Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
In this episode Ryan D’Aprile and Lindsay Miller first discuss accountability. Ryan points out the importance of habits and why completing mundane activities consistently, even when one is busy, is the most important factor for success. Next, Ryan discusses emotional intelligence and why agents who have a high EQ tend to be top producers. Last, Ryan stresses the importance of managing expectation around your business.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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right welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now, if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re new to the show, Ryan comes on every single month to provide our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you a little bit about Ryan Ryan is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at April properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style and his dedication to training. Now he has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland. Also he has offices in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan with hundreds and hundreds of top producing agents Table Properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focused on business planning, coaching and accountability. Now if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention, you need to check out D APR properties visit D APR properties.com. Welcome Ryan. And in addition to Ryan, before we get to Ryan, I also want to welcome Lindsay Miller to the show, Lindsay it works at D APR properties as well. She and Ryan worked very closely in crafting a lot of the curriculum, the coaching, and they are basically partners in crime. So we’re super excited to have both Lindsey and Ryan on the show today. Thanks, guys. Welcome.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:15
Thanks for having us. Welcome, Lindsay. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks,
Lindsay Miller 2:19
TJ. I’m so happy to be here.
D.J. Paris 2:21
And I think Lindsay, I think this is the first time you’ve been on the show. I miss remembering it’s possible, you know?
Lindsay Miller 2:28
Yeah, you’re right. It’s the first time I’m really really excited. A little nervous, because I’m usually a behind the scenes person. But I am really excited. I love your show.
D.J. Paris 2:38
Oh, thank you. Well,
Ryan D’Aprile 2:40
I sprung it on Lindsey DJ, I sprung it on her this morning. It’s a good.
D.J. Paris 2:46
Yeah, we’re excited. The more the merrier. And I know she provides a tremendous amount of value to your organization, which provides a tremendous amount of value to the agents that are involved. And I’ll I’ll even tell everyone listening, my girlfriend is likely going to join Ryan’s company. She is a new agent. And she looked at a lot of different firms trying to figure out what was the best fit with her particular skill set? And she’s 99% sure it’s going to be Ryan. So I probably shouldn’t say that in case she doesn’t join. But I’m 99% sure she will. And she was she was absolutely the most impressed with with Ryan’s Ryan’s company. So if you’re an agent in the in the Chicagoland area or Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and you’re looking for a firm that really helps you with, I think the hardest part of being an agent, which is a lot of the marketing and the coaching. That’s that’s what they offer. And it’s kind of their their niche. And they’re actually very, obviously very successful as a result. So anyway, Welcome, guys.
Ryan D’Aprile 3:41
Thank you. Thanks for having us. So what we thought DJ, we would talk about today, I’m at home, if you can’t hear my dog barking in the background, sorry about that. Is accountability, and doing the things that you need to do that are necessary to make your business success? I was speaking with an agent the other day. And he quoted somebody and he wasn’t certain who it was, he thought maybe was Michael Phelps. But he said the difference. Michael Phelps or whoever said this quote is the difference between somebody who is excellent, and somebody who’s mediocre is the person who is excellent. is willing to do the mundane day in and day out. Yeah. And, and as you were introducing us in the organization, you said a coaching company that focuses on a company that focuses on coaching. And in other words, you said accountability. And I called Lindsey this morning, and I said, Hey, helped me think this through and it was about nine this morning. I had two coaching calls. One started at seven in the morning, and then another one started at eight at nine o’clock, I had a window and I called lens and I said, hey, help me and I knew I knew where I was going. So I called my accountability partner said Help me keep this drill. I just don’t feel like doing a podcast today. Sure. I feel like I feel like I’m saying the same thing over and over. again, and I, and that I’m not adding value. And and that’s when Lindsay chimed in, right once.
