Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
In this episode Ryan and D.J. discuss Ryan’s technology company and what it offers. Ryan talks about how to prepare for the fall season and whether an agent’s ready for the spring market. Next, Ryan analyzes an agent’s sales funnel to get a clearer idea of what’s next. Ryan and D.J. also discuss how to maintain and nurture relationships with your network.
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 Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Are you prepped for the winter and then spring market coming up? Well, we’re going to talk about exactly what you should do to get ready today. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering clients a real sales and marketing solution to generate more business and real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. And real geeks includes an easy to use CRM so that when your leads sign up on your website, you can actually track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness so visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod again real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business. This episode is also brought to you by really aerial maps. Now an aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before an investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you can spend selling real estate and if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. Well, you’ll love really, really as a real estate map generator that lets you custom design professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales flyers and listing appointments in minutes, not hours. Simply enter the subject property address, auto populate nearby retail logos with the click of a button and download your aerial retail map really turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps and more time making money. Get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting reedley.com and signing up for an account no credit card required. Again, that’s reedley.com REBL i e.com. Get your aerial retail maps done fast. And now on to our show.
Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host to the show today is our monthly series called coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about Ryan, if you’re new to our show. Ryan actually comes on every single month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de abril is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at depot properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and he’s also in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida. Jaipur properties focuses on high customer service, managing and executing their agents marketing and transaction management for them, so that their agents can stay focused on their business. Now if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or maybe you’re just not getting the attention you need from your existing company, please check out depot properties, visit D APR properties.com. That’s D A p r i L II. Just like it’s I guess just like it sounds D APR properties.com. There’ll be a link to that in our show notes. We should also mention that in addition to running a real estate brokerage Ryan also has a title company, a mortgage arm. And also I feel like I’m missing one lot of technology arm as well. So Ryan really runs a lot of different companies in within the real estate space. So his perspective, when we talk about how to stay on target is not just focused around brokers. It’s really kind of a holistic approach. So we’re excited to have him on and get his wisdom. Ryan welcome.
Ryan D’Aprile 4:32
Thank you. Yeah, software are our software companies and nallo so it’s it’s a custom made just since you brought it up. It’s it’s a custom a CRM that integrates with the MLS and other providers out there. We’re actually going to market with it we’re going to mark first with the mortgage product. So we’ve had a lot a tremendous amount of success. I just started just started calling on individuals about three weeks ago and getting a tremendous amount of interest on it, but we’ve been running our businesses off For the past couple of years, it’s been really successful. So we’re really excited about that. So I appreciate you mentioned that.
D.J. Paris 5:05
And it also just sort of whet the appetite of of the listeners as this, you know, there’s a million different CRMs. For realtors in the marketplace, what makes yours in particular I find most attractive and interesting is that it’s really what I would call all event focus. So it’s able to identify reasons for an agent to then reach out to their sphere of influence their existing clients, it actually identifies opportunities, and really prompts the user or the agent to then take action, which a lot of CRMs are just like, upload your database, create some sort of strategy for staying in touch, and then it will remind you to do that, but yours actually identifies opportunities, which I think is so cool.
Ryan D’Aprile 5:46
Well, a lot of them I find have too much information, and most people won’t, you’re using about 10% of it. And so I try to you know, keep the you know, the acronym kiss, keep it simple, stupid, and just minimize it. So we actually could track our business be very well aware of it, be aware of where our businesses are coming for, we have a snapshot, or it tells you your main lead source, or where your primary amount of your businesses, anniversaries, and closing dates, all that kind of stuff. tie into social media connections with your network, so you can see what’s going on with them. track how you’re, but you know, you got to participate in it, right? It’s like, anything, you know, it’s your, you’re gonna get out of it, what you put into it. And, you know, so that’s why coaching is always so important. I was with a loan officer of ours today. And he said, I could spend four hours in this thing. It’s got so much Mike exactly, you can and they’ll tell you exactly what to do step by step, and then it becomes a process, not just a guessing game, what am I going to do today, you know, most of us wake up and we just react to the day where I I’d rather you have a plan laid out and just run that plan consistently.
D.J. Paris 6:57
Yeah, I encourage everyone who’s listening, this is the this is such a simple thing that everybody already knows. But I encourage you the night before, you know, to really go over your day, and maybe just identify the three to five major things you want to accomplish the next day, and then also revisit that in the morning because I even I knowing all of that I still have to remind myself Okay, um, before I go to bed, let’s take a look at tomorrow. And let’s identify a few things. So obviously, that’s a very simple obvious step, but something that is easily overlooked.
