Category: Podcast Episodes

After twenty years working as a consultant, Thomas Downing moved back to Chicago and started a new career in real estate. Without a sphere of influence or any leads handed to him, he produced over 12 million in his first year and earned Chicago Agent Magazine’s Rookie Of The Year award. Three years later he is a consistent top 1% producer and continues to build his business. In this interview Thomas explains why his customer-experience background helped prepare him for real estate and gives advice to brokers on what they could immediately implement to grow their practice.

Thomas Downing can be reached at 847.778.9952 and thomasdowning@atproperties.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host, and we are very proud to celebrate. If I did my math right, and I may not have but I think this is our 75th episode. And we are so grateful and honored to continue to do the show people seem to keep listening. Our readership or listenership rather keeps going up. And that is we have no marketing really. So this is must be because people are passing it along to other brokers in their office, other realtors, they think could benefit from hearing from top producers sharing their strategies of success. So after looking back over 70 episodes, we’re honored to keep going forward. And we have a huge list of brokers that have reached out to us directly, or have suggested brokers to interview for future episodes. So please keep those suggestions coming. Although we can’t always immediately reply to everyone. So if you sent us one, we got it. And it’s in a list and we will eventually get to that person. So thank you for that. The other thing I want to mention is we are always looking for great questions. So maybe you have a question that you would love to ask a top producer, send those over to us and we will add them into our interviews, right this is for you. This is for you to learn from these these Mavericks what they’re doing to increase your own production and treat your clients more effectively effect sorry, efficiently, and of course effectively. So if you’re not already a subscriber, this is the first time listening or if you haven’t yet subscribed officially, you can find us on iTunes just search for keeping it real podcast, as well as Google Play. If you’re an Android user or any podcast app you might be using for your mobile device or tablet you should be able to find us you can also subscribe directly on our website which is keeping it real pod.com Please please please find us on Facebook which is also keeping it real pod and we push all of our episodes live there. By the way on our website, you can stream all of our episodes as well. So thank you for 70 episodes and on to our interview with Thomas Dalek.

Today on the show we have Thomas Downing. Thomas has clients deserve the highest levels of service and he’s honored to have received 100% client satisfaction rankings ratings rather, He’s ranked in the top 1% Also in the top of what matters most to his clients simply providing the best purchase terms. He is also proud to have won the 2016 agent Choice Award from Chicago agent magazine as from Chicago magazine rather as a as a North Shore native Thomas’s as an in depth market knowledge and insider’s perspective on the nuances of successfully buying and selling homes within each community. He was a former advertising executive and business management consultant. Thomas provides proven marketing and strategic expertise to his buyers and sellers. over 30 years of successful successful negotiation experience. Thomas delivers more value to his clients surpassing the industry standards with higher returns on his clients investments. By the way, you can check out Thomas at his website, which is Thomas downing do W N ing, Thomas downing.com. Thomas is that app properties and welcome to the show.

Thomas Downing 3:47
Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.

D.J. Paris 3:49
Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy day. I would we were just talking offline. And being that I know you’re Northshore native, but I know you hadn’t lived in Chicago for a long time before jumping into real estate can. Can you tell us that story of how you got involved in real estate?

Thomas Downing 4:05
Sure. Well, I kind of took the long way to get there. But I’ve always had a passion for real estate, whether it’s just buying my own homes and you know, fixing them up and then selling them later. Everywhere I’ve lived but in the 1980s I went to go work for Panem in New York City doing advertising and marketing for them. The last job I was working on their loyalty program, up until the end of Pan Am sure Yeah, and was there until about 1990. So then after Panem with the wit went the way it went, I went out to work for coding wells in San Francisco, which is a direct marketing agency and I worked mostly in high tech firms at the beginning of all that was taking place in the 1990s and really enjoyed it and I had an opportunity to really learn kind of an emerging industry, how to sell software and other products through the mail. It was very targeted marketing. It was a kind of a new industry when the internet started to really become big that data applied directly. And I got to do work on that as well. And then had the opportunity in the year 2000 and moved down to Texas and started a company called the turning point group with another partner. And as business management consultants, we work specifically on how do businesses align themselves with the best customer experience to keep people coming back into refer business. So it was kind of a very specific field. But it kind of built on everything that I had done before with direct marketing and advertising. So it was great. We got to work on Disney and AT and T and Time Warner Cable and several companies, and just how do you how do you build your brand? And even how your customers interact in a holistic way towards your customers so that they have an experience that keeps them coming back?

D.J. Paris 5:43
And then what then you did you eventually move from Texas, then back to Chicago?

Thomas Downing 5:48
I did at a short stint in Minneapolis. But you know, at that point, I had been traveling constantly between pan-am, you know, the ad agency and turning point crew up, I just, you know, I was done. I’ve got a million miles on United, the harder. Nothing fun, not fun places to do it. But when you are living

D.J. Paris 6:07
the you were kind of living the consultant life to some of this, you’re you’re going out to client sites and probably spending the week there and flying back that kind of thing.

Thomas Downing 6:16
Exactly. That’s exactly I was doing and I got a little tired of it after gosh, you know, almost 20 years of that type of life. I kind of came into real estate purposely. I was done with turning point grew up, I was done. You know just kind of with that lifestyle in general. And I knew I wanted something different. It’s something I always wanted to do. So it was not one of those things. I looked at like well, maybe I’ll try this out. You know, it was definitely a passion from the beginning. And you know, at the age of 50 started a new career and I’ve not looked back I absolutely love what I do.

D.J. Paris 6:49
Yeah, and we should say you are out in the northwestern suburbs. Do you focus specifically in that area in the North Shore? Are you kind of do work everywhere? You know, I’m just curious where you’re

Thomas Downing 6:59
my Office and Office out of Glenview and Winnetka. My license is hung in Glenview. I saw all over the North Shore and and some of the northwest suburbs as well, as well as North Chicago. I actually live in Andersonville. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So I kind of make that commute in reverse. But I’m passionate about the North Shore. I grew up there and I know the houses. And for some reason, it’s just a real passion to be in that area.

D.J. Paris 7:23
Wow. Well, we should talk about, you know, you are only in your third year, and you’re posed poised to do about 20 million, maybe more, which is an incredible accomplishment for anybody in their third year. You are now a top one percenter. And can you talk about sort of an in your first year winning this, you know, Agent Choice Award? Can you talk about what you did? And I we were talking offline about? You’ve listened to some other episodes we’ve done? And, you know, we would our listeners would love to know how to somebody get to that level, not only in their third year, but even in their first year?

Thomas Downing 7:59
Yeah, I think because I had been gone for so long, I did not have a sphere. And I know a lot of new agents, we get hammered that into our head, you know, contact your sphere of work your sphere. For me, you know, you had no sphere? It was really frustrating to hear it actually or to talk about CRM programs or whatever, right? Nobody? Yeah. So for me, I treated it like I treated my other businesses. I worked, you know, I still work very hard. But it is a passion, and you have to make it part of your lifestyle. So like some of your other guests that I’ve heard speak as well as other people I’ve heard speak. I did a lot of the basics, but I think there’s probably a little bit of a difference. I also get a little frustrated when I hear people say that we’re in a sales business, right? Because we’re not in the sales business. We’re in a service business. Yep. It’s very, the sales is very little, you know, the negotiations are important. There’s no question. I mean, that’s why people hire us is that negotiation is probably one of the most critical factors. But if we think about the entire transaction, almost all of it is servicing our clients and helping them through the process, sometimes emotionally, and sometimes just, you know, just transactionally. But if I look at it, from a perspective that this is that this is a relationship business, not a sales business, and that it’s relations, not transactions. And I really focused on trying to measure my success based on the relationships I was forming, not the transactions in the first year. Now, I was pretty fortunate. At that properties. We have a program where they call it road to Rolex. And if you sell a certain amount, I think it’s 12 million or so you can win this Rolex and I was lucky enough to get it that first year. Wow. But I think I think part of having that much sales in the first year had everything to do with just some really basic things. One was I did three open houses every weekend and I still do open houses, and I have one team member Julie Schultz. She does them regularly as well. Now, she just started. She just celebrated one year yesterday, actually. So it’s not new for me on the team side. But I didn’t want on Saturday and two on Sundays. And that’s just, you know, a big part of it.

D.J. Paris 10:15
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you. But I do want to know, how you obtain these open houses, right? I’m assuming these were listings you did not have mostly? Did you just go up to other brokers in the office and say, I would love to do an open house for you? How did you build those relationships?

Thomas Downing 10:32
I’m so glad you asked that question. Because that now on the other side, now that I’m more, you know, I’m a listing agent, primarily, right, I would say that it’s really interesting to watch the other side of it. Because when I was just getting started, which wasn’t that long ago, I still feel like a newcomer, I would make myself as available and as, let’s say, useful to that agent as I possibly could. So I know some agents will, you know, I’ll ask for help on open houses. And they’ll really want to know how long the open house has been, you know, how sure, valuable is the houses, they get kind of picky, which is fine. But I’m looking for somebody who’s, you know, doesn’t mind doing the dogs occasion? Sure, and, and will help me out. And so what I did was I gave really good feedback on exactly what was happening, my own feedback, and I put it in emails and texts, so that they could just for that under their clients, I made it super easy for them. So because I treat them as customers, I mean, other agents are our clients as well. And a lot of ways we don’t think of it that way. But it’s a key part of the business. So I would ask for the open houses. I would take anything they give me. Sure. And then as I became more useful to them, I started, you know, they’d put me on more useful open houses, and they relied on me. Hi, so

D.J. Paris 11:46
I was I just wanted to ask real quickly. Now, you’re on the other side. And I know you have you have some some members now that you go to how often do newcomers come to you on their own saying I would love to do an open house for you? Is that a common occurrence? Or is it not that common?

Thomas Downing 12:01
It kind of goes in waves, I would say that when we have at that property. We had kind of a we’ve had a big growth spurt in the in the North Shore, we were opening two more offices. So there’s there are more newcomers coming. And they’re pretty good about asking, honestly, oh, that’s the training tells them to do that. So it is it’s it’s sometimes hard for me if I’ve got you know, 15 or 16 listings at one time I forget who did I’m sure. So I’m not the best at going back and making sure that I’m following up with the right people. So another piece of advice would be to you, it’s okay to hound that agent. I don’t mind. You know, if you ask every weekend that that’s great, because that will give it to whoever’s asking,

D.J. Paris 12:41
and when you were asking, you know, when you were first, how often would you would the broker say, I don’t really need any help on this one? Like, what was the hit rate?

Thomas Downing 12:51
No, that’s a good question. I it just depends on you know, in the spring market, when everything’s going crazy, because we are a lot more cyclical in the in the north shore than they are the city. Okay, so we we have a strong spring market, we have a fall market, and then things definitely slow down between those markets. Or those times, but I would say that it was probably one out of five, you know, I mean, you have to keep asking, you can’t give up on one. The other thing I would do is send it out to everybody, you know, in the office emails just saying, Look, I’m available this week, if you need help. And so if I wasn’t getting what I needed, I just keep asking until you do, but I was always busy.

D.J. Paris 13:29
And then were you doing anything you think unusual or and I don’t mean unusual, strange, but just maybe unique. When these open houses either to promote them, or when when buyers walk through that you think helped your success.

Thomas Downing 13:45
You know, there, we actually took a class at open houses, and wow, that’s great. And I’m really big on the education as well. I constantly try to learn and and see what I can learn from there. But I would say that one of the things I learned was just to be yourself, you know, people are going to work with people they want to work with, and there’s not much you can do about that. I tend to be pretty relaxed and kind of jokey. And that’s not gonna work for everyone. And I know that. So, um, you know, I think the best advice I heard was to absolutely be yourself, be confident, don’t over try. And so one of the things I learned is, you know, as soon as someone walks in the door, you don’t jump on, right, let them come in, let let them get settled, put on their booties, take off their shoes, and then I stick up my hand and say, you know, Tom, you know, get their names. I tell them three things about the house that I’ve come up with, you know that, you know, either people have asked me about or might be of interest, and I tell them I’m gonna be out. I’m gonna get out of your hair. I’ll be in the kitchen. And if you have any questions come see me. So that way they feel comfortable because let’s face it, when you walk into the open house, you know you’re about to get a cost, right? The more that I can just make them feel comfortable and actually coming to me the better. I also took a pretty early stance that I would not You know, I do collect names and numbers and things, but I don’t contact them unless I have some kind of connection with them. Because, you know, I’m just I know a lot of people don’t agree with that, you know, they say you get all the names and contact them three times and all that. I just don’t I unless there’s a strong connection, I don’t bother them. So how would

D.J. Paris 15:19
you determine if there’s a strong connection? What would that look like?

Thomas Downing 15:23
Yeah, that’s, so if they did come and start talking about the house and some questions, and then if there was some, if there’s some point where people are saying, you know, what, I’m really looking for a four bedroom. Well, now that just opened the door for them to start talking about the four bedrooms in the neighborhood. And you know, I’ve done my homework, I know what’s available around the, around the neighborhood, I might even have listing sheets for all those houses, and they’re available, Open House dates, so that I can actually be useful right there and say, Well, look, I’ve got this, you know, available to me, I have to talk a lot about the private listing network, because that’s one thing, they don’t have access. So if they do want to hear about it, I’m happy to talk about it. So you know, all those things you can do to bring them in, but you kind of know, there’s a point where they’re their guard is down, and now you’re actually talking in the kitchen for a while. And I’d rather spend time with that, than trying to get a numbers game and talk to every single person. And no passive, it’s busy.

D.J. Paris 16:14
Gotcha. And so you have you collect some numbers, not all, or rather, maybe you collect them all, but you’re contacting people you’ve had some sort of meaningful conversation with after the fact. And what what percentage, just I don’t know that you’ll necessarily know the number, but what would you guess would be the percentage of the deals you ended up doing that first year? Were from those open house? You know,

Thomas Downing 16:37
I would say 90% of definitely from open houses, because there’s, I didn’t really have any other resource, right? There’s one, there is one other that I’ll talk about in a second. But for me, that was really the the, the bread and butter was my opportunity to meet people and talk about statistics. I mean, you know, 60 to 70% of them are unrepresented. That’s, you know, we can send out letters, we can do cold calling, you know, all those types of things. But where else? Are you going to find people who are actively looking that are possibly not represented? I mean, if we’re not putting all our attention to this, it’s the lowest hanging fruit. So it doesn’t make any sense. Not to.

D.J. Paris 17:13
Yeah, it’s really, really interesting that there are still brokers today who are not big fans of of open houses to get buyer leads. And I talked to broker after broker, almost, you know, always 1% top one percenters who just say that is simply not the case. And clearly was not the case for you, are you able to have tremendous success with that? Is it still a huge source? Obviously, I know, you work a lot by referral, being in your third year, that’s probably started to become more and more prominent, but do you still get a lot of leads that way for, you know, other future purchasers?

Thomas Downing 17:48
We do, you know, my, my focus, you know, more of a, I’ve really been focusing on listings. Now, that’s my third year, and that was kind of her plan was to become more of a listing agent. So Julie, does a lot of the open houses, that’s how we get buyers absolutely for, for the group. For the most part, now, my focus really is selling the house, because it’s my listing, I’ve kind of moved to that side of it. So the focus is on really identifying those people that are going to be a good fit for this house. If I do meet people who are looking still, then I’m able to just pass them along to Julie with a warm transfer, we have a meeting in the office to go over, you know what the process is like to buy a house and the two of us meet together with the new the new buyer. And then she she kind of takes from there, but and she’s done a great job of even bringing in her own. But but for me now, my focus is really how do I best serve as my, my listings, you know, and so how do I make sure that I, you know, do my best because it is more of a buyers market right now, this time of year, I think everywhere now, but it has been for the last year in the North Shore. So anything we can do to help to move our house to the top of the list. You know,

D.J. Paris 18:54
what we’re doing everything we can Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that there was one other suggestion that you had or something that worked for you, maybe especially to open houses.

Thomas Downing 19:03
So if you work for a larger firm, often they have opportunities for relocations. And I’ve also heard so many agents talk about how, you know, horrible relocation is because they take so much of your, you know, commission and you know, and frankly, it does, you know, depending on your, your split with your company, it might be somewhere between 60 and 75% of your commission by the time Yeah, everybody’s had their handout. But to me, I look at that. So so let’s say it’s at the worst case scenario, you get 25% of the commission. Well, if you have a marketing budget, and you’re looking at it that way, which would have could have been 10 to 15 to 25% of your, you know, earnings. Well, right there as a marketing budget. So for me to have, especially as a new agent, I’m trying to prove that I’ve got some kind of sales under my belt, you know, that’s one of the worst things when you first start is that you know, the last few how many sales have you had, you can’t really answer right or easily. So well, you can’t answer easily because you could say right and so, to me, I look at it as another there’s a huge opportunity to learn our craft, and to be handed a listing by the time you’re done, you now have, you know, if you’ve done two or three that entire year, those are two or three listings that absolutely just gave you experience and gave you credibility in that market. So, to me, I still do them when, when possible, and I just really believe in the amount on the listing side, you know, you can do that either way. On the listing side, why wouldn’t I do it? You know, it’s my sign on, right, which is the best advertising you could possibly. And so, you know, it’s just to me those two things go hand in hand.

D.J. Paris 20:33
Yeah. And I was curious to in the North Shore, and I don’t know, I suspect this maybe gets taken more advantage of in a good way, and maybe in the suburbs than here in the city. But how often? Are you doing any efforts? And the answer may be no, but I’m just curious. So if you have a site, you have a listing in the neighborhood, how often do you end up getting other listings in that neighborhood? Is do the neighbors take notice? Are you reaching out to them? Or?

Thomas Downing 21:00
Absolutely, yeah, no, absolutely. That’s that’s a big part of it, too. And you know, that further is even the point about the relocation because if it’s a listing side, then you’re and you’re getting buyer’s offer as well. So it always pans out in the long run. But no, absolutely. I’ve gotten listings, next door neighbors of people around the corner, who’s who come into your open house where they see your sign. At one point, it was kind of embarrassing. I wasn’t used, you know, I still really do consider myself a newcomer. And I have had it happen a couple of times where I’ve been to people in a party, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I see him everywhere. And it just, it just cracks me up. Because actually, the ones that that came from, are likely to relocations that just happened to be on very, very busy streets that most people wouldn’t want to sell, wouldn’t want to sell. But they saw my son. It’s funny. So

D.J. Paris 21:49
I you know, you know, we should mention to the listeners who are who are realtors who are looking to maybe get involved in relocation transactions that you can reach out to relocation companies and say, I would like to be available. If you work for a firm that doesn’t necessarily have those connections, like Coldwell Banker for examples is directly connected to the biggest relocation company, but, but other brokers can, too, right? Obviously, at properties, you know, has probably those connections, as well as other firms, but you can directly reach out yourself to and just keep hopefully politely pestering them until they give you an opportunity. But yes, you know, obviously, they’re going to take a percentage of that, but it is it is a potentially a free listing or a free buyer. And, you know, good a good way to cut your teeth for

Thomas Downing 22:33
sure. Absolutely, especially in the start when you’re starting.

D.J. Paris 22:38
And we should talk about you know, your growth has been the fact that you did was it 12 million in your first year.

Thomas Downing 22:44
Yeah, so my first count, how

D.J. Paris 22:46
I always love this question, because the person who founded our firm, was the was the car Rookie of the Year, way back in like 2003. And I said, Oh, when did you close your first sale? So he was like, the, I don’t know, if he was the thing. He was the top producer for the Chicago area. And he goes, seven took me seven months, you know, and then he ended up closing seven deals at a seven month and then other brokers who, who, you know, are these top rookie producers tend to do it more quickly. But how quickly did it happen for you?

Thomas Downing 23:17
Um, you know, I was, I was lucky in the sense, you know, there’s a couple of things to it, and it kind of goes hand in hand too. But I go to the office every day, even when I’m there as much as I can. And so there’s things that happen in the office just because you happen to be sitting there. But there was a situation where I was able to help an agent, the relationship was falling apart a little bit with these people. And there was a you know, it just made sense for me to actually help out just because they were about to lose the listing directly. So I was able to kind of take a split with her and take over and help just kind of smooth things out and get the deal done in the long run. So I was able to have a closing pretty early in my career, but you know, I don’t know I don’t know how much of it is luck and how much is it? But, you know, if I hadn’t been there wouldn’t have happened. So yeah, it’s they started pretty early though, for me, I I started working open houses immediately and helping out other agents. And so I did pick up buyers pretty quick. Gotcha.

D.J. Paris 24:22
Gotcha. And now would you ever did you ever think or would you ever think to move your specialty closer down to Anderson Ville area? Or do you really love the north, you know, working with North Shore?

Thomas Downing 24:36
I have just had a closing on foster and I’ve done some down in the in the literature but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s more it has been more people that are selling their home in the city and moving up to the North Shore, so I’ll support them on that side. But it’s kind of my passion. I actually like to be able to park

D.J. Paris 24:56
Yeah, sure. Sure. Well, I just I love it. Seville my parents are from the North Shore. They’re from Northbrook in Glenview. So we know that area quite well. But um, I used to live nearby Andersonville. And I just I’ve always tried to get up to Andersonville as much as I can. But I, I love the fact that you that you live there and do the commute out. So any other pieces of advice, you’ve given a lot of good, a lot of good strategies, but anything else for brokers looking to increase production that maybe you feel that they’re not doing that you see sort of, you know, in general, and I know you have blinders on? I’m sure for your own business. But do you see other brokers maybe not taking advantage of certain things? They could be?

Thomas Downing 25:37
Yeah, absolutely. You know, for me, I tried, you know, in the beginning, I didn’t start with a large budget either. So, for me, the way I came into this was that, you know, I was going to eat what I kill sort of thing. So as I, as I had had transactions, I just sort of tighten my belt, and put in I know, people talked about 10 to 20% of your of your sort of income going back to marketing. And I was doing close to 50, because I just knew that, in order to build the business, at this late in the game in my life, at 50, I was I just realized I was going to just have to really hit it hard the first few years. And then hopefully this pans out so that I can start doing the referral side of it and relax a little bit. So I, I think setting a stretch goal for yourself was really critical. For me, I see a lot of agents, just kind of really, as I said, just go from transaction to transaction. But unless you have a year plan, and then break that down to what it’s gonna look like each month for how many relationships you need to actually start talking to. That’s critical. And I’m, you know, what gets measured gets done. And I just can’t imagine not making it work without having some kind of yardstick for how I’m going along the way. And then the other part was investing in key learning like I did not, I tried different things. So you know, I’m an X marketing guy. So you try different things. You give it a year, and if they don’t work, stop it and move on to something else. So I was doing a lot of Every Door Direct Mail shirt that is that you could use to the post office and I did pretty heavily. It didn’t really work for me. I know a lot of agents, it works really well for big agents. It didn’t for me. So I stopped that. I tried Zillow leads in the beginning, that also was not a good

D.J. Paris 27:18
that’s not especially if your personality to call somebody 15 times before them.

Thomas Downing 27:26
Yeah, probably not, you know. And so it wasn’t that particular product wasn’t a good fit for me. I know other people I get like I don’t really well. But I will say one thing that helped me a lot was I don’t know if you’re familiar with Ninja training,

D.J. Paris 27:40
Colorado, everyone raves about it. That’s all I know. Yeah.