Lindsay Miller 5:08
I did, I was like, Okay, why don’t you talk about that today, and said, because you absolutely do add value. And I guarantee you, there are so many people who would benefit from hearing that even the things that you love to do, sometimes you just don’t feel like you’re able to bring it for that day for whatever reason. And so you consider stepping back and not doing it when really you need to, like push in harder at that point. So,
Ryan D’Aprile 5:37
right when you said that I started getting excited, and my blood started flowing DJ, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this is it. This is what we’re talking about. Because this is what we all struggle with, you know, I’m a human, we are all the same. We are all, we all have these issues. And in order to be successful you got to do and TJ, by the way, that I’m not calling your podcast on gain. I’m talking about the lifelong discussion of being in flow with your network that day in and day out. You know, the 10 contacts or 24 contacts a day. It gets mundane and, and Lindsey, you said something you said at least you’re being honest, you see honest with yourself?
Lindsay Miller 6:16
Yeah. Because you know, the first thing you have to do is own it and recognize like, Okay, why am I feeling this way? And for you, it was like, am I bringing value? And I would argue for most people? That’s the question, right? It’s like, you know, when you’re talking life flow, that’s the number one thing that we hear. Right, right. It’s like, hey, what do I say every single time they’re gonna get sick of hearing from me? I’m not able to bring value to them. And you’re like, Yeah, you are. You’re crazy. They want they would love to hear from you.
Ryan D’Aprile 6:43
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and, and the owning it part that Lindsay had brought up is, it’s all about habits. And and so that’s in our coaching, we want people, we’re not focused on the results, we’re focused on the activities. What we really want is, is is this to be habitual for you. And so I was able to call Lindsay, because I was able to protect myself, I have somebody I have my rock that I go, and I lean on. And I said, Hey, let me tell you how I’m feeling. And I know again, while she wasn’t gonna let me off the hook. But, but I owned it. Like Lindsay said, I owned it. And even though I didn’t recognize it, she pointed she said, at least you’re owning it. And you know what you’re doing, and let’s talk it through. And within five minutes, I was charged up and kept looking at my watch, like 111 o’clock, I start ones love o’clock start, because I want to get in front of the viewers, I want to tell them, hey, it is the mundane to be excellent. okay to have that outstanding career. It’s not homeruns its base hits, every day, day in and day out. It’s doing it when you are busy, as well. So, like DJ, I got a lot going on. And, and, and I have four different organizations, we, we built an entrepreneur operating system, which is a technology, we’ve launched it, other real estate agents and other companies are used. And we have a mortgage company, which is also we coach loan officers, we have a title company, real estate company, it’s all a coaching organization, I’ve got a lot going on, but you want something, it’s critically important that I meet with you. It’s critically important that I continue doing the things day in and day out, that provide the snowball effect, the compound effect, all these things that all these great authors and and students of success have studied and have taught us through, you know, elearning, or elearning, cash ebooks or books or, or podcasts. You know, I want to applaud anybody who is listening to this right now, who’s thoroughly in engaged in listening to this, I applaud you because you’re taking the efforts to improve yourself. And that’s what it’s all about. The real estate industry, failure rate is a tremendously high, because you are essentially starting your own business, you do need to be with an organization that partners with you because it doesn’t have to be a solo sport, it shouldn’t be a solo sport. It’s a lonely world if you want to be a lone wolf out there. But you need to have that accountability met structure to keep you on path to doing those mundane things. I want
D.J. Paris 9:22
to pause I want to pause for a second because really what you’re talking about in prior, you know earlier was was about support. And when I don’t mean support, I need help with this deal. You know, a brokerage firm helped me with with knowing what paperwork to fill out. And you know, I have a question that my client asked I don’t know the answer. We’re talking about we Ryan talked and Lindsey we’re talking about habits. And we all know there’s habits that will propel our business forward and then there’s habits that will stifle our business. And the habits that are really going to take us to the next level are going to be challenging, and every day. You know you’re not always going to wake up Full of vim and vigor to accomplish a difficult, hard, consistent, maybe mundane sort of task, right? Like those are, those are, those are just, you know, it’s that old. Zen saying Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water, right? You have to chop wood