Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
Ryan discusses the importance of self-discipline with your time and how that will positively impact both your personal life and your business. Ryan talks about how identifying and planning a few key activities will create the most growth in your business. Ryan explains the importance of calibrating the visual flow of your business so you get a real picture of the current situation. Last, Ryan and DJ discuss the importance of coaching.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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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. And today is our monthly coaching moments series with Ryan de April. Now, if you’re not familiar yet with Ryan, or if you’re just new to the show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan Gabriel is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and his staff at depot properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style, and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland. And he’s also in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan with hundreds and hundreds of top producers. Deborah properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focused on business planning, coaching, and accountability. If you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need, please check out depot properties visit D APR properties.com. For more information, welcome once again Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:01
What’s up DJ? How are you, buddy?
D.J. Paris 2:03
I’m good. I’m good. We should mention that Ryan is so dedicated that he is actually travelling between offices, and he’s doing this from his car and the sound is is incredible. You’d never know that. But that is just how dedicated you are to, to fitting us in and your busy schedule. So we thank you for that.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:20
Yeah, no, it’s actually great to know that this works and the sound quality is there. So because I’m in my car lot, going from office to office, so good times.
D.J. Paris 2:31
Yeah. And so what you know, I know, I wanted to ask your opinion about something that I see happening. I mean, you know, the firm I’m at, we have hundreds and hundreds of brokers so so does your firm, and I met, I wonder if you’re hearing this a lot from agents who maybe are struggling at the moment, I’m hearing a lot of people being frustrated with what’s currently happening, what’s right in front of them. You know, they’re saying, hey, inventories, low places are selling too quickly, my buyers, you know, are really frustrated. So that means I’m frustrated. Only the people that get listings are really having success. And it seems to be a lot of them focus on the immediate sort of situation, which, you know, may or may not be what’s really happening in the market, but how a lot of realtors are thinking about it. And I think that maybe people are getting a little bit stuck in that mindset of like right now it’s so tricky. So I’m, I’m only focusing on right now.
Ryan D’Aprile 3:34
I mean, that’s what everybody does do is focus on just the now. I mean, it’s really the the leaders, the industry leaders, the thought leaders, and whatnot that are that are futuristic and forward, focused. And so I think that’s one of the biggest things in it having accountability and coaching is to give you the full picture of what’s going on, because what you just described, we could have those types of struggles in every different types of market, just a different look. But they’ll always be there. I mean, I saw a saying the other day I posted it in our channel, group page, internal group page the other day, it’s happiness is not I’m gonna I’m gonna butcher this but happiness is not the existence without problems, because problems will always exist. Happiness is being able to face your challenges with a positive attitude. And, you know, the challenges will always be there, I think, you know, in the, in the now, what we’re seeing is I actually see inventory creeping up a little bit. Oh, right. But I also think, you know, this is the first holiday true holiday that our country has taken since the pandemic. And so I have seen a lot of people just kind of even myself just taking a break and turn it off and in the real estate business that it should have been full throttle ahead and coaching a loan officer. It isn’t, you know, this is The $80 million you’re producing loan officer and, and he’s like my, I’m worried and like Don’t Don’t be worried, you know, it’s it’s enjoy the break, it’s going to be a shit show here in three, four weeks and only those who are prepared like you are prepared are going to be able to reap the benefits of it. And, you know, it’s interesting as coaching another individual this morning goal will do 26 million this year and on pace to do 26 million. It’s funny how the top producers come to coaching consistently day in and day out. And always get a holistic picture of what their business looks like. And, and some people reach a level of business and they plateau, they could get so much farther, if they’d be willing to take a step back, get out of their own way. And let somebody else just look at what they have going on and dialogue, you know, the producer has with today, you know, again, goals do $26 million feel pretty confident though, he’ll hit it. But, you know, it’s so busy in writing contracts and listing agreements and working with buyers and sellers. You know, it’s even said, you know, I’m lucky that we actually pause, do this for an hour. Because if, if I don’t feel obligated to me, and do this, I won’t do this. And like yeah, and here we are, we talked about minding the gap. That’s what I’m going to coach today on and talk to you about. It’s like, if you don’t mind the gap right now, you’re not you’re not going to hit your goal.
D.J. Paris 6:37
I have this almost exact experience in an unrelated field, at least once a week. So I have a I have a personal trainer, I’m fortunate enough to have one and the reason I bought are the reason why I pay for one is well because I won’t go to the gym on my own I am embarrassed to admit that it’s feels defeatist and you know, I’m a little but but the reality of it is it’s just not in my wiring as much as I would love to not have to pay for a trainer but I was thinking about this as you were talking about face seeing what’s right in front of you that may seem problematic and getting stuck there and not you know, doing a larger picture holistic approach and, and I realized I do this with my with my personal trainer, where just yesterday I was in there and I wasn’t feeling particularly good. I hadn’t slept a lot the night before. And she puts me through an insane workout where we go to failure on every exercise, it is very challenging. And I went in there and she goes how you feeling? And I she asked me that I’ve been with her for over a year. She always asked me how I’m feeling and sometimes I feel good and sometimes I don’t yesterday, I didn’t. And she goes okay, well what happened last night I said I just didn’t get enough sleep she Okay, she was okay, by the way, let’s get started. And we just we just go straight into it. And I realized boy that I’m so glad that she’s there to get me past my immediate sort of funk of not feeling very good. And I know that realtors can get caught in that as well where you know, they have a some sort of negative experience they send out to you know, 1010 offers and they get there the you know, they just get beat on all of them right now, that happens and it’s easy to get caught in that funk. And then just kind of let it stop your your forward motion. And I know that that’s probably the best reason for me to have a trainer is even though I feel like crap. She’s like, Okay, that’s great. Now let’s do some push ups. So it helps keep me just in Oh, yeah, I just gotta keep you know, making the donuts every day.
Ryan D’Aprile 8:29
Yeah, you do. And you know, that’s the double edged sword about our business. I’ve said it before, it’s, there’s such a lack of structure in our in our business. And, you know, most most people self destruct, and they self destruct in so many ways they self destruct right before they’re about to make it. A Gen Xer loan officers get to a certain level and they’re feeling success, and then they self destruct, or thoughts and worries and concerns of things that they didn’t think about before that were new challenges and didn’t realize these challenges are actually challenges they’re receiving because they’re at a higher level than they’ve ever been at before. And you know, it’s actually I can tell you, it’s not easy being a being a coach, because you can’t do it for these individuals. And you know, you get set up times you could do the workshops, you do sessions you hope the best for them. But you know, the amount of people that just self destruct and how much success is psychology, it’s actually positive psychology and finding happiness in what you’re doing and whatnot, and how important that is. It’s really, man, it’s really intriguing. It’s, it’s, it’s really interesting, like, you know, I look at our organization, okay. And you know, we are right around 2011 We decided let’s, let’s grow a real estate company, let’s just Ryan get out of sales, stop selling focus on attracting agents to your company and coaching them and the differentiator was gonna be we’re gonna be a coaching company, we’re not gonna be able to Brewing Company and as you obviously know, this business is all about recruiting, right the real estate brokerage business and, and and you know, you look at our organization you know, individually owned organization you know we’re not P E or VC firm backed. And there are huge players that are private equity backed I mean, you know, you look at Compass, right private equity now public and app properties in our area here, huge venture capital backed organization, Coldwell Banker owned by Realogy, right, publicly traded company, these companies are out to raid other real estate brokerages and recruit their people. Sure happens all day long. And, you know, that happens to us till and and I’m not complaining about it, when I’m saying to the agencies that every year our company has grown from 20 to 35 to 40%, huge growth, we’re up 57% over last year. All the meanwhile we are getting it packed, day in day out by corporate raiders trying their best and being successful at sometimes taking our people away from us. But why are we successful? Besides that? How do we continue to do that? Well, because our teammates are salaried employees come to work five days a week, six days a week, they follow a routine structure that I’ve set up for them, and that their manager set up for them. And because of that, because of all of the adversity we’re going to come in, we still continually have explosive growth. And 11 short years, you know, we’re, I think the 84th largest independent brokerage in the country with zero debt, zero bank lending, zero private equity, zero VC zero funding. But it’s not that it’s easy. And it’s not that I don’t have defeat every single day. It’s not that I’m heartbroken and to feel like you know, you meet somebody, you coach them up, right, and then you never see him again, it’s like, well remember me, right. And I have those heartbreaks, too, just like everybody else. But but I’m disciplined. And my behaviors, me as an individual, and, culturally, our support team together, we’re disciplined in our daily activities in our daily actions. And because of that, I have all the time in the world for my wife and my three daughters. Yeah, I have all the time in the world to do the things that I want to do for myself, maybe around a golf here or there. I have all the time in the world to run four different companies and start a software company on top of it. Because I’m disciplined. And because I’m disciplined with my time, is I actually have all the time in the world. And I have success because of it. So you know, the trick to our business as a real estate agent, not as a coach or not, as a broker owner, but as a realtor or loan officer, which is essentially 100% commission based role, right? You’re eating what you kill? How do you set yourself up? How do you set yourself up to be habitual? What do you what are you doing? What tools do you have? That should be your number one priority? Right there, your number one priority. And what I wanted to talk about today, in today’s coaching is the mind in the gap. So I’m going to probably, I’m going to pivot off this part of the discussion. But for you know, for our listeners, again, you know, you can have all the adversity, all the challenges in the market, man, you do the same things day in day out, right? It’s these little things that can add up, you get a compound factor, you
get a snowball effect, it actually gets easier. I’m I’m not gonna lie. It is. Listen, my business is complicated and what we have and all the people we have, but our growth is easier at this point. Because we’ve been doing it now for 10 years, we’ve gotten to our tipping point. And there are going to be agents that maybe they don’t do what they need to do, but maybe it’s been five, six years and they’re experiencing growth. Yeah, of course, you’ve been in it for a while you built a baseline brand for yourself, it’s going to be easier. But are you working at a peak level? Are you working at where you want to be? And are you actually working less than making more coaching brings that to you? It truly does. But at the end of the day, 20% of the population or less, are going to choose to seek out that and do it 80% Or more or not. And that’s just it’s a solid dice goes. If that’s even saying how the dice goes, but so
D.J. Paris 14:21
yeah, and I just wanted to put a cap on what you just said, which was, you know, spending some of your free time constantly thinking about what is the what are the few activities and it’s usually a few that as a listener, as a realtor, as a mortgage lender, whoever’s listening here to doesn’t really matter what profession you’re in. But what are the few activities and it’s probably between three and five. You know, what are those act major activities or they seem minor, but that create the most growth in your business. And if you can identify those, then you can start prioritizing and by the way, there is going to be things you need to do beyond those three to five things. But what are the three to five things that if I did these consistently, no, regardless of what’s going on in my life, or my job or whatever, that over a year to three years are going to create the most growth. And I think most most people probably just haven’t done that exercise. I know I struggle with it sometimes.
Ryan D’Aprile 15:21
Well, it’s it comes out, you know, and that’s why I created this dashboard. And it’s all based on the Toyota manufacturing model. And based on Kaizen and Kanban, Kaizen meaning continuous improvement, and Kanban, meaning visual flow, and most people just don’t actually have the right technology, to visually see where their businesses and to visually see the real excitement three to five is probably the one or two things that you need to do that will mean, there are 10 things in your business you’re gonna have to do. And that’s actually doing the business that’s like being an employee, there’s 10 Things you need to do write to get the job done. But there’s one to two things that you need to do to be a CEO of your business that’s going to move the needle, most of us will work as an employee and do the nine to 10, busy work, things that are mindless, not strategic, not thought provoking, not forward thinking, and very few of us will do the one to two things consistently, day in day out. And those one to two things are actually probably not the most fun things to do, they actually take willpower. And that’s why, you know, coaching is such a cottage industry, in our, in our businesses, because because, you know, agents are not employees, they’re independent contractors. And so, you know, I could tell my employee when to come, when to go and what to do, they’ll have more free time to make a great living, I have to get real estate agents, I have to get loan officers to understand hey, buying, come here, do this, do that. And you’ll be the, you know, you’ll be in charge, you know, in charge of your life, you’ll be you’ll have all the financial freedom and, and more time with your family, so on and so forth. But it’s, you got to you got to show that to them. But let’s move off that let’s talk about minor gap. Is that Yes. All right. So and the reason why I want to talk about minding the gap is Oh, first off, Where’d I get the term Mind the Gap, right, I get it from London when I was studying abroad and, and they underground, the tube, which is their subway, right. And when you get on the subway, they say Mind the Gap, which is basically the gap between the platform and the subway train that you step on? we’ve ever been to London before.
D.J. Paris 17:21
I have I actually when I was in college, we went as a family and I bought a mind that the gap T shirts, because I thought that was I don’t know why I thought that was so interesting. But of course, we did write the subway once or twice that I remember, you know, that’s that’s a phrase that anyone who’s who’s who’s written the tube knows about.
Ryan D’Aprile 17:41
Yeah, so we have signs, you know, internally that we post and whatnot, that this time of year coming in August, Mind the gap. And here’s what the gap is. And this comes into the software where we’re talking about, you know, we have, we track your goal. And we forecast where you’re going to be by the end of the year, then we track your close, we track your pending, we track your active, and then we track your warm prospects only in this particular bar chart. And the gap. All right, the gap. And there’s a couple gaps, the gaps a difference between your forecast and your goal. So the agent house coach, and this morning goal is $26 million. And the forecast is $24 million. Okay, if visual bar chart there, that looks pretty good. And the gap is only $2 million. Correct? Yeah. So what are we going to do to mine that gap, so that we come in and we hit our goal, right? Now, I’m going to also say something for our listeners here because the whole purpose of coaching, and, and and, and what we do here is self awareness, you need to be aware of yourself, because you are your biggest competition, you are your biggest challenge. And I we all tend to self destruct and we got to understand what motivates us. And there’s two things that motivate us pleasure or the avoidance of pain. And the majority of us are motivated by avoiding pain, not pleasure.
D.J. Paris 19:07
And we and I want to just really quickly talk about that for just a moment. Because this is really important that this is an important distinction that people really need to think about is we all think that we’re more motivated by pleasure, however, and maybe some of us are, but the vast majority of us if someone was chasing us with a knife are going to run a lot faster than if somebody puts you know, a pot of gold out in the distance and says run to this pot of gold and it’s yours. I would bet if we compare that side by side, I know I’m running a lot faster. The guy chasing me.
Ryan D’Aprile 19:39
Yeah, that’s it’s the truth. And you know, and you can take it from angry industry and look at loan officers and I talked to them about communication or about the loan process with both listing and buyer’s agent. And I say what an amazing sales call it doesn’t do anything. When I tell them hey, what a way to avoid a painful loan process because there’s 28 Other people You’re relying on as a lender, right? The title company, the home insurance company, the home, the condo association, the borrower, the borrower’s employee, you know, and in so many loan officers just back and they’re, they become victims of the loan process. And then the NFB and punching bags, when really it wasn’t even their fault. It’s the other parties weren’t cooperating to get the information at that time. So what I’ve learned to do is to coach loan officers on Hey, you want to avoid pain, call these agents twice a week and a form of what’s going on in forming the listing agent that the condo association hasn’t gotten back and the listing, Attorney listing agents attorney, the attorney for the seller hasn’t sent you the dial back, they’ve been requested three times, not only will you create a better will not only will you avoid the pain, right? And nobody’s yelling at you what happened, they’re all informed. So that’s what’s gonna motivate them. But then the byproduct of is they created a relationship with a listing agent, they had no idea where they were. And they did a good job now the listing agent made by chance if they have a great auto flow program and they’re doing lifelike real estate agents are supposed to be doing life flow. Now they get another referral partner out of it this shit simple. I mean, it’s beyond simple. But what’s what’s maddening is the the distractions that we have on day to day and how we prioritize things that just are not important. And we focus on the negative and not the positive. And it’s, you know, again, it’s it’s not it’s not easy, but it’s so god damn simple to be successful. So common back to nine, the gap, okay, coming back to mind of the gap. So the particular agent, we’re talking about $26 million goal, said $24 million forecasted. So the gap is like $2 million. That’s great. It’s August. That’s not you know, hey, we have three more months left, I say we have three more months left, because you guys, I truly believe you have August, September and October. Once those ones are over, you’re pretty much over for the year. You write a contract in November, December? Pretty good chances closing in 2022.
D.J. Paris 22:06
Yeah, you might get lucky here and there. But by and large, it’s yeah, you’re you’re done by that?
Ryan D’Aprile 22:11
Right. So you know, the dashboard. You know, our dashboard will then show you Okay, well, here’s what you’re at pending and closed. And for this particular agent, they’re at $15 million pending and closed. Okay, but now the gap is a little bit bigger. Because the forecast takes in consideration. Your active buyers, your active sellers, as well as your warm prospects totals up brings them to $24 million. You follow? Yep. But what about those active buyers and listings? Are they priced? Right? Are the buyers actually going to buy I already have an inventory issue where they’re actually want to buy, but most likely, they may not buy till next year when inventory increases. So now we gotta mind that gap. Okay, so we have to do that. And that’s why we talked about the dashboard here. And this is a podcast, which is kind of funny, because we’re speaking we’re not seeing here. But visual flow is so important. You got to see this stuff. And most agents have this written on it, yellow pad. Most agents buy CRMs that are going to give them Google ad works. And they’re going to give them SEO, all that stuff is completely mostly irrelevant in this business. It tracks agents who I’m going to get fancy website with the CRM, and I’m going to be able to do search engine optimization fine, but you’re never going to be Redfin and Zillow, and search
D.J. Paris 23:39
engine. And not only not only are you not going to be Redfin and Zillow, you’re not going to be Coldwell Banker, you’re not going to be Berkshire Hathaway.
Ryan D’Aprile 23:48
But those guys are at the bottom of the barrel. They’re at the bottom of the pile, compare those two, and those end up in the consumer is looking at those two and then we’re calling the agent that they have a relationship with, right? Like I’m telling you those those two, those two sites are not threats. Zillow is a vendor to us. Redfin is a quote unquote, disrupter that, you know, is is capable of losing, you know, $100 million year over year in the CEOs ethos is that real estate agents don’t provide value, right? So you know, as long as there’s investors willing to dump money into this thing, and then to work at free, but I think eventually, their philosophy may have changed say, why don’t we just sell leads? But that’s a whole other conversation. Sure. Right. So so, you know, most of the CRMs they have bells and whistles that are distracting, but unfortunately, DJ that’s the shit that people buy.
D.J. Paris 24:35
Okay, well, sure. It’s shiny, it’s exciting. It seems easy. And it takes the broker away from from what they really what we’re talking about is interpersonal connection. And, you know, those are usually the way that the vast majority of buyers and sellers choose a realtor is based on interpersonal stuff. Not so much. Yeah, go ahead.
Ryan D’Aprile 24:57
It is and also visual flow con Bob Keegan from the Toyota manufacturing system Kanban visual flow. So all of a sudden we’re we’re on a CRM and we’re dinking around with the next email marketing piece. But we’re not looking at our active buyers or sellers. What’s it’s totally and recalibrating? Are they really going to close this calendar year? And we’re looking at my warm prospects, my colds, my cools, going to my warms and seeing my 90% Certain this warm transaction is going to close by December 31. Given that it’s basically August 1. I mean, I know what is it September or July 22 right now. But you know, by the time you you, you push this podcast out, it’s probably August 1, right sometime around there. And again, okay, well, now we got three months of the year left. So we have to mind the gap. But I’m telling all the listeners here, like this is what every top producer in any industry is focused on, you set a goal. And you look at that goal, you know, he showed on a daily basis. And then you look at the activities that you’re doing in your CRM, your dashboard, whatever you’re using, needs to be able to track those measures. That’s the one or two things that you need to do. But coming back to mining the gap. So we have this particular agent and the forecast is saying $24 million, or goals $26 million. They only have a $2 million. Gap. Right? Yep. So then you dial it back, you say well, wait a minute, though. They’re at $50 million pending in closing. So $24 million, minus $50 million is helped me with my math here. Dollars. Yep. Yeah. So now you got a $9 million gap. So then we go looks at Well, wait a minute, though. They got $3.8 million in active listings. Okay. And we have, we have $2.2 million of warm prospects. Well, 3.8 2.2 put together is 6 million. Yeah. So that is where and I might be off my number. So I’m driving a car. That’s where the $2 million gap is coming from? Okay, so it’s $7 million? Because, yeah, what’s nine minus Yeah, it should be a seven. they’re active, they’re active, and they’re warm, could be between the two of them should be $7 million. So the first thing you need to do is you got to go through those active buyers. And if you have an inventory issue, you’re lying to yourself. Right, you’re lying to yourself if you haven’t been as active clients and not as prospects and, and categorize as cool. So they’re not going into your forecast. So you got to first go through and calibrate that. And then same with your warm prospects, you have, say $4 million of warm prospects, but you haven’t talked to three of them in a month and a half, you’re lying to yourself, you’re absolutely lying to yourself. And so with this particular agent, we went through a calibrated it. Okay. And after we did the calibration, we found that the gap went from 24,000,020 6,000,020 4 million, right. The forecast, the forecast went down to 22 million hours, no big deal. Now we got a $4 million gap. And then the question is, what do I do from here? What do I do from here? Which is a great question. And that should be your focus. Now, what do you do from here. So now, our combine our visual flow, it’s up to date, we calibrated it, it’s July calibrate, it should go to three weeks working on our business, we go back to our snapshot and calibrated again. But you gotta get you got to get dialed in and tighter and tighter as the end of the year comes on us. And guys, it’s going to be like that and just snap my fingers. If you can’t tell what that was. It’s the end of the year is going to be here before you know it. And now we’re talking about what’s going on in 2022. So this particular agent has a $4 million gap. Okay, a $4 million gap between their goal and where they are because they said yeah, these active buyers and the sellers, they will close before December 31. And I watched that agent take three or four clients and move them out and make column prospects for stone flow with them to still work with them. But they’re not lying to themselves and they’re not going to have an inaccurate forecast. And so they say okay, so now what do I do? How do I make up the bridge? How do I bridge that gap? How do I mind the gap from my forecasts are 24 million
are now 22 million, so I can hit my goal of 26 million. My formula our isn’t perfect. Now let’s go to your prospects tab. And they had 93 prospects all with different temperatures, majority of them work cold, not certain they’re going to hire me or cool certain they’re going to hire me but close next year. And then a handful of them were warm, which again, you don’t put a prospect in as warm unless you’re 95% Certain they’re going to close in that calendar year. And now that we’re in moving into August, I say are you 98% You know, so it gets tighter and tighter. So they have less people that are warm. So what do you do? You do not let three weeks go by? You do not let three weeks go by where every one of those 90 Three people have not heard from you on a social basis, check out what’s going on with them in Facebook, you see what’s going on LinkedIn, Instagram, tick tock, I don’t give a shit. What the social media platform is, people are broadcasting their lives out there, okay? And you find out what’s going on with them, you send them a text, a personal handwritten note is send an email, or better a direct message, commenting on them and asking them how they’re doing, and trying to create engagement back and forth. People will hire their friends as a real estate agents, period. Okay, they’re gonna look at market leaders, and they’re gonna look at friends and relationships, people hire people that they know, like and trust, you will become a market leader. If you penetrate your network, you will become a market leader, if you brand yourself through Autoflow and external branding techniques, which we’ll talk about at another time. But coming back to the mind and the gap, you gotta do that nice got 93 people. Three weeks, no more and even this top producing $26 million you’re producing loan officer had leads in there that they haven’t talked to since February, March and April. Okay. And the AHA oh shit moments like yeah, oh, shit. And by the way, it looks like you’re at 24 million. Now you’re 22 million. And those actives, and pendings actually have to close. So you take those out shit you might be at? Well, you are you’re right. 