Natalie Taflinger from Taflinger Group with eXp talks about how and why she moved in South Carolina and started her business in real estate. She discusses the importance of online reviews and how she asks her clients to leave a review at the end of the transaction. Natalie shares tips and strategies based on her experience, to help other agents in their business. She also talks about the importance of balancing work, life and family and also how to determine when it’s time to start/expand a team.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Natalie Taflinger can be reached at 843-773-1728.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of 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 as always, and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Natalie Taplin are from exp before we get to Natalie, a few quick announcements. First, I need you to help us double our audience, which sounds like a huge task. And I guess it is a huge task. But you’re going to make it so easy for you if this podcast has been helpful for you. And if you’re listening, I’m hoping it has been or else you’re just punishing yourself by listening to my voice every so often. I want you just to tell one other person about the show. If every one of our listeners does that, if I do the math correctly, that means we’ll double the audience. So please do that. Just tell one other real estate agent about the show and let them know that this can help them take their business to the next level. And oh yeah, it’s totally free. And we’re doing it to give back to the community that has been super generous to us. So please help us spread the word tell a friend and the second thing is find us on Facebook and follow us we put a lot of effort into our Facebook page because every single day we find an article that’s written designed to help you grow your business and we share it there and that’s basically all we share there. Of course we do our episodes there as well. So you can find us at Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and as always, thank you to everyone who’s listening right now we really appreciate it we wouldn’t be able to do this without you. And you know, as we’re coming up on 250 episodes and we can’t wait to do 250 more. You know we’re do this because we know what an impact it has because you tell us it has an impact and so we’re so grateful to reach as many people as we can. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts for listening and now on to our episode interview with Natalie Taff linger
All right everyone today on the show we have Natalie Taplin are from the TAF linear group with exp in South Carolina. Let me tell you a little bit about Natalie and why we’re so excited to have her on the show. Natalie is is from Florence or lives currently in Florence, South Carolina. She was a 2000 graduate of Bowling Green State University with a degree in psychology. I myself was a Miami University graduate with an also a degree in psychology, so not too far away from where you went to school. But upon graduation, Natalie spent 13 years in human resources with Owens, Corning and Honda of America after a two year sabbatical. Natalie obtained her real estate license in 2015. I want to make sure you heard me there she obtained her real estate license in 2015. Since then, she has become a multi million dollar producer, nearly doubling her volume every single year in 2020. Natalie was inducted into the REMAX Hall of Fame and also achieved the highest gross volume of 31 million and the highest number of transactions get this 126 sales transactions or close transactions in the history of the local MLS. So she did the highest number of transactions in the history of her local MLS and she is only that was her fifth year in the business. Natalie is married to her husband Chris and is a mother of two. They always say if you if you want to get something done, give it to a busy mother. In her spare time. Natalie enjoys giving back to her local community through charity spending time outdoors and relaxing at the lake. I want everyone to go visit Natalie’s website which is Natalie Taft. Linga homes, Natalie Haflinger homes, which is plural.com. Natalie, welcome to the show.
Unknown Speaker 4:23
Thank you happy to be here.
D.J. Paris 4:25
So it was funny when when we first were talking just just before we started recording I said so on Natalie’s website it says you know P d P ie D and I was sort of I’m sort of ignorant to to South Carolina’s geography and and even though I’ve spent many, many, many years there as I was telling you, my parents had a place in North Myrtle Beach and she’s only about an hour from there. But yeah, so So tell us a little bit about how you because you’re not from there originally. How did you end up in that part of South Carolina?
Natalie Taflinger 4:58
So my husband and I we I moved here seven years ago. And when we moved here, I lit it was a little intimidating. I literally knew no one, not one person. We’re moving from Ohio, to South Carolina with Honda, not for me for my husband, he worked at Cheyenne as well at the time. The only one person I knew when we moved here was my realtor. And she became she’s become the dearest friend to me since then. But that’s how we moved here. When we moved here, I decided to take a two year sabbatical from human resources, spent some time with the kids. It was a wonderful two years, but I am just a worker at heart, I love work. That’s where I get my satisfaction from. So after two years, I had a decision to make, and I was ready to go back to work.