carry water. And that isn’t always fun. I interviewed a gentleman on the podcast a few weeks ago. He’s one of the biggest agents in the entire country. And he works, what works out four days a week or five days a week at 5am. And I said, Oh, my God, you must love working out. He’s like, No, who loves working out, because it’s the hardest thing. I hate it. He goes, but so so I was really like it. He’s like this big, muscular guy. And I thought, Oh, well, if he hates it, I feel a little bit better about not loving working out as well. But I still should do it. And so what you talked about is, hey, you got up this morning, you’ve got a lot of other stuff on your plate, you’ve got for organizations to run hundreds of agents to help. And you’re doing this podcast as a favor, really, to us and our listeners. And it doesn’t always make you know, sort of the most exciting part of anyone’s day, believe me, I am the host of this podcast, I deal with this all the time. For me, what’s nice is every so often, a listener will write in and say, Hey, this really helps me. So that helped I try to keep that in mind when I’m when my tank is on empty. But you know, what’s great is also having another person so you have Lindsey to be able to say, Hey, I am doing this, I’m committed to this thing. I don’t really feel like doing it right now. So I need some support and some help. Here’s what I’m actually feeling. And can you help me with that? This is so important for our listeners to understand that every day you’re gonna wake up and you you’re running a real estate business, boy, you know, you have to run every part of that business, or most parts of it yourself, that is difficult. And there’s parts of it that you’re going to love doing. And there’s going to be parts that some days are really tough having an accountability partner, and I don’t mean somebody that punishes you for not getting things done. But somebody you can call and say, I’m struggling right now, I don’t want to make my phone calls, or I don’t want to, you know, follow up with this particular client. And I just want to be honest about it. And that’s kind of what you got what you guys did, and then you talked through it, and you said it left you within a few minutes, because I think part of it is you were honest about it and said, This is what I’m experiencing. And it’s okay to experience a little bit of discomfort.
Ryan D’Aprile 12:10
No, it absolutely is. And that is that’s our culture, and one of our core values is develop yourself and others. So I want to circle back to you, you said I’m doing you a favor, I’m absolutely not doing a favor, you’re doing me a favor by allowing me down here. Because the reason we say develop yourself and others is to learn when you need to teach. So I’m gonna say that to teach us to learn. So every time I’m teaching somebody, like I’m on here with you guys right now, I’m learning. And one of the biggest, best things I feel about our culture and coaching, and to culture and culture for those of individuals that are not in coaching that don’t have coaching is we say you have to embrace it, what we mean by embrace it, you got to be vulnerable, you have to pick up the phone and say, Lindsey, this is how I feel, talk me through it. And there are so many individuals and I feel bad for them that they don’t allow it of themselves. They don’t they don’t allow others into their lives to help them and hold them accountable. And just be honest. And I so I have said to Lindsay many times, where would it be without you? And how would I get along without you. But I also know on the flip side through her telling me, I provide significance in her life. I am somebody that she knows she I’m hurt. She’s my rock. Well, that’s important to her. So it’s that givers gain mentality. It’s to teach us to learn and agriculturally people. It’s a beautiful thing. And it’s a cool chemistry. If you’re opening yourself up to it, that people will appear that will be there to help you and encourage you. I always tell everybody, when we coach them, it’s like it’s we’re not bringing you in here. It’s a test test. You didn’t do the task we told you to do. It’s okay. You didn’t do the task we told you to do no problem. Let’s talk it through. Why don’t we do it today? Okay, great. What are you gonna do tomorrow, the next day and the next eight? Let’s visualize it. Let’s Let’s meditate on it. Let’s take a moment. Let’s plan. Alright, see you in a week. And we know we’re not going to get 100%. But we know we’re gonna be better than what we did the week before. And we all have our dark corners in the world. And we all climb in a hole. It’s human nature, it’s the important thing is raise your hand up and say, Hey, I’m in this hole, and somebody can pull me out of this. I’m creating this inside my head. And I think that’s the most important and valuable tool or our thing to coaching is that other human being on the other end, who’s not in the weeds that’s looking at your business and be like, Hey, look over here, look it over there. And by the way, it’s just it’s this mundane, day to day activity, that if you continually do it day in and day out, your life will become a lot easier because it’s going to pay huge dividends because it’s going to create that compound effect. Because it is the little things that get you ahead it’s not the homerun So,