Thomas Downing 27:44
It’s, it’s amazing. And so it was offered at our at our office, and I signed up for it. It was a little expensive for me at the time. But it’s something I put into practice. And it really did change the entire way i i did my business I was doing well, to start with for sure. But when I did that, and it was very early on in that first year. There it exponentially changed everything like it, it changed my whole way of approaching relationships, again, things that are not just about the transaction, but just how do you really kind of fit your lifestyle into this workplace so that there’s a match between the two of them, and they become much more holistic and easy, frankly. So it’s been a really, I can’t talk enough about that. I did also get my CSR GRI I’m not really big on a lot of letters behind the names because I’ve just looked at an ARS surveys and customers really

don’t care about that. But or they just don’t understand them. Yeah, it’s not high on their list of why they choose an

agent. But both of those, those two in particular gave me some really good tools I thought to that have been very useful.

D.J. Paris 28:53
Yeah, if for the brokers out there listening, who are obviously interested in learning from people like Thomas and who mentioned, you know, the ninja selling program, which is very well respected. And there’s others too, right. So you there’s Brian Buffini, he’s got a great system, Mike ferry, his son, Tom Ferry, there’s there’s other systems out there that are all different, you know, for different personalities, but I always say like, choose one of them. And, you know, these are pretty well respected systems, and they work. You know, maybe they don’t all work for every broker, but they will work if you find the one that matches your personality and investing in a system, I think is is it there’s just inherent accountability when you’re spending hundreds or 1000s of dollars on a system, you’re gonna probably put that into practice. Maybe more so than if it’s just you on your own. So I’m a huge, huge fan of of doing, suggesting that too. Well, we should. I think you have given us so much good information. I think this is a good point to to wrap up and Thomas has given a tremendous amount of his time too. So we appreciate that. If any If buyers or sellers or investors are interested in working with you directly, what is the best way that they should reach out to you?

Thomas Downing 30:08
Thank you. Yeah, the best way to probably reach me would just be by phone at 847-778-9952. Or they can go to my website with my contact information at Thomas downing.com, as you mentioned earlier in the show,

D.J. Paris 30:24
yeah. And Thomas is obviously extraordinarily nice person, he’s very easy to get a hold of. And, you know, we appreciate his his time as well on the show. Oh, I want to just ask one final thing. I’m sorry, I just realized, I wanted to hear what was the was if you could distill one piece of advice from all the years of sort of the branding side of it, and I know you did more than branding, when you were a consultant, but sort of the whole holistic approach to customer service or the customer experience? Is there one key learning that that you would like to share that has helped you in your real estate business?

Thomas Downing 30:59
Wow, that is a great question. And I, you know,

D.J. Paris 31:01
I’m putting I’m putting you a little on the spot. So I apologize for

Thomas Downing 31:03
that at all, it actually is an easy answer. As a business management consultant, one of the things I was doing with regards to customer experience was doing a lot early on with healthcare, large hospitals and healthcare systems in Seattle, in Texas and other places, where they were trying to build their brand now around changing a patient experience into a customer experience, which is really hard to do in that industry, because of just the personnel doctors and nurses feel like they are caregivers. What was said to me, and it’s, and I swear I think about it every week, this nurse was talking about how important it is when we have these really huge life, life issues that take place. So when someone is in a hospital, that typically is a very big life event for them, they’re not there. Sure, you know, whether it’s having a baby, which is a great, you know, joyful experience, or something worse. And when our minds are different when we’re in an experience like that, and I really do like buying a house to this as much as we take it for granted. We’re around it all the time, just like nurses around patients. These are huge events in people’s lives, no matter who they are, it’s usually the biggest purchase we’ve ever made in our life. And if we’re truly focused on them as people and as an experience, then we have to realize that that everything we say and do is hitting the the gray matter in a different way than just talking on the street, the way we are reacting to what’s going on around them the way we convey the information, what the other side is saying during the negotiations, how we’re supporting them with our vendors, and you know, other parts just to make this whole thing come together. You know, we sometimes forget just how much stress they’re under, and how much they’re remembering every little facial tic that we’re going through as we do this process. So whether we have a good experience or bad experience with them is it’s it’s critical based on the amount of service we’re providing at that point, and listening and kind of really remembering the fact that we’re here helping them on a on a major life event. And as long as we take it seriously like that. And remember that each time I think that’s how we get repeat and referral business as well as you know, customers for life because it is so critical, and it’s easy to forget it.

D.J. Paris 33:15
Well, I want to thank Thomas downing for being on the show. He’s very generous with his time and hopefully everyone who listened, starts doing more open houses and starts treating the client maybe more holistically in particular, with respect to understanding how important these these transactions are to them. So Thomas, thank you for being on the show, and we appreciate your time.

Thomas Downing 33:39
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

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In the past 12 months Weston Harding and his brokerage X Plus Real Estate has doubled their production from 20m to 40m. Aside from being a top 1% producer, Weston is also the largest seller of 2-4 flat properties in Chicago. During our conversation Weston talks about how he transitioned from West Texas to Chicago, why he focuses on investments and investors, and how he gives years of free value to prospects before he ever earns a commission!

Weston Harding can be reached at Weston.Harding@XPlusRealEstate.com and 312-669-4343.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcasts made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I am your host through the show. And as always want to first thank all the people who are listening. So we appreciate you sharing this podcast with other realtors in your area. And also recommending realtors that we should be interviewing on the show, we have a huge backlog, I think we’re over 100 people now have written in with suggestions. So if we haven’t replied to you or gotten to your recommendation yet, we will might just take us a little bit of time. So thanks, keep sending them in. Also, if you are not currently following us on Facebook, we’d encourage you to do that. You can just find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pot. You can also download and listen and stream every episode we’ve ever done right directly from our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And of course, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play Anywhere else podcasts are served, just search for keeping it real podcast. And you should find us want to have a quick suggestion before we get on to our interview with great western Harding, which is that I was thinking about this the other day. I’m not sure that I’ve talked about it on the show before. So the the real impetus for putting this show together where we interview the top 1% of brokers in the Chicagoland area was because I went to a YPN event which stands for Young Professionals Network, which is put on in this case by our local association here in the city, which is called car Chicago Association of Realtors. Now there, those of you who are listening might not be in the city of Chicago, you might be in the suburbs, you might be somewhere else in the country or even other parts of the world. We do have listeners kind of all over. So odds are you belong to a local association, where you are and odds are that association has one of these groups and what what this YPN event showcased. And the reason why this podcast really exists is because I went to a meeting once and they had a panel of top producers and the producers were saying here’s how I grew my business. And I thought oh, that’s a cool idea, someone should make that into a podcast. So I really owe this podcast idea, a great deal of gratitude to the Young Professionals Network at the Chicago Association of Realtors. But again, if you’re a member of a different Association, you should reach out to them and find out what their version of that is. Many of them have actually YPN groups or something similar. And again, it’s just a great way to network. But more importantly, I think get information and advice from people who are already doing it. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and can learn from the masters. Again, that’s all of course what we’re trying to do on the show as well. And we’re almost at our 70th episode, and we’re so grateful that everyone continues to listen and continues to send in recommendations. So bottom line, contact your local board and say, hey, I want to learn from the best what programs do you have for me to get in front of top producers. And odds are they have something like yp and YPN does a lot of other things too. But anyway, I’m a huge fan of theirs. So just do that kind of stuff, and you’ll get better as a broker. And maybe you’ll be on the show one day so thanks so much for listening onto our interview with Weston.

Today on the show, we have Weston Harding of x plus real estate, Weston Harding founded x plus real estate in January of 2011. And he specializes in the brokerage of investment and residential properties in Chicago. As a dedicated real estate professional, Weston’s excellent customer service is reflected in a consistently strong sales record. Previously, he served as Director of real estate sales for RV savvy, where he established the sales division for apartment savvy Chicago West and started his Chicago career at Essex Realty Group where he acquired exceptional knowledge of the Chicago investment market and Chicago neighborhood opportunities originally from Houston West and graduated from Texas Tech he received his real estate license as an undergrad and was employed by REMAX of Lubbock while earning his Bachelor’s in agricultural economics. Weston is well respected in the Chicagoland real estate business and sits on the board of directors at the Harold Eisenberg Foundation. He founded the annual Harold Eisenberg Midwest real estate challenge which includes participation from the Chicago community in collaboration with students from major universities. X plus, Weston’s company is on track to close 40 million by the end of this year, which by the way, is up from 20 million last year and obviously incredible there. And they are also the number one seller of two to four unit properties in all of Chicago. You can visit Weston and x plus real estate at x plus realestate.com. Welcome come to the show Weston, thanks for being on our podcast. Thanks, DJ,

Weston Harding 5:02
thanks so much for having me. I can’t wait to tell you everything I’ve learned in real estate and pass on that knowledge. So

D.J. Paris 5:09
perfect. And then I’ll never have to do another episode because you’ll just give all the information that anyone would ever need. So this is a I’m really honored, I no longer have to. Perfect. Yeah, and let’s, let’s let’s dive right into it. Because originally, you’re from Texas, Houston, and then over to the Lubbock area. But tell us how you got started in real estate.

Weston Harding 5:31
Yeah, so I actually went to school at Texas Tech University, and I thought I was going to be a mechanical engineer. And I really liked working on cars growing up, and I thought that would be a great career for me. But as time went on in school, I actually started working for the owner of REMAX of Lubbock, a guy by the name of Tony Lloyd, and worked in their photo department taking photos of properties and loading them up and started to realize I really liked real estate and started to sell houses, to my fraternity brothers who could actually, their parents would buy a house, I mean, houses in Lubbock, or at the time are ranging between like 50 to $100,000, a couple blocks off campus. So my parents bought a house and my sister and I lived in it and then sold it and made money. But more importantly, I would sell to fraternity brothers parents who would pretty much have a three bedroom house, their son would live in one of those bedrooms, and then the other two bedrooms, they would rent out and pretty much cover their mortgage. And then we would just sell it, you know, three years later when that student was ready to move. So that’s where I got my start and then moved here and worked for at a great company Essex Realty Group that specialized in 20 Plus unit apartment buildings. And while working there, I realized that there’s a lot of smaller buildings, specifically two to four units up to about six units that just didn’t have anybody helping those sellers sell the properties or buyers buy the properties. And I was like, you know that that guy can be me. So

D.J. Paris 7:08
ya know that that makes perfect sense. If you don’t want me asking why, how, why the move from from Texas, West Texas to Chicago. Yeah,

Weston Harding 7:15
great, great question. So I actually went for a couple of job interviews in Dallas. For larger commercial real estate companies I wanted to get in, I liked the investment side of real estate. So I wanted to get into that. And at one of those meetings, my dad actually joined from Houston and knew the owner of the company. And afterwards, my dad and I went to get a drink at a local bar. And I kind of was like, you know, this sounds like a great job, I should take it. And he pretty much told me that, you know, they’ve lived all over the world and in New York and all over America as well, before they decided to put roots into Houston. And my dad’s like, you should definitely check out other places across the US or the world before you just take a job here. So that kind of stuck with me a little bit. And I was like, No, it would be kind of cool to be the guy who leaves Texas and does his own thing and makes his own mark. So looked around. And you know, Chicago seemed like the right city for me. So

D.J. Paris 8:15
well, yeah, that’s, that’s really interesting. I know, when I graduated college, I ended up in St. Louis, and I’m not from St. Louis. But I ended up there because that’s where this job that, you know, employed me, put me and I had not done the like, should I live in and there’s nothing wrong with St. Louis. It’s fine. But I wouldn’t have chosen St. Louis. But it was like similar to your situation in Dallas, like, you might have just gone to Dallas and nothing wrong with Dallas either. But like this idea that you can live other places is, is very cool. So anyway, that I guess that brought you here and then tell us a little bit about, you know, x plus. And by the way, we should also mention that for all the listeners. Weston is actually looking for someone to fill a position. So tell us a little bit about the company and ultimately what you’re looking

Weston Harding 9:05
Yeah, sure. So um, so I started x plus, like you said, the beginning of 2011 with the whole mindset that we would specialize in two to four unit properties. And I wanted to always be the number one seller of that and be the best broker I possibly can be in that field. So with that, I started working really hard by myself crazy hours and started to put together a database. So we actually put together a database of every two to 12 unit owner on the northwest side and specialize in neighborhoods where I actually at the time was personally buying property. So mostly 60618 Avondale Irving Park Roscoe village. Sure. And so we specialized in that area. And as the company grew more So myself and then I hired an assistant, and then two years ago, I actually sat down with a throughout another amazing agent here, Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg, to kind of just catch up on the Marquette, and they really helped me kind of put together a team and gave me the insight on you know how they did it, and how they would recommend me doing it. So I decided two years ago to actually build a team, I just couldn’t be working the crazy amount of hours I was. Sure. So I started there two years ago. And since then it has allowed me to just totally expand the company massively. And it’s done amazing things marketing wise. And as well as just owning that market of two to four units. So about two years ago, I took on a buying agent, and my assistant moved over to like more of an assistant closer coordinator role. And then last year, I went ahead and double that. So I brought on like a full sales side person, a full side, buying broker for full time rental agent, and then my closing coordinator still there. And then the beginning of this year has been even bigger. So we actually expanded now I have two full time buying agents, full time selling agent, a rental specialist, and then my closing coordinator slash assistant. And that’s really allowed me to just focus on what I do best, which is market the company doing podcasts like this, as well as put together and meet more people that are that are looking to invest in smaller investment properties, or, more importantly, people that currently own that are looking help selling their property. So I’m actually looking for somebody to kind of take a sales role. That would be on our sales side, that would be somebody who would be looking to meet with the owners help kind of manage the team as a whole. This is a real great role. The perfect person I kind of see for this is somebody that’s already been in real estate for four to five years, understand the processes of real estate, and hopefully has done some sort of investment properties. But more importantly, it’s somebody who doesn’t really want to work as many weekends. So this role allows somebody who might have experience and might have a kid on the way, or is looking to not work weekends as much kind of stepped into a role where they’re managing a top 1% team. And the number one team in Chicago for two to four units. So

D.J. Paris 12:10
awesome. Well, if anyone out there feels like they’d be a good fit, what’s the best way they can reach out and submit their

Weston Harding 12:16
Yeah, so they can actually email me directly at Westin, w e s, t o n, dot Harding, H AR D ing at x plus realestate.com. And feel free, they can go online and check out our website, all my contact informations there, that’s x plus realestate.com. Or they can call in text our office line at 312-669-4343.

D.J. Paris 12:41
Awesome. Well, thank you for that I wanted to go back to the one of the original things that you did when you when you when you founded x plus, which, which was you sort of identified your geographic area. And then you said now we’re going to make a database of all the odors from these two to 12, sort of flat units, or, or two to two to 12 unit buildings. And wow, if you don’t mind sharing some of some of those tips, because oftentimes, it’s funny, you work a lot with investors, you yourself are an investor as well. And I’ve always heard that it’s never hard finding investors, it’s always the hardest part is finding the deal that the investors show up when the deal is there. And of course, finding those opportunities tend to be the hardest part. What were some of the ways that you started to create that database

Weston Harding 13:27
share, so I’m so kind of back track here. So it was kind of interesting. When I was working in Lubbock, I was doing mostly residential 100% residential. And then when I moved to Chicago, I worked in commercial real estate and commercial real estate is totally different. Sure, as far as they don’t normally have an MLS, there’s loop net costar, but most agents have their own database, right. And we’re constantly working with that where on a residential side you have more of an MLS and this like cooperation and people are all working together. And in commercial, there’s not so much so I kind of combined both of those worlds because a two to four unit property is kind of a little bit of both, it’s technically four units. And below is residential. And the commercial side is the investment side. So we’ve kind of combined those and part of that was creating a database so you you can get there’s plenty of websites like list source and even title companies can help you pull owners information and mailing addresses.

D.J. Paris 14:26
Just to interject for a quick second also costar can do that too. You just you have to pay for some of that information. But that’s another resource,

Weston Harding 14:34
right? So you’ll have to pay for the information and then the biggest part is is how to get those people’s attention. So we’ve done mailers cold calling, dropping by and knocking on doors, flyers, you name it, we’ve done all of that. So I think the biggest thing is creating the database and then working with that database and I think mailers is probably the best way to go about it. But really once you can get somebody to Get in contact with and really tell them what you’re doing. That’s really the best way to sell them. So

D.J. Paris 15:06
that you guys do the math, do you do management as well, or just

Weston Harding 15:10
so we do not touch management. We work with a couple of great management companies that we really liked working with. And we, we refer them clients, they refer us clients. But we don’t do that. I think it’s kind of a conflict of interest. Plus, we like to just solely focus on helping people, one, create more wealth in their properties by giving them rental comps sales comps in the area, showing them what improvements they can make to their properties to get a better value and creating that relationship where property management is just a whole nother beast.

D.J. Paris 15:45
So So you guys will reach out to these owners and say, Hey, if you’re ever looking to sell, you know, we can certainly assist you or if you need help getting, you know, some of the space rented residential or commercial you can assist in developing the relationships that way. Is that is that my understanding?

Weston Harding 16:00
Yeah, so we’re in a long term game. So most of our clients we will meet with and talk to once every three months for two to three years, sometimes longer, till they’re ready to make that sale, and is really just keeping that relationship. So whatever they need is what we like to supply. So whether that’s Hey, we’re thinking about reappraising our property, who do you recommend we go with, and we’ll give them a lender, or we’ll give them comps for that. Or we’re looking to maybe make some improvements, we have a tenant moving out, can you come by and tell us what you think improvements we should be made, and you have a contractor for us. So we’ll supply all of that to owners at no cost. And one, helping them build a relationship with us, but also helping them improve it, what their property is going to be worth when they sell because if they make the right improvements and increase their rent, their properties can easily go from, you know, 500 $600,000 to 789 $100,000 properties within a year or two time period.

D.J. Paris 17:00
I’m so glad that you, you mentioned that this is a huge point of distinction. You know, there are tons of brokers who have these ideas of I’m going to call on or see if they’re ready to sell and you know, just sort of pile on the phones or pound mailers. And if they’re not ready, then I’ll just move on. And the fact that you start the relationship before someone’s actually ready to do a transaction is obviously this huge value add, which of course separates you from all the other brokers out there. So do you have you found that that’s true that that’s pretty, pretty unique proposition?

Weston Harding 17:31
Yeah, we get a lot of people one specializing in the niche that we’re in, which is the two to four units, we there’s not a whole lot of I guess other brokers doing this. But supplying this type of stuff is great. I mean, we get we get a lot of a lot of times we’ll make cold calls, and talk to people or people call us and be like, No, I don’t want you to do any of that. But then after we’ll just send them over some stuff as like a show of good faith. They’re, they’re really impressed. A lot of times they don’t believe we’re actually going to do any of it for free. Like they keep asking us what’s what’s the cost, and it’s like, it’s it’s free, like we really just want to help you. So that when you are ready to sell you, you’re the first person you think of

D.J. Paris 18:10
so yeah, that’s, that’s really, really smart. Because of course, when they sell, they are going to use a realtor almost certainly. And you know, might as well be the person who has been helping them for several years without obviously, any sort of direct compensation. So there’s that law of reciprocity that kicks in and, and obviously, you guys being so, you know, so consistently at the top of this, two to four flat sales obviously helps lead some credibility. But obviously, you were we were just talking about this offline that you were like, it is a ton of work for two to three years meeting with somebody every, you know, quarterly. But you know, for years before they’re really, you know, actually able to make the transition and use your services is huge.

Weston Harding 18:53
Yeah. And I think you had mentioned, you know, the growth from 20 million plus sales last year to, we’re on track to be 35 to 40 million this year. A lot of that is because of the relationships we’ve formed over the past couple of years. But that hard work and being able to have the team to really stretch out and perform all those services is, is really what’s helped us grow so fast.

D.J. Paris 19:18
Yeah, let’s talk about that. Because your team is very specifically structured. Obviously, there’s a million different ways to build a real estate team. And oftentimes, they’re just a bunch of agents kind of grouped together who all do similar tasks and kind of share things. Yours seems parceled out based on duties and responsibilities. Was that was that super deliberate instead of just hiring a bunch of brokers that could all come in and, and work kind of similarly?

Weston Harding 19:46
Yeah, um, so the reason why I did it that way is because because I was an agent all by myself and running like, ever wearing every hat for every transaction. It got to the point where I just noticed that certain have duties, for instance, for taking up more time than others. And if I, you know, I would go out with clients on by side and show them places and then write a contract for them, but then also have to worry about the follow up of making sure the inspection and all that and sometimes the amount of paperwork would just pile up. So I kind of read a couple books and looked at what I thought the way a team should be set up as well as the help from other realtors. And really, I thought, you know, especially what we’re doing on the buy side is that, you know, we supply a first time investor, a lot of our clients are actually what’s called House hacking or living in one of the units and having their other two to three units pay off their mortgage. So sure, that takes a lot of education to kind of help people with that, as well as putting together pro formas and information for them. So in my mind, if I could have my buying agent, only focus on one helping buyers be educated on that type of purchase, but also helping them find it so that when a property comes on the market, we’re the first person and they’re not worried about having to go to an inspection, or follow up on an appraisal or whatever the case may be. So that leaves our buying agents, all they have to do is worry about educating clients and showing properties. And putting them on negotiating deals, they don’t have to worry about finding their own clients, those are all supplied, and they don’t have to worry about making sure those clients get to the closing table. And the same thing on the sales side. Like I would like my sales agents to be able to call every agent they know that to looking for that type of property really heavily market that property and not have to worry about inspections or finding new clients or dealing with putting together CMAs all the other work, but really just hone their craft and become the best at it.

D.J. Paris 21:52
Yeah, and I think it’s worth repeating again, that that Weston and his team, they have their own database, I don’t know what percentage of deals you do even hit the MLS. But obviously having this non MLS database, we’ll call it of, of owners and units is so important and really worth doing. If you’re a broker looking to either work with investors or work with, you know, people who own these types of properties. So important and takes time, but absolutely worthwhile. And then like what Weston and his team does this actually build those relationships, providing this the sort of pro bono value for years and years before the person might be ready to actually sell or or an investor ready to buy?

Weston Harding 22:35
Yeah, exactly. I mean, the database is a huge part to it, I would say, you know, the mountain, we we do a lot of reaching out to the database. And we also do a lot of events. So we do a bi monthly event that will teach clients on the ins and outs of certain types of real estate. So we did one on Airbnb, which is kind of changing the whole market for investment properties. We did one on House hacking, how to buy your first investment property in everybody you need to know along the way, we’ve done stuff on property management and brought in property management companies. But to add value, but that also gives us a debt or buy side, we have somewhere close to actively 30 to 40 buyers at any given time that are ready to pull the trigger. And then we have somewhere close to about 100 to 200 investors who are looking to buy two to three properties a year, throughout the year. So you know a lot of times our deals if we’re on the sales side, we’ll get pitched to our clients first. Which is kind of a great bonus for us. We can keep it in house and be able to really control the transaction and make sure that there’s not any hiccups along the way. But yeah, I mean, having that database is a huge part of that. So

D.J. Paris 23:49
just out of curiosity, and this this the answer this could easily be No. But I was curious if you’ve developed any strategic partnerships with true commercial brokers as well, oftentimes, what a lot of times residential brokers or brokers who mostly do residential don’t realize about commercial is many commercial firms don’t even allow their brokers to do any residential. So I was curious if you develop any of those partnerships with, you know, people at some of the larger or smaller, even commercial firms where they’re like, oh, we have something for you. So I didn’t know if that ever comes? Yeah,

Weston Harding 24:20
so I don’t get a so I actually sent the Harold Eisenberg Foundation Board is a huge Board filled with a lot of commercial real estate agents, brokers, developers all across everything from retail to industrial. So a lot of those guys, especially if they’re not in the three to four unit market will send me stuff if they get it, as well as people that I’ve worked with in the past on commercial deals will send me deals and say, Hey, I’ve got this so we don’t have like a distinct written partnership with anybody but a lot of the times still stuff that will come across the desk. I’d say the people that reach out to us the most and we definitely do a lot of deals with wholesalers, so some of the bigger wholesalers in Chicago and depending on what your listeners know or don’t know, but a wholesaler somebody who’s puts a property under contract and then tries to resell it, either within 30 days or at the same time as when they’re closing, we get a lot of wholesalers that as soon as they put a two to four unit under market where their first phone call, they don’t reach, they don’t call their database of investors, they call us because they know that our buyers are going to be able to close that deal. Super fast and easy as is and don’t have any issues with you know, they’ve been most of our clients aren’t the pastor’s for 10 plus years. So they’ve seen it all. So we work a lot with wholesalers recently for deals that will be selling or just bringing in the buyer to take the deal over from them.

D.J. Paris 25:51
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, they know that you guys can get things closed quickly, you have this database of investors ready to ready to go who are just looking for deals. So that that makes perfect sense. I have a question, what advice would you have for maybe a traditional residential broker who doesn’t hasn’t worked with investors or not worked with a lot of investors, either on the buy or sell side? And it hasn’t worked in the two to four flat space? What advice would you have for them about starting to dip their toe in that water? Like what should they be reading? Where should they be learning, if you have any suggestions,

Weston Harding 26:26
share so. So a couple places one, our website has actually has a bunch of educational videos that we’ve put together on it. So you can check out our website, all for sharing information. But another big one is bigger pockets, of course, apps, they’re incredible source of information. And just the websites in general, if you type in investment videos, or two to four unit or house hacking videos, there’s 1000s upon 1000s of them on YouTube. So I really think bigger pockets is probably your best source for information on those types of properties. And just getting in there and just learning as much as you can. And then if anybody wanted to team up or was looking to sell a property and said, hey, you know, I don’t know how to do that we’re more than happy to cooperate with other agents or give out referral fees and work with other people as well. So

D.J. Paris 27:19
yeah, and by the way, I’d like to, to mention something that you just briefly discussed. And I met I wanted to interrupt at the time, but I didn’t interrupt you. But I wanted to. So I’ll interrupt now, because this goes back about 10 minutes. So I apologize for this being a bit disjointed. But this is really important you had mentioned and I think this is such a great metaphor for how to run a business. And ultimately, really what this podcast is about, and like this podcast, very, at its most basic level is talking to top 1% producers and saying how to do that. And that’s essentially all we do. Everyone does it a bit differently. But what I love that you’d mentioned, and I just want to highlight this for the listeners, is before starting your own company, or rather before building your own team, you went to Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg, who are now at Keller Williams and said, Hey, guys, how do you do this? What should I do? What’s the best way to do this? And you know, obviously, those guys have an amazing reputation. They’ve been on the show as well. Super nice, of course. And but just I want to highlight like, what’s that is such a smart way to go to a really successful team and say, How did you build a team? And I suspect a lot of people maybe listening wouldn’t think to necessarily do that. So you should always be reaching out to people who have that specialty. So I just wanted to sort of highlight that. That was probably a really good idea.

Weston Harding 28:39
Yeah, I’m a very firm believer in not reinventing the wheel. I mean, if somebody else has already done this, and I listened to this podcast all the time, I mean, it’s amazing. You know, people always say the same thing over and over again, that it’s a lot of hard work. And, you know, talking to other brokers I think is a huge, a huge part of becoming a better broker yourself.

D.J. Paris 28:59
So yeah, and just to go back to bigger pockets, as well, like that probably is the best, you know, resource to really learn investment. I mean, there’s a million books and obviously a lot of great what seminars you can attend and videos, if you really want to get immersed in the community of investors and be able to talk sort of in real time to them online. And then they also have a million different meetups as well as bigger pockets is a really great, great resource as as Weston mentioned. And it’s I don’t know if it’s 100 bucks a year or whatever the cost is, it is absolutely worth and they have podcast too. And obviously they do all sorts of cool things. So that is a not like a resource worth re mentioning. Because I’m a huge fan of them as well. So tell us sort of where do you see x plus headed? Are you going to just stay on track, keep doing what you’re doing? Do you see you see it shifting or changing? In where I’m asking is do you see the investment market changing as well here in Chicago?

Weston Harding 29:54
Yeah, so that’s a great question. We get this all the time, especially lately with taxes going up and rentals. Looks like their pricing will probably be going down a little bit here over the next couple of years is, is the investment market going to stay as hot as it has been, and I firmly believe that in some areas, and most areas, it will, I mean, there’s a lot of places like Pilsen, Avondale, Albany Park, urban, Irving Park, Portage Park, that is all just making a huge change over the last couple of years of gentrification. And I think those markets are going to continue to grow, as well as markets like Lincoln Park, Lakeview Bucktown, Wicker Park that have been very solid rental markets with some amazing increases in rents over the last couple years, will stay hot as well. The thing is, is that there’s just so many two to four flats and two to 12 unit properties out there that those people that have a lot of longtime owners are getting to the point where they’re looking to cash out and maybe make a move somewhere warmer, or are looking to not have to manage these properties long term for the rest of their lives. So there’s going to continue to be people that are looking to sell those properties. And I think there is actually a huge increase of the number of people that are looking to buy properties, especially in the millennial generation, with the amount of information that’s online resources, like bigger pockets and other places about House hacking. And the idea that you can buy a property with three and a half percent down and grab the other two or three units pay your mortgage, a lot of young people really liked that idea. It allows them to live in the property or if they need a move, they now have an investment that they can leave in their portfolio as investments. And that gives a lot of younger people flexibility to go do whatever they want, whether that’s change jobs, or travel for a year, or whatever the case may be. So we’ve seen a huge increase lately of buyers in that market. And I think that’s going to continue to push the market in Chicago.

D.J. Paris 31:54
Have you seen any increased competition to to for the for listings? Has there been an increase in when you’re talking to these owners? Who may or may not be ready to sell in the moment do Do you find that there’s more brokers reaching out to them? Are you competing with more brokers in that respect? Or?

Weston Harding 32:15
So yeah, I would say that people are getting reached out to more. If you look at just like the data and the matrix, I think the next closest person to us in two to four unit sales is doing like half what we are. Gotcha. So it’s, it’s when we sit down to a listing appointment, you know, it’s I would say that, at least in my opinion, we’re the best brokerage for it. But we’re able to sit down and just give numbers that a lot of people aren’t able to give. I mean, last year, our average two to four unit sales, days on market was 13.8 days, and our average sale to list price or list the sale price was 98.9%. So being able to sit down and show just the value that people get by working with the x plus team, we rarely lose a listing.

D.J. Paris 33:03
How often is that is that all done in house where it’s the you guys have the buyers as well is that most of the time or some

Weston Harding 33:09
I would say probably about like 15% of the time, we’ll get it in house or a lot of that stuff is like wholesale deals where people bring us bring it to us, it’ll never hit the MLS. And we’ll just sell it directly to one of our buyers or we work with a couple of developers as well, that it’ll eventually hit the MLS, but it’ll hit the MLS once after sale. So a large number of those deals get done in house. But the stuff that hits the MLS and we tell most we actually tell most of our sellers, that we like it to hit the MLS because we’re not always going to have the highest Sharpe paying client and our goal on the sales side is to get you the most money as possible. And the most qualified buyer and not all the times our buyers aren’t going to be that. So we’d rather give another agent the opportunity to bring in that person to allow our client to get the highest price.

D.J. Paris 34:02
Makes perfect sense. Just to wrap up, do you so we have you know, a lot of listeners, almost all of which I believe are brokers. So is any blasting advice for brokers who, you know, would like to do more of what you guys do? Aside from of course going to work for you. Any steps aside from like joining bigger pockets, that you would sort of advise on brokers looking to increase production, maybe add some investors into their portfolio, or be being maybe be an investor themselves? Yeah,

Weston Harding 34:35
so I would say get on bigger pockets. I would say get online, really just dive in and educate yourself if you want to go that way. If you’re looking to actually increase your brokerage sales. The biggest thing I was ever able to do was hire my first assistant and I think I was capping out at somewhere around 12 to $15 million worth of deals. And I just couldn’t you just can’t go any higher. without hiring somebody else to help you, you can’t be in two places at once. So if you find yourself being like, how do I go to the next level, the fastest way to do that is to hire an assistant and then hire your next person. There’s that’s no other way that we’ve been able to grow. In fact, this fast is without one hiring more people. And more. So hiring quality people, like don’t just hire the first person you meet off the street, make sure you spend a couple of months really finding out who you want in that position and the most qualified person.

D.J. Paris 35:32
Awesome. Well, less than we should mention, again, at the beginning of the show, we went and talked about a position that he is looking to fill. So if that is something you are interested in exploring, you can reach out to Weston, can you give your your email and phone number once again?

Weston Harding 35:47
Yeah, for sure. So again, we’re looking to hire a sales position, kind of a sales manager position to kind of help run the team a little bit, as well as to manage the sales side. And my email is Western W E s, t o n, dot Harding, H AR d i n g at x plus realestate.com. And you can call or text at 312-669-4343.

D.J. Paris 36:15
And if anyone out there is who is not a broker, but is an investor or it really with any real estate needs, it’s not that Western team doesn’t just solely focus on investments, but that is obviously one of their specialties. So if you’re interested in working with Weston and his team, for anything real estate related, of course, you can contact him the same way you can visit their website as well at x plus realestate.com. And obviously Weston is super easy to to get in touch with he was we were very easy. Even getting him booked and scheduled and not everyone is that way. So we appreciate it. And anyway, so I wanted to thank Weston personally for being on the show. We really appreciate he is too busy to do the show and he still did it. So we thank him for that. And any we’re actually we already we went through everything so I think we’re good. So Weston, we appreciate your time.

Weston Harding 37:08
Thank you so much for having me. I really do appreciate it.

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Today we sat down with fellow podcaster and top producer Steven Weirich who shared his unique and brilliant strategy of podcasting to provide value to his community. Steven hosts Arlington-Prospect Advice Givers, a show dedicated to showcasing local businesses in Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights. By providing this service to local merchants, Steven has generated a tremendous amount of goodwill which has naturally translated into real estate business. In this episode Steven shares why he became a podcaster, why he NEVER mentions that he’s a real estate broker, and why giving value without immediate gain is the key to his success.

Steven Weirich can be reached at 847.607.6711 or csw@stevenweirich.com

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate agents for Chicago real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, and I am your host through the show, and I want to welcome a lot of new listeners who I know are going to be checking out this episode. The reason I know this is kind of a tick, tell you guys kind of a funny story. So just this morning, I was checking our traffic to the podcast, and it was skyrocketed over the last like 48 hours. And almost to the point where it was in, we were in danger of actually taking our website offline and crashing our server because so much traffic was coming, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense, because there’s a finite number of Realtors here in Chicago. And you know, we get 1000s of them that listen, but it’s never so many that you know, we’re going to take our site down. Well, all of a sudden, we were getting this point where we were getting like, well over 10,000 people were now checking out podcasts in the last day or two. And we weren’t, I was like, well wonder what happened. Like all of a sudden, we became popular, like really popular. Well, that’s as much as I would love to say it’s because I’m so amazing at the show. It’s really not. So I went on Google because I was trying to figure out where all this traffic was coming. And I was tracking it. It was coming from all over the country. And I was like, Well, this is really weird. So I went on Google, and I typed in Chicago, and I did it in like an incognito window to get a true search, which I typed in what I type in real estate podcast. And it turns out our website, keeping it real pod.com is, at least for now, on the front page, the first page of Google when you search for real estate podcast. Now it’s probably a fluke, I’m sure it just shot up there for some reason, in the last couple of days. And so people are finding it by doing that search. And then of course, clicking on the website and listening some episodes. So that’s a big long introduction. And the reason I’m going to explain a little bit more about what we do here on the show. So we’re here in the Chicago market. However, this can really apply to realtors anywhere in the country. It’s not particular to Chicago, it just happens to be where I’m from. And so we interview local Chicago brokers all who are in the top 1%. And there’s about 40,000 Realtors here in the Chicagoland area. So we essentially talk to the top 400. So if you’re listening for the first time, and you don’t live in Chicago, that’s okay. Because you’re going to hear from the very top brokers, what they did to grow their business, typically what they did in their first year, what advice they have for brokers who are looking to increase production mistakes they’ve made, and just general tips and advice. So I want to welcome everyone to the show, don’t let the Chicago thing throw you if you don’t live here, this is applicable, I guarantee no matter where you live, and we have almost 70 episodes under our belt. And we’re so grateful that you’re listening. And we’re so of course grateful to our regular listeners, we’re getting fan mail, or email and all the time. So please, if you want to, you know, stay on top of what we’re doing, you can sign up for email notifications on keeping it real pod.com. Also on Facebook, we’re constantly posting content there along with every episode as well, which you can find just search for keeping it real podcast, you’ll you’ll see it. And again, thanks for listening, I hope our server doesn’t go offline. Although we’re so grateful that people seem to like the show and are sharing it. So if you know other realtors, either in the Chicagoland area or elsewhere, please send this over. It’s really a lot of fun. And again, just want to say thank you to everyone who’s ever been on the show. We’re so honored and grateful that you take time out of your day. Today is no exception. We have Steve Lariche who’s really cool interview because he is doing something that nobody I have interviewed yet has done. So let’s get out let’s get right to it onto our interview with Steve.

Today on the show, we have Steven Wyrick from at properties. Steve is an entrepreneur and a relentless Innovator of the real estate industry. He’s also co creator of the value driven approach to sell real estate, author of the infamous report frauds lies, cheats and unethical scams and founder of The Arlington prospect advice givers, a weekly podcast broadcast on iTunes and Stitcher. The podcast interview provides a platform for local entrepreneurs, business owners and thought leaders in the community. Steve’s also a licensed agent with that properties where his distinctive approach to selling real estate has been helping clients get the results they deserve. Why Rick has also been called provocative and entertaining but also committed a committed philanthropist for his mission to raise and donate over $10,000 to local charities every year with the donations received from his book. Steve is a leader in the Arlington Heights mount Park. spec business community as well and co founded EMG, which is the entrepreneurs networking group in Arlington, Arlington Heights prospect, I’m sorry, Arlington prospect. Chapter made up of exclusive group of business owners sales, people and entrepreneurs focused on the three pillars of impact, which are philanthropy, business and growth. So welcome to the show, Steve.

Steven Weirich 5:20
Thanks for having me on today. DJ, I’m excited. I listened to the podcast and I really love what you do with with the with your guests.

D.J. Paris 5:28
Well, this is our I think the first time I’ve had another broker on who has their own podcast. And I think that is so compelling and interesting that you have created one yourself and actually used it in your own in your own business. Yeah.

Steven Weirich 5:42
One ball, one podcast or to another.

D.J. Paris 5:47
That’s right. So I want to hear your story about how you got into real estate. So can you take us back to that?

Steven Weirich 5:55
Yeah, so DJ, I was a, I was a bond trader down at the Chicago Board of Trade, futures pits, and in two by 2005, I started in 1999, the electronic trading world had really started to take over, all the revenue from the pits were gone. And so I decided to take my skills to a computer platform and started trading Well, I really made a big mistake, because the years of preparation that I took to becoming a good trader down the floor, I thought I would just, you know, package them and start trading from a computer. And that was a big mistake, I lost, I lost pretty much everything. And at that point in time, I really didn’t accept that, that failure very well. And I went into about a six, seven year long, you know, self pity party, as I would call it. Sure. You know, I, I worked. I mean, I had a job. But, you know, all I looked forward to doing was going out on the weekends drinking to excess and really had no purpose. And life or what I was doing, I was just kind of time was going by in 2013. You know, we’ll fast forward. I had a long weekend out. I woke up on a Sunday morning, and I literally had a panic attack. I had never boy, I never experienced anything like that my heart was racing 100 miles an hour. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my chest was tightening. And I remember I went to the bathroom that morning was a really, really bright day. And a lot of light coming through the through the bathroom window. And I looked at myself in the mirror and those bloodshot and glassy eyes. Were not something that I I’m not supposed to be that guy. You know what I’m saying?

D.J. Paris 7:40
You’re just looking at, you look back in you, you didn’t recognize the guy in the mirror.

Steven Weirich 7:44
Totally. And it was just that reflection. Point. I mean, it took a long time to get there. Because I was very sure and be motivated guy. And earlier in life. I mean, I started trading when I was 23 years old, I saved every penny and I was a pretty good trader. And at that point, I said, this has got to stop, I have to change my life. And funny enough, you know, I’m an entrepreneurial type of guy. I wanted to work for myself. So I ended up getting a real estate license, and it kind of all started there.

D.J. Paris 8:13
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, I think having purpose is so critical. I know that there’s times where I’ve had other careers where I’ve made pretty good living and but it wasn’t a very fulfilling, you know, career for me. And it really the money didn’t over didn’t overcome the boredom or the loss of fulfilment I felt in those jobs. And there’s other jobs where I’ve even I’ve made less money, but it’s been really exciting and fun. And I think having that purpose and having that vision is so critical.

Steven Weirich 8:46
I complete agreement.

D.J. Paris 8:49
And you’re out in Arlington Heights. Are you from originally that area, or did you

Steven Weirich 8:52
move in or northwest suburbs? Yeah, my wife and I bought our house in Arlington Heights a couple years ago and always knew I wanted to live here. And it’s definitely a great real estate market to to be involved with. And at properties. We actually just opened up an office about a month ago here. Oh,

D.J. Paris 9:08
exciting. I was born in Arlington Heights. I did not grow up in Chicago, but I was born there. I lived there for a few years. And then we moved out of Chicago, unfortunately, but that is my only time Arlington Heights that I was technically born at the hospital was convenient, but so tell us so Okay, so we got to a place where you got your license. Tell us about starting your real estate practice.

Steven Weirich 9:28
So when I started, I was mentored by someone I knew who really kind of showed me the ropes and the process of real estate and all the things you need to know that we all know as brokers, you don’t learn during your real estate licensing class, right? Many things you don’t even have a clue about so you’re it’s really good to have somebody who can mentor you and take an interest in seeing that you develop your career. So for a couple of years we we work together and And he was he was extremely helpful and got me going. And then, you know, the purpose and the beginning of like, okay, now I’m building my career up in real estate, I had kind of another reflection point around 2015, when I started to feel like there was more than just, you know, to me than selling real estate, it’s like, how are we going to share their story? And how are we going to build more or less like an audience in branding my business that way? So let that all kind of started in 2015. And we’ll be talking about that more as we go.

D.J. Paris 10:33
Yeah, I’d like to, I’d like to dive into that, because I think that is so interesting. And it is a conversation that I’ve really yet to have on this podcast with someone who is, you know, maybe maybe not just had that thought, but then actually executed a plan to get the stories out there. Obviously, your podcast is doing that. And I know you’re you’re an author as well. So can you talk us talk a little bit about those projects and sort of how they came to be?

Steven Weirich 11:01
Yeah, so I in 2015, I ran across a gentleman by the name of Brian Fletcher, who he has a podcast called the agent, marketing syndicate. And Ryan, we have a group of about 100 agents across the country, who network together, we talk about writing and storytelling and building a business outside of just being a real estate agent. I was one of the original members, founding members of the group. And it has grown quite a bit since then. I mean, we only have like 15 members when I was originally involved. But Ryan is really inspired me to share my story. So it all started by literally locking myself in a room for six months, my business actually suffered in 2015 quite a bit, because I was teaching myself how to craft stories, and how to write in an effective way to to show the process that I have for selling homes and how we can tell personal stories and how we can relate that back to real estate. I mean, it really did, it took me six months, locking myself into room reading books, understanding how to, you know, structure a story and tie it back into into business without being salesy. Sure, because the last thing, one thing that real estate agents have a kind of is a bad taste in people’s mouths. It’s a sales industry, and I’m trying to take away that sales, salesy effect by by telling and crafting stories. So, that’s kind of how that started. And with the podcast, the whole premise behind the podcast is really to, you know, get people locally to understand that shopping with small businesses with entrepreneurs, is really important for the community, because they’re the ones who give back the most. I mean, all the guests I’ve had on these people are so involved with charitable foundations, they volunteer their time for this and for everything. And they don’t really have a platform to have their story told, and that’s what I’m providing. And at the same time, I want them to give advice on a specific topic that they’re an expert in. And it’s been, you know, it’s been something that’s been very fulfilling, and then they get into my world, and they’re reading my weekly email my monthly hardcopy newsletter, and that kind of has generated business on the back end. For for my real estate, my real estate operation,

D.J. Paris 13:28
and you’re primarily featuring business owners in in your local area is my understanding. Yes.

Steven Weirich 13:35
Yeah. So I’ll approach or they’re approaching me more and more now. Because recently, I was on the front page of the Daily Herald, they did a story about my podcast, and how I’m shining light on business owners, and make a difference in the community. So it positions me differently in the sense that where I never DJ, you’d be surprised I never introduced myself as a real estate agent when I meet Sure. I meet them. And I talk about how I host Arlington prospect advice givers. And, you know, this is the whole this whole story behind it. They’re intrigued. They want to talk more. And then they always ask me, Well, how do you fund this? Like, you don’t make any money you don’t like, as of now, I don’t make any money. I fund this money. You know, transacting in real estate, I’m a real estate broker. And they’re like,

D.J. Paris 14:25
oh, yeah, I’ll come and say, what do you do, then? Oh, by the way, what else do you do? Oh, I’m a broker. Yeah, sure.

Steven Weirich 14:33
Because more times than not, I’m sure when people ask you, if you host a podcast, they’re interested in talking to you. They think it’s intriguing. So I’m able to break a barrier and have a conversation like to normal, you know, individuals are gonna have a conversation and then they ask how do you find it? And then it’s real estate. Well, now the barriers gone. I’m not trying to sell them on anything and it you know, they get into my world and they start consuming my content. And then hopefully that turn into referrals and understanding that my whole process and approach that I use is something they would refer to their family or friends.

