Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
Ryan discusses what’s happening in the lending world at the moment and emphasizes the importance of the loan officer in the process of home-buying. Ryan gives tips on what agents can do to finish the month (and this year) strong. Ryan and DJ discuss the importance of keeping in touch with people around and building relationships.
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 is brought to you by iGuide.
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 Barris, I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re new to our show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. Well, let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de abril is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at Table Properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland also offices in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan with hundreds and hundreds of top real estate producers. Dr. Paul properties is also a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with each 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 existing firm, check out D APR properties, visit D APR that’s da p r i l e properties.com. We can do properties. Like we should also mention, Ryan also owns a lending company called Midwest lending. So if you have any lending needs, or you’re looking to build a relationship with a great loan officer, you can always check out Midwest lending, and also Midwest title for looking for a good title company. So it’s got a lot of businesses and we are thrilled to have him on the show. Welcome again, Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:36
Thanks for having me, DJ, so good to talk to you again. And you got me in a car again. So no, no FaceTime video there. Sorry about that.
D.J. Paris 2:43
No problem. Well, Ryan, and I were just talking just before the show, because I just saw this headline. And my first reaction was, I have never heard of this company. yet. I thought it would be just a neat way to start off our show. Just to get your perspective on this as somebody who owns a lending company. So I just saw better.com, which apparently isn’t, I believe an online mortgage lender just announced they were laying off 900 employees here in one swoop. So it’s making the news because of the size of that cut. And just curious as somebody who is involved in that business, you know, sort of your thoughts about what’s going on in the mortgage industry?
Ryan D’Aprile 3:24
Well, you know, you’re seeing across the board, mortgage companies starting to cut down on staff I, there’s a little bit more to this story, right with how they did it, which is horrendous. It sounds like you and I are chatting about it. We’ll talk about that in a second. The approach that you did, because you know, these are human beings. But there is you know, 2020 20 and 21 was borderline noxious how busy it was in the morgue journey. And it was a fight for talent and, and people that were in, you know, certain roles and a certain amount of money were being offered double the to be taken away and go somewhere else. And it happened and companies are struggling looking for people because they had so much business. And unfortunately now you know, 18 months later, you hear you ever hear about mass layoffs, because business just isn’t there. And you know, supply and demand is, you know, it’s real, right? And when the demands out there. They start to really start to layoff these people know how this company did it. better.com I believe is the name right? Yep. You’re telling me they did on a zoom call?
D.J. Paris 4:38
Yeah, they did it to all 900 employees simultaneously, which is now that part of the story is really being focused on in the news, which it is upsetting. Yeah.
Ryan D’Aprile 4:51
Yeah, that’s you know, you got it. You should be thinking these things through but you know, yeah, that’s That’s too bad. And you know, Whew, you know, it’s, that’s the lot of emotion runs through me when I hear something like that. And being in, you know, our type of roles where, you know, you eat what you kill, and also being an industry, right real estate mortgage lending, there’s a ton of emotion, that, that, that that comes into this and, you know, that will just kind of just take you to a whole other level, that’s why I try to always coach, you know, allos agents and whatnot, and the importance of network and networking. And, and, you know, I’m online leads Consumer Direct, you know, it’s, it’s good at a certain time and a certain place, it’s not a bad complement to your business. But you don’t want to be the core of your business. Because, you know, when somebody gives us, somebody can taketh away, and you’re better off, you know, relying on yourself and the power of your network and, and focusing on activities to make your network attractive to you, so that they come for you for that advice. But it’s, it’s, it’s tragic. It’s very, too bad. And it’s going around and, you know, some of the biggest mortgage companies out there, you know, your, you know, maybe not in the news, but in the industry news that we see where they’re reporting massive layoffs that are happening out there. And that’s tough.
D.J. Paris 6:19
And I almost almost wonder if there’s a good sort of action step for our listeners, who are agents, mostly, who maybe see news like this, they start thinking, well, it’s gonna make sense there were business was so busy, and so they had to staff up and maybe now, the lending world has has, you know, dropped in popularity just in the immediate moment, or it’s the holidays, and people are, you know, refinancing or purchasing as much but, or it’s just the market slowed down. So use, you mentioned, supply and demand. And I’m wondering if there is an action step. So an agent might say, Well, gosh, I don’t want this to happen to my clients. Because, you know, I don’t know, maybe it’s a good time to have a conversation with your loan officer, just to see, how’s the company doing? You know, what company you work with?