D.J. Paris 15:01
yeah, it’s singles and doubles all day long. And the hard part is, the good news is you don’t have to swing for the fences, you don’t have to swing for that homerun every day you can, you can build a really amazing career with singles and doubles. But what you’re in order to get those singles and doubles, it’s just a consistent amount of daily activity. And a lot of it, you’re just not going to want to do, it’s just how it is. And it’s okay to admit that because all of us are imperfect. All of us struggle, I woke up this morning, it was dark outside, or dark ish. It’s been dark, most of this week here in Chicago. And I there was one day this week where I’m like, I don’t want to go to work. And I knew I had to because I didn’t have a choice. But because I knew I would go to work, I allowed myself to feel that I didn’t want to instead of denying it and saying well, you should feel so lucky to have a job and you shouldn’t ever feel like you don’t want to go contribute and and you make a diff, you know, I just said no, no, okay, I know all of that. But today, I just don’t want to do it. And I allowed myself to feel it. And then like Ryan was saying, you know, he shared it with with his with Lindsey. And they were able to talk through it and resolve it. And in a way that he was able to move forward. And I had the same thing. I called my girlfriend and I said I don’t think I want to go to work today. And she goes, Okay, well tell me about it. She didn’t say well, you need to go to work. And you have to she just talk about it. And I did. And then I got it out of me. And if everyone should have a support system in place, whether it’s right panel release brokerage, or your friends or your family, you have to be able to tell the truth to people in your life. And that will help you get beyond, you know, these normal everyday challenges that every single one of us face is I don’t want to floss my teeth every evening. I just don’t want to do that. But, you know, it’s a good habit to cultivate. So I have to figure out what gets in the way. I mean, I actually do floss my teeth every night, but there was many years where I didn’t. And so I had to finally get to a point where I just had perfect, like very fortunate teeth my whole life. So I didn’t have to do that. All the sudden I was like, Oh, I really this is going to be a bad thing for me if I don’t do it. So I had to figure out how to create the discipline in my life. And it wasn’t easy. And you know, I gotten support. I have somebody who calls me every morning, this is not a joke. And she asks me even though it’s been years, since I’ve missed flossing my teeth, she calls me at 730. In the morning, she asks me 15 questions, and one of them is did you remember to floss your teeth last night, and I pay her to do that. And that is that is what I need to do to stay on top of my daily activities. I have an accountability partner who asks me if I clean my little cat’s litter box, things like that, because that’s what I need.
Ryan D’Aprile 17:29
Well, you know, and with that, let’s circle down to what we as real estate professionals need to be accountable to. What’s that? Number one thing? What’s that one thing that is going to separate you from your former self, you know, who’s going to help you improve and achieve more. And I always say it comes back to your network. Yep. And that your network is your net worth. And what we tend to do is we tend to get into the busy work, I got to do the busy work, I got to put the lockbox on the door, I got to put in the MLS, I gotta get the pictures, I got to organize a picture, I got to meet the photographer, I got to get the video and all of those things I got to post on social media and I and all and all that is important. All of that is important. But none of that matters. If you don’t have a network. And you can start in this business without a network, it will take longer to get going. But you absolutely can start in the business without a network. But your job for the first two years is gonna be creating a network, not gonna be selling homes. And, you know, I think about getting your real estate license, I think about getting your mortgage license, think about getting your even your law degree. I mean, all this stuff is not complicated. It’s law law school is I don’t think really you need the four year undergrad degree, though you do. But it’s not necessarily to go to a two year law school to get your your law degree. But you could go eager to the best law school out there. But if you don’t have a network to generate the business, you’re going to be working for the person who does. That’s how it works out in life. There are those that can generate the business. And then there are those that can do the business. In real estate, in most cases, you are the same person. So you have to have that split personality, and I’m telling you 80% should be focused on generating the business 20% should be doing the business. Getting your real estate license does not mean you’re gonna be successful in real estate. It’s just it’s just a hurdle you have to jump in it goes in the past, and now you got fixed down to the mundane. What is mundane to most people, and it’s been engaged with your network.