Ryan D’Aprile 7:30
Yeah, yeah. What do you want to talk about today? Well, let’s talk about the market. Let’s talk about, you know, we’re coming in pretty soon to the fourth quarter. I mean, it goes like that, doesn’t it? But how do we, you know, prepare for this fall season, which is upon us? And then, you know, more importantly, are you ready for the spring market? And what does your spring market look like? And
D.J. Paris 7:56
I want to pause just for a moment because I want to, I want to mention why I think this is so important, because I spend a lot of time with realtors, obviously, we have a lot at our firm, and then I am involved with our local association. So I even get to talk to a lot of realtors, outside of of our company. And even the most really the more successful realtors that I talked to, everyone seems to be really focused on what’s going on today in the market. Right? And we, you know, if I ask somebody, how’s it going? They talk about what’s going on today? Oh, inventories down rates are up. You know, it’s a struggle. And I don’t hear a lot about well, what else should I be thinking about today? Right. So I’m excited for us to provide some additional insight into maybe a different way to think about today. And you were saying, you know, let’s think about the spring.
Ryan D’Aprile 8:46
Absolutely isn’t in fact, I’ll I’ll even share my screen and see if I can show you how we look at it. Is that okay
D.J. Paris 8:52
with you? Sure. And we’ll just describe it for our audio listeners. That’s fine. Oh, yeah.
Ryan D’Aprile 8:56
Okay, fine. That’s right. It’s right. It’s a podcast and thing because we’re on video here. But let me see if I could pull this up. Can I Be careful some confidentiality here. So let me just think of how I can do this here. Um, I’m gonna make this little bit. Let me come over here. Okay, I’m gonna make this a little bit bigger. But let me show you how this works.
D.J. Paris 9:20
And I’ll do my best to describe it to our audience.
Ryan D’Aprile 9:24
Oh, you have to allow me to share. Okay, we’ll do that. Sorry about that. I just just came.
D.J. Paris 9:30
I always should be able to now Yep.
Ryan D’Aprile 9:39
Okay, so you may see my screen here. I can see it. Yeah. So I’m just going to kind of quickly through this. I don’t want to be on it too long here. But like, this is in leads. This is a sales funnel. Right? And I’m gonna make it bigger. So you don’t really see client names here. Okay. So is that okay? Yep. This is one of our agents, actual dashboards, right. You could, you know, here Er, this is the visual cues are incredibly important, right? So this particular agent has closed $90 million year to date $3 million, currently pending 5.6 million active another 5.6 of clients that they feel will close this calendar year that that comes from this here closing this calendar year. So, you know, in coaching and working with this agent, this agent can manage this themselves by looking at it, they can go and filter over here by this year. And it’ll show just individuals that you have going to share, so I’m not going to show their names there. But you could go through and calibrate like, Do I really have $5.68 million of leads not active clients leads, right, here’s active, that’s a totally different animal leads that will close this calendar year. And now there were like four and a half months left in the year that’s it’s gonna get tighter and tighter. So you’re you got to get more and more critical on these particular leads, and then shift on pay, are they more or next year? Or are you even certain that they’re going to transact a higher yield? So on this particular loan off, agents dashboard here, you’ll see there $18.9 million closing next year. That’s wonderful. So I’m going to click on closing next year, right, and you’re gonna see there’s a 33 leads. So I would come over to here and when to look at again, I’m doing my best not to show you the client name. Sure. But there’s a last note date right here. Right. So now I would organize like, okay, so of this net. And this is again, you could tell this is this, this, let’s just look this little this agent will do anywhere between 25 and 30 million in volume this year. Seven years in the business, and monitors or business takes it very serious what their day is they use this dashboard, consistently, this is another product. And now we’re teaching and coaching our agents that hate, make sure you close this $5.68 million in business this year, and you’re taking care of it. And of course, look at your network and make sure you’re in flow with your network. But look at all of this business that you have next year click on it. That’s 3333 individuals for a total of $90 million of business. Almost last time we touched base with him was last time we saw him for a cup of coffee and I was I suddenly went to dinner lunch with them. This is next year this year is over this year, we’re just maintaining and closing out what we got currently going on. You gotta be looking downfield what’s going on next year.
D.J. Paris 12:21
So have a quick question. So looking at this, describing it, there are we mentioned about just about under 6 million impossible closings this year that or that rather, the this particular again, it’s I know it’s a mortgage agent, but really, it’s a real city. This is a real I’m sorry, this is real estate agent, this organization was a little bit different. Yeah. So So there’s about, you know, 6 million or so that’s that we want to close this year. And you said better make sure they’re closing this year, or or updating it to maybe next year or removing them from right from the funnel. How do you how do you recommend somebody goes in to that group? And, and sees it you know, what’s the actual process of staying in touch to say, Hey, are you are you going to close without just asking them? Or do you recommend just asking the client are you planning on?
Ryan D’Aprile 13:09
Do you ask, you know, you focus first on relationship, but then you got to be direct and have conversation. Hey, when are we going to go out? When do you want to list your home? You know, where’s the hungry price that you that’s what you’re gonna ask internally, if they’re a buyer, when do you want to get out next? And you got to? It’s like, well, let’s get out. You know, let’s start looking in November. It’s September what? 13th today? So are 12 Yes, yesterday was September 11. So if somebody says yeah, no, right. Thanks for reaching out, you know, I’m thinking we’re ready. But we don’t want to get out to like maybe like right after Thanksgiving. I’m coming here. I’m changing them to closing next next year. Yeah, they’re not going away. It’s just when I come over to my snapshot, right in my snapchat saying, Hey, I’m forecasted. 34 million this year, I’ve closed 20 million. I got 3.2 million hours of pending, got 5.6 are active. But here’s the 5.6 that are starting to close. These are the leads. So this would go down this would go up. Right, here’s your needs. And so you could have your timeline 5.8 this year 11. On certainly one transact and 90 million for next year. Right. Here’s your lead sources you can see 50% from the network referring them 40% From network referral, then we have open house internet relocation leads whatnot. So in you do the exact same thing with your actives, you come over here and act as their act of actually exactly what active means you’re currently working with them, right? So he’s got $4.96 million of sellers and $735,000 with the buyers, which comes out to that 5.6 number which is happens to be very similar to what the leads are. They’re closing this year, but they’re two different categories. This is 1414 active clients will come over to Leeds $5.68 million and a total of Have 16 leads now. Now you close out your year. Now you calibrate it, you figure that out, you close it out. And then you look downfield and say okay, great, I got 90 million here for next year, which is 33 people, you better be in flow with those 33 people this next, you know, four months so that you are their realtor in 2023. What
D.J. Paris 15:26
you’ve worked with 1000s of agents over your tenure as as you were an agent yourself, of course, you now have a company with hundreds and hundreds of, of agents and loan officers and different different different sort of jobs within the real estate industry. But with respect to realtors, I wonder what percentage of agents know what their actual pipeline looks like? I bet it’s a pretty low number who actually know okay, well, they might know where they’re at for the year. But do they really have a good sense of what’s closing before the end of the year? Yeah, maybe what’s closing next year, that’s got to be even a smaller percentage of people who know this, I wonder just by just by forecasting this way, what this does to someone’s business, even if it’s, it’s kind of like I always heard, if you just write down your goals, you have a better chance of achieving them. Even if you don’t do anything, obviously, you have to do things to but I suspect this is a major first step, just getting it all down and reviewing the numbers.
Ryan D’Aprile 16:20
It really is. And I think the key is maintaining your business and and a lot of us, gosh, I would venture to say 92 to 94% of the real estate agents out there are are reactive and not proactive, and loan officers to like look, the past 20 years in the mortgage lending business. It’s been order taking, there’s just no, except for 2008. It’s been order taking, and it has shifted. Loan Officers have got to be out there, they got to be proactive, they got to be creating relationships with their sphere of influence their network and real estate agents. And, you know, it’s probably the worst mortgage lending business we’ve seen in 20 years. And but now you’re seeing 94% of the loan officers struggling real estate agents, or real estate market shifting too. You don’t have to struggle, the business is always there. But if you’re a reactive real estate agent, when the market dips, your business will dip too. There’s no doubt. Now if you’re proactive agent when the market dips, your business will dip as well. But not dramatically. In most cases, you’ll probably have an uptick versus a minor downtick. But in the mortgage lending business, we’re seeing loan officers businesses down 45 to 65%. Real estate agents, you don’t want that. But you will get it if you’re reactive. And and I
D.J. Paris 17:43
even think there’s little subtle, subtle ways to start the day that that sort of create more reactivity. I know for me, I had to stop checking my phone the moment I woke up, because I used to check to see what emails came through over the night. Not that you don’t need to look at that. Of course you do. But it put me in a reactive mindset. Literally, within the first moment of waking up. I was like I better see see what happened over over the over the night. And it’s really never anything that can’t wait an hour or two before I start my day. But I don’t do that anymore. Because it puts me in a reactive mindset. It’s like okay, now I need to react to this. Now I need to and I’ve like No, no, I need to first set my intention for the day and really have a good awareness of what my day is going to look like. Then I can go back and and I now just only allow myself to check emails a few times a day.
Ryan D’Aprile 18:30
Yeah, that’s one of the best things you can do. It’s not easy. It’s hard. That phone is a powerful thing. I was at Iowa with my daughter over the weekend we were talking about and I left my wallet at home. Oh no. Yeah, I’m wife wife was with me. But you know, but the tab came and I just asked the lady Do you do Apple page and of course they’re cute. My daughter said bad you soon won’t need a wallet or credit cards anymore. I said honey you won’t need a wallet anymore. Right I mean it’s it’s it’s a matter of time where you won’t even need a why hate why that lump in my back that
D.J. Paris 19:10
annoying? Yeah, stand it
Ryan D’Aprile 19:12
and so um but because of that I’m getting stupid Wall Street Journal alerts. I’m Gam factoring that shit off right? I’m getting I turned my email alerts off my text messages off. I’m so it’s me too. It’s like any boss, right? It’s like, you know, things like kryptonite, once it grabs you, you know, it’ll control your day. And you know, I heard this expression one time like if you treat the market like God, right? If you treat the market like God, then like God giveth God taketh away. That’s what’s going to happen to you. So you can’t treat the market like God, you got to take control of your marketplace and your marketplace is your network. And your network should be in a database and you should have a CRM and you should use and live in it’s here. I mean, there’s a lot of people that are part time passive in this business. They it’s their full income, right? But it’s uh, it just it’s a very passive approach to it. But the top of the top, you know, the guests that you have on these shows, they treat it like a business, they’re dead serious, they’re involved, they probably do know what they have closing next year, they probably do they know the name of the clients and, and their temperatures and whatnot. And that’s why I built this, I didn’t see anything out there like that. So that’s what he created for our company, I’m now going to start sharing it with others.
D.J. Paris 20:26
It’s very exciting. And I do think this idea of, you know, text messages, we could talk about this for a moment, because I would like to get your take on this. So text message. And I only bring this up because I hear a lot of agents talk about it is that the challenge with one of the challenges with having our devices with us at all times, aside from being Well, part of being reactive is clients text. And most people, I think, find that that’s a much bigger part of their business than it used to be people are more comfortable. And a text exchange doesn’t have a beginning or an ending? Well, it has a beginning, but it doesn’t have an ending really, right. So people can just continue on this conversation anytime, day or night. Really, when there are no boundaries around texts, really. So I’m curious and how you coach your agents to not let the texting become like because it can be infinite. And whenever. And you see that text come in and you don’t want to be reactive, you’re like, I’m only going to respond a couple times during the day. But how do you set about the right boundary? And how do you let the client know that I’m only responding? Or do you recommend going a different way with that? Yeah, no,
Ryan D’Aprile 21:30
I so Okay, so there’s two different things. So one, it seems like you’re asking how do you manage the client and your time, so you’re, you got to react to what they want. But so your old days not reactive versus proactive? And so you have to do got a time block? And you have to say, When am I going to be the one sending the text out? Versus texts coming in? We’re not going to be the one send the texts out, why don’t we where am I going to track it. And so that I know, hey, DJ Paris is in my network, I want to be in touch with him once a month be in his body. Because the reality is once every seven years, he buys and sells a home, and every single year for people in his network, buy or sell a home. So he’s got potential for referrals for me, right, that’s just how it comes down to. So if I have too many people in my network that I’m in flow with every single month, potential 800 referrals from my network, and 16% of them are going to transact. So that’s another 32 potential transactions. So where’s my business come from? Where do I make my money is being in flow with DJ Paris, who is not actually an active client? Right? He’s somebody that’s in my network. And then I go on, and blog. So that’s why I built this thing, kind of like the old you know, the the Toyota manufacturing system where it’s, you know, just in time to combine the visual flow, you have, you have different silos, right? You have one is your network, and there’s 203 interference, people in there, that’s my job, I’m going to be proactive with them. Then I’ll come over my next one, which my leads closing this year, closing next year, and that’s where I’m gonna transact those leads live in that network tab, I’m skipping over them because it says it’s in your funnel. It’s either in your leads, or you’re active, or you’re under contract, tab. So when I come over to my network, and I’ve been proactive, I’ll see DJ Paris, and I touch base with him in August 15. Of 2022. It’s over 12. And guess what, I sent him a Facebook message. And that’s the note I sent. So now I’m going to just do a little research two minutes, I’m gonna pick a phone and I’m going to shoot you a text message. That’s how I’m going to do it. Now, when
D.J. Paris 23:27
we’ve been talking about about monitoring that activity, social media activity in the sense of our, you know, hey, when’s the last time I proactively, you know, reached out to DJ? And what was the the way I did it? Did I do it via text via social media?
Ryan D’Aprile 23:42
Now, right, yeah, that needs to be tracked, that needs it. And that’s for you, that your borrower, your, your, your buyer, or seller, they’re not going to it’s for you, right. And again, it’s nurturing relationships. So I see DJ, and he was at Mercer recording this past weekend. And he put it on Facebook and said, Oh, my gosh, DJ, got to friends with siblings over misery accordion, we got a call from the bums outing every year, right. And also, because of that, I’m able to create immense, immediate connection with you. And then I move on to the next important person in my network. And that’s me nurturing that relationship. And that’s the proactive. Now when I go to text you that I might see five text messages from active clients, or leads, I gotta, I gotta move on. I got it. I gotta push those aside and go through mine. I got DJ, I’m doing seven a day. I got six more to do. I start at nine I’ll be done at 945 and now I could get over to those text messages. But before I get all those text messages, I go to the network. I’m gonna go to my leads. Okay, I got 45 leads of those 45 leads. Seven of them have not heard from me in three weeks. Great. Now just get seven to go. And then all 45 have heard from me within the past three weeks. And now you go to the React that let’s go file these active clients of text me to do The Gourmet flights, I got 15 active clients, and seven taxonomy, I’ll update that, and I will knock out the other eight. I’ve just accomplished an entire day work by 11 o’clock in the morning. And I can now do whatever I want with the day. Right.
D.J. Paris 25:14
And what we haven’t talked about is servicing existing clients, we haven’t talked about checking the market, we are talking about business building activities, which are staying in touch, in your case with this example of with your network, monitoring it so that you actually are tracking it rather, and putting all the activity in. So you know exactly how long it’s been. So that because people might be listening going, Okay, well, I know I have to reach out to these 30 people today, or however many people are on my show up on my CRM today. But now you get to get a bit creative with it. You don’t have to call 30 people you can or you can Oh, you know, you can see what they’re doing posting on social, Like Ryan said he saw that I was I was at an event this weekend. And so he might comment on that, that that counts, right? Anything counts, it doesn’t have to be Hey, when are you buying or selling? It just has to be some sort of reach out? In there’s lots of ways to do that. So it’s not like you have to call everyone and say, What are you buying? You’re selling? Because Ryan knows I’m probably not buying or selling for a while.
Ryan D’Aprile 26:14
Exactly. That’s exactly right. And it’s going to be more more focused on you and the relationship, right. And then that way you attract business instead of chasing business at some point, especially in different businesses that you’re in. So if you’re mortgage lender listening to the show, you need to ask for the referral. It’s more appropriate in a business to business environment that loan officers are in versus a business to consumer. Which real estate agents are loan officers, of course, are as well because they have to deal with the consumer. But you know, a lot of majority of us probably 80% of us or our sales calls are on those real estate agents.
D.J. Paris 26:53
So that’s thinking like, I was thinking it’s it’s that that I think it’s m Scott Peck wrote the book, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. That he might have been the road less traveled guy anyway, somebody wrote, actually, it was Robert Frost, the poet but anyway, the expression, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. I don’t remember who wrote who said that or wrote it, but
Ryan D’Aprile 27:12
less traffic up there.
D.J. Paris 27:16
That’s right, because I was just thinking, so I moved into a new development a year and a half ago. And you know how many postcards I’ve received from realtors? Now again, am I going to move anytime soon? Or people who move it into a development moving? Probably not, but a heck of a good time to start a relationship? Maybe we didn’t have good experiences with our Realtors, not everyone does, right? I have gotten exactly zero postcards. Zero. That’s,
Ryan D’Aprile 27:40
that’s so so that’s another point for all of our listeners here, right? I mean, the market shifting, you got, it’s going to be a flight to quality, you got to be on your game. If you want to have a similar year you had in 2020 and 2021. You’ve it’s not, it’s not going to just come you’ve got to be deliberate, you got to be proactive. One of the things that we should all be doing is in our database, right? We have previous sales, we should be looking at 2021 and 2020, sales and even 2019 We should be looking at data close. And we should be in tune with our past buyer clients on their home anniversaries, especially the ones for the immediate year. That’s where your highest degree of referrals are going to come from. But even the past three years staying, that’s where like that juicy referral business comes from. As you saw on the agent’s dashboard, I just had a $20 million production year to date. 50% was from his network. The other 50% was from his network referring him. That’s 10 hours or referrals. People had no idea. But the network he nurtured and took care of referred in that business. By the way, that average price point is just over $300,000 that $20 million producer. So that’s like 70 Plus units in a year. So it’s so for all the listeners across the country, right? You know, who start saying to myself, well, he’s in Chicago, they’re probably eight 900,000 hours not that person. That person is average price points in the mid three, in fact, 303,000 hours in Chicagoland average price and like the climbed up in the past year or so. But those numbers are attainable anywhere. You just got to get a database, you got to get a group of people, you got to create a network and nurture that network. You got to be consistent, you know, Denzel Washington, I saw a little clip on him, it was great. Like, if you’re not committed, you’re never gonna start. But if you’re not consistent, you’re never going to finish. So many people are just not consistent. I truly feel a database. A good CRM will bring you back to that consistency and, and don’t get distracted with all the bells and whistles because less is more, in my opinion to a good CRM.
D.J. Paris 29:48
And you know, doing the little it’s always the little things. It’s it’s remembering someone’s home anniversary. Well, it’s actually not remembering because no one’s going to remember that especially the person who moved in is probably not going to remember it either. But your CRM I’m just going to remember that and it’s going to tell you today so and so’s home anniversary, are you going to call them text them, send them a social media post, drop off a gift, send them a card, you’re going to do something. And
Ryan D’Aprile 30:11
that will help you with that as well, client giant, I can’t attest to them, because I’ve never use them. But my agents have, and they like it a lot. So I’m giving them a shout out, even though I don’t know them from Adam. But I’ve heard from a lot of agents to use it. It’s really good for buyer clients when you’re active with them. And then it’s also very good for like those anniversaries. It’s customized, it’s not branded, right, which is good. It’s like coming from you. It’s genuine. So that’s a that’s a good resource for you guys to be looking at. And again, that’s going to squeeze that orange and get you more referrals.
D.J. Paris 30:49
Absolutely. And so that’s really interesting. So you were let’s go back to the example of the person that we looked at just we don’t have to see any of the stuff. But that’s really interesting. So seven years in the business 30 million average price point is actually less than the average Chicago home. So it’s not like this person is playing in the ultra high net worth space, mostly. You know, they’re they’re working with average, people
Ryan D’Aprile 31:13
read out the 14 clients that they’re currently active with that he’s currently with 260,000 hours 285,000 through $35,000 $180,000 250,000 hours. 475 That’s a big one. 1 million we got a big one there. $400,000 275. I mean, it’s your I mean, besides the exception of that $1 million, one, but there’s another one for $35,000, that’s going to bring that back. Right? It’s, you know, sold, you know, 67 units, year to date, $100,000 to 30 $700,000 155 200,000 hours, 645 $80,000 363,100 45,000. That’s just a quick sample, I’ll stop going on and on. But I wanted to just, you know, for your viewers to hear, like, you know, this is an individual who sold $20 million year to date is still below 30 years old, you know, and
D.J. Paris 32:13
is probably going to close right around 30 or 28 or so.
Ryan D’Aprile 32:17
Yeah, I mean, it’s already at $24 million, with what’s pending, as well. If you had, if you had what they’ve closed, what he’s closer to date, what’s currently under contracts at 20, about 24 million,
D.J. Paris 32:28
that is a heck of a good those are, those are fantastic numbers for somebody in their 20s. Well, for any age, but certainly somebody who’s not even 30 yet. And for being seven years in the industry and for being in a year where there’s we hear a lot of doom and gloom. That is That is fantastic. So So what’s the secret to that person’s success? It just activity and consistency? Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 32:50
you know, here’s the reality. In my opinion, this this person has bought in to the system, the process that we’ve coached on right now, it didn’t fight it just kind of fall through, had mediocre first year had Okay, second year, came out third year stayed consistent. I have a lot of agents that are having great bang out years. But I know they got something else coming to them because they’re not being consistent. I’ve seen it time and time again. And so it’s just it’s are you consistent with it? Or are you caught up on the latest and newest fad, and trend and everybody’s going to is going to come and tell us here’s the future of real estate, this is direction is going to go? I haven’t in my 20 years seen real estate changed that much and not going to start believing now that it’s going to completely change to a different angle. Either it comes down to individuals strength or relationships. And you and I were talking about teams, I don’t think the whole industry is gonna go to teams. I really don’t.
D.J. Paris 33:53
That’s good. Cuz that’s that’s all I keep reading about. So I’m glad to hear a different perspective.
Ryan D’Aprile 33:58
It’s not
D.J. Paris 34:00
I mean, most people are individual practitioners. So
Ryan D’Aprile 34:04
it’s going to continue to be like that and that’s why I think you know, real estate agents you know, the concept of selling your book of business sure it’d be nice thing it’s okay excited about it. There’s nothing there you guys it’s through relationships it’s you’re going to ride out the sunset in this business put away max out that SEP IRA that or self directed 401 k be smart with your money. But you know, it is high unless you’re in a completely transient marketplace. And totally transient marketplaces, say like, Chicago, right? Downtown Chicago, or Miami York or New York, right? Yeah, eyeline leads are going to give you more there right you’re gonna be able to be more transient. You know, open houses are probably gonna be more successful because there’s not such tight communities right. But in the majority of America right there, suburbs or neighborhoods or communities be a part of that community. And those individuals are hiring you because they know you they like you. They trust you. They got a relationship with you. That’s how people I mean, it’s very arbitrary what how people pick real estate agents, it’s the person that comes to mind. Right? And they usually call him one person. And same thing you know, when times when you’re you’re building a home or you’re gonna get a remodeling project done, or you’re even hiring an attorney. It’s who the first person because I sure as I like you helped me. It’s just how it works.
D.J. Paris 35:35
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, I want to go back to that individual per se. I just realized something. And I don’t I just want to sort of put this in the mind of our listeners again. Somebody’s in their seventh year, still not 30 years old yet. And my head? I can’t remember. But yes, well, right around we’ll say right around 30 and seven years in and is basically closing a deal with every five to six days. He has a transaction closing something like that. He said he did about 7070.
Ryan D’Aprile 37:21
Let’s just look care. under contract. Yeah, about 70.
D.J. Paris 37:30
So this is somebody who’s closing a transaction essentially every week. That is remarkable. Write that in there. And that is somebody who the parent and by the way, half of his business came from his sphere of influence directly. The other half came from his referrals from a sphere of influence. It’s not like he’s even buying leads
Ryan D’Aprile 37:51
40% came from his network directly. Okay, so help me with my math, what’s four times 728? Right, so 20 deals from his network. 32% came from his network referring him so referrals for his network. Okay, so another 22 or so. Right? So what do we get total? What add those two together? 60 something or no? Yes. 70 to 73%. Then 30% came from for sale signs. 8% came from a lead from that listing. Right, amazing. Yeah. And then an open house. You know what I mean? It’s like it all comes down to the power that network and then once you start going you start getting listings second leads from your listings, and starts to snowball.
D.J. Paris 38:43
Yeah, I mean, this is somebody who has not been handed a lead. I have not heard Oh, he’s either purchasing leads or been handed leads by the company. This is somebody who literally just is nurtured their sphere of influence for seven years, is very profitable.
Ryan D’Aprile 38:56
And what he’s close here today is a half a million dollars in gross commission income. That’s a very profitable GCI. And there’s a lot of people that do that kind of GCI, but it’s not nearly that profitable, because you’re paying $10,000 a month for leads or more. I’ve seen it.