Ryan D’Aprile 7:09
Yeah, you know, so a lot of our real estate agents, right, and I, I really have my finger on the pulse of this, because I, I own a mortgage company, but then I see my agents, and they’re on the other side, the listing side, or whatnot. And they’re working with lenders from all over the place. And they really cringe when you get these Consumer Direct companies on the other end. Yeah, and you know, your real estate agents want to have a relationship with a lender, I coach loan officers. And, you know, it is one of the most scalable businesses, I believe, I think real estate’s difficult to scale, they, they have these models of scaling it, and we I don’t want to get in that conversation. We could talk about that later. But you know, real estate is a high relationship type business, which makes a little bit more difficult to scale, you could really scale lending. Without having to multiply yourself. And one of the reason being is, is there’s always two real estate agents on a deal. Yeah. And I coach our loan officers and like, if you are not calling an agent, twice a week, both agents twice a week, you are missing the lowest hanging fruit in this business. And they appreciate it so much, even if they don’t call you back. And I see and I’m not going to name, I’m going to bite my tongue here, I’m not going to name any companies. But I see large mortgage companies out there. And our agents just saying please avoid these people as much as you can. And they’re actually talking their clients out of having to use them because their call centers and you know, they are in mortgage lending is not simple. It’s not a manufacturing process. It’s it’s, it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a job or, you know, everything almost.
D.J. Paris 9:02
And whatever documentation that your client may have needed to provide to the loan, the lending institution loan officer at the beginning of the transaction, even though that’s what was needed for the pre qualification letter, and even whatever, you know, once the contracts accepted, there’s going to be a wrinkle in it at some point down the road before the closing, where all of a sudden there there will be some sort of scramble for paperwork, and I think that’s where it’s like, okay, thank God, I have a great loan officer on top of this, because there’s some sort of wrinkle
Ryan D’Aprile 9:33
there is and that’s one of the reasons why loan officers have to stay on every deal and communicate because not only that, it’s you know, you have to first you know, dispatch just pick dates December 1, we’re going to go under contract and we’re gonna close December 30. Great. Right now, everybody attorney wants to order title, you know, when they’re going to order title a week before closing. Wait a minute. We have clear to close. We need that now. out, the borrower get the fifth key one that they have, but they’ll get it four days before closing, okay, but we’re not clear to close. So, you know, a lender is so dependent on so many different parties, and they are the scapegoat, have the experience totally. But you have the appraiser, you have the FHA inspector, you have the title company, you have the seller’s attorney, you have the borrower, you have the borrower’s HR department for verification of employment. So much that goes on condo associations, they have to give you condo questionnaires that, you know, you’re the bottom rung and then your processor will call, but nobody’s returning processor calls or return the loan officers call. And it’s, it’s complicated. And you know, and people have tried automating what the Automate with the Automate is online lead client acquisition, right? You know, when you’re going to mortgage company.com, you’re not cutting out a middleman because that mortgage company is spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars on billboards and commercials to drive consumers that mortgage.com company where you’re gonna get somebody on a headset, I’d rather the acquisition expense, right, the client acquisition expense, being a loan officer commission, because then they’re going to nurture it and take care of it. And you’re not gonna see a difference in rate as a consumer. It’s just a different. Yeah. Right. So that in product,
D.J. Paris 11:38
that’s a really, really strong point for all of our listeners to understand is that that a lot of these companies, what they really are our lead generation companies, and they’re spending the money they would be spending to pay the commission, a lot of their loan officers, a lot of them are actually salaried. And so they’re on a headset there. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But how motivated are they to close a deal? When they’re not really? Yeah, they have no relationship with the end user.