D.J. Paris 15:08
Well, you and I are cut from the exact same cloth. Because the whole purpose of this so so just I shouldn’t speak for you. But the purpose of your show is to provide value to the community, by all by showcasing these, these entrepreneurs, these business owners, where they maybe don’t have as strong a voice on their own unless they’re purchasing advertising, buying spots, or maybe getting lucky getting featured in a newspaper. But likely, they’re probably mostly overlooked, you’re giving them a voice, you’re giving them a platform, so you are providing value to them, and also the your listeners. So we do the same thing here. Obviously, the idea is to provide value to the entire broker community and say, Hey, this is what top brokers are doing. And this is a great conversation, because you’re doing something so unique. But of course, like you were saying, what happens as a result of providing this value as people become clients, or they refer business to you, just the natural progression of the deepening of that relationship, by providing value, it sort of just comes back your way, without you having to ask him that same thing with us. Ultimately, the reason my boss lets me do this show, it’s it’s not entirely altruistic, right? I mean, that’s our intention is to provide value. But I’m hoping that in this happened, it’s been very, we’ve been very fortunate, where people then go, hey, where do you work? And oh, maybe they’ll come take a look at our firm as well. So similar sort of thing. I don’t specifically ask for that. And that’s by design, of course, like you. But it works by providing this value and its unique value, and no one else seems to really be doing it. So I cheered cheers to you.

Steven Weirich 16:35
Right, and just thank you and just think of it, this podcast that we’re recording today, it’s not about you. It’s about your guests. It’s about, you know, sharing with the broker community, how there’s different ways to run your business, or how you new ideas to possibly implement into your own business. And then for me, my podcast is nothing about me. It’s not a personality driven show where it’s like, oh, we’re listening to Steve Wyrick. No, we’re listening to that guest. And before I have that business owner, when before we hit that record button, I tell them the importance of sharing your story. And in making it compelling, because you’ll be able to resonate with the audience. And there’ll be more drawn into your world and we can hopefully direct some traffic and you can use this link to the podcast and market it yourself and position yourself as an expert. And it’s not about me. And when you get response, as soon as it’s about you, you you it’s you’re not going anywhere. Well, I

D.J. Paris 17:37
that that and I’m just not that interesting. Like that’s the thing. Nobody cares what I say. But thank God because who I try to be interesting every week on my dumb show, like nobody would care. I mean, I’m not I first of all, I’m not out there doing I’m not a broker, right? I mean, I am technically one but I don’t I don’t work with clients. So I don’t even I don’t know. So I’m I got asked the people that do like you. So that’s, that’s really cool. And I think this is an important point for listeners to understand is what what is Steve really done, let’s take the podcast out of it. Because even though that’s the cool, exciting thing that the vehicle he’s used, and I know you’ve written you write as well provide a lot of value with articles as well. But this idea is he is just about he’s thinking about how do I provide value to someone else without expecting anything in return, and true value. And really, it’s a quite a brilliant approach. It’s a quite brilliant approach, I think. And by doing that, he ends up getting a lot of business just by nature of providing value, but the whole idea is I am going to provide and let me ask you this, how do you actually find your your guests? Do you just contact them directly? Or do they reach out? Or how does that work?

Steven Weirich 18:47
It’s kind of in the beginning, it was me reaching out as you are doing, you know, reaching the brokers who you were interested in knowing and through that they had is going in the beginning for me, I would reach out to business owners who I thought were you know, I liked their business, or I’d actually you know, use their service or bought products from them. And I would say hey, I’d love to have you on this podcast. I’ve only I’ve done 89 shows I’ve only had a couple people who didn’t want to do it most likely because they’re technology adverse. You know, they don’t know how to use a short little skit and want to be on but now I would say it’s about 30% of me reaching out and suddenly percent people contacting me going through the channels to get to me and say hey, I would love to come on the show. Do you think it would be a fit and if they have a good story I want to share it

D.J. Paris 19:42
Yeah, it’s it’s such a smart idea and I’m so glad that you that you you’re doing that and you’ve had success with it. I would like to pivot just because this is so interesting to me. So I apologize for the for the quick about face, but I would like to talk about Zillow and And the idea of purchasing leads that Zillow sells. I know you have a very, very strong opinions about this. So I would love it. Can we talk about that? Is that okay? Yeah,

Steven Weirich 20:08
yeah, I just wanted to finish. One quick point is, if I record that podcast with a guest, and they never hear from me again, then, you know, obviously I want to get their information out, I promote them, that’s great. But if you ever want to take on something like this, you have to find a way to stay in touch with them and not be, you know, annoying. So by sharing these stories I have I have all my past guests on the weekly email. I mean, they send me messages all the time saying, Man, I love how you write I, I just find your stories to be very interesting. And they’re very motivating. So they’re, I’m always kind of on their mind, but I’m not selling them on it. Yeah. Martha’s, you can’t just record the interview, and then never be in touch with them again, you got to provide a value for them. I just wanted to share that.

D.J. Paris 20:56
No, I want to I want to add to that, too, because that is a very, very, very important point. And really, it’s it’s part of a larger conversation to where if you’re a realtor without a podcast, which of course everyone else probably doesn’t have a podcast, that this could be very similar to, Hey, I just sold that person a house. Now what right what do I how do I stay in touch? How do I you know, keep providing value to them. But I’ll tell you, with our with our and by the way, every realtor should be thinking about that, you know, the transaction is not the end of the relationship. But with our podcast is the same thing. It’s oftentimes we like, like you do after the episodes live, we send them the links and say, Hey, if you want to promote it, go right ahead. We tag them in all the, you know, the social media posts. And then what was the weirdest thing has happened. And I just always assumed these top producers are too busy to really pay attention to any other episodes because they are too busy. But what we find is that they’re all friendly. A lot of these top producers are friendly with one another. And they get so excited when someone else that they know, has an episode. And so I don’t know if they’re just paying attention through the emails we send because we do that similarly. Or if they’re just noticing on Facebook or whatever, but they’re seeing their friends. And then they’re commenting on that they’re sending us things saying, Hey, you just interviewed my friend. And so it sounds like that sort of same sort of things happening on your end. So

Steven Weirich 22:16
yeah, well, I knew I wanted to be on your show. When I heard I was listening to one of the past episodes. It might have been with Ryan Diem. Oh, yeah. Right. It’s great. Yeah. And you and you guys, were talking about how if you’re going to contact past clients, or people, you just call them up and have a conversation right? And you say, I hope everything’s going well. And that’s it. Yeah. And the phone conversation, too many other brokerages are teaching people at the end of that phone call. Hey, do you know anyone by worse, right now, if you call me twice, by by quarter three, you calling me in August or September saying this I’m not answering the phone anymore? Don’t ask anybody for anything. Call them be a normal person to have a normal conversation. My conversation is through the written word and the newsletter I do it that’s how I do it. Everyone has their own way. But don’t call up and say it you only want buying or selling real estate.

D.J. Paris 23:12
Yeah, it’s it’s tacky in it and it’s just uncomfortable and awkward. And again, I guess maybe it works for some people, but it would it would put me off as well, let’s Okay, let’s let’s talk about Zillow. I because I want to get your opinion on this.

Steven Weirich 23:29
Okay, so one of the things I just failed to understand. And I’ve only been in the business really for three years and I’ve grown quite a bit organically the way I’ve we’ve been talking about what I don’t understand what Zillow in the leads, I mean, people are spending agents are spending 1000s And some are spending 10s of 1000s dollars a month to have a lead generation platform to where if the they get pinged and they gotta call him back within two minutes or their rate of success goes down, which just completely weird to me. But at that point in time, you make the contact and you get this lead in your in your world. I don’t understand I don’t get the relationship and it’s a total sales game. But see what I see happening in this is completely my opinion and some things I’ve read and I’ve kind of gathered my own thoughts is that eventually what happens to the real estate agent that is pouring all this money into it and a huge portion of their business business is dedicated to a zillo lead. What happens if Zillow takes those leads, pulls the rug from out underneath them and uses those leads for themselves and starts their own brokerage.

D.J. Paris 24:44
Yeah, I mean, I would think you’d almost have to be pretty naive to think they’re not going to do I mean, I certainly don’t know I have no information on Zillow, and they’ve always been very nice to me. But you know the people Zillow are always very kind, but like, I would assume they’d have to be thinking of opening up their own firm like, you make sense.

Steven Weirich 25:06
40% or whatever the number is 40% of the market goes to Zillow into their inner everyone loves her interface. I mean, they have a jury. And so we, all these agents spend, you know, tons of money on gathering these leads well, okay, so if that’s your whole business, your whole business model, and they then take it away in three years from now, then where are you? What do you do? Right? Law? Yeah, it’s

D.J. Paris 25:31
it is it is funny. It’s, you know, for some brokers that I think just like to sit behind a desk and pound the phone, and they’re okay, calling somebody 15 times before they pick up I think, you know, that’s a good fit, you know, at least today. And but then it seems to be the much more difficult path or at least more labor intensive path. And also, yeah, and then what happens if Zillow becomes like Redfin, and all of a sudden says, Hey, we’re just going to do it all ourselves. And obviously, that would dramatically impact someone’s production. And it’s funny, too, because just if, regardless of my opinion about it, because what do I know? But literally all the people I’ve interviewed, I don’t think unless they just didn’t share it. I don’t know that even one person ever purchased as purchased leads these topics. That’s not to say that it’s a bad idea that you shouldn’t do it. But there’s a I just, it’s very rare. When I talk to somebody who’s really successful, who does, maybe they’re just too busy.

Steven Weirich 26:29
I mean, because you know, the good agents who are creating everyday building relationships, that fuel more business and more impact on clients and getting great results for him. That’s good. But I just see this 10,000 pound elephant in the room name Zillow. And I can’t remember what I wrote about but I wrote a whole thing because I don’t write a lot and that everything I write about, it’s about real estate. But one thing I wrote was called the wrath of Godzilla a little while ago, I can’t remember the premise, but it had to do with this whole idea that agents are really kind of digging their own graves the way I think that’s just the way I see it. And that’s my opinion. But you know, I hope that in 10 years from now, we’re still kind of running the same model of business, but things are changing and there are disruptors out

D.J. Paris 27:17
there. Yeah, I think so. I think they’re disrupting, though, really the brokers who maybe aren’t doing such a great job, right. So I think that if you’re a really strong broker, Zillow, Redfin. Well, you know, Zillow is not a threat, of course today, but Redfin is like better. Maybe a better example is like, are you really worried about Redfin? Most of the brokers I talked to go now my clients like me, and they’re willing to pay a little bit more for my service. And, you know, and but then the people who wouldn’t want to pay those fees, maybe they are better served at Redfin. I don’t know. But it seems to be that the brokers I talked to on the show don’t seem to be too concerned about it. So I suspect that means

Steven Weirich 28:01
about it either. And, and believe me, I can see, I can see, like a huge difference between the quality of agents who are with I’ll call them blue Gail, because I don’t want to name but I can see the difference of dealing when I negotiate or go to a transaction with an agent from, you know, a REMAX an app properties or anywhere with these agents are and then I do deal with blue Gail, and it’s a whole different world.

D.J. Paris 28:32
Yes, I think that’s fair. But But I think you’re right, so there’s a lot of brokers, listening to the show. And again, you know, my thought on purchasing leads is probably very similar to Steve thought is, number one, it’s very expensive. Number two, you have to number one, number two, really, you have to be a certain type of personality to even do well. But with those types of leads, because these are people like Steve, this is a, this becomes a sales conversation, where and by the way, you’re probably competing with at least one or two other agents Anyway, on that same call. Because those they’re probably getting that lead to at least one or two other people. Or it’s certainly possible that they are so yeah, it’s it’s a very easy, it seems like a quick or good fix. Like, I’ll spend five grand a month and if I close one or two deals, you know, hey, it pays for itself. But yeah, it seems like it’s a tougher road, where you get where you can go out and meet three people in a day who don’t know you, or like Steve does create a podcast, go talk to business owners give them value, and then watch when they go, Hey, what do you do outside of this podcast?

Steven Weirich 29:35
I look at it as the lead is the path to least resistance because it’s quick, you know, there’s instinct, where what I am doing or how you’ve built your audience is the path of most resistance because it takes time. Oh, yes. I’m not a writer. I don’t know how to write I mean, I literally locked myself really sacrif faced a lot of business for six months, teaching myself how to really tell stories and write in a in a way that people would want to read and go to the next sentence because that’s what it’s about. If you’re gonna write something, that person to go to the next sentence is what you want to get to where they come to a conclusion that your approach or how you do things are like, wow, I get that there’s an aha moment, I need to work with him, I need to talk to him. That takes a lot of work. And I was scared. Leaving I was I was frightened. I’m like, how will this even work? But it’s it takes a lot of time and commitment. And a lot of people are more into that instant gratification, I got a lead on the phone, let me call them and try and close this business. That’s just not the way I see a business really working in the long term. And I look at things I don’t look at things in six months, I look at three to five years out is how I’m planning my business.

D.J. Paris 30:54
Yeah, I 100% agree. And then the challenge, of course, you’re right, this is the passive path of most resistance. I mean, same thing with me, like, I am now locked into doing this podcast least once a week, it is a ton of work without any immediate benefit to me personally, and I have to put that aside and go Well, I’m providing value, people like it. And ultimately, if nothing else, that’s a good thing. But guess what people do contact me, just out of the blue, they figure out where I work, and they contact me and say, hey, I want to learn about your thing. So it does actually happen. But yeah, for the first 50 episodes or so there was no phone calls. And it’s also just not the reason I do this. And also, if it was the reason I do this, nobody would want to be interviewed on the show. And nobody would probably want to listen. So you know, and probably similar to you, I suspect if you were out there really self promoting but sort of disguising it as a hey, I’m going to interview this business owner probably wouldn’t work for you either. So that’s awesome. Oh, by the way, I want to plug your website because unfortunately, I didn’t see the website before we basically got on the air. And this is such a great website. So go to Steven wyrick.com, which is his last name, just it’s Steven Ste ve and then w e i r i c h, I will post a link to this, of course in the notes. But there’s some great stuff obviously links to the podcast. Stephen has a book on here called the value driven approach to sell real estate. So everyone should read that too. But it’s a really cool website, I’ve seen a lot. And he’s just got a lot of his content on here that you can just immediately access. So definitely,

Steven Weirich 32:30
yeah, I think I appreciate the plug, I just started loading the content on the site in the last few weeks, because I built it about a half a mil for me about a month ago. And now we’re working with techy people to try and drive people to the site. And like they’ve told me they’re like you have three years worth of content, and it’s all organic, and I’ll be able to drive traffic. So there’s a lot that’s not on there. It’s kind of in the infancy. But yeah, I’m very happy with the results and how it’s turned out.

D.J. Paris 33:00
Oh, that’s great. Well, I would love to to, to cap this off with any advice that you have, because you’re relatively we’ll just call you still newer to the game and you’re doing really well. Steve is also a top producer, we should mention that if we didn’t already, but any aside from all the advice you’ve given, is there anything else or mistakes that either you made, or you see brokers making, who are either newer to the business or looking to grow their production or just advice you have in general for realtors,

Steven Weirich 33:30
make sure you surround yourself with with good people, because from attorneys, to lenders to home inspectors, everybody reflects upon your business and you want to work with a a group of individuals who who are all have a common theme, you know what I mean? They all want to work together and they all hold the same values. And I wanted to tell a quick story. I got into the business maybe six, seven months into it. We had a lender that was trying to work with with me and the gentleman I was working with at the time. And the managing broker in my office had kind of said that. Well, you be a little leery of him. I know who he is, and it’s not good. And sure enough, a few weeks later, he asked me to write up a falsified, you know, a fake contract, so he can submit it to a bank for a short sale. And I said, Why am I can’t do that. He was like, oh, no, it’s no big deal. You just will just fill it out and submit it and I can produce a pre approval letter and that can get us a BPO done on the property and we can get it through. So we at least know the price that they’ll accept.

D.J. Paris 34:40
Oh, I see. Okay, okay.

Steven Weirich 34:43
And I said I go Ellison. I know you guys will that will then we’ll be able to close on the property and you know, we won’t like now I won’t do that. So you you I knew right.

D.J. Paris 34:56
That’s an amazing it’s amazing.

Steven Weirich 35:00
was the end of that relationship. So my advice is to make sure you surround yourself with with people who share the same values as you do. Because as time goes on, when you find these people, your business will grow. And every one you go through a transaction, what I love is that my clients will be like, oh, man, I love your attorney, I love your, your lender is such a great guy, he did such a good, you know, he’s such a good dude, and everything. And it all is like one big happy family. And that’s what I’m most proud of, is working with the people that I that I get to work get to work with.

D.J. Paris 35:38
Yeah, and that’s another, that’s a really important point. And I think oftentimes, especially maybe brokers who were newer to the business, don’t realize that they should start cultivating those relationships, even maybe before you have clients, or at least when you don’t have clients, that’s even good time to do it, is find somebody who you really connect with and who you know, does a really good job, a good lender, a good attorney, maybe a good insurance agent, right? Maybe a good financial adviser, good tax person, a good interior decorator, etc. And getting the getting that team together. So you can just without hesitation, be able to say Oh, you have to talk to so and so. And without worrying about how they’re going to, you know, be well be received. So I think that’s really, really important, and also to a great way to continue to add value to your clients. And you know, somebody, for example, you know, a lot of times brokers who are newer might do and this is maybe more of a city thing, but certainly could be in the suburbs as well. They oftentimes do rentals for a while just to stay busy. And I always say once somebody moves into a rental, are you contacting them a week later, going, Hey, if you got your rental insurance yet, here’s a good insurance agent, right? That’s a really specific, simple example. But it’s a great way with you providing value and staying in touch.

Steven Weirich 36:57
I agree with you, because we what we do is we have our our clients are, you know, making sure that they’re speaking with my attorneys to get their, their wills and trusts are awesome to make sure their properties are protected after they buy them. You know, and as far as let’s say, there’s somebody who couldn’t be on the mortgage, and let’s say husband or wife go to buy a home and there’s only one that goes on the mortgage, we make sure that the other one is actively participating in improving their credit. So the transaction never stops at the closing table. And I think that’s another piece of advice where I think newer agents who are in sales, sales, sales, we got it, we have to generate commissions in order to put food on the table, the transaction doesn’t stop when you receive that check and really kind of begins because that’s when you really, really get to cultivate that relationship, and there’s so many more things you can do to provide value for the consumer.

D.J. Paris 37:55
Well, I couldn’t agree more that is that is as well said as anything I could have ever thought of. So we’ll leave it at that because that is a perfect piece of advice and about as good of a piece of advice, as I’ve heard. So let’s let’s stop there. So I want everyone who’s listening just to get an idea of what Steve himself has built it, which I think is so very unique. And such a high value proposition to his community is go visit Steven wyrick.com Again, Ste ve N W E i, r i c h.com, he’s going to be adding some of this, this content that he’s curated over in Britain himself over over the years, but you right now you can see a lot of content, you can listen to his podcast, and maybe even consider doing something similar in your own community. Because, you know, it’s a, it’s a good idea, being able to provide value to to your to your community. And, and it’s funny too, because I want to just make this point is these business owners are getting phone calls to promote their business, but they’re getting calls from like local radio, maybe local television, newspapers, it’s all Do you want to buy advertising? And see becomes like say no, I’ll just I’ll just promote you. This would be fun. We’ll have a great conversation. We want to hear your story. How did you build this business? You know what, you know what, why is it passionate to you and that sort of thing. So it’s really cool. And, again, cheers to you for that. But I also had Steven, of course, is a realtor. So if anyone is listening who would like to work with Stephen, of course, he said add properties the biggest and you know, one of the great, great reputation firms in Chicago. What’s the best way that you know, anyone can reach out to you?

Steven Weirich 39:38
They can just email me at C Steven, letter C and then the name Steven at@properties.com. Or you can reach me at 847-607-6711

D.J. Paris 39:51
Well, I think we set it all so this is this has been a great episode and behalf on behalf of Steven and myself we thank you for listening and please continue. If you’re a realtor out there and you find these kinds of episodes value, please pass them along to other brokers, you know, and we’ll keep interviewing great people like Steven and keep providing content. So thanks, Steven. I appreciate your time. Thanks for having me.

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Have you ever wanted to know the exact steps taken that resulted in someone earning the coveted CAR Rookie of the Year award? And then the steps taken after that to get to 24m in revenue just four years later? Today on the show we speak with Stephanie LoVerde who has accomplished both these feats! In her first year she was the single biggest rookie producer in CAR. Four years later, she’s a top 1% producer doing 24m annually. All without purchasing (or being handed) leads. She’s a true rising star and you’re going to love this episode!

Stephanie LoVerde can be reached at 847.903.8589 and sloverde@jamesonsir.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:16
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate agents for Chicago real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. And we are coming up on our 75th episode, which is very exciting. And we just crossed over the one year mark of doing the show. And when I started this the show you know about that about a year ago? I wasn’t sure really two things. One, would anyone want to listen to interviews with top 1% Real Estate producers in the Chicagoland area? I thought they would but I wasn’t sure. And then also would 1% top producers even be willing to talk to me and share their ideas of how they grew their business and strategies. And thankfully, both of those answers to those questions were Yes. And so we’ve had a tremendous amount of fun doing the show. And people seem to really like it. And based on our the numbers from the listeners. So thank you for everyone that’s done an interview on the show, and everyone that’s listened to an episode and we have almost 70 episodes now. So if you’re new to the show, please go back and listen to old episodes. This information that is provided by these these top producers is really timeless. And it often is something that will give you the best possible education on how to grow your business. Because you’re less hearing it from the people that know how to do that. So keep listening. Please tell a friend if there are any brokers in your office that are not aware of the show, let them know or if there’s any top producers that you feel could be a good fit because they’re doing something unique or interesting or they’re just, you know, maybe it’s not all that unique and interesting, but they’re just out there. We’re doing a great job, we want to talk to them as well. And by the way, we are so backlogged on replying to suggestions. So if you’ve emailed us, or written us on social media and said, Hey, you have to talk to so and so. We have it in a list we will eventually get to it but we have almost 100 People that have written in that want to be on the show. So please keep sending those suggestions. But don’t take it personally if we haven’t yet replied we’re just simply too busy. But we are so excited and thrilled and honored that people want to be on the show so we will eventually get to you and thank you for reaching out. Please also follow us on Facebook you can find us at keeping it real pod. Also, our website is keeping it real pod.com You can listen to every episode we’ve ever done. Obviously find us on iTunes and Google Play and anywhere else podcasts are served. And now on to our interview with the great Stephanie liberty.

Today on the show, we have Stephanie le verde from Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty Stephanie is an accomplished and dedicated broker associate who above all genuinely cares for our clients. Her mission is to provide expert advice and guidance so that buyers and sellers can truly find the home of their dreams or sell their home for top dollar. Stephanie prides herself on being a fierce client advocate by delivering top notch service and partnerships are unique, supportive and built on trust. She believes mutual respect is crucial strives to give each client a positive experience based on prompt and authentic communication. Real estate is not only about the transaction, it’s about developing long lasting relationships. Stephanie’s warm demeanor yet tough negotiation skills ensure that she that her client’s best interests are at heart at all times. When Stephanie isn’t helping people move you’ll find her out and about exploring our beautiful city. Here in Chicago she spends time in her neighborhood with her puppy Louie and also enjoys running on the lakefront, which I should do more of visiting new restaurants hanging out with a close knit family and having wine with friends. And also to put just a cap Stephanie is in her fifth year as a broker already a top 1% producer, which is a huge, massive, massive accomplishment. So welcome, Stephanie to the show.

