Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com.
Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses how should real estate agents prepare to work with Generation Z, how the should industry adapt to this generation and in what ways this generation is different from other previous generations. Chris and D.J. discuss the importance of values about GenZ and how to differentiate yourself from your competition and the importance of sharing the same values. Next, Chris shares tips on what to do to get ready for GenZ when they enter the real estate market. Last, Chris talks about TheClose and the services they offer.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show.
Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the closed.com. This is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes and let me tell you about the clothes. The clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. They cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies. From the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e.com And subscribe to their newsletter so you get notified every time they publish an article. And by the way, they just redesigned the website, it’s actually cleaner and even easier to sort of navigate in and although it was always pretty, pretty easy. But they’ve given it a facelift. And it looks really cool. So definitely check it out the clothes.com and with us, as always is crystal Ansel, he is a staff writer and a real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead generation transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. And Chris has been part of hundreds of real estate transactions, ranging from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. And also spending time with with his two little ones and his his wife, Chris, welcome once again to keeping it real. We’re excited to have you,
Chris Linsell 3:01
DJ always good to be chatting with you. How are you?
D.J. Paris 3:05
I’m good. I’m good. And I am really excited to Chris came up with a with a great topic for today that I hadn’t thought about as concretely as he was a succinctly really as, as he was talking about it. And I’m so grateful, Chris, to you for this, because I think this is an ongoing challenge. And I’ll tell you to sort of set the stage of how I’ve, as you were talking about it, one thing that popped into my head, and we’re like, what are we talking about yet? We haven’t said, but I will say if you are a real estate agent. And I am technically even though I’m not a practicing one, but I get all the emails, the same emails that real estate agents get. And one email that I have been getting over and over and over and over again over the last I would say year, I guess maybe two years to be fair, because my My memory isn’t isn’t so great about when this started, but certainly within the last two years. And it actually got one this morning, I’m getting these random emails from people I don’t know who say, Hey, I am generating a lot of leads online. Would you like to have some more appointments for your real estate business? And I think probably everyone listening can recognize these sorts of, you know, emails that come seem to come out of nowhere. They’re clearly spammy. However, I suspect there’s a real person behind it saying no, I really am delivering lots of these. I’ve never engaged with these but but anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up is a topic we’re going to talk about today. And I’m wondering if there’s a connection between the rise of those emails and our topic today, which is how to real estate agents. And I have to give Chris absolute credit for this topic. I’m taking a lot of fire from Chris on this but but we’ll get to him in just a moment. But how do real estate agents prepare to work with Generation Z and how does the real estate industry begin to adopt adapt so that not only can you know The Gen Z group want to engage with real estate agents, but also possibly become real estate agents? Is this a problem? Are we seeing some disparity between how we’re doing things now? And what we would need to do to actually connect with those individuals. And just before Chris comes on, I want to explain what Gen Z Generation Z is. For those of you listening going, I know what that means. But I’m not sure what that what gears, somebody would would qualify to be in Generation Z, anyone who’s born between 1997 and 2012, which basically means anyone from the age of 10, to about 25 is in Generation Z. So at the high end of this age range, we have people in their mid 20s, who are going to start thinking or possibly thinking about homeownership. So Chris, that was a horse a big long update on I hopefully didn’t steal too much of your thunder, but wanted to set the stage for our conversation.
