account. And for those regular listeners, you know, we have Carrie McCormack on every month and Carrie McCormick has an incredible Instagram and she follows these guys. So she follows they must be doing something really cool. And I follow them to they’re actually very, really cool Instagram. But please, and you can also contact them directly through their website, which is closest stratton.com We’ll put a link to that in the notes as well. But I think I think we covered it all. Really, I mean, this was great. And so I want to just think first of I want to thank the listeners for for you know, sticking around for another episode. This is certainly one of my favorites that we’ve done. But also I want to thank of course Sophia and Jason, you know of the Clovis Stratton team and and it really you know, we were so honored. This is Gosh 80 Something episodes in that these top one percenters who are too busy to do the show. Find the time to do it as a way to give back to the real estate community. We’re so honored that they do and and it was fun to and so guys, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Sophia Klopas 41:57
Thank you have a good one. I

D.J. Paris 41:58
will see everyone on the next episode. So thanks

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify