Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
In this episode Ryan talks about creative ideas how to handle low inventory and take care of your buyers in the process. Ryan also discusses the importance of building relationships with other agents in your area. Next, Ryan discusses the rates and the impact it may have in the behavior of clients. Ryan and D.J. discuss the power of direct mail and why agents should not ignore it.
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.
This episode was brought to you by Real Geeks.
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 then today is our monthly series called coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re just new to our show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. But let me tell you more about Ryan Ryan de April 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 also has offices in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida, with hundreds and hundreds of top producers on table properties as 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. Now, if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need from your current firm, check out D APR properties, visit D APR properties.com. There’ll be a link in the show notes right there. Welcome once again, Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:33
Hey, CJ, good to be back. Good to see you,
D.J. Paris 2:34
buddy. Good to see you as well. So I know today we were thinking of sort of, you know, popcorn style, just coming up with some topics and some struggles that our listeners kind of report to us. And here’s what here’s what I’m dealing with. And the biggest one probably no surprise, is a more urgent sort of challenge. And it’s been an urgent challenge for a while for brokers. Or I should say realtors are called different things in different states, our agents are struggling with which is around working with buyers with low or lower or you know, decreased inventory and sort of having to manage the expectations for their buyers, and sort of just keep them happy with a process that you know could up could be very frustrating. So I’m curious on what you’re talking to your agents about and any suggestions you have for people dealing with us?
Ryan D’Aprile 3:28
Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So you know, it is it’s interesting, and every market has its own challenges. This one being the inventory. A lot of times I’ve I’ve coached people in the business and, and really emphasize, you know, emotional intelligence is probably one of the most important things that we have to face. But however, in a market like this, you really got to get creative. You really got to get into the weeds and help people find their mentor, you have to get the dialogue with them, you have to learn a dialogue with the entire network. There are some people that are thinking about moving, but they’re afraid to move, because there’s no inventory. So you got to educate, you got to educate your sellers on by side contingencies. Just like we have home sale contingencies. There are buyside contingencies out there, they work great. They can help kind of break up the jam. The logjam that we’re experiencing in our in our micro economies or micro markets a week or two of us working and and and then you know, spreading the word with the buyers you have within their marketplace, and then learning how to communicate with the other brokers in the market instead or not with your firms. You know, I’ve always I’ve said this over and over again. I think our industry is so interesting. I really don’t feel real estate agents compete with each other I think brokerages do and just a pure recruiting game. I mean, sure agents can call you know, six times a day from a managing broker down The Street in the office my Jesus Christ called your own agent that much. You don’t have to call our agents. It’s good point. Yeah, it’s like we are you there manager broker or are you just managing broker because all you’re doing is calling on them all the time. I’m like it’s so unproductive. But the point of my comment was, is that real estate agents don’t compete with each other brokerages do through recruiting. So as real estate agents are communicating with other realtors, that the other companies and you know, unless for that one, you know, those multi marketing real estate companies are going to try to recruit you all times. Just it’s exhausting. But I mean, literally speak with them and find out what’s going on in their marketplace. Do they have any listings there that are not yet on the market? You know, I’m also going to talk a little bit about analysis or talk about the inventory is this Zen list thing? Um, since since we’re on this topic, is it okay, for sure.
D.J. Paris 5:53
No, no, I think people tune in to hear any tips. So if he does a good job,
Ryan D’Aprile 6:00
I mean, then this gets me scratching my head. You know, it’s, it’s basically taking the private network in Illinois and opening up the public market. Well, the reason you have Zen list or excuse me, the reason why you have the private market is that the MLS came together to say some people do not want their homes blasted all over the public markets. They don’t want their home on Zillow, Redfin realtor.com, while they want to prepare their home for sale, and then all of a sudden, you know, real estate agents complain about Zillow, which I don’t think is the enemy, that their listings are out there and that they’re, you know, selling advertising space next to their own Zillow leads. And then they then at the same time to say, hey, can we get our properties on sand list? Well, it’s the exact same thing that you’re doing, you guys, you’re taking your inventory, you’re throwing out a public market, what your clients have asked you, Matt, to do. And so you know, I’m not I scratch my head, on the motivation for Zen less, I really think sometimes the private network helps us lead generate. And I think you put a pool that away from you, when if you are meeting, somebody said an open house or whatnot, you want to try to show them something else that’s on there, that’s just not on the market ever, where you can look to the private network, say, hey, there’s a property at 123 Main Street. But you know, you know, agents going to the brokers and demanding Senlis, you’re taking that tool away from an agent. Now that’s more on the lead conversion side of things. One, you know, when inventory is not an issue, so I didn’t mean to go down a rabbit hole on that. But, you know, this is where you pick up the phone, and you call the other agents or other companies and say, What do you not have on the market, and I’m not referring to the private network, what’s coming up what’s coming on. And then you got to go and work with your own network, right, and find out who wants to move what’s hesitant to move and start getting some inventory on there, you guys educate your sellers, on by side contingencies and how they can come into play. Then what comes next, which usually comes first is the emotional intelligence side of it, thanks. And just let everybody know, this too, will pass, this too will pass enough debt, the other expression, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier, rates are going to start going up. And as rates go up, you’re gonna see a mad rush of more buyers wanting to get in before it gets more expensive, all in all, making pressure, even greater and, and probably inventory even more sparse than it is already. So you know, we got some interesting times ahead of us, it’s all it will all pass. But there are many things you can do. There are many things you can do as an agent, representing buyers, right. to, to, to, to weed out, not weed out to bring the top some inventory that’s out there. But you gotta roll up your sleeves, maybe lead gen goes on the back burner for a little bit, not a big fan of that. I call that lead gen live flow. And you get down to the nitty gritty and you start really working your database, you work your database of other realtors out there. And you start communicating to people let even your friends and family know you’ve got inventory needs anybody that they know, to call you immediately.
D.J. Paris 9:21
I heard a guy, one of our guests recently gave an idea that it’s a very simple idea, but I’ve never heard it being said on the for the buy side. So I’m curious to get your opinion on it, which was if you have a client that puts an offer on a property and loses, you know, loses the deal or it sold before they can really put an offer and if it’s in a you know, maybe a more residential sort of rural style area where there isn’t a million homes right there. You know, starting some sort of campaign to reach out to those other homeowners whose homes are not listed for sale and say hey, just to let you know my client just was looking for a home in this neighborhood, put an offer and it didn’t get accepted or what you know, whatever sold quick We, so we just wanted to reach out and say my client would love a home just like yours. If you’re ever interested in exploring the option to sell it, let me know because I have an interested buyer. And I thought, boy, that is such an interesting idea. And
Ryan D’Aprile 10:13
that’s exactly what people should be doing it. But why would you say just a rural market? Why not even in, say, a three block radius of a city?
D.J. Paris 10:20
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, doesn’t matter whether you’re rural or urban, just pick an area nearby. And the same street, same block wherever you you shouldn’t
Ryan D’Aprile 10:30
be doing that if your client lost out on multiple offers. And while they’re in the negotiation process, you should be doing a direct mail campaign. And and that one and done I’d do it probably, I do it until the inventory showed up. I do probably once every two weeks, until something pops in the MLS or somebody called
D.J. Paris 10:51
me. I’d be doing right. This is what a lot of times I know investors do to try to find, especially like multifamily properties that oftentimes the MLS is they send out letters saying, hey, I want to buy your building. If you’re interested in selling, let me know and you go, Well, does that work? And it’s like, well, if it worked, you know, one half of 1% of the time, that’s a pretty amazing return on your investment.
Ryan D’Aprile 11:18
I think I think it even works more than that. And I think it is, but just so we’re not mincing words and our listeners here you need to be doing that. I mean, you having a list of buyers, and there’ll be no inventory and you’re not taking those actions, you know, you need to check yourself and what you’re doing, you’re out of your mind. You know, if you’re not campaigning, I think of some of our markets, you know, lakefront markets of ours, right? Somebody’s looking for a lakefront home, and there’s literally no lakefront homes for sale, you should be mailing every lakefront homeowner, every two to three weeks, I have a buyer, here’s the price point they want to stay under, please call me if you’re serious, this is not a solicitation to list your home, this is somebody that I’m representing that needs to buy a home, please call me very, you know, keep it simple, stupid, ship shit, don’t get too crazy on what the marketing material looks like, make sure your statement your sentence is the sick is what they see. And then be consistent and get that thing out every two to three weeks for the next 12 months, until your buyer gets the property.
D.J. Paris 12:32
And my advice to is if you’re sending those messages, because they will be perceived as possibly as as spam or they send this to everyone, at least sign it, you know, with your if you can, if it’s not, you know, if it’s not, if it’s doable, sign it with a pen, so that at least people think it’s it’s, it’s more personalized, because but it is a great idea. And Ryan said it you know, look, if you hit 100 homes, every you know, twice a month nearby, someone’s gonna reach out to you and just say, hey, is this for real? Do you really have some you know, or something, you’re going to get a conversation or two out of it at very least.
Ryan D’Aprile 13:12
Absolutely, it will work. But it is surprising. I see from a distance agents with a ton of buyer inventory, and they’re not doing the steps. It’s to you know, get it going.
D.J. Paris 13:25
Like I said, I just want to add one more thing too when you said to communicate with other brokers become friendly with other agents say, Hey, we’re all dealing with, with, you know, inventory shortages, let’s let’s help each other when we have a property, let everyone know what’s coming up. And, and I was I know, this is a great opportunity to one of the one of the advantages of working with one of the big, big large firms in your local area, whether you work there or not, is that oftentimes they have their own internal list. And so this might not be on the official private listing network, if they’re if your community has one, or it might just be internal to the company. And I know some of the bigger companies here in Chicago do have those. And so this is a great reason to become, you know, friendly with some of those people at those firms and say, Hey, I got somebody. Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 14:12
we have Yep, absolutely. of 600 agents, and we absolutely have that internal list that we have. However, at the same time, when an agent circulates I got a buyer three bedrooms, two bathrooms, this price point, our managing brokers have a list of all the agents at the other firms and then they will actually mail email on behalf of our agent to all those other agents. Do you have a buyer we’re looking at? So go to your managing broker. Yeah, and we all have those and say, Can you can you help me? I have this inventory, can you email all the agents in this community? And they should be able to we can facilitate that, you know, in 10 minutes time, they should be able to do the same thing. So
D.J. Paris 14:54
yeah, it absolutely and boy, those are some great creative ideas to handle. low inventory. All right, one more thing about rates going up, which I don’t think is is a huge challenge. The reason I’m bringing it up because rates are still amazingly low. The challenge is that this is what oftentimes, buyers and sellers, but in particular buyers are seeing come across their news feed. We know this is making news, the Fed might be raising rates two to three times a year, rates are already going up in anticipation of that. Not that I think it’s something that agents need to be hyper focused on the input implications of it, but more about, oh, that’s what my clients reading, I need to have a response to that in case it comes up, or I need to proactively educate my clients on what this means. I’m curious on on what you would say to agents who are, you know, are hearing those rumblings from their clients?
Ryan D’Aprile 15:48
About rates going up? And what Yeah, I think you know, okay, so with rates increasing, it makes me think about, you know, what is it? What is an element, a one of many, what’s one of many elements that causes a recession, or a boom market, and that is consumer confidence. And we are, you know, we are, we’re creatures, we’re hertz, right, we run in hertz, that’s how we, it’s how we, we as animals, right, we just run in hertz, and like, we’re like a packet cells. And so what you have this, this, this herd impact, you know, when when things happen? So you know, I remember the, the last recession, right, from the Great Recession, right, where all of a sudden gas prices were like at five bucks, that was the beginning of it, right? And then, and then all sudden, the banks started collapsing, consumer confidence, every play pulls back, and now you’re in a recession, the same exact thing happens when rates increasing, you’re going to have a panic amongst buyers, and in I truly do not think there’s any reason to panic, because, you know, I don’t know, let’s just make up a rate, right? Because I’m driving here, and I kind of keep my eyes on the road and thinking, but let’s 3% 375 really what the hell’s the difference? Right? I get it. Really, really, what is it but a couple 100 bucks a
D.J. Paris 17:11
month on a mortgage is about all it is. Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 17:13
if that’s right, yeah. And but it’s going to create, it’s going to create a surge of activity of buyers trying to get out. Now, what you need to do, is you really need to step back. And if you’re, like, 95% of the real estate agents out there, you’re working. And when I say real estate agents, I mean, residential real estate agents, you’re working as somebody who’s buying a home because they want to use the home, they want to live in home, it’s not an investor. Granted, we have investor clients, and it’s important to have investor clients, I’m not talking to that client right now. I’m talking to the person who’s buying the home for, you know, for their own use the highest and best use of it, which is, you know, going to be you know, you know, for their plight enjoyment for to raise their family or living there. And, you know, being in the city that they want to be for the entertainment, but they use it as their home. You got to then have your conversation around the why, and why are they buying it? And start talking about the why all this other stuff? Is my rate going to be three and a quarter? 3675? What’s it going to do? Is this a bubble? Are we going to have a correction? A lot of that goes to the wayside because somebody’s why the reason why they’re buying a home far outweighs any, you know, monetary impact it might have.
D.J. Paris 18:44
I think that’s I think that’s absolutely true. Is is getting your client away from the news of the of the moment, which oftentimes not not to be little it because it is something that to pay attention to, and to have a response to, but bringing them back to the why because you’re right. Money. Oftentimes cost takes a backseat to to you know, whatever emotion they’ve linked to that particular purpose. Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 19:10
yeah. I stopped my train of thought because I’m on 294 South driving from Michigan back to Chicago, and I got cut off and I just want to save my life there for a second. So sorry, it’s
D.J. Paris 19:22
perfectly fine. Save your life. That’s more important, for sure.
Ryan D’Aprile 19:26
Problem of doing these podcasts while Driving driving in Chicago. But yeah, so it does, you know, the money does take a bit a bad seat. You know, one of the expressions I’ve heard I love is that every one of us here has more money than we have time. And it’s something we got to remember, you have to remember that when you’re trying to hold your value. I mean, look, we work our asses off. We work so hard, it’s real estate agents. You really need to hold your line and get what you’re worth. There are gonna be people that are willing to work for Less than last and, and whatnot, but you know what, they’re the ones that get burnt out and leave the business because you’re, you’re making very little money at it. And, you know, we’ve come from a time where it’s somewhat of a race to the bottom look, the real estate brokerages themselves have been in a race to the bottom. Right. And at some point, that’s got to change. Because you go into business to make a living, you don’t go into business to work for free. Right. And so you got to remember that everybody has more money, the time, you can make more money, you can’t make more time period and the story, there’s nothing to discuss. And so, you know, what is the real value that you bring in to the transaction? One of the is bringing clarity to that, like, look, what is your decision really being based on being based on money? Or is it being based on time? Because two years from now, maybe rates all they think but two years is gone? You never get that two years back? That’s coming full circle, why are we doing this again? Oh, we’re doing this out? What about two years from now, when those two years have passed? You know, it’s, it’s incredibly important to keep that in mind. And that’s why this is not a commodity, our business, it’s not people have tried to commoditize it. It’s a service. And it’s, you know, it’s a lot of work. And it’s a great service. And one of the biggest parts that services bring in emotional intelligence, and stepping back and high level consulting, and helping somebody walk through why they’re doing what they’re doing. And then put it in perspective. You know, the impact of each one of the decisions being a to buy now, to wait. Example, I had a client. A mortgage lender, actually not at my mortgage company from another mortgage company, gray skies, but this mortgage company for 20 plus years and was buying a three flat in Chicago, and working with one of my agents, and I’m just kind of guiding him through it. And the three flat, he was going to move into turn into a duplex down and keep one rental above was going for like 100 something $1,000 over asking. Wow. And I talked about the transaction went Dude, what are you doing? You got to find where you are, you already got multiple properties. You’re buying this for a different reason. And it his wife really appreciated it. And I won’t get into the nuances of the deal. And I’m willing to overpay for property, because it’s what I want. But when we walked through his why it just didn’t make sense for them at the time. Yeah, I firstly overpaid for property happily overpaid, because I wanted that property for a particular reason. And that 50 to $70,000, more or less pain didn’t matter. Compared to my why that’s a service you got to provide as real estate agents don’t ever forget it. And it’s a gigantic guy, I didn’t get paid for that transaction. But I will get paid over and over and over again. Because of the level of service, the motional intelligence that brought to the deal. And the brand like what that does for me, as a consultant with those with that family, and how that ripple effect has within their community and their network.
D.J. Paris 23:31
Yeah, I want to I want to just mention this idea of emotional or rather tying, especially with with a purchase, I certainly can be done with it with on the sell side as well. But but on the buy side, we’re so lucky in this industry to have the home be such an emotional now as you were talking more about possibly even an investment decision. But but just even in a primary residence scenario, or someone’s buying the home, they’re going to live in with their family or just themselves. It is an incredibly emotionally exhausting, but also rewarding experience for that buyer. If they get the property they want to put price that they’re into. And we’re so lucky that we get to even the industry we’re in sort of touches on primal, emotional needs. Whereas like my accountant, who’s also you know, a service provider and a very important one to me, it doesn’t have as much juice, right? She doesn’t get to say tell me about your why it’s like well, I want to stay out of jail. I want to make sure that I don’t get audited. Those are my only two why’s for about paying taxes right I want to pay as little as possible without going to jail. And so of course like it’s just doesn’t have as much juice it there’s some fear factors there of like making sure I do everything correctly, but it works kind of the opposite way with with with things like you know, buying a home financial advisors also can get into wives, right, they could go let’s talk about retirements, talk about what that means to you. So other than financial advisors, and you know, realtors, those are the two big ones right like Like, maybe car salesman, I guess could could possibly, you know, talk about why things. But I think we’re so lucky, because it’s built into the transaction, all you have to do as an agent, is make sure that you talk about it with your client, because it’s already there, you don’t have to explain to them, you know, you just have to extract it out of them. And then, like you were saying, come back to that time and time again, when little issues come up in the transaction. Like, let’s go back to our why that’s really, really important.
Ryan D’Aprile 25:26
Yeah, and that’s one reason why, you know, real estate agents, you know, and there are there are books out there that talk about this, and I just completely disagree with that. Real estate agents to also I don’t feel have sellable businesses. Because of that, you’re not going to sell your book of business to another real estate agent, if you’re a real estate agent, you think you’re gonna take over somebody’s book of business, really go into this with your eyes wide open. Because, you know, if there’s an that connect, that’s why I talked about the lifelong auto flow, there’s not a personal connection, they’re going to go to somebody that they have a connection with. And so just throwing that out there, that’s why I just don’t really feel that a real estate business is a sellable business. Even a even a transferable business. Yeah, you know, I got, you know, young agents going to go join somebody’s team, because that person is going to, quote unquote, retire in a couple of years. Great. But guess what, their networks not going to work with you? You’re gonna do work for them for a few years, but their networks not going to work with you. It doesn’t work that way.
D.J. Paris 26:30
Yeah, unless the real estate industry ever figured out how to create a fee based model, where you earn a percentage, like financial advisors do over assets under management, or some sort of way to get paid every year on transactions, which they have not figured out a way to do that yet. Yeah, it’s
Ryan D’Aprile 26:48
right. And it won’t, it’s not annuity, it’s not like insurance or anything else. Or it’s, you know, it’s a one time it happens every seven to 10 years. And it is, you know, here’s the good thing. All right, for all of you listening here, all the all the all the PE firms and the companies that are publicly traded that I’ve tried to take the real estate agent out of it. I mean, you know, they’re, they’re not successful, they haven’t made money, and because of the emotional intelligence involved in it, that’s a great thing. And then your job is so secure, if you focus on what you write, and that’s the relationship. The double edged sword of that is, it’s not transferable, it’s not sellable. And guess what, don’t worry about it, we make gobs of money, be smart invest, buy real estate, yourself, have a good financial Player, Player and financial advisor, you know, put your money into a self directed 401 K or SEP IRA put up to $50,000 a year, be smart Build Your, your your net worth and build it in real estate and the equities and, and whatnot. But anyways, I don’t want to get to digest so many people, I, I’ve heard this time and time again, I do my best self, you’re not selling anything, it’s you can’t sell a real estate book or business. I’m convinced of it. And if anybody tries to convince me otherwise, it’s it’s I don’t know, I haven’t seen proof yet.
D.J. Paris 28:05
We talk about it a lot here at our firm too. We have a just under 800. Brokers, and you’d think and they pay us monthly fees and all of that. Yet, if we left, the management team and the owner owners all left and then a new crew came in. There’s other there’s other players in the space that have a very similar model to ours, right? It’s not, we have really nothing proprietary. Now maybe there just be some loyalty about or not even loyalty, it might just be I don’t want to move. So maybe agents wouldn’t move. But but our business even as a brokerage, it’s tough to sell a brokerage business, because agents are independent contractors, they can all leave at any moment, unless you have some sort of thing that prevents them from doing that which most firms don’t. So yeah, this idea that I’m going to build up a business and sell it is yeah, it’s maybe maybe not going to happen for an individual agent or even a brokerage. But the good news is we’re so well compensated along the way that a lot of sales positions, you’re not that well compensated, but you are in real estate, I feel and so you just have to
Ryan D’Aprile 29:07
Yeah, even even even the public markets don’t value brokerages, mortgage and real estate because of the people factor and how easy it is for people to leave. And you know, and then you got to see these companies rocket, right. It’s a mortgage company, sad technology company, but they’ll say they’re a technology competence company, you know, you know, compass and whatnot, they’re they’re trying to say they’re technology companies they all even call it time is trying to say it’s a technology company, right? It’s it’s because those are the companies are getting the big tech valuations. But it’s it’s not a tech company. We’re a service company, and there’s, you know, a double edged sword and that’s that’s just one of them. So not to and I’m not saying anything negative about composite great company, but in iPod $19 and cents a box and the reason being is it’s not a tech firm. It’s a real estate brokerage. It’s no different than real OG. Yeah, and I And the public markets are are saying that, yeah. And also, I think caliber or whatnot went public and they’re much below their IPO. Because the public markets because of what you just said, they don’t value because it’s, it’s so people driven.
D.J. Paris 30:16
Yeah, it’s, that’s your right, that’s a double edged sword. And the upside to all of this is your clients will never leave you, if they like you, they’re just never gonna go anywhere else unless, you know, they’re there, their son becomes a realtor, then maybe you lose the business, but they’re not going to leave you if you do a good job, most of the time,
Ryan D’Aprile 30:35
they won’t, they won’t, and that’s your business as a keeping maintain that relationship. So many agents can transaction on like, I was just added, you know, you know, just with a whole bunch of agents preaching this, it’s like, you’re just your business is your activities and what you’re doing, it’s not, it’s not the transaction, the transaction management stuff, you can, you know, you don’t need me to, to guide you through that I could give you some tricks here and there. But, you know, that’s, that’s almost the body activity. And, you know, you need you need more gun.
D.J. Paris 31:06
No, I was gonna say it’s, it were really, it’s really interesting that we live in this particular industry, you have realtors have access to largely the entire database of available sales. I mean, of course, there’s things that don’t hit the market, but I’m just just, if we just look at the MLS, every realtor who belongs to an MLS has access to all of those properties in their area. That’s not the way it works at pretty much any other sales. And I know this really a service profession, but the sales part of it, we’re really lucky, like even financial advisors typically don’t have access to every type of, you know, investment vehicle that exists there, they’re limited by what their company they work at offers, or the different companies that are partnered with, we’re really lucky in real estate that if you go to a like, and I’m using this as a car salesman, cuz everyone, a lot of us have bought cars, I’m not comparing car sales people to real estate agents, I think they’re very different. But you can have the greatest car salesperson that you fell in love with. And yet, you know, if you don’t like the particular lines they’re selling are the manufacturers, you have to find another car salesman at a different company, here, your clients will really stay around because you have access to everything, you just have to do an amazing job. And that’s really unique. We’re so lucky, in this industry, it’s it’s almost a bit surprising that there isn’t, you know, more privatization of these of listings. Now I understand why there isn’t, but we’re really, we should be very thankful for that. Because there aren’t a lot of professions where you have access to everything. My dad’s a paper salesman, he only has access to doing it for two years, he only has access to the mills he has access to doesn’t have access to every single mill. So sometimes his clients say, Well, I can’t you don’t have what I need. So this is, it’s a great reminder that yeah, you might not be able to sell your business at the end of your career. But boy, How lucky is it that you get to basically take the entirety of what’s available, and present that to your clients,
Ryan D’Aprile 32:58
you know, you got to keep in mind too, is that you are an advisor, and you’re an advisor, you should be positioning yourself as an advisor. And when I say that as don’t go around and change all your marketing senior adviser, just with people, you know, ask them what to do, because they’re going to turn ask what you do, they’re going to ask you about the market. And then you’re gonna be talking about you’re talking about, you know, a whole, you know, a 360 approach about life and life in general, it’s where my financial advisor doesn’t mean things to me, my goals, what I want, then he starts advising me and all different elements, that’s what we do is real estate agents, and it’s not transactional, you’re it’s three years prior to the client buying or selling. Let me say it again, it’s three years prior to somebody or network transacting, if you were engaged with them properly. That’s, that’s where you’re making your quote unquote, sale. Yeah, the transaction side of it. You know, that’s like the last 10%.
D.J. Paris 33:53
So wait, you just said something really important. I just want to pause Ryan just said something really, really critical. And just want to make sure you guys didn’t gloss over it or miss it, which is, when you meet somebody, you’ve got about a three year window on average before they transact. So you should have a really serious three are at a minimum plan of how am I going to touch base and Ryan, at his company, they have all sorts of tools to help automate some of it but having a plan for the next three years for every single person in your database, and well beyond three years, but at a minimum three years if they’re new to your database. And that might be a little bit of a bummer to hear. But the good news is all you have to do is stay in touch with those people for three years and care about them and demonstrate that you like them and and and then hopefully at that, you know when they’re ready there they choose you.
Ryan D’Aprile 34:46
Alright, and look, you know, I want to let people hear me out as well. Like you said kind of a bummer, right? Because it takes three years or whatnot. You know, I’m not here to say online web leads are the worst thing in the world either. Zillow realtor.com There is Pensieve go for it, if you need a quick sale, I mean, really, it’s, I am a champion of it, I think it’s a great thing to subsidize maybe 20% of your business. It might even be 80% of your business in your first year, you’re just you’re just not thinking long term. However, if you’re not coupling that with a strong net network, grand in relationship reinforcement plan afterwards. So I want to state for the record that I think those are great companies are great places to get into business. And yeah, it could be like, Wow, three years or sale? Well, that’s why there’s other ways, pretty good, quicker sales. But if you want to, you know, self sustaining, sustaining compound, interest earning type of business, you know, you got to think long term and are sent three years blink of an eye. And that’s every year. No, it’s nothing. It’s nothing. And, you know, that’s why you have to have a great marketing campaign. But you also have to have a great networking campaign, how do you network with your network, and you have to have a strategy to follow it. You know, and marketing you guys is not one channel, you need to have a multi channel marketing approach. You got it, you know, you need to have a direct mail, you need to have email, you need to have digital, you need to have a social. I do see a lot of agents doing just social hang, you’re not going to get the coverage that you need. If you’re just doing social. And it seems very 1980s ish. But I’m telling you, direct mail is still the best form of getting through to your market. time in and time out. Over and over again.
D.J. Paris 36:41
I have a quick suggestion for that. I was just thinking. So I moved into a new development. Almost a year ago, this is my 11th month. And I was just thinking about direct mail because as you were talking about it, I just realized an amazing statistic. It’s a funny statistic. I have received I was going to ask you how many how many letters how much direct mail I’ve received. Now again, I just moved in. So I understand an inclination for an agent to say like, Oh, that guy’s not going anywhere for a while he just moved into a new development. However, there’s 40 units I think in our in our building, certainly I’m sure somebody’s gonna get job transferred and need to sell but anyway, or maybe people know I’m in the business. I doubt it. I don’t think it when you’re doing direct mail you’re looking for, you know, other agents and pulling them out. But maybe, but I have not received even one message from an agent. Nothing, not a hey, congrats. You’ve just moved into this new place, which by the way, that information is public. Right? So congratulations. I just wanted to do this myself. I’m I live in Wicker Park. So it could be like I’m a Wicker Park person. I know you just moved in. You probably aren’t going anywhere. But I would love to just start a relationship with your or something. Right? I have gotten not one message and there are 46,000 realtors in Chicago. That is incredible. I guess my point is, nobody is really doing this, or very few people, I guess Ryan Ryan’s agents are, but very, very few agents. There’s not much competition in this space, especially in the direct mail space. So you have a huge opportunity to do this.
Ryan D’Aprile 38:09
Yeah, I mean, not too long ago, right. 2005 I get in the business and I started direct mail campaign to the Clinton Street lofts to 26 North Clinton Randolph place once expired North Clinton to full market, you know, 555, six, us four and 323 10 North Clinton, yada, yada, yada. And I just blew pass a police officer. All right, I’m okay. Anyways, um, you know, I didn’t get a call for 18 months, 18 months. Man, I dominated for four years after those 18 months. You know, it was me. I remember Sam Powell she lived in. I think she lived there. She might be canal play. And well, I shouldn’t say that. But my point is a great agent lover, and she was another person and I got I’m going back a long time. But like, there’s just a couple of us. You know, back then. And I’m telling you, the direct mail broke man and nothing’s changed. I have developed agents that do 2535 40 million a year that were not licensed five years ago. And that strategy still works today. And so but it’s not one it’s not just postcards, either. They got postcards, they’re in magazines. They’re digital, they’re in social. I just drove past a billboard and saw a group of our agents on one billboard and a group of loan officers another billboard. I mean, you know, you got to spend money to make money. You should be earmarking 10% of your GCI to be going back and advertising your brand new the business you should be less than investing a minimum of five to 10 grand and getting your business going five to 10 grand get another job if you can’t afford it. I mean, I’m back kidding. And that might be insensitive. You just met it’s, you know, starting a business and not marketing advertising is the way See your time? Yeah, I want to say, getting into business and not branding. And that’s funny when you’re wasting your time, you’re wasting money and monthly dues for the association, you’re wasting time. By just wasting time, you need to spend money. And once you a couple years, only 10% of your GCI should be reimbursed best back into branding. And I think that branding should be targeted primarily to your network.
D.J. Paris 40:25
Yeah. Yeah, you want you Look, nobody wants to call up their friends and ask for business, right. So what you can do is you can send them emails, direct mail, texts, jump on social, say, Hello, you can do these little subtle, even non real estate related touches, that just remind the people in your Oh, you’re still alive, you’re still checking in. And oh, by the way, you’re still a realtor. And then you don’t have to ask for business people will come to you, but you have to put the work in, right, it’s the reps, it’s the time in the gym, to you know, now to put the time in now. So by when the summer rolls around, you feel confident, you know, walking outside at the beach with you know, fewer clothes on, but you have to put in the time now. And just wait. And again, it’s not that crowded in your like I was going to ask you and I don’t know how familiar you are with the mail that comes in? I don’t know if you check the mail or, or if your wife or someone else in your family. But do you get a lot of mailers, you know, from other Realtors at your primary home?
Ryan D’Aprile 41:29
I get a bunch but they’re all from paper properties. Well, that you don’t need to put me on it, but they want it you know what I mean? But it’s fun. And it’s cute. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 41:40
What do you do? outside of your company? Do you get anything? Do you
Ryan D’Aprile 41:43
from one or two of the top producing agents and that’s it, I wanted to happen in our market. Shocking. It’s not because unfortunately, you know, even though the listeners here, you know, 20% or less of them are going to do what we’re telling them to do. And it just it’s there’s nothing you can do to change that Pareto Principle. Because I’ll tell everybody again, and again, again, success is a choice. It’s an absolute choice that you decide to make. That’s why I’m not a big fan of you know, that’s I’m a big fan of socialism. I like capitalism, you know, because I just don’t think that I want the choices taken from me. Right? I really, I really believe that. It’s a simple choice you make every day, most people just are not choosing. And I think a lot of them are just not aware of the activities that they’re doing. I mean, it is so easy to look at your text all day long on social media. That’s cool. But who’s ever texting you and whatever is on social media. That’s what’s in control of your life, not you. And so we’re all of us here, we’re on a journey together. And I think the journey and the battle is self awareness, and how do we, how do we get back to consciousness and being aware of all the time, we’re wasting? And we’re, as Robin Sharma says, We’re busy being busy, but we’re not busy being productive. Yeah. So it doesn’t surprise me just because I’m a, I’m a teacher on this. And it’s what I do all day long. And I, you know, and I’m doing this real time in real life, and it’s rampid. It’s all over the place.
D.J. Paris 43:14
Why a lot of great suggestions today, just to recap, some of them, we talked about getting creative with with low inventory and understanding in particular, we’ve heard of sell side contingencies, we want to talk about buy side contingencies, if you’re not sure what that is Google it, talk to your your trainer, your managing broker, talk to whoever or other agents, this talking about getting creative. You know, we also talked about this idea of sending out letters to people in that in those neighborhoods that your client would be interested in. And pitching, hey, I’ve got a buyer. lot lot of good suggestions there. Also the conversation around, hey, my clients are bothering you know, I feel so bad for my friends that are financial advisors, because I know they’re fielding calls whenever the market goes down, you know, they they feel the call going, what’s going on with the market? Or should I be investing in crypto and all of these things that financial advisors typically say, hey, take a breath, not a big deal. But you know, your clients are reading things too. So make sure that you have you want to get ahead of that stuff, you want to make sure to say hey, you might have seen some things about rates. Don’t worry, here’s why. Let’s run the numbers. It’s not that big a deal. Making sure that you are the are the advisor and the source of knowledge versus CNN, right, which I like CNN, but I’m saying the point is make sure that you know what your clients are into because they’re not they might not call you and say what should I do about rates rising but but they might be thinking it because that’s what they’re reading. So it’s a great reason to reach out and have conversations and then get creative about, you know, what you can do to sort of mitigate the fact that rates are rising if it’s a problem or the low inventory situation. And then we just talked a lot about marketing and branding, and having a process right process solves anxiety. I think I think process helps reduce anxiety. I shouldn’t say it solves it, but it certainly reduces it. Because if you’re worried three years from now Now, you should refocus on your process right now. So that when three years are up, and three years are coming for all of us, that you’ll go, I did, I did my workout for those those three years, which, you know, I sent out my mailers, I, I made my phone calls, and I watched the, you know, I sowed my seeds, so to speak, and I watched the harvest come in, just focus. And also remember tying everything back to the why, again, we’re lucky we get to really hit people emotionally, what would what their goals are in life, and this is what oftentimes somebody’s home’s their first or second or third largest financial transaction in their life next to retirement, maybe, do you have a child going off to college? So college as well, right, so you have college retirement, and buying home? Like those are three big big deals, you get to participate in one of those largest transactions, which oftentimes is very emotional. So tying everything back fine. Do you even know your clients why that should be the most important thing is not what they want. Because what they want is easy. Everybody’s going to know what they want, but are you going to know why they want it, and then you can help them when they get anxious. Also bringing them back to the why also reducing anxiety. So I was I always think, like, so much of an agent’s job is reducing their clients anxiety. And if you can become an expert at mitigating client anxiety, boy, you’re going to be a hero to your age your clients, because I just went through it a year ago, and I was anxious the whole time. So just a little
Ryan D’Aprile 46:27
drop the mic, buddy, you nailed it. Yeah, well, we’ll drop the mic, but
D.J. Paris 46:32
we’ll drop the mic, but only to pick it back up again, and remind everyone that if you are an agent in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, or you Iowa as well, or just I forgot if you’re Iowa, Indiana, Indiana, sorry, you have a daughter that may be headed to Iowa. So I’m thinking of that. But anyway, if you’re in the Midwest, we’ll say or down in Florida. And by the way, Ryan doesn’t just have the April properties. He also has a lending institution, he has a title company, you have a technology company, if you want to be a part of deeper properties as an agent, or one of the other businesses that Ryan is a owns and participates in. And I think they have I mean, just to brag a little bit for Ryan, they have an incredible number of full time employees like this is a real amazing operation. And I encourage everyone to explore it, if you’re not getting the help that you need at your current firm, go check out what Table Properties offers. I mean, I don’t work there. So I have no, I have no skin in this game. But I’m impressed as somebody who would, I would much rather they’ll come to our firm, but but the reality of it is what Ryan offers is really truly amazing. And you really should check it out. So if anyone out there is not getting the attention, they need go to Depot properties.com Set up a call with one of their leaders. And they can talk more about what they offer. And in particular, their main competitive advantage. As far as I can tell, and I don’t work there. But from what I understand is two things, coaching and real coaching, not just hey, we coach you because everybody says they coach you but real actual one on one coaching, as well as helping with the marketing and not just hey, we’re gonna put a flier out, making sure that there’s a process and you guys have the software and the physical sort of property as well, or the physical ability to do mailers. And so actually do that for agents.
Ryan D’Aprile 48:22
Yeah, let me chime in a little bit, cuz you make a great point. Because, you know, take coaching away and call it call it business planning. So a lot of our, you know, we got a lot of high producing agents that have joined us and loan officers. And we have different individuals that are focused on business planning. So it’s not so much coaching is just sitting back. And then business planning, then we have a VP of branding and marketing that meets with them and helps them create their brand strategy and marketing and then we execute it for them. So it’s almost like it’s an incredible branding organization with the planning department around your business. I think coaching people think I don’t want to be coached. It’s not. It’s not it’s business planning. It’s marketing. And of course, yes, we we have the software built around a model to help you continually stay focused on those daily activities and whatnot. So it’s all Yeah, and in listening, go to deeper properties.com Google me, give me a phone call. I’m very accessible. I would love to chat with you. If any of you find yourself in a in a fork in the road, and you’re and you’re looking for maybe something different gives shot we’ve we’ve impacted a lot of people’s lives.
D.J. Paris 49:27
Awesome. Well, Brian, thank you once again, and also want to just make one quick Ryan’s doing this while he’s traveling from office to office in his car. And I just want to make one last suggestion that if you are a driver, if you drive to and from work to and from the office to and from client meetings, make this year, the year that you take even just a small percentage of that drive, ideally a large percentage of it and designated for learning so there’s audible, there’s podcasts, there’s all sorts of ways to learn as you drive instead of just jamming out to your favorite tunes which you can do to buy But put a percentage of that time in learning and especially if you’re in the car every day, you’ll be shocked in a year you can become an expert in just about anything. If you just listen or read in between in between things, and especially when you’re in a car and you have to drive anyway, you know, get a subscription to Audible, you’ll you’ll be an expert in a year or two in a particular topic. And you think about how much more valuable you’ll be to your clients if you can develop some of those interests.
Ryan D’Aprile 50:27
Absolutely, right. Yep.
D.J. Paris 50:28
Well, thanks, Ryan. Really appreciate it. Thank you for taking time out of your crazy busy day. Just to come on our show and share some wisdom. We appreciate it. On behalf of the the audience. We thank Ryan once again for coming on for he’s been on with us for years now. We’re so thrilled he’s here we have on behalf of Ryan and myself, we want to thank everyone as well for listening and supporting our our program. Please continue to tell a friend just again, think of one other agent that needs to hear what Ryan said today. And believe me, pretty much every agent would like to hear we should hear that but just think of one send them a link to our show. We’d appreciate it and it helps keep us growing as well. So Thanks, Ryan. We will see everyone on the next episode. Thanks EJ
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