Chris Linsell 5:51
First of all, I thought that was a wonderful setting that well, that really well, I think you laid it out very, I am very curious, as I hope other listeners are about this conversation. And I just want to, I want to put a little bit of a fence around what DJ said, before we before we embark on this journey together. So I want everybody to think if you’re listening to this right now, I want you to think about who your typical real estate buyers and sellers are. Right now, if you are an active agent in the business, if you’re full time if you’ve been if you’re just part time, who are the typical people who are buying and selling? Obviously, everyone’s business is different. So everyone’s answer is going to be a variation. But I bet it’s a variation of the following factors. We’ve got Baby Boomers, who are spending their retirement money, and are often purchasing this is like the fourth or fifth or sixth home, potentially that they’ve purchased or sold their experience. They’ve got the budget you we know how to market to Baby Boomers. At this point, we know how to create business with baby boomers. And then a part of that is because a lot of real estate agents are baby boomers, this is a generation we connect with. And then just below that, we have got the next set of generations. And we’re not going to go through one by one here. But we’ll just baby boomers were kind of the target for real estate agents as far as the ideal client for a long time. And they are no longer the biggest cohort or likely the most influential cohort, because you’ve got, you’ve got the the Gen Xers you’ve got the millennials, you’ve got The Inbetweeners, you’ve got the Gen Z folks, there are a lot of people who are buying and selling or soon to be buying and selling. And quite frankly, the real estate industry is still focused a lot in the ways that we we market to and focus on Baby Boomers. And this could be a problem, this could be an issue, this will be a problem and an issue because I want you to imagine all of what you know, as a real estate professional, the ways that you connect with your clients, a lot of the execution of that connection is going to change. And it’s going to change in ways that we don’t quite know yet. In fact, there are ways that we are going to have to conduct our business in order to close transactions that we may not have even discovered just yet. And for a lot of real estate professionals who have made their bread and butter doing it one way to one group of people rinse and repeat. This can be scary. So let’s talk about this Gen Z. Do we have a problem? Or do we have an opportunity? And I would DJ I want to ask you a question about this. But first, I just want to start by prefacing it with with a another question. When do you think for GE like the cell phone service 4g, the fourth generation of cell service? When do you think 4g became available in the United States and guesses? What do you think? Yeah, I sort of remember I’m gonna go with 2014. Somewhere around there. You’re close, but it was even longer ago than that it was 2008 or 2000. Now, oh my gosh, that 4g came out. So let’s put that into perspective. There are members of what did you say the four What did you say the Gen Z bracket was born between when and when? 97 to 2002. Okay. 2000. And sorry, I apologize. So the Gen Z folks, these are folks who 2012 Sorry, who anyone born between 97 2012
Yeah, so these There are folks who have virtually have no memory of what it’s like to live their life without a high speed connection to all of the information in the world. These are folks who likely had their first Amazon Prime delivery, and it was their diapers. These are people who have likely considered purchasing not just a toy car online, but an actual car. These are people who may have gone through the design process of designing their own car without ever driving it, and hitting the order button on line, like they were buying a pair of shoes from Amazon, the consumer expectations of Gen Z, are significantly different than the consumer expectations of just about any other generation. So I want to ask you, DJ, if you are, let’s say you are a successful real estate broker in the beautiful Midwest City of Chicago, and you have are looking at your business planning for 2020 to 2023. And somebody comes into that meeting and says, you know, there is going to be a group of people who are going to be considering buying and selling in the next year or so that you have no idea necessarily how to communicate with Excuse me, how do you go about tackling this problem? One of the questions you ask yourself, if you say to yourself, shoot, I don’t know how to talk to these people. How do you start planning for this problem? Any ideas on that?
D.J. Paris 11:42
Yeah, a few ideas. Number one to think about what we’re really talking about is is you know, marketing, branding, and sort of the first rule is, you know, learning as much as you can about that demographic. And so my questions would be things like, where do these people congregate? Where do they congregate in person? And where do they congregate virtually? Where do they go to learn about about larger purchases, like cars, mattresses, real estate, you know, insurance, some of these, these more significant purchases? Where are they going to? How are they doing their research? Where are they learning about it? And how are they what are the what are the steps that they take to actually make a buying decision? How often are they talking to another human being? before pulling, you know, the the lever on I want to purchase that? Who are they chatting with to help make that decision? So there’s a lot of questions that I would be trying to figure out, you know, how they do it differently than how maybe my generation would do it. I
Chris Linsell 12:51