D.J. Paris 19:38
And how lucky are we that this is an industry where we can know pretty pretty close people can pretty readily get a license if they take the classes and study and it’s it’s a not insurmountable exam, although it’s not easy, but it’s doable. And how cool is it that once you get your license, the vast majority of buyers and sellers go Who do we know who’s a realtor when they need a realtor? Are they just think who do we know? So how cool is it that in this industry, your network, as Ryan is fond of saying your network is your net worth, because that’s where the vast majority of business is going to come from. And then, of course, the adding to that. But most industries, if you’re in a sales type position, it does not work that way. You can’t just go to your friends and family, hey, you know, who needs to buy an air compressor for, you know, a commercial building, because nobody’s going to be in that industry, and you are cold calling, and you are starting in a much more difficult position. Whereas the vast majority of the people, you know, are going to need a realtor at some point in their life, and they’re going to want to choose somebody that they like and trust. Why isn’t it? Why couldn’t that be you. So you have this really this really impressive, there’s not many industries where it works like that. So you’re really fortunate. So if you’re not spending time cultivating and nurturing that list, and making sure you know everything about every one of your contacts and putting it in a database, and having a daily routine, you know, then you’re really missing out, as Ryan says, 16% of the people, you know, are going to need a realtor in the next 12 months. So the question is, how do you get more of those transactions we’re always looking for? I don’t know enough people, I don’t know enough leads? Well, you actually probably know a lot. And you still should add to your database. But the people you already know, there’s a lot of business there. And cultivating and nurturing those relationships is what wins the game and almost everyone I’ve ever interviewed on this podcast, top 1% producers say the exact same thing.
Ryan D’Aprile 21:22
Yeah, yeah. And I’ll tell you, one of the purposes of me coming on to this podcast, and I’m grateful for you allow me to come here is to elevate our industry. I love our business, and I love our industry. So I feel a responsibility to elevate our industry. So I’m going to comment to tell everybody here listening. Remember, the number one value you add, is emotional intelligence to the transaction, you might not have the best emotional intelligence, but I’m telling you, that your product people, and whether you’re a real estate agent, or you’re a loan officer, and I work with both of these individuals, right, I have loan originators that work at our company, and I have real estate agents. And you know, there have been businesses that have tried to disrupt our industry by taking out the person. And then I see real estate agents get very frustrated, I see loan officers get very frustrated with the emotional intelligence that they have to provide to the transaction. Folks, if you can’t provide that, then those disruptors will be able to take us out, because it’s the human emotional connection that the consumer is looking for. I was having a conversation with one of our loan originators, I was actually having conversation. I was coaching, I was coaching a loan officer. And, and we got let me tell you something that’s going on in the mortgage industry right now. DJ, you might know about it, but it’s a shit show,
D.J. Paris 22:48
to say the least. And rates just went down again a couple of days ago.
Ryan D’Aprile 22:52
So then why do I say it’s a shit show? Because everybody is refinancing right now, that’s wonderful. But there’s a lot of people on the food chain, right? There’s the investors, there’s the aggregators, there’s everything that goes on. And so there was all of a sudden a huge flush of business coming in, there’s something called non QM and non QM are those unique loans that really make up 2% of the mortgage industry. Today, they’re less than half a percent, because originators are saying no more than they ever have. Because right now, you’re just shooting fish in the barrel. Right, everybody? There, there are buyers are out there refinances out there. It is. It is a great time and fairly easy time to be generating business as a loan originator. And when I do my coaching my, my my originators, I’m saying, Please, please keep thinking about 2022. Because if you’re doing $30 million in buying this year, you’re probably a $50 million producer. And if you’re doing a $50 million, you might be a 7 million our producers. Let’s look at the RS versus the PS Rs, a refinance versus the piece. And I say so you got to think about this, but circling back to the point that I wanted to make. Right, so we have these disruptors, right? Let’s just say Redfin, right, where you don’t really need an agent, you don’t need to compensate them. And they lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They’re only backed artificially, by being owned by TD Waterhouse and Goldman Sachs and they’re publicly traded, but the company they say their revenues up but if you continue to look at the losses, over a decade, this company has probably lost a billion dollars of investors income and, and they actually been a great lead source for us as real estate companies because they showed to the consumer out there, you want to you want somebody to talk to you as a shoulder to cry on. You want somebody to facilitate the transaction. Wonderful. Well, let’s go to the mortgage lending industry exact same thing. So there’s this thing called