Stephanie LoVerde 4:10
Thank you, DJ, thank you so much for having me here today. I’m excited to talk with you excited to share my story a little bit and hopefully add some value to your podcast here and the people that are listening.

D.J. Paris 4:24
Awesome. Well, that sounds great. So let’s talk about your story. How did you get into real estate?

Stephanie LoVerde 4:30
So I was in the meetings and event industry for a solid 10 years after obtaining my undergraduate degree. And it was in that environment that I learned to work really hard and juggling multiple clients simultaneously, multiple personalities, multiple timelines and you know, essentially putting events together. And now when I look back, I see that this that profession and and that portion of my life really well informed the skills that I use in real estate because as we know, we’re often shifting and pivoting and putting out a fire. And at the end, I compare, you know, the event whether that had been a party or a meeting, or a conference or a trade show that I used to be planning. It’s very similar to closing, right, we’ve reached the finish line.

D.J. Paris 5:25
You’re right. I mean, there’s, there’s a million steps, even even to putting an open house together. That is like hosting an event, right? I mean, it is hosting an event. So it makes perfect sense, I’m sorry, continue.

Stephanie LoVerde 5:37
So well, without really even knowing it, I was learning how to use these skills that would later really assist me in developing my real estate career. So I had decided, however, with that being said, I had decided that the travel portion of the meetings and event industry had really started to take a toll on me, I felt like I was in these great cities. Specifically, I remember a time when I was in Seattle, and I really wanted to explore and go down to the water and eat some great seafood. And I was stuck in this freezing cold conference room for essentially a week, and then I flew back to Chicago,

D.J. Paris 6:16
it will, I’ll pause you for a second because I was in Seattle this weekend. And being that it was not a work scenario, I was able to do all of those things you wished I could have done, because you were obviously stuck with me in the conference in

Stephanie LoVerde 6:29
the freezing cold conference. All right. So you know, I just started doing some reflection and self discovery. And I had this conversation with myself, like, what do I really want to do when I grow up. And I decided that I was missing something that was a personal fulfillment, you know, I was pulling off these events. without a hitch, I was satisfying my boss and my clients. But I was missing something like in my soul and my core. And after, you know, some conversation and research and things like this, I decided that I would go back to school to achieve my master’s degree in counseling.

D.J. Paris 7:08
Oh, interesting.

Stephanie LoVerde 7:11
And so I applied to DePaul, for the school counseling program, because I envisioned myself actually in a high school environment, working with teens that are sort of struggling to find their way and a variety of issues that have been personally, you know, dear to my heart shows, it really interests me and you know, making a difference in those lives. And so applied to DePaul completed all of my coursework, took out a very hefty loan, sure, completed all my coursework. And, you know, simultaneously decided to take a part time job at a real estate company, because I wanted to be able to, you know, go out for a beer or have dinner with friends. And when you’re in grad school, it’s hard to do that unless you have a little bit of income. Sure. So school was my main focus, working part time at a real estate firm was my side gig. I was creating marketing brochures, I was training agents on how to use Facebook, etc, etc. And fast forward to over a year and a half later, a full time position opened at that real estate company on the corporate side, being a support manager essentially. And it was at that point that I decided to put my counseling degree on pause. I’m not continue forward with the internship portion. I had completed the coursework, so years of schooling, years of, you know, in classwork or classroom work, and explore this full time position with the real estate company. And I, you know, I struggled with it, because I thought, Well, I’m not a quitter. And why is this inserting itself into my life, but I’m a firm believer that opportunities, cross our paths, and it’s our decision whether we want to take that opportunity, right. And so fast forward in two, three years later, I was still employed full time with this real estate firm. And I decided, you know, what, I’m going to use all of that counseling, education and all of that schooling, I’m going to go forward with getting my license, because I feel like that helping piece that I was always missing, could be used in this real estate profession that I’ve surrounded myself with for the last three years. But I know I can do it differently than everyone else in this office, because I would hear people on the phone, you know, and I would see how they worked. And I thought, I want to be a real estate professional. But I want to do it my way. And I want to bring something different to people that are looking to sell or buy a home.

D.J. Paris 9:43
Yeah, I think that’s well thank you for that story. I think that’s particularly interesting because and and I’m someone who does not practice real estate myself. I work on more on the marketing side and in the corporate level. And what I’ve always thought is somebody who’s kind of an outsider really is that like oftentimes I think and I think the top 1% realtors, like yourself completely understand this. But the reality of it is is you are you are helping people or at least if you take that mindset, you’re often going to have deeper and more fulfilling relationships. Because at the end of the day, you we were talking offline about this being such a digital world. You know, clients can find homes, they really don’t need you for that, right? They can go to Zillow, they can search in fact they do, right, they are going to Zillow, and Redfin and all of the Trulia etc, they, they, you are not the key to, I mean, maybe to go see the property, yes, they need a broker, but ultimately, to even just find a property like anyone can sort of do that on their own. But it’s every other step of the of the process, which is incredibly difficult, emotional. And really, you do need guidance. So you are a counselor of sorts, so that even if sorts, you are a counselor helping somebody through that transaction. And so I think that like makes perfect sense why those skills would translate over.

Stephanie LoVerde 11:01
Thank you. Yeah, so I think that, you know, between my counseling background and my meeting and event planning, background, those coupled together, really have shaped my growing business and just using skills from there. And so, in February of 2013, I decided to just hit the ground running not look back, single woman with a mortgage, you know, and I was going to figure out a way to make this happen. I didn’t have a contingency plan, I didn’t have a part time job. I didn’t have any of that I just said, you know, sink or swim, like figure it out, you can do

D.J. Paris 11:39
this. And that’s, it’s incredibly brave, too, because even out of all the top producers we’ve talked to, or I’ve talked to this podcast, and there’s been dozens and dozens, all of them pretty much even though they’ve gone on to great things. Even all of them, you know, had a difficult first year, it’s like that’s just kind of for most people how it goes. There are exceptions, but rarely. So not to interrupt your story. But I’m always curious, like, Hey, you’re like, This is what I’m doing full time. Can you talk about your first year at all?

Stephanie LoVerde 12:11
Yeah, of course. So my first year of sales, I was Chicago Rookie of the Year. Oh, I

D.J. Paris 12:16
did not. I did not know that. That is huge, huge, big deal. So that’s so just so everyone knows what that is. So there’s local associations. Of course, there’s car there’s Main Street, there’s North Shore, Barrington, there’s a bunch and car is is the one that most people who live in the city are going to be members of there’s gosh, probably over 20,000 members every year, probably somewhere between three to 7000 new brokers join that are, you know, essentially in their first year, what Stephanie is saying is she was the absolute top Rookie of the Year five years ago, which I did not know. And that is such a big deal. I can’t even say what a big deal. It is, like the biggest possible deal. So congrats on an amazing first year, five years.

Stephanie LoVerde 12:56
That’s very kind of you. I still get the chills when I say it. Because, you know, like I said, I didn’t really leave myself an option on on how this would play out.

D.J. Paris 13:08
So everyone who’s listening is like, how do you how did you do that? And we were talking offline, because Stephanie’s like, I don’t want I want to make sure I’m boring. And it’s like, no, no, don’t worry about being boring. Because whatever you did to get to that is, you know, whether it makes sense or not sounds super exciting. People are just dying to know. So what what steps did you take in your first year that you can help to get you to that level?

Stephanie LoVerde 13:33
Yeah, so my very first closing was 78 days after I began,

D.J. Paris 13:40
wow, that’s amazing.

Stephanie LoVerde 13:42
And people told me prepare for six months prepare, you’re never gonna have a closing for six months. Like that’s the industry standard. And I was like, okay, that maybe the industry standard. But I’m going to do better. Sure. And, you know, I talked with the colleagues in my office that I trusted. And I said, there’s two guys in particular that I really got along nicely with and we go to lunch, and we talk and stuff like this. And I said, I want all of your open houses.

D.J. Paris 14:11
Oh, so, so smart.

Stephanie LoVerde 14:14
I want your open houses on Saturday. I want your open houses on Sunday, I want to have open houses up properties that don’t normally have open houses. I didn’t prescribe to the school of thought, where make sure you select the type of listing in the neighborhood and the price point, all the stuff. I said give me any shirt. I’ll I’ll sit your 150,000

D.J. Paris 14:38
I’m not that busy. I will do it.

Stephanie LoVerde 14:41
Right. Well in the way that I looked at it is that anyone walking in that door has a slight interest in in buying a home whether it’s now or five years from now. Just even a slight interest. Right so I’m better off spending four hours a day As on each weekend day, they’re meeting these people getting in front of these people talking with these people shaking their hand and building rapport, looking them in the eye getting to know them a little bit than I am, you know, just out randomly talking to someone at brunch or at a bar or something like that, as you’re getting started,

D.J. Paris 15:17
right? No, and that’s a really strong point is yes, getting out meeting people is better than not getting out meeting people. But getting out and meeting people who are specifically looking to buy a home is an even more targeted conversation. So it makes perfect sense.

Stephanie LoVerde 15:32
And thank you, and you know, I just worked the hell out of these open houses, I would be on time I would be professionally dressed, I would have music playing, I would talk with the people about them and not about the home, I would never try to sell the property. Not that I wasn’t interested in helping my colleagues sell the property. But I was interested in talking with those people, and then talking about home, and what their needs were because real estate, you know, I think where some people go wrong is, you know, we’re posting all these pictures of gorgeous kitchens and pretty bathrooms. And that’s all well and good. But real estate’s about the need. Why are we moving? What is going on in our lives? You know, are we getting married? Are we getting divorced? Are we having children? Death, sadness, happiness, all these things? And I think too often we’re obsessed with the fixtures and finishes, and we’re not obsessed with the people.

D.J. Paris 16:26
That’s a really strong point. I think you’re right. It also, you know, for brokers that are just posting, hey, look at my new listing on Facebook, like nobody cares. Because most I mean, it’s not that nobody ever cares, it’s that most people are gonna go okay, that’s fine. That’s nice. But it doesn’t it doesn’t really probably have anything to do with them. Right? Their situation, they might not be interested in moving. But so yeah, I can I can talk about Facebook all day. But But you’re right, I think I think you’re right, this idea of, of getting beyond sort of the superficial aspects, or the more tangible aspects of the transaction, and getting into the more the emotional. And I know for me, too, like, even when I bought my first condo when I was I don’t know, it’s 30, I guess. And I didn’t know what I was doing. And I and I didn’t understand any part of the transaction. And I went and saw place and eventually, I was walked in, I was like, Okay, this is the place. And then I turned to my realtor. And I it was great. It was amazing. And I said, When can I can I think about this over the weekend? Or when do I need to make it offers like you need to make an offer Monday morning by eight o’clock linking to have to, or else this will be gone? And it was it if he hadn’t have said that I wouldn’t have known to do that. And so and I just, he was also a car Rookie of the Year Believe it or not a million years ago. He but I trusted him. I was like, okay, cool. And he guided me throughout the whole process. So I think that’s a really important point is that, you know, I emotionally I was like, this is the right place. And I had to turn him and go now what do I actually do? He was like, Okay, here’s how

Stephanie LoVerde 18:00
well, and that’s thank you for bringing that up, because that’s something in my first year, I, I have a document. And I actually have to give credit to a friend in the industry, Joey Chu pettah, who sat with me and and said, you know, something that has worked for me stuff is that I’ve put the steps of the purchase process in a document. And I’m constantly tweaking it. I’m constantly refining it, I’m constantly modifying it. But having these steps allows you to feel like a teacher, and an educator, and someone that’s providing guidance. And someone that is, you know, the strategic negotiator, and not the person that is scheduling the showing and opening the door. And that’s like always resonated with me. And so I started that document. And since then the document has evolved many times so much recently, as of a week ago. But, you know, really focusing on the stats and the education. And like you said earlier, buyers have information readily available at their fingertips. They probably find a listing before I do if they have a red fin alert on

D.J. Paris 19:15
specifically if they’re walking into an open house. I mean, maybe they just walked by and saw the sign or they saw the open house listing online somewhere.

Stephanie LoVerde 19:23
Yep. And so you know, I think in my first year I was I was constantly trying my best to become a valuable resource and not someone that opened a door and just keeping that as my like my my guiding principle. And I want

D.J. Paris 19:39
to go back to one quick thing on the open house because I think this is so important. So what’s definitely did is basically begged people in our office, I will do any open house for your listings, I will show up I will you know, etc. And then of course, buyers walked in unrepresented and she would of course have those conversations I am cure So what you would do after they left? So let’s say it was a, you know, a Saturday open house, when would you contact them? Obviously, it would depend on the conversation. But what would you do after that? Once you’ve captured their information, you had the conversation and then they leave? How do you proceed?

Stephanie LoVerde 20:16
So before hotspots were as readily available as they are now I paid for one on my on my phone, because I wanted to be able to have Wi Fi in the open house not for a stupid sign in sheet where everyone you know, puts a typo because they really don’t want your email address to have their email address. I mean, but because I wanted to be able to say, and hopefully this is helpful to newer brokers in the business, but okay, well, what do you think of this property after I’ve built rapport and they’ve taken a quick tour, and they come back to talk to me in the kitchen? Yeah, we like it. But we wish we had a bigger second bedroom. And I can say, hey, wait, come here for a second. Let me just pull up a quick search on the MLS. We, they would come to my computer to my to my MacBook look over my shoulder. And I would say, Well, did you see this one right on the street? And it would say no. And I said, Well, let me send it to you via the MLS right now. Because you know what, you can take this brochure, and you can find this online. But if I can send it to you, right from the MLS, right, you have all of the great details, right available at your fingertips. And they’re excited because you’re giving them something they want. And I’m excited because I’m capturing their legitimate email address.

D.J. Paris 21:22
That’s very smart. And now you can really market to them indefinitely, because you’ve captured them. But that is a really, really intelligent way to guarantee that you get their actual contact information. And by the way, it’s not really, there’s no trickery, you’re actually giving them value. So of course, why wouldn’t they want to give you that it’s not just hey, you know, sign in this sheet, which again, you are going to get some bad emails and phone numbers that way. Very smart. No one has ever suggested that on the show. So that is a huge, huge tip for people doing open houses. Very, very smart.

Stephanie LoVerde 21:55
Thank you. And you know, I would follow up that same day, I wouldn’t wait until the next day. I go home that night. And before I went out on a Saturday night or before a job, whatever I would do all my follow up, I would complete my follow up. And my follow up was never like, can you give me some feedback about the home? Right? Yeah, like, what would you change? It’s so boring. It was just, hey, it was great to meet you enjoy chatting with you. I hope you enjoy your time with me as well. I’m a full time broker, I’m available to you, please. No, I’m always a phone call or email away. And you know, I’ve had people contact me three years later saying I met you at an open house in 2014 or something. And you you stuck out because you didn’t pressure as you weren’t you were just, you know, not to toot my own horn, but it felt like people were comfortable, you know, reaching back out to me a few years later.

D.J. Paris 22:47
Yes. Yeah. No, it makes all the sense in the world. So how so you were doing open houses, essentially, every weekend? I imagined until you got too busy.

Stephanie LoVerde 22:59
Yeah, I did. I, I worked really hard my first year. You know, and I still work really hard, of course. But I needed those contacts. When I knew once I had those contacts, I’d be okay, sure. Because I would nurture those relationships and kind of what we were talking about before we jumped on here. The relationship component has become huge in my business, I mean, it’s the source of my growing business. So in my first year, my goal was to first and second year to be fair, I did 6.1 My first year and 11.5 My second, but in those two, my first two years, my goal was to meet to network to grab all these names to put good potential prospects in my, in my database. Sure, not keep it on, you know, piece of paper, but really, what are my database and keep keep a pulse on these people?

D.J. Paris 23:51
Yeah, I, boy, you know, it’s it’s funny, like, Sister earlier, when Stephanie and I, before we started, we were kind of talking about what we would discuss, she goes, Well, this is just going to be kind of boring, because, you know, and and it’s so funny, because it’s anything but boring. But it is it is exactly how people should how brokers should really do it. Right. And, and so in your first to hear oh, I have a question. So and again, it depends on the open house, but how you know, how many leads? Would you average? Or would you get on a on an open house? Would you would you average at least one would there be more? That’s a good

Stephanie LoVerde 24:27
question. So I obviously wanted to meet as many people as possible, but I would justify my time. If I had a connection, not someone that was ready to buy in six months, not someone that but I felt like I had a connection with someone. Right, which is harder to measure because it’s it’s it’s only one sided Right? Like I don’t know how that person was feeling good enough to feel like oh, you know, we connected and that was that was worth my two hours I met one person and oftentimes you’d meet two or three that you feel that way and somebody I’m struggling in Vietnam, right, depending what was going on in Chicago that weekend and all the other variables that we deal with as real estate professionals. But if I could get one connection out of an open house, I felt like that was worth my energy and my time.

D.J. Paris 25:14
Yeah, I imagine and I know you’re wrapped up in your own production now with your own business, and obviously very, very busy. But I imagine you probably still would suggest to people who just get their license, you know, you know, this year to continue that process of ask other brokers in your office to do open houses. I suspect that I would imagine that strategy is really no different today than it was five years ago as far as its effectiveness

Stephanie LoVerde 25:41
with the asterik of Don’t Be Greedy. And you know, $250,000 buyers are just as good and a better use of your time than a million dollar buyers. Sure. Numbers can’t be choosers.

D.J. Paris 25:57
You know, I’ll tell you a funny story. So I don’t know if you know, Nico apostle. He’s, he’s at Coldwell. Now he’s at Keller Williams, and I had him on the show. He’s, you know, the greatest guy, nicest guy ever. And he was telling me what he did. And you’ll love this for open houses. We did the same approach his first year, he, I think he was like, 23. He’s like, nobody is going to list a million dollar home with me. I don’t, I don’t know what I’m doing. I am a moron. And so the same thing, he goes, You know, I just went to everybody in my office, I imagined it was Coldwell Banker. And he said, I will do any open house. And you know, and he just did them. And he but he went one step further, which I love this. He and I’ll just say this to the people who haven’t heard that episode, although they can go back and find it. He said what he did, is he the same thing you did, but he would also show up about an hour early. And he would walk around very politely, because he’s such a polite, nice person, he would walk around to the neighboring homes, and he would just very, you know, sort of softly knock on the door and go, Hey, didn’t mean to bother. You just wanted to let you know that I’m doing an open house for your neighbor down the way it and here’s my card, if you want to come by and check it out, feel free. And that was all he would say. And it was really smart. I said, I was kind of like, oh, that’s That’s smart. And he goes well, the reason why it’s really hard is because everybody’s interested in what their neighbor’s home looks like. So he said, I get people just walk over. And I was like, That is brilliant. So if if it’s if you’re doing an open house, and nobody’s walking in maybe walking very kindly and politely knock on a few people’s doors and say, Hey, if you want to come check it out, you can. But I always thought that was that was a smart approach. If it was, didn’t have anyone coming. So let’s enter right. Yeah, so So that was it. And by the way, we should mention Stephanie has never bought leads, like the every deal. She’s done, she sourced herself. And I imagine almost all of her deals at this point come from referrals. So this is a truly an organic build. And she you know this she’s done this all herself. And let’s talk about so So was that you’re really the the major driver for leads for you in your first year was open houses.

Stephanie LoVerde 27:58
It was yeah, I didn’t spend a ton of money on farming, necessarily, because I didn’t know where to farm or what farmer what to say. But open houses and, you know, referrals from people that basically said, we’ll take a chance on you Sure. You know, my brother in law said, Okay, stop, you can restart my garden condo investment over Roscoe. And so and I remember sitting at his island, kitchen island with my sister, and Natalie and Danny, going through the listing documents, and not even knowing what the heck they really sad, and just laughing my ass off because he’s like, You are clueless. And I started so Well, part of this whole thing is faking it till you make it right. And, you know, I was lucky to have a few people know that I was a hard worker and that they could trust me. And the rest would hopefully figure itself out with their collaboration and patients. And so but but beyond, you know, some family and friends that were willing to take a chance on me after I begged them essentially, it was Mike mate, the strong portion of my first year it was due to open houses and also, you know, rewarding people for giving other people my name. I’m still very passionate about that. I don’t pay a referral gift when I close the second someone connects me I think this is important for people too if I’m hopefully bringing some value to this conversation, but the second someone connects me to a friend, family colleague, whatever. I send them almost a $50 gift including shipping. Wow, remind me

D.J. Paris 29:45
to start sending you all sorts. That’s that’s that’s amazing.

Stephanie LoVerde 29:51
Not that I’m you know, moneybags or something but you know, everyone likes to be appreciated and To be thanks. And I think we’ve gotten so far away from that. So I have an arrangement with a company called good Carmel, and they have these great little Cardinals and they send five Cardinals in a little hurt box for me. And with a thank you note that whether or not this person decides to reach out to me or whether or not they hire me to buy or sell, I totally appreciate that you were able to confidently recommend them to me or recommend me to them. Yeah, you know, and so often people send thank you notes or your gifts once you close, and it’s like, oh, that’s not really right. Someone should be thanked and praised. The second They even

D.J. Paris 30:44
provided value. So by passing your information along is the value. So that’s what should be rewarded. Right? So yeah, you’re sorry. And I want to piggyback on that with a story something that’s just happened to me yesterday. So I, what I do in my job is I recruit Realtors for our firm and one i We have relationships with a couple of the real estates or with one of the real estate schools. And so I often go in when the students are in the process of taking their class and they say, Oh, by the way, when you pass your exam, come look at our firm, you know, I bring in pizza. And that’s really no big deal. But I always do this. And I’ve done this over the years, and I’ve probably done this in front of at least 1000 students. And just yesterday or Yeah, it was yesterday. Because two, yeah, today’s Tuesday, just yesterday, and this is the first time I have I received it. And so like last Thursday, I went to one of the schools I did my little 32nd Spiel brought in pizza and said, Okay, guys, give us a call, give me a call, if you want to learn more about what we offer. And I got a thank you card in the mail from one of the students. I don’t know, he must have just found the address of our firm and sent it to me, he wrote me the kindest nicest note saying thank you for the pizza, which was like no big deal. And he said, I really appreciate you coming in talking to us for a few seconds about what blah, blah, blah. And, and I went, this is the own and I’d have 1000 people who I’ve hopefully provided value to even not even just talking about our firm, I say, here’s a couple things to think about when you want to like, you know, join a firm. He’s the only one that has ever written me a thank you. And I was like, I will never forget that guy. I don’t know if they’ll end up ever joining our firm or not. But I was like, Wow, all I did was bring this person pizza, but they immediately sent me a thank you. And I was like, out of 1000 people I’ve talked to only one’s ever done that. So like a acknowledgement over something that provided value to somebody is such a huge thing. And I appreciate I you know, I think you’re right, like many brokers are going to send a closing gift like that is pretty commonplace, and certainly a nice thing to do. But it’s kind of like, in a way you could say it’s like when you’re, you know, insurance agent sends a happy holidays card. It’s like, okay, well, she also or he or she sent 2000 of those out, you know, and it’s just stamped with their signature, and it’s like, it’d be cool to get a card that goes, hey, you’ve been with me 13 years, I just wanted to say thanks, that was really great. And I really appreciate your business. So any anything that goes a little bit above and beyond, like the Hey, thanks for the referral. Before that referral even becomes a client is is very unique. Thank you for that. Any any other tips? So I’ve taken up a ton of your time. So what any other suggestions you have? Oh, and by the way, I wanted to ask you to so now you are this top producer, you’re in your fifth year, you’re, you’re crushing it, you’re doing a great, obviously a great job. I’m curious how often brokers ask you to do open or asked to do open houses for your listings? Is it common? Are you surprised that it’s maybe not as common? Or are you getting a lot of that?