think you’re right on the numbers there. And I want to put, I want to put a little onus on those who are listening, if you lived and there’s no shame in this, okay, guys, and there’s nobody, there’s no test at the end, there’s nobody that’s sitting in your car or in your in your air pods right now. That’s, that’s gonna hold you accountable to this. So you got to hold yourself accountable to this, I want you to raise your hand, if you ever made a purchase decision based on what was in the yellow pages, or based on what you saw on the front page of Yelp. Without really reading into the, the the little bit more than just the first couple of reviews. If that is you guys, this podcast is for you. Because frankly, Gen Z doesn’t operate like that. Gen Z. This is the generation of cryptocurrency. This is the generation of virtual learning. These are kids who have likely spent some of their formative years interacting almost completely online. These are people who rely on social verification on community, community think in a way that we have not seen before. And as real estate professionals, we need to adjust the trim of our sales in order to meet these new wins. And so for a lot of professionals, if you’re thinking to yourself, Okay, I want to build my business and the next 10 years are going to be critical to me reaching a place in my career, that’s important to me. You need to start thinking to yourself, how am I creating a business that can be verified by a community online? How am I creating branding and a marketing package that doesn’t rely on somebody driving by and seeing my sign in the ground as my primary means of marketing? Because guess what? Gen Z is not driving by at least not on purpose. They’re not going to your open houses, at least not as often. And frankly, they are not well Walking by the brick and mortar, storefront of your brokerage and deciding to just pop in and work with whichever agent happens to have floor time that day. These are agents who are looking or these are these are consumers who are looking for realist estate professionals to work with, that they can identify as somebody who is commensurate with their values. That is somebody who is demonstrating that they know what they’re doing, they have experienced in what they’re doing, and they can help them achieve their goals. And that these are people who communicate in such a way that you can facilitate an effective conversation. If you are a real estate professional, or if your brokerage and all the agents through which you are shepherding is not set up to manage these expectations. The next five years are going to become tough, and the next 10 years are going to be very tough.
D.J. Paris 16:03
And I’m gonna throw in a practical reason why even for those listening, who think Well, that’s not my generation, I don’t really understand it, but my business is solid, because I work with people outside of that generation, I understand them better. And I really don’t need to introduce another way of doing things to hit this younger demographic, I’m gonna give you a practical reason why you may want to challenge that is right now we have baby boomers who are nearing retirement, and we’re going to have this incredible transfer of wealth. As as you know, baby boomers retire, they’re going to be passing and passing away as well, there’s going to be a lot of money being handed down to the younger generation, this includes Gen Z, it also includes other generations, not just Gen Z. But if you if you want to think about the future, you know, if you’re working in a specific demographic, you know, you need to look towards those other generations.
Chris Linsell 17:01
I totally agree. Absolutely agree. And frankly, this happens every time there is a kind of a passing of the torch financially and kind of buying power and selling power wise in the real estate market. Another aspect of this as well is just like there have been changes in the ways that previous generations have bought and sold, we will see fundamental systemic changes in the way that real estate is bought and sold with this next generation. But the the twist on this is the the next set of changes will likely be very technology heavy. And what I mean by that is it is within spitting distance like within the next Highwoods My prediction is the next five years. Other more conservative predictions have said the next 10 years, but I believe in the next five years, we will have a sanction. Easy to understand, I say easy in air quotes easy to understand method of using things like cryptocurrency to make real estate purchases, we are going to be having discussions around real estate. And as NF Ts. In fact, the first, the first legitimate NFT real estate auction in the United States just took place. This is something that’s going to become more mainstream than we than we anticipate. And if you are not ready to have conversations with your clients about these topics, they will go to somebody who is and that includes your baby boomers that includes the financially literate, and they the more sophisticated buyers and sellers from every generation, these are going to become instruments of our business. And just because you have built a business in the past on this doesn’t mean that it is a guarantee for the future. I mean, we built all cash businesses for quite a while until it started to become a thing that you could use a credit card in a score in a store. And I guarantee you there were retail locations in the United States are like credit cards, what do I need credit cards for I’ve had this all cash business for the last 50 years. I don’t need to start messing with that. And those are people who ended up doing something else with their with their business time because ultimately these these changes will happen and it’s just a matter of who’s going to keep up.
D.J. Paris 19:43
Well, I’d like to talk about some what we have what we have observed about Gen Z. Just it you know Chris, you and I and we can maybe give some tips about ways in which agents can start to think about their presentation whether It’s an in person presentation or virtual type of presentation, whether it’s just someone’s social media, you know, daily postings or videos they might be making or not making. But I just wanted to Chris, throw a couple of of what we were talking about Gen Z, I started thinking about what have I witnessed from people in that age range, what’s important to them, and I came up with a with a couple of things. And I’m, I’m sure there’s a much more exhaustive list we could find. But a couple of things came came to me and I’ve noticed this values, they Gen Z cares about the company that they’re purchasing from, or the individual that they’re going to be using, they care about what those people’s values are, or more importantly, what values they are sort of talking about or demonstrating. They care about things like mission. And what is that like? Well, what are you doing this for? Why are you a real estate agent? What’s your mission? What’s your, what’s your story, as far as what it means to you to be a real estate agent, they’re not as interested, I think in things like, Hey, I’m the number one producing agent in my area, and I’ve sold X amount. I think there’s an inherent mistrust of numbers like that, I just think it doesn’t resonate as well, with with the younger generation, they want to know what you what you care about. They want to know that you have things like empathy, that you’re demonstrating empathy, compassion, there’s much more of a I, you know, as an agent, I hear you, Mr. And Mrs. Client, I understand you, I’m with you, I feel when you feel bad, I feel bad. And I’m, you know, I those are some of the things I’ve noticed. And also one last thing, how do you give back? I think Gen Z expects the service providers that they use to to be very philanthropic or at least have some something that they’re doing to better the community world. And that needs to be so so those are some of the qualities that I’ve seen in Gen Z. Curious if you have any thoughts about that.
Chris Linsell 22:08
100% and I like remember, Gen Z is the is the generation I one of I call Gen Z a lot of a lot of different monikers. But one of the things I call them as the et Cie generation this is the group who they didn’t go they don’t go to art fairs, they go to Etsy, and if they want like a custom, let’s see here, like a custom leather wallet, there are literally hundreds of artisans on Etsy that can provide you with a custom leather wallet, it is not something you have to hunt endlessly for, you have literally hundreds of options. Does that sound like another market we know of? It’s the real estate market. If I want to buy and sell I literally it especially in major metros, I have 1000s of agents who can execute essentially the same duties. These are people who are legally licensed to show me property to negotiate on my behalf to walk me through a transaction to help me with the contracts and to make sure that I close there are it to have a real estate license qualifies. Everyone Everyone with a real estate license can execute on that. So how do you differentiate yourself? How do you not just be leather wallet seller number 64. And actually be something that someone says, Okay, I want to work with you. Just like you said it is a value proposition. It is a does this person identify with the same things that I identify with is what’s important to them. What’s important to me, is that expressed through how they associate and build community. That’s the fill in a part of the philanthropic conversation you are having. And then also is this person, someone who is uniquely equipped to deal with specifically the things that are important to me because even though there are 100 people who make leather wallets on Etsy, maybe I want a leather wallet with my initials embossed on it. And maybe since you know I’m a I’m a trout fisherman, maybe I want a little fish stamped on there as well. I am going to be looking to work with somebody who maybe has some of the same experiences that I do that can identify with why this is important to me.
D.J. Paris 24:38
Because you just said something really, really important, which is we all have passion. Hopefully all of us have something that we’re passionate about whether it’s only work or it’s outside of work. You mentioned, you know, trout fishing, I know you act as well. You have a lot of a lot of outside interests and what I think the Gen Z you know, we think these are People who watch a lot of Tik Tok and what are they watching on Instagram and Tiktok they’re watching people play out their passion. Maybe it’s their their work or their play, but they’re watching it. People demonstrate, here’s what I’m into. So I think I think this is a really good point that whatever it is, I think Gen Z is less impressed by the bench back ad. And I’m not saying that because it’s a it’s a billboard or a bench back and we all go okay, well, maybe those aren’t as useful anymore. But but even if they are useful, what I’m saying is they’re less impressed by the perfect image of somebody airbrushed, who says, you know, hey, I’m a I’m a top agent. I think they’re more interested in seeing that top agent doing something that they’re really into, possibly on social media. Now, you don’t have to do that. But I think the younger generation is is conditioned to sort of see like, what are hey, I want to invest. For example, I want to buy that wallet. Hey, wallet company, what are you guys into? Why are you doing this?
Chris Linsell 25:56
Absolutely. Yeah. So I totally agree. And you know, frankly, this is an example I am, you know, not to not to get too far down this rabbit hole. But as a, as an angler, as an outdoorsman, and an conservationist, I spent a lot of time outside, I will regularly shop with the company Orvis because Orvis donates 5% of their profits back to causes that I also directly contribute to and you know, what, if you’re going to be a supporter of Trout Unlimited, that’s great. I’m also a supporter of this, this organization, it matters to me that some of your dollars are going to those places. Now, this is not to say that real estate agents need to be spending 50% of their salary or their Commission’s rather, donating to causes if that’s something you feel led to great, but what the point here is, in the coming generations, it will be more important than it has been in the past, for people to be able to identify with the people they do business with, as a person that they would want to invite to lunch like that this is a person that they are okay with as a human being. We are real estate professionals, for a long time have been lumped into the transactional kind of durable transactional professionals in the same way that accountants and lawyers and doctors have been in the past. And I can understand where that comes from now. But frankly, at this point, our consumers are going to be expecting more from us. And this is ultimately why I want to bring this back to what we said at the top like, is this a Gen Z problem? Or is this an opportunity, because real estate professionals who can lean into these changes, who can develop an authentic brand and marketing push that demonstrates how they connect to their audience. Those are agents and teams and brokers and managing brokers who are going to accelerate and who, frankly, are just are going to be unstoppable. And we can already see it happening. And it’s not just because they’re the kind of the cool kids in the room. The idea like the the ethos behind brands, like app properties and compass is, is that they build brands around people not around product, it is we are not building brands around the word compass. We are building brands around campus agents. And this is something that the monolith style real estate brokerage, where it was all about the name at the top of a 50 story building. That’s what got buyers and sellers in the door. That is that is changing. It’s not the name on the top of the building. It’s the name on the individual doors inside the office buildings. And so if you are structuring your business to build an authentic brand around you, and the things that are important to you, you’re going to accelerate through this, this is an opportunity to capture a new market in a way that really has not been presented before. So if I’m an older agent, or just outside of the Gen Z demographic, which I am, I’m 46. And so
D.J. Paris 29:25
how how might you suggest that I work on you know, we talked about things like authenticity, you know, but what we really haven’t talked about is what is the vehicle that are what are some ideas of ways in which I can reach this demographic. You know, they’re not going to walk in the door. We know that they’re probably not picking up the phone calling me unless it’s a referral. Maybe they’re probably not even emailing. Right. They’re there their instant messaging or they’re online. They’re they’re learning I mean, my girlfriend Is is outside of Gen Z. But she still gets a lot of product recommendation. And this has never happened to me in my life where I’ve seen a product displayed on Instagram and I went and purchased it, I only follow other people, I don’t follow brands, my girlfriend follows brands, and she becomes uniquely aware of new product offerings because she cares about certain companies enough to follow them. So that’s a world that I don’t I don’t even know, I’m the one that Google’s you know, when I want to buy something, you know, show me which has the best reviews and and I’m going that route, she’s she’s being fed that information, I have to seek it out. So I’m curious about suggestions about how an agent who isn’t that immersed in that culture can can really penetrate and start to get a presence?
Chris Linsell 30:51
Well, I think that there are two big things. If you aren’t on the outside looking in here that you can that you can think about. The first is how are you augmenting your existing strategies, rather than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because that is not what I’m suggesting. I am not suggesting that existing agents who are running successful businesses completely turn their strategies on their heads or throw them out completely and start from scratch. Rather, I’m suggesting, you need to start augmenting what you’re doing that is already working to account for some of these new priorities. And so here’s a great example of this, let’s just say that you’re not going to be getting the sort of walk in traffic that you might have gotten from other generations with Gen Z. And let’s just say they’re also probably not just going to pick up the phone and call you. So we need to create opportunities for these people to interact with us. And those opportunities often exist on social media. So if you don’t, if you’re not active on social media, you need to get active on social media. And if you don’t quite know how to do that, or what to do there. You’re not well, first of all, you’re not alone, there are plenty of resources to help you with that you can visit the clothes.com We have a ton of really great social media strategy guides for agents just like you in that position. There are also some really great companies that help augment your marketing push to include this because they recognize there are tons of agents in your shoes, some good companies to work with on this. And you can find a lot of these folks, I’ve written content about them on the clothes, so you can check them out. They’re companies like coffee and contracts. This is all about how to create effective social media content that’s going to connect with your audience, a company called our Turin, which is again, a social media marketing company, they’ll help you come up with the content, they’ll let you know when to post it, how to follow up. Also, there are companies that provide isa like inside sales agents services, that focus and include connection platforms like Facebook Messenger, or Instagram, DMS, where they will actually interact with and qualify and engage leads on these non traditional platforms. So if you feel completely lost, and you want to learn about it, there are plenty of resources to educate. And if you want to outsource and create this augmentation via outside resources, and this is especially I think, appealing to agents who have an established business and you’ve got your calendar pretty well locked up with the clients you’re working with right now, you don’t necessarily have to hours to learn how to be social every single day. But you might have the budget for it. So go ahead and work with some of these outside consulting firms to be able to develop that side of your business and create an opportunity for you to once the ship is in the water and going in the direction you want, then you can take over on that wheel doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You’ve got resources, so work with them. And
D.J. Paris 34:10
also, if you are just unwilling to make those adjustments, but you still want to have a presence for that the younger generations, you can always partner up with a younger agent who’s in that generation or just outside of that generation. Yeah, I think that’s also a really good idea for agents who are going you know, it’s hard enough managing my own clients. Now I have to, you know, be more present on social media if that does not appeal to you. If that’s not your in your wheelhouse or just something that’s scary or embarrassing or just, you know, whatever reason you choose not to do that. Find someone who maybe is younger and consider partnering because you guys are going to hit different demographics. You’re going to have different types of clients and you You know, maybe, maybe you would both win the same types of clients, but probably not. So this is an opportunity to partner up with someone that can do something that you feel like you can’t do or don’t want to do.
Chris Linsell 35:14
Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, I think that statement is, it kind of leads me very nicely to I think the last thing I want to say, which is kind of a word of warning here, which is, remember guys that if these are our changes that you decide not to adjust to keep in mind, that not only is the next crop of buyers and sellers on their way right now, but also, the next crop of real estate professionals are on their way right now. In fact, the oldest Gen Zers, are likely in the business for a couple of years already. And these are people who natively communicate like this, who who already have the kind of the built in knowledge to be successful, and the dynamic, the the social dynamic, to be able to engage their peers in a way that you don’t have, right now, you’ve got an advantage on these people, everyone who’s listening to this, if you’ve got some real estate experience under your belt, you have an advantage on these people, because you have experience in the industry, and a track record to be able to speak to transactional success. If you wait a few years, there are going to be plenty of Gen Z years who also have that track record of success, and can natively engage with this cohort that you have no idea how to talk to, those are folks that are going to put you out of business, because they are people who have both experience and know how, and they realize what’s important to their peers, because they know what’s important to them. Right now, experience agents have the advantage of experience, the advantage of, of knowledge and process, that experience won’t last forever. So if you want to remain relevant, now’s the time to start making adjustments.
D.J. Paris 37:19
I just wanted to make one one final point about maybe anyone watching or listening who might be thinking, Gosh, this sounds like no, I have to do all this extra work. Because now I have to reach this other generation. And yes, in theory, you will have to do different type of work, for example, if you wanted to promote yourself more in social to to really connect with that audience because maybe that’s where they’re congregating. Oh gosh, no, I have to produce videos. And I have to create content online. And, and yes, you may have to have the hard look in the mirror saying that’s probably what I need to start considering. However, the upside is that those same people who want to see who you are online, they also are going to do a lot of the legwork for you. Because they’re already used to getting information at a moment’s notice. They’re very adept at searching, they don’t need you to help them find a property. They already know Zillow, they don’t want if and they the Trulia, they’re already ahead of that. They don’t need you to find them a place, although obviously that’s part of the job, they’re going to make that part of your life a heck of a lot easier. And so I think don’t worry too much about now I have to work more. I don’t know that it’s working more, I think it’s just like you said at the beginning, Chris, this isn’t really a problem or an opportunity. It’s just a thing. And we can choose to embrace it. And we can choose to do something with it. Or we can choose not to and that’s fine. But if you want to think about a longer term strategy, this is a great way to sort of go, Okay, it’s going to it’s going to feel uncomfortable for a while for me to adjust. But at the end of the day, these these Gen Z people are incredibly resilient. They’re they’re able to get information at a moment’s notice. And you probably won’t have to do as much information transferring as you maybe would with older generations.