D.J. Paris 5:47
It’s incredible to because your community is is not a massive population size community for buyers and sellers. You You were telling me it’s under like 130,000 people in in your most immediate area, correct?
Natalie Taflinger 6:02
That’s correct. Yes. So we have about 140,000 people in the surrounding area. And when I first went into real estate, I, you know, as I mentioned, I’ve only lived here for two years. So I went into real estate, completely unaware of what it was included and involved in real estate. In fact, I made the decision to become a realtor based solely off of the My realtor, her name is Kathy Westerbeck and made the decision to become a realtor. And at that time, I just I thought, Okay, I’m going to start with an agency, I’ll be working with some other realtors. And they will give me buyers and sellers and they will give me the leads. And that’s how I’ll build my business. Sure, I’ll
D.J. Paris 6:45
just, I’ll just get 100 leads. And
Natalie Taflinger 6:47
that’s right. I mean, literally all that is how ignorant I was to this game. I had no idea sales were involved. I’m not a salesperson, I had no idea sales were,
D.J. Paris 6:56
you’re a human resources person. You’re.
Natalie Taflinger 7:00
So my first week in the office when I’m meeting everybody. I’m like, okay, so what you know, when does when does it start? Like when do I get my first line? And they’re like, yeah, no, it doesn’t really work that way.
D.J. Paris 7:09
Yeah, they’re like, well make a list of everybody you know, and then you go, Well, I’ve only lived here two years, the list can’t possibly be that long. So how do you get started? How what did you do, because I grew up in in a city of almost about the same size Purina Illinois, and I live in Chicago now. So I but I was, I often think about that, that if I was a realtor in Peoria, well, I would have quite an advantage because I spent the first you know, 18 years of my life living there. And I know a lot of people you didn’t have that luxury. And, you know, I just think, you know, in those kinds of communities, oftentimes it is people who were born and raised there, they already know other realtors a lot of times. So how did you go about, you know, getting the name your name out there and making sure people were aware of you and and what was your process for that.
Natalie Taflinger 7:58
So I just started talking to the people I knew and explaining to them, you know, I was going into real estate. Luckily, I had a business background. So I feel like that helped. But it started in my neighborhood where I live. So I just started with where I lived and tried to grow my business from that. And we happen to live in a wonderful neighborhood. I have sold umpteen number of houses in that neighborhood now. But my very first listing was from a workout instructor that I went to the gym with. And so I was friends with her, she needed to sell her home. And so she hired me to sell her home, which is a redemption story. And we can get back to that because I didn’t sell it I didn’t sell at first. I ultimately sold it but it was some time later. So I just started in my neighborhood. I remember a friend of mine from the neighborhood calling me and she said Nathalie, we’ve sold all of our homes for sale by Owner, but she is she does taxes. She’s an accountant. She says I want you to come over to our house and talk my husband into letting you list our home because I’m too busy to deal with it. And I remember being in my kitchen and thinking to myself, I’ve got to nail this this is critical because I need to build my name in this neighborhood and went over there spoke with the husband spoke with the wife got home that night. She texts me. She said girl, you nailed it. You’ve got the listing. So I got the listing. It was a beautiful, wonderful home, sold it in two days. And at the time, that wasn’t normal. I know that’s normal now. So sold it very quickly, and it just spread like wildfire wildfire from there.
D.J. Paris 9:39
Well, we should I want to just go back to that story for a moment because not only is it incredible that you had the opportunity to win over this, this neighbor who is going to sell their home buy for sale by owner but those are typically the hardest listings to get because these are people that have actively raised their hand and say I do not want to work with a realtor probably He mostly because of the fees associated. And you know, it’s like two and a half percent of the home and it’s a $300,000. Home, that’s $7,500 right there that they would rather save, and have already decided that’s the direction they wanted. And they’ve already done it in the past. And now you have to go in and say, No, you’re actually going to pay, you know, you know, more than that, actually, because you’re gonna pay both sides of the commission, probably. And so that is a tough, so So I really applaud you because that is that is an amazing accomplishment, when you’re new to be able to, you know, transform or for sale by owner into a client. And I, I imagine they probably sing your praises. And they said, Okay, well,
Natalie Taflinger 10:40
yeah, they’ve been, they’ve been wonderful. So one of the things that I did to help secure that is when I went in there, as you mentioned, with the for sale by owner, I just did my best to sell my services. And I really played up to the fact that she had given me the insight ahead of time of how busy their lives were and, and how they’ve done in the past. And so I just played up to the services that I can provide them to the point where, because they had two, three adorable dogs, and I said, I’ll take care of your dogs, when I have showings, I’m right around the corner, I’m going to come get your dogs, I’ll take them out first choice, I’ll take care of everything. So I really just promoted that it would be seamless for them take the work out of it. And then it turned out well, they ended up being a client of mine to purchase something. And then they have continued to refer me on to other people as
D.J. Paris 11:26
well. That’s amazing. That’s an incredible story. And it is very, again, just how difficult that is to convert people who really weren’t looking to work with a realtor. And and you being able to say, here’s why it’s actually worth it to to utilize me. And, you know, all sorts of studies have shown that, you know, when people sell their home by themselves, they overvalue it, they sell it takes longer to sell. And and I’ve even done that myself with a condo I owned, even though I knew better I priced it higher than I should have, because that’s just human nature. And, and as soon as I dropped it down to what it should have been then then it sold but that is there it is challenging sometimes to work with with people who are kind of headed that way. And you were able to overcome that. So So you had this great first experience, of course with with that. And then and then how did you grow? And I know you’ve like doubled your business every every year. And I guess maybe not the hardest thing to do in your first couple years. If you started out slower, but you are now last year you ended up with 126 sales. That’s that’s a closing every like three days. How were you? How were you able to do that? And it’s it? Is it just you would you now have more people that are with you on your team? Are you doing it all yourself?
Natalie Taflinger 12:40
Well, when I first went into real estate, my expectation, as I mentioned was very low. I thought, Okay, I’m gonna get into this just to be a part time agent, which a lot of people do. And my husband and the people who knew me at the time said, Natalie, you don’t know how to do anything part time. So the first year my, my thought was okay, I’ll sell 10 houses, maybe 12. If I did one every month, 12 houses, that’d be awesome. I end up selling 22 houses my first year, oh my god 3033 My second year 52. My third, it was 77, my fourth and then 126 Last year, but it just has grown. It’s been very, very grassroots. And, you know, my strategy is not overcomplicated. It’s been very grassroots. It’s just doing a good job for people and the grit and the grind of hard work and of relying on those people to tell others. So far, it’s been a small community that it is, and me not knowing a lot of people, majority of my growth is getting the opportunity to help someone, usually someone I know, who then takes their experience and passes it on to somebody else, and me getting another opportunity and another opportunity. So that’s been a very, very grassroots growth, if you will.
D.J. Paris 13:56
So I have a question. And I’m curious, because you we always talk about working by referral on the show, most every top producer we talked to, of course, gets to a level at some point where the majority of their business does come through previous clients that have continued to spread the word. Are you specifically asking clients to help spread the word? Or is it something that they’re just naturally doing it? Because that’s always the question is, you know, in sales 101 from 5060 years ago, it was like, You’re supposed to say, Hey, give me the names of three people, which I never seen, never seemed to make sense to me don’t want to do that. But are you saying hey, you know, one of the ways you could help me if you ever find anyone that could use my services, but or are you just not mentioning that and just letting what you’ve done for them sort of shine through or a combination?
Natalie Taflinger 14:44
Well, in the beginning, as I mentioned, not knowing anything about sales and not being a salesperson myself in the beginning, I just really wouldn’t say anything and just people would continue to spread the good word, which I was thankful for and of course, gratitude and showing them my thanks But as the business has grown, I definitely at this point now talk to people about would love to, you know, have you do? I don’t necessarily ask for referrals? Sure, of course I will, I will ask them, you know, after a transaction is over, would you write a review for me? Because I’m just learning. And again, I’m learning that people really look at those reviews. They actually go out, read them. I’ve had several people call me it’s one thing I do do, here’s cuddles.
D.J. Paris 15:27
So for all of you listening, Natalie’s cat, Cuddles just jumped up on her chair. And if you’re watching the video, it’s quite quite a beautiful, cute, cute,
Natalie Taflinger 15:34
I warned you ahead of time that my cat would probably be joining us. So I’ve learned now when people call me I do my best to try to ask and understand most people I know. But if I don’t ask and understand, you know, where they heard about me when they heard about me. And I just noticed this trend of people saying your reviews online reviews online. And so I’ve now put a lot more weight and into those reviews.
D.J. Paris 15:59
Yeah, we’ve been doing the same thing here at our company. So at our firm, we have just to let the audience know. It’s just it’s really interesting. So we have about 700 agents at our at our company here. And what’s funny is our Google reviews, not even Zillow, just our Google reviews, from clients of all I mean, hundreds and hundreds of agents we have, and we only had about 50 reviews because we weren’t specifically asking for them. We what we’ve done now is we’ve taken an effort to where we send an email to every single client from any of our brokers once a transaction closes, we have a cute little picture of a cat actually, that’s like that’s like a cat that’s begging and it’s got its paws up and it says, Would you please consider writing a review of your agent. And it’s just a cute thing. And we just send one email. That’s it. And then we and in the last year, we’ve gone from, you know, about 50 reviews to now over 200 on Google simply by asking we do in a funny way. But for everyone listening out there, you know, now Google reviews might not be as important for an agent. Of course Zillow reviews are probably the most important thing but you know, Facebook, Zillow, Google, possibly even Yelp, although I don’t think people are many agents are focusing on Yelp. But ask your clients to, you know, hey, if I did a good job for you, I’d really appreciate you know, and send them a link, which of course Natalie’s is doing similar things as well. So just, it really does work. And people are more than happy to share, you know, their experience, especially if they had a good experience. And so yeah, reviews are everything. Okay, I know, this is this is kind of a funny behind the scenes thing. But Natalie is such a prepares, which makes perfect sense based on her her the success she’s had already, but she has some list of tips and ideas of what she thinks has made her successful that she wants to share with everyone. So I’d say let’s just start running through them because they’re all awesome.
Natalie Taflinger 17:47
Awesome. All right, well, it’s probably a boring way to go through all of this. Preparation is just what am I most comfortable when I feel prepared, you know, you got some people who got the wit and they’re off the cuff, and they can do that great things like that. That is not me. That is not how I operate. But some of the tips that I have prepared and you know, have information on each of those. But just to kind of go through the list, if you will. So number one faith. When I started in real estate, it was my number one priority to put the Lord first in my career. And people think I’m just crazy because they’ll come and say what’s the number one thing you can do? And I say that they kind of look at me like okay, you’re that’s a little bizarre advice, but it has worked for me and it’s it is key absolutely keystone to my success of faith. And then grit. Grit is my favorite. Like I mentioned before, I love to get in, dig in and work hard for for clients. I consider myself I have a servant’s heart. I love to serve people. It takes people sometimes a long time to come to terms or it used to be a bad thing to say, oh, you’re a people pleaser. You’re just a people pleaser. Well, I own it, I am a people pleaser. I want to do a good job for you. I want you to be happy. So grit, willingness to learn. I think this is huge. I will be the first to say I do not know everything. I mean, as far as I’m concerned. I’m a baby in this industry five years in a market where we have realtors that have been in Florence selling real estate for four years. Sure. 40 year so there’s so much to be learned. With real estate. Every transaction is different. Every client is different, which is what makes us dynamic and interesting but also makes it one of the most difficult things you can do. So your willingness to learn and seeking out learning is another item going above and beyond. I always one of my taglines is exceeding expectations. It’s something that I learned back at Honda in my HR days and I will continuously think to myself, is this how a top agent will act? Is this something a top agent will do? And just playing to playing in my mind? What more could you be doing? How should you behave? handling this, how would a top agent handle this? So the going above and beyond building relationships and trust and support systems on a relationships person through and through, I believe that, again, just grassroots my successes because of relationships because of knowing people, and I’m having relationships with them and truly care. And I think sincerity goes a long way in real estate. Yeah, people know if it’s just you people is transparent. When you really care people know when you don’t really care if people know. So, if that’s why it’s always been just the perfect mix for me because I do care. And I don’t have to try to care or work at caring, I just, I care. So it works well in this industry. Preparedness, that’s the next item. And this is an example of just being prepared. And then the market knowing the mark marketing, actually, I do a lot of listing. So my business is split 6040 60% on the listing side, 40% on the buyer side, which has been an awesome mix, because I love working with buyers, and they’re helpful to me as well for me to be able to be more successful on the listing side. So
D.J. Paris 21:08
I know that you explain that real quickly. So I’m because you just said hey, working with buyers actually helps me become even better with with sellers. Can you explain sort of what what that means?
Natalie Taflinger 21:17
Yeah, absolutely. When I heard when I first went into real estate, people said, be a buyer’s agent, learn the industry through a buyer’s buyer’s agency. And I do think that is a good way to start your career. But for me, I just naturally fell into the listing side. And I really loved the listing side. But I wanted to be really good at the listing side. So I always felt like, Okay, I need to also be really good on the buyer side and learn from the virus. So for example, when I’m going into a listing appointment, and they want my advice or feedback on what to do to prepare for the home, I take the information that I hear firsthand for my buyers, and I can translate that into how we’re going to sell your home more successfully. I take my experience with buyers with home inspections, and what they want and translate that into the listing. And sometimes we’ll do a pre home inspection before the listing because I’ve had buyers who’ve walked from deals I’ve seen buyers, you know, just walk from deals. And so if I can identify those items and know about them ahead of time, it’s going to help me save a deal down the road.
D.J. Paris 22:23
That’s really, really, really smart. And I didn’t mean to interrupt your flow. I just I just think you know, it’s so interesting, because so many listeners who may be are working with buyers right now, more than than sellers might think, well, if I only just just worked with sellers, that would really be the pinnacle of my career. And I never have to you know, work with buyers. And not that there’s any that they don’t want to work with buyers, but it typically tends to be a lot more work. Well, I don’t know that it’s necessarily more work, but it’s a different type of work. And yeah, and so and what Natalie saying is she actually really prefers doing both because it keeps her her her tool sharpen she understands the other side is basically what she’s saying.
Natalie Taflinger 23:05
Yes, absolutely. I mean, there’s nothing like the joy of a first time homebuyer and being part of that with them. But my favorite thing to tell my my sellers, when I’m on listing appointments, we as we’re walking through the house, I’m looking at everything, I’m like, I really need you to change that air filter, because buyers are going to come in here and they’re gonna look at that dirty your air filter, and they’re going to equate that to no maintenance on your H HVAC unit. So let’s get a new air filter. Because I’m two numbers of times I’ve been with buyers and they look at those filters like look how filthy that air filter, yes, you know, cracks in you know, cracks in concrete or you know, which are just cosmetic taking care of those. Those are, you know, give buyers the little heebie jeebies. So things like that, that can translate over to helping with your listings.
D.J. Paris 23:47
Oh, yeah, and I’m sorry, I was I was interrupting your your list, but I don’t know if we covered all of it. But yeah,
Natalie Taflinger 23:54
long, isn’t it? Oh, I love it. So preparedness and then marketing, I think we may have been on to marketing but having a marketing strategy, this is more for the listing side. But you definitely definitely need to have a marketing strategy. And I have one laid out that I talked to each of my clients about and then networking and what I mean by networking is being involved in the things that you organically love and having that help support your business. So for me, nonprofit organization that I love, help support my business that coaching my kids sports help support my bit. So it’s not that I do those things. So it will support the business but do those things and it helps you know networking get to know people and allow people to get to know you because most of the time that’s the biggest challenge. If people know you then hopefully they’ll like you and then they’ll want to use you. So just putting yourself just putting yourself out there and getting involved in things.