a Rocket Mortgage, right? Well, what what is Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Mortgage or any digital mortgage platform is basically cutting out the loan originator and it’s having a billboard and the basis points alone originator is paid to originate a loan, which is generate a lead is not there because the consumer goes to a billboard that takes them to see a billboard six and a website. And they log on and they do the stuff. Now, the experience the borrower has is identical. Because behind the origination aspect of it is the opener, the processor, the closer the underwriter, there is probably four to five people working on every loan. And that is not going anywhere. It is a human business and I was coaching, one of laryngitis like you have to be the most emotionally intelligent person in the transaction, to set expectations and not to be afraid to tell the listing agent and the buyer’s agent and the buyer and the borrower and the seller. All that involved. Hey, it might not close this week, but it is closing next week. But I’m going to be asked exactly as in this week, and when you get pushed back on it. Okay, that’s why we’re being paid. Because otherwise, you could just go to a website, put in some data, the processors aren’t going anywhere, the underwriters aren’t going anywhere, the people, there is no such thing as a digital experience. There’s no such thing, there’s a digital acquisition of your business. But for me, when I’m doing a mortgage, or I’m buying a house, I’d rather and I’m going to be paying the same amount of money. I’d rather have a human being there that I could call and talk things through versus a 100 number. It goes to the exact same thing in the travel industry. Three years ago, we flew down to Mexico with a group of friends. And I have a travel agent, and she’s in downtown where I live and and she booked a trip and everything else. And another friend of mine did Expedia. And it was really it was a tragic moment what happened with us on our way down there a friend’s uncle had passed away suddenly, and and they needed to get home soon. And their airfare and their hotel, we all stayed at same place we flew the same airline all cost the same amount of money. But when we wanted to get home earlier, I called my travel agent Andy, Andy Sarno.
And my friend had a call, one 800, Expedia and be on hold for three hours. And so Andy has to be there, she doesn’t running around, she gets it done for me, where there was no originator, the real estate originator, loan originator, or travel agent originator to deal with it. And so Andy had to take my phone call with me for an hour to reschedule and give me experience for every further user over and over again. And this is not going to bring it back. I gotta bring this all back to what we do. We’re going to have clients crying, we have clients screaming, we’re gonna have all this off. Guys, that’s, that’s what we do. It’s emotional intelligence. And now, they’re only going to use people that they know, like and trust. So I hope I could tie this up in a nice little bow for you to understand. This is why you need to be consistently in touch with your network. month in and month out. If you have 200 people in your network, there’s 20 working days, a month, Monday through Friday. 200 divided by 20 is 1010. Contacts, social media, Facebook now posts, direct message, text message, phone call, how you doing will ensure that I’m in touch with DJ once every month for 12 months. And 60% of those people transact every year, they’re going to want somebody that they know like and trust. That’s my job. That’s how I generate this business. That’s how I’m successful in this business.
D.J. Paris 28:48
Yeah, it’s a customer service job. And we all need to realize that it’s not sales, the homes homes, largely, I mean, there is a sales component, of course, but this is an you know, for many people, this is their largest financial purchase in their entire life, you know, outside of retirement, right this or children’s education, it’s home, retirement, children’s education, those are the three big ones. And all of us get emotional. And I will I will share my my, my lending story of just very briefly. So I have a friend that is as a lender. So I decided to go with him because I know he’s quite good. And I’m in the process of friend. And he’s a he’s a he is one of my close friends. Yes, that’s why you chose him. That’s why I chose him. And I knew he’s extremely competent as well. But yes, that was to the point to the listeners, right? You’re absolutely right. Yep. I chose him because he was my friend, no question, but I thought, you know, I should get a couple backup quotes, because who knows, maybe his company won’t accept me for some reason, or it’s as a for me a very large loan. So I thought I should just say maybe just to compare rates and make sure I’m not you know, getting getting a bad deal. So I said I’m gonna go out and get a couple of backup quotes. So I went to two online places like you were mentioning not not the one you You mentioned but others, and actually very reputable institutions, but I just went on their website and I filled out the form. While both both of the in house people, they have called me back pretty quickly, because it’s probably a loan that they would want. And we went through everything, both of those people completely fell off the face of the earth after approving me, within about two or three days, I’ve never heard from them. Since this is a loan I would think most loan officers would want to have. And the the relationship I had with my friend. And what he did is after we were squared away with him, this is the original person, I went with my friend, he said, I’m going to call you and I want to educate you, it’s going to take about 30 minutes. Now, this is not my first home purchase, by the way. He’s like, I want to educate you on exactly what’s going on in the market right now with rates. And I want to explain the process. And I want to make sure you fully understand what the steps are along the way. And I was like, this is why this guy is one of the top agents, you know,
Ryan D’Aprile 30:55
anytime chance that he’d say be prepared. It’s a lot of business out there. So things are moving slowly. Yes. And that’s why that’s an excellent loan originator. That’s why it’s an excellent one engineer, he’s able to say, hey, get ready for a shit show. Yep. Because that’s essentially what’s going on. I mean, it’s not all the show. But it’s, it’s it’s all the same. I bet you the rates were very real, probably identical to the rates that he quoted as well. Yeah, they were Yeah. So what it is, it’s it is it’s the, let’s say, the owner of the company, shifting their cost of acquisition of DJ, from an online thing to originator, I will take the human, all day long, I will take the human all day long, versus the billboard, to the website, which then you have to do the work anyways. But there’s nobody that cares. And the cost savings, there’s no cost savings to the consumer, there isn’t there is a lack of experience, emotional intelligence. And that’s why they have not been able to really, after 20 years penetrate much market share. Because it’s such an emotionally driven life in general, let alone business.
D.J. Paris 32:03
I interviewed a top part one of the top producers here in Chicago a few years ago, or within the last year, I can’t remember. And I asked her. And we have 44,000 agents in Chicago. So this is somebody who is in the top, not just 1%, literally in the top 10 top producers. And I said, You’re You’re obviously very good at your job. But if you had to say, is there one thing that you do that you think makes the difference? And I expected her to say something like, Well, I really know more about design, or I can just walk into a home and I sort of understand the value just by looking with all the experience you’ve been doing this 20 years, and I expected more of an experience answer, right, like I just know more than the average person. And that’s why I’m so successful. That makes that would that’s what I would have guessed. And she said something very different. She goes, You know, this is gonna sound really dumb. She goes, but I swear, it’s the main reason why I’m successful, and maybe other people aren’t. She goes, I call every single client, I have at least one to two times a week and just let them know what’s going on. And I said, and she goes, that’s pretty much it. And I said, Well, really? And she goes, Yeah, because she goes DJ, the bar is so low is set so low that most agents don’t even do that we avoid our clients when we don’t have any good news. Or maybe we have bad news, or we have no news.
Ryan D’Aprile 33:17
And she has to deliver bad news. That’s how we’re getting paid deliver the bad news, right? Sorry for cutting you off.
D.J. Paris 33:22
No, no, that’s it, I was just gonna say, you know, if everyone listening just realizes customer service, this is all about emotional. It’s not even just customer service, it’s emotional customer service. And if you can provide emotional support on a consistent basis to everyone in your database, you will get more referrals than you know what to do if you can just be there to be supportive through it. Because, boy, what’s more emotional than buying a home or selling a home it’s about the most, as far as stress on the psychological scale of the most stressful activities there is moving is right up there at the very top near really awful tragic events in someone’s life moving is as stressful or just underneath some of those really terrible things that happen. And moving is supposed to be this joyous, wonderful thing, but it is beyond stressful. So yeah, being emotionally supportive to your clients is everything.
Ryan D’Aprile 34:12
Yes. And then to wrap it up, I guess, and guys come full circle. And why we have the amazing Lindsey Miller on the call with us is you got to do the mundane. You don’t feel like it. You got to call your coach, you got to call your accountability partner. You have to own it. And then finally, just one other thing from some reading and doing this week, a book that Lindsey had suggested to me listening, I’m just gonna leave this with quote, listening is an activity. It’s not a passive thing. It’s one of the hardest things for us to do in this business. But listening is an activity it’s not passive. And it’s a skill set that most of us just basically suck at. And we have to get really better at I’m listening. And then finally, I watched the movie with my girls two nights ago. I have three daughters, as you know. And it was the secret dare to dream. Have you seen it? No, have you seen it Lindsey? It’s like one of those Hallmark movies, you know, feel good law of attraction, cute movies. But for all the listeners out there, I want you to hear this, it was a great lesson I want to all my girls have watched the movie. And so we sat down and watched it, you get out of life, what you expect from it. You get out of life, what you expect from it. We should be grateful for every day that we have here. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen. And make the most out of it. And expect the best out of it. Because you’re going to get what you expect in life. And, and I think I want to leave everybody with that just really do the best to be in a positive mindset. Expect the best out of things, and you will get the best out of life.
D.J. Paris 35:57
Yeah, well said mindset, you know, we need to protect and nurture our mindset to create and cultivate that sort of those feelings that will help us get through the hard, difficult daily tasks that we all have to do. And the reward, though, is so great. I’m about to head to a personal trainer, and it is going to suck and I’m going to hate it while I’m doing it. Because it’s that hard, she pushes me to exhaustion with every muscle group that we focus on. And it is difficult, and I am just not somebody who is naturally wired to want to do that. I do not want to do that. But at the end of the at the end of the hour, I will be not only Well, I feel good, because I’ll have some endorphins running through which is a nice byproduct of that physical exercise, but I will be proud of myself. And that’s the most important thing. And then that will carry me through the rest of my day. So find esteem building activities, even if it’s just I don’t I didn’t make my bed yesterday, I feel better when I make my bed. Make your bed. It will it makes you feel better. So think about those esteem building activities, small little things. It doesn’t have to big, big sweeping homeruns it could be Hey, I made my bed today that made me feel good. Doing that then then obviously goes out to other areas of your life. So anyway, what a fun podcast today. I loved it. And Lindsey, thank you for your contribution and being being Ryan’s support system. And being each other’s support system, which I think is really, really important. And thank you guys both for being on the show. I want to remind everyone to that if you’re looking if you’re in the Chicagoland area or Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and you’re looking to for enough, another firm, maybe you’re you’re at a firm and you’re not getting the attention you need. Or maybe you’re just want to see what other options exist, do properties is is a huge recommendation of ours. My girl and girlfriend’s probably going to join. So she’s not joining our firm. So I’m trying not to be offended about that. But I’m kidding. But she actually went nope, Ryan’s company is a better fit for her. And we couldn’t be more proud to to encourage all of our listeners who are in those areas to explore to April properties. And that’s not why Ryan does this, he never asked me to do that. But I’m going to do it, because I think his company is really excellent. So we you know, feel free to to explore that a deeper properties.com. Ryan and Lindsay, thank you again, you guys are awesome. We really appreciate you having be coming on the show Ryan comes on every month, Lindsay hopefully can come on more often, which we’d love to have on behalf of. Yeah, on behalf of the audience, you want to say thank you, to you guys, for the content that you bring. It’s really so well received. And I probably should do a better job of sharing the feedback with you so that you can see just what an impact consistently you make with your contributions because we get that feedback. So I’ll make sure to start sending that over to you. And also on behalf of our listeners, we want to thank you because you’re the reason we do this. This is this wouldn’t exist in a vacuum. If we didn’t have people listening and watching the show, we just wouldn’t be doing it. So we’re so grateful that you find help or use in the content we provide. Please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional or if you’re in the mortgage industry, I’ll another ello another loan officer a loan originator and who could benefit from hearing this particular episode and send them a link in the show you can always follow us on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find us on our website every episode we’ve ever done. And by the way, let’s say that you our website, by the way is keeping it real pod.com And I just recently rebuilt it. And here’s a cool feature that I added to it. So if you needed a little coaching moment Ryan’s all of Ryan’s episodes are at the bottom in a category called coaching moments and you can literally just listen to him one by one you don’t have to search through all of the 200 Plus episodes we’ve done so every single category of episodes that we create is on that website so you can go back and if you need that little coaching inspiration, you can go back to a previous coaching moment episode as well. So guys, thank you so much. I’ll let you get both get on with your busy busy days. Busy day and I’m going to head to the gym and be tortured for the next hour but but I’m gonna feel good at the end so it’s worth it. Thanks, TJ. Thanks, guys.
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