Chris Linsell 39:11
Yeah, you’re 100% Right. I like to think of this, of this scenario the same way a friend of mine when I was a kid, a friend of mine, his father was part owner of a ski resort in northern Michigan. And he was fond of saying the father was fond of saying because this I should preface this the ski resort also had had a golf course and so they did golf in the in the warm weather and and skiing in the in the cold weather. This wouldn’t happen to be Iron Mountain by any chance. Not Iron Mountain, but very similar similar Scott. So my friend’s dad used to say, whether you look at winter as an opportunity, or a burden, it’s gonna get cold either way, so you can decide what you want to do with it because My friend, he always like he was kind of indentured labor into this, like he had to work no matter what. And he really liked working with the golf course because it was warm out and he got thrown on the golf carts around and all that. During the ski season, he had to work outside and it was cold and he didn’t like it. But his dad always used to say it’s gonna get cold. Either way you can treat this is an opportunity or a burden, it’s up to you. And real estate professionals should have the same attitude here, guys, it’s common, the winter is coming not not to get to Game of Thrones about this, but Winter is coming, the winter of Gen Z is coming, you can either be longing for the golf course or strap on your skis and and hit the slopes, but one way or the other, it’s gonna get cold. So might as well make this into an opportunity and create a place for your business to accelerate rather than trying to hold on to something that is frankly not gonna last forever. Perfectly said in the last few minutes. Let’s talk about the clothes. Yeah, that sounds great clothes. Guys, if you haven’t visited the clothes.com Come check us out. We are. You know, in my humble opinion, the real estate, the real estate epicenter for all things in terms of strategy, best practices, technology reviews, even some what I call edutainment, if you want to learn and also be entertained, come check out the clothes.com we’ve got articles, ranging everywhere from reviews of the latest lead generation product to walkthroughs. And behind the scenes tours of education platforms. We’ve even got guest contribute contributions from authors like the broke agents, authors like Shawn Moe, Drea, and and more and more. So we’ve got a really great set of content, including some awesome videos and a brand new website for you to come check out. It’s really cool. It’s beautiful, easy to get around. If you want to upgrade your experience, we offer the close Pro, which gives you a chance to get even more content, offer access to our premium courses access to a huge resource library and access to one on one coaching. If that’s something that you’re interested in, closed Pro, it’s 199 bucks a year, we have a ton of stuff that you can check out on there. And we would love to see how the clothes can be a part of your real estate success. So 99% of what you find there is free, you can upgrade your experience and go premium if you if you so choose. And we also have a vibrant social community, including a Facebook group with 1000s of people in it. Lots of stuff happening on Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and even find us on Twitter and LinkedIn from time to time. So if you’re not part of the close community, you’re missing out 95,000 plus other agents are and we really hope that you come join us.
D.J. Paris 42:53
I really encourage everyone to go these are long form articles specifically designed to help you grow your business. These are not five best practices at an open house that none of those five are actually helpful tips that you don’t already know this is all stuff you don’t know. Or you’ll get confirmation from real journalists who really thoroughly research these particular topics to come up with their their goal is to be the best. well researched and well written marketing advice, not just marketing advice, but just advice for realtors. And boy do they deliver, check out the clothes.com I highly encourage everyone to also subscribe to the clothes Pro. I mean for $199 a year if it helps you get one additional sale obviously it more than more than pays for it. And it’ll do more for you than even that. But as always want to say thank you to Chris for coming on our show. He’s been with us for years, we’re honored to have him and hopefully you can tell he is if you like what Chris is saying. I’m definitely read the clothes.com. And so on behalf of Chris, we want to say thank you to everyone who has made it all the way through to the end of this episode, we hope this was helpful for you. It’s always fun chatting with Chris because he is he thinks beyond the present, which is always exciting to hear about what we believe is in store for the future and how agents can adapt for that. And on behalf of Chris and myself we want to say say thank you to everyone who has made it to the end here. And we ask that everyone goes to visit the clothes.com. And also you tell one friend about this episode, just let them know especially anyone in your office who maybe is nearing retirement or who just is wanting to connect with a younger audience and maybe they’ll get a few ideas from this episode. Please let them know about our show. All right, Chris. Well, we will see you next month. And thanks again.
Chris Linsell 44:44
Thanks again. DJ. I can’t wait to talk to you soon.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email