16, you’re at 60 million. Now. It’s like, wow, now I’m aware. And like, wow, this is so good. Now I’m aware visual flow combine where most of us are flying blind. Most of us can’t even tell us. What do you forecast this year, I don’t know I did 10 million last year, I should do 10 million this year, show me I can’t I just know. And that is flying by the seat of our pants that’s acting as an employee, not as a CEO of a business CEOs don’t work that way. I don’t work that way running my four or five different companies and any other CEO doesn’t work that way. And when I was a real estate agent, as CEO of my $40 million a year production business that I ran, I was crystal clear on my forecasts and where I was. And that was what I did first. And then I went and showed houses, I went and did a listing presentation over a kitchen table, and fluffed pillows, and worked with photographers to get good pictures. I did all that stuff after I focused on my business. So what’s the second thing we can do to mind the gap, after we go to the prospects tabs? You guys go to your closed tabs. And I want you to look at every person who bought a home from you. Okay, not a seller, I’m talking about buyers, listings will generate two leads an active listing to generate two leads, every active listing should generate two leads for you. But every closed buyer should generate at least two referrals for you. But you got to do it right. And if you’re not getting two referrals from your previous clients in the past four months, there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with your past buyers, it’s what you’re doing that is wrong. And you as a real estate agent should not let two weeks go by for at least eight months, where a previous buyer doesn’t hear from you. Because every time somebody buys a home, the only thing they’re going to be talking about and doing is talking about at home. That’s right, right. And every person in your network that’s not a real estate agent
knows, at least for people who want to buy or sell a home every year for the ones that actually bought a home and use you they’re the ones that are most aware because they’re speaking about it. And therefore their networks as well. We’re thinking about doing it till now if you do it right, and you’re in flow with them every two weeks for at least eight months. You’re gonna get all those referrals and that gap is gonna get closed. And it’s going to seem mindless to you. And what I mean by mindless, okay, would it mean? I think it might just kind of flat tire. What would it mean? Well, I just ran over a curb as I was turning when I think about mindless is another particular agent. Different agent will glide right into $24 million this year. And the mindless is every time I coach. It’s I gotta add three more contracts. I gotta I gotta add four more closings. I gotta add five more prospects. But that is the only thing that this agent does. He does live flow with his network once a quarter he did when he was first starting once a month. He does not let three weeks go by with any one of his prospects not hearing from him. And he is in his close tabs for the previous 12 months. And those buyers hear from him every other week. That is not mindless. That is intentional. That is as Angela Duckworth says in her book grit That is deliberate practice. That’s a CEO of a business. And everybody looks at his business just comes from we do. He’ll do 95 transaction assurance. He’s not a team. Well, yeah, I mean, the business comes to him. And it almost seems like it’s mindless. But he’s deliberate in his actions. And he can visually see in his dashboard, what’s going on, and he knows what he can do to move the needle. Now. He’ll lose a week here and there. And it’s summertime. And it’s, you know, that Fourth of July was two, three weeks ago, and I talked to him a week and a half ago, he’s like, I haven’t done shit, and I don’t care, I’m taking a break. Good, you’re entitled to you can, and he knows, comes the last week or the first week of August, he just gets right back in. And it’s it’s the water just flows right away from him just flows, because how intentional he was how focused he was on his deliberate practice, year after year, after year after year. And quite honestly, the needle moves so much quicker for those individuals. So that’s mining the gap, DJ, I hope that helps without any visual, but I think it’s a podcast, most people just listen, this is just for the benefits of Facebook viewers. But I’m not, you know, being visual here for you. But I hope I was able to paint a mental picture for you in the audience. Here.
D.J. Paris 36:23
You were. And I think this idea of us always remembering whatever sales position we’re in that people want to work with people they know like and trust, but know like and trust has to be continually earned. It is not an automatic after you help somebody buy their first dream home, it certainly lasts for a while there’s a honeymoon phase where that person is going to, if they liked you, they’re going to talk about how great you are. But as Ryan Ryan said, it’s really important to have a structure that doesn’t allow for the interpersonal stuff to fall by the wayside, which is easy to do, when you’re in the middle of whatever’s hitting you in the face at that particular moment, with maybe a challenge with another client or just the conditions of the market. And you Brian, you brought up a lot of great things, but figuring out how to not let your previous clients, your current clients, your prospects, you know, it’s easy to let them fall away. I mean, I can’t I can’t even imagine what percentage of buyers still hear from their existing agents. You know, a year after the sale I and certainly even within the first year, I don’t think they’re getting communicated with every two or three weeks, the vast majority of realtors are not doing that. And if every realtor just did that, could you imagine what their businesses would look like? If that’s all they did? And no other changes? That’s all.
Ryan D’Aprile 37:52
But yeah, I mean, you most again, and this is maybe to motivate our listeners share to avoid pain. Most real estate agents act as employees, they don’t act as owners of business, they’re not strategic. They were training me employees, they act like employees. And always they’re telling him what to do. So that doing it, right. And then all of a sudden, here’s the avoidance of pain, trigger hair that I’m trying to coach on. Now they’re back to being employees again, because he couldn’t be self employed. And so if you get into this business, and you act like an employee, you’re going to be somebody’s employee, again, really fast. That’s just the cold, brutal truth, maybe that will be a motivator for you to do these things and, and have the right tools and technology and the accountability partners, to keep you focused on what you need to do. And all
D.J. Paris 38:35
of these things, they can appear overwhelming because they seem so task focused, and there’s so many tasks to complete. And yes, it will feel like that at first, when all of a sudden you start structuring. Okay, every day, I’m going to comment on 10 of my previous clients posts on you know, on Instagram, I’m going to you know, and I’m not going to do it in an inauthentic way, I’m going to be authentic, but I’m going to go through and and then oh my gosh, that seems like I gotta do that every single day. And it’s like, well, yes, just like people who exercise have to exercise you know, most days to stay in reasonable shape. And you have to watch watch your you know, your food and everything else that you’re doing for your health. But, but But this, these are the things that as you start to develop muscle around the discipline, they really become quite just routine. And part of your day is going to be you know, commenting on people and reaching out to them and checking in and right now, there is not a problem, maybe there may not be a better time to be reaching out because there’s so much going on. Anyone who owns a home that you know whether they’re a client or not deserves a phone call from you and say, Hey, did you know that condos in your area are up in price by 10%? over last year? I don’t know if you’re thinking of moving but if you want I can run you a quick quote and see what you know what your place might be worth today. That is an amazing reason to call somebody. It doesn’t have to be a real estate kind of reason to call them but boy, there’s a lot of great real estate reasons or calling people who own a home and say, you know, I don’t know if you’ve read fired in a while. But it might be time to take a look at that, you know, that’s a great piece of value that you can provide. These are easy things that you can do, but you have to systematize them. So you don’t wake up one day and go, maybe I should call some people about refunds. Or maybe I should comment on you know, you need to know every day what what those calls look like, and then it just becomes way less overwhelming. And I’m sure you would agree with that, because that’s how you’re able to sort of manage all of the complexities of of your businesses is you have structure, you know, what you’re doing every day, you know, what moves the needle, and then you just execute that. And then there’s probably a lot less stress at the end of the day.
Ryan D’Aprile 40:34
Yeah, and as a real estate agent, I focus purely my connection with them purely on social stuff. I just keep it social. So it doesn’t feel like work to me. And it doesn’t appear to them. Like I’m selling them. I just ask them how they’re doing what’s going on. They they posted about their spaghetti and meatballs last night like wow, that looks good to us. You know, I’m gonna send a message and I’ve been posting on their Facebook page I’m sending a message. Hey, that’s bugging me both amazing. We’ll make that tonight. Hope all’s well tell Sally I said hi. Or they just posted a new Labradoodle or their their grandkid graduated kindergarten, their son that dress graduated high school, whatever it might be. I’m keeping it pure social, my Autoflow my postcards every week, my my email marketing, excuse me, my postcards every month, my email marketing, real estate reports twice a year, that’s going to tell them what I do for a living. My daily contact is going to say hey, I’m your friend. I’m going to create the bond tight net bond between them. And then for those of you and I’m going to use this to wrap up the call if that’s okay with you, DJ Yes, permanent to an interview I got coming up here in Naperville here at three o’clock. Um, but that’s pulling into my house this morning. And I think I told DJ, you before we got on the call I you know, I’m a road warrior in the summertime, right. So I drove in from Lake Geneva last for this today. This morning. I drove in from Chicago, from Lake Geneva to Chicago. And when Chicago to my house in Western Springs, I had to grab something. And on the way out to Naperville. That’s pulling in Western Springs, I saw my young neighbors. It’s funny how quick life goes by I was a young guy with three young girls on the block. Just yesterday. Now my wife and I were 45 We have 17 1514 year old and I have to you know, I think 33 year olds that moved in next door to us. And you know, they’re plant flowers and they have their baby swaddled, they just let a baby two weeks ago, and they have another two year old girl. Just meet these folks and do things every time a home sells at the median price of $333,000 $1,000 is pumped to the economy. And this $80,000 is pumped in economies anything from commissions as real estate agents, loan officers, home inspectors, Attorney title, Home Goods, Home Depot and so on so forth. And it’s pulling in. They got all this landscaping and they’re doing it themselves. Right. And I think yeah, that’s I get it. Yep. And they had a dumpster in front like, yeah, there’s, there’s a ton of money going in this house. I’m home improvement stuff. And you know, every time we sell a home man, we are adding to the economy, we drive the economy. But the interesting thing about is, life goes on. I mean, life goes on. And here my wife and I are 45 We’re, you know, I feel like I just graduated college yesterday, right? And now I’m, I’m, I’m not the old guy on the block. But we’re the older folks on the block. And they’re the younger kids on the block who we were yesterday. And that cycle continually goes on and on and on. And there’s 330 million people in United States. And there’s 1.6 million realtors and the National Association of Realtors, and NAR came out and said only 50% of them transact. Right. So that means there’s only 800,000 Real estate agents. So if you take 1.6 6 million real estate agents and divided by the 330 million people, there’s a half a percent, right. And then if you take the 800,000 of them that are actually selling, okay, that’s only a quarter of 1% that are selling. So, as I look at these people, I’m like, there’s business everywhere, all the time. But everybody is just so stuck and tunnel vision living in now. It got to pick your head up and you got to look around, you should be tunnel vision in your activities. That’s what you should be tunnel vision. But when you’re trying to look for abundance and all the stuff that’s happening, right, you’re talking DJ, you know, I sound like like, like a grandpa and I and I say this, you’re talking to a guy that was four years in the business. When 2008 came along. He had a wife and three kids and I was the only income. Guess what? 2008 2009 2010 guys? I made a ton of money, selling real estate, putting money selling real estate, because so many people quit. So many people left the business. But guess what, the business didn’t go away. There was there was tragedy going on. There was a meltdown. But homes are selling, people were buying homes. And guess what, I was facilitating it, make it more than enough to have a wonderful lifestyle for my family. But all I did is I focused on my actions in my activities. So anyways, I’m gonna wrap up with that I hope minding the gap helps our listeners, I would like anybody who listen this, you know, if you’re confused, or you have a question on it, listen, really listen to this thing again.
I mean, the key to learning is repetition. And I’ve been coaching now for 11 years, and I’m repeating the same thing over and over again. And my $25 million, my 40 my $55 million individual producing agents, my $70 million and 100 million dollar individual Matt team, producing loan officers, they come in time and time and time again, to hear the same shit out of my mouth. Because they know it’s what works. And they gotta keep it top of mind. If you want to be that top 20%, you got to focus on these basic things that we’re talking to learn some of the techniques of the mind the gaps, give the technology that’s out there to show you your forecast your goals, the track where you are to track what you’re doing, that’s the only thing that matters, you stay focused on those daily actions, then your annual goals will come in, right where you want them to be at the end of the year, every year.
D.J. Paris 46:19
We should also tell mention to that you don’t have to do it yourself. There are coaching options available. There’s obviously in the real estate industry, in the mortgage industry, there’s a lot of coaching companies. And you know, you don’t even have to necessarily hire a coach that way, if that’s not affordable, because you can get an accountability partner, who maybe is in the same office of you as yours, or somebody who’s in the same industry who, who wants accountability, but having third a third party person, take a look and tell you in writing or you were just saying really the same things over and over again. And isn’t that you don’t bring new things to the table. But the fundamentals are the fundamentals. And they typically don’t change. You know, John Wooden, the famous UCLA coach was all about fundamentals. He said I don’t look at the scoreboard, it doesn’t matter. He was the winningest coach in NCAA history. And he said I literally don’t look at the scoreboard, I don’t care. And it was all about fundamentals, you know, and so, you know, we all we all need a third party to help us stay on top of those fundamentals. Whether you hire a trainer or coach, whether you have an accountability partner, whether it’s your spouse, it could be anybody. It just can’t be you, you know, for everything.
Ryan D’Aprile 47:32
Exactly. Absolutely. So Mind the Gap, guys, it’s it’s August, right? And you got three months left, you know, what’s your goal, but you forecasted that? What’s your gap? Dig in, you can either, you know, you can either go about it and look at where you’re at and measure activities where you can fly blind. I’d rather take the former than the latter.
D.J. Paris 47:54
flying blind is just an increase in anxiety, fear, anger, is your going to feel less than control, you will be a less happy person if you’re flying blind, and your business.
Ryan D’Aprile 48:08
Yeah, yeah. And it’s and it’s how most people choose to run their business. And at the end of the day, I tell everybody, you know, I started this in coaching and coaching, it’s your choice. It is all this comes down to the choices you make, it’s your choice. Most people unfortunately choose to find blind. And the great thing about it, is you have the ability to change it.
D.J. Paris 48:27
Well said and great place to wrap up. So for everyone who is listening, if you are in the Chicagoland area, or perhaps you live in Wisconsin, Indiana, or Michigan and your real estate agent or a loan officer, and you’re not getting the support and the coaching and you know all of the tools that you need to really take your business to the next level, check out depot properties. And they have various companies, but the easiest place to find sort of their central hub is Depot properties.com. And I’ll put a link to that here in the show notes, of course. So you know, if you’re looking for a coach and your firm doesn’t offer that, or you just want a firm to help you with some of what Ryan mentioned a few times on the show, which was called auto flow, which happens to be, you know, systems that he’s created to help automate some of the marketing and some of the touches that can be done that, you know, just take time away from agents doing other things. They offer a lot of that. So definitely check out D APR properties.com If you’re an agent and just want to see what other options exist out there. They’re an amazing company and they have great great employees, I’ve got to tour their their headquarters. It’s really super impressive. They just have a lot going on. So definitely check them out to April properties.com. And of course, before we go please to help us continue to grow and support the show tell a friend I think of one other real estate agent or loan officer anyone sort of related to this field that could benefit from hearing this coaching episode with Ryan and send them a link to our website. Easiest way to do it, just send them over to keeping it real pod.com In fact, we have all of the episodes category buys out right on the homepage. So if you scroll to the bottom, and you just want to hear all the Ryan coaching moments you can do that you don’t have to search through and and find them and the 300 Plus episodes that we’ve done, so please send them over to keeping it real pod.com that helps us continue to reach more people. And we can continue to do more episodes for you. So, Ryan, as always, thank you so much for continuing to be such a valued guest on our show guest host or co host I should say, and boy, I love sitting and listening. And it’s it’s always it’s, it’s energizing for me in my own business to now think about okay, what do I need to forecast? Well, I need to look at my forecast for the rest of this year as well. So thank you for that gentle reminder as well. So, as always, we will see everybody on the next episode and Thanks, Ryan. Thanks EJ.
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