Category: Podcast Episodes

One way to know what your clients think of you is to read the online reviews. Matt Liss, broker and owner of Mark Allen Realty, has the most 5-star reviews of any broker in Chicago on Yelp (out of 35k brokers). Clearly, his clients love his service! We talked with Matt about what he does differently than other agents, how he grows his business, and why if you’re not having success with open houses, you’re doing it wrong!

Matt Liss can be reached at 773-415-4744 and mattl@markallenrealty.com.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast made by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show and we’re really excited and thrilled to have interviewed Matt LIS today. And his interview is coming up in just a couple of few couple quick announcements before we get started. First of all, the we have doubled our readership or listenership rather yet again in the last month. So thank you, for everyone who’s listening and sharing this with a friend. So if you have other brokers in your office, that or other brokers, you know, in the industry that you think could benefit in particular, we’re getting a lot of good feedback from newer brokers who are looking to find out what the top producers are doing, which of course, is exactly what we do here on the show. So feel free to share it with anyone and everyone you think could benefit. And secondly, we are also starting to take sponsorships. So I have a number of you that I need to get back to. So if you have a service that you would like to get in front of the ears of several 1000 realtors, every single episode, let me know and you can sponsor a podcast easiest way to reach us is keeping it real pod.com There’s a contact form there or on Facebook. And last, we have started getting questions from you as well, which is great because Carrie McCormack hosts, a co host an episode every month with me where she answers your questions. So keep them coming. You can email us directly through or rather you can email us but also send it right through our website, which is likely easier. So please do Oh, and unfortunately the audio that you’re about to hear in this great, really awesome interview with Matt is not great. His here’s the good news. His audio is perfect. He comes through absolutely crystal clear. It’s me. Somehow I screwed up. And my audio is unclear. But here’s the good news. You don’t care about my audio because we’re here to interview, Matt. So even if some of my questions are a little a little quieter than I’d like them to be, don’t worry, you’ll be able to figure out exactly what Matt is talking about because he is the star of this episode anyway. So I apologize to Matt, not knowing that our audio was so choppy. And also his audio is great. So don’t worry, it sounds fine. But I apologize to the listeners. So please listen through it. It’s so good. Matt has such a great interview. So thanks so much guys. And on to our interview with Matt let’s

today on the show, we have Matt Eilis who is the broker owner of Mark Allen Realty and Matt has been in the real estate and development business for over 10 years. During that time, he has bought and sold countless properties and develop both single family homes and condo conversions. Matt has successfully closed over 500 real estate transactions earning him recognition from the Chicago Association of Realtors as one of the city’s top producers and that’s he’s earned that award from 2005 through today 2017. Furthermore, he has earned the Chicago five star real estate agent award from 2011. Also through 2017, which was given is given to less than 2% of all realtors and based solely on the recommendations and feedback of their clients. Matt was born in Australia but spent most of his life in the northern suburbs of Chicago after spending 10 years in a vintage two flat Logan Square. Matt now resides in the west loop, and he loves to spend time with his wife Amy, his son Kayden and his daughter, Talia, will tell us because you’ve done so many different parts of real estate tell us a little bit more about how you got started.

Matt Liss 3:59
It’s an interesting story so raised by a single mother, my brother and I lived in Skokie with our grandmother until we were about 13. And I had a that’s my maternal grandmother that had a really good relationship with my father’s grandparents who lived in Rogers Park. They lived on the top floor of a two flat and on the first floor was Rosen ape, amazing people. He was a Holocaust survivor and just a really hard worker and was in the real estate business and had always kind of chatted with him about his endeavors and did a lot of stuff on the south side and was just a genuinely good guy. I was in corporate America for quite a while in the internet space for quite a while and then that whole thing fizzled in 2000. And I was looking for something to do got a great severance package in 2000 and was trying to figure out my next path. My uncle and I had a good relationship and he was in the landscape business. We decided to start buying houses fixing and flipping them. That’s where a first floor guy in my grandparents building came into play. And he helped us kind of get started and it just kind of grew legs from there. Are we might include I probably bought 10 or so homes on the south side, did a decent amount of work ourselves, hired some guys that you know for electrical, plumbing and things like that. But we were both pretty handy and did a lot of work and it was profitable and we enjoyed it a lot of flexibility and started realizing how frustrating it was to work with some real estate brokers. So, at that time, the Chicago Association of Realtors was offering what was called then education exempt. So I have a finance degree from University of Illinois at Chicago. And I just sat and took the test and had my license and was able to sell my own real estate. From there, Mark, my business partner, Mark Oscar who he and I own Mark Allen Realty together. He was also education exempt took the test, and we just started this brokerage and that also grew legs, I had a good sphere of influence, I had a lot of friends that were starting to buy places, and I was a trustworthy person had decent knowledge of the Chicago market. And we just started this brokerage and it just again, grew legs from there.

D.J. Paris 6:08
Yeah, it’s it’s so interesting. There are at our firm for my DJ, a lot of brokers and a good chunk of them. A good chunk of them are investors who, you know, through some sort of frustration, decided, hey, I can do this, or I’m I’m already doing most of the work, I might as well get my license, and then decided to either continue doing their own investments or also working with the public, which sounds like basically what you Well, yeah,

Matt Liss 6:39
it was both right, I started working with the public more, and doing a little less development, picked up a couple different business partners, my uncle moved to Arizona, and then I started working with this guy, Andrew, who was great. We did some condo conversions, we did some ground up stuff. And the market fell apart in oh eight and we got stuck with a building, we wound out of it. And it wasn’t too damaging, but you know, we licked our wounds. And then the market kind of picked back up. And the brokerage business was always there for me. And it was I’ve been very fortunate.

D.J. Paris 7:13
You’ve been in real estate for such a long time. You’ve been friends for the future, whether it’s brokers really feel to be aware of,

Matt Liss 7:24
you know, one of the things and I’ve really enjoyed mentoring some of the younger brokers and some of the associates in my office. And one of the things I was taught by a guy who I really respect in this business, I realize owl he’s at Gold tree Realty, he’s family ish. It’s my brother’s wife’s father. He’s big in the foreclosure business. And he helped me buy my first place when I was 24. Just a really genuine guy. He said to me, stay focused. Don’t put 10 eggs in the real estate back basket, like focus on something that you really want to be good at and run with that. Don’t try and do everything in this business because you won’t be successful. And he stay true to his game because he’s a huge REO guy. And that market gets hot and cold too. But he stays focused. So I try and teach my guys to you know, when they come in in the market slow, they’re like, Hey, should we do foreclosures? Hey, should we focus on short sales? Hey, should we you know, there’s so many different ways to make money in this business. If you’re going to be a real estate broker and focus on that,

D.J. Paris 8:28
I 100% agree. It’s a little expression. Totally. And it’s, it’s so absolutely true. The most facets of life, it’s certainly true real estate, as I see it a lot on forums, in particular for investors, and not necessarily even brokers, people who go on bigger pockets who really want to learn in the investment world, which is awesome. And they’re just overwhelmed and not quite sure. Like they’ll just hyper focus on one type of investment. And you know, within a period of time it becomes it becomes incredibly skilled and valuable. But in particular, being a broker is the same way you focus in in a particular geographic area or a certain type of client, is there a certain specialty that you really are passionate about with knowledge?

Matt Liss 9:17
I wouldn’t say by design I do. But our business, our offices in Bucktown, we’ve been here for 12 years, same space. And, you know, our business is on the north shore right now the north side of the city. We focus here in Bucktown, Logan Square Wicker Park, Lakeview Roscoe village, things like that places we’re comfortable. We often get calls and people are, you know, looking at neighborhoods where we’re not comfortable. And we were candid about that. We’re saying listen, we’re probably not a good fit, where this is where we focus our business and I’m sorry, but you know, we try and get them a referral. So I guess yeah, we’re just really this door shore Northside Neighborhood focused brokerage and we are a boutique shop and we’re gonna stay that way. We’ve never really wanted to get the 20 3050 agents in here. To push value, and we really focus on customer service getting in some really strong, educated passionate brokers that have a really strong moral compass. Also, that’s really something that I’ve focused on taking care of the clients and understanding that this is a customer service business more so than anything. I think it’s been really humbling to help so many people, you know, buy their home, and this is their largest purchase and the fact that they’re coming to me, and then referring me to their friends and family. It’s pretty awesome.

D.J. Paris 10:32
No, so I think I think that’s so incredibly powerful. What you said earlier about sort of walking away from business that isn’t your core competency. And we were talking just before the interview about investments, reports to have done, and you said, you’re starting to get back into but you’re like, it’s really not a core competency. And I think that the, what particular clients are always looking for in their brokers, there is authenticity and the ability for you to say, hey, that’s, you know, I can help you. But it’s not really what I specialty as in this particular area, or this type.

Matt Liss 11:08
So DJ, I’ll tell you, we, I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve gained our biggest popularity, we are the highest rated realtors in the entire city of Chicago on Yelp. That’s where we have just shined. If you read some of my reviews, they’re actually they all kind of say the same thing. It’s like Matt is just so incredibly blunt and so honest, it suggests it and that’s what I continue to hear and almost to a fault, right? Like I’ve talked people out of buying places, and you’ll read that in a lot of my reviews. And it’s pretty amazing how and I don’t do it intentionally. It’s just who I am, right? I’m very honest person, and it freaks some people out. But at the end of the day, they’re like, Wow, this was a pretty amazing experience considering this person, I can actually trust this person who I’ve never met.

D.J. Paris 11:50
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, review sites like Yelp, Zillow, and any Google and Facebook as well. They are the true equalizer. They are the acid test what your clients think

Matt Liss 12:02
about you, and the fact Oh, my God, it’s so easy for someone to lambaste you. Oh, for sure. And

D.J. Paris 12:07
that’s it, you know, it’s good and bad. And ultimately, you know, once once the dust settles, you know, usually, the truth sort of, sort of generally rises. And so for to be popular, you know, Yelp is isn’t particularly difficult system to use for anyone who’s a business owner or broker and the fact that you are so highly rated on Yelp, in particular, is probably the least friendly to the business owner.

Matt Liss 12:36
It is the largest double edged sword out there.

D.J. Paris 12:39
The true testament, you must be doing with your private. Let’s talk about that a little bit. You know, aside from from being bluntly honest, which I believe is maybe the most important part of being a successful realtor, or certainly up there. Why else do you think? What do you think it is? You know, aside from telling people, you know, what you’ve done what you think they should do, whilst you think you’re so highly regarded from your clients?

Matt Liss 13:06
I’ve thought about that. And sometimes, you know, every year January comes around, and you’re at zero, right? You have done zero business, you’re looking at your leads, you’re like, Can I do this again? Like, you know, we’ve been so fortunate, I just, the numbers have been amazing. The past shoot, I mean, I remember my first year in real estate, I was awarded the Chicago Association of Realtors top producer award, I didn’t even know that award existed, right? I mean, and I look at it, and I see all these people’s faces, like top producers was like, I don’t think I want my picture on there one day, like, that’s cool. Like, who are all these people. And every year, every year since I’ve been in business, I’ve been a top producer. And I constantly see these names. And now my face is on page one of these top producer things. It’s amazing. I don’t know, DJ, I really don’t know what sets me apart. But I do know that on every listing appointment, I go on, I either ask or there, the sellers are candid about telling me and they’re like, Matt, we’re interviewing for brokers. I was like, okay, you know, and now I’m used to that. And I pretty consistently get the business. I don’t know why, but I’m honest. And they see that I mean, people are intuitive, and they understand someone that’s genuine. I don’t go in there with a giant dog and pony show and, you know, iPads flying and projectors and handouts. It’s just me. It’s me my information. You know, and they see that.

D.J. Paris 14:28
Yeah, no, I think that that’s obviously very clear. And, you know, so interesting to me, because I interview a lot of top producers and they oftentimes more often than not, it’s to be infrequent and uncommon for somebody to say like, I know exactly why I’m more successful than maybe most other brokers and it’s not even an ego thing. They’re just, they just go I just do what I do. You know, so I think there’s a set of values there that that you’re clearly diamonds reading to your client and it’s up to you. It’s like, that’s just what I do. I would be, you know, strange to even even sort of think about as you were saying, you’re not quite sure why, why you’re so successful, but you clearly are. And I think there’s a lot to be gained from. From that, even though it’s hard to verbalize. We have to say, I do recruiting. So whenever people ask about our, well, I built the website for our firm. And I looked around at a lot of the other interior, the big firms that do recruiting, and they don’t tell you much information, because a lot of you know, they don’t tell you that information, and then I can make up my own mind, what what firm I wanted. And so I just did that. And then, you know, that’s one of the things that’s distinguish us is this reseller and what you do is just as radical honesty, it’s like, here’s, here’s what it is, here’s how it works. And, you know, people tend to, obviously your claims, that incredibly well, do you prefer working with buyers or sellers, you talked earlier about buying, so wasn’t sure if one was more obviously worked with both, I’m sure but is one preferable to

Matt Liss 16:07
you know, neither are more preferable I not by design, but by for almost 5050 buyers and sellers at the end of the year, I just look at some numbers. And that’s just the way it shakes out. And both are great. Honestly, there’s some great I mean, we have a good time on the street with buyers, you spend a little bit more time with them becomes a little more intimate, you’re in your car with them, sharing stories, you know, making fun of people on the site to get stuff, but it’s, I have a really good time with buyers, the sellers, it’s more of like a transaction, right? I mean, there’s a lot of email communication, there’s a couple phone calls, but you’re not interacting with them personally, because you’re not out touring home. So it becomes a little less personal. Fortunately, a lot of the sellers do become buyers, because they’re clearly moving somewhere. And they love me. So we just kind of build the relationship on that end. But both are great.

D.J. Paris 16:52
Yeah. You know, you talked about mentoring some of the brokers in your own office, and you guys have many, what advice do you give to new broker people getting into the industry? Now? What are some, you know, thoughts you have about things should you maybe even think they should?

Matt Liss 17:08
Sure, our model here is a little different. We don’t have a bunch of brokers, there’s just a small core of us that do the majority of the business. And we don’t hire new agents, let’s just start there. So we often get emails that say, hey, we’d love to come work with you. Because they look at our reviews. They just kind of know our presence. And I say, here’s a great idea for you go talk to the Big Five and get into a training program. And then once you’ve done 10 deals, come talk to me. I, for whatever reason, have a really keen sense for a person’s worth. And I understand who’s good and who’s bad. And I have a pretty fun interview process. And I have found some great people. You know, I have Holly in my office who I just love. He’s amazing top producer Cheryl Rhymer longtime runner for North clapboard group. She’s with us now. She’s beyond amazing. And then we have a couple of junior associates, Michael Bishop and Elise Martinez who are just going to be superstars one day there, but they’re kind of running and helping us out doing showings and taking buyers out. But that’s our core group. And then Mark, he does some business here too. And it’s fun. I mean, we have a really fun office.

D.J. Paris 18:14
Yeah, no, it sounds like, definitely do. And I also love the radical honesty, and we take on new brokers that it’s not come to you, you know, that might be painful, it is painful. And but at the same point, you know, it’s, I just I just love it good willingness to sort of say that up and see this is, you know, once once you’ve got your belt, we

Matt Liss 18:37
don’t have a training program. But what I do tell the agents that come work with me is saying it’s the old saying, like, you want to sit next to the smartest kid in the class, like you want to learn this business come in this office and learn usually, we have open concept office, lofted walls, everyone’s able to hear everybody. So if I’m on a call, if you want to shut up and listen to me, you’re gonna learn some things. And that’s how he’s done. And I learned from how he and we’re all learning from each other’s phone calls and relationships and business experiences. And it’s just there is zero competition, like, I am sure that that the big firms broke. Same brokers are going in competing for the same business. We don’t have that were more of a support group, we all help each other. And it’s, it’s really cool. It’s, it’s fun, I give everybody their own identity. So what how he was starting off, and he was helping me out, I said, how every deal you get is under your name. This isn’t a number that’s going under the mat list group. Like that’s crap, like, I don’t do that. Like I want you to build your business, build your identity and step off on your own and be an amazing broker. And that’s what’s happened.

D.J. Paris 19:38
Yeah, what advice would you have for new brokers or somebody getting in them in the in the business today outside, you know, maybe joining a firm that that has, specifically what would you say to somebody who has to work?

Matt Liss 19:51
I often tell people when they come and go and find some top producing groups that are doing teams and just start getting showings under your belt because there’s, I’m a big fan, I am not a huge education person. As far as learning and classroom, I was always a hands on learner. So my thing is just get out and do the job and you’re going to learn on the street, start showing property, start taking buyers out. And the only way to do that when you’re new is get on a team and just help. And if you can do that, I think it’s a really good way to build your confidence. Start seeing the other listing broker and buyer’s broker on the other side of how they present themselves during showings. So just absorb, absorb, absorb, and, you know, figure out what your style is going to be. And everyone’s different, right. I mean, there are some brokers that are hilarious during showings, and just like, This is the bathroom. I’m like, Really, that’s the bathroom. Amazing. Thank you for telling me. Like, you know, just take some highlights to tell the home to tell the consumer about the home. And don’t just helicopter and just cruise through every room telling us what’s going on because a lot of it’s very intuitive.

D.J. Paris 20:55
That’s true. You’re right, though, it’s like just it’s abrupt under your belt, right? Like it, it took reps. You know, I’ve always suggested to newer brokers, you know, if you’re on a team, or if you work at a firm where there’s other brokers offer to do shopper to do open houses for them just to get you know, if the rate is higher? Probably not maybe, but at the very least it does what it might Yeah. It’s funny. It’s funny, because I talked to a lot of broke, many of which are like, Oh, open houses, you know, they don’t like them. They don’t work. And then you meet somebody who goes, no, they’re totally wrong. They absolutely work. And they’re wrong.

Matt Liss 21:34
They are right, I’m going to tell you right now they’re wrong. If you go into it with a crappy attitude, and you’re just kind of sitting back and your lunches on the table, and you’re just kicking it and people come in and you’re like, Hey, have a look. Now you want to show them your personality, you want to show them who you are just like on a listing presentation, these buyers are typically unwrapped or out just cruising around, and if you can wow them and build a rapport. Nobody’s loyal in this business. If you if they find someone better, if they find someone better, more entertaining, more more edge educated, they’re gonna want to work with you. And I’ve I myself, don’t do a ton of open houses. But I do a fair share. And I have personally picked up several buyers, several new listings from open houses. And I know my agents have as well. So if you don’t think you can, you are wrong.

D.J. Paris 22:22
I love that. And I think I think it’s funny because I love when people say things like that, where they’re just like, No, they don’t work and I Okay, you know, if I know that they do work for other people. It’s kind of like the same thing with buying internet leads. Some people do some people don’t necessarily find whether it’s someone does or doesn’t. But I love when people say buying leads from Zillow or Trulia doesn’t work. And I’m like, Why No, it actually does work because I know people who work for is it what you’re good at or what you want to do. And that’s fine. So the same thing with open up. Some people are like, it doesn’t work. And it’s like, I know it works for other people. So

Matt Liss 23:00
when you’re doing an open house when you’re a new broker and you’re doing an open house create an experience and I’m not saying have a circus there with like a magician, but you know, we have I’ve told my brokers bring a little speaker don’t have a completely silent silent, play a little music, bring a little something you could bring coffee, you could you know, just it’s $15 to bring, you know, a box of coffee and some cops and it just breaks the ice. Yeah, speaking

D.J. Paris 23:23
of breaking the ice, I want to just talk to a few of the things you had told us before. Before we got on the air. You were talking a listing appointment I

Matt Liss 23:36
I was hilarious as last year. So I of course remember exactly where I was I was in like this little townhome community over by diversity and the lakefront and really nice woman found me online didn’t know her from Adam. And she invites me in. And often when you get to someone’s house, you’re I always asked, Should I take my shoes off, because it’s just polite. And she was like, yeah, so fine. And then I always do a quick tour of the house just so I can get a feeling and just for new brokers, since this is kind of the topic of this. So when you’re going on a listing presentation, one of my tips is always when tour the house first before you start talking. And the old kind of thing is find something that’s familiar to you or that you can relate to that they maybe do maybe you see like a snowboard somewhere and you’re a snowboarder or maybe you see some mountain bike pictures or you see you know, they’re in academia and just bring it up during the listing presentation. So you could find a common ground. People eat that up and then you’re just trying to build this friendship or relationship with this person that’s beyond you. Just as a broker, you’re have a similar interest and it works often. So little trick. So I’m at this listing presentation and we’ve done the tour we’re sitting down and we’re talking and this dogs just cornering me and I’d love dogs. I don’t trust anyone else’s dogs but I love dogs. So we’re sitting there and all of a sudden this dog under the table bites my foot like legit bit my foot. I did not take my sock off at the presentation but afterwards I did and it was full I bleeding. So that my foot the document life, and I told the lady, I’m like, Oh, my I jumped up. She’s like, what happened? I’m like your baby. And she was like, oh my god, I’m so sorry. And she said, she actually bites my mom a lot. So maybe this is a good sign. I was like, I was like, okay, and she would not put the dog away. Like, I was like, can you just, you know, without destroying this, I actually got the listing appointment, or I got the listing. But she the dog was just cornering growling at me. I was like, God, this is horrible.

D.J. Paris 25:32
I think you’d have to get the listing at that point.

Matt Liss 25:34
So you do it to help I help pay for the stitches.

D.J. Paris 25:38
Yeah, guilt is a powerful motivator. That is really funny. Probably not the first time a broker has been fit. And I’m always amazed. But again, to be the most interesting of that story, not so much that you got it. It’s that the homeowner who has seen her dog bite other people occur to the homeowner to maybe put the dog in the other in the other room.

Matt Liss 26:03
But seriously, no, it’s Yeah, I was amazed. But yeah, it happened.

D.J. Paris 26:07
Yeah, that’s, that’s plenty. And I mean, I’m totally guilty of the same thing. My dog doesn’t doesn’t bite people. But I bring her to the office. And what happens when somebody leaves our office and I have like an internal office space here, the door, but I leave it open when people leave our physical building, oftentimes, seven out of 12, which is tiny, but she will run rates after that. Fight with them as they’re leaving. Yeah, it’s probably not funny to somebody who doesn’t know that. And, and I’ve been for seven years like this letting go. And I probably it’s a good reminder that

seven pound two hours can be ferocious.

Well, they are they are they’re just, you know, they are absolutely one of the most aggressive breed, they can’t do much damage. Physical pretty scared up. And then I just wanted to real quickly also talk about a funny experience you had where you’re you had with your daughter’s best friend’s mother, can you tell us that

Matt Liss 27:05
was funny. So Anthony was a client of mine previously, and he calls me out of the blue like everyone does, like, Hey, man, I’m looking to buy a house. I’m getting engaged, blah, blah, blah. My first is amazing. Good for you. Awesome. So I’m like, Alright, let’s, you know, get a tour set up when he when he look at that we get the whole thing done via telephone, just getting like his parameters set up and starting to see things. So we meet at the first property and give Anthony a hug. I haven’t seen him. And then his fiancee pulls up. And she looks remotely familiar. I hadn’t. You know what, I didn’t pay much attention. And she’s like, Matt, and I’m like, yep. And I didn’t know who she I just thought he introduced you know, he told her about me. And she’s like, You don’t know who I am. I’m like, now she’s like, our daughters are best friends. Like, and this was your like, daughter just got into first grade at Skinner. And it was like a new relationship, blah, blah. She’s like this, and she had my daughter her house several times, clearly not super involved with my kids. I’m joking. I totally am. My wife had dropped her off a couple times for playdates. And she shows me a picture of my daughter’s it was just really small world stuff. So they’ve since become really good friends of ours, my daughter, still best friends with her daughter, Sienna, and they’re just a good family. But yeah, it’s hilarious.

D.J. Paris 28:20
And also you meet people for a living. So it’s easy to not always remember every face. You know, if you worked in an office where you just had the same five co workers all day, and that’s all it was, it would probably be much easier to oh, that my daughter, you know,

Matt Liss 28:35
prime is so my kids think it’s hilarious. Everywhere I go. People are like mad mad. I’m like, Oh my goodness. And so on autism. I don’t remember. Oh, we were on a cruise. We were on a cruise a couple years ago and someone screaming from like two decks below my name. And I’m looking up on my cards. My client Jeremy. Great.

D.J. Paris 28:50
Hilarious. Well, you know, man, I think you said it all. And I I want to talk about how if anyone’s listening to interested buying and selling or investing renting, Matt would would be honored to speak with you on what’s the best way someone could reach out to you.

Matt Liss 29:09
Emails, great love it just easy to respond and set up a time to meet and talk. Matt L at Mark Allen realty.com. And it’s ma r k l l e n realty.com. Or just go to Yelp and type in realtor and we’ll just come up top of the list because that’s just where we’re at.

D.J. Paris 29:25
And again, I can’t say enough about what a huge, massive accomplishment that is. Thanks. I appreciate it really? Well, I mean, congratulate well, well earned and deserved. So Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. And I apologize. I have to I have to tell everyone. I have never been late to separate today. 18 minutes late Madison. So no, I’m

Matt Liss 29:45
back charging you DJ I told you

D.J. Paris 29:49
that the check will be well, you know, it’s actually not going. I will. If I ever see out I will give you a food or

a beer. You know where it goes. Good talking with you guys.

Thank you so much and I’m thinking

Matt Liss 30:04
alright, thanks for hosting, appreciate it and good luck to all those new agents out there. Our business for sure

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This week we spoke with top 1% producer Scott Curcio who believes that professionalism is critical to a broker’s success. We discussed the importance of ethics, knowing the market, and fair housing considerations that brokers often miss. At Baird and Warner Scott is part of the Founder’s Club (Top 1%) has been the #1 producer in Avondale for many years.

Scott can be reached at 773.697.5585 and scott@scottcurcio.com.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real podcast the only podcast made by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host, and we have a fantastic interview with top producer Scott Curzio. Coming in just a few wanted to first of all say thank you to everyone listening. So once again, we have over last month increased our listenership by almost 100%, which is just amazing, which means you must be out there telling friends about this. So thanks for doing that. And also, please continue to pass this podcast along to any other real estate professionals you think could benefit from listening. And also thank you for all the suggestions for people to interview. We are now completely slammed with interviews for the next month. So again, thank you for that. We’ve also been getting some questions, specifically around how do I make sure I don’t miss an episode. So a couple of ways to do that. Obviously, if you’re using a podcast app, you’ll be notified whenever we publish a new episode, but also you can get notified via Facebook. So if you go to Facebook and do a search for keeping it real pod, again keeping it real pod, you can like our page and then we post course every time we publish a new episode there. And also you can get notified via email on our website, which is keeping it real pod.com There’s a spot to subscribe to our email newsletter. We only email you when we have a new episode, so feel free to go ahead and subscribe both those places. And lastly, we are taking sponsorships for podcast episodes. So if you have a service that is related to real estate that you think could be benefited by listening to 1000s of Realtors in Chicago, let us know and we’ll tell you how it works to sponsor an episode. Okay, on to our interview with Scott tercio.

All right, today on the show we have Scott Curzio who Scott is among the top 1% of Realtors in Chicago. Scott is now with Baird and Warner real estate and is among the top ranks of his former brokerage, earning international president’s elite designation as the top 2% of brokers worldwide also has been recognized as among the top 500 brokers within NRT out of 47,000 agents. He leads a team of five and has been recognized as a top producer by the Chicago Association of Realtors since 2009. Scott has also been the number one agent for units and volume in Avondale last year and currently lives in Edgewater at Scott is a graduate of Northwestern University. We are thrilled to have him on the show today. Scott, thank you so much. Hey, thanks

Scott Curcio 3:04
so much. It’s exciting to be here and talk a little shop with you guys.

D.J. Paris 3:08
Great, well tell us a little bit about how you got started in real estate.

Scott Curcio 3:12
Ah, you know, I think my story is probably not not uncommon is for a lot of us that are in this business. It’s usually a second or third career. I started out my my professional life in events and marketing and was at kind of a crossroads where I was in a position that I was not having luck getting out of, and a friend of mine had gone, gotten her real estate license and encouraged me to do the same. I had been a homeowner for about two years at that point. And you know it to me it was it was kind of like well, okay, here’s something I can do that I can control some Destiny. But just as I was getting my license, I actually also did finally get out, got a new full time position in corporate marketing, Regional Marketing for Whole Foods. And so I actually wound up starting my careers kind of at the same time. So for me for a long time, it was it was my secondary career, and it was my fallback if I ever needed it and fast forward to you know, September 2008, and the housing crisis and a lot of layoffs, including Whole Foods and that was when I was kind of forced to to jump out of the plane and see if I could land without a parachute. And I didn’t know actually so so here we are.

D.J. Paris 4:21
Well what a time I mean it’s so interesting because you were it mean what a time to really get full time in the market is right when it crashed that is truly remarkable. I just interviewed someone who the episode that will be before you as the person came in at the exact same time and her thought was boy if I could survive and weather this storm, it’ll all be should be all uphill

Scott Curcio 4:45
going forward. I think every every broker should start there and to me it was I wasn’t starting my career but I was starting right full time and I was lucky enough that I had a good referral base from the start and I was able to you know I would do a couple million dollars in sales a year on the side. And that beat a lot of agents in my small office at the time, you know, absolutely. But I think starting in a downturn is one of the best ways to grow your business. Because if you have to be scrappy, and you have to be focused on doing the tasks that are going to help your clients and get home sold, and you really do become, you really do become I think, very in touch with the market. And for me, especially right now, you know, we are due sometime in the next probably one to three years for a market correction. And so I’m much more attuned to that, because of my experience in 2009 10 and 11. And looking for the signs that are going to show me when we’re when we’re fully into that. And I think that serves clients, both buyers and sellers. Well,

D.J. Paris 5:42
yeah, you do something that I think is so important. And so few brokers, I think consciously make this decision, which is to hyper focus in a particular neighborhood or a series of neighborhoods in particular, I know you are incredibly active in Avondale. Can you talk about sort of, did you did you consciously choose to work? You know, as Avondale being your true north? Or was it just sort of happen that way? I mean, obviously, I know you work other areas. Yeah,

Scott Curcio 6:12
I lived there at the time. And I lived there for 10 years, I owned my I owned property there up until last spring. What veterans eventually want to get back into owning, you know, some investments over there. But for me, it made a lot of sense. I was living there. And I and I was in and out of every property probably more than anybody else. And that’s a big reason of how I’ve, I’ve built my, my network over there. You know, a lot of people talk about farming. And and I think the challenge point, you know, I know we’re speaking mostly to a lot of real estate brokers today is, you know, farming has to be consistent has to be long term. And you have to be willing to spend a couple of years doing it before you see any, any results from it. I started my direct mail campaign in the neighborhood very haphazardly. And I distinctly remember going into my manor and one of my assistant manager at the time, who was very big on farming had done a lot of that in liquid Balmoral where he lived and been very successful at it. And I really wanted to do more in Avondale because they lived there. And I knew that I knew the inventory. I knew I knew it better than anybody else. But I wasn’t telling that story. And I went into him. And I had made a list of like, all these reasons why I wasn’t doing it. And the biggest concern for me at the time, because I remember this is 2009, right? It’s my first year full time as a broker. I am I am not making much money. I am very, I am living very lean, being very cautious with Every Dollar. And so I went and I said one of the main reason I wasn’t doing it was money. And so and he gave me one of the best pearls of wisdom, and I use it almost every day still today is he said, Well, if you do nothing, nothing will happen. If you do something, something might happen. And it’s God, it’s so easy, right? It’s such a very, like, Duh, you know, there’s such a little like eye opening moment. And so whenever I am questioning something, I kind of always go back to that where it’s like, well, if I’m going to sit back and wait for something to happen, then it’s not but if I take action, then something may may actually mean something may still not, you know, but for me I am so when I first started farming the neighborhood my list in my in my my geography was very, very small. It was right around Brandes park where I lived. And my my little monthly fliers were made at Kinkos. And caught on colored paper, and they were hand delivered. I paid somebody that’s awesome, like hand deliver them. And then a couple months in, we I started mailing them. And again, it was like uncolored, it was like on neon cardstock. But our marketing together, we cut them at Kinkos we put the stamp on them and out they went. And then you know, in a year I got I got fancy and we went to white cardstock where they were for color. And that was a big deal. Then I think another year or so later, we started to I started to do them as you know, express docs mailed out postcards, glossy and overtime. And when we started off, I think we started off at like 200 homes, maybe 150 200 homes, and we’re over 1000 homes now in the community. So it’s a build, and you have to you know, and for me, it’s I always tell agents, you have to start small like and start what you can manage. If you can manage one block, do one block, and then build it to two, and two, three, and four and five into 10 and 2030. Whatever. You have to build it in a way that’s manageable, because I see most realtors, they have an idea and then they can’t break it down. And so there’s I will, you know, here’s my end goal, I want to be the number one broker in this neighborhood. Okay, well, what can you do to start getting there? You know, you’re not going to get there overnight. It’s going to take 5678 years maybe?

D.J. Paris 9:38
Absolutely. And I think you know, in particular if you’re doing mailings and it’s in a small enough area where you can spend the time to hand deliver those in a sort of polite fashion, you know, that’s going to help as well. I think there’s a lot of people that just aren’t willing to physically get out there and and meet people as much They can in these neighborhoods in particular, like you’ve done, you have to make your presence really well known, and it is a long term commitment. For sure. That is, that’s an awesome story of, of how you know how anyone can grow. And you know, the other thing too is, I always think, you know, new brokers should spend, you know, they should choose an area, whether it’s a suburb or a neighborhood, choose one and spend 30 minutes to an hour a day studying the MLS look at every single listing, go to the open houses, if you can, but at least look on the MLS so that you know, every single property for sale, what’s the average home, you know, single family home? What’s the average condo, how many units are on the market, and over time, within a year or two, you become incredibly knowledgeable? Well, well, well above what most other brokers would probably be able to claim.

Scott Curcio 10:50
I agree, I think you have to really study and know the market and be and also pay attention to the changes, you know, is there a certain time of year when a certain type of property in a certain neighborhood is not going to sell as well, or actually will Buck other trends and sell okay, you know, and if you’re competing for listings, that is the market experience in the market knowledge that a seller really wants. And you know, I mean, as part of, of course, a lot of other components. But if you can come in and and say, well, somebody else told me this, I get that a lot. And I’ll come back a lot of times and say, I don’t agree with that. And here’s why. Because here’s been my experience with this sale with that sale with this property. This is what we’ve seen in or traditionally, this is how this tends to go, you know, don’t expect a lot of traffic on your property, Mr. Mrs. Seller, because for what you have, we don’t tend to see a lot of a lot of activity, but we see very serious buyers, so you’re not going to get 10 showings the first week, if we get one you’re lucky. And you that comes from, I think from studying the market also comes from working in the market, and being able to, to relay those stories. And I think you know, every client, you know, you should, you should, as your career builds, you should share stories, and in some ways, you know, educational tales, cautionary tales, with a client, you know, when when they’re making their moves, so that they can see how maybe somebody else’s same actions impacted them either, for better or for worse.

D.J. Paris 12:20
Well said, I know that professionalism, and you’re, you’re really speaking about professionalism, and also just experience knowledge. But professional in particular is a real passion of yours. And, and I know you, you know, we wanted to talk about some of the ways in which you think brokers could be more professional or, and so, you know, go ahead with with some of your thoughts about that, because I think it’s really important to have that conversation. Yeah,

Scott Curcio 12:45
you know, and by all means, we’re not my team. And we’re not perfect by any means. But we’re we always try and get back to people with feedback and good feedback. For whatever reason, this year has been an interesting one, and maybe it’s the rise that we have a lot more newer agents in the business. But feedback from agents has been very paltry this year. You know, if someone’s asking you for feedback, you know, I’m sometimes the worst, where it might take me two weeks to get back to you. But I always will get back to you on the on that feedback. And because I want to get back on something that’s usable, here’s what I thought, here’s what didn’t work, you know, there was a funky smell, or the buyer didn’t really like how this right out? Or it’s actually a better unit and person, then it shows online, I don’t think the photos do it justice. I mean, whatever it’s, you know, I think you have we have to pay it forward in our feedback, because you’re gonna want that sometime. I had an interesting experience recently, last week, where, you know, one of the questions we like to ask in follow up either after showing or or, you know, or after is, when we’re in when we’re representing a seller is, you know, what other communities, what other areas are your clients looking at? And, you know, are they living in the area already, and I got pushback for the first time in my career from an agent saying that I was asking for personal information, which was was a little, which was a little odd to me, because we were not asking for personal information. I don’t care what your clients name is, I don’t need to know that. But I would like to know where else they’re looking, and how we relate to other properties. And I would imagine that you when you’re the sellers, realtor would would like to know, the same. So I think sometimes it’s very easy for us as realtors to shoot something down. And it’s like, well, maybe we have to consider that we’re going to be on the other side of that down the line. And, you know, and, you know, and respond accordingly.

D.J. Paris 14:26
Well, and I always like to, to say it is called a cooperative commission, right? So the even if the client isn’t going to purchase or make an offer on the property, that feedback is still you know, is still incredibly valuable. And like you said, it’s a bit of a pay it forward. Because at some point you’re gonna want that information. Gosh, why is this why am I getting showings and not any? Any offers? Right? So of course, that’s that’s a very good point. I what percentage of the time do you actually enlisting? Do you actually get that feedback back?

Scott Curcio 14:56
Um, you know, we average we track everything through Lee He, for all of our showings and our feedback on our in our reports for our sellers, you know, our low point of the year was about 39%. But the back half of the year now we’re averaging for the year about 48 to 52%. But we have to work at that very Oh, we have to work, we have to trail after a lot of people. And there’s you know, emails and phone calls, and sometimes texts to get, you know, to get more information, you know, out of people. And, you know, to me, those are great. If you know, you don’t have time to reply back an email, call, call us when you’re in the car, you got 10 minutes, all you’re doing is listen to your music. You know, most Realtors I’ve seen are probably not on the phone in the car, they’re probably just tooling around. So you’ve got 10 minutes, pick up that phone and give somebody good feedback. Because one day, you’re gonna get that from them, and it’s gonna make the whole world a difference, you know?

D.J. Paris 15:46
Absolutely. That’s, that’s a great point. And let’s talk a little bit more about, you know, code of ethics, fair housing. Tell us a little bit more about, you know, what you’re seeing out there and some thoughts that you have,

Scott Curcio 16:00
um, you know, what’s really funny is, my favorite situation is always when, when I’m the listing agent, and a and a buyers, and buyers, they were their agent. And, and you know, and this happens more often than not, which tells me that agents are not having a fair housing conversation with their clients, upfront, which is a whole other, that’s a whole other discussion that we can have for various is when they ask a question of like, who lives in the building, and watching the buyers brokers faces? It is it always makes me chuckle inside a little bit. Because everybody looks like a deer in the headlights? Sure, I happily pick that up, because I can see they’re uncomfortable. You know, and I have kind of a standard response. It’s like, you know, I wish we could share that information. But you know, unfortunately, discussing any, any information that is a protected class is actually not allowed. So I can’t tell you, the average age of the building is this or this is the nationality of somebody that lives there. And I would say just about every time I’ve ever said that, they’re like, Oh, I didn’t know that. So which is interesting, as an industry, I think we have to get that out there more. And we have to talk through it. I mean, when we have a buyer’s consultation, every one that’s part of our initial sit down with buyers is to go over fair housing, and why we can’t talk about any of the protected classes what they are. And we also do the same with our sellers like this, these are things are non negotiables, we can’t talk about these things, and we won’t discuss them with you. And it could jeopardize our relationship, if you decide to do that, you know, and we’d have to walk away. And one of the ways I always see it is in listings, when and I don’t think brokers know they’re doing it, but I look at it as I tend to be very letter of the law with fair housing. And you know, if a master suite has two closets, I routinely see it saying his and hers. And as a general rule, we don’t say that we always say dual closets, you know, when somebody could say, well, that’s a minor detail, but I kind of see them, it might be the other way. Same thing. If you say, easy walk to somewhere, you know, disability is a protected class, and you’re assuming that someone can walk. So it’s, you know, we have to be careful with our words. And we have to be careful in what we say, as brokers, because we are held to some pretty high standards, and you wouldn’t want you know, you don’t know, you know, even taking out, you know, I hear a lot of agents be afraid that, oh, I think I got a tester, I mean, it shouldn’t be about the test, or it should be about wanting to live or a fair experience to everyone that comes through. You know, on that same topic was always funny, me too, is we do we do a lot of rentals. And we have some rentals in neighborhoods where we tend to see for whatever reason, you know, we tend to see more requests for Section eight. And when always makes me and we just had a request come in yesterday, you know, from a broker saying is the is the property? Is your owner open to Section eight?

D.J. Paris 18:47
That’s a great one.

Scott Curcio 18:49
My standard response is, Well, every real every owner has to be open to Section Eight, because that’s fair housing, and it’s the law. Now, we do have a credit and background check for every applicant, you know, so why don’t you scheduled to see the property and see if it’s a fit for your client? You know, and we’ll go from there. But and I, you know, and in that situation, we can tell someone, the owner is not had a section eight tenant, so it isn’t already approved. But obviously, we’re open to that, why don’t you bring them through? And, and a lot of a lot of the applicants themselves, when they call will say, Well, do you take section eight? And it’s like, well, that’s not the right question. Right, you know, but they’re the applicant, they don’t necessarily know, it’s, of course, we’re open to that, why don’t you come see, but we do have a credit and a background check. Just want you to be aware. And we schedule those types of appointments all the time, but it’s funny how many people don’t, you know, don’t know a lot about that. And I think it goes back to what we were saying before, of really, you know, learning the market and becoming a steward of the market and just being a sponge whether you’re not even so much when you’re new. I’m gonna see a lot of experience brokers that could probably do well to have, you know, some intense, some intense education and shall we say,

D.J. Paris 19:55
ya know, the section eight or you’re right, the section eight one is particularly a common I mean, we The we get random calls from renters in our office that asked that same question. Hey, do you does? Do you guys accept section eight? That’s usually the question, you know, whether we might be representing landlords or working with other listings? And if that’s how you know how misunderstood it is even to the tenant, that that that question is routinely asked. And the very first time that question from them should be asked anyone who has a real estate license, that should be just hey, this is just so you know, you never have to ask that question. But here’s what you can ask around, you know, the requirements for getting into that property or getting approved for that property. The section eight one is never, that should not question shouldn’t, you never have to ask that because you know, the law. But you’re right, everybody asks that that’s such a great point that in I guarantee, and many, many brokers are not correcting that, when, and you know, making sure they’re, even when they’re calling unnecessarily, they might not know what to say and what not to say. So let’s, let’s go back, because you talked, at the beginning, you talked a lot about what you did when you first started it, what advice would you have for somebody who’s newer in the business who’s, you know, going full time and isn’t quite sure where to start? What would you tell them to do?

Scott Curcio 21:18
I think the most important thing, or one of the most important things is to be in the office. As much as I would love to say that you can be productive at home. If you’re new, you don’t know how to be productive at home. Good point. And I have seen a lot of agents. I don’t know if I want to fail, no fails the right word. Sure, just because they’re not there. You I think when you’re new, you have to be just a sponge and learn from people find the top producers in your agent, take them to lunch, take them to coffee, ask them for 20 minutes of their time, you know, ask them the question of what are three things. You know, three things that that you did your first year in the business that were that made you the most successful. And I think also start putting together a plan. I mean, I did well, just doing the kind of the basics for years in terms of client outreach and staying in touch. And when my business really supercharged, and we got over that $30 million a year mark in sales, it really came from drilling down on the business and working with a coach and really focusing every activity based on, you know, a framework to know, you know that I know how many conversations I have to have to get every sale. So I know, you know, on a weekly and a daily basis where I’m standing and how much more I need to do. And I can hold myself accountable. Now, I didn’t know that when I was first starting out. And you know that level of of info might be a little that might probably be a little bit much when you’re when you’re new to the business. I also think most realtors have to understand that even if you’ve come from another industry, and you’ve had 20 years experience in whatever industry you came from, you’re starting from ground zero, and you don’t have any experience in real estate. And so don’t expect to be treated take out take get out of your head that you have all this experience. Because from where I sit, you have zero experience. And I’ve encountered that with agents that we’ve interviewed for the team, where they come in and say well I want to hire splitter I’ll then I’m like you’re you’re at Ground Zero, my friend. So this, this is how this program works. And it’s okay if it doesn’t work for you, this is what we’re looking for. And if it works great, let’s let’s let’s bring you on board. But if it’s not the right fit, we’re not going to do that. And I do think that a lot of people get really stuck on their resume. And they have to understand that your resume doesn’t, is worthless when you’re starting over. You know, and I hate to say that, you know, I mean there’s there’s value to what you’ve learned, but not when it comes to real estate. And I think a lot of people get stuck on that and you have to treat it like you’re 22 years old right out of college from the way I the way I see it when you’re brand new, and you should act like it and behave like it and you should ask everyone and start kind of okay getting you know, getting some good advice altogether, because you will hear from the most successful people, you will hear the same stuff. Absolutely. And I also think the best thing you can do is find the brokers that are producing and ask them their opinion. Don’t ask the person that sits in the office all day and sells five houses a year. Because they’re not going to teach you anything that’s that’s that’s right. I hate to say it that way but it’s true. Find the people that are successful. Those are the people you should be trying to mirror or meant or or seek mentorship from and and when you’re interviewing for, you know at different brokerages. It is not all about the split. You know when I started everybody when you were brand new, you were at a 5050 split. Sure that was the norm times have changed. It’s not like that as much. I mean, it’s different if you’re on a team because we start people there actually a little bit below there. But you know that you know, don’t go somewhere just for a split go somewhere where you’re going to live Are you know, I’ve been at brokerages where they’re where they’re big. And I’ve now gone to a smaller shop where you know Baird and Warner, our manager is completely engaged and will sit with anyone, no matter how big you are, how small you are in production, to help you formulate a plan and an intelligent plan to get you where you want to go. You know, I mean, everybody can tell you the basics all day long of like, oh, yeah, you know, you need to form a database, you need to mail to them, but you want to be somewhere where they’re going to say, Okay, let’s go through this. Let’s work with your database. Let’s timeout what your how many times you’re going to touch them, let’s map out your year. And that’s what you need to be looking for. You know, I mean, you could have 100%, split 100% A zero is still zero. So I think for newcomers interview around, and find where you’re comfortable. But, and I do think it’s hard when you’re a new broker, because you don’t know what you don’t know. And everybody’s trying to win you over and they’re telling you everything you want to hear and everybody’s a shiny penny. I think you’d be you’re wise to talk to some brokers that are in there, you know, do if you’ve, you know, uh, you you can find a lot through googling that, you know, find her to the top brokers are asking, What do you think, what do you like, what do you not like about this brokerage? You know, what do you like, what do you not like about the manager? And most brokers will probably be pretty honest with you, you know?

D.J. Paris 26:16
Yeah, I 100% agree. I’ve also I’ve always said to, and you can, you can figure this out through the MLS, just do some, some searching. But if you’re considering moving to a firm, you know, find some of their their higher producers or the people that you certainly want to emulate, and just call them randomly, you know, don’t always listen just to what the recruiter tells you that they offer. You know, recruiters say all sorts of, I’m a recruiter, and I think familia hopefully don’t have a reputation of doing that. But I know other recruiters certainly do. And I’ve always said, you know, don’t ask me for a list of people to call to ask how much they love it here. Because of course, I would give you people who love it here. But if you called, you know, some of our top producers randomly without me even knowing what you absolutely can do and say What’s it really like over that firm? You know, hey, DJ is telling me I’m going to get xy and z does that actually happen and, and how much you know, training and support, all of that is so important. And also, again, if you’re not thinking of moving, and you just want to get more information at your own firm, reach out to like Scott saying, reach out to the top producers, they are not bothered as much as you think by other brokers, they probably, you know, as much as we’d like to think all people must be bothering them all day, it’s generally not the case. And there is this whole podcast is based around us talking to top producers. I don’t I didn’t know Scott, prior to him coming on. He’s gracious enough. We’re thrilled he’s here. But we literally sent him an email request asking him because we wanted to speak to him. And he was nice enough to do this. So these people are very accessible. You know, and if you ask a few of them, you will get it. And the other thing too about this this podcast talking, of course to Scott, people like yourself is you’re right. It’s a lot of the same behaviors, a lot of the same habits. It’s so funny, you mentioned having a mentor, because almost everyone I’ve interviewed who’s these are all top producers like yourself, they all have mentors, almost everyone. It’s like,

Scott Curcio 28:09
of course, I mean, yes, not just gonna have one, you know, and I mean, some I could point to several, you know, people, some that have been on the show that our data, our mentors to me, that are my peers, you know, it doesn’t have to be, you know, it doesn’t have to be this big thing. You know, I mean, there could just be in your office that you kind of gravitate towards, you know, I think though I think the one thing to just be cognizant of it, I mean, so many people will always give of their time. It’s really remarkable and not just just here locally, I mean, like, you know, I mean, if you go to conferences and you meet people, the number of people that you see, you know, I’m going to call you next week, I want to pick your brain for 10 minutes. Most are very gracious, you know, sometimes depending on who they are and myself included, you know, you’re going to have him I’m having a hard time you know, just, you know, if somebody can’t talk to you, if you’re a newer broker, and you’ve reached out to somebody and they haven’t reached back out guess what, reach out again. It’s like a lead right? Like you don’t reach out to a lead once you need to reach them 12 to 18 times for them to get back to you. So if you’re going to quit after one phone call or one email, I mean I get 300 emails a day there’s a great if you’re busy. If you email me I missed it. I mean because I’m scanning for the things that are most important and maybe I saw me only I’ll get back to the person and maybe I forgot so reach out again you know call text you know don’t I hate when people text me because they tend to not identify themselves and then you’re like exactly but email call again or or and the best thing to do is when is there a good time for me to call you that’s a very that’s a lesson that I have learned and I’ve used a lot with with clients you know or someone that I’m that I’m interviewing with you know, when should I follow up with you next what time of day is good? Would you prefer I call you would you prefer I text you would you prefer I email you and people will be very specific about those you know, and If you make an appointment with someone, and they miss it, I had one guide six months ago, I’m not proud of it. But we had made some changes to my schedule. And I had an appointment with someone that was newer to the business that came to my office to meet with me. And I had completely forgotten to tell him that I had changed my day. And I needed to reschedule and I felt horrible. And I reached out a couple times. And he never and I never heard back from him. I was like, Well, you know what, I get it. I came across as the you know, what in that and it was sure honest mistake. But, you know, for when when you’re doing the volume of business that you know, myself and some of my colleagues do. And you know, there’s plenty of people that are way ahead of me in terms of sales volume. There are, you know, things things like that are going to happen. And it’s not a personal affront. So just stay on it. You know, if the person has agreed, they will give you some time, they will give you that time. But you have to work on their schedule a little bit. And for me, I, I like to do those kinds of meetings. I’m an early bird. So if somebody came to me and said, Can I speak with you at 730 on Thursday? I would say yes, because I don’t want to take time out of my prospecting windows, and I don’t want to take time out of the rest of my day, where I’m, I’m lead generating to have that conversation with you. So ask them that question and be willing to go out, you know, don’t say to somebody that’s too early for me. Okay, well, that’s the best time for me, and you ask the question. So I’m giving you the answer. If you don’t have the answer, then we don’t have to do and I just see this a lot. So it’s like if someone’s willing to give you that time, and I’m not saying way to I mean, I’ve had conversations with people that are on different coasts at different you know, I’ve been up at six in the morning to talk to somebody you know, on on another coast or another, another country, if I’m gonna if there’s something that I can learn from them, so I think just be willing to do that. And that’s where it starts.

D.J. Paris 31:45
Well, I think you have said it all and I mean, clearly, you know, your your success and has is really indicative of how well not only you treat other brokers which we were just talking about, but obviously what you’re doing with your clients. So we definitely if there are buyers or sellers out there that are interested in working with Scott, Scott, what is the best way they can reach you?

Scott Curcio 32:08
So a couple different ways our office line and I’ll repeat it twice is 773-697-5585. Again, that’s 773-697-5585. You can also reach me via email Scott at Scott Kersey oh.com And the last name is CURC I O. And again, it’s Scott at Scott crucio.com.

D.J. Paris 32:36
And also your website is Scott Kersey of course dot Scottsdale. seo.com not Scott Garcia of course.com. So visit Scott either website that Scott crucio of course that’s a that’s there’s your new slogan, of course. Well, Scott, thank you so much for your time. I know it’s valuable and I know you’re busy and I know our listeners are going to love this. This podcast episode so thank you so much and best of luck. I won’t say best of luck because you don’t need it. But we wish you continued success and thanks again.

Scott Curcio 33:09
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was great chatting with you guys and hope to hear from some of you out there.

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Today we spoke with top producer Kaylin Goldstein of The Goldstein Group. Kaylin started her real estate career directly out of college and has grown it to over 100 million in sales. She’s also built a successful team along the way. In our conversation she talks about how she grew her business as a relatively young broker, and how she’s mentored her teammates to become equally successful!

Kaylin can be reached at 312.909.1682 and kaylin@atproperties.com.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:13
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real podcast the only podcast made by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ, I am your host, at through the show a couple of quick announcements before we get on with our really fantastic interview with Kailyn Goldstein. Number one, this is episode 15. And as of this point, over 2000 of you have downloaded an episode of this podcast. So thank you for telling a friend. Thank you for sharing this with other brokers that you know that you think could benefit from listening to these interviews. Also, we have every month Carrie McCormack and I also do a Monday market minute, and she is taking your questions. So if you have questions or top producer, you can submit those through our website speaking of our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. Also, we’re on Facebook too. But on our website, you can find all of the episodes that we’ve ever done, as well as if you subscribed via iTunes or Google Play. There’ll be listed in your podcast app as well. And lastly, we are taking sponsorship opportunities per episode. So if you have a service that you think could benefit from getting into the ears of about 2000 brokers, you can reach out to us via our website, keeping it real pod.com or Facebook or Twitter any of the other ways you can reach us and say hey, I want to sponsor an episode. We’re going to be starting doing that here in the next week or two. So Thanks in advance and now on to the reason you are listening, our awesome interview with Kailyn Goldstein.

Hi, today on the show, we have Caitlin Goldstein. Caitlyn is a top 100 agent at properties and a top producer recognized by the Chicago Association of Realtors and at property since 2013. She’s a strong negotiator and has a vast knowledge of the Chicagoland market. Kailyn is from Peoria, as am I and I grew up around her family’s business and learned upon about entrepreneurship from a young age. She attended University of Iowa and received a BA in marketing. Upon graduation, she was recruited by a boutique real estate brokerage, and in 2010, she transitioned over to add properties, and now oversees her own team called the Goldstein group, and they have eight agents and over 100 million in sales. She enjoys helping new agents train and develop into future successful realtors. She has been featured in Chicago agent magazine and who’s who. And Kailyn resides in River North with her husband Garrett and their two golden doodles, Lolly and Lewis is that lab?

Kaylin Goldstein 3:05
That is a golden doodle. I have a regular and a mini

D.J. Paris 3:10
Awesome. Well, welcome to the show.

Kaylin Goldstein 3:12
Thank you so much. Very happy to be here.

D.J. Paris 3:15
You’re my very first Peoria person and I I could not be more excited because I so rarely get to talk to people from pure idea that I didn’t like go to high school with so and so. Do you go back for your reunions? That’s the first thing I have to ask.

Kaylin Goldstein 3:31
It’s a good question. So I was bad. And I missed the last one. I had an out of town client in. But I try and go back for Thanksgiving and the holidays and go to all my favorite restaurants. So usually a couple times a year, but um, I’ll try and make the next reunion.

D.J. Paris 3:47
Well, let’s let’s talk about your your business because you started, you know, you went you went to school in Iowa and then right out of school, it sounds like you went straight into real estate. So tell me a little bit about sort of why you did that. And how, how that how that, you know, was trying to build a business as a really young person.

Kaylin Goldstein 4:06
Yes. So very unique. You know, I started definitely at a young age. I had been interviewing with multiple companies, you know, they came to the campus and we met with all different sorts of companies. I mainly was interested in something in sales or marketing, which was kind of my background and college. Pharmacy sales was really big at the time, I interviewed to sell printers, kind of everything across the board. And then I met with a company called home Scout Realty and had a few interviews and I decided, you know, it’s something that sounded really interesting. I liked that, you know, it had that entrepreneurial background kind of make your own hours you’re responsible for your business. It kind of reminded me of growing up around my family’s company and that sort of thing. So, anyways, so I got the offer and I decided to take it and my parents were super supportive, they thought it would be a great field to get into. At that time I had started, I think it was summer of oh eight, and the market had kind of started to transition, you know, we were going downward market. So, you know, we did a lot of rentals, it was very focused on rentals, condo rentals, manage building rentals, and that sort of thing. Most of our leads came from Craigslist, so I was meeting people, you know, I had never met before. So, you know, it’s really interesting, I worked those leads, and it all went well. And then through the years, you know, those people started coming back to me, whether it was looking for another lease or looking to Now eventually by and referring their friends. So really kind of interesting how that all started. And then I decided to transition over to app properties in 2010, one of my other colleagues had just come over, and I really had always thought their marketing was so neat. So I came over in 2010. And I started working as an assistant for two top producers. So I had their business to, you know, to attend to, and then I was still working my own. So it was quite a bit.

D.J. Paris 6:20
Yeah, no, that’s so interesting. And also, you know, sort of, I guess, in 2008, the rental market was definitely for, at least for a new person entering the market, certainly, you know, the, probably the most lucrative area or the most active area of real estate, you know, because of the crash, and then also your age, everyone, you know, is renting anyway. So it sort of seems like, you know, ultimately, it was really sort of fortunate, because, as you said, as you, you know, build these relationships with renters, over time, they transit, some of them transitioned into purchasing. And I think that’s something brokers, oftentimes, new brokers in particular, oftentimes, sort of maybe forget, or easily overlooked is like, every buyer was probably a renter at one point. And it seems like that would be in particular, if you just don’t have, you know, 50 friends that are looking to buy and sell homes, the day you get your license, which of course nobody ever has, it’s a good opportunity just to sort of keep the ball rolling, while you’re building up, maybe those future opportunities. It sounds like that’s sort of how it worked for you.

Kaylin Goldstein 7:23
That’s correct. Yes. And I think that’s really well said, you know, I see it every day, I think one of the biggest things for these new agents is just building their business and having people you know, get to know that there are real turnout, whether they came, you know, straight from school, or most who came from a different career. And I think, you know, some people get discouraged, because it does take a while it takes a while to get going and to really work those leads. But, you know, I’m just so thankful how I started and building the rental business that I did, because it really transitioned well into people buying and now selling. So I always tell new agents, you know, on my team, or when we talk, it’s, it’s something to really consider, you know, rentals aren’t for everyone. I know, there’s some agents who just don’t want to do them. But I find you know, it’s, it’s a great way to meet people. And, you know, it’s it’s good income. So,

D.J. Paris 8:18
yeah, I agree. And certainly, in particular, if you’re a younger person, like you are entering the business, it just seems like that’s the, you know, sort of most obvious thing to do, because at least people you know, are likely doing it anyway. And, and the good news to about, you know, in other cities, it’s not quite this way. I know, in New York, oftentimes, the renter pays the Commission. In here in Chicago, of course, the the landlord does, or the management company, or certainly not the renter. And so it makes it you know, a really nice way to slide into real estate, where you’re able to work with with renters. You know, in the interim, while you’re building up your sales business, I think it’s very, very smart. And so talk about when you went in, because now you have your own team. And I find that so interesting, because you’re relatively young, for having this, you have a large team, or at least to me, it’s large. Talk about sort of that transition of how you went from just you to now having, you know, a bunch of people working with you.

Kaylin Goldstein 9:14
Yeah, so, um, you know, I stayed on for an assistant for probably a couple years, and then, you know, it got to be a lot working everyone’s business and helping out that sort of thing. I didn’t want to lose focus of my clients, you know, who are starting to look more to buy and then sell that sort of thing. So I decided to kind of take a step back, and I partnered with another app properties agent who’s terrific, and we kind of, you know, worked together for a while and had a smaller division. And then I decided to kind of we parted ways do our own thing, and I rebranded and so now I have terrific team members, my sister in law’s on my team, which is super fun, and she met a real Nice guy in real estate class, and then we have a few newbies who just started. So it’s just really neat. It’s nice to have the camaraderie to go to events together. And I just think it’s so helpful for new agents out there who, you know, you go to real estate class, you learn all these things. And then it’s kind of like college, you get out to the real world, and you have to find out what applies and learn the day to day things, from contracts, to inspections, to getting the deal to close. So I think it’s really been nice in that regard to kind of watch these new agents grow and see their business grow as well. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 10:37
no, I yeah, I can imagine that it is super rewarding. And you seems like you put a lot of time in with, with your team members, in particular, the newer ones? What are some of the suggestions you have for people who just, you know, have gotten their license? As far as how to go about marketing themselves? Or getting, making sure people know what they do? You know, what are some of the suggestions that you would say to somebody brand new?

Kaylin Goldstein 11:04
Yeah, so I think, you know, social media in this day, and age is so important. And I think it’s a great free way just to really, you know, create a presence and let people know that you transitioned. So I really stressed that, you know, just start, you know, working your social media. And also, we have something without properties where we can send out a blast. So sending that to, you know, all your emails of friends and family. starting to do some mailers, you know, that’s always great, I have one girl and I said, just take your wedding list and right, they’ll be there’s your clients right there to start with. So I think it’s just a matter of, you know, doing things that aren’t necessarily super expensive, right off the bat, like I if it were me, I wouldn’t go by a billboard right away. That sort of thing. And then I think, you know, also, I’ve had a lot of success of sending open houses, I’ve met some of my best clients that way over the years, so you know, something to see if that works. And, you know, see what works for you classes are great, especially just learning the different systems, there’s so many classes through the MLS now, just really getting the groundwork in place. So you can be as knowledgeable as possible and apply those things while you’re growing your business.

D.J. Paris 12:24
Ya know, I love I love all of that. It’s so interesting with open houses, because over the years, and at the firm I met, we have lots of brokers. And for years and years, everyone I talked to said a huge waste of time open houses. And then once in a while, I’d meet a broker who had joined our firm, and I would ask them, oh, how do you grow your business? Just, you know, I’d be asked a lot of those types of questions. I was curious. And once in a while, somebody would say open houses, and I’d say how are you? The only person have like, everyone else claims their huge waste of time. And yet there are people like yourself, who have had tremendous success with them. And I obviously not every open house is created equal, there certainly are ones that maybe you know, are going to produce better results. But I’ve always said to new brokers, if it was me, and I had no clients or I was not that busy, I would probably send out an email to certain other brokers at that firm. Hey, if anyone you know, here’s the area I kind of specialize in, and if anyone’s interested, you know, to, if anyone would like me to do an open house for their property, you know, give, you know, give me a call. And it is not it does not happen that often. And I’m always surprised. Because I think, you know, it can actually be helpful. Do you? Do you think there’s something you did differently to have more success with those?

Kaylin Goldstein 13:41
Yeah, you know, I think it’s just a matter of reading people. You know, as they come through, you’ll have some people who come through and they don’t want to be bothered at all. So I would say, you know, let those people go through follow up, if nothing comes from it, I wouldn’t get too down on yourself. But there’s other people who are really receptive. I work a lot with, you know, pocket listings and stuff coming on. So often what I’ll do is follow up and just say, hey, you know, if you’re not working with an agent, I’d be happy to set up a search for you. And I have access to off market properties as well. So I think just kind of leaving them with a little bit of intrigue helps us report and then you know, they’re, they don’t think you’re out to get them and sell them something right away. Because, you know, obviously, the leads you have are the warmer leads, such as your friends and family know that you’re out for their best interests. But people you meet on the street don’t necessarily have that same perception. So I think that’s definitely really important. And then you know, just building a relationship with those people I think if you’re able to find something different for them or be creative and not just do the same old thing every day by setting up a basic search, though value that and you know, those people become loyal. It goes back to to some of my rental clients when I first started, they just you know, they come back to when when they need to move, or they can refer a friend.

D.J. Paris 15:08
Yeah, no, that is so well said, and I have always thought, or recently in the last few years, I’ve thought this and tried to communicate it. And I think I’m right. And it’s might sound a little harsh, but I think it’s actually a good thing for, for brokers to hear is that I don’t think the public needs you to just set up an MLS search, they can find those properties, and oftentimes, they’re going to do it, and they are going to find those properties with or without your help. And in fact, even if you’re helping them, they’ve already found probably them anyway, because there’s a million ways to get to not necessarily get access to the properties, but certainly to see what’s available. So I think that in the past, it wasn’t as accessible years and years ago, where people really did need brokers to to find these properties. So I think what’s great about that is it takes a lot of the pressure off of the broker to only just be setting up, you know, these the searches is to be able to, like you said, be more creative. It’s like, Hey, by the way, I have some access to listings that you probably wouldn’t have access to. And I, you know, based on what you’re looking for, I’m going to do some deeper dives and get more creative. So you’re not just showing them the same things they’ve already seen on Zillow. I think that’s really, really smart. And I don’t know if you if you agree with that, that thought but that, you know, the access to sort of the information isn’t isn’t as locked, as it used to be, you know, people can can see properties, and then they are doing those searches, I think, but the broker gets to do everything else. And I think, and also, of course, finding properties. But I think there’s so much of the process that frees up time, I think for brokers to really get creative. I don’t know if you if you’ve had that experience or not. But

Kaylin Goldstein 16:52
yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s, it’s just amazing, you know, I think just doing things, you know, as differently as possible, but offering some value, you know, anyone can go click an agent online and find them. But I think just getting to know these people and offering something different. Whether it be you know, something, you know, about a particular building or a location, you know, for example, I always tell my clients, you know, if the property’s on the L That’s up to you. But you know, for resale, it’s definitely something to consider. And they go Oh, yeah, that’s a good point. So just, you know, putting the different pieces together and helping them make the best decision for the long term.

D.J. Paris 17:34
Yeah, definitely. And let’s talk about some of the sort of you do a lot of team building exercises, which I think are also probably really helpful in not just building up sort of team camaraderie, but also sort of the skill sets of the team. So you talked about, you have a sort of a program you run called fall in love with your neighborhood. Tell us a little bit about that.

Kaylin Goldstein 17:56
Yeah, so we just started that super fun, I thought it would be a great way to really jump into foul market here and do something different. So how we’re doing it is, every week, every other week, each team member on the team gets to pick a neighborhood, we’re kind of targeting the ones they live in. And then some of them are in the suburbs. So we’re filling in with you know, some of their favorite spots. And they get to choose, you know, something really neat about the neighborhood, something new, you know, something they wanted to try. So, for example, the first one, we went to a really cool restaurant in River North called barrio, and we all had some really good Mexican food. So that was really fun. And then this week coming up, we’re going to do cycle class in the west loop, which some of us aren’t the most athletic, including myself. So hopefully we make it through. But it’s really fun, you know, we we go we’ll do the classes or what have you, and then do lunch, and then we’ll post about it on Facebook. So it’s just another nice way, you know, to show our clients and our friends something else that we’re doing and experiencing in the city versus like just listed just sold the same old property stuff that they see on Facebook all the time.

D.J. Paris 19:13
Right, right. I think that’s I think that’s very true. And it also it it also tells a narrative of here’s here’s kind of instead of only Hey, we just listed and sold this property. Now Hey, look at here’s what here’s what we do. Here’s our personalities coming through and social media and I think one of the you know, one of the mistakes maybe brokers make is only saying just listed this property, check it out, you know, just sold this property. And those there’s nothing wrong with those posts. That’s great. But if you’re only doing that, I think it just it just the average person who’s your Facebook friend probably just glosses over it. If it’s not necessarily if they’re not in the market to buy or sell a home they might not really respond to that but they’ll respond to hey, we just went to an escape room with you know, this other members of my team and here’s some funny pictures and I think that’s that’s Actually, really. And also, it’s fun too. But I think from a social media perspective, it probably got gets more interesting engagement from from, you know, your prospects and clients, I would I would think,

Kaylin Goldstein 20:11
currently Yeah. And I think, you know, it’s fun for the team members, you know, we have two newer agents who are recently starting, and it’s a good way to get to know the personalities on the team. And I think that helps. And a lot of new agents, you know, they’re nervous, they’re, you know, either leaving careers or, you know, depending all different avenues where they’re coming from. So, I think it’s really a nice way just to kind of do something different from the thought of how am I going to get my next lead? And, you know, like, we spoke about, I think, on Facebook, you know, clients really like to see about our lives as agents and stuff like that. It’s, it’s fun to be able to relate and do things. And, you know, I It’s kind of like those shows Million Dollar Listing, I mean, I have more fun watching it and seeing what they’re doing on day to day versus sometimes, you know, the actual real estate stuff of it.

D.J. Paris 20:59
Yeah, and absolutely, one thing I did also want to mention is because you are currently rehabbing a house, with your husband, and talk about that experience, because I think that’s a really important experience. If if brokers ultimately are, you know, it gives them additional dimension and skill set, you’ll be able to, you know, share that information with future clients as well. And maybe you start working more more so with investors and developers, because you, you now have this experience. But taco, can you talk a little bit about that experience? And what that’s been like for you?

Kaylin Goldstein 21:35
Yes, so most importantly, we’re still married. No, it’s been good, we, we bought it not too long ago, and we’re rehabbing. So we’re redoing the BAS, the kitchen we tore out, we’re putting a new one in, and then we’re finishing off the basement. So it’s been really fun, you know, I love to pick finishes, I could have been an interior designer in my second life. But um, you know, it’s, it’s been really great to see what’s on trend and try and put that in there. We have plans to Airbnb, that property. You know, so we did a single family home and that way, you know, the neighbors won’t mind too much. So we’re really excited to oversee it. And I just think it’s a nice extension, you know, of what I do day to day. But with that said, you know, rehabbing or buying or selling I just think it’s it adds a lot of value to have gone through it. You know, buying is, is pretty straightforward. Obviously, there’s some ins and outs, but as a realtor, you know, you know, what you’re doing selling is is kind of an emotional process we did, we decided to sell one of our properties in the South Loop. And you know, I had put every fixture in there and picked out wallpaper paint everything and it was it was a little emotional. So you know, I think it’s really important as realtors to know what our clients go through. And it’s, it’s just a really stressful process, it can be not always, you know, you have your investors who aren’t as attached to their properties, but families who have, you know, had properties in their, in their family forever, it can be really stressful. So, I think that kind of helps and just to have a diverse pocket to offer to everyone.

D.J. Paris 23:23
Yeah, for sure. And I can ripple on that. Because we I had a condo that I sold, I’d done the same thing, put all the fixtures, that and all the finishes and, and everything over the years. And then when I went to sell it, and I knew I was pricing it more than it ought to event. And I did the classic mistake where I was just too emotionally attached to it, even though I knew there’s you know, and it wasn’t outrageously overpriced, it was just slightly overpriced. And I said, Oh, what we’ll see, you know, and I ran the comps and I still priced it above what I should have. And as a result, nothing happened for a few weeks. And I went okay, and it was like I knew better than to do that. And then ultimately ended up dropping the price and it sold, but it was like wow, if that if it can even affect me and I know better than now I know you know so much more about what the average seller goes through, you know, the emotional part of wanting to sell it for a certain price or because you have an emotional attachment or because you bought it at a certain price and you want you know there to be a certain amount of profit or, or whatever, but boy, I can certainly relate to, you know, to that experience. So much more now because, you know, I was sort of doing it to myself even

Kaylin Goldstein 24:36
definitely, and I think there’s just there’s more compassion that goes that goes into it not just there never was before but you know, I care about my clients so much but I think you know, just to help them understand where things need to be priced at and just understanding the process in general is is so important. And you know, even on the buyer side when when we go in and some of these properties needs to be redone. Some are overwhelmed And at the thought of what the price could be of redoing a bathroom or a kitchen, and others are just, you know, oh my gosh, how much time this is going to take. So I think that really adds value to be able to give not necessarily estimates, but a rough idea of how much money out of pocket and how long it could take just to kind of ease their concerns and see if they really can see themselves living in the property. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 25:24
think that information is so valuable to consumers, buyers and sellers to be able to know or to ask their their broker, hey, you know, I was thinking about this, do you have any information about, you know, good, like, should I redo this kitchen? Should I not? And certainly, you can’t always tell them what they should or shouldn’t do. But you just being that knowledge source is so critical. Like, for example, I did not know that I could buy a property until at least a year after I could have bought a property because I didn’t have anyone that sat me down and told me I was renting this as a long time ago. And finally, somebody said, you should buy a property and I went, and I think I’m a relatively intelligent person. I went, Oh, I can’t do that. And they go, No, you probably can. And I go, No, no, no, no. I mean, I really didn’t understand how a mortgage worked. I mean, this was, you know, I was probably 30 At the time, and I really didn’t totally understand. And so I always think like, you know, there’s so much opportunity for brokers to educate their clients and, and somebody like me, I would have been way too embarrassed to ask like, how does the mortgage work? Thankfully, one of my friends who’s who’s a realtor said, you know, you can do this, and I was like, you’d have, you’ll have to explain that to me. And he did. And I went, Oh, my gosh, I literally had no idea. So I think you’re, you’re so right, about being able to, you know, provide that information to your clients. And this is also back to the rental thing, too. I mean, that’s a really specific example. But you know, if your clients are, if you have clients that are renters that are spending two grand a month, you know, on an apartment, they probably should be purchasing, or at least should know about what you know what it would take to do that. Obviously, you already know that, but let’s talk about I wanted to get to finish with this story that you had. This is so interesting. I’m not even totally sure I understand all of it. So I want to find out. So you, you were you were talking about or you’re you’re writing us about a Lincoln Square bungalow, that you had a couple purchase. And then there was some, as explained, like what happened at the walk through at the

Kaylin Goldstein 27:19
end? Yeah, so it’s super sweet couple. And we found this property had multiple offers, and we got it. And so it was so exciting at the walkthrough so crazy, you know, usually they leave the basic stuff, right, like the keys and the appliance manuals, that sort of thing. And they also we had found it was like a little cigarette canteen thing. And inside it had a treasure map. And it you know, you had your x and your little dots to go find the gold or the treasure or what have you. And I followed up with them. And I don’t think there was a treasure in the long run. But it’s just so funny that you know, you just find all these interesting things, what you see day to day on the showing, but you just never know what’s what’s you’re going to find. And these vintage properties are so cool. It was a vintage rehab to think you know, they’ve been around for 100 Some years and all the different families, you know, that have lived in them over this time. It’s pretty cool.

D.J. Paris 28:19
Ya know, super cool. So did the seller leave that cigarette? tid or it just showed up?

Kaylin Goldstein 28:25
You know, I think it was last this was a while ago now. So my memory is not the best, but I believe they left it and it was something that was there when they had bought as well. So it’s kind of one of those things that comes with the property.

D.J. Paris 28:39
Isn’t that wild? That is really, really funny. And so there was but there was no they were not. You were nobody was able to find a treasure.

Kaylin Goldstein 28:46
There was no treasure and I told him I said I think we should split this treasure if you find it but treasure lo and behold

D.J. Paris 28:54
that is a that is really that’s really funny. Well, let’s talk where if if any buyers and sellers or renters want to work with you? What’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Kaylin Goldstein 29:05
Yes, so I am always by myself. My cell is great 312-909-1682 and email caitlin@properties.com. And that’s

D.J. Paris 29:17
ka y li n and then also you can visit her on her website, which is Kailen goldstein.com, which, which has all your contact information as well. So thank you Kailyn it was such a pleasure speaking with you. I really appreciate your time and it’s some great suggestions for brokers who are looking to, you know, maybe who are newer in the business and definitely want to get ahead. But thank you so much.

Kaylin Goldstein 29:43
Thank you it was a wonderful time. Appreciate it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Top producer Sohail Salahuddin starts his day at 2:30am. That is NOT a typo. Extreme discipline has been at the core of Sohail’s real estate practice and part of the reason he’s been a top producer for many years. Sohail is also a master at pivoting his business to meet current market conditions. If you feel like you need better habits to grow your business, this episode is just the kick in the rear you need!

Contact Sohail Salahuddin at 312-437-7799 and sohail@sohailrealestate.com.

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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 Paris. I am your host through the show and today we have a fantastic, amazing interview with Sohail. salehoo. Dean, before we get to him, I wanted to do a few quick announcements. First of all, thank you so much. We just crossed over the 1000 subscriber mark. And we’re so thrilled. I know a lot of you have been telling other brokers in your offices to listen to the show. And if you’re this is your first time listening, what is the show all about what we do is interview top Chicago real estate agents and ask them how they became successful in the hopes that that could be information that you could use in your own practice to, you know, increase your business, right. So the best way you could always help us is to share it with a friend. So if you have other brokers that you’re aware of that you think could benefit from the show, please pass this along. We really appreciate it. Also, if there’s any brokers that you think we should be interviewing that we should be talking to, you can, you can let us know that as well. So there’s obviously a number of ways to listen to the show or on all the various podcast directories. Also, you can stream all the episodes directly from our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. That’s the same place you can also go to submit recommendations of brokers that we should be communicating with and interviewing. And by the way you can nominate yourself Lastly, we are starting to take sponsorships per episode, so we’ll be starting that probably in a few episodes. As soon as things the dust settles a little bit. We’re pretty busy. But um, we have sponsors lined up for future episodes. So if you’re a sponsor that would like to get in front of 1000 plus brokers who are listening to the show, you can reach out and become one of our sponsors. You can do that on our website keeping it real pod.com Okay, thanks for listening to all of that and on with our interview with Sohail. All right, today on the show we have Sohail salah, who Deen started in the real estate industry as an investor when he was just 20 years old, making his first purchase on a single family home. As through that he became bit by the real estate bug and started buying multi unit buildings within a year. From there, Sohail has owned and operated a successful mortgage company. While he transitioned ultimately to residential real estate sales. He became involved in web development as built houses bought and sold many properties and worked on large condo conversions. So he’ll recent really had a passion for helping others achieve their goals as he had so he turned his focus to brokerage services and opened up his own firm. So Hale founded the Sohail Real Estate Group in 2012. He has a clear vision to help people achieve their goals providing white glove service to his clients that are above and beyond other real estate brokerages. Suhail has earned awards in Chicago Association of Realtors year after year for outstanding achievements as well as award a top producer of his industry. So he’ll thank you and welcome to the podcast. Thanks, DJ. Thanks for having me. The pleasure is definitely all to all ours. Can you talk a little bit about you have such an interesting history of getting involved in real estate really, as a young age? Can you talk walk us through that journey of how you got to where you are now?

Sohail Salahuddin 3:42
Yeah, um, I’ve been through many ups and downs. But um, so as at a young age, I started just with my, with my first property I was renting previously, I started renting at a young age too. So I was on my own pretty young. And my landlord was doing mortgages and she was an investor. And so when I was renting from her, she said, Why don’t you buy a house? There’s a lot of money, the real estate markets good. And I said, I don’t how do I do that? Sure. Right. I don’t know if I can. And so she helped me. She she was a real estate broker. She was a mortgage broker. And she helped me get my first property. From that point on, I just kind of got bit about a three unit building in Jefferson Park was my first like, bigger investment and then went on from there. I was I would say that throughout the process as an investor there and real estate also in general it’s like a roller coaster ride but the process is really the process all the challenges that’s that’s kind of where all the magic happens. Sure. Yeah. And then I from when I was buying I got into mortgages first before I got into brokerage And the reason I got into mortgages because when I was buying a property, the mortgage broker was a young guy. And, and I saw his check. Right? Right. And I said, Well, I said, That’s how much money you made. And he said, Yeah. And I said, God, how’d you get into this business? And he said, Well, I just, you know, just just went and started working for this guy at this company. And I said, you have a finance degree. Turns out he didn’t I don’t think he even had a high school degree. So, sir, yeah, so then I started doing some research and and I kind of got into it from from that point on, in the mortgage side.

D.J. Paris 5:36
Sure. What years were you? Were you involved in mortgages? Was this for the?

Sohail Salahuddin 5:41
No, it was during the Yeah, before the crash? 2005 is kind of really when I got into it.

D.J. Paris 5:48
Sure. Saw some good some good years, I imagine in mortgage some very

Sohail Salahuddin 5:53
good years. Yeah. I mean, extremely, extremely good. It was, I think one of the one of the really good years, I had a partner for a while, I opened up a mortgage company, I had a partner. And, and then when we got into condo conversions, development, it was a really good year, that was right before the crash. And there were big developments. So like 500 Plus units. Wow. And so we’d get a little piece of the profit from the units. Majority of the time we’re listing them, we’re also representing the buyer side, and then we’re also financing them. So

D.J. Paris 6:26
that is, that is truly impressive.

Sohail Salahuddin 6:27
Yeah, that was a good. That was a good year, for sure. And that was in 2006 2007.

D.J. Paris 6:37
Gotcha. And then, so as the crash happened, how did you shift your business?

Sohail Salahuddin 6:43
So as the crash happened, so the kind of conversions a lot of the people that purchased were investors, because in elements, you have to have a minimum of 30 day first right of refusal for the tenants, when you convert an apartment building to condos, right. And when that would happen, it attracted a lot of investors. So because I represented the investors when they purchase, they wanted the tenants to stay. And anytime a tenant moved out, they would come back to me, and asked me to find new tenant. And for a while I was doing it for free, just because I didn’t know any better. And I felt kind of obligated. Sure, and then an attorney that I was working with sad, you know, there’s companies that charge for that. And I said, really? He goes, Yeah, I was just green. I didn’t really know too much about the rental industry. As far as a service goes. And he said to me, yeah, they charge one month’s rent. And he’s right. I said, Why sold it to these people. He’s like, Yeah, but that’s your obligations over. So the next time someone asked me if I could find a tenant, I said, Sure, you know, have to charge your month’s rent. And they said, Yeah, of course, I don’t just find me a tenant. So they write the money. They just wanted a tenant. And I made, I made probably at least 10,000 just renting apartments on the side. Yeah. And then the person that that gave me the idea, I thanked him for it. And then a light bulb went off in his head. And the next day call me he said, Hey, let’s meet for lunch. I have an idea. And then we kind of got into the rental business, which, you know, I have to say it was very fortunate because this is when the markets that are crashing. Right. It was a nice transition from doing doing sales and mortgages to focusing on rentals.

D.J. Paris 8:28
Yep, for sure. And then also, you’re you’re setting yourself up for future. I mean, you obviously already know this. But hopefully you’re setting yourself up for future sales when these renters get to that point down the road.

Sohail Salahuddin 8:39
Yeah, I mean, kind of, you know, I didn’t I didn’t really think about it that way. I was just in the moment. Sure. Right. Sure. On my end, I was mostly managing so I wasn’t focused too much on doing some one on one with clients. But now like I’m doing now, so I was managing I was still doing production, production myself. But I really think I didn’t think too far ahead into the future.

D.J. Paris 9:03
Right? Yeah. You were you were you were a developer, really? And so yeah, it wasn’t as much focus. I wasn’t really thinking

Sohail Salahuddin 9:09
about you know, I wasn’t thinking about okay, these people that are renting now, they’re going to be buying the future. I just sure the market was so bad. It would, right. Yeah. I don’t know when that was good, but a lot of Yeah. But you know, a lot of people did come back to me and funny enough, because four or five years later, they would come back and they said that, you know, they were they remembered me and I would did such a great job that they wanted to work with me again.

D.J. Paris 9:37
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s it’s amazing to me and probably this you know, it’s often lost on the people that are this way because to them, they’re just this way but this seems like you have this really impressive ability to just pivot and adapt. And you know, your your career has gone through multiple incarnations and you know, when when the markets bad great, we pick Get into rentals and, you know, flourished in that area, which I would think Most brokers probably did you know, and I know you weren’t necessarily a traditional broker at that point. But most people just didn’t do that at all. And so I find that they just kind of weather the storm. And I find that very, you know, sort of entrepreneurial, and also just intelligent to sort of think about, well, let’s pivot over to rentals. And then and so Okay, so you got, you know, you were doing rentals in addition to, you know, other things. And then how did that and then, then what happened after, as you started

Sohail Salahuddin 10:32
doing more of that, you know, that we had a good successful run with the company until about 2000 2011. A lot of there were some personal personal relationship issues that were involved, which impeded the company’s future, future progress, but at the same time, I think it worked out well, because there are so many right, you know, when we first did it, there was only probably two major competitors with us. Sure. By the time we were at a, at the end of the business, there was a rent a leasing office and every single corner literally throughout. That’s right, there are and for every person that wanted to rent a property or every landlord that wanted to have their property rented there about at least 10 plus different people that they could work with. So there are more people in the business, and there are people probably, as far as a client base looking. It’s a good, yeah. So if it was, it became more difficult. And I had to shift again, I shifted back to eventually I went with a group of people we had went to Southern B’s, Jamison southern views. Sure, and, and so we’re working, not like a, like a close knit functional team, it was kind of more like a small brokerage under under the Sotheby’s umbrella. And then eventually, from there, I, I went into started learning, right, because I’m always trying to learn and figure out how to improve my business. And so I learned how to how to really pull together a team and you don’t need a lot of people, you just need really effective people.

D.J. Paris 12:06
It’s okay, yeah, that’s very true. And so how have you built that team? As far as what you know, what are some of the qualities you’ve looked for and team members?

Sohail Salahuddin 12:19
Got? It’s a it’s a constant struggle? I’ll be honest, it’s hard to find. Sure, of course, but yeah, luckily, I’ve had, I have some really good people, my team who had been with me for, you know, five to eight years. And then I have some great staff. Now the staff is, I think, the most important one of the most important elements is, is to have your back in office setup really smooth saw the systems in place, so it’s streamlined. And for me, I’m best when I focus just on I’m producing. So I’d be the Rainmaker. Sure. I think it’s, I think that’s my biggest downfall at the same time is hard, it’s hard to find good people to put on a team, you know?

D.J. Paris 13:03
Yes, I can definitely, definitely appreciate that. And in the nurse standard, I wanted to give you a big compliment, because I was visiting your website and you know, you know, real estate websites are certainly a dime a dozen. And lots of brokers have them, and some of them are good, and some aren’t yours, I believe a good one. But what I what I loved in particular, or what I thought was really what I liked rather about it, and I imagine people who visit the site like this, as well, is on your homepage, you have a short video, and it’s only it’s like less than a couple of two minutes. But it specifically is like, Hey, you’re here at this website, because you know, one of a few reasons, you know, you need help buying or selling or renting. And here’s what we do we have a pot, you know, we have a we have what we call the sale selling strategy. And here are the five things I do that other other brokers probably don’t or maybe they don’t do as well, and you list them out. And again, I don’t know, how how much how like sort of rare, I suspect that is for someone even to have some sort of presentation like that. I suspect there’s a lot of brokers who go into a listing presentation or by buyers presentation, and they just kind of go there with a maybe a blank sheet of paper and is like Alright, tell me what you’re looking for, which I guess is fine. But I love the idea of you’re like okay, here’s, here’s why people hire me, here are the five things I do for them. And I thought it was really just simple. And but but like, you know, well laid out. And then at the end, it’s like, Hey, give me an opportunity to show you what we do. And I just thought that was really, really smart. Right.

Sohail Salahuddin 14:37
So that yeah, that website you’re looking at it’s a little outdated. But I it’s kind of the same theory. I think that when you’re selling when you’re selling a property when you’re listing it, it really comes down to just a few, a few major factors, right. Those are the macro factors. And of course, there’s the micro steps that my team does to make sure that we have an effective and efficient sale for the clients. Sure. but those are kind of the the macro factors that I put into there. But yeah, video, I think video is huge to be able to, instead of people are more visual, and that’s why they watch movies. So instead of having to read through a bunch of paragraphs on what you do for your business and the service you provide, it’s better just to have a quick video of myself, give me a, you know, a quick two, three minute introduction.

D.J. Paris 15:27
Yeah, and in addition to that, I just love that you have a strategy, right? So there’s so many brokers that probably don’t, in fact, I know there’s Most brokers probably don’t. And so I love the idea that you’ve thought this through, and it comes across in again, and this isn’t an industry where you could walk into a presentation with a blank sheet of paper, or you can go in there with a whole selling strategy. And to me, if it was me, I’d want to go in with the selling strategy personally, and other people do it different ways and have different levels of success. But I just, I just think that is was was really smart. And also, it’s very, you know, hey, it also gives somebody something tangible to sort of think about before potentially hiring you.

Sohail Salahuddin 16:11
You know, which it’s funny, you say that I think the magic actually happens, all the important information, I try to get to the client before I even meet with them. So when I meet with them, my goal is to be in and out of there within 15 to 30 minutes just have a very concise, effective conversation. questions based? Right. Sure. And it’s usually it’s almost the same thing as, as my business, it’s pretty step by step on how I walk people through the necessary steps that we take to get their property sold.

D.J. Paris 16:47
Yeah, I mean, you have you have a system. And it’s, you know, it’s even on your website, there’s a system, there’s, you know, here’s what we do. And ultimately, not only is it professional, I think they have a system, but it also enables you to be really efficient, right? It’s like, I can come in, I can get in and out in 1520 minutes, because we’ve done a bunch of legwork already. And now we just have a few key things we need to tighten up and then and I think that’s the it’s the I think that’s probably the the better way would be the way I would do it. If it was me. So anyway, I just noticed that and I thought that was something that other people could learn from, it’s like, so many brokers probably don’t have a presentation, they don’t have a process to that extent. And I think it’s it’s really smart to do that.

Sohail Salahuddin 17:28
You’re right, I think you’re a DJ.

D.J. Paris 17:32
Well, this is always a question that nobody has a great answer for. So I understand that every day is different as a realtor, but what does your typical day look like? Or if you could plan sort of a perfect day? What would that entail?

Sohail Salahuddin 17:45
It’s pretty military. Like, I love that. So I, it’s gonna sound crazy, but it’s not to me just because I designed my life to it fits my lifestyle. But I wake up at 2:30am Wow, I wake up at 230 I usually do some, a little bit of a spiritual, but a half an hour, something spiritual. And then I do a lot of mindset. I guess, things to just make my mindset really strong for the day, right? Get myself in a good mood stay positive. I usually read in the morning too, for about, it just depends, I taught myself how to speed me so I could read pretty fast. So I read a few chapters of a book, it takes me about 10 minutes to go through, you know, a pretty good part of the book I can get through in 10 minutes. Sure, and then I’ll I’ll hit my emails a lot through the emails, it’s responding to emails that came through. A lot of times I gotta send CMAs to people or, or an email presentation. And, and then it’s my delegation to my team. So I’ll do that in the morning as well. And then at four o’clock, wake up my wife when we go to the gym.

D.J. Paris 19:06
I love that. That’s not that the gym is like the seventh thing you’ve done by the time you

Sohail Salahuddin 19:14
she comes with me we’re usually at the gym about 434 15 or 430. And I just have a really good powerful workout and then and then my, the rest of my day starts so I get my kids ready for school. By seven I get myself ready by 730 actually 715 to 7:30am role playing with other people from across the country. Just our scripts and dialogues and get ourselves ready for the day.

D.J. Paris 19:40
Yeah, let me pause on that because that I don’t want to gloss gloss over that. I think that is so so interesting. So what maybe other people may call a mastermind group of sorts, or just some sort of peer group these are these are other real estate brokers who

are other real estate brokers.

Awesome and you guys are supporting each other or training each other or that sort of

Sohail Salahuddin 20:03
Yeah, exactly. It’s interesting to do because a few years ago, in the past, I don’t think I’d, I’d really network with real estate brokers just because I was more focused on clients and I didn’t see a value. And then I guess I opened up my mind a little bit to meeting with one person. And then that one meeting went into an expansion of, of now there’s a group of us that, that spend time together, we’re all on the same path, we lift each other up, we support each other. Many of them are here in Chicagoland. In fact, on Saturday, we just had a little dinner out with a group of people who are brokers here in Chicago, which is it’s a, it’s a fantastic feeling to know that you have friends that are doing the same thing that you are that you can talk about the same thing. And, and you’re helping each other, everybody’s has their ups and downs, everybody has good months, bad months. And at the same time, if you run into a problem, you have that support system in place where they can kind of help you if you need it to get through it.

D.J. Paris 21:06
That is that is so amazing. And you’re doing that daily. It sounds like Yeah,

Sohail Salahuddin 21:10
yeah. So daily, I’m always on the phones every morning with somebody in the industry. And then from 8am until about until about noon. You know, I start hunting for business.

D.J. Paris 21:27
And, and that’s, that’s interesting, too, like, so you’re you’re I mean, you are the king of time blocking it sounds like you. You just like okay, between eight and 12. I hunt. Awesome. And then. And then I got to keep going with this guy. I love all of this. What happens after 12? What do you do

on the clock at 12? I, I’m following up with my past clients at one o’clock and following up with my current clients. At two o’clock, I do an hour of I have to do I have to spend an hour of something either I gotta practice my skill set. I might watch some videos or something to keep my motivation high. Sure, practicing my presentation. It could be anything like that. But I try to get at least an hour in a day, from three to five or my listing presentations, or at least I try to keep them between three and five. Sure. from five to 7am hunting again. And then 730 is usually dinner with the family.

Wow, that is how, if you don’t mind me asking, were you always somebody that didn’t need a tremendous amount of sleep? Are you able to train yourself to do that?

Sohail Salahuddin 22:42
And go to bed at nine. So I still get what is that nine to five and a half hours. So I’m still getting, you know, five and a half to six hours of sleep. And it doesn’t sound like it’s not that much. But if you think about a lot of people will go to bed at midnight and wake up at six. Yeah, no, that’s true. So it’s still I still get plenty of sleep. But yeah, I did have to, I did have to slowly work back from waking up at five to 430 to four to 330 to three.

D.J. Paris 23:12
Sure. That is That is unbelievable. I that is military precision with with your day. And I imagine it makes you incredibly efficient. And I imagine also, you know, like, there’s a lot of different research out there that and again, for brokers, it’s easier said than done. But this idea of like, okay, between eight and 12 I’m hunting, I’m not you know, if there’s an emergency, I’ll answer an email or a phone call. But hey, that’s the door is closed and I’m hunting. I imagine you probably have some of those boundaries, too. It’s like, this is what I do. And I’ll get back to you after 12 If I need to. But

Sohail Salahuddin 23:49
it’s almost like when someone’s when someone knocks on my door I have to say Sheesh. amante buffalo right?

D.J. Paris 23:57
That is? Yeah, that is unbelievable. So let me ask you this with with with all the experience you’ve had. And with some of this, you’re a systems guy clearly like you have systems to manage your day you have systems with your clients we’ve talked about. And also you just have a tremendous amount of experience in the industry and in different areas of the industry. For somebody who was brand new who just is getting their license. What advice would you give to them? What would you say

Sohail Salahuddin 24:23
100%. I see most of the brokerages don’t offer like really good training there’s there’s a couple right that’s that’s the but the reality is if they knew what it was really like, I think a lot of people would run and brokerages don’t want people to run because they want them to write that’s how they grow the brokerage they want to have a lot of sure and continue to grow it. But I would say before you get into business or if you’re just getting into the business, you have to understand that it’s it’s it’s a lot of hard work. It’s not all while I’m in real estate so I can have flexibility and Have my own schedule. I mean, you could have those things, but you’d have to pay the price before you can get to that point, you know. So you have to work your ass off for about the first three to five years, it’s gonna be a lot of retention apps, the whole time, you’re gonna be outside your comfort zone, because that’s the only way you’re gonna grow. And, but if you do everything right for this three to five years, then you can start to build a team, which I would say is like a second phase. Once you start building a team, you can delegate out as much as you can depend on the people you have. And I would say the last phase is when you build it perfectly, then you can kind of that’s when you get to have flexibility to do whatever you want, right? To a certain extent. Sure.

No, I love all of that. And now I but just

to answer your question, anybody who’s new in the business, definitely get a mentor. Seek out mentorship, find somebody who’s, who’s reached a certain level of success within their business. And just ask them how they did it. You know, don’t ask them what it’s like now, but ask them all the struggles have been through because that, again, is where the magic happens.

D.J. Paris 26:09
Yeah, I think that’s right. I, it’s TierPoint I don’t think any of the schools that teach the licensing classes you know, just so you know, you’re going to be, you know, meeting new people every day for the next two years. And then maybe you’ll start getting, you know, a relatively decent client base but and longer even. And also, you’re going to be you know, answering questions you don’t know the answers to and then having to figure that out for the first few years. But I that is that is awesome. I think we really can can end on that because you’ve said so much. For a lot of people we have hundreds and hundreds of listeners who are brokers and I think they’re gonna get a lot just from from you know, even you talking about how you structure your day in so what I want to make sure I do is is mentioned so Hills website, which I think does give you a good understanding of, of some of how he operates, you know, you can feel his presence by even watching the videos or just kind of reading through his bio and, and what his team offers, but it’s so Hale, which is s o HAIL realestate.com. So if there are any buyers, sellers, even renters that would like to speak to you or your team, what would be the best way that they should reach out to you.

Sohail Salahuddin 27:22
So email is, is always good because I can respond quicker. And it’s my first name, so hail, which is S O hail at Sohail realestate.com. I have another website to DJ which is it’s this Sohail real estate team.com, which is a little more updated, and also kind of speaks to everybody. And then of course, anybody can reach me, I’m always available to clients directly, which I think is something that’s different from a lot of people. But they can call me directly at 312-437-7799.

D.J. Paris 28:02
Well, Sohail I, we’re so grateful for your time, because I know how precious time is to you and you take it very seriously. And for you to take a few moments out of your day, more than a few moments is appreciated. So thank you so much, and keep up all the amazing work and I will do my best to start waking up a little bit earlier. I don’t know that I I’m pretty sure I can’t get to 230. But even if I just got to five,

Sohail Salahuddin 28:26
then that would be you just start one step at a time. Right.

D.J. Paris 28:30
That’s true. All right. Well, thank you so much.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brady Miller transformed from superstar jazz drummer to superstar real estate broker. (He’s still a good drummer) Listen to his story of an unlikely shift to real estate, why mentorship has been critical to his success, and how he built his business to over 300 clients in just 5 years.

Brady Miller can be reached at bmiller@chicagorea.com and 773.977.8553.

 

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:16
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast for real estate agents made by real estate agents. My name is DJ, I am your host through the show and today we have a great interview with Brady Miller coming up in just a few moments wanted to share with you a couple of things before we bring Brady on. First of all, thank you. The podcast has been growing in subscribers after just gosh, I think this is episode 11 or 12. We already have we’re coming up on almost 600 subscribers. So thank you for sharing this podcast with other realtors who you think might find it interesting. What we do here, if this is your first episode listening, is we talk to top producers Top Real Estate Agents Brokers in Chicago and say how did you build your business? What are you doing differently and interview them and let them share their stories. And if you’re somebody who’s looking to build your real estate practice beyond where it currently is, hopefully this will give you some great ideas and save you some time with trial and error and might as well learn from the people already doing it right. Second, we have a new segment coming up, it’s actually going to be broadcast, the ferry for it’s a regular segment, the first Monday of every month with my new co host, Carrie McCormick, who is a 20 year veteran in real estate. She’s unbelievable. She’s super knowledgeable and a lot of fun. And she’s going to be doing this monthly show with me where she talks about here’s what’s going on in the market. And and here’s what she saw the last month, here’s what’s coming on next month. And even my favorite part of what she’s going to be doing is answering your questions. So if you’ve ever wanted to ask a top producer questions like I do every week on the show, you can now do the same thing. So you can actually send in questions that you want Kerry to answer directly through our website, which is keeping it real pod.com on there, as well as all has our Twitter and Facebook and email link. So send us your questions. And lastly, if you are a business that would like to reach 600 brokers every single week through this podcast, you can advertise on the show we’re going to start taking on sponsors on a per episode basis. So if that’s something that’s of interest to you and your services, send us a message and our team will get in touch with you. All right, right after the break here Brady Miller.

Today on the show, we have Brady Miller of the Chicago real estate artists. I’m gonna start that over in one second. It’s not the one sec. Today on the show. We have Brady Miller of Chicago real estate artists. Brady specializes in Chicago’s north side, also far north side and downtown neighborhoods. He strives to consistently get his clients in front of the best opportunities on the market. Since his rookie season in 2012. Brady has helped over 300 clients purchase, sell and rent their homes. I’m gonna repeat that again because it’s so impressive since his rookie season 2012 He’s helped over 300 clients buy sell and rent, generating more than 70 million in revenue. He reached the Chicago Association of Realtors top producer status in his in just his second year and is currently in the top 1% of all realtors in the city in terms of revenue and sales volume. Brady loves what he does and works tirelessly around the clock to ensure each and every one of his clients has the best possible customer service experience. He is it also he’s equally at home assisting buyers and sellers. So whether you’re a first time homebuyer or a seasoned investor, or somebody who’s doing maybe they’re not their first real estate transaction, he can assess so welcome to the show. Ready.

Brady Miller 3:59
Thank you. Did you appreciate it?

D.J. Paris 4:01
Yeah, no, we’re super grateful to have you and I again, just the numbers you’ve put up in five or six years is truly truly impressive. But let’s you know, I also know that you’re not a Chicago native. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got here and how you got involved in real estate?

Brady Miller 4:18
Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it at all. Before this, I grew up in Vermont, went to school in New York, lived in New York City for a long time. My wife, she is a pianist, and she teaches piano her first gig out of college was Professor job in North Dakota. So actually was, I’m a musician as well. So my past is in music and I was when she moved to North Dakota. I was going back and forth between North Dakota and New York City, which is kind of kind of fun, very different places. And then we kind of got a little antsy in North Dakota and she got got a really good job opportunity here in Chicago tenure track professor job. So we were very happy to move to Chicago, I kind of always thought that I’d end up here in Chicago for some reason, because I’ve been, oddly a lifelong White Sox fan, even in Vermont. So some somehow I thought I’d end up here and be close to the White Sox. So that’s been nice. But yeah, that’s how we ended up here. And becoming a real estate agent I hadn’t planned the better. I hadn’t planned on it at all. But somebody I went to school with Michael relink. He, he helped me find he helped us find our first place here in Chicago, and we were a huge pain in the ass clients for him. I think he’s probably saw over 75 places. Oh, my gosh, I’ve tried to I try to look back and think about what I would have thought if I were his client. Or if, you know, I was my clients like what I would have done? Sure. Because we were when we were first looking, I had our puppy with us. And like, we were traveling around with my puppy. Because she was fairly new at that point. So like in his car and stuff, and it’s really hard. She’d be like, freaking out in the car. So he was very patient with me. But yeah, we we took a long time, it was a lot of fun looking for a place. And at some point during the process, he said, you just said, Have you ever thought of becoming a realtor? And I had never thought about it in any way, whatsoever. But I really enjoyed the process of looking for a place. And for some reason, it seemed like a natural, a natural thing to do coming from music. I’m not sure it seemed very smooth. Just I was like, oh, maybe I’ll try it and see what happens. Because Susan has a pretty solid job, my wife. And it seemed like I would have some time to get my feet under me and learn more about the business and grow into it. So that’s kind of what happened.

D.J. Paris 6:58
Yeah, no, that’s I have a couple of things to mention, which is totally off topic. But one of which is off topic. The rest, rest will be more on topic. But I just recently got rid of my piano and not because I wanted to just I moved and it wasn’t really going to fit and your wife can probably relate to this. But getting rid of a piano is not the easiest thing in the world. It was shockingly difficult.

Brady Miller 7:20
I mean, trying to sell it or just No,

D.J. Paris 7:23
no, I was no I was I was even trying to donate it because there’s a charity called I think keys for kids. And it was going to cost me because I was on the fourth floor, we I would have had to spend about $1,000 Just to be able to donate it. And I

Brady Miller 7:39
think that they would come and pay for getting you you would

D.J. Paris 7:43
think but but it just it would cost them you know, the same amount. So it was one of those things where I eventually we ended up giving it to somebody,

Brady Miller 7:50
but it’s not legal to do a bonfire in Chicago. Right.

D.J. Paris 7:54
But, but but also, you know, I wanted to also talk about, you know, you mentioned, Michael, who is the owner of real estate artists by five that correct is that, yes, yeah. And what’s interesting is, you know, you talked about, hey, I put him, you know, went and saw 75 places or, you know, whatever number it really was, you know, you could always argue like, he probably lost money working with you, except now you work with him. And there’s only a handful of brokers, you guys are incredibly successful. So it really was probably the best hire, you know, as far as a return on an investment. Now you guys are work together. And I always think, you know, for those clients who, you know, in particular, sometimes buying clients can take longer to make decisions. And I hear from the brokers here at our office, you know, a lot of them go, Oh, my client just can’t make a decision. It’s like you never know where it’s going to lead. And it’s even spawned a whole career for you, which I think is is so interesting. And let’s talk about, you know, your success. And and I know that’s makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But let’s just talk about how you started your business, being new to Chicago, starting again, you had the experience of Michael, and then you went on board with him. But how did you get started? Being that I’m assuming your your network of your sphere of influence, let’s say was probably pretty small.

Brady Miller 9:12
Yeah. It’s interesting. Michael, he was an amazing mentor. And early on, I was helping with a lot of his clients, because he was always pretty busy. So when he started, he started the company. I was basically his only agent for I think, maybe two years. So it’s just the two of us for a long time. And It aspires especially early on, I was helping him with his clients, doing a lot of showings and just kind of scrambling for a few leads here and there. And pretty pretty early on I’ve managed to somehow I don’t even really recall how I did it. But somehow I was able to nail down some leads on my own through like Zillow and Trulia. Sure like that. They worked out really well that the first sales were it was good Exciting. And then Michael would refer some people to me here and there as well. So it was working with some of his clients. And thing, you know, once once the first sale, I think I had like two sales that kind of came together at the same time and closed, like within a day each day of each other. I remember having one failed sale before before that, with some clients that I learned very early on. I don’t know if I should say this, but like working with, like Chase Bank and stuff is not always the most wonderful thing. Sure. But I think every agent, whenever you see the chase pre approval you’re like,

D.J. Paris 10:42
so yeah, well, it’s, you know, some of those larger lenders are just less flexible. They’re the big behemoth institutions, they don’t have a lot of the even some of the personal sort of touches that can help get a deal close more quickly. And a lot of them it’s it’s just, you’re just not that important to the overall bottom line, I guess. And yeah. Yeah.

Brady Miller 11:03
Like promised the world by this by the whatever, the the lender, and then like, at the very, you know, toward the end, it just fell apart because they haven’t done their homework. My clients Good bye. No, that was one of the very first experiences which I imagined, I did so much work for the for these people, when that deal failed. It was pretty frustrating, but not devastating in any way. I don’t think I because I think I come from a background in music, where I went to music school and throughout music school, often was practicing eight or nine hours a day. And certainly, if you’re if you’re going to music school, you’re not necessarily thinking about a career and you know, making money, like a solid job or anything, I don’t know, you’re kind of always really focused working hard on things. There’s a lot of failure involved in that, for some reason I kind of just going through this whole process of working really hard with these folks. And then having it having the deal fail it, it felt, instead of feeling really frustrating, it felt like a really good learning experience the entire time. So I kind of, I kind of think back on every deal. And like, what what did I learn from this deal that I can take to the next deal?

D.J. Paris 12:15
That’s, it’s very true. What type What instruments do you or What instrument do you play?

Brady Miller 12:19
I grew up playing drums, pretty much primarily drums, like jazz and pop and all this, you know, pretty much everything but classical. So that’s kind of that’s kind of what I was doing up until this was mostly just playing music. And in New York, I was doing a lot of touring and playing gigs every night. So yeah, very, very different lifestyle than I have now.

D.J. Paris 12:43
Yeah. So I suspect it is to a degree. I mean, there’s the interesting thing about jazz. Not that I need to tell you the interesting thing about jazz, but what I find interesting about jazz as a discipline is the ability to be creative, within a very disciplined sort of structure, you know, and the idea to sort of, okay, here’s where we’re starting. And here’s sort of where we want to end up. And in the middle, there’s, if depending on the type of jazzy play, there’s obviously room for improvisation. And, you know, and I just think in some ways, jazz musicians tend to be a very interesting mix of, you know, incredibly disciplined players who are able to also, you know, sort of on the fly exude their creativity. So I think I wonder if the discipline associated with just, you know, learning the skill that you know, that you’ve been doing for so long, if that really helped you build your real estate practice at all.

Brady Miller 13:36
i Yeah, maybe intangibly, I’d probably I for some reason, the transition from music to this feels incredibly natural. And also, Michael actually went to music school as well. We went to the same school, to he comes from that background, also, hence, the name real estate artists. So we probably see I think we that’s probably why I’m such a natural fit, I think because we both operate very similarly. Whether we know it or not, I think it just seems to work out that way. So I don’t know that the transition just for me felt very smooth. From going to music to this, like, there wasn’t really, there wasn’t really much of a hitch. There’s definitely a big learning curve for sure. But especially in terms of, like having to deal with frustration and of learning of learning on the job and I don’t know that never really happened. It always it was it was fun from the very beginning and it’s you know, it’s still super fun. I don’t know it’s you were

D.J. Paris 14:35
bait you were basically the kid in whiplash up until you moved to Chicago.

Brady Miller 14:40
Not a very realistic movie, but

D.J. Paris 14:43
your fingers never bled and you didn’t

Brady Miller 14:46
you’re playing the drums wrong if your fingers start bleeding

D.J. Paris 14:52
great movie though, but, but anyway, back to you know, back to those and I also wanted to talk about buying leads just for a brief moment because it’s a very interesting thing you talked about, hey, when I started, I purchased some leads, Zillow, Trulia, etc. And, you know, it’s funny, there are a lot of sort of purists out there that will say, Oh, you know, you shouldn’t have to do that. And I always think, why should you know it look a lead as a lead. And so, you know, those leads are definitely much different than referrals and people you meet, you know, and you have to work them a bit differently. But I think that, you know, any opportunity to get in front of people who are interested in buying or selling a home is certainly worth pursuing, you know, whether or not, you know, the other thing I also find is that, because a lot of times those leads, you’re not the only person that might be getting that lead, right, there might be a couple other brokers who you are sort of in competition with, depending on how that lead is sort of circulated. And I find that most brokers really aren’t very good at working those types of leads. Did you? Did you think you did anything special or different from other brokers, when you were working those initial internet leads,

Brady Miller 15:59
maybe, maybe just being in it’s really, really hard to do, but maybe just being as responsive as possible, because sure, because the vast majority of them are not good leads. Sure, and don’t mean anything. But sometimes you can be really surprised by the ones that do work, like, you’ll think one’s terrible, and then you’ll get a response back, and it’ll be somebody you know, wonderful, really eager to work with you. So you never quite know. So as much as I possibly can, and I can’t always win, sometimes when you get a flood of leads, a lot of them dropped through the whatever, save whatever. But yeah. But again, responding quickly, I think is super important. And then responding honestly, and, you know, maybe with some sort of valuable info, you know, right away is always helpful.

D.J. Paris 16:50
Totally. And yeah, there’s a lot of statistics that say, if you let a lead, sit an internet lead, for example, sit for more than like a minute, it goes down. And it’s, you know, your ability to close by a tremendous percentage, it’s like, really, really quick. And then there’s a lot of also those leads, sometimes you have to call them seven times over, over a certain period of

Brady Miller 17:09
time. But I’m really terrible about about don’t respond right away. I’m really terrible about following up. So I have to learn the systems better for myself, but

D.J. Paris 17:18
well, you’re clearly doing just fine. So, you know, I let’s talk about, you know, imagine at this point, a good percentage of your business is probably referral based, I would assume. And can you talk a little bit about sort of what you think and again, it’s so it’s always such a difficult question. When I say, Well, what do you think you do differently? Because every successful broker just kind of shrug is going, I don’t know. Like, they don’t understand that they’re in any way unique. You know, they just go I do what I do. I try to do a good job, I answer the phone when people call and but is there anything specifically that you that you that you can really, if you don’t have anything specific, that’s fine. But anything that you think you do, that maybe other brokers don’t do, or maybe aren’t as responsive with?

Brady Miller 18:03
Again, I don’t really know, I’m not sure. But one thing I’ve kind of always thought about, and I see just in general, a lot of people, clients, other brokers, I tried to write emails and texts, as if I’m speaking. So I try to, I try to, I try to make everything I write reflects how I would talk to somebody, or at least approximate it, without all the hitches in my pocket. But sometimes I feel like you kind of have to reflect your personality, in every, in every communication you make, which I think helps kind of keep things flowing. I’m not sure I’m not sure if it helps or not. But sometimes, sometimes, like, I’ll get a text from an agent or an email from an agent. And I’ve spoken to the agent and I know them well. And then sometimes you don’t know the text, the way they communicate via email or text. seems much different. And I always wonder if that sometimes comes across to some, some people?

D.J. Paris 19:09
No, I think that’s a really important point. So I’m, that’s very interesting, because what I do, and I do mostly recruiting, I recruit brokers, and one of the things that I do and I don’t know how this is received, I assume it’s received well is I get really excited when someone is interested in like joining our firm. So when I’m emailing, if they’re emailing me and we’re communicating in that way, I tend to put a lot of exclamation points not at not an obnoxious amount and not in a, in a way to sort of fake some sort of excited, you know, you know, message that isn’t really sincere because I am legitimately excited when somebody wants to join our firm. And if they talk to me on the phone, they’ll hear the same thing and the way I speak and so I actually put that into my communication and I assume it’s well received, but I imagine it’s it’s pretty different because sometimes People will call us or call me and say, Well, I’m interested, tell me more. And then, but I know they probably call three other firms too, which makes sense. And they’ll say you’re the only one that seems genuinely excited to talk to me. And I don’t think that makes me special. It’s just who I am. But I try to I’m the same way I try to reflect that in the marketing that we do as well as the my communication because it’s it is actually how I feel. I think that’s I think that’s actually a really important subtle point. So thanks for that. But let’s, let’s actually talk about a few of your experiences that you had at least you wanted, you’d mentioned you had a key incident at Malibu east and I was wonder if you could tell us sort of what that

Brady Miller 20:42
what happened there. Yeah, I I’m really terrible at telling stories. And I was thinking today. Like, I could probably tell a million stories, but I don’t know how to tell stories. Which is, which is kind of funny, but But I did think of this one, which happened pretty early on with some clients. It was like a guy and he brought a bunch of friends with him to the showing. And it was really fun. And we were we did this showing in Malibu East it was like near the top floor. I don’t know if you know that building. 60s 6033, North Sheridan. They were being out on the balcony. And I fumbled with the keys. And then like trying trying to catch the keys, like stopping them with my foot. I literally dropped kick them over the balcony. Oh, no. Because I was just I’m a clumsy person. And like, all the way down to the bottom where the pool is and everything. So

D.J. Paris 21:35
I was like, that’s, that’s it? Did they go into the pool or just

Brady Miller 21:39
going in the pool, but I didn’t know where they went. So these? Yeah, my client and his friends were like, super nice. And like after the show, and we went down there and like, did a search party for the keys. And it took like, 10 minutes to find that. But I thought that was funny. Because that, I don’t know, I should have been super embarrassed. But they were like, I think they probably knew that I was fairly new in the business. Yeah, and, you know, I worked with them for a while and they bought something and they repeat clients and everything. So

D.J. Paris 22:06
that was good. Well, well, and it’s, I mean, it’s also a super funny story. And it’s also a very human experience. I mean, we all have clumsy moments, I would think you’d have less clumsy moments than the average person being a drummer, you’re pretty precise with your hands. But but with you know, it is funny because, you know, this sort of idea of always being perfect, is so interesting. And probably not something that’s very relatable anyway, to your clients, you know, clients, you know, we all trip over things and drop things and, and break things. And so to see your realtor have that moment of like actual humanity or, you know, they’re just a regular person to I think in some way probably endears them to you. You know, unless they’re expecting you to be perfect, which, you know, is a different type of client, I guess. But I imagine when you’re like, Okay, guys, I need your help finding the keys. I imagine they all probably just like, yeah, no problem. We’ll help you out. It was probably was more funny to them than anything.

Brady Miller 23:02
Yeah, they totally offered. I wasn’t I wasn’t gonna ask them to help. But I think they probably thought it was kind of funny.

D.J. Paris 23:07
Well, it is funny. And then also, you said your most unusual real estate experience was you also Rogers Park? Experience a short sale? Can you tell us about that?

Brady Miller 23:18
Yeah, this was uh, this one was probably the scariest one I’ve had. It was like a short sale that is supposed to be vacant. And I went inside, my client was looking in one room and I had, there’s stuff on the counters, like food on the counters, and things like that. So we thought that was a little odd. But maybe the owner was here occasionally. But yeah, we were told it was vacant. And we’re like knocking on one of the bedroom door because the bedroom door was closed. And it swung open. And there was somebody pointing a gun at me. Whoa, on the other side of the door. And she was a police officer, actually. So it was very interesting. So I don’t know if it was like a friend who was crashing there. But the listing agent didn’t know anything about it. But thank goodness that it was a police officer. And like a junkie or something with a gun.

D.J. Paris 24:11
So wait, wait, wait, the police officer was in the closet? Yeah,

Brady Miller 24:15
no, not the closet. And in one of the bedrooms. I’m sorry. In one of the bedrooms. She was just like a friend of the owner or somebody who had

D.J. Paris 24:22
a key or something that was Gotcha. She thought you were breaking in or wasn’t sure Yeah, cuz I think she was

Brady Miller 24:27
sleeping. And I probably will woke her up and knocked at the door and she kind of freaked out and you know, put the gun in. Yeah, so that was like, that was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. Because I don’t even think I’d ever seen a real gun before. Yeah, that’s amazing. So and then, yeah, that’s That’s the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. I’ve had a lot of weird ones.

D.J. Paris 24:48
That’s that’s pretty weird. And also traumatic. I

imagined at least a little bit. Yeah, no, of course. I might have skipped a beat for that. Oh, yeah.

Brady Miller 24:59
Oh, nobody’s supposed to be They’re I’ve no clue what that was. Sure. There was a police officer to like, you know, crashing in an empty room. So, yeah, did she broke down or anything? So somebody must have known she was there or occasionally was there? I’m not sure. But

D.J. Paris 25:14
yeah, that’s why that is interesting. You know what? So you, you’ve done so well. And you know, you’re at a relatively small firm with big numbers. So I don’t want to make it seem as if you guys are this little boutique firm, because you put up big huge numbers. But for somebody who’s newer to the business, or just looking to grow, and I again, whatever comes to mind is is would be helpful is like, what do you think somebody who’s new should be doing? Or where should they be focusing their energy on how to get better and get more clients? Anything? Any advice you have?

Brady Miller 25:50
I don’t know, my, my experience was pretty unique. And I definitely had a lot of help early on from from my broker. I imagine if you’re in a place where you have like family and friends living there, maybe we’re, you know, nicely working your friends and family for any sort of potential referrals and just getting your name out there might help. That’s probably pretty common advice. But I know we have some family here and, and some friends from back in college who have become clients. And then you know, those friends that refer to other friends who have become clients, etc. So it definitely the sphere of influence helps. So maybe early on, but that’s a big deal. Maybe if you have the ability to to buy some leads on Zillow or Trulia or an Android, I guess it’s one thing now might might be helpful early on just to see if you get a few leads here. And there. You can, you know, work those leads really, really hard. And, you know, try to provide the best possible service for those people and see what happens that can always help. I also became a Redfin partner agent pretty early on. Gotcha. So I were like, especially in 2013. I had, you know, a good number of clients who are Redfin, who came came to me through Redfin. And that was really great for me, because red red fin leads are generally pretty warm. Lot of first time buyers who were my age, like, I, I really love working with buyers. By the way, that’s my favorite part of the job. I know a lot of people push listings, like, you have to have a lot of listings for the business, but, and I’m getting a lot more listings now. But I really, really liked working with buyers so much. Yeah, but uh, but that was pretty helpful early on. Being a Redfin partner agent, gave me a lot of experience was with buyers, and a lot of those buyers referred a lot of people and, and have become repeat clients as well. So that was helpful early on to starting in 2013. That I and right now, I don’t do much with them at all. Most of my clients now are like referrals and repeat business. But But yeah, but that definitely helped. I’m not sure how easy it is now to be a Redfin partner agent, so that I’m not sure what the situation is there. But

D.J. Paris 28:23
I just interviewed this, actually, it’ll be two episodes ago from from when this one is published, but I just interviewed one of the top red fin brokers, because I was interested myself and how it works. But I wanted to make a point to, to solicitors, because oftentimes, especially for newer brokers, and I don’t know, if you’d be, if you would, how you feel about this, what I’m about to say, but a lot of times, new brokers in particular feel that, you know, they’re going to join one of the larger franchise firms, which I like all those firms, I think they’re excellent, they have amazing training, great support, great tools, everything. And, you know, a lot of times people will join for those training programs and or, you know, the the support, and I think that’s there’s nothing inherently there, that’s a really good idea. But then I also meet brokers, someone like yourself, who had, you know, works at a smaller firm with, I’m assuming, you know, a different type of training program. And in your case, you know, you had one of your good friends was really your mentor, and also your partner through through the first you know, however many transactions and deals and you probably still, you know, work together today, and how successful people can be where they go to firms where, you know, they’re not going to have that three week intensive training program, and they just learn on the job because they pick a good partner, a good mentor. And I’ve always thought like, to me those those people are so interesting, because, you know, the prevailing thought for a lot of new brokers is I better go somewhere that really has all of the resources I’m going to need, which would be a large franchise firm and you didn’t do that and I just was curious on, you know how important that relationship you had with and half with Michael like was to you growing your business?

Brady Miller 30:08
Oh, sure, yeah. Cuz he started that company and we were both pretty much learning on the go in different ways. So my pretty much my training was like jumping into it and asking him a lot of questions and making a lot of mistakes early on. And I, you know that that helped me move things pretty quickly, I think. You know, obviously, I learned I learned a lot of stuff just from getting the license, you know, a lot of the legal stuff, so I knew stay away from but I didn’t, I didn’t really do much in the way of training at all.

D.J. Paris 30:48
Well, and that’s, that is not uncommon. I mean, we, we have lots of brokers at our firm, we have almost 600 now. And a good percentage of them came over from other firms and a certain percentage of the ones that came over from other firms versus like brand new brokers just passed their test, the people that transfer over, at least half of them came from firms where they were just smaller firms who didn’t have, you know, the training resources that, you know, one of the big franchise firms, of course, is going to have, and I’ll say, like, Oh, how did you train in there? Like, I didn’t really have a formal training, I just, I just guess, got to it. And then I had a support system in place when I had questions. And, and it seems like some of those brokers in some ways, I think, in some ways, or you could argue or may be better equipped, because they just had to make it work. And, you know, they were just sort of trial by fire. So you’re certainly seemed like a product of that sort of situation? And it’s, it’s really impressive.

Brady Miller 31:47
Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s been really fun. I part of it is probably the most important things really are just listening to buyers and, and being empathetic with every single client that you have, is important, because everybody’s completely different. But obviously, they everybody shares something with you. So. So that’s just helpful, a lot, a lot of listening and making sure you understand what they’re saying, and what they’re asking for. And even even sometimes, if they don’t really know what they’re asking for, you can usually pick it up pretty quickly. And help out that way. But yeah, never, never tell a client what they want, necessarily, you should always learn what they want, and listen to them all the time. And then you you know, you can figure it out, but always always be empathetic to everything. I guess it was very helpful.

D.J. Paris 32:38
Well, yeah, it’s I agree. And it’s such an emotional, whether they’re buying, selling, or even renting at such an emotional decision, that there is a tremendous amount of empathy that, you know, if something doesn’t quite go, right, they’re certainly feeling a certain way about it. And I think so, so many of us in those types of transactions, where we’re the consumer, we rely upon the real estate professional to really guide our hand through it, but also understand what we’re feeling. So I think that empathy is really, really important. Like, we just had a broker from another firm call in to our support line, they had scheduled an appointment with one of our brokers listings. And the reason this broker from another firm called was, she said, Oh, I’m at the listing. And the lockbox, there’s no key in the lockbox and, and, you know, the act, the actual answer that we could give her was, oh, you know, you’ll have to contact that broker of ours and ask them, you know, because we, you just have to, here’s their phone number. But but so that was the, ultimately the information we gave her. But I happened to pick up the phone and I said, Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry. Because I can just imagine she’s there with her client. She’s there looking to you know, and, and I’m sure those things happen, you know, who knows why that happened. But I said I am. I’m so sorry. That’s happening to you. I wish I could fix it, you know, and it was I sincerely could feel that, that that she was like really bummed out, which who wouldn’t be, and again, it happens, but it’s something you wouldn’t expect to happen when you’re working with a buyer. So I’m sure you’ve dealt with at a time or two, but it was like, you know, just the fact that, you know, she was probably not super happy. And and I was like, legitimately bummer for her, even though I don’t know who she is. And she was really appreciative. Even though I ultimately said, Oh, I’m sorry, there’s really nothing I can do. But here’s, here’s the brokers phone number, give them a call, I’ll reach out. So I think you’re right. Empathy is really, really important, just in general in life, probably when communicating with other humans. But, but that’s, that’s a great piece of advice. Well, I think we have said it all, and I really appreciate your time, but I want to also give your contact information in the event that you know, any buddies listening out there wants to work with you. So I know the real estate the website that real estate artists have is Chicago R e a.com. Again, Chicago rei.com. But Brady, how could someone get directly in contact with you? What’s the best way for them

Brady Miller 35:06
to reach you? Sure, I can be easily reached via phone and text via 773-977-8553. And my email address is B. Miller. So B M I L L E R, at Chicago, R e a.com.

D.J. Paris 35:26
Well, Brady, thank you so much for your time. I know you’re busy. And also congratulations on all the success and best luck in the continued success with you and the firm.

Brady Miller 35:37
Thank you. Did you wait yeah, what you’re doing here is awesome. So so keep it up. Keep listening. I’m looking forward to hearing more

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Top producer Josh Weinberg of Weinberg Choi Residential leads his team each morning in a moment of gratitude. His goal is to donate some of his profits, every single day, to charities in line with his team’s values. The passion and enthusiasm Josh lives translates into high production and satisfied clients. If you need a boost to remember how fortunate we all are, and how to use that same energy to service your buyers and sellers, listen to this interview!

Josh Weinberg can be reached at 312.448.7000 or info@weinbergchoirealty.com.

 

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast for Chicago real estate agents made by Chicago real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. If you’re not familiar, this is your first time listening. What we do is interview top Chicago real estate brokers and ask them what they’re doing. How did they build their business? How are they servicing their clients in the hope that you can take some ideas from these, these conversations and use it to elevate your own practice. I have a couple of quick announcements, actually one major announcement. So we’re adding a new segment to the show. It’s launching in just a few weeks, and it’s called the Monday market minute. And it’s with a previous guest who is now going to be a regular guest on the show Carrie McCormick, another superstar producer broker in real estate. And we had such a great interview the first time it Carrie said I want to do this all the time. So once a month, the first Monday, Carrie is going to be in and I are going to be doing the show she’s going to be giving what we call the Monday market minute, which is essentially here’s what’s happened over the last month in Chicago real estate news. And here’s what she predicts is happening in the next month. And it’s going to be really exciting. I’m so really honored that she decided to do that. Also, she’s going to be answering your questions. So if you’re interested in you know, always wanting to ask a top producer, what they’re doing on a regular basis, or any question that you think they would be equipped to answer, please send us your questions, we’re gonna be answering them live on the show. And you know, we we would be happy to do that. I’m also going to be giving a marketing tip of the week as well. So that’s launching in a few weeks. Stay tuned for it. And if you have a question that you’d like to submit, the easiest way to do it, there’s a lot of ways to send questions to us. But you can always visit our website, keeping it real pod.com. So again, keeping it real pod.com. All of our social media links are on their Facebook, Twitter, we have a contact form, we have an email, so send us your questions, and Carrie will answer them live on the show. One way that you can help support the show is to tell every broker you know who’s interested in learning from a top producer about the podcast, it’s free. We’re happy to do it for you. And our numbers are growing so quickly. We can’t believe it. So thank you for anyone that has shared this podcast with someone else in their office and please continue to do so also, if you have any brokers that you think we should be interviewing for a future episode, you can submit those via social media or on our website as well. Today on the show, we have Josh Weinberg, it was one of the best conversations I’ve had with a top producer. And I’m really excited so we’re gonna get right to

it. All right, today on the show, we have Joshua Weinberg, Josh co founded the Weinberg Choi residential group in 2007. In January of 2017, Josh and his business partner Tommy Choi, announced that they have joined three other top producing brokers in Chicago to open the first Keller Williams Market Center in Lincoln Park, Weinberg Choi is ranked in the top 1% of the top producer teams as well as being featured in Chicago agent magazines who’s who every year for the past six years. Outside of work. Josh teaches a real estate course serves several Chicago based charities through his company’s monthly donation and volunteering initiative, and has appeared on HGTV house hunters and House Hunters renovation. Josh resides in Lincoln Park, as do I, with his wife, Erin, his son Dylan, his daughter, Paige and their dog, Yogi. Josh, welcome to the show. And thank you so much.

Josh Weinberg 4:04
Absolutely, DJ, I love what you guys are doing. I love how it’s putting out there into the real estate community. It’s all about right the mindset of abundance and helping each other and sharing and teaching. So I love what you guys are doing and I’m honored and I appreciate you guys having me on the show.

D.J. Paris 4:20
Well, I was just telling Josh this off air that he was at the very top of our list of people to get on the show and these you know, it’s funny. top producers are incredibly busy. So the fact that you and I you had some technical issues that I appreciate your patience through so but I really want to get right into the the meat of it. I want to hear your story about how you started how you ultimately partnered with Tommy. And do you mind sharing with us how you got into real estate?

Josh Weinberg 4:47
Yeah, absolutely. So first I’ll tell you about how I started in real estate. Then I’ll get into Tommy and my story and our come up right so. So I started working at Pulte Homes about two and a half weeks after I graduated college. from Bradley University and polti is what’s one of the biggest builders in the nation at the time. And even after what happened from 28 to 2012, they started acquiring other builders. And truly, if not the biggest in the nation or world, one of the best, biggest, most reputable builder, so the training, there was unbelievable, I got to learn every aspect of the business from, you know, running of community of hundreds of homes and construction, which I didn’t know anything about at the time and customer relations and how it all comes together. So one of the things that training was unbelievable, and that really set us up for success, once we did eventually start and open Weinberg toy Realty. But one of the memories I remember most was I was only a couple months out of college, by the time I was out of training, I was selling homes to people, my parents age, and you know, I was so fresh out of college, I was saying words like, look at this layout, isn’t it sick, and they laugh at me, you know, and I’d be built. And then I realized real quickly right, that I had not that I wasn’t professional, but that was just part of the vocab. So I learned really quickly how to relate to everyone and I love doesn’t matter whether someone’s was our age, walking through the door, younger, older, whatever, I loved it because I could build rapport with people at all ages. So that was amazing training experience which catapulted Tommy and I being able to do what we started. So Tommy and I went to college together, I’m gonna give you the abridged version here. Otherwise, we could go on for hours. But Tommy and I went to college together, we knew in college, we were going to go into business together, we just didn’t know what we were going to do at the time. And what happened was, everyone was coming to us for advice at the time, I was working at polti. Because Tommy and I both bought our homes, I was working in real estate, Tommy was an IT technology. And he everyone knew that he had a passion for real estate. So everyone was coming to ask us asking us questions like why are you not asking your realtor these questions? And, you know, there was a number of different answers that we heard. And finally, we looked at each other like, Alright, let’s do this. So we both come from very entrepreneurial backgrounds. And we this was 2007. I remember both of us going to our parents to tell them about what were the journey we were about to go on. And our parents were super supportive of us. They said to us, so you know, you’re about to start a real estate business and what’s about to be the worst market ever. Right? Right, TJ and for us, for us, we looked at this as an opportunity, right? Because we knew that no matter what the market conditions were, no matter what was going on, we were kind of oblivious to it from the standpoint of I came into the real estate market, no four, I saw building at an all time high. So I saw it really strong. I learned a lot. We saw it in oh seven. And, you know, again, we looked at as an opportunity, maybe we were a little naive, we were younger, but we looked at as like, okay, doesn’t matter what the market conditions are, if we always put our client’s best interest first, truly, the sky’s the limit. So as the market turned, we knew that as the market turns, we’re not going to be as affected by that being that we’re doing what’s right from the start putting our client’s best interest first. And at the end of the day, people want to work with someone that they trust, they’re knowledgeable and that they feel comfortable with. And as the market turned, we knew the sky was the limit as it did get stronger.

D.J. Paris 8:02
Yeah, in a way, it was probably pretty beneficial. Because also you had this giant weed out of brokers around that when the market did turn, a lot of people left the industry which opened up opportunities for you know, brokers who, like yourself, who are younger and hungry, and also didn’t have bad habits from from the past. So I imagine that was really worked to your benefit, but certainly, and I also to like if you can make it in the biggest downturn in the market in our lifetime, then you can certainly make it in better times as well.

Josh Weinberg 8:34
Absolutely. I mean, that was a blessing in disguise, right? Like, again, our parents knew, knew and know a lot more than we do. And but they still support us. 110% right. And for us, though, we were like okay, as Thankfully we’re blessed that year over year, we were growing, right and seeing really good growth because we were putting we were hustling, we were really out there meeting as many people as possible. And again, really, truly putting our clients first. But as some people were getting out of the business or officer were getting smaller, we were seeing growth, which was awesome. And we were blessed for so

D.J. Paris 9:05
and let’s talk about you know, some of the things that you guys do that you feel separates you from other brokers who you know, obviously or, and it’s funny too, I was going to say competition, that that, you know, there is competition, of course, however, what I tend to experience when I interviewed top producers, is they don’t really think much about competition. They don’t see it as competition. But what do you guys feel that you do that is unique and provides so much value that’s helped propel your success?

Josh Weinberg 9:31
So great question. You know what, real quick, you mentioned, you know, competition, right? And I’ll say this, this is one thing I think has has been a it’s one of the biggest, most important, most unbelievable things that as kind of has has set us up for successes. We’ve never looked at anyone in the industry as competition, right? Instead, we’ve embraced it. We’ve looked at everyone as colleagues and we’ve built really, really, really good relationships with everyone in the industry. And it’s important on so many levels. And you know what it’s like? Yes, there is a there’s 14,000 members, the Chicago Association of Realtors, and yes, we see the same people day in and day out. But ultimately, that’s even more why it’s important to have these relationships where, and this is, this is a big benefit to our clients and, and when we’re explaining this to our clients, why that’s important is, you know, especially in this climate, right, where we’re seeing a lot of multiple offers, right, and we’re walking into a property and there’s multiple offers or serious interest. When my clients when we write an offer, the other agents know that our clients are knowledgeable, they’re qualified, it’s going to be a win win, it’s going to be a smooth transaction. So from that standpoint, you know, it’s such a big benefit, even on the listing side for our listings, other other realtors come in knowing that they can feel very confident bringing their clients in and writing an offer, because they know it’d be a smooth win win. Truly, everyone feel good about it. So I’m glad you mentioned that. And it is we’re super blessed to be in in the most amazing real estate market and city in America, where there’s so many amazing people that honestly we look at as mentors, and we have from day one. And that’s a big reason for our learning curve. We we’ve mastermind with people from all different offices, we get together, we share best practices, see what’s going on how we can all support each other. And it’s amazing. So, you know, I know that was kind of a little different than what your question was about? What do we do different? You know, I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, the most important thing to us, is our client having the perfect real estate experience. Okay, sure. And what that means to one person is totally different from someone else. So, you know, for us a huge reason for our growth and our success. And I guess that’s all relative, right, is that we’re out there meeting as many people as possible. And one thing Tammy has done, he set a goal three years ago to meet 365 new people a year, right, so one a day. And it’s all about helping others, seeing what we can do for others. And we kind of compare it to like the ATM machine, right? It’s like making deposits to other people, how we can help them out not because we want anything in return, but truly because we want to help them out. And I think that’s a reason for success is because we’re not giving we’re coming from contribution, right? We’re helping people because we want to help them, the result of that is people truly want to work with you, and then help you in any way possible. But that’s not the reason we’re doing it. So, you know, I’d say that’s a huge reason for our success, like I mentioned, one is it’s just the amazing people in our industry and in our in our Market Center at Keller Williams that we’re learning from, to is just like I said, just coming from contribution, always seeing how we can help others. And three, we’re blessed to have a team that shares our vision that we couldn’t do this without our team, because everyone on our team is just as important as the next person. And honestly, it’s that our clients don’t just say, Josh, Tommy or this person, it’s the wind virtual residential team, because everyone on our team shares the same vision and cares just as much as the next person about our clients having the perfect real estate experience.

D.J. Paris 13:04
Yeah, I think that’s so important. And he said, so, so many wonderful things, you know, number one, you’re right competition is maybe you know, it’s not certainly not the way you look at other realtors. And it is funny, because when you’re working with the realtors, that a transaction is called a cooperative commission, because you are supposed to be cooperative, right? It’s an even in the Word. But just in the idea of having a mission and your group having that and that everyone is aligned to that same vision is really important. And obviously you can you can hear the passion in the way you communicate. And also, it’s clear that you guys have have values that you try to, you know, live by, with respect to how you treat your clients and business. And as a result, you know, obviously you’re you’re meeting those goals and people are just inherently wanting to work with, you know, someone who’s who’s that well defined and provides that much value. Totally DJ

Josh Weinberg 13:58
and here’s the thing for us, the the wind virtual residential team’s mission is to build legacies for our clients, our team, our family and friends bought through providing the perfect real estate experience, right. So that is super important to us. And that’s something that we let our clients and our network and our raving fans know.

D.J. Paris 14:18
Hey, Josh, I know one of the things you’re incredibly passionate about is what you call 365 Days of Giving. And can you tell us a little bit about that program and what that means to you and your team.

Josh Weinberg 14:30
So 365 Days of Giving is what I’m most proud of. We’re super blessed for all the awards and praise and in you know, recognition we’ve gotten locally nationally on the state level. What I’m most proud of is our 365 Days of Giving Program. We started this last year. The best part about it is is not only do we get to build these amazing memories with our team where we get to Team Build and truly work as a unit right to to make lunches or what we’re doing with it is right every month we’re supporting a different organization whether it at the Ronald McDonald House, we’ve done Habitat for Humanity. Nora project, amazing organization we supported in a charity golf outing a couple of months ago. You know, the Lincoln Park, food pantry, Jewish Food Pantry, all different organizations. And what we do is we find, you know, organizations near and dear to our team’s heart or people within our office in our Market Center here at Keller Williams. And it’s amazing because one, not only do we get to give back to the community that we live in, and, and see what the appreciation people give for just us being there and spending time and or raising money, but it’s amazing because we can get our clients and our business partners and our people and our friends involved to a lot of people want to give back or donating. They just don’t always know how to get involved. And this is a way that we can all do it together. So super proud of our team for being all in on this everyone’s so excited about every event we’re doing in every way that we can be together. And it’s something that we’re going to continue to grow and continue to raise more money. And I’m that’s what I’m most proud of, for our for our team and what we’re building.

D.J. Paris 16:03
Yeah, I think that’s wonderful. And it’s also incredibly, it comes up time and time again, when I talk to top producers, this idea of giving back whether it’s, you know, supporting a charity or an organization or a cause, there always seems to be time to do that. And it seems to also be, you know, resounding among all the top producers I speak with this ultra fulfilling part of their business. And it’s, it’s, it’s something you know that when you find passion to do it, it’s I always say like you guys don’t have time to do that yet you find time. And I think and just you know, to hear the authentic part of, of you saying that, hey, this is even the most important thing, maybe we do, I think is so wonderful. And let’s talk a little bit about the abundant mindset that that you guys have really cultivated and and tell me a little bit about sort of how that’s helped you guys in your business? Yeah,

Josh Weinberg 16:57
well, I mean, here’s the thing, okay. I think it all has to do with who you surround yourself with, right? So you’re the sum of the averages of the five people you’re around the most. And when you’re around people who are great human beings who want to support others and give back, it’s a lot easier. It’s like this, okay, if I’m sitting down at a table with five billionaires, I’m walking out of there, the sixth, right? So from that standpoint, it’s like, okay, when I’m around people who want to share and teach and give back and are always in the Learning Zone, it’s easy to want to help others because that’s the kind of environment that you’re in. So from the standpoint of mindset of abundance, right? It’s more about, like, how can we help and writers kind of goes back to making those deposits, you know, we start our day off our team, our team huddle every single day, we start our day off with gratitude, okay? And we go around, and we talk about something that we’re all grateful for. And it’s important, not only because we have a roof over our head, and we get we have food that we get to eat, especially with what’s going on right now in Houston and everything. But also just it starts the day off. It’s making those deposits, right. It’s like, it’s almost like at night before you go to bed, you had a crazy stressful day. Rather than sitting there going to bed thinking about all this stuff, you almost need to make cash out and say something and think positive thoughts, right? So mindset of abundance is is so important, because the people that you’re around every day and the environment you’re in, that’s not only changing who you are, maybe professionally, but on it’s a personal development to your to your life, whether it’s with family, friends, you know, everything. It’s just, it’s so important to give back. And you know, the class I teach at car at Chicago Association of Realtors, I’ve had people come up to me at the break in the lab, they’ll ask me questions like, hey, just curious, like, why are you sharing this stuff with me? And I’m like, you know, we’re gonna use this right? I’m like, That’s the entire reason I’m here right now, the purpose is, is to help give back and to make our real estate community better. I want you to use this otherwise, it’s silly for me to be here if you’re not going to use this. So it’s it’s different people have different mindsets and how they view it, but it’s all about giving back and putting good out into this world.

D.J. Paris 18:56
Yeah, you’re so right. I was actually it’s just perfect timing, because I was just talking about this last night with somebody the idea of gratitude. And it’s been very popular in sort of, in the pop psychology movement over the last many, many years. And so there’s gratitude journals and gratitude courses. And, you know, I sort of think about why is that so successful? Like, why does that work for so many people? And I think what it does, or one of the things it does, aside from, you know, aside from filling you up with the feeling of gratitude, it also helps keep things in perspective. Right. So you’re, you know, you mentioned that the people suffering right now in Houston. Well, yeah, to be grateful that hey, I’m not currently in that reality or to be grateful that maybe I can contribute and help in some way or just you know, to keep those people in mind. Even just sending you know, whatever positive thoughts their way is really helps just keep perspective of, oh, maybe my, you know, problems aren’t as great as or you know, and it helps kind of reset the playing field and, and at least that’s what it does for me. And I think you know, for me, I mean, I don’t know if you can relate, but I get sometimes lost in my own stuff. And I make it very important. And oh my gosh, this didn’t work out. And it’s the end of everything. And usually it isn’t. And it’s more often just me forgetting that the bigger picture is, gosh, I have a lot of things that I should be really, really grateful for proud of. And, you know, so I was thinking a little bit about that yesterday, just timing wise.

Josh Weinberg 20:26
Oh, I couldn’t agree more like, totally agree. And DJ, the thing is, is like we all every one of us gets really caught up on some of the small things and the small details, and it’s easy to let that take over. And it’s it. There’s times where things like what’s going on in Houston puts things in perspective, and you realize, like, okay, that is not the biggest deal. And, and everyone, it’s not saying that one thing is more important than the other. It’s just that you realize, truly, it puts things in perspective. And, and here’s the most amazing thing, right? There’s so much going on in our world right now, always. And then you see these times where these critical times like what’s going on Houston, and you see everyone come together, right? And, and whether it’s through social media or not like I’ll just give you an example. Like one of my friends, family members were stranded in a home the other day with four adults, six kids and a dog. And I reached out to a friend in Houston. And literally, he started blasting it out to everyone who’s got a boat that can come to this address, everything ended up being fine, they ended up getting rescued by the National Guard, but to see everyone come together, that’s mindset of abundance, right? Like that is it’s just so amazing that we can look at all the negativity that and all this stuff that goes on or instead you can flip it right, and it can look at it. Really Wow, there’s amazing human beings in this world. And that’s what I love about what we get to do is that we get to meet people every day. And there’s so many amazing people. And I’m super grateful and blessed that we get to do that. And, and honestly, I’ll tell you this, and this kind of all kind of goes back to this, I’d say in general, not just real estate, not just life, not just business. All of this is 90% mindset, you can have someone who’s extremely talented, extremely knowledgeable, and who just doesn’t have the right mindset. And then you have someone who’s pretty talented. They have an amazing mindset where it’s super, like they can literally, they’ve come in with such a positive attitude. They’re truly believing that positive things are going to happen. And they can say this is going to happen instead of saying, Oh no, this is gonna happen. And truly, it’s 90% mindset, especially in our business.

D.J. Paris 22:29
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always said mindset or attitude, Trump’s talent, most of the time, not all, not every single time, but most of the time and nearly all the time. I’d say, you know, if I was hiring somebody in or import or import or import or import or important for me to get a sense of their, their attitude, and then what their actual, his actual mental or intellectual talents might be. So I’m absolutely in the same in the same camp. Awesome. Let’s talk also tell me, tell me the you know, you mentioned Well, you haven’t mentioned on the show, but you you had written me and said you wanted to talk about iron sharpening iron. So tell me what that means.

Josh Weinberg 23:15
Yeah, I mean, I think this, a lot of this kind of goes together, right? And, and I think the key is here is right, it’s like, when you surround yourself around people that are better and smarter than you, whether it’s on your team and life, you’re gonna like I was saying before you become a better person, or a better business person or a better realtor, or whatever it is, right, a better father, right? When you’re around people that are doing being a great father, it’s easier to be a good father, when you see what they’re doing. And for us, we always want to surround ourselves with who are smarter better than us at certain things so we can get better. And iron sharpens iron. I mean, truly, if you’re around people who are better and smarter than you or do or doing things at a very high level. It’s amazing because at the Keller Williams Chicago, Linkin Park Market Center, what everyone’s curating here so special, because there’s so many things that people are better at than me. And the greatest thing is that I can learn how to be better in every aspect. And, and it’s awesome because everyone has that mindset of abundance, where they want to teach where they want to share and they’re also in their learning. So right every day we wake up and we’re in the Learning Zone and just being around people who want to help that are better than me. That’s me getting better and stronger in every aspect of my life. So that really defines iron sharpening iron.

D.J. Paris 24:28
Yeah, no 100% agree. I know like I play tennis and I actually play right here in Lincoln Park. And if I’m playing I try to play as best the most you know, as most often as I can with people who are better than me, or at least just slightly better than me they might not always want to play somebody weaker. But I try to I try to find people that are just slightly better and I always play better when I win you know, it’s forces me to step up and and also learn from from people who are better otherwise if I’m and it’s okay to play with, you know, like in this case with the tennis metaphor, like a weaker player. From time to time, it’s fine. It’s absolutely okay. I just find that I don’t play as well. So, you know, that’s, that’s definitely I definitely agree. In the business metaphor too. I’ve always this is the reason why we talk we’re doing this podcast is I want to, you know, get some of these ideas out to brokers that are struggling, because not everyone is is, you know, having immediate success. And I know you guys didn’t necessarily have immediate successful, but you’ve done incredibly well. But you even jokingly were talking about how, you know, when you guys first started, you spent a lot of time at Panera because, you know, there was free Wi Fi and, and, and coffee, bottomless coffee. Can you talk a little bit about what advice you’d have for somebody who’s new and struggling? Who you know, and you’ve given a lot of great advice already, but it’s anything immediately come to mind that you’d really encourage someone to do?

Josh Weinberg 25:51
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So there’s so much that I can share, because we’re failing every day and learning from it. Right. And that’s how we’re getting better is from being willing to take that risk to take those mistakes, because we’re gonna continue to make those mistakes. I think the biggest piece of advice that I that Tommy and I both got from one of our mentors, Ron Weiss, he’s not he’s in a completely different industry, is he he has an amazing t shirt, screen printing business and on the north side, and he told us this advice. And rather than getting super detailed on his story, I’ll tell you how it related to ours. Sure. He told us, right, I remember we were meeting with him, we were in there considering doing some T shirts. And he’s been a mentor for us. And he didn’t even realize he was our mentor, which even shows how awesome it was. Right? Yeah, he said to us. Don’t compare yourself to everyone else in the industry, meaning this, our industry is super transparent. You can look at anyone’s numbers, you’re looking at what everyone’s doing. You can compare yourself to what everyone else is doing. What he said is, is just focus on being the best version of yourself and being better than you were the day before. Because when you do that it’s a win win. Right? And if you’re focusing that your energy on Oh, how can I be better than this other person, you’re really not focusing on that self development of being a better version of yourself. So that’s the one of the biggest pieces of advice, because it’s really easy to look around either your team, your office, your friends, your colleagues, and say, Oh, wow, that person is doing that. And why aren’t I doing that? So instead, flip and be like, Okay, this is how I was last week. And now I’m better at this. Right. That’s probably the biggest piece of advice that someone get that Ron gave us that I would want to pass along to anybody in any industry as a whole. Yeah. And

D.J. Paris 27:31
I want to piggyback on that, because you just touched on something that came up for me, which, what amazing advice that is, and there’s an old expression, and I’m probably not getting it 100% accurate, but it’s the idea is, don’t compare your outsides with someone else’s outsides. But more importantly, don’t compare your insides with someone else’s outsides. In other words, you know, you’re talking about successes relative, right, and everyone’s got their own definition. And you may, no matter what your numbers might show, you might actually inside feel like, gosh, the person down down the hall in the bigger office, you know, who maybe does have bigger numbers, you know, is doing better than than me. And again, that’s it’s a bottomless pit of always feeling less than, and if you just focus on the discipline of getting better at your at wherever your you know, opportunities are to improve, you’re going to win.

Josh Weinberg 28:24
Yeah, and you know, a lot of people look at it, you’re right, you’re set. So true. And a lot of people look at it very short term, like, okay, I can accomplish this in one year. And a lot of people think they can accomplish a lot more in one year than they can because they wanted this instant gratitude. However, on the flip side, a lot of people don’t even realize they can accomplish a lot more in five years than they ever thought. So it’s working out a five year plan, and working backwards to figure it out. Right. I think that’s super important. I’d say, I’d say the one thing too, that’s really important is this and and Tommy and I I mean, we’re this is 100% off as we started, right? So Tommy just had his third daughter, Mayer. And you know, it’s amazing. And I have two children till on a page. And we want to be able to spend more time with their families and see them grow up and be there for those moments, right. And so it’s like, for a long time, we were running on pure talent, meaning, yes, we had an idea of what we wanted to do. But we didn’t time block out. We didn’t know what our schedule was every day what we were doing. And some people might think that’s boring, and especially someone like us who’d like to run around and love to see people and meet and interact and meet new people. The key is, is I think one of the biggest piece of advice is put these systems in place early. So right we’re going from E to P entrepreneurial to purposeful, meaning entrepreneurial, meaning you’re just running around on pure talent, purposeful, like having these systems that’s going to set you up for success not only for your team, your family, but for long term to scale up and build. And that’s one of the biggest things we’ve learned in the last year, especially with putting these systems in place. And knowing that systems can always evolve. They’re always going to be evolve. It’s always going to be how you can make them better and and what we’ve learned is is what worked for us three years ago now Business wouldn’t work today. And what works today isn’t gonna work in two or three or four years based on our growth, and that’s okay. But it’s being open to change and knowing that you no matter what the more systems you have in place, the easier it’s going to be to be successful. And to have that work life balance, and to really continue to grow to the next level.

D.J. Paris 30:18
Yeah, I absolutely. And I just love the fact that I want it. You said it very quickly earlier in the in the conversation, but I don’t want I want to revisit it just briefly, because a lot of times new brokers in particular, like alright, what do I do? And you know, here you guys are so many years later, eight, or gosh, you guys are 10 years in, right? Or this is I guess, maybe you’re 100/11 year. And, and you’re still Tommy, his goal is to meet 365 new people in the next you know, 365 days, right? So a person a day, that is that is a system. Now, having, figuring out how to do that, obviously, is its own challenge. But the discipline of fun of the fundamental that you know, is going to ultimately help you get more business is so important. And I love the fact that you know, 11 years in and you’re already a top producer, you guys are still like, okay, every day we have to meet at least one new person, which is not easy to do, but is an incredibly simple tangible goal. It’s a system. And I love that.

Josh Weinberg 31:20
Absolutely, absolutely. I’d say this, like, you know, every day and whether whether it’s someone on your team, your office, another office, it’s it’s important to have mentors inside outside the industry, people you can mastermind and share with right and for me, part of what I love and part of our Y is doing this with everyone that we’re doing it with and most people that know me, well know that my favorite band is fish, right. And one quote that they say is, it’s not an experience if you can’t bring someone along. And to me, to me that’s like that’s what it’s all about right is just being in it with people that you want to do this with, that you want to be around every day that you want to support and you want to help them achieve their dreams, you want to help them build a legacy for them and their family. So when people on our team doubt, 20 3040 years down the road. Legacy doesn’t just mean money or financial, it means that person made a difference in so many people’s lives. And when they say their name, whether it’s Stephanie on our team, Ariana, Krista, Hannah Paul, anyone on our team, they know that’s, that’s building a legacy, right and leaving a legacy.

D.J. Paris 32:25
Yeah. And wisdom from birds of a feather which I took me a moment to recall the song. But I love that. Yeah, I just went to my it’s embarrassing. I’ve been playing guitar for almost 30 years. Obviously I most guitar players are fans of fish as well, I would think and I just went to my first show in San Francisco about a year ago, it’s embarrassed to admit it’s taken me that long, but But you know, that’s it’s a good metaphor. And it’s absolutely true. And it carries over. You know, again, passion is so impassioned and mission and philanthropy I would say are three of the top values you guys have. And it’s so important. And you know, it’s it’s infectious. And I’m sure your clients would would say, obviously would say the same I imagine a good percentage of your guys’s business is referrals. If it’s not 100% it’s got to be close. And I’m sure that you know that speaks to obviously the value you’re creating. Speaking of that, if we do have buyers and sellers who want to to reach out to you what’s the best way they should get in touch?

Josh Weinberg 33:28
Absolutely, yeah, thanks. I appreciate I appreciate the shout out there’s a love. So you can either call me anytime 312-224-8905 You can visit our website at Weinberg choi.com. You can email me at Josh at Weinberg, Troy realty.com. If you want, if I can help in any way or support you or be there as your mentor or help you set goals, I’m happy to whether you’re in the industry, whether it’s anything I can do I truly truly mean that I love that I love giving back. Like I said, coming from contribution is so huge. And DJ, you’re awesome, man, I appreciate you guys doing what you’re doing and putting out so much good into this world for our community and our industry. And, and just thank you so much for having me. I’m honored to be on here. And I appreciate you guys.

D.J. Paris 34:12
It’s on our honor as well. And thank you again to Josh and also Tommy who isn’t on on the call. But we appreciate you know his contributions as well. So Oh, and real quickly before we sign off, you know, you mentioned that you teach at car occasionally is how would people become aware of those classes if they were to want to look to see the next time you guys are going to be down there? Yeah, for sure.

Josh Weinberg 34:37
So if you go to Chicago realtor.com The name of the class and I teach it with Janine McShea who is an awesome, awesome, awesome person. We wrote the class together with people from car. It’s amazing class, it’s showing, you can go to Chicago realtor.com. And you’ll see anytime we’re teaching it if you look up the roadmap of a transaction, in addition to that there are endless opportunities for training and classes here at our market center, Lincoln Lincoln Park doesn’t matter what company you’re at, I highly recommend you going you’re going to learn its way amazing business thinking you can learn on so many levels both personal development, professional development. So reach out if you need any of that information.

D.J. Paris 35:18
Well, and I’ve always said I think that one of the best books if not probably the, I’ll say to me, it’s the best book and maybe there’s a better one that but I haven’t yet found it. You know, Gary Keller wrote Millionaire Real Estate Agent, it’s about as good as it gets, with respect to what every broker should be reading and obviously, I’m sure some of those classes are built upon those those same principles and, and texts. So yeah, so Josh, once again, I know you’ve already said they have said goodbye that you but we just wanted to say thanks one more time. And again, visit Josh at Weinberg, Choi realty.com. And thank you so much for being on the show.

Josh Weinberg 35:54
Oh, thank you. We appreciate you guys.

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Are you curious why Redfin has been exploding in popularity in the past several years? In this episode we feature top 1% broker Alex Haried, and he explained why he chose Redfin as his partner, and why 276 of Alex’s clients have rated him a near-perfect five stars. (Alex has closed 23.2 million in the past 12 months, by the way.) Learn what he and his team are doing right!

If interested in working with Alex, you can reach him at alex.haried@redfin.com or 630.445.0561

See Alex’s amazing customer reviews by clicking here!

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:13
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only podcast made by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host through the show. And a couple of quick announcements before we get started for the interview with Alex, is that we want your questions. So we are going to start taking our listener questions about how to become successful or more successful as a real estate broker. And here’s how to submit your questions, you can visit our Facebook page, which is keeping it real pod. So just search for that. Or you can go to our website, keeping it real pod.com. And there’s a contact form, you can submit questions there too. Before we get to our interview, I wanted to share a statistic with you that 88% of consumers are going to look up online reviews of your company before purchasing a product. Now this isn’t specifically a real estate statistic, but we could reasonably suggest that your clients are looking up to see what your previous clients think about you. So I was just recently doing a corporate team building event at a place where you have to escape a room working together. And at the end of it, we all had such a great time. But our guide through the the exercise said, hey, just so you know, we’d really appreciate it. If you leave us a review on TripAdvisor. It’s how we get a majority of our business. And if you feel like we did a really good job, it’d be the best thing you could do for us would really help us out. And I thought about that. And I did leave a review. But I thought jeez, I wonder how many brokers are forgetting to ask their clients to leave a review, whether it’s on Zillow, or Google or Facebook, or Yelp, or Trulia or Zillow, or realtor.com. Obviously, there’s a lot of places, but and I wouldn’t ask, of course your clients do submit reviews to all those. That would be too daunting. But what are you even asking for one or two, certainly at least ask for one. So I would pick a review system, for example, Zillow, and really make sure that if you feel like you did a good job for your clients that you reach out to them and let them know, what I would say is hey, Mr. Mrs. Client, thank you so much, I was really honored to be your broker. And if you felt like I did a good job, one of the ways you could help me with my business is to share your experience with me, here’s a link. This enables me to spend less time marketing, looking for clients, and actually more time servicing my clients. So you’re really doing me a huge service. And I thank you in advance. Again, that could be an email, but just the thought, and because your clients are going to look up to see, you know, those reviews anyway, might as well try to stack the deck in your favor. So again, consider that for your existing clientele. And also remember with your questions to submit those to our show, either on Facebook or on our website. All right on to the interview.

So Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Haried 3:26
Thank you very much for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:28
It’s funny, you, you remembered better than I and I’m embarrassed to say that took me a moment. But we had actually met what you said about three years ago. And I remember you coming in now to our other office, and I tried in vain to recruit you. And I guess it didn’t work. But we’re glad to have you on the show. So thank you

Alex Haried 3:48
know, I’m always looking for, you know, other opportunities and things. And I’ve been very, very happy at Redfin. But, you know, you gotta know what’s out there to make sure you’re happy where you’re at.

D.J. Paris 3:58
And we should also we should also point out that you were telling me just Off mic that you had this exact idea for a podcast.

Alex Haried 4:05
I did. Yeah, I told my wife two two months ago about like, I should interview other brokers and then you know, make a podcast because I’m a huge podcast fan and, and she was like, Yeah, you should do it. And then it just kind of linger in the back of my mind. And, and I got your assistants email, and I was like, ah, someone’s already doing it missed. It missed the opportunity.

D.J. Paris 4:22
Trust me, I It would be nice to have another player in the space. I won’t feel as alone. But um, but yeah, I’m really, really glad you’re here. So talk because you’ve been in real estate since 2011. And you just, you’ve transitioned from the city, not that you, you physically transitioned living from the city out to the suburbs.

Alex Haried 4:42
I’m also transitioning my business out there too. So I have, you know, one one foot in both right now and picking up all my new clients out in the suburbs and everything like that. But then I have my legacy clients and my old clients who I’m still servicing in the city. So, you know, people come back to me all the time, and they’re like, can you buy me buy here? And I’m like, Yeah, of course. But you know, All my new business is coming in the, in the suburbs.

D.J. Paris 5:02
Sure. Let’s talk about how you got started because I want to end up in the suburbs and talking about how you transition. But how did you get started? Tell us that story. Sure.

Alex Haried 5:11
So the story actually starts when I was like, 16, I was hanging out with my, my uncle, who is in commercial real estate. And I really just admired him and admired, you know, what he could do and, you know, the kind of ethos of real estate and, and everything like that. And so he inspired me to be in real estate. So when I was 18, I actually signed up for a real estate class. And this was, let’s see, 18. So I was 2006. And so they, they looked at me, and they asked me how old I was. And I was, you know, I told him, I’m 18. And they’re like, Okay, well, you might have to be 21. Let’s like check out lunch. So at lunch, they kicked me out of the class, because I had to be 21. So that kind of annoyed me. So I came back when I was 21, got my real estate license, I was still in college, I just hung out with my uncle. And so then, after college, I knew I wanted to do something real estate related, but this was, you know, you can imagine the worst time to be in real estate 2010 Sure. So I’m calling developers I wanted to I went to Northwestern to get an econ degree. So I was like, I’m gonna be a developer and do all that. And I call a bunch of developers and they were all like, we’re firing people with, you know, MBAs and 10 years of experience. And I was like, okay, so I gotta find something else. So I found something else, which was, right after college, I did lease administration for a small, boutique firm, but they had a ton of business. I mean, even with like, the 12 people at the firm, they did probably, you know, like, I think they had almost a billion dollars in leases that they managed, just because of the size of leases that you can manage are can just be so huge, and they only did billing and stuff for them. So it was all very simple. It wasn’t like we actually had to do management of that. But, you know, it was interesting, but I was very, not challenged there. So I knew I wanted to do brokerage, or I figured I wanted to do brokerage. So looking around, you know, with a conventional broker, you know, I talked to commercial brokers, I talked to residential brokers, commercial brokers, they said, your first paycheck, if day one, you got a client to sign a lease was like six months later, that’s not gonna work. I have student loans I have, you know, my life, I just started and I don’t have, you know, parental money. So to commercial was not going to work. And then residential, they said, you know, first day, it’s going to be two months later, if they sign it, you know, 45 days at least to get a loan. And this was also in in 2010 2011, when,

D.J. Paris 7:44
when what it was pretty hard to get loans, three rd

Alex Haried 7:46
loans, people were not in the business, it was not as easy was in 2007 and 2006, you know, to get business. So, you know, established people were leaving the business. So I was like, Oh, this is, you know, not really good situation, either. And then I spoke with Redfin, and Redfin, how they pay you is just so much different, that I was like, this can actually work. And so then I started working for them a couple of weeks later,

D.J. Paris 8:14
and you’ve been with them for seven, seven years, six,

Alex Haried 8:18
six years. Yes. April of 2011. So yeah, six and a half years now.

D.J. Paris 8:22
And, you know, we mentioned your accolades, or I did in the in the intro, but I should mention one of them, which is, you know, aside from from everything else, is, you have almost a perfect five star rating on the red ring. These are not false ratings. These are these are Redfin’s own customer. Yeah, meeting you. And it’s nearly perfect, which speak well speaks to your ability, or to the satisfaction of your clients,

Alex Haried 8:48
I appreciate that, ya know, and, you know, there are the bad ones out there, we put the good and the bad we, we survey every one who writes an offer, so if good or, you know, failed or successful, they get surveys, so whether they choose to follow the survey or not, that’s up to them, but we survey them so that, you know, we get the most accurate information, and we put it all up there unless it unless it contains a factually inaccurate statement. Sure. We put it up there. So

D.J. Paris 9:16
let’s, yeah, and I mean, it’s it’s a real testament to your to your obviously the quality of service you provide. And, and I and by the way, you have almost closing in on 300 reviews. I know probably 10% of the clients actually feel bad out. Or maybe it’s slightly higher, but it isn’t 90%. So the fact so you can just multiply that by a pretty, you know, an exponential number and get the actual number of people you’ve worked with. Yes, it’s truly impressive. Yeah. So just talk a little bit about you know, and I’ll actually I’ll let me start with a short little just Redfin anecdote of my own check, which is I have a friend and she recently bought a home through a Redfin broker. It might have been you but but I actually don’t know who she used but initially she was with another traditional broker brokerage firm. I won’t mention him because doesn’t matter now, but it was you know, it was a traditional firm, a good firm, like a really good firm. And one word you don’t usually hear, like their brokers or not. So it was really and I’m sure the broker she worked with was fine, but for whatever reason, well, not for whatever reason, I know the reason she ultimately left that broker and decided to go to Redfin and And what she found was her her rationale. And I even offered before she decided to go Redfin, I didn’t know she was considering Redfin, I said, Oh, if you if you’re interested, if you’re not happy with your broker, we’ve got lots of brokers. I can definitely pair you up with someone. Yeah. And she ended up saying, Oh, that’s nice, and then end up going Redfin. And ultimately, I said, I just had a curiosity, what was it that prompted you, she goes, You know, I found myself doing the vast majority of the work she had been looking for, to buy a condo for about a year. And she had just was constantly on Zillow. And the other websites, you know, looking up and really wasn’t it wasn’t that she didn’t need a broker for to help guide her through the process. But she didn’t like paying, you know, she knew what ultimately she would be paying. And again, you know, you can make the argument, of course, the seller pays, but it’s reflected in the price. And yeah, it’s anyway, she caught sort of said, you know, I’m not that Redfin does provide a high level of service, she goes, but I love the fact that in her case, there was a some sort of rebate that came back her way that was substantial. And she’s like, this is perfect, because I get a professional and I get a rebate. And and, you know, it’s she just felt that the service was was so great. I hear that time and time

Alex Haried 11:38
again, from we’d love to hear that. That’s great.

D.J. Paris 11:40
Let’s talk a little bit about about your process, because you work with buyers, you know,

Alex Haried 11:45
almost exclusively, I work with buyers, I’ve done, you know, I can’t do sales, but how Redfin works is that they really tried to make you efficient at your job. And so they, you know, I get more buyers than I can then I can handle. And so we have this race where we turn ourselves off, which is basically we stopped taking new business, as you know, on an individual basis, if we’re too busy. So, and this happens, this happens. Top brokers are, you know, I’m probably off 50% of the year, just because I’ve got all my legacy clients, and I get all these referrals now that I’ve been in the business for, for so long, but But yeah, we. So yeah, we do give the rebate, we’re, you know, if there’s any industry for giving the rebate, we actually find that like, probably about half of our clients have sort of heard about the rebate, but don’t really know what it is and jerk are interested, like, what’s the number? How’s it calculated? Like, do I get one on this property? And so, you know, it changes all the time what the rebate actually is, but we find that people like faster service. Sure. And you know, service right now we’re on an on demand industry is becoming more and more an on demand industry. And it’s becoming more and more on demand world thrill. You know, like, um, Amazon is becoming, you know, they’re trying to get drones to drop off things within an hour and like things like that, like all this craziness. And so Redfin is using our technology to try to, to be in that same space to do things so quickly that you have to use us because we’re just so good at being quick. And then we can, because we’re so efficient and quick, we can actually get a rebate on some of the things. So to your question about how I work. You know, I very much believe in the ethos of Redfin, of being quick and customer focused. And so, you know, if you do those two things, I think the business just comes,

D.J. Paris 13:39
yeah, there’s, there’s some Gosh, my boss always quotes the number and I can’t remember, but it’s the vast majority of people would rather have a quick answer. Even if it’s incorrect that you later go back and say, oh, you know, what I made, I have to make an adjustment, then waiting, you know, waiting for a, you know, an answer that is double checking, and not to say you should ever give a wrong answer. But just this idea of speed. And, you know, I also want to point out Redfin is, you know, used to be with SEO and meaning, you know, search engine optimization, the search engine results when people are searching in the engines. It used to be when you were looking for a house you saw realtor.com is usually number one, you know, Zillow and Trulia were farther behind Redfin wasn’t as much on the map and this is years ago, and then all of a sudden realtor.com You know, swept a few places

Alex Haried 14:33
so bought and sold by so many people. I think they’re they’re you guys probably true and leadership in their ideas just can’t make a thing if you change every six months, some

D.J. Paris 14:42
Yeah, and other other plate firms, other websites just have, you know, really impressive technology and, and have risen the ranks and now all of a sudden, it’s Zillow and Redfin, right and you know, and then again, truly it is still up there. So it’s real truck

Alex Haried 14:57
loans, truly so, you know, basically certain point they’re going to just consolidate into Zillow, I’m assuming but we’ll see what happened what

D.J. Paris 15:05
and years and years before that. It was really locally it was dream town was showing off the top. Yeah. And then Redfin has just unseated. You know, unseeded, pretty much everyone and now it’s them in Zillow. So when you do a search, it’s really impressive because they’re driving so much traffic to their site. And they’re clearly consumers are clearly happy with the experience of the Redfin website, because Google again, rewards, you know, time on page and yeah, are people dumping get, you know, dumping out of the site going to another one? And the fact is, it’s a really good consumer experience. And so, it’s doesn’t seem any always surprising to me that that translates over into the broker experience to Yeah, so that, you know, it’s like, okay, great experience on the website, then when they connect with a broker, you know, Redfin’s, like, obviously knows that they have to continue that,

Alex Haried 15:53
yeah. And then we continue to speed, we found that if you if you don’t call them back within 15 minutes, or something like 60%, less likely to get them as a client, whether they’re just going to start making calls, when they have a question, find the property, they’ll make a call until they get a response. And so we we try to call people back so quickly that they continue using us.

D.J. Paris 16:15
Let’s talk about now you you’ve recently transitioned your business, again, you mentioned this earlier, from, you know, sort of mostly the city to now to, you know, mostly the suburbs, or just, I know, you have business this year,

Alex Haried 16:29
I’m gonna be about Yeah, fit. But 30 in the suburbs, and 70 in the city. Hopefully next year, it’d be more 5050. So I don’t have to drive into the city as much, but But ya know, I’m doing that transition. And Richard really helps me, because I don’t have to do all the showings for all my clients, right? I have a like a team that works under a team of associates. And so these associates, you know, for the city, if I just can’t make it into the city, that day, I’ve got the association who can make that work for me. So it really works, especially with the legacy clients who like working with me and already work with me, I can, you know, make them work with my associates a little bit more, and then just follow up after the tour and, you know, read those offers for him, I find that really, really makes the transition a lot easier. But yeah, the servers are fun, they’re different. It’s, it’s different, you know, you don’t have to like search for parking all the time. It’s true, but in terms of what the clients are looking for, you know, it’s a lot of those people with kids who are moving out for the school districts or for more space, and just it’s the suburbs are a little bit calmer. A lot of people are still trying to make it work in the city, you know, the city is pretty gangbusters in most of those A, B, and even C to your neighborhoods are pretty gangbusters. In the suburbs, or our neighborhood by neighborhood specific, you know, and so it’s, it’s, people have to figure that out a little bit more. And they feel like they don’t have the urgency that they do in the city, like the city, they’re just like, alright, we know that things will go quickly. We got to, you know, make an offer quick and everything like that sellers are like, well, we’ll wait a day or two to you know, think about this. In you

D.J. Paris 18:08
know, we were looking at, because we were, before we started, we were looking at the total number of brokers in the area, I think we’re in about 34 35,000. And this includes the suburbs, and I don’t know what the breakdown is of city versus suburbs. But let’s say it’s even half and half, it’s probably more in the suburbs. But But even so, it’s still a tremendous number of Realtors 34 35,000. And, you know, this is always a difficult question, not to ask, but to answer, I think because, you know, on the show, we really talked to just top producers, and they all sort of just look at me. Or if we’re doing virtually they you can hear that you can feel the look, which is when I say why do you think people choose you? You mentioned your speed, which is obviously critical. But aside from that, when I say why do you think people choose you over others? Oftentimes it’s like, I don’t know, meaning? Not that they don’t know, because they haven’t thought about it. They don’t understand what they’re doing that’s so unique. Because to them their service levels so high, because maybe it just is like, well, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Yeah. Do you have a sense of of why you think you become so successful?

Alex Haried 19:15
Well, I think initially, it’s because of the speed and because we have the search technology that backs us up, you know, the website, they’re searching on the website, you can just click or you know, we’re actually rolling out stuff that like you can click the phone number so you can call through your computer to us so we’re even making it easier for them. Sure. I think that’s initially why they come to us, I think why they either stay or why they come back for me. It’s it’s Patience, patience and expertise. I really am an expert in the neighborhoods that I work in. I really spent a lot of time reading the articles looking at the numbers looking at the data to really to know what’s going on. And they’ve just done so much so much work in the last six years. yours that, that I know how to get it done. I know what it takes. I know, you know, tips and tricks to make things happen, that I think people can really get that and understand that. And then yeah, patients, I find all the time that my reviews always contained, like, I was so patient with us we are we were lost. And he guided us in the patients. And he didn’t mind if we took a little while to make our decisions. And I find that that that’s probably the biggest thing that they say about me. So if you ask them, maybe they’ll say something different. Or if you ask, you know, another broker, maybe they’ll see something that I would do different, but no, I think that’s, that’s what I see. And just, you know, I try to add value in every in every interaction that I have with a client, I’ve tried to add value to, to them, whether it’s educating them about the market, whether it’s educating them about a process, like, I’ve got an investor who’s coming back for his third or fourth property for me, and, and he’s looking at that those condo deconversion. So we walked through that, and I’m like, Listen, I’ve never done it before. But here’s, you know, what I’ve read, and here’s, you know, the general process, and, and even the listing broker was like, yeah, that’s basically it. And then like, he has some property specific information to give us but for the process he already knew, and I had never done that before. But that’s the kind of expertise that I really bring

D.J. Paris 21:17
to my clients. Yeah, it’s definitely comes across. And again, it’s reflected in in all the reviews you have, but also, we were talking about this earlier, I don’t think we this made its way to the show yet. But you talked about radical honesty, and how and how important it is to just sort of be forthright about everything. And I suspect that is pretty helpful to you.

Alex Haried 21:37
Yeah, definitely inspections, and and what they’re looking at, like, are people going to like this? And, you know, it’s what about the resale? And all these questions that I get? It’s, it so much depends on honesty, or I think it does, because you can always be honest, and the honest truth is, is the same no matter when you say it. And so I, I sometimes forget that I’ve had a conversation with a client. And so if I’m honest, this, I will say the same thing over those five conversations. If I if there’s a lie there, I you know, you can get caught in that way. Because the next time the lie might be different. And so it’s, it’s like, Just be honest, even if it’s the ugly truth is ugly.

D.J. Paris 22:17
And sometimes it is,

Alex Haried 22:18
sometimes it is yeah, you’re sometimes not telling people what they want to hear. You’re telling them what they need to hear what they need to hear him the reality of things.

D.J. Paris 22:26
So what you mentioned, having geographic specialties, how did you choose those were the they were neighborhoods that I think initially I would assume initially. So

Alex Haried 22:36
initially, a few years ago, when I went with Redfin, they they tried to get you to be a neighborhood expert, if you’re not, so they geographically give you clients who are searching those areas. So you know, when I first started, it was all the way from like Edgewater to Hyde Park and West Garfield Park. It was a ginormous area because we were a small company we didn’t have that many brokers since we’ve grown. I mean, when I was moving out of the city into the burbs, my territory was basically like, River North to South Loop west to West Loop. So that I mean, I still had clients who go to work or park I had legacy people all the way up into, you know, Lakeview and Edgewater and, and Hyde Park even but they really try to get you to be in a small area as possible. So you can really know the buildings, I mean, in River North, you’d be like, Oh, what do you think of that building and be like, buildings got a crazy special assessment coming up, or this has got this or, and it really would increase your ability to be knowledgeable about. So go into the suburbs, I actually grew up in Clarendon Hills. So I know, you know, from back in the day, my parents were there for a long time after I moved out, and then really understanding the real estate is, you know, hitting the streets going to open houses seeing properties, and looking at the data like what’s going up what’s going down? So? Yeah,

D.J. Paris 23:55
it is no, it’s, it’s exactly what just about every successful broker tells me they do the hyperfocus in a few key areas, they become more knowledgeable than most brokers in those key areas, they freely admit, hey, you know, I can certainly assist you in other in other areas, but my prime focus is, you know, the, they always come back to their TrueNorth whatever those those areas are. And I I’m, it’s such a obvious thing. And Redfin obviously, has that same model, which is, you know, hey, we can we can pair you up with one of hundreds of agents, or we can pair you up with somebody who hyper specializes in Lincoln Park or, or Lakeview or wherever,

Alex Haried 24:34
wherever. And we do that often where somebody will be looking with me, and then they’re like, Oh, we want to go look in this other neighborhood. I’m like, I’ll get you out with an associate. If you decide to go in that neighborhood and buy in that neighborhood. I’m gonna hook you up with somebody who’s great in that neighborhood. So

D.J. Paris 24:49
and if you think like the willingness to walk away from business like that, and I understand it’s built in their model, but but just still the willingness to say, Hey, you’re best served maybe by John who specializes in self loop or stop Hyde Park wherever? Yeah, I think is at least it’s a feel good to a consumer. Yeah, you know, it’s it’s Hey, you know what this this person’s probably got a better handle of this area and also from you

Alex Haried 25:16
we have to communicate it properly. But yeah, it works out much better in their favor. Sure. And you know there’s Yeah, yeah really works out in the in the buyers favor.

D.J. Paris 25:28
So if you feel we had to ask answer a few questions that we thought were fun. And this this is a pretty unique one, we always ask what’s what’s the sort of most unusual or? Well we have two questions were the funniest real estate experience. You have a pretty funny one. So

Alex Haried 25:42
yeah, so this was actually pretty early. This was like second year in the business. We’re in the silicon, the South Loop, Dearborn Park. And there was a townhome, I got there a few minutes before my client, because the tenant was going to open up the property for us. And so I just wanted to make sure the tenant was there and that things gonna go smoothly. So I knocked on the door and the tenant opens the door and he has a snake in his hand. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, what what is going on? And it’s like, wrapped around his arm. He’s not worn a shirt. He’s got like tattoos and it’s just like, I’m like, oh, what’s up? And I’m like, we’re here to see the property or like, are you ready for us? He’s like, Oh, yeah, like, come on in. I’m like, let me wait out here for my climate class out here. Yeah, let me let me come into my class and like, discuss things because it’s just weird. Dude. Are you sure you want to see this? Like, yeah, we’ll see that like, okay, cool. So you go in. He’s got like a bond on this table. Is this is a disaster property. Disaster tenant. He sits there on his couch doesn’t talk to his watches TV with the snake in his hand. And he’s got to terrarium with another snake. It’s like, oh my god, what is this guy, and then we go upstairs and they it was a three bedroom but they converted to two with the master bathroom. Not having a wall. So was a 10 foot opening into the master bath with a Jacuzzi that could probably fit 15 People blew everything straight out of I think that’s the 80s when everything was matching toilets, same shirt at

D.J. Paris 27:09
everything was blue open to this. It was like a powder blue. Probably powder blue. It was the weirdest

Alex Haried 27:15
showing experience. Oh my god, that guy we got out of there. We didn’t end up buying it. But they should have they should have lowball them and kind of get an offer. But what are you gonna do?

D.J. Paris 27:26
You also have a squatter experience.

Alex Haried 27:28
Yeah, yeah, that one was interesting. So this was, you know, probably two years ago. Now we were out in I think this was Humboldt, or Logan, you know, on the edge of one of those. And so we knew that the property this is from work, we came in, we were looking around, got up to about the second floor, and I opened up a bedroom door. And there was a guy hanging out there just like hanging out. And I was like, oh, solder. And we had like a couple minute conversations. Just he said, If you can’t even remember what he said, I was so like, weirded out. And my clients were like, Let’s go. And I’m like, Yeah, let’s go. So we just left. But yeah, that was that was pretty interesting. So hopefully, that doesn’t happen too.

D.J. Paris 28:13
So then when the MLS sends you that feedback form. In your product, FYI, who knows

Alex Haried 28:21
if they even care, there was a foreclosure and I mean, they should care. But like, yeah, those guys are so much business. I don’t know. I don’t know.

D.J. Paris 28:29
It’s interesting, too. And then it’s it’s what do you do? You’re not not what you what do you do, but Well, what am I gonna do?

Alex Haried 28:35
What would the buyer do? Like? Could he move forward with that? Yeah, I guess eviction knows, you know, you’re evicting

D.J. Paris 28:41
somebody without a lease. Yeah. I don’t know how that works. But it’s, it’s I suspect, it’s not easy. But that would that is funny. Um, what advice would you have? And I know you’ve actually given a lot of indirectly given a lot of advice about what you currently do. Well, what would you say to to new, a new broker who’s getting in the business? 2017 right about now? And is, you know, probably struggling like every new broker?

Alex Haried 29:07
Sure, sure. Sure. I would say two things consistency. And I’ve heard people say, the growth mentality, but it’s basically about education. Just keep educating yourself and consistency. So you got to get out there and just hit the streets like I heard some guy was, Well, you told me this story. I listened to your podcast, he was going on LinkedIn or something and like contacting people interested, I was like, Oh, that’s really that’s really, you know, clever. And for me at Redfin, it wasn’t about that because red fins model is so different that they, they give you the client shirt, you have to service them. But for servicing the most consistency, it was like calling them every Monday after they had been out on a weekend or if you hadn’t heard from him in a few days. You know, give him a call, send him an email, sending them properties and you know, just really, once they’re in your system, once you’re talking to him, just be consistent about following up with them and giving them you know what they need and be interested answer to them. Yeah, I would say, I guess I’ll put the third one in his responses.

D.J. Paris 30:04
Yeah, it is, I was telling you this off off air, but you know, it is again, it’s so obvious to someone like you it comes across in the way you communicate, you know, here with me and on the show, it’s clear that you know, your clients think highly of you. And again, it probably isn’t. It’s so obvious to you have, communicate quickly become knowledgeable. You know, and to a lot of brokers, I’m not so sure how obvious that is. So yeah,

Alex Haried 30:30
sometimes sometimes it’s not, sometimes it isn’t. But I did want to talk about Redfin, if you Yeah, let’s use second. Absolutely, um, because I know that there’s a lot of misconceptions about our

model, and like, What’s going on over there. So like, I always like to take these opportunities to talk about sure, you know, a model that that is different, and we are the new kid on the block, or we’re not the newest anymore, there’s all these guys who are trying to do you know, buy the property for people at certain prices, and then different stuff that’s coming down the pipeline, we’ll see how that works out. But But yeah, so Redfin, you know, I, as a broker, I have all these clients, I have about 60, on my on my page right now. And so I worked with all of them, but I send them out with associated agents. So we, you know, if you want to think about it, like, like, too many top brokers have a whole TV shows or a property that everyone you know, it’s like who we may meet on your team, and they just tell you the name, and it’s like, great, we do that with a buyer. So we tell the buyer, we’re sending you out with this person on our team. But I’m the guy for you. So sometimes we get that other brokers with a follow for feedback. And that’s like the the associate, they’re like, Oh, well, the client, like sort of liked it, but like, didn’t really like it. I’m the guy who would know, oh, they didn’t like it because of XYZ reason, because I’m calling them afterwards. And we’re discussing like, oh, you saw six properties? What are we talking about, on these six properties? So, you know, unfortunately, how the feedback often comes as the email because the associated setting up the appointment, the feedback goes to them. And they’re like, we don’t really know what feedback to give.

D.J. Paris 32:07
Well, that’s just a limitation of the MLS is follow through. Yeah. And you

Alex Haried 32:12
know, we we’ve talked to them definitely about sending that feedback request through to the lead agent on that client. But you know, if you ever have any questions, really, when you’re a broker, and you’ve done a shown with an associate, you know, ask the associate, hey, who’s the lead agent on this client? Who should I be following up with, and they if they don’t know right away, because we all get busy, we all forget, in certain associates work under 10 different readings. So they might not know for that individual client, but they can find it out and they can give you you know, my contact ID for the lead agents contact info. So I just think that’s really important to know. Because, you know, a lot of people like well, we see this client with like five different Redfin people, and we have no idea and it’s like, well, that’s our model. That’s our model is the Associate agent takes them out when they want to go out not around my sketch.

D.J. Paris 33:00
What and it’s funny, too, because if if brokers inherently have a feeling that maybe that isn’t ideal. Clients seem to like it just fine. Yeah, clearly, it’s explained effectively by the lead agent, saying, Hey, you’re gonna go out and see this property with so and so. Yeah. And so well, that’s one of our Spiel

Alex Haried 33:21
to every client. We get. We tell them like, here’s how Redfin is going to work. Here’s how you can have success within our system. And unfortunately, we haven’t had that conversation with the other broker sometimes. Because when would you have the opportunity? Sometimes I’m at an open house, and I’ll have that opportunity. But, you know, I definitely don’t see every broker in an open house. And sure, when I have enough time to talk through the system, so yeah, I

D.J. Paris 33:46
know, I’ve been super impressed with Redfin, really coming up as a technology firm first and creating, which I’ve always said, if you create an amazing service or product, the marketing of it becomes really easy, because the product or service, you know, sort of does and and Redfin has clearly become an industry leader in the technology side, and also the customer service side. You know, it’s again, it’s, it’s I never speak to and again, I don’t work for Redfin. So I feels like I may be doing commercial and but but the reality is, I don’t speak to clients who have worked at Redfin, who go and it wasn’t for me, I get this like, that was actually really cool. Yeah. And that’s, you get a lot of like, it was really they were right on top of things I got, the technology was good. I was getting a lot of communication, sort of, you know, automated communication and also I was getting in touch with with the agent was right on top of things. That’s what we love to hear. So speaking of that, if if any buyer’s or seller’s or I don’t know if you work with renters as well, but if anyone who has any real estate needs wants to work with you, how should they get in touch with you? Sure.

Alex Haried 34:51
So the best way would be to actually submit it to a request via the Redfin website, because we’ll get you out with the best agent for you. because, you know, I’m on the North Shore good employee, no matter how much I’d love to strong. That’s if you want to do that if you if you want to work with me specifically, my phone number is 630-308-0795. You know, I answer my phone calls as best I can text is great as well. And then I also email is really good. So alex.harried@gmail.com That’s harian is spelled H AR Well, sorry. alex.harried@redfin.com would be the best way. What are Harry with one AR H AR ie D. So yeah, that’s really the best way I have a profile on the website if you’d like to, you know, read my reviews there. And yeah, we looking for new clients all the time.

D.J. Paris 35:45
Sure. Well, I think you’ve said it all. And again, I know just how busy you are. You have 60 clients and and half of your year you’re turning away business. So that is a real testament in

Alex Haried 35:56
anybody newer brokers still my newer brokers so

D.J. Paris 36:00
again, I appreciate your time because I do know how busy you are. So thank you for being part of the show. Of course.

Alex Haried 36:05
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

This week we spoke with Andersonville and Edgewater real estate top producer Amie Klujian of the Swake Group at Dream Town Realty. We discussed her move from marketing to real estate, how she goes above beyond for her buyers and sellers, and how philanthropy is paramount to her mission.

You can reach Amie at amie@swakegroup.com or by calling 312-320-5339 and by visiting EdgevilleHomes.com.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the only real estate podcast made by real estate agents for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host. And we have a new feature that we’re announcing that we’re going to be introducing in subsequent episodes where we feature your questions, and have either our interviewee or a another top producer answer. So if you’re a broker and you’re struggling with a particular area of your business, or you just want some assistance or help, you can write in and get some help from a successful Chicago real estate broker. The way to do that is you can either submit those questions directly through our Facebook page, which is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod or directly through our website, which is keeping it real pod.com click on the contact button and submit your question there. Also, if you found that this has been helpful, and you enjoy the show, please share it with anyone else that you think could benefit from it. So if you have other brokers or realtors in your office, or even that you meet out in the field, please tell them our audience is growing substantially and we want to get this in front of as many ears as possible. So thanks in advance for being a continued listener and also passing the word.

Today on the show, we’re speaking with Amy collusion, Amy grew up in Chicago suburbs where she likes sports school and being curious as a kid after graduating Glenbrook North High School also my mom’s alma mater. She attended Princeton University where she earned a degree with honors and politics at Princeton, Amy played Division One softball and club rugby after returning home, Amy earned her master’s degree in integrated marketing from Northwestern Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Previous to becoming a licensed broker, Amy worked at the Chicago Tribune, where she was senior manager in charge of marketing efforts for the tribunes $90 million real estate advertising division today, Amy has transacted nearly 85 million in career sales and is an executive vice president of suape group at Dream town Realty, a team that boasts over $100 million in career sales in the Anderson Edgewater area. Just two weeks ago, Amy and a real estate partner launched the in Andersonville, Edgewater specific real estate website called Edge Ville homes.com. Amy consistently Garner’s the annual Top Producer sales award by the Chicago Association of Realtors, a distinct honor earned by only the top tier of local brokers outside of real estate, Amy enjoys collecting old Chicago maps. She also co founded and produces the backlot bash one of the nation’s 10 largest pride events for women. Amy is a federal club member of Human Rights Campaign, and in 2017, go magazine selected Amy as one of 100 out women featured in their women we love issue with showcase talented tastemakers, influencers and all around inspirational women from all over the country. Amy’s most civic commitment is her ongoing dedication as an executive board of director at girls in the game, a Chicago nonprofit that provides transformative programming for girls in undeserved communities to become confident leaders and excel as game changers. Well, thank you for being on the show.

Amie Klujian 3:40
Thanks for having me. DJ, pleasure to be with you.

D.J. Paris 3:43
And again, I know you’ve been very patient through a few technical glitches. So thanks. But let’s talk about your how you got to be in real estate because your career path, you know, started seemingly in a different direction. So how did you decide to get into real estate?

Amie Klujian 4:02
Sure. Well, I began my career in 2005 as a realtor, and before that, I worked at the Chicago Tribune for about 10 years. And I did a variety of things for the tribune from like media relations was my first job coming out of the middle school of journalism. And then I moved on to some sports marketing positions within the Tribune. And, and then from there, always in the marketing department, I started doing consumer marketing and business to business marketing to our advertisers for the classified sections, which included the real estate section. And it was really that experience that cultivated my knowledge on the Chicago market and really proved a natural fit for my entry into the transactional side of the industry. A few days afterward, a couple days. After work a week I would walk down Michigan Avenue and go to the to the car headquarter motors and sit in the real estate classes. And it really was something that I just thought I’d have in my back pocket, because it seemed interesting to me, it was never something that I really thought would, would become a full time career for me, because I really did enjoy working at the Chicago Tribune. But what ended up happening was, I had my first transaction. And then my second, and I really loved it, it was fun, it was new. It seemed, you know, my personality seemed to fit the types of interactions I was having with my clients. And so I just sort of was devising a way to, you know, exit one career and bridge into another. And so it sort of was happenstance and a little bit of good luck. And just opportunity in the right timing, the tribune was going back to be a privately held company at the time. And that’s when I made my exit, my mom and dad thought I was completely nuts, they didn’t understand why I would, you know, leave a completely stable secure salary job to, you know, to make a foray into the real estate world. But over time, it just proved to be a great fit. So basically, it allowed me flexibility, it provided me the ability to kind of create and run and grow my own business. And it enabled me an opportunity to cultivate something, you know, I really valued which was sort of having a more deeper impact, and more direct relationships with, with clients. So I still after, you know, all these years still get a very special feeling helping clients find or sell a home, it’s, it’s fulfilling to play a major role in a really important decision and a personal milestone in people’s lives. So it’s a, it’s fulfilling, and it feels really, really, it’s a real, I feel happy doing this as a career.

D.J. Paris 6:57
Well, that for sure comes through in the way you communicate. And it’s a very sincere and authentic sort of, you know, part of your character that I think is really important, because people are making these personal, very important decisions, of course, with where they live, and oftentimes, maybe buying their first house. And, you know, with having a realtor, I know, when I bought my condo, back in 2005, not too far from Andersonville, in uptown, my broker was was one of my friends. And he, he was wonderful because he his policy was, he never wanted me to have to call him to find out what was going on. And that was his customer service philosophy was like, he never wanted me to have to call him first. And so as a result, he just had to really hold my hand. And I’m a pretty easy a client, but he still had to make sure that, you know, he was thinking about all any new with that being my first home that that would be you know, particularly for more probably more challenging type of client that somebody that’s had several transactions, just with all the information I was probably requesting. But I wanted to ask about because you played softball in college, and I wanted to talk about some of the discipline that is required for a student athlete at the collegiate level to be able to manage and by the way, Princeton on top of it, which is not, you know, a easy school to coast through, I had a friend that ran cross country at Princeton, and he so he did the same same sort of track and the discipline it must have take the must have required to to get through that. Has that helped you in business as well, just learning those skills early on.

Amie Klujian 8:41
Oh, sure. I mean, I mean, I graduated from the same high school your mom did it sounds like I didn’t know that. But that’s an awesome fact. When I was in high school, I you know, I played sports from a very really early life so I mean, I I been a Cubs fan my whole life baseball, you know, I was the only girl in the Little League playing you know, against the boys with the boys side by side. It you know, from a really young age, I learned the benefits of, of teamwork and always felt very comfortable being part of a team. And when I carried that through high school and decided to apply to college I really wasn’t that popular to play sports in college as a female this was in the late 80s, early 90s and it but once i i Once I got there and decided to play it was one of the best experiences of my life. Yes, it did. You know, the skill sets you learn from playing sports in high school and even as a young girl, all those came into play. You know, college was is different for everybody. It’s not like high school we have, you know, five hours a Class A day you have few classes each day I found that I had more little more free time than I did in high school. Even though there was still softball practice every day. You know, every day and then the travel schedule. So during the season is when I found when we were traveling a lot for games, but, you know, the the professors and, you know, the classmates if I’m out and can’t attend to class, you know, take notes and there was a real collaborative environment just in the at the university, believe it or not, which is actually wasn’t I expect what what I expected, but I found it to be, and, and a real camaraderie with, with the other students. So everyone was always sort of helping each other out, giving you their class notes if you missed it. And, you know, time management is important because it relays into real estate in an incredible way. And also, I believe, playing a sport, whether it’s in college or in, you know, varsity or intramural, it, it teaches you how to have a strong balance, how to lose, you know, you can’t always win. So you learn lessons in disappointment, really early in life. And you take those with you everything, you know, every experience in life, you build on, and hopefully it helps and comes out in your career. So So yeah, I don’t think it was unlike playing a sport in any other college. It was intense, but made it through, made it through. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 11:18
well, I think you’ve basically said it, it’s teamwork and discipline, you know, are really important to you. And those were two things that it sounds like have really stuck with you throughout your career, and obviously takes tremendous discipline to have the success you have. And you are on a team. So that that kids still so it sounds like you’ve been on teams your whole life. Yeah. Which is, which is, which is pretty cool. And the other thing, there a couple other things I wanted to mention, which I think really should not in any way be sort of glossed over. It’s just just the amount of community involvement or philanthropic involvement you have with various organizations and not so much as a means to an end, I’m sure. In other words, I’m not part of this organization, because, you know, hey, I’ll get my name out there and get me some additional business. I’m sure that is not the intention. I’m sure that probably happens as well. But how important is it for you to give back and and have Have you seen a direct correlation between, you know, has that resulted in business simply by being part of these organizations and providing to them?

Amie Klujian 12:25
Sure. Well, you may be referencing my involvement with with girls in the game, which is a local nonprofit that we’ve, you know, we’re 22 years old. And this was an organization that after college, I read an article in a now defunct women’s sports magazine, but in it talked about this woman in Chicago, who started this organization that would introduce sports to young girls, to teach them lessons in leadership and self esteem. And for them to realize untapped potential, and to help them find their voice. And so, from a very, you know, from just out of college, I was the first day there was the first volunteer, I was the first intern that the foundation had, and from there staying involved, you know, I’ve become a, I’m the executive, on the board of directors of that organization. Has it helped my real estate career? Yeah, you know, there are a few people within the organization that I’ve helped find homes, and that’s always wonderful. So I think it’s it, but you have to do something because your heart is affiliated with it. And for me, it’s all about the young girls who, you know, you, I grew up on the North Shore, like I went to a pretty stable High School with stable surroundings. And I look as living in the city now, for the last 25 or 27 years. I, you know, I know the challenges that our school kids and young girls in particular are facing and they’re not the ones that are always paid attention to as a priority, with a lot of the funding dollars. So for me, knowing what sports did in my life and helped me from one step to the next. I just don’t want to see you know, like a young girl with so much potential be sidelined or not feel feel it or not find her voice so yeah, it’s more important to me not because of, you know, business but more just because it’s in my heart. And but I’m sure I think it helps to show when you are in any profession that you have a balance in your life. And if we were 100% dedicated to just one thing, it that that to me, it for myself becomes what you know, where I start to sense like an imbalance and uh, you know, and so you have to good social time. You have to have you know, hard work time. And you know, for me, part of that is having giving back time so it’s, it’s kind of all all plays a role in my attitude and personality and that is What like comes across every day when I’m interacting with clients? So it all kind of is connected? So yeah,

D.J. Paris 15:05
yeah, I have a charity that I’m involved with where it’s every other Tuesday, I go to a place and I do a thing and nobody has, and I’ve been doing it for years, nobody has ever asked me, What do I do in my professional life? You know, it’s it would never result in business. But it’s, that’s, of course not the reason to do it anyway.

Amie Klujian 15:25
And one of the that’s one of the other things that I’ve done for the past 14 years, my I’ve co founded and CO produced a women’s Pride event in Andersonville. And that event, you know, the team sponsors and dream town is sponsored, but I never have time during that event to build my own business around and it’s like, you know, I wish I had more because it’s like all these wonderful people right there and it’s perfect, but it just, you know, it’s just nice to just sometimes for branding or awareness, but it’s certainly not a hard sell. But it’s it’s it’s it’s fulfilling. So that’s why what’s

D.J. Paris 16:04
what let’s plug that that’s backlot

Amie Klujian 16:06
bash, Chris, that’s back left.

D.J. Paris 16:07
And if people want to get involved with backlot bash, how would they

Amie Klujian 16:12
do that? Oh, sure. Um, they would reach out to me through Facebook. We have a backlot bash page or info at backlot bash. info at backlot bash chicago.com. And there’s a, there a lot of ways to become involved, just reach out to me, I’m pretty easy to find, because most brokers are all over the website, if you just type their name in and, you know, I’m happy we have a lot, we need a lot of volunteers and friends and family to, to make that event run smoothly. So we can always use some extra hands for sure. We’re playing save now. We’re actually so it’s a it’s every, every June.

D.J. Paris 16:51
And then also with girls in the game that you referenced earlier, that’s an another organization if you’re interested, get in touch with Amy here as well, to help help younger, younger women. And so, you know, it’s funny, whenever we talk to top producers, and we get a lot of feedback, which is always like, Okay, the next time you talk to a top producer, which is usually who we talked to they go, you have to ask them what’s what’s the secret? Or what’s the what’s the one thing that that that broke that producer knows that? You know, maybe the other brokers don’t, I don’t know if there is a secret, but what would you say if somebody were to ask, you know, what’s made you more successful, maybe then then others who have started, you know, the same time with the same resources that you had in real estate?

Amie Klujian 17:36
Sure. Well, I think that actually comes down to defining success. And for a lot of people, it is about the numbers, and it is about being a top, you know, aspiring to be a top producer. And I can’t say purposely that that was my original intention. And I don’t know that there is a secret sauce, but I do know that you can’t, shouldn’t probably expect immediate results it, you know, it took me a few years to become even in the consideration set of a top producer. And I think one of the key lessons is to, to be patient with yourself. Because if you as a new agent, try to do everything that can remotely lead to business, you’ll go insane, because there’s so many ways to build your business. And there’s not one answer, if you pick an avenue that you feel comfortable with. For some, it’s cold calling, that’s not my thing. For others, it’s, you know, generating business through, you know, buying leads on on websites, and that’s great. If you do one thing, you know, take a deep dive into it, but don’t feel you have to take that deep dive, like right away. Like I feel always sort of slow and steady wins the race. That’s a you know, a little bit my mantra, and that’s a kind of how it’s been for me. But you have to pick a strategy that also matches your personality. And, you know, and don’t give up because, you know, my first real estate transaction was, you know, one of my most memorable, and, frankly, one of the most unusual transactions that I had, and I was, you know, if I didn’t have my mentor, I, you know, to bounce what happened off of I think I would have been, you know, really scared to keep trying to, to pursue this career. And it turned out, you know, that everything turned out, okay. But you know, you have to kind of work through some of those setbacks and even if they happen early on, don’t lose your confidence. You know, and I think that’s one of the, the main the main things people, clients just want to be helped. They want to be advised and they want to know, and trust who they’re working with. And if that’s what you exude, then that’s what they We’ll pick up on and that’s what will build your business. So, you know, starting with friends and family, I think is critical. And the easiest way I think to, to garner some transactions under your belt, and then to keep it going through their referrals, so and who

D.J. Paris 20:17
and who better to forgive you if you screw something up with friends and family, because they’re the most likely to forgive you,

Amie Klujian 20:23
or they will never speak to you again for the rest of your life.

D.J. Paris 20:28
But I’ve always said that to is, which is that, you know, I was just talking to a new new broker broker, she’s at a different firm, just right before we got on, and she said, Boy, you know, I’m really not confident, and she’s in her first like six months, and I said, you’re not supposed to be confident your first six months, you’re supposed to be scared, and you’re supposed to not know everything. And I said, it’s okay to say to the client, hey, Mr. or Mrs. Client, there’ll be times when I might not 100%. You know, you might ask me a question. And if I don’t want to 100% have the answer. I’m gonna check with my team and get right back to you. And she just, that’s huge sigh of relief came over here when she realized, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You know, and, and you can say that to your clients, you can say, this is my first year in the business, and I don’t know everything yet. But I have a team that can help me and, you know, so please give me some latitude, if I need to get back to you, you know, whatever.

Amie Klujian 21:20
Good. That’s an excellent point, I think that that’s a great approach and know your style. And be as honest as you can, with, you know, with your clients. And I think at the end of the day, you’ll find that that actually build success and don’t get sucked into, you know, some of the, you know, the bravado you may see walking around your office, and it’s easy to feel insecure at any point in your career, when, you know, you’ve got a lot of types of personalities that are in this industry. Some are smooth talkers. Some are fast talkers, some don’t talk at all. But you know, I think that you’ll Don’t, don’t let the people around you dismantle, like, your style, and who you you are. And, you know, you can learn something from everybody, for sure. And I would say it’d be like a sponge, those, you know, those first few years, and never think, you know, at all, because, you know, we know, we don’t we’re always learning new and better ways to do things, new approaches. And if I didn’t have someone that would share their expertise with me, because let’s face it, when you come out of real estate school, you don’t really know how to make it through a transaction, you know, the legalities of certain things, but the practicality of, of running a real estate business or a career isn’t really, you know, knowledge that they teach in school. So it’s important for I think every experienced agent, you know, to be open to sharing and giving back and I think it it helps, you know, bolster our, our broker community in general. And, yeah,

D.J. Paris 23:03
yeah, I know, you’re you’re right. I wanted to go back to the you talked about your first transaction being unusual care to give us any specifics. People love a good story.

Amie Klujian 23:15
Sure. So my first sale was the two friends who were selling their condo in Edgewater. And I, I had a really rough time, negotiating the deal. I mean, first, it was the first deal I was negotiating. So let’s just say that’s the ground level that is like, you know, we’re, we’re dealing with, but the buyer’s agent was really combative. And, and really rude. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t something I was really expecting, because I was happy. It was my first transaction and, okay, they put an offer and now I’m gonna come back at this price. And I had my mentor by my side, who was my business partner today, Todd, and he was, you know, coaching me. And when it was clear that we were pretty far it wasn’t like, you know, the other broker said, hey, check your comps, or this or that he really went to this really insulting personally insulting me. You know, I’m smoking the crack pipe, and he yelled that I’d never you know, I’d never sell this home for one dime more than what his clients were offering. I’ll never forget that, you know, statement. And I was just like, shocked on the phone that he was was really combative. And I really believe he felt he could bully me maybe because, you know, maybe he looked me up and knew I didn’t have anything under my belt, you know, at the time. So you know, I could just say, though, that you know, we ended up not coming to terms. I you know, less than a week later, though, I was under contract with another buyer for 15,000 more so, in a way I feel like I didn’t acquiesce I felt felt like good about, you know about my point of view, and the data I was using to support it. And in the end of the day, I think that first sale inspired me to continue forward with growing confidence in the abilities. And it also, frankly, taught me that how important it is to treat other realtors with equal respect is colleagues in the industry, no matter what their level of experience, or sales volume or the brokerage they work for. Because, you know, it just it, it didn’t need to happen. I don’t know. Maybe it was just his personality or something. But it I mean, I will never forget who that is. And I will never mention.

D.J. Paris 25:42
Well, it is it is a called a cooperative commission. Right? Sometimes, yeah, sometimes brokers forget that. But it’s called the cooperative. Tell us about the Andersonville incident.

Amie Klujian 25:53
Okay, so this was this was a funny, funny experience. So I had a husband and wife they were looking for a property and Andersonville. They lived in Anderson and wanted to stay in the area. And so there was a great top floor, three bed, two bath, short sale that was on the market. This must have been in excuse me, like 2020 10 or 2011. I can’t recall exactly. So as I made the appointment, the listing agent said, hey, it was on lockbox. Hey, there are a couple you know, there’s a cat in the unit on there, there’ll be some treats, just give the cat a treat. And, and you’ll be fine. Okay, great. You know, I have a dog. I’m not a cat person. But I You know, I’ve been around cats, I get it. So we walk up my clients were all happy to see the spot, you know, the place. And right at the top of the staircase. In the vestibule still like on top. Not even in the unit was this case of cat treats. I was like, okay, that’s weird. It’s not like inside on the kitchen counter or something, but that’s fine. So we’re like, okay, so unlock the door go in. We just actually unlocked the door and stepped a few feet in and, and all sudden, this cat like, attacked us and started you know, puffy fur and tell going knots and started hissing and and we just froze. And we didn’t even make it 10 steps into the living room. And the husband ran out screaming like a baby in a cute way. And the wife and I were left inside the living room just standing there when this cat was like climbing and she had jean skirt. No, you know, exposed legs. And we yelled at just you know, we yelled to, you know, for him to open the door and throw a tree down the you know down the hallway and get the cat like away. So we cracked the door open through a tree down the hallway, the cloudlet Kelly got distracted, but for like two seconds, but it was enough for us to just run out. We never saw that condo again. But I knew from the first look that it was an awesome condo. So I made another appointment to go back with them like two days later. And I made him get the cat like out of there for us. And we ended up buying the short sale and coming to a coming to you know, terms and they’ve enjoyed that. That space for several years. And actually we’re going to be relisting that space pretty soon and they’re going to do very well because we tolerated the cat. The funny part was on the second showing when we actually got to see the condo there was a framed picture of the cat. And on the frame it said Good kitty kitty. Oh boy. And we just started dying and it’s just a story that we you know, when he reached out he’s like, oh, you know, I’m like how can I forget that story? That’s one of my my all time favorite experience. It was a vicious vicious cat.

D.J. Paris 28:59
How important has it been to focus in on on sort of one you know a few geographic areas. I know you guys specialize primarily in the Andersonville Edgewater area. Is that correct?

Amie Klujian 29:12
Yeah, so obviously we sell all over the city but we we live and work in Andersonville Edgewater. So it’s a it’s not only familiar to us, but we’re here every day weaving through the streets and seeing what’s going on. So it just just happens to be where we have grown the core of our business. And it’s a Yeah, for a lot of different reasons. It’s not critical, I don’t think, you know, one of my first transactions was up near the Wisconsin border, and I’ve been as down south as Kankakee, but I do think there’s a certain confidence when you really know a territory and you know, the inventory and you you keep better track of that inventory because it’s in a more defined zone. There’s just no doubt that that that comes across and that that confidence CES, in, in this area in this section of the city is, is strong for us because of how much time we spend here. And also the collaborative approach we take with each other to in terms of a team. But yeah, so it’s not critical, but it’s been it’s been successful for us because of how ingrained we are in the in the area here.

D.J. Paris 30:23
Yeah, and I wanted to also end with and I know that we talked privately with me about maybe not bringing this up, but we have to bring it up. So we talked about some of the funny experiences you’ve had and you’ve given us a few of those anecdotes but you you I’m trying to think of the easiest way to say I’ll just come out and say it you you went I imagine it was a showing and you know in a foreclosure out there you saw you saw a device that was a swing device use for amorous activities. Oh beautiful. Yes in in a foreclosure and obviously not expecting to see that I was guessing. No, no. The description

Amie Klujian 31:03
and not expecting to see it of course Yeah. Was not one of the you know, options to check off in the MLS. You know, that would be transferable with the property. But yeah, we went into a foreclosure unit. I think a lot of units in the building were in foreclosure but walked walked right in and the first thing we saw was sex swing. And you know, those things happen. Well, maybe not that but funny things happen along the way unusual things at showings. So we just all kind of went with it and had a nice time with it. And it became like a running kind of a running joke. I’m sure if every agent you know sent in their most unusual sightings on showings we’d have a pretty entertaining list to to go through but I’ve also run into you know, porn collections out in the open you know not even in the closet videos of you know, unlock guns.

D.J. Paris 32:01
I love I love the the because you I imagine with what you’re the list that you’re using right now that you are not the listing agent on any of these things. We’re like I just love that the listing I just love that the listing agent, you know, when they’re getting the place prepped and goes, no, leave the SEC swing up. Don’t take it down. Leave it up. We want that up for all the showings that somebody in this room. I walked I walked into a place once that I was I was interested in buying that they had painted the ceiling of this the dining room I think and it was it was an actual it was an edge or it was in uptown, actually and they painted it to resemble the sky. So if I remember I think Bellagio has this in their mall in Las Vegas. It’s like they paint the top to look like a sky and I went and you know you can paint over anything it’s no big deal but I went that is just you know like I hate this poor listing agent you know because you walk in and you see it and you just go you know and but not as funny as a sec swing. I love the unlock gun. Let’s talk if you’d like there was just a gun just sitting out or

Amie Klujian 33:10
if you open the closet it was kind of laying sideways on the on the shelf. It was pretty easy reachable. Yeah, it was not. That was something more recent, actually. But um, yeah, there are some crazy things. You know, another crazy one was seeing a coffin in a home and that was kind of freaky to do. Wasn’t able to it’s kinda like you know, you knew they were preparing for like an estate sale is it it was just sort of like, okay, yeah, we just we just, you know, took that one too. We didn’t open it and we didn’t do it. Good enough to open it. No, no, we knew the seller was dying to sell anyway so we didn’t know for that.

D.J. Paris 33:50
I just love that they had their own coffin in their place waiting for it.

Amie Klujian 33:54
I don’t know if it was art or or what but it was it was a little intense. It was just really out of place of course. The other things that was probably the most shocking thing that you would never expect to see in a home. But the other things Yeah, maybe you’d come across this that just not out in the open. But um, anyways, yeah, we all have stories like that and I even as you know stories with great MLS pictures that aren’t so great. We can do like a nice conference a report with those.

D.J. Paris 34:21
Oh, it’s Yeah, it is. It is truly amazing. Like people you know, who just do it on their phones and just have or you know, the lighting is all off or whatever.

Amie Klujian 34:32
Actually, that’s, yeah, that’s a good point. Those Those things are important and I really would advise it it really is worth an investment to take professional photos and a home for any new agent even though it seems like you want you know you don’t want to spend that much money right now but I think it’ll pay off in the long run. So, you know, please agents like get professional photos.

D.J. Paris 34:54
Okay, but what give one more piece of advice to brokers who are looking to to take their business to that next level, what do you think is been the reason, when you’ve given a lot of really good strong examples of, you know, sort of what to do, but is there anything else that you that you just see people missing, like that really separates you from from, you know, other brokers,

Amie Klujian 35:19
I think that there are two things, maybe if I can give pieces of advice, the first thing for any, any broker at any skill level would be to come up with processes and procedures for this very difficult or detail oriented process of, you know, not just making the sale, but going from contract to close. And I think that adhering to processes and procedures will help you not feel overwhelmed, at certain points in the process, and it’ll ease, it’ll make a transaction, you know, go smoother. And I would also say, to think creatively about your approaches to solving problems, whether, you know, this might come this might come with more experience, for some experience, meaning more transactions under your belt, but I think that, you know, if you could come up with solutions to problems that aren’t, you know, just the obvious or, you know, in be involved in the process, even with the mortgage process to some degree once you once you get comfortable with it. Because there are a lot of times when one mortgage broker can’t do something, but another company can, and having being aware, and knowing kind of what’s out there, and different resources is also really important. So it’s having a good balance of resources, and, and getting your your processes down. So that you can practice in a more disciplined manner. It’s, it’s never perfect science. I mean, even even my team and I were still, you know, fine tuning, things like that. So it’s an ever, never ending sort of endeavor, but it’s really, it was really helpful for me, and then coaching, I’m in a nice position where I could, you know, afford to, you know, hire a coach. And I would say, at some point in, in your career, if you were feeling stagnant, or sales are kind of staying level and you want to grow, but you can’t figure out what maybe is that thing that’s stopping me? Or what is this obstacle? That’s, you know, you know, leaning, getting a different perspective, sometimes in our own work habits is actually a really critical, critical thing. So that’s what I would say, DJ, for sure. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 37:34
And just to piggyback on the coaching thing, sometimes it’s just to remind you to do the fundamentals to where it’s, you have, you’re paying somebody to remind, it’s like paying a personal trainer to remind you to do push ups where you’re like, I know, I should do that, but I’m not doing it. I know. So having a coach, a lot of it’s just having accountability and making sure that, you know, they’re gonna ask you, Hey, did you do X, Y, and Z, and you know, and you’re paying them to help keep you accountable. And so I think coaching is, is great, even if necessarily, maybe the person doesn’t necessarily maybe give you additional insight, although that’s wonderful. But even if they’re just reminding you of what you already know, but not doing is, is huge. Yeah,

Amie Klujian 38:13
that’s a good point for sure.

D.J. Paris 38:15
What you have set it off, I do want to plug a couple of quick things for you. We talked about the organizations that you’re involved in, but also you just launched a new website, and let’s make sure that that people can check it out. It’s Edgeville home so it’s kind of a combination of Edgewater and Andersonville. But it’s edge Ville homes.com And it’s very cool. And it will give you sort of an understanding of how serious that Amy and her team take sort of their brand and how professional it’s a clean looking site. It’s very useful. And I was very impressed by it. I see a lot of broker websites so it was definitely a feather in your cap. And then also let’s see if there are any buyers, sellers investors, even renters per se that that are looking for some real estate help. How would they best get in touch with you?

Amie Klujian 38:59
Oh sure. They can Google me my name is spelled AMI e it’s AMI collegian Calle uj i n or they could just simply email me at AMI dot clusion at dream town.com Or Amy Am I II at Sweet group.com which is the name of my team.

D.J. Paris 39:19
And that’s SW a ke group. Amy you have set it all and this was this was wonderful. I really appreciate your time. And thank you so much for being on the show.

Amie Klujian 39:31
Thanks, DJ. I appreciate you doing this for the community. It’s fantastic.

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