Ryan D’Aprile 12:07
And and in, that’s quite the opposite to the point of that it’s not cheaper for the consumer, right? Those commercials costs money, those billboards cost money to drive the consumer to that website, those headsets, those cost centers, and those salaries cost money. And in fact, they cost more in basis points, and a loan officers basis points, High Commission, in most cases, and so you’re not going to see any savings, and you’re gonna see a lot more frustration, because this is not like, you know, you know, hey, you’re 35 and five foot five. So here’s your interest rate. And that’s it, it’s you employed, are you self employed? How many K ones do you have? We need verification? Boy, I’ll even employ What’s your credit score, where does it fall, how much you borrow, and what’s your loan to, you know, your and then they gotta go sell that in secondary markets, it’s very complicated, you need a loan officer that is competent, that can handle all of these tricky things. And then, most importantly, be the person who’s going to move the whole process along. Hey, seller’s agent, we have not gotten titled back to the attorney in need to get a hold of them. If you guys want this to close, in the next two weeks, hey, we have not heard from your insurance company, and we don’t have the declaration we need, we need to know that they got proof of insurance, or we’re not gonna be able to give them the more, hey, we have not gotten the condo association back. Gotta do it. And that’s what a lot of loan officers good loan officers are doing. And that’s why that Consumer Direct portion is online, you know, call centers, you know, they’ll take an application, but automating that stuff, it’s, it gets ignored by all the other parties that are supposed to send the documentation into you. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 13:49
that’s a good point. And also, we’re now just moving on, because I think you’ve just set it all there. So So anyway, I or just maybe to put a to put a bow on that, a great opportunity to remember as the agent, you are especially working with the buyer, you are the the knowledge source, you are the person that has information. So you need to be having those conversations with your buyers, before they get their pre qualification letter, or suggesting to them why they may want to talk to so and so from, you know, the loan, the the lending institution that you have a relationship with, because you you know, these are things that as a consumer consumers don’t understand that a loan officer in person or one locally, might be able to better serve them that then you know, you know, like you said a mortgage.com type of online lead that they’re not going to know that so this is where the real estate agent will come in. Because if you think about it, you know, I shop for bank rates sometimes because sometimes I just have some cash and I don’t really need anything special done with it and I just want to see which banks giving me the best rate because it’s such a simple Will and no brainer transaction. And I can literally just search best bank rates for, you know, money market or whatever. And I can make that decision without talking to a banker. And it’s so easy and it’s no big deal that can be done. And so a lot of us are just sort of, we’re always thinking about searching online for the best rate or the best whatever. When it comes to mortgages, I don’t think the average consumer understands, even though they’ve been through it maybe multiple times, they don’t understand how complicated that whole entire processes, so find a good lender, loan officer, and we should probably this great place to plug Midwest lending. So tell us, tell us a little bit about Midwest lending.
Ryan D’Aprile 15:37
No Midwest signings a mortgage bank, we’re in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida. Um, and we pride ourselves on communicating with our borrowers, and our agents and every agent on the deal. And doing it multiple times a week and keeping everybody apprised of what’s going on, and how everybody can participate. And help out on the journey to get in the closing table. Because I’m going to tell you, whatever mortgage company has, we’re going to need everybody to participate. And again, that’s the attorneys, that’s the agents, borrowers, the borrower’s employees, and whatnot. And the more the agent is informed of what’s going on the process, the more they can help out and make a phone call, say we need this documentation. So we’re gonna get our cleric close. So go ahead and schedule a closing. So Midwest lending is a great organization. You know, we have a number of loan officers in multiple states, and we work with real estate agents all over the country. And yeah, that’s about us. And you know, what? How about, I was just thinking of something. And thank you for letting me plug Midwest funding, I appreciate it greatly. How about we transition since we’re moving in the last half hour, it’s sprinkling a little coaching for our listeners here,
D.J. Paris 16:47
I’d love that. And this is we are now at the time we’re recording this, it’ll probably come out in a week or so. But we are in December, early December at the time of this recording. And it is very easy. Even I have to sort of force myself to not get too caught up in the fun of the holiday to where it’s I’m cutting corners at work, or I’m spending less hours, it’s very easy to do that. There’s so much responsibility, we have the family and friends and and just you know, getting holiday cards out or whatever all the little activities we’re doing. And it is easy to and it’s also a great time of year to take it easier if you wanted to, because it’s probably probably less busy. You’re probably getting less of those client calls. But But what can agents do to really finish the end of this month strong? What could they start doing so that sure you don’t lose that momentum?
Ryan D’Aprile 17:43
So I was thinking about this over the weekend, and I was watching Michigan play Iowa. I don’t know if you saw that game or not. And my friend’s son is the freshman quarterback JJ McCarthy. And you know, he’s behind the starter, why don’t we have the starter as the root for JJ gets put in, like, you know, once every eight plays so terrific. Watch out for that name. You’ll you’ll see him in the NFL. And as watching hardball, you know, and as watching hardball coach, and and really getting in these kids? And I thought to myself, what is it that a coach provides somebody? What is it that a manager provides somebody that’s going to the next level? What would you guess it would be DJ?
D.J. Paris 18:27
So things that come to mind would be motivation. I actually would I guess I would have said that before I got my own physical personal trainer for at the gym. And what I used to think was, Oh, she’s going to tell me what to do. And she’s going to keep me on target. And yes, she does those things. But that’s not really for me the value the value for me is when in particular with having a personal trainer is the is knowing to do the correct form. And and the fundamentals and knowing like, Oh, yes, anyone can do a deadlift, but are you doing it correctly. And I got injured. When I used a personal trainer many years ago who wasn’t very skilled. Now I have somebody that’s skilled and cost a lot more. But boy, it’s it’s in the fundamentals and the foundation for me.
Ryan D’Aprile 19:14
When I was watching hardball, it clicked to me and I was thinking to myself, I said the best of the best. And those are that were worthy of receiving the best and best are open to receiving this is my opinion. It’s discipline and structure. Yeah. And motivation is great. And people say them very motivating, and appreciate it’s a compliment. But it’s also you know, it sinks in a cliche, I’ve heard it before, you know, motivations, like a bath, it’s going to wear off. And, you know, there are people that are coachable and are people that just they’re not coachable. And you got to really look in the mirror, especially during this time and say, am I going to keep my foot on the gas? And if there’s somebody that’s going to be doing that and helping me am I coachable? to really hear the cold, hard truth, and be willing to accept discipline and structure, so I can take myself to the next level, right. And I, there’s certain amount of people that I love and I care about, but they’re not worthy of my discipline structure, because they’re not going to take it. And the truth is, is us individuals, we hold so many people to a high level, our UPS delivery person, right? The water delivery, the pizza guy did the pizza delivery come in there, you know, did it take, you know, 45 minutes or 55 minutes, I’ve heard people yell by how it’s taken so long for the pizza to comment all their stuff in the best of the best hold themselves accountable to that level. And this is a time where I tell everybody, it’s the end of the year, don’t be looking at the results, stop looking at the results. And stop tracking the results right now, the year is over, you need to be looking at your activities, you need to be looking at your actions, your you need to have your blinders on. And the only thing you are focused on is your actions. And that’s got to be like this for the next 60 days. If you want to catch that mid February, spring market, there’s always time, right? And they were they it’s the expression, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the next best time is right now. Right right now, right now is where you need to say I’m gonna start, I gotta look at my actions and my activities, stop looking at my results, get focused on my activities. And day by day, am I taking the right steps and reaching out to the right individuals, and connecting with all the people in my network systematically, being habitual about it. And then the results are simple byproduct of those activities. And I think that is what everybody should be doing right now. Especially when the majority of us, which we may call our competition is not doing it.
D.J. Paris 22:04
Yeah, this is a time where even the busiest especially the busiest agents are, maybe they are taking a bit of a break, simply because this might be the only break they get into here. And so they might be taking a well, a well deserved break. But for those of us that aren’t, go ahead,
Ryan D’Aprile 22:21
I was gonna cut you off. But listen, you guys, discipline is structure, it’s going to give you all the free time in the world. I want I just came back from a week’s vacation. You know, we all need a break, we all need to, you know, we all need to unwind and stop it. But if your discipline is structured, in your one hour a day, one hour a day? You know, that’s not a lot. No, it really is not a lot but added over. And over 52 weeks. It’s a ton. And it didn’t feel like a lot. But your results? Right? Your results are gonna put you at the pinnacle of your industry, because you did not a lot one hour, a lot throughout the year. If that makes any sense what I just said,
D.J. Paris 23:09
yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because I know that, you know if I could take this month off from exercising? Sure, I certainly would like to. But what’s that going to look like for me in January, when I come back? What’s what’s what kind of pain am I going to be putting myself through to get back in shape? Just because I took two weeks off? Can I can I take two weeks off? Sure. Is that a good idea for me when I’m going to have to go back to the gym, and it’s going to be more painful. And so I caution everyone to think about sure you can take it easy this this December, and maybe you deserve it. And that’s fine, if it’s intentional, and if it’s, you know, scheduled, but if you can also continue to do. But like Ryan says putting the blinders on and sort of almost forgetting that it’s the December holidays at the end of the year. And things are slow. If you can just remove those from your mind and go, Well, I still have to work out today or in this case, I still have to make my phone calls and check in with my clients. And also, by the way, great time to do that, since it is the December holidays, even if you’re just calling them to say, Hey, I just hope you’re having a great rest of the year. And I was thinking about you. If that’s all you did to everyone in your database. I bet that’s more than they would expect.
Ryan D’Aprile 24:22
Yeah, and if you’re one of those individuals and aren’t logging your database once a week or once a day, right, and you’re doing it you know, once a month, you’re flying blind. Yeah, you’re just you’re absolutely flying mind. And, you know, I was telling him as coaches that you could be in this business for 10 years and an econ actually a decent living, right. But you’re not going to be at the top you’re not going to be and what I mean by that top like yeah, you know, are you success? Are you are you gonna be happy at the top? No. But you know, that’s what we’re talking about when we’re coaching. And also like, don’t be afraid of success, because it’s not going to take more time. You In fact, success gives you more time. And it gives you a lot more freedom.
D.J. Paris 25:04
And a lot more a bit. Yeah, the freedom comes to in learning how to scale a business as well and getting help when when you get to a level where you can we can push through to that. Find other people to assist you. And but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, I think you and I are, are the same in the sense of, I always like Coach John Wooden. He’s like the only coach I even know, in sports, but he was the UCLA guy. And if you don’t know who coach John Wooden is just google him. But I think he won seven NCAA Tournaments championships in a row, I think it was literally seven in a row in the 60s, and I think maybe the early 70s, and then went on to win I think 11 out of 13, or something like that. He’s the winningest coach in NCAA history. Anyway, he never looked at the scoreboard. And when I say he never looked at the scoreboard, he absolutely will tell you he never looked at the scoreboard because he said, that doesn’t indicate to me whether we’re winning or losing. And it’s like, well, how do you how does that happen, and it’s not just a cute catchy thing. He said, he said, I just told every player, you’ll walk off the court at the end of the game, and whatever the scoreboard says, you’ll either know you did your best, or you’ll know you’re dead. And you won’t feel good, even if we win if you didn’t do your best. And so I think that is such a great lesson is just put the blinders on and do the fundamentals, do the things that you know, six months from now, we’re going to pay off because it is going to be six months from now, six months from now. And you know, like me, if I if I put the blinders on and just keep at the gym and keep doing the things at work that I’m supposed to do, we’re going to keep growing our business here, and I’m going to keep getting stronger in the gym, and I, I won’t have to go back in a month and go, I should have worked out this last month and didn’t and now it’s going to suck for a couple of weeks. Don’t Don’t let Don’t Don’t let that happen.
Ryan D’Aprile 26:47
Now, and tracking everything is is important, right? So we have in our dashboard, we have a snapshot and it tracks you know, your cuckolds and warms it tracks, it tracks your active clients. So your prospects are great, cool, cold and warm volumes next to them. And there’s timing next to them, then your your actives, right, and the type of actives you have then your pending, and then your sales, we also have another bar chart that’s called the forecast, which essentially takes your warm only not your coolers and colds, adds them with your actives and adds them with your pending, and then add some of your close, they’ll give you a forecast for what your year is going to look like. So with a lot of people now we’re goal setting again. And and we’re going to look at those, those snapshots that we have in their in their dashboards. And, you know, we’re going to talk about it for a few minutes. Right? And say, hey, look, you know, you have, you know, $7 million of cold cold means closing next calendar year. That’s fantastic. And look at you have another $4 million that are already active that you know they transact is probably transacting in late December or January. So you’re already looking at $11 million a year. And then we look at okay, where did the majority of this comes from that is coming from purchase web leads? are these coming from your, your network? are these coming from your network referring you and and then most of us see that 80 to 90% of it comes either from the network or the network referring them. And then you’re able to parlay that into a lesson be like Alright, great. Now let’s get to work. Get back to your network tab. Let’s look at these 385 people that are in here. Let’s go to the filter. And let’s see who hasn’t heard from you this quarter? Who has not heard from you? Since you know, September 30. All right, there’s 100 people a great, it’s 100 people that you have not talked to in three months 16% of them are going to transact next year at 16 potential transactions, not to mention that each one of those 100 people that you haven’t talked to in a quarter, no four people they’re going to buy or sell. That’s another potential 400 referrals. So how much are you missing out on by not being aware of those statistics and not being aware of your activities? Okay, great. It’s December 6, because right now it is December 6 I know there’ll be less than a week from now. But you know, you’ve got basically 20 days 20 days to reach out to those 100 people you know
D.J. Paris 29:16
and you have you have a lot of you have a lot of things to say when you talk to these people now it’s it’s the December holidays. By the way, if you don’t know what holiday your sphere of influence each person in your contact list your CRM celebrates or doesn’t celebrate. You should know that because Hanukkah I think just wrapped up a couple days ago. I have one of my closest friends celebrate Hanukkah he in his family, and so I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, but I reached out to him on day five and just as a funny thing I said Hey, happy day five. We’ve been friends forever and I just thought it would be funny on day five to say Happy Hanukkah but but I also wanted to wish them happy Hanukkah because like oh my god, I forgot to wish Justin Happy Hanukkah. So on day five I sent him a message And I said, and he laughed, laughed back and said, Hey, thanks for remembering. And I and then I said, Hey, just out of curiosity, how many people who are not Jewish, you know, I’m not Jewish, and I said, How many people who don’t celebrate Hanukkah reached out to you aside from your family and whatever anyone, you know, really close to you how many friends or whatever reached out and said Happy Hanukkah and he goes, You’re the only one. And and so I thought, boy, you know, what a great opportunity for for our listeners to know, you know, do your clients celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas Kwanzaa, any of the December holidays? Do they not celebrate those? And if they don’t, and if they have, you know, different beliefs, then what are you doing to acknowledge you know, them, and you don’t have to get that you don’t have to be afraid. But you should know this information or Hey, rates are creeping up on the lending world, is this a great time to talk to, to our homeowners about, you know, maybe we should talk have a conversation about where rates are headed. Now, it doesn’t mean that you that that has to drive the conversation, but it’s certainly a reason to pick up the phone and start a conversation. Yeah, well,
Ryan D’Aprile 31:01
I mean, let’s break it down. Let’s look at look what we’re just talking about with that particular agent, right? Who’s got 4 million active buyers and sellers currently and $7 million of cool prospects, right? And forget the amount of money that they got pending this closing in January, just $11 million right there. And you look at their, their their dashboard, they have 285, but 100 of them have not heard from them since the third quarter, right? Because it gives you all that data. And there’s 20 more days in the month late, because I’m taking out a couple of days for Christmas and New Years and all that short stuff, right? So there’s 20 more days in the month, while 120 It’s five, it’s only five a day. I mean, it’s not a lot. So it’s only five a day. And then yeah, guess what Facebook, and Instagram is going to tell you what to talk to about people are posting once a week on there, and all you got to do is just comment on whatever they said, don’t write on their wall. So I’m a direct messenger tax, how you doing be their friend, that’s their job, because people want a real estate agent and a loan officer, that’s their friend, because that’s who they trust. And then you’re gonna take them to the process. All right, but you’re not going to take into the process. If you’re not friends with you, they may say, Oh, he was a buddy of mine share. I’ve been talking for three years, I’m not gonna call him, I’m gonna talk to this other real estate agent, I see their billboard, I get their postcards, I don’t have a relationship with them, but I trust them, because they’re doing their marketing. Where, I don’t know, I think the market is incredibly important. But you know, what, if I’m doing my life flow with you, and you’re here for me, once a month, I’m gonna beat on a billboard any postcard any online lead, because I’m your friend. And that’s what we’re going to hire. And they have not been able to prove that wrong. All the billions of dollars going to online lead acquisitions, and everything else, what they’ve been able to do as to prove most real estate agents won’t put in the time and effort to take care of those relationships. And therefore, that online purchase business does have a room in our industry, should it has a room industry, because the lack of activities most agents spend doing the right activities, if that makes
D.J. Paris 33:04
sense. I mean, you’re so right. And I’m just thinking back to the these fundamentals, it’s we always come back to fundamentals, it’s like if all you did was somehow communicate with everyone in your sphere once a month, it doesn’t have to be a phone call, as Ryan said, could be a text, it could be, you know, an email, it could be a direct message, it could be a PAMP a flyer or whatever just they’re hearing from you in some capacity that they’re seeing once a month. That’s going above and beyond probably 90, I don’t know, I’m just making this number up 95% of all other agents out there, probably like 99%. So if that’s all you decide to do, boy, I’d be sure I’d be I’d love to have somebody call after doing that for a year. Having not done that in their previous years and hearing the results. Well, I mean, this is all you
Ryan D’Aprile 33:54
let’s talk about. That’s and that’s what I tell everybody, you know, be be most critical about your activities, not about yourself, right. I mean, we’re all hard on ourselves as it is. I mean, gosh, I was watching. flying home yesterday is watching that. Yeah, Anthony Bourdain, a documentary if you saw it or not, but it’s no I haven’t got it’s moving. Right. And it’s, it’s really reminds me of the real human struggle that we all battle with, right? The feelings of inadequacy and all that stuff that we have to acknowledge is out there and that’s real. Okay. However, you know, talking about that 1% Right, we’re joking. You know, probably more than 98% 99% of the real estate agents do it. It’s true. And if you look at the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots, not just in realty, real estate, but the industry below, it comes down to the activities and the consciousness that people are how where are they are themselves and as Robin Sharma says are you busy being busy? Are you busy being productive? 99% of us are just busy being busy. 1% Choose To be busy being productive, and that’s what we’re talking about. And that’s why every time I come in coach, I’m gonna be talking about the same shit over and over again, because that’s what will happen. Right it is there is no new triple Lindy backflip, you know, cartwheels social media video that’s going to capture all this new business for you. It’s relationships, people, it’s having multiple relationships. And having multiple relationships is a job. It’s a work, it’s a, it’s a work in progress. And you need to track your activities you needed him doing daily. And then you could get to all the business busy stuff after you’ve set some time aside to do that stuff, which is creating relationships that’s working on your business. And that’s what’s going to give you your freedom and flexibility in the future. Because you’ll have more clients, and you know what to do with quite honestly.
D.J. Paris 35:52
Yeah, it’s always activity over results, because results almost always come as a result of activity. And well,
Ryan D’Aprile 36:00
yeah, it is. Angela Duckworth also said this, which I love. I’ll take effort over talent any day of the week. I see talented people all the time. But you know, the efforts just not there. And actually people that don’t have the talents, but man, they got the effort. And guess what there that 1%?
D.J. Paris 36:20
I am. It’s always funny, to me, is a moment that happens on most of the episodes. Maybe not most, but but I would say, you know, I don’t know, somewhere in the 50% range. But where I’m talking to it could actually happen in the pre interview. So the audience wouldn’t necessarily see this, but it happens a lot on the show, where we’ll be talking and I’ll say well, what do you think makes you different? You know, you mister or missus top producer versus, you know, other people that struggle or lead the industry. And usually it’s a pause and a look of confusion. Because they want to come up with something that’s that’s quite profound or maybe hasn’t been said before. And and I say, well, and then I sometimes have to keep going, because they might go well, I don’t really know what I do. That’s so different. Because to them, they’re just running the business as they see fit. But a lot of times I’ll you know, they’ll say something about intelligence, they’ll say, Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m not smarter, that then my cohort, my my peers, my competitors. And most of the brokers I talked to seem to have that belief that they are not inherently more skilled at being a realtor in the sense of treating the client well, and taking them through the transaction. They don’t seem to be geniuses at being a realtor, they seem to be very hardworking discipline, consistent individuals. And that, that seems it’s kind of the boring message that everybody I interview pretty much says, but there’s a reason why everybody says it.
Ryan D’Aprile 37:45
I heard this, I’ve never met Mario Graco in my life, right? Um, and I’ve never seen him speak or anything. But one agent said to me, seven years ago, they went and saw him speak at like a Chicago car. thing. And he’s got a team, right? He’s got a huge team, I believe, again, I don’t know the man. All right. But here’s what I heard an agent tell me that she heard him say, refers his clients out to his team, and he has buyer’s agents, and they buyer’s agents work with clients. And they close the deal. And then he has he has in his system that after they close, he makes sure he calls them every two weeks for six months in a row to see if they’re happy how the houses whatever else. And that generates more leads for him that he then goes out to the buyer agents to go around work with the buyer’s agents, and he stays back at the house or at the office, making the relationship calls as it can. Brilliant, brilliant, that is brilliant. And that’s how it’s done.