Stephanie LoVerde 33:43
I’m surprised that it’s not as bad as we have.

D.J. Paris 33:47
We have 600 Realtors at our firm. And I will tell you, they would say the almost always all of them would say the same thing.

Stephanie LoVerde 33:55
It’s funny to me, it’s like you have to put the work in if you want to succeed in this business, and it doesn’t come easy. And you have to give up your Saturday afternoon. She I mean, you just do and

D.J. Paris 34:09
you’re doing the listing agent a favor, or at least most of the time, they’ll probably say yes, not all, maybe not always they might have a different relationship with the seller that would prohibit you from going in there and that’s okay. But you’re likely doing them a giant favor. So or at least you know, making the seller feel like something’s going on and happening. And all it all you ever have to do is ask and the broker will tell you if you can do that or not. And it’s

Stephanie LoVerde 34:35
right. And hey, guess what, when I have an opportunity that maybe I can’t handle because you know, it’s just me and way of my structure. I have a full time unlicensed assistant, and obviously, you know, she does not work on work directly when it’s on open houses or with showings and things like that because you can’t. But when I have an opportunity there’s times when I’m at capacity And, you know, my thing is I won’t take a piece of business unless I feel like I can give those people 100%. So if you’ve recently offered to host open houses, for me, gave me some good feedback, and you did a great job. And my clients were thrilled that, you know, we had that opportunity, you’re gonna be front of mind for me. So, as a new agent, I think, definitely seek out those opportunities and build the relationship with that person that might need need some help?

D.J. Paris 35:27
And then I would like to finish with with I know you had just won a pretty major deal on the construction site. Do you mind talking about that, or just telling us why you think you want that business and sort of as maybe more advice, even for our brokers listening out there?

Stephanie LoVerde 35:46
Sure. So I recently learned that I was hired to sell a new construction project in Logan Square ground up. And these people had interviewed a large handful of brokers, and they decided to select me. So whenever a seller or buyer says that Yep, you know, I’d like to move forward with you. I always say thank you so much. I know you had many options, and what was it that made you feel comfortable working with me? And these particular people said, well, you, we felt that you were more passionate than anyone else we spoke to, which I really love, because I am super passionate about what I do. And obviously, when the energy my voice, like, I get excited about real estate, and secondly, you spoke a lot about the relationship component and how that’s important to your business. And, you know, we want someone that values that as well, because we operate that way. And I think, you know, all of us in this crazy profession we couldn’t be so transaction focus, like, you know, that appraisal just came in low or that inspection was terrible, and, like, sort of tactical and logistical. And when we can really think about the relationship piece in the bigger picture of it all, and I give a lot of credit to Jim Miller for instilling that thought process in me. You know, it’s more about the big picture in the people. And yes, we have to keep our deals afloat. But to speak to that relationship piece and wanting what’s best for your clients. I think that that goes a really, really, really long way. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 37:20
well, obviously it did, at least with with this client, which is a big, big deal. And when when construction opportunities come up, you can bet that they they definitely looked at more than a few names. Because, you know, of course that’s destined to do the due diligence process. So to win that in your even in your fifth year, when you’re up against probably people that have been doing it much longer is quite impressive. So congrats on that success, although not not surprising, but certainly certainly a cool thing. All right, we’re gonna wrap this up because I know you’re busy and you have provided so much incredible value. I think we could just stop there and we can always have you on for a part two. But for now, let’s see if there are any buyers or sellers listening who would be interested in talking with you about a real estate transaction. What’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Stephanie LoVerde 38:16
Whatever is best for them. They can call text

D.J. Paris 38:19
email, your give your

Stephanie LoVerde 38:22
Instagram, whatever what’s your what’s your phone number email. So, so my cell phone is 847-903-8589 I am a city agents. However, I have retained my very first cell phone number from growing up hence the 847 area code. And my email address is Stephanie Ste P hanie. At Stephanie Ste p h a n ie lo Verde, L O V E R D e.com. You

D.J. Paris 38:54
can also and you can also visit Stephanie liberty.com as well. Well, Stephanie, thank you so so much. It was a real pleasure talking to you today. And you again, I think this will be one of our more listens to episodes, maybe even our most listened to episodes. So I I have really, really excited to get this out to the audience. And again, thank you. And I guess on behalf of Stephanie and myself, we will see you on our next episode. If you are a broker, which of course most of you are listening are tell your friends about the show. We have 1000s of listeners, but we can always use more. So anyway, Stephanie, thank you for being on the show.

Stephanie LoVerde 39:33
Thank you, DJ, thank you for having me. I hope I was helpful and provided some value, and I look forward to talking with you soon.

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Santiago Valdez has an impressive track record. In addition to being a top 1% producer himself, he trained Elizabeth Pyle in her first year as a broker. She ended up winning the CAR Rookie Of The Year, which is given to the top producing first year broker. In our conversation Santiago and Elizabeth of Relux International talk about how they have built their business, and why they have constructed a team instead of working individually. We go into the specifics of how to choose team members, how to make teams profitable, and why process is more important that outcome. This episode is full of usable tips brokers can employ today to further their production.

Relux Interational can be reached at Santiago@Chicago773.com and Elizabeth@Chicago773.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 Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and guide through the show. And once again last month, we had the most number of people ever who downloaded, and I hope listen to but certainly downloaded the podcast. So being that we don’t do any marketing, I have to assume that’s because you guys are telling a friend. So continue to please do that if there’s other realtors that you know that could benefit from listening to interviews with the top 1% of Realtors in Chicago, then let them know that this exists. Of course, you can always find us on iTunes, Google Play, just search for us and your podcast app. Also, you can stream every single episode we’ve ever done on our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And please, please, please follow us on Facebook. So we’re always posting content there as well as links to all the episodes and you can find us there just in facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. So that is really all I have just another Thank you. And please continue to listen and support the show by telling everybody you know about it. And on to our interview with Santiago Valdez and Elizabeth pile of the real Lux international team.

Today on the show we have the real Lux team from Compass. I’m actually really excited about this because this is our very first compass Episode Episode with Compass brokers and this is Santiago Valdez and Elizabeth pile of the real Lux team now at Compass so the real Look, I’m sorry, relax international rather relaxed International is a real estate team led by Santiago Valdez and Elizabeth Pyle and is a top 1% team in the Chicago Association of Realtors. Santiago is a US Army veteran, an M one a one tank crew member that has continued to increase his production since his first year in the business all the way back from 2004. Elizabeth was the Rookie of the Year with Chicago Association of Realtors in 2013. And I’m gonna pause for a second that is such an insanely big deal. So special congratulations to Elizabeth because every year, there are over 5000 New brokers that join the Chicago Association of Realtors. So to be literally the top one or two of that class that freshman class is a huge, huge deal. So anyway, aside from being the Rookie of the Year 2013 She and Santiago started working on on the relax international experience experience is not only a way to give full service to their clients, but also a way to approach the business and maintain a positive personal growth oriented energy. When not helping clients with real estate, Santiago and Elizabeth are focused on their own real estate investments and are avid travelers. By the way, if you want to learn more about the real Lux international coterie, Lux international.com. Anyway, welcome to the show, Santiago and Elizabeth. Thank you.

Elizabeth Pyle 3:27
Thanks for having us.

D.J. Paris 3:29
Thank you guys, I am always so grateful when people like you who I know are insanely busy to make the time to do our silly little show. And we really, really, really appreciate it. So I would like to ask you both individually. First, before we get into some of the other things I know we’re going to talk about and find out exactly how you got into real estate. So Elizabeth, can we start with you? How did you get in?

Elizabeth Pyle 3:53
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So I was actually living in Missouri, I had graduated college, and I was living in Columbia, Missouri, and a small company. And they give me a lot of opportunity to really run that part of the company. And so there were a company that was a builder. And then they were also renting just basically in college apartments. And so I was more in charge of like the rentals of it. At the same time, I was realizing that with real estate, you can actually build your wealth. So from learning from the company, I started buying my own investment properties.

D.J. Paris 4:26
What you did what you did that in Colombia?

Elizabeth Pyle 4:28
Yeah, in Columbia, Missouri. Wow. So basically, I was I was buying those on the side and working for them full time. But again, it was a small company. So I kind of felt like I was I had reached a point where I really wasn’t growing professionally and I felt like it was in a box. Just kind of you know, there just wasn’t the growth that I had anticipated. So I pretty much you know, I had some income from my property. So what I did was I quit I moved to Chicago and it took a leap of faith that an opportunity would arise. I did have my broker’s license or my my Realtors license in Missouri. Was not using it, but I had it there. And then whenever I came to Chicago, I was buying a condo and that Santiago that way and hopefully you found something good in me and he encouraged me, encouraged me to go ahead and get my broker’s license here and do it full time here. So that’s how I ended up in Chicago selling real estate.

D.J. Paris 5:19
Well, it’s are you originally from Missouri?

Elizabeth Pyle 5:21
Yes. I’m actually from Branson, Missouri, but I went to Mizzou.

D.J. Paris 5:25
Yeah, right. Yeah, I almost I did not go to Mizzou, but it was one of I mean, this is like 20 plus years ago, but that was one of the five schools I very much like that. And I would have gone to the zoo if I didn’t go to the school I went to so I love I love Israel. I’ve actually been there is a little there is a little winery like right outside of Columbia, maybe more than one but I have been to a winery.

So beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

And then, well, awesome. Thank you, and Santiago, tell us about how you got involved in real estate.

Santiago Valdez 5:58
So I am originally from Peru from Arequipa, Peru. And when I first came to the States, there was a couple of ladies that helped my mom and I come to the States. So we stayed with them. And they were both very heavily involved in real estate, they used to do a lot of real estate investing. And one of them was a realtor. So when I was about 13 or so I used to go to a lot of open houses, open houses with them. And sometimes they would go to like investment seminars, and I would just kind of tag along with them. And you know, I really, like enjoyed that whole scene. And you know, just enjoy how people dressed. And you know, the whole thing about it. I found it fascinating. And, you know, I kind of just went on to, you know, do my regular life. I went in the Army after that I was working at Loyola University, and I kind of on a whim, got a real estate license, and started doing business with a couple of people that I was working with. And so I was doing it part time. And by the end of 2004. So I got my license in June or so. And by the end of 2004, I was making about the same money in real estate that I had made all year at my regular job.

D.J. Paris 7:18
So doing it like part time, right? Yeah, doing it part

Santiago Valdez 7:21
time. So I basically stopped working full time at my other job, and I started working real estate full time. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

D.J. Paris 7:32
Wow. Well fun fact my brother in law’s half Peruvian his his mother. It lives in Lima. And his whole family is all his half of his family is from there. So our family has. Well my sister has been there many, many times. Obviously he goes, he actually flies down about once every six weeks to see his mom. But I have not been so our whole family is planning a Peru big Peru trip, hopefully for this holiday season. So in December, I think we’re all going down there. So Oh, really?

Santiago Valdez 8:04
Yeah, Elizabeth and I will actually be there in for around Christmas and New Year’s this year. So if you happen to be there, yeah. Maybe we can

D.J. Paris 8:17
have coffee or something. I’m not going to eat the Kukui. But other than that, which is funny. Which by the way, for everyone listening that’s that’s a it’s a little I mean, it does happen. But it’s not a super common thing. But people talk about improvements. It’s groundhogs and very, very poor people there have been known to eat that. But my brother in law always says people do not really eat that that is not super common. But it is always like the Joker

Santiago Valdez 8:44
did have me eat it at one point and I was sick after you have

D.J. Paris 8:50
100% needed I have no problem trying that. That’s that’s really funny. So I’m actually Elizabeth, I would like in both in San Diego too. But in particular, Elizabeth, I want to direct this question first to you and then then to San Diego, because you were the Rookie of the Year 2013 Which again, no small feat huge deal. And we have a lot of brokers who listen to the show who are you know, either in their first year or they’re looking to increase their production to get to a level that you guys are at? What advice do you have for somebody who’s starting out or what worked for you? Or or maybe even What mistakes did you make? But ultimately, do you have any advice for new brokers?

Elizabeth Pyle 9:30
Yeah, absolutely find a mentor. I mean, if I wouldn’t have teamed up with Santiago, I would have nowhere come near that. I mean, because anytime I’d go out to negotiate a deal or decide if a buyer was really serious, there’s so many hurdles out there that that I didn’t go through because I had Santiago to talk about it. So whoever that mentor is, maybe maybe you want to get on a team and find somebody on that team that’s going to help you out, but definitely find a mentor. Probably the second thing is that you’ve got to have Drive. I mean, I was doing everything I came with absolutely no network I was from Branson,

D.J. Paris 10:05
you’re from nobody from Branson moves to Chicago. This year, the only person.

Elizabeth Pyle 10:10
Yeah, I connected with a couple of people that I knew from college from a business fraternity that I was. But I don’t think I’ve done business with any of those people. So I had drive, and I was out there every day, I’ve never worn out shoes, and I’ve worn out so many pairs of high heels since I’ve been here. But if you name it, I’ve done it. I’ve called called. I’ve door knocked. We’ve done mailers. So just going through anything that you see out there, there are books that say here 2020 ways to find business in real estate, and I did them all.

D.J. Paris 10:42
Awesome. And I love that. And I love the to the mentor. And I will tell you that it’s been so common for all of almost all of the top producers we’ve interviewed for the show, all basically had somebody that they were able to really work with initially, and very few people started completely on their own. So I guess, hats off to Santiago for obviously helping guide you through that. And San Diego, do you have anything to add as far as what brokers could do to increase their production? Or maybe newer brokers?

Santiago Valdez 11:14
Yeah, you know, when I started, I started reading a lot of books. I read, you know, tons and tons and tons of like anything I could get my hands on, as far as real estate sales. And I also you know, like, talk to my managing broker, I was in a very small REMAX office, the managing broker, whether it was Uber Rodriguez was still in business. I was in Andersonville. And we, we used to meet probably about once a week and talk about my deals and you know, who I was working with and how I was going. And at the time, you know, I kind of dreaded kind of going to see him every week. But in retrospect, it really helped me and Google had, I mean, I think there was only like maybe 10, or 15 agents at the office. So he actually had a good amount of time to be able to spend with us. And I took really good advantage of it. And it really helped me and also I talked to a lot of people in the office that I’m still friends with right now, you know, Jim Anderson, who I used to work with, I still talk to him a lot about the business and you know, just general stuff, and cardigan Shipman who is now I think he’s like in Florida or something. But he, he used to be a really big producer at the time when I was there. And I used to you know, pick his brain all the time. So talking to people that have been doing it, and have had success. I think that’s been very critical for me and learning from from others.

D.J. Paris 12:45
Awesome, great, all great advice from from both of you. And I’ll actually throw something on top of that. Every person who’s listening, who’s a realtor, which is probably 100% of the audience is likely a member of a local association, whether it’s car, this case, you guys are with car or Main Street or North Shore, Barrington or three rivers or there’s a few others, but that’s a bit those are the big ones. They all have a what’s called YPN, which is Young Professionals Network, it is awesome. You guys should be going I’m talking to the listeners. Now of course, it’s for example, cars, the last Wednesday of every month, it’s at Manny’s, which is like the greatest place to eat anyway in Chicago, and they it’s free food. And then they have panels of people like you know, the Redux Redux team. So this is exactly like the kind of the actually the reason we started this podcast is because I went to a YPN event, a car YPN event and there was a panel of top producers and I was like, oh, we should record stuff like this. So anyway, that’s a really great, great organization and you pay for those dues anyway, it’s part of your dues. If you’re joining one of the boards, they all have them Mainstreet has a great one as well. And North Shore Barrington does too. So definitely, if you’re listening, and you’re not taking advantage of that stuff you already pay for please do because you can meet great people like Santiago and Elizabeth. And so anyway, I wanted to talk to you guys specifically about team building. I know you guys want to talk about that. And that is such a huge thing. Seems like everybody I know who’s successful, right these days is on a team. So I will turn this over to you. Let’s talk about team building. Where should we start?

Santiago Valdez 14:21
You know, I’ll start us off basically on what we were thinking when we started our little team relax. So for many years, I had been working on my own and you know, just by myself at different times, I had like an assistant, but definitely nothing like a team. I mean, just somebody that was at the office helping me with paperwork. And you know, while I was out in the field, doing whatever I needed to do, but I never really wanted to have a team because I used to feel like there was like almost this A structure where people were a little bit, kind of getting used a little bit, and maybe not everybody getting to like their full potential. So I had a little bit of hesitation about getting a team going. And first, you know, I had no idea how to structure a team, you know how to do any of that. I’m a fairly good reader of people. So I think I could probably get some people that are fairly decent people. But I didn’t really feel like I had the, the wherewithal to, we actually be able to put this team together and be able to do stuff together, that would be great, like, a little bit, kind of like what we’re doing now. So we started with Elizabeth and I just basically the two of us working, and we had no intentions of building a team. But then, our businesses started growing and, and we started reading more about, you know, how to have a successful team and, and one, one of the things that really captivated me was being able to teach somebody else a little bit more about the business, kind of like the relationship that we had with Elizabeth, as far as how, how I, basically, I was an open book, and I gave her everything that I had, and to be able to help other people like that. And, and to also make more money, because one of the things I had noticed on a lot of teams was that as the team got bigger, a lot of people ended up actually making less money and making a lot more work. And that’s something that with friends that are in the business I used to always talk about, it’s like, you know, not getting into these teams. And then I mean, for what so then you’re kind of chained into a job pretty much, which is, you know, kind of what we didn’t want to do. So, Elizabeth is incredibly smart. And she has an amazing sense of business. So she actually helped mold this whole business of the team together. So I’ll let her kind of talk a little bit more about that. And the finances and you know, how we actually set up this relax the

D.J. Paris 17:14
Yeah, and just to pause real quickly, I apologize, Elizabeth, but I just want to just just touch on a couple points. So some criticisms of teams, or people that may have a hesitation as Santiago did about team building is and the reality of it is it’s hard to find the right team, right? There’s a lot of teams, not every team is the right fit. And there are certain situations where in particular, maybe a new broker, just joining a team, because they think they should be on a team. It may not be the right solution. Or they may feel like gosh, I feel like I’m just doing about a lot of the grunt work. Obviously, there’s pros and cons to any team. But you know, there is, I hear it all the time when I talk to new brokers who go Should I join a team? And I’m like, Well, if you can find the right team, then absolutely. But yeah, I’m really interested to hear you guys obviously have a very strong team. So I’m really curious to hear, you know, Elizabeth’s take on and how you guys felt that?

Elizabeth Pyle 18:10
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is what Santiago said, but even when it comes down to the name, if you notice, usually it’s the head broker’s name on the team. And so we we, like intentionally decided to make it the relaxed name so that everybody feels empowered. We also have core values, and one of the core values is about personal growth. So So Santiago, and I, we personally love real estate, we really enjoy it. But we’re also looking to grow personally, and we want everybody that’s working with us to grow personally. So that’s the way the way we formed it. And then kind of like you said, with, with getting the right people into the team and the right people onto like, into this certain roles. That’s something that I think it comes with time, we’ve, we’ve positioned people in certain places and kind of moved them around and moved certain certain tasks from one person to the to another. So I think that’s something that it’s just kind of trial and error as you as you go through it. But something that helped us really, really succeed are probably two things, making sure that everybody does a personality test so that they get into the right role. And then the second thing is we went to probably like four or five, six conferences that were oriented towards teams. And so we probably kind of like me working with Santiago, being my mentor, we listened to all of those hurdles that those people had. And hopefully, we we got rid of some of those hurdles. We’ve still gone through some of them but but I think that we’ve we’ve progressed a lot quicker because we learned from other people.

D.J. Paris 19:34
Well, I want to Yes, I want to touch on a couple of those things. Thank you. That’s really great stuff that I want to first go back to the name the team name and and I didn’t even realize how intentional That was until you guys just mentioned it. And I realize how that you’re absolutely right. Most teams are not named something that is other than the head person’s name and Not that there’s a criticism for me for that. But if I had to choose whether it would be if I was building a team, my name versus a name, like the one you guys have chosen for your team, I would go that route. Because you’re right, it probably does help in making sure people feel more a part of the hole versus somebody working under someone else. So I think that’s very smart. And no one to this all day podcasts I’ve done, almost everyone is on a team, no one’s actually voiced that. So I really appreciate you bringing that point up. I think it’s a very good idea. And then let’s talk about personality tests. Because wouldn’t I mean, that’s just a smart way to do ever to always hire anybody. Is there a specific personality test that you that you guys use that you want to tell people to use? Or what do you guys use?

Santiago Valdez 20:46
Yeah, so we use the DISC personality profile test. We also use a little bit of Myers Brigg testing. And we had, basically an ideal of the type of person that we wanted to hire. And then we kind of just, you know, look through that person through the testing and also through the conversations that we have with them. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t just somebody that we like, you know, met up and felt really comfortable about, but that we felt that like they were going to be able to actually be in the role that we were thinking about for them. And of course, after they’re there, it’s not always 100% Or, and you know, like Elizabeth was saying, you know, it’s sometimes you have to move around and take some responsibility from their job and given them different kinds of responsibilities, because overall, you want to focus on their strengths. But, but yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s been really helpful to actually get a little bit better. And we keep getting better and better with the people that we keep hiring, we keep getting better and better candidates, because we are getting better at seeing what they what to look

D.J. Paris 22:01
for. Yeah, absolutely. It’s, it just makes perfect sense, right. I’m glad you get it. But you are the first team that I’ve talked to that I’m sure other teams utilize personality tests and disc profiles. But no one else has voiced that. So I appreciate you bringing that up. That’s a really smart idea. And and by the way, not super expensive, but absolutely worth doing to ensure or have a better sense of what whether somebody would be a good fit. And let’s come back to I want to go back to the whole team idea in general, I you know, one of the biggest benefits to being on a team is when you meet with clients to be able to say we have a whole team. And here’s our team, here’s what each person does, if in fact, each person has different, you know, responsibilities for that client. And it really sort of is what some of some of the more automated firms like Redfin, for example, there will structures as really a team. It’s it’s a corporate team structure. But I love the fact that that you guys are able to offer that I imagine, you know, if I was a realtor going up against one of your potential clients looking to sell a house, and we both had presentations, and it was just me versus the relax team. Well, I think I would probably lose, right? Because you guys likely could argue, pretty convincingly you have more to offer, because there’s just more bodies there to help with the whole transaction.