D.J. Paris 39:14
You know, that that is really that that case study of that individual that is a remarkable person, because it doesn’t it might not seem remarkable, but if we think about all of those numbers, they’re stacked together is that is a heck of a that’s a heck of a career right there. For somebody who’s about 30 years old.
Ryan D’Aprile 39:32
That person does not live in Chicago. Okay, he’s in one of our outlying markets. And that person is not originally from that area moved there. Seven years. And you just saw, it’s all from network and referral network. So anybody can do it. It’s just are you committed? And if you’re, if you’re not committed, you never start and there’s probably 80% of our real estate agents are like that. And then are you consistent because if you’re not consistent, if you’re not consistent, you’re not going to finish. So it takes To really tough, you know, tubes of iron in your body to be committed and to be consistent. And I applaud those that have consistently listened to your, your podcasts that go to coaching that go on to the next level. You know, there are some that will just come easy to do, and they’ll just continue to do it. But for those of us that it’s not that there are tools out there, they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do. But you kind of use them you got to be in um, it’s surprising what would happen to your business to be dedicated three hours to it proactively, versus four or five hours just being reactive all day long.
D.J. Paris 40:38
Yeah, I think you’ve really have to figure out a way to turn off the alerts the notifications, and put the blinders on like the horses have in racing and just focus on the task ahead. And it’s hard, because we’re all so connected. And it is it is a bit of setting up your systems to sort of make sure like when I go to the gym, I make sure everything’s turned off. When I wake up in the morning, I make sure it’s turned off when I There’s certain times of the day when I we want to do what’s called one mindfulness where you’re focused on one activity at a time, so you can give it its full attention. And you’re not pulled because we get a dopamine reward when when we’re reactive, because it feels like we just did something productive, we replied to an email, we, we and you have to do those things. We just want to structure it so that you’re doing it intentionally versus oh, it just came across my plate. And I, I really didn’t want to pick up the phone right now. So I’m going to deal with that instead of picking up the phone and calling somebody and saying, Hey, I saw you were just on vacation. Where do you go? Tell me about it? That’s being proactive?
Ryan D’Aprile 41:38
Absolutely. And then your focus more on your business than the news and the marketplace. Because if you listen to the news, you just watch the marketplace, you can go to a very dark place.
D.J. Paris 41:48
You, you you? Well, look, we know this about social media, I think you know, what you’ve said about social media, about it being the way to maybe the most healthy way to think about it from a business perspective is this is your your research and development. This is paying attention to what’s going on with your clients so that you have a reason to reach out to them, versus, you know, really trying to make a splash yourself by promoting yourself. But you should probably figure out a way to do that, of course, too. And I know you agree with that, but using it more as a research and development tool versus a you know, yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 42:22
you shouldn’t be promoting yourself, you bet you should be putting equal amount of effort into nurturing your network. Now most people spend a person their time promoting themselves, and maybe probably less than 5% nurturing the network. If people got that to 5050, their business would just take off, which is absolutely take off. But you know, we’re still in that, even though Facebook and Instagram and tic tac and everything else been around for over a decade now. if not longer, right. But it’s still kind of new to us. You know, we’re kind of jumping into that and making that like our center point of branding.
D.J. Paris 43:03
Yeah, you have to be really careful because because as we as you and I know and I mean, the research is really clear at this point, that the more time you spend on social media absorbing it is you actually get you know, you’re unhappy or your happiness goes down, you’re you feel more disconnected. So there’s a lot of good reasons to stay away from social media as a an entertainment vehicle. So if you can then say, Okay, well, what’s really can be useful about it is knowing what’s going on in my clients lives and reacting to that, that is going to bring you business,
Ryan D’Aprile 43:34
you know, and it’s interesting, so Right, like, like, you know, we could I won’t name but we can name some high profile social media people, right. And their target market is national. Right? So a real estate coach, say Buffini or give me another one. Tom Ferry. Thank you. That’s what I’m trying to say. Tom Ferry right Surrett Am I saying his name right? Yep, sir. Hmm. Right, sir. Hi, right. Those guys right there targeting a national national network, real estate agents. You know, our clients are not national. It’s really local to our network, and how many of them are really living on it? And the reality is, it’s very difficult to boost real estate related type of advertising because of fair housing. Oh, I get did things adds denied all the time that have nothing to do with Fair Housing simply because real estate’s mentioned in the title and who you should be promoting that to as your network your friends and your friends of friends. Well, you can’t do that. So the reality is probably five to 6%. Your network may be seen, not seen, don’t do it. But you got to complement it with direct mail, email marketing, some outdoor marketing, but again, if you are like most real estate agents 5% Being involved with your network and 95% branding, networking and just being reactive, you get that bounce 5050, you’re going to do what that individual that I just showed you is close $20 million year to date. And I can take the individual and put them side by side with other real estate agents that I know, in different marketplaces. And there’s no way that real estate agent should be selling more real estate than the other agent. But he’s just committed and dedicated, being consistent. And that’s all comes down to it’s my job to make everybody crystal clear. That’s the only differentiator, any one of you can have when you decide a to start, and then be to be consistent with it and fall through it for a full year.
D.J. Paris 45:36
Yeah, if you if you just too well, it’s, it’s really you need a guide, I think you need somebody that can help get you out of the habits that you’ve created that aren’t helpful. And you need a guide, meaning a coach, an accountability partner, this is where coaching comes in. And this is where you guys, your firm in particular really helps it not that every agent wants that particular help. But boy, I know, if I was a working agent, I would want somebody keeping me accountable, making sure I have systems in place to make sure that I stay on target, because we all know that everyone listening, we all have parts of our life that we want to do other things that we can’t get ourselves to do. Right, maybe we want to go to the gym more, maybe we want to spend more time with our kids, maybe we want to be better about our finances, whatever it might be, or maybe work more on our business or whatever it is, and we just don’t seem to do it. And if you can get a coach to help you. It’s worth the investment.
Ryan D’Aprile 46:31
Well, we’ll also so even besides coaching, some people don’t want to coach you, but what we’ll do is we’ll take the transaction management and the monthly marketing off your hands, and provide that for you and have it done for you so that you’re more motivated, being engaged with that network, and then taking care of your CRM and tracking your business. You know, I will, you know, I’ll attest to my wife, she does 25 million in volume every year. And you know, she, I mean, her marketing is very simple. It’s done consistently, it consists of social media posts once or twice a week, which you know, are provided to her postcard once a month to her network in her farm, some Maggie’s local magazine ads in the neighborhood. And that’s it, and she doesn’t even touch that stuff. And she’s in flow with probably five or six people in her network a day. And therefore she is able to be a mom first and foremost, and focus on three girls and taking care of me and everything else while putting up tremendous numbers and not killing herself. Because she’s consistent with it. Could she do more? Absolutely. But she doesn’t want to. She’s great where she is. So my,
D.J. Paris 47:45
by the way, that’s a that’s a heck of a good full time income without all the other responsibilities. Right? Just being an agent, that’s a heck of a good income.
Ryan D’Aprile 47:54
Absolutely. Anybody can have it. Anybody can have it, but it’s again. Are you more on the MLS? Are you more in your transaction management software? Are you more texting and emailing active and existing clients? And are you just not prospecting? And when I say prospecting is that calling and asking for a referral, it’s calling and nurturing relationships. And following a system, it’s people choose to drive blind every single day with the most important part of their life, besides family and health. But you know, the third part business, which is income and financial health, it’s like it’s beyond me, you got to take control. Anybody could do, you could start whenever you want. And especially times now like now it’s the calm, people don’t realize how more more focused you have to be. It’s not just going to come to you, we can’t be order takers, we got to be very proactive. Gotta be very business oriented, and be very proactive versus reactive.
D.J. Paris 48:54
And what this whole will do, having structure and knowing exactly what your day is, you know, sort of looks like and I know things change, of course, but knowing that the approximate structure of the day will alleviate a tremendous amount of anxiety. Because what you’ll find is you’re not worried as much about when’s that important phone call going to come in with somebody who needs me to buy or sell you, you are taking proactive steps and you’re making your own luck. those phone calls will come in over time, like you said, Work this for a year and see what happens. And then just continue to work it forever. And there you go. That’s it.
Ryan D’Aprile 49:29
It’s that simple. Awesome. Well,
D.J. Paris 49:31
what a great place to wrap up I should mention for anyone who is in the show who lives in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida. You know, Ryan has company they’re not in every part of every state. But if you live in those states, and you’re interested in learning more about what Ryan’s companies do, again, they have real estate brokerage, they’ve got a lending. So if you’re a loan officer and you’re looking to see what other options are out there, of course speak to them too. They have title they’ve got a technology firm where they’re putting out software Um, but if you’re just, you know, most most of our listeners are going to be agents, if you’re really just wanting to see what other firms offer, you know, check out April properties, they really have a unique value proposition. They’re not just like all of the other firms, they really, really try to focus on what are the hardest things that agents struggle with. And they allow you to take that off your plate. And this has to do with some marketing and staying in flow and staying in touch so that you can focus on what’s best in your business, I’ve yet to really see a firm, I don’t know of any other firms that do it. So this is this, truthfully, that’s a really, really unique proposition. And you owe it to yourself to see what they offer and see if it’s a good fit for you. So go to Depot properties.com, their team would love to chat with you. And so on behalf of all of us here at the podcast, and all the listeners, we thank Ryan for coming on every month. He’s got four businesses to run. And we are and he’s got a daughter in college and two others in. So the other two in high school to I think, right?
Ryan D’Aprile 50:55
Yeah, Junior Senior. In fact, I have a coaching session here at three o’clock. I’m going to watch my daughter cheerleader, and then come back for 530 meeting so so he’s a
D.J. Paris 51:03
busy guy, and he takes time out for us. And we appreciate it. So Thank you Ryan. And on behalf of our Ryan and myself, we thank everyone for listening. Please tell a friend about our show and support our sponsors on the show support Ryan, as well as tell a friend and also leave us a review. Just let us know what you think of the show that will help us continue to improve. All right, Ryan, thank you so much. We will see you on the next step. See you next month.
Ryan D’Aprile 51:25
Alright DJ, take care
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