D.J. Paris 38:51
And it’s also it’s how it’s done. And it’s actually very simple, right? It’s not that complicated. What you would need to do to build that structure is obviously a calendar, you and you would just all you would need to do if you’re like, Well, what do I say every every two weeks? Go online and say what do homebuyers need to know after they’ve moved in? And that’ll give you a list of talking points. And even if it’s just you don’t have a talking point, just checking in? It’s been a month congratulations. It’s been 30 days, how’s everything still going? You know?
Ryan D’Aprile 39:22
It’s the D word. It takes discipline. It takes discipline, it takes self discipline, you know, and you know, for I think, for us, it may be closing and listeners here. It’s like, you know, anybody here who wants it can have it. Are you willing to be conscious? At least one to two hours a day? What’s important to you? And then are you willing to do it and when you don’t want to do it and you’re getting busy just doing busy work? Are you honest with yourself that you’re just neglecting? What is the most important thing to your business to keep you either in business or keep you on top? Because it just comes down? To all of us being self aware and self discipline and what we have to do, because the activities and actions are simple, they’re so simple. I’m almost embarrassed that I’m repeating them over and over again, like, gosh, TJ, do I have better material for you? I don’t feel I’m worthy for this coaching call. But it’s, the actions aren’t that earth shattering, it just got to be consistent.
D.J. Paris 40:20
Well, I just got back from the gym. And I’ve been with my trainer for a year and a half now. And we do the same 20 exercises a week that we rotate, and we try once in a while, get to a level where she’s like, Okay, we got to do something new. But it’s really all just variations of the exact same thing. And I Yes, is it boring? Well, sure. Parts of it can be but but thank goodness, it’s not complicated. It’s still hard. But it’s not complicated. And if all you did, like you were saying, with that individual as 100 people to contact between now and the end of the year, five calls a day, that’s real doable. That is very, very, this whole business is very doable. If you just break it down into the daily activities. And you know, that’s the one best thing I ever heard from Brian Buffini is win the day, how do I win the day? Well, I talked to five people and I, I you know, it wasn’t I closed a deal. It was I talked to five people, I took care of the clients that I already have, and you know, whatever else, but you just need to know what is it? What do you need to win the day? And it’s usually outreach, it’s almost always outreach. That’s exactly right. Awesome. Well, what a great place to wrap up, we should also make a quick mention that if you are in and I forgot that Ryan is now in Florida, or Ryan’s companies are now in Florida, as well. But if you are in Illinois, let’s see Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida. missing any are those the
Ryan D’Aprile 41:50
No, I’m actually heading down to our holiday party next week to Florida. So I’m excited excited for that,
D.J. Paris 41:54
as well. So if you are an agent, or if you’re a lender, a loan officer in those areas, and you’re looking maybe to find a firm that is going to offer you actual coaching, deeper promises, that’s what they do, what’s the best way they should reach out?
Ryan D’Aprile 42:10
You know, they could log on, they go to our website, April properties.com. You know, you could give me a phone call, I’m actually working with agents that just pick up the phone, they Googled me and they called my cell phone and I’m, I’m incredibly accessible. So you know, if you want to just have a dialogue, pick up the phone and give me a call to talk about it.
D.J. Paris 42:30
Awesome. Well, everyone, please go visit D APR properties.com. That’s D A p r i l e properties.com. And as always, we want to thank Ryan on behalf of all of our audience for continuing to listen, support our show, and also just staying with us every month. We appreciate Ryan your time. And on behalf of Ryan and myself. Also a big thank you to the audience for continuing to tell a friend, just think of one other agent that’ll be that’ll be your holiday gift to us think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this coaching moment with Ryan, and send a link to this episode from this episode to your friend. And we can always just send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com or have them pull up whatever app they’re using for podcast and do a search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Really appreciate it. Ryan, we will see you in 2022. Boy, that’s That’s amazing. Time goes by so quick. Yeah. Oh, I got I got things I need to get. I needed to not take my foot off the gas on the show and in my business the rest of the year. So this was a great reminder to me to not cut corners right now, when everyone else probably is starting to think to do that. So great reminder. All right. Thank you have a Happy New Year. Thank you as well. And we’re excited to have Ryan on as well in 2022. So thanks Ryan and everyone else who’s on the listing on the show. Thank you so much and we’ll see you next time.
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