Elizabeth Pyle 23:20
Yeah, I mean, it’s something that we talk about a lot on listing presentations is that we’re sitting there with a seller, and I can’t answer the phone while I’m talking about that salary. So can we join or four or five or 20, or whatever other listings. So you know, you kind of have to have a team and something that’s happening a lot in the industry right now is the agents will, will say, Hey, I can’t show right now. Because my schedule just doesn’t work. But if you’re just one person, then you can’t be expected to be everywhere, but the sellers expect their property to be showed every time somebody wants to see it.

D.J. Paris 23:49
Yeah, that’s a really strong point is, you know, hey, if I’m with you, I’m not able to service another one of my clients. So I have other people on the team to assist with that. So makes perfect sense to me. Let’s talk about structuring the team. In now you guys are and you were always business owners. Obviously, in this business, you’re always a business owner anyway. But now you’re you’re, you know, responsible for Team sort of the profitability of the overall team. How is is that been a learning curve for you? Where’s What have you found? What learnings have you? Have you figured out from sort of determining how profitable the team is?

Elizabeth Pyle 24:28
Yeah, I mean, I think we absolutely have been profitable since since we joined together. You know, and going to these conferences with other teams. One thing that we that we found out from the very first one is that there are a lot of huge huge teams that are just like they’re just bleeding money so so it’s something that we didn’t want to walk into. I personally have been kind of into like, I had a finance degree as well. So I’ve always kind of been very, I don’t know OCD about about making sure that the finances are in place. So we have a budget we take about maybe three, four days every year in December and we put together a budget, we have a marketing calendar. So we go, we have QuickBooks we have, we have a bookkeeper. So basically we, we make sure that everything is in line, and then it’s all a process. So in the beginning to set it all up, it’s a little daunting. But once you have that process set up, it just, it kind of all comes comes together. And then at the end of each month, we can easily see where we are, if we need to spend more money on marketing, if we need to cut back, if we’re not hitting our goals, and maybe we need to cut back on marketing. But we put in there, how much we’ll spend on you know, the employees and how much we pay out to our buyer’s agent, all that stuff is calculated. So it’s just a matter of thinking through it. And then you can absolutely be profitable.

D.J. Paris 25:45
Yeah, it’s, you’re so right. And controlling expenses. It’s so interesting, I wonder for what percentage of realtors out there have actual budget, a monthly budget a yearly budget, I suspect it’s less than 2%. I mean, I’m just guessing, maybe it hopefully is higher than that. But I would say even if rather just we all should have a personal budget of our own anyway, but to have a a business budget, I know at our company, we of course have one as well. And I would say if you do nothing else, you know it, whether you’re on a team or not, create a budget, figure out what you’re spending, figure out what’s coming in. And you’ll you’ll learn some pretty amazing things. Because as realtors, you’re focused on servicing clients getting new clients, and it’s easy to overlook the finances. So obviously, I know how important that is for you guys. And so you guys, tell me about your team you have what is your five? Or is it? Is it larger?

Elizabeth Pyle 26:41
Nope. Or we’re still a fairly small team. So we’ve got five people, Santiago and I, and then we’ve got a full time agents that traffic commission, and then we have a full time employee that that is hourly. But she she is licensed. And so she she does all of our, you know, showings, inspections, things like that. And then we have a full time admin as well.

D.J. Paris 27:06
Awesome. And, and I think that’s also oftentimes not the way a lot of teams are structured, right. It’s it’s a lot of it is kind of everyone’s doing the same job. But they’re just kind of maybe sharing Commission’s to some degree, they don’t have a particular roles and a lot of cases. So I love the fact that you guys have designated, you know, certain roles and responsibilities. I imagine, again, that goes back to the personality test, I’m sure how, how great that is to be able to, but as Santiago said, play to people’s strengths, right? So

Santiago Valdez 27:37
one thing that really helped with that was being able to, like have, like some sort of a reserve, because, you know, if you have, like a, like a budget of like payroll, you have, you have to have enough to be able to cover a certain amount of time. So that was actually the key element for us. Because it before I started doing real estate with Elizabeth, there were some months when I made a ton of money. And then you know, a few some months, I made very little. And it was so incredibly difficult for me to actually budget my money, yes. But with this, the way that we’re working it now we have a business reserve. And then I actually get a paycheck, you know, every month, and as the same thing, whether I close a ton of business, or I don’t close anything I get I get a paycheck every month. And then of course, being the business owners of the team, then we get, you know, like payouts, you know, every however long, but I get paid, you know, basically like an employee. Sure.

D.J. Paris 28:44
Yeah, no, that’s really smart. I, I’m not really I mean, technically, I’m a realtor, but I don’t really I don’t practice at all, but I am in our business that I’m in here. I’m sort of structured similarly, where it’s like I own the company, but I’m an employee of the company, and I get a paycheck very similarly. And then there’s other payouts as well. And it’s, yes, it makes things a little bit more smooth. And certainly you have responsibilities to your other team members. So that’s, that’s really smart. And also something that not everybody can do right away. So build to that, obviously, and maybe don’t don’t start a team if you’re unable to meet payroll, of course, and you guys have not had that problem. So that’s, that is but it’s something to really think about is how steady is the income before you decide to bring on you know, people who you’re paying regardless of production. So that’s that’s huge. What’s is there? Are you guys focused specifically with your team on business? Because you guys are in the city? Do you focus mostly on I mean, obviously, I’m sure you have clients kind of all over but you focus primarily in the city or out in the you know, whereabouts do you sort of specialize?

Santiago Valdez 29:54
So when we first started working together with Elizabeth, my business was almost 100% by referral. And I used to throw me everywhere. So I was like, in 1000 different places. But since we started working together, we’ve really focused our business through marketing. And also, like having one of the other people on my team be able to take care of some of the other business I was getting, I was way out there. Sure. So our business now is mainly from probably from about the South Loop to about Rogers park up and down Lakeshore drive. That’s the sweet spot of it. That’s kind of where we like to work. Um, so, but we do still, you know, have business elsewhere. But that’s, that’s about kind of the area that we focus on.

D.J. Paris 30:48
Yeah. And I think that’s also, as you mentioned, a really strong point. So one of the downsides of working by referral, if I guess you could call it a downside is Yeah, they’ve people may want to move to places where that are farther away than where you would prefer to work. And of course, it’s their referral is you really want to work with them, and then eventually get to a place where you have a team where you’re able to, you know, pass those certain opportunities off to other team members or, yeah, so that’s, that’s one of the big benefits, I think of having a team is you have the ability to, you know, assign different types of clients to different different members. So that’s, that’s awesome. Well, guys, I appreciate your time you, there’s been so much good information in here. I just want to ask one. Oh, I wanted to ask you guys one specifically, because you didn’t talk about compass at all. Tell me the best thing you love about compass because I know, they more recent to Chicago, and everyone’s very interested in what compass is doing. So is there. What do you guys love most about working there?

Santiago Valdez 31:53
I’ll go first. So the, this little story will basically exemplify one of the things that I think is just incredible on campus. When we were talking to, you know, talking about coming to campus, they told us about the opportunity to meet Mr. Raskin, which, you know, we thought it was gonna be like, a five minute meeting, because he is, you know, he’s the CEO of the company. Yeah, so we thought we’d, you know, we shake his hand or whatever. But, you know, he’s, he sat with us with Alyssa with an eye for like, 45 minutes, talking about real estate. And it was just like, you know, this gentleman really, really got it. I mean, he really understood where the business was going. I read a ton of blogs, and I read a lot of different things about real estate. I mean, he was really on it. You know, he really had a good vision of kind of, where we’re headed to what the pitfalls are coming up. And of course, you know, nobody has all the answers. But knowing your work, you know, where the road is kind of leading, I think it’s incredibly important and paying attention to that. So now, that was my best experience with with combat.

D.J. Paris 33:06
Yeah, and I know that they the technology that they’ve invested in for their brokers is also so I haven’t seen it personally. But I always hear just unbelievable things about it. So cool. Well, guys, thank you so much. Again, we are talking to to relax International, you can visit them on their website at relax international.com. And a couple of things. If there’s any listeners that maybe are interested, I don’t know if you guys are looking, I should ask you first. Are you looking for new team members? Because if there’s any listeners that are interested, are you guys open to build expanding the team or not at this point?

Elizabeth Pyle 33:44
Yes, we’re absolutely open to taking new team members on.

D.J. Paris 33:49
Cool Well, if brokers who are listening are interested, what’s the best or I’m going to add to that, or if there’s any buyers or sellers out there renters to I suspect that are in that would love to work with the relax international team, what is the best way that anyone who wants to get in touch with you can get in touch.

Santiago Valdez 34:07
So probably the best way is to give us a call. So I’ll give my cell phone number is 773-858-2410. You can call text anytime. And yeah, we’re looking for people that are looking to move their lives forward, not just a real estate business, but to improve their whole entire entire team. People are trying to become better people and become better versions of themselves.

D.J. Paris 34:34
Awesome. I think that was well said. And also you have a pretty good track record with Elizabeth at the very least Rookie of the Year a big deal. So obviously, you guys must know what you’re doing. So anyway, thanks again. Again. Santiago Valdez, Elizabeth pile of compass and the Relix international team. Again visit them at relaxed international.com. And oh, let’s give you guys is there is there an email address we can shoot? Throw out there as well.

Santiago Valdez 35:00
I’m sure it’s my email is Santiago S A N T agio at Chicago 773 dot com. So Santiago at Chicago 773 That comm

D.J. Paris 35:12
Awesome. All right. Well, guys, thank you so much for your time today. This was really fun. And on behalf of Santiago and Elizabeth, we will see everyone on the next episode. So thanks for listening. Remember to tell a friend about this podcast and go check out relax international.com Alright, thanks, guys.

Santiago Valdez 35:31
Thank you. Hopefully we see you in the Andes. That’s right.

D.J. Paris 35:35
Yes. Yes. Well, I’ll go down and we’ll all drink. Oh gosh, what now I’m blanking on what is the the cola the famous cola down there.

Santiago Valdez 35:45
Whether it’s a coca tea and then there’s teacher or you

D.J. Paris 35:49
know, what’s the brand? Oh gosh, it’s the real sweet it’s like bubblegum flavor. Oh, Inca Kola, Inca Kola, of

Santiago Valdez 35:57
course Inca co many things to drink.

D.J. Paris 36:01
I know that’s like the you know, but I love I do love Inca Kola. All right, I will. I will see you guys in Peru. But at the very least. Thanks again for listening and thanks for being on the show.

Santiago Valdez 36:12
Awesome. Thanks EJ.

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When Ryan D’Aprile talks, brokers listen. Not only was Ryan a top 1% broker in Chicago, he now spends 100% of his time training his hundreds of agents at the firm he founded, D’Aprile Properties. Ryan has helped his own real estate brokers become top producers and has a step-by-step approach with a proven track record. In this conversation Ryan talks about some of the underlying strategies and principles paramount to a broker’s success. This episode is chock full of actionable steps brokers can take right now to increase their production!

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at ryan@daprileproperties.com and 312.492.7900

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 Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. And in just a few moments, we’re going to have our interview with Ryan D APR, which I’m very excited about, because I’ve always been a big fan of his and what he’s built. So we’re going to talk to him in just a few. However, before we get to that, first of all, I wanted to give as per usual, a thank you to everyone currently listening. Please remember, the best way you could always thank us is to tell other realtors about us the intention of this podcast, if you’re a new listener, is to get you guys access to the very top producing realtors in the Chicagoland area and find out what they do everyday so that you can improve your own business by listening to their tips and tricks and strategies. So if there’s anyone you think that could benefit from listening, please pass this over. Also visit our Facebook page and like our Facebook page, because you’ll get updates on who we’re interviewing. And you can also ask questions in advance if there’s somebody that you know that we’re going to be talking to. So you can find us on Facebook at keeping it real pod. So just do a search for keeping it real pod. Also, you can stream every episode of our podcast at our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And also subscribe via iTunes, Google Play any app you’re using. That is a podcast app, just search for keeping it real podcast, you will find us and that is it for the moment. Oh one more thing. If you have sent us a request for somebody that we should be interviewing, we’ve gotten now at this point well over 100 requests. And so first of all, we’re so so grateful enough people care to send that information in. But we are so backlogged that we just wanted to say, from the whole staff here, please don’t be offended. If we haven’t replied, we’re just backed up. We have it in a file, we will get to it eventually. But thank you for thinking of us and recommending someone. So if you’ve written us and we have a written feedback, we will do our best to get back to you at some point. But thanks, keep sending in your suggestions, keep listening, and on to our interview with Ryan de April.

Today on the show, we have Ryan de April from April properties. Ryan has a progressive progressive thought leaders focused on providing for his agents and his staff. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style, and his dedication to training. And I should mention before Ryan comes on, they have 11 offices. Ryan owns the company they have managing brokers at each location. And Ryan actually travels consistently and constantly to each location, working with the leadership staff as well directly with the brokers and does a lot of coaching and training. So we got him today out of his Lake Geneva office. So thank you, Ryan, for being on the show. Thanks, TJ.

Ryan D’Aprile 3:12
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

D.J. Paris 3:15
Well, I was joking with Ryan earlier that that that was the shortest bio we’ve ever received, which probably speaks to the humility of Ryan is very, very nice, humble guy, but has built up a pretty impressive business. So before we get into what you’ve built, I’d love to learn about where you came from. So can you talk a little bit about your journey and how you got into real estate

Ryan D’Aprile 3:37
share? Yes, I. So I’ve been in the real estate business for about 14 years now. And after I graduated college, I got into the executive search field. And for about six years as as in corporate America, I was buying and selling homes, and then I three flats in an apartment building. And then I decided I should get my real estate license. And I did. And so that’s how I got into it. And it was not until July or August of 2004 When I became really a full time real estate agent. So I had my license for 18 months and was doing it on the side and then realized

D.J. Paris 4:15
just just a positive per se were you did you get your license just to continue buying and selling your own stuff? Or were you looking to be a sort of traditional realtor as well?

Ryan D’Aprile 4:23
Yeah, no, I thought I was I thought I was gonna be a real estate investor and I thought I was gonna do it. You just did the former as I was just gonna buy and sell for myself. I just ended up representing a friend and then another friend and then that kind of got carried away. And so yeah, so I went into it thinking I would do this and I’d be a real estate investor and have access to the tools and technology so I could see what was going on. And then I just fell in love with the brokerage side of it and being a real estate agent for other people.

D.J. Paris 4:51
And then how long were you working as a as a realtor before you decided to open up your own shop?

Ryan D’Aprile 4:59
That’s a great Question. It’s, it’s, I’ll try to keep this story short, but I opened up my own shop right away. Yeah, you know, DJ, I’ll tell you I am not kidding. I’m the only real estate agent I know, that was not hired by real estate company because I interviewed. Sure. I interviewed with a company. And and I think the quote was, you know, we’d like you, you make us a little nervous. You seem a little hyper. Why don’t you go sponsor yourself? And it was 2003. That’s amazing. Yeah, you know, so in those times, you didn’t, you get your broker license, and you can send your paperwork in the IDF, PR and wallah, you have a real estate company. And I didn’t know any better. And again, you know, I joke around with a lot of my agents, because I’m trying to empower them in understanding that we all go through like these challenges and whatnot. I’ve been rejected over and over and over again, in my life, and through many things that I’ve tried to do, and you want to get a real estate license, you know, where a lot of people just, you know, if you fog up a mirror, and they bring in, I’m the only one that wasn’t hired, and yeah, I was gonna

D.J. Paris 6:01
say, it’s not like you’re a complete Bozo, who is like, No, you’re clearly not. I have never heard of anyone being rejected by pretty much, you know, most firms. So that is,

Ryan D’Aprile 6:14
April, there we go. That’s me. Was off. So okay, fine. So that’s, that’s how it happened.

D.J. Paris 6:20
What and what? How did you you know, I’m sure people listening who are brokers fight would find that extremely confusing to think, how did you learn everything, you know, sort of on your own did? How did you sort of build your knowledge base there?

Ryan D’Aprile 6:36
Well, so I just started. So again, you know, it’s one of those things where I kind of built that, you know, maybe you could say, a little chip on my shoulder type of thing, because I had that mentality where I had, you know, various struggles, and I was trying to kind of get in. And so I think that motivated me, and I just said, Alright, I’m just gonna figure this out. Again, I was working full time, I was working 50 hours a week, I was traveling, I was getting my MBA at night, and we’re having our first daughter, oh, my God, I was busy. So I just didn’t really think too much. I just, I would reach I can’t recall because we’re going back 14 years now. Surely, I somehow managed to get on the MLS. I think I called the Chicago Association, realtors and said, you know, where do I do? And they said, go here. And then I opened up an email marketing County, and they started doing, you know, direct mail, like, like printing out a Word document and folding it and stave off, you know, just kind of bootstrapped, stripping, and I just went through and, and that’s just how that happened.

D.J. Paris 7:36
And at what point did you decide to go full time.

Ryan D’Aprile 7:40
So it was in July or August of 2004. So a year and a half of it, because it was, it was January or so of three, I got licensed. And then I find myself in July, well for 18 months into it. And I have a daughter a baby. Now I have three now. But I had my little girl and my wife hadn’t gone back to teaching, she was a school teacher. And I’m like, I just I love this. And I love the freedom. I love the flexibility. And I’m doing very well in this. And I was also DJ, I was young, and I was dumb. I was 28 or 27 and 28. And I just shirt, I’m quitting, this is what I could do, I could you know, I’ve done it for 18 months. And looking back, if I didn’t have the salary at my corporate job, we would have been able to make ends meet. So let’s just go for it. And so it was in July or August 2004, I became a full time real estate agent.

D.J. Paris 8:29
And how long after that, did you decide to bring additional, you know, members to the team.

Ryan D’Aprile 8:36
So, you know, throughout the next, say, six or seven years 2000 Up until about 2011. I was you know, I call a one man shop and it wasn’t and I’d had would anytime we’d have anywhere from eight to 10 or 11 Real estate agents at the company, maybe at one point 12 or 13. But I wasn’t giving them any attention. It was

D.J. Paris 9:00
just a Yeah, sure. You were still producing, you were still always producing,

Ryan D’Aprile 9:03
I was selling a lot of real estate. And I hired a you know, an office manager, a secretary and I had the copier and the office space and one of the buildings that I own, but I would not have called that a real estate company. I would not have done that. In hindsight, you know, whatever. But it was, you know, I because I was very successful during those times. But I was really distracted by owning a brokerage at the same time as well because I had 10 or 11 people and though I joke around and I say well I didn’t pay much attention to them. I’m not that kind of person. So I would not be but it wasn’t purposeful. I didn’t open it to grow real estate company. I open it because I didn’t get hired somewhere and I needed to have a place to hang my thing and then I’d have you know, people join me and I wasn’t focused on growing a brokerage just focus on being a real estate agent. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 9:47
I think I’ve heard that. And I know when I started our firm we only had maybe 10 brokers and my our owner was still producing I think once we got to like 25 or so So he was able to step away from producing and focus more on building the business and helping brokers. And I don’t know, I don’t know what that number was for you. But But I know that struggle of being small enough where you still have to produce and at the same time, not being able to maybe give, you know, the team as much attention. But that’s all changed for you, which is amazing. You guys have hundreds of brokers now. But let’s Can we talk about how that how that’s built for you? Because I mean, you have impressed. I mean, it’s you, outside of all the franchise firms? I don’t think there’s anyone I can think of that has that many offices that’s an independent brokerage in Chicago, or is that I can’t think of Well, I

Ryan D’Aprile 10:40
think there’s a really big one that we know about there. That’s not

D.J. Paris 10:43
okay. Well, okay, aside from the biggest firm in all of Chicago, who I just put in the the franchise category, but of course, they’re not a franchise, aside from them. You’ve got to be it right? I mean,

Ryan D’Aprile 10:53
I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention to that part of it. I gotta be honest with you. I don’t think of it as you know, I’m a little bit funny. I don’t know a lot of people in industry, I don’t know, a lot of other agents in the industry. I’m, I’m kind of like Kaiser. So say when it comes to the, the industry of other real estate agents, because I’m just so and have been focused on the agents that we have, right, then I’m not really familiar so much. I mean, I do know, players out there, but no, there’s there’s other other firms out there that are larger than us. And it’s, it’s, I’m more focused on, you know, I think the value that our agents can extract from the firm and what we can provide to them. And, you know, what do we do every year, you know, that could add more and more value and better than we did the year before. It’s a fun journey. I mean, because I mean, three years ago, we’re a totally different company. A year ago, we were totally different company. And it’s, it’s evolving, and it’s all evolving for the agents. And we’re coming up with so many different things. And you know, it’s not for everybody, sometimes it’s like, wow, this is a lot of change. And you know, so it’s one of those things that you have to understand is we’re a very entrepreneurial type organization, that its core focus and priority is, how do you help an agent, grow their business, be purposeful, and fulfilled and not get burnt out? And then what are the tools that they can use to make it easier for them? And who are the people that we can put in place so that they don’t have to put people in place themselves to do the things that they want to do? Yeah,

D.J. Paris 12:26
that all sounds absolutely right. For this sort of where we are and in the brokerage business? Today, can you talk a little bit about what you guys do since again, you know, and I, to a degree, have blinders on myself for the firm I’m at but I, what you’ve built is pretty impressive. And having all of those offices and physical locations, there are some firms that just have, like, an act like a meeting room. And so they call that an office, it’s not really you guys have actual physical offices, brick and mortar, with resources and people and staff. And

Ryan D’Aprile 13:03
yeah, we have an managing broker and an office manager in each of those offices. So they’re, they’re fully staffed, and then they’re supported with, you know, a, you know, a corporate staff of over 40 individuals in marketing and compliance and training and education and accounting and whatnot. So it’s, it’s a very, you know, it’s a, it’s an expensive proposition, I guess you could say that way. You know, it’s we put, we sink a lot into the company to provide, you know, the best experience we can provide to our agents.

D.J. Paris 13:38
Yeah. And I love the fact that your one of your core focuses at the company, aside from running it and building it and being at the top of the corporate ladder of the company was also going down into the trenches and working specifically and directly with, with the brokers and traveling around to all the different locations. By the way, we should mention you have locations in Indiana, as well as Wisconsin, so it’s not like they’re all, you know, very close by so.

Ryan D’Aprile 14:06
Yeah, no, that mean, that’s what I and that’s what I enjoy to do. And that’s really what is I have a leadership team. And they, I say they run the company from the day to day basis. And they’re really the business executives. And what I am is I’m a coach. And so like, right now I’m in our Lake Geneva, Wisconsin office, and I my meetings today have been Google Hangouts with agents and I’ve been coaching and training agents. And then this evening, I have agents coming to our Fontana Wisconsin office, and they’re actually bringing their spouses because on a quarterly basis, I’ll go to our various offices and I invite the agents come in and bring in their spouses and what I do is I do a coaching and I coach the spouses and explain to them hey, this is our business. Is this what they do and this is how you can help them excel because it’s such a siloed business, you know, because we’re all independent contractors, and that’s where the danger comes in. Most dangerous zone calm, so I’m like, how ever you can create accountability around you and, and we have something called our dashboard and we recreate I created this dashboard and I, and our agents use this dashboard and then I bring in. So So for example, I’ll have the spouses come in and the agents, and I’ll do coaching and explain the dashboards. And I’ll say to the agent, spouses, like, Look, you have this, you have s access, let me show you questions you can ask and have conversations with if you guys are interested in it, to help you, you know, help you help your, your wife or your husband grow their business and stay focused on what’s important for them.

D.J. Paris 15:31
Yeah, and that’s, that’s, by the way, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anybody at any firm reaching out to the significant others of the brokers and saying, Hey, here’s how to how to help your significant other grow their business. And then you know, just even have that thought is a pretty novel thought of it’s absolutely a great idea. Because as you’re you’re right, it is such a siloed business. And it really, leads can come from anywhere more, most of the time, they’re going to come from the existing network of that particular broker. And I know that’s a huge passion of yours is talking about how to expand that network, how to deepen the relationships in that existing network. Can you talk a little bit about you know, how you, you know, discuss that when you’re at your, your coaching and training meetings?

Ryan D’Aprile 16:18
Sure. So I built this dashboard, and it’s focused on the network, and I divide the network up from the network to influential people. And then you have these various tabs and channels of where your prospects, your active clients, your pending sales are as three different channels, and then you have your past transactions. And, you know, first and foremost, when people first come in and get coached and trained if they hear marketing from me. And I think that is one things, I try to get them to understand that that’s actually not what I’m pushing, there’s an element of marketing that you have to have. But what the dashboard is built up is it’s for relationship builder. And, you know, people do not hire real estate companies, they don’t they hire the people, absolutely. Some of them, you know, they like and they trust to hire their friends and the family. And, you know, so we just really focus on educating our agents on a year, the brand and B, it is your responsibility, your job, it’s the lifeblood of your company, to be focused on those relationships, and be purposeful on them. So that’s, that’s what we work on. That’s what I’m very passionate about. And, and that’s what you when you say, I’m going to office office, that’s what I’m doing in group sessions, and we can we can sessions and or, you know, once a quarter like do a random bringing their spouse, night, it’s, it’s all about here is your business. Here’s the platform we built, we have it on here for you. Now, this is a roadmap that you could actually follow. And and be you know, you know, be focused on building these relationships. And I even go so much to the levels like don’t call these people and ask him for

D.J. Paris 17:57
Oh, absolutely, yes. I could not agree more. Right. And

Ryan D’Aprile 18:01
there’s so many different coaches and trainers out there. And, and I’m not saying you know, I they’re all good, you know, find what works for you. Sure. Mine is, is that, um, I don’t want to cheapen the relationship, when I call you and check in. How are you? How’s How’s you know? How’s the dog? How’s the kid? How, how’s your how’s your job coming along? haven’t talked in a while hope you’ve been doing well, and that’s it, I’m gonna keep it relationship,

D.J. Paris 18:25
right? I’ve always just just interject, I’ve always thought like my insurance agent, who has been my insurance agent for, I don’t know, 15 years, I’ve never met her. There’s no need for me to meet her. She’s very nice. Alright, I think I talked to her once on the phone. But every year at the holiday season in December, she sends me a like, Happy Holidays card, which is fine, whatever, she sends it to 2000 other people that are her clients, I’m you know, not the only one. And it’s fine. It’s better than nothing, I guess. But I always thought what if it was just a random Thursday, and I got a card from her that said, hey, it’s just random Thursday, you’ve been with me 15 years. I just wanted to say I really appreciate it like little handwritten note. And that’s just a really small example. And it’s not even really a super personal or, or deep way to communicate with me. But it would mean about 1000 times more to me than the holiday card that that I received seven other people who I do business with to write and again, you know, there’s a lot of different

Ryan D’Aprile 19:25
Well, there is and I mean, that’s a great, you know, contrast to bring up because it’s the insurance business right and our business is going through so many changes and I think it’s responsible of the broker owner, the coach whoever it to help agents stay focused and keep the blinders on because there’s a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of changes going on. But you have like the insurance business that you just brought up, that’s a commodity and there are big private equity, big money coming into this thinking. You don’t need a real estate agent and until you become a real estate agent and you go through the the transact Trying to understand is probably 90% emotional, and 10% logical and realize no, you that human element is what they need. And that’s what we do. And you know, you better be friends, you better have flow, you better know these individuals, because when they go to that they feel vulnerable. And they’re gonna want to reach out when I need life insurance. Or if I need, you know, insurance for my car, my house, I want to bundle it, whatever. I’ve had the same one for 15 years to write. It’s but it’s not because of the relationship I have with it’s

D.J. Paris 20:32
just it’s just, you know, or and it’s easy. Yeah.

Ryan D’Aprile 20:35
It’s set up. And I don’t think about it. Me too. versus us house I lived in for 10 years, and I got three girls and I got to be in the school district. And by the way, when things get stressful, I get crazy. So when I get crazy, I need somebody to talk me through shit, because that’s what I’m going to do. And that’s what happens in the real estate industry.

D.J. Paris 20:54
Yeah, I use I’ve said this example before, and I apologize for the listeners who may be hearing it slightly in a different way today. But I think it’d be interesting to get Ryan’s take on this. So why are you I was in the technology field for many, many, many years doing marketing. And I was now 29, I think are 30. And I was still renting. And I just and I was I don’t know, relatively intelligent person. It wasn’t I wasn’t a complete moron. But the truth is, I had no idea how purchasing a home worked and literally did not know really all that much about what a mortgage was, if you were to press me, I really couldn’t talk much about it. I didn’t know what downpayments looked like, I just had never learned on my own. And no one had ever asked me. And ultimately, I figured it out on my own. And by doing so I realized oh, and I had a few friends that were realtors, if they would have come up to me and said, you know, has anyone ever talked to you and explained how a mortgage works? Like, do you have awareness of what that is? And how that works? I would have been like, no, please tell me. But I was too embarrassed to ask myself talking about, you know, emotionally, it was like, I don’t want to admit that I don’t understand that. So I never went anywhere. And as a result I bought probably a year or two later than I could have just because I didn’t know. And he would talk about like relationships is, I think a lot of times Realtors need to understand that not everyone really understands how buying and selling properties work. And you get to be that knowledge source. And

Ryan D’Aprile 22:25
anyway, agents start to take for granted their knowledge, and they start to forget their value that they’re adding. And I think I always try to reinforce the value you’re adding is your emotional intelligence, in addition to your real estate intelligence, and you know, yes, okay, we’re in the business seven days a week, you know, every week in our we’re thinking we’re consumed about real estate, well, if I have a friend who is a corporate attorney, or a dentist or whatnot, I think about real estate all the time, it’s the last thing on their mind. And so I think the biggest challenge in keeping some agents focused and fulfilled and moving forward is to continually reinforce that the consumer, after 20 years of the internet, and you know, 10 years of a smartphone and all the access to technology they have in a in a snap of the finger, they still know the value that we provide, they might not be able to write it out, but they’re still coming to us. And so there’s tremendous value that we provide. But you need to know it more than anybody else. Because you own your own business, and you’re independent contractor. So it’s not like you’re going to come in at nine o’clock, you’re gonna leave at five and you’re another manager, you’re gonna get reviews, you’re gonna get a paycheck every two weeks. So it’s really important to understand your value and your why and why you’re doing this. And that sounds like something you do like once a year, it’s like something you have to do on a consistent basis. And in a group. That’s what we do. We do group and we do community, and we do culture, we focus on our company, because essentially, we look at ourselves as like a gigantic consulting firm brollies, owners of businesses, and everybody says that and I get you know, everybody talks like this now, and, and they say this, but it’s really true. You have to, from a brokerage standpoint, you have to truly understand that you are a consulting firm to, you know, 100 200 300 500 How many business owners out there and provide not only a platform of marketing and technology and service, but also a platform of culture and community to keep them engaged?

D.J. Paris 24:30
Yeah, well, I do. I could not agree more. I am curious, when what you if you have advice, and I certainly am not asking you to give away all of your trade secrets, because if people are, there’s no, that’s That’s true, too. But that being said, just being respectful of your process, what I’m curious about because you do so much direct one to one and in group coaching as well. When you have a brand new broker because we have a lot of people that listen to the show who are brand new or just got their license recently. license, what do you have a couple of key things, you say, Look, you have to go out and do X, Y, and Z with respect to like their network?

Ryan D’Aprile 25:09
So that’s a great question. Um, so I started, I really think I started our company in 2012. So as I told you, I became a full time agent in August of 2004. And I was selling real estate and it happened to be just happened chance 2010 I started coaching a handful agents and I in some are brand new, the business and some are struggling, and I coached him for two years, and got them to where they wanted to be. And that’s in 2012, I, I just I had said to my wife, I said, Hey, I found my purpose, this is what I love, I was selling 30 to $40 million of real estate a year. But when a couple of agents came to me, and I saw over the course of 18, to 24 months, their life’s changed them changing debt that just ignited me to launch and say, Okay, I’m gonna start a real estate company. So it’s 2012, when I started it, in 2013, when I stopped selling, and it wasn’t because we got so big, where I stopped selling is my license, my wife got licensed in 2010. And she started getting coached and trained. And it was in 2013, that she could actually start caring. So here’s my word, you know, but but but my point is, is this in 2012, and 13, when I decided we want to start a real estate company, I realized that the recruiting game was gonna be very hard for me. And this is a recruiting business. And, you know, my agents are inundated with O shirts all day long to get recruited, recruited, recruited. And what I decided is, you know what, I think it’ll take me 18 months to take somebody who’s never been in the business, and train them to be a top producer within 1824 months, I can get that.

D.J. Paris 26:49
And that’s, that’s a very aggressive timeline and an impressive commitment for you to.

Ryan D’Aprile 26:56
Well, and so I have and so as you’re asking me that question, your question was, so that listeners can hear, what do I tell agents, I show graphs, and I have in front of me, I’m looking at, you know, I’m looking at for agents that were not licensed in 2015, and 2014. And by the way, year to date, $17 million of closed residential real estate transaction, by the way, that’s not a team, that’s an individual agent, $7 million, closed year to date, $8 million, another $16 million, year to date, and another person at $10 million. And I show look, they were not licensed in 2015, or 14, and look in 2015 14, they sold two homes, right? They just sold two homes. So here’s this system that we’re going to show you, here’s your dashboard, the biggest thing you have to do is have faith. And here’s a whole, you know, 300 agents of which probably 80% came in organically to the industry through us, getting them a license and teaching them how to do it. Now we have agents coming to us. Not in droves, but we have existing agents coming out saying look it you know, I’ve been doing this for 678 years, and I’m barely hitting the three or $4 million mark, and we’re able to, you know, get them going in a short time period of six months, because it got at least that foundation that basis. But again, going back to the questions you answered is we have all the proof in the pudding. And we have graphs and pie charts that we show people. And even after we show it to them, TJ on their six month, they’re like, oh my god, what am I going to do? This is like not right, this is normal. Look, it’s normal, the struggle is normal, right? She’s close $12 million in the first six months so far. But remember, she did $800,000 in volume her first 10 months. And she thought she was a failure to or you know, are struggling and this wasn’t made for her. Like don’t overestimate you know, what you can do in a year and underestimate what you could do in a decade. You know, there’s a plan there’s a lot of people here that care about you. There is a system we filed and we’ve had so many people that have done it just keep the faith in watch it will work out

D.J. Paris 28:55
yeah and and you know, it’s it’s you’re building a business and a lot of people who when they get their license have never built a business for they don’t under they’ve certainly are not, you know, told in school, hey, it’s probably going to be a couple years before you’re not completely freaked out about your production. And that’s normal and it sucks because nobody wants to be freaked out but every single top producer we’ve interviewed for the show is freaked out in their first year and I don’t mean consistently but they’re just like there’s there’s moments of frustration because let’s you have a bunch of friends lined up ready to buy and sell condos on day one, which nobody does. It’s it’s it’s a process and and and you know, so that’s why I imagine you spend so much time talking about network because you and I both know and of course, everyone who’s listening knows the vast majority of buyers and sellers and investors as well. Go who do we know who’s a realtor who was good? That’s the vast majority of our, you know, the single digit as far as consumers. Choose their realtor through Online lead sources like Zillow, Trulia, etc. It’s like single digit. So the vast majority of everyone else guys, who do we know. And so,

Ryan D’Aprile 30:09
I know I love the statistics, you know, like 98% of all home sellers start their search on internet. So yeah, of course they know. You know, but I mean, in that I don’t want to, you know, poopoo tech like that stuff and say, Oh, I’m some dinosaur living in a kid, you know, I’m not our caveman living in a cave and my, my heads buried in the sand, but no, but it’s, it’s just that technology should complement your business. But it’s not going to replace the human interaction, it’s not going to replace relationship building. And if you’re going to rely so much on technology, you’re you’re going to be really fine in this business. But a very expensive because it’s very expensive. The source channel, you know, and, and then B is very arduous. And it’s very, it’s, I remember, I had this, this agent has such any stories with our family, such a nice guy, but he was foreign, okay, he, he grew up in, he grew up in, in Egypt, and he, and he came over here, and he was one of the kindest guys you’ll ever meet. He said, Brian, there’s like 10 months in the business, I’m gonna get out of the business. And I said, why? And he goes, people just don’t like me, here I go, What are you talking about? And now this man has a family. And he has two kids, and he’s raised his kids here and there, you know, you know, like sugary teens. And, and I just didn’t buy it. Like, there’s no rights people don’t like you, you’re like, the nicest guy in the world. I love you. I’ve known you for 10 months. And he goes on to explain this with a couple of the agents in this company, you’ve given me some leads, there was no shirts, right? And,

D.J. Paris 31:46
of course, they haven’t called you back. They wouldn’t call it wouldn’t call it, they don’t call anybody.

Ryan D’Aprile 31:53
You, it’s it’s strangers. And this is just in. And you know, what he’s thriving? Very well, this day. And, but it’s like one of those things. And even though I talk about and I do, we can coaching sessions and evening coaching sessions, and, and, and and I do videos to our agents and all these other things. Sure, forget about it. Even Even my agents will forget this fact, through Twitter. So you got to repeat Oh, for sure. I’ll

D.J. Paris 32:19
tell you this quick story, because you’ll get a kick out of this. So I had somebody who was interested in looking at our firm, who I don’t, it doesn’t matter where they currently are. But there’s some firm I’m not even sure where and they are I gosh, I probably going to have the numbers wrong. But let’s say they’re three months in the business, maybe six months, and I and they’re struggling. And so they’re sort of looking around to look at other firms to see what would might be a better fit. And I said, Well, just out of curiosity, because I believe the firm that this person has had is a firm that has really good training, you know, like well known as having good training. And he was this gentleman was asking me about the training we have in our firm, and I was telling them and I said, but you’re at a firm that I know has good training. Did you go through it? Yeah, I went through it. And I said, Okay, well, what are you doing? Why? Why do you feel that your current firm isn’t a good fit? And, and he goes, Well, I don’t know. But I said, What are you doing to build your business? And he goes, Well, I’m calling expireds and fizz bows. And I said, Oh, I said, you’re in. You’re doing that now. And he said, Yeah, he goes, and it’s really hard. And I was like, Yeah, that’s really hard. And I just was flabbergasted. I said, did someone at the firm tell you to do that? And he goes, No, no, I thought of it on my own. I was like, that’s probably not a great call. Because if you’re calling somebody and you happen to get somebody on the phone, who doesn’t hang up on you, and they go, you’ve been in the business three months, and you want to sell my, you know, million dollar home, like, that’s a tough sell. So I was like, ah, you know, oh, my gosh, and it’s a hard grind. And I’m not, you know, I mean, look, maybe there’s some people that can pound out two to 300 dials a day, and maybe get lucky once in a while. But oh my goodness, like I said, you just need to go out and meet people face to face every day and say, Oh, I do this. And I’ll stay in touch. And let’s learn about each other. And, you know, it’s not that simple. But gosh, it’s a heck of a lot easier than making calling fizz bows, oh, my God.

Ryan D’Aprile 34:08
Well, this, you know, so you bring up another point, too. And this is something for you know, I think the listeners to all here there’s a there’s a point that we call it, people get into the danger zone. And yet they learned the fundamentals. And they learned the basics. And you know, what, after 1824 months, often they’re doing eight, nine $10 million? And let me tell you, yeah, for sure. Living you know, and especially when you’ve been in business for two years. And then what they’ll do is they’ll get away from the fundamentals. And they have two reactions. One I’m gonna change the external, the environment around me, or two, I’m going to ask for help ask what I’m doing wrong. And then when they do that, you could point out like, look, remember when and it worked. For the bi weekly meetings and you came to the weekend coaching, you don’t have to come every year but you came and look at that and then and then boom within six months are back to where they want to be. And so it’s just a lesson in life. for everybody’s like, You got to look within, you got to really look within and ask, What am I doing? And what do I need to do? To get me to where I want to be? And it’s a big responsibility. But it’s it’s at least control, we should have control over yourself. I don’t have control over any of the external factors. I have control over me. Well, yeah,

D.J. Paris 35:19
and and if at the end of the day, if you look back at your business for the previous year, and you say, Well, gosh, 80% of the people who, who became clients were part of my existing network, then okay, let’s deepen those relationships with my existing network, let’s continually focus on, you know, is you’re saying like looking externally, well, maybe another firm would give me leads, or maybe another firm has better training, or maybe it’s going back to the fundamentals of exceed expectations, make sure you have great relationships, stay in touch with your clients, meeting some new people here and there, build those, you know, your right fundamentals. I mean, it’s the same for me, I’m on the recruiting side. And for me, it’s real simple. It’s like, if I talk, I need to talk to a certain number of brokers every week, and tell them about what we do, etc. And ultimately, that will never change. That is exactly the fundamental, I need to remember that, you know, it’s easy for me to forget that it’s it’s not a lot of fun to always go back to, you know, dribbling the ball up and down the court. But oh, it’s a good idea. come game time to have all that practice. And to never forget that the fundamentals, I love that you’re such a fundamentals guy.

Ryan D’Aprile 36:24
I was with an agent yesterday. And sage has been with me for about six years now one of the original agents and he’s a Top Producing agent, he does a great amount of business. And we had a coaching session, and I hit the Tab and I said, let’s look at this. This is 2014. And I think he had like 26.

D.J. Paris 36:42
And a good year. That’s a good year. Yeah.

Ryan D’Aprile 36:44
Great Year, great year. And he’s had a great year this year, right? And I picked, you know, five randomly, let’s say, last time, we talked to him, right? That was asking me to talk to this person. And even this person looked at me as like Jesus, right? I’m like, Yeah, I know, man. But this is what we have to do. And all you got to do is give him a call, ask them how they been? What’s going on? You know, it just keep the relationship with them. Because if you focus on your past sales, whatever works, it does for all listeners, please hear me. Everybody focuses on their prospects. And they focus on the clients that they have. And they abandon their network, and they abandoned the people that bought from them that year, the previous year, the year before the year before. And that I mean, there’s an easy way of doing this business, I swear to God, it’s so easy. It just be friends with all your past clients and be purchasable and continue to keep the relationship. And then you’ll see that you will attract sales, you will not chase them. It might take it’s like the tortoise and the hare. And like that agent that you were saying calling to cancel and fizz bows, and then agents plopping down when we get on Zillow, and be premiere agents or whatnot, fine. That’s your the hair, your rabbit, wonderful rock and roll, I really have the tortoise approach. I’m going to show you what to do. And you know what if you want if you’re new in the business, keep your day job, you know, keep doing what you’re doing follow this path for 12 to 18 months, and then don’t abandon it. Because if you do it like, again, I’m looking at these two charts, I have two agents here. They have close $17 million $70 million pending and closed year to date. And they were hesitant three years ago, you know, right. And by the way, that’s that’s an agent, right? That’s not a team. And they’re going about it the easy way. And it’s all with

D.J. Paris 38:30
you. You know, it’s funny, too. You’re so right. I was just thinking of a real practical example for listeners. So a lot of times, we’re talking about staying in touch with previous clients, right? They were they bought a home a year ago, they’re not going to buy a home or sell but rather sell and, you know, move for seven years. Okay, well, what about calling them on their anniversary date? Hey, just you know, it’s been a year since you bought this home. How is it working for you? Or did you ever edge? Do you have any problems? How’s everything going? Howard? How’s the family? How are the kids? I was just calling because I was so excited to just realize it’s been a year and I just wanted to say thanks again for choosing me a year ago. Like it can be that simple. And, or it can be Hey, I just found you an apartment and you call the person a month after Hey, it’s been a month. How do you still like the apartment? Is everything going? Okay, great. I just wanted to say I was thinking about you goodbye. Like that sort of thing is huge. No one very few people do it.

Ryan D’Aprile 39:22
Of course, top producers do. Yes. Right. Right. Yeah. Then they then they’re pretty consistent and diligent and they understand the pattern. You know, there’s some outliers there’s some outlier pop top producers out there, they’ll probably tell you 6070 prisoners of their business Sure, the purchase business. But again, you know, if you look at their margins, it’s that’s not you know, it’s not a it’s a low margin business.

D.J. Paris 39:44
And it’s a totally different approach because you’re gonna pound the phones and some people very few people but some people are wired for that. They’re like, I’m gonna call this person 17 times, right until they hang up on me. And you know, that’s but that’s not what most of us as consumers want and you All right now I got well, all right, let’s I have taken up way too much of your time and very valuable time because you’re gonna have to travel around and meet with all your brokers. Let’s talk about since you know, since you have this great company, if there are people listening who are interested in learning more about what you guys offer, what is the best way they should reach out to you?

Ryan D’Aprile 40:22
An agent could reach out to me directly, they can email me they could reach out to any one of our managing brokers, I’m very easy Google me, you can find my cell phone. And you know, I’m very accessible. So if you have any questions, my my thing to what I want people to hear is we have several different platforms we have, we have the ability for brand new agents to the business, we have an ability to bring in teams, we have ability for a top producer to come in, we have so many things besides coaching and training, we have the, you know, these these assistant programs and marketing programs, and we’re agents who are at a whole other level where they can lean on our company to actually do the marketing and that stuff for them. We have so many different platforms for them, but the thing is, is if you are looking for something, you know, just give me a call and we just talk it through, you know, it’s it’s one of those one of those businesses that we hit like you said, you’re on the recruiting side. Sure. And, you know, we haven’t adopted that philosophy just yet. But you know what, it’s probably something we got to think about doing and looking at doing. So you see how unprepared I am for that question you just asked No, no, but myself, I guess.

D.J. Paris 41:30
But here’s the beauty of that answer is that you still have hundreds of agents without a recruiting focus, and every other firm has a massive recruiting focus. So I think that probably speaks to the leadership there. Coming from the top down so So really, what a great answer quite honestly. So anyway, I will I will promote. Ryan, if you’re interested in learning more, go go to a D APR properties.com. I’ll put it put a link to it here in the notes. You can contact Ryan directly or any of any of the really the team members are very easy to get in touch with and learn more about what they offer and I were so grateful to have you on the show because again of how busy we know you are so Hey everyone, this is DJ again. And as you can probably tell the software we use glitch to write as Ryan was saying thank you. So on behalf of Ryan, he wanted to say thank you to everyone who has listened and we will see you on our next episode.

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