D.J. Paris 24:55
Yeah, I think the the volunteering or donating time, money effort is so important because obviously you’re you’re creating a better community and helping an organization with their needs. But you’re also really telegraphing to all of the other people who also support that organization. That number one, you know, you’re into the same stuff they’re into, which is that particular organization, but also that you’re a giver. And people want to work with givers, they just do it, whether it’s real estate or any other profession. You know, we admire people who give back and and it’s something that is is couldn’t really be overstated. Of course, as Natalie said, and this is the important part, you don’t give back in order to get because that is also transparent. And that will be seen. And there are people in organizations who volunteer for that reason. But people know those people do it for that reason, what what they what what really, people are attracted to, as Natalie said, as authenticity. You know, I, you know, whether you’re working with a client, whether you’re volunteering, whether you’re putting out marketing material, you really as Nalli does want really to show this is the real me and and sort of let let people determine if that’s a good fit for their needs. But let’s I want to talk about marketing, because whether it’s respect to working with with even buyers or sellers, do you feel that that there’s there’s certain strategies that you’re employing that maybe other agents don’t? Maybe it’s an extra mile kind of thing, or just a different approach? Are you doing things differently, that you think help? Help marketing a home?
Natalie Taflinger 26:31
Oh, absolutely. I was amazed when I first went into real estate, for us just talked about the listing side of things, the pictures of homes out online, and I would go out, and I’m like, What is going on with these pictures. And, you know, you’ve got toilet seats up and agents in the mirror, taken the picture. And I’ve had the same photographer for four years, he’s amazing. I feel like we’re really in tune with each other. I do go on all of my photo shoots. But we work very, very closely together to ensure that our pictures are just meticulous. I mean, his name is Jake Westerbeck with pixels media highly recommended. He’s fantastic. But I wouldn’t, there’s no one else that I would trust to help for me. And ultimately, it is my responsibility to represent that helps me and you have to look at, look at it like that they’re hiring you to represent the house and put the best foot forward of the home. So that’s I always tell people when I’m going through the different strategies, of course, we’re going to be online, we’re going to be on Zillow, and realtor, Trulia and hundreds of others. But there’s no sense of being online, if you’re not going to look good online. That’s important thing. So we put I put a lot of emphasis in highlighting the special features about home and making sure that they look at it may be drone video, it may be it may be drone pictures, it may be anything and everything that that comes with pictures, but I put a lot of weight into that. The other thing that I talked to my clients about is there’s two ways of marketing your home, of course, we’re gonna look good online, and then people are going to be searching and they’re going to be seeking your home out. But I also like to take some proactive ways to where we seek buyers out. So I mark so I, so I always tell them, I’m like, not only are we going to be prepared for people to seek your home out, but we’re gonna seek buyers out. And so I partner with a couple of different companies that will create ads and identify buyers. And then we target I’ve got a listing right now, it’s a half million dollar listing 30 acres, an older home, a pond, a pool is really interesting. And I’m doing my new objective with this home is to try to market and target the northern states, because I feel like this could be an opportunity. Sure we kind of see it as expensive or a more expensive home here. But in the northern states, people who are migrating down to the south. I mean, that’s it’s really not as expensive for
D.J. Paris 28:53
them. Yeah, people who want more more space who want to, you know, maybe get away from their current community and get something bigger. And you Wow, yeah, that makes So so how are you actually trying to reach those? Those people from other states? Are you I mean, other than obviously, you’re online? You’re on all the websites? Are you doing anything else trying to find those buyers from other states?
Natalie Taflinger 29:17
So for this specific listing, yes, I’ve got two, two different ways of going about it. One is I’m going to go specifically to some horse farm sites, because it is 3030 acres, it has pastures it has a barn. So I’m learning more and working with this woman right now who is going to show me everything she can do as far as targeting people who are looking for that specific type of home. And then another company that will create an ad and it will I can tell it where to advertise in the northern states and it will advertise in the northern states.
D.J. Paris 29:47
Oh, that’s so smart. It’s funny. We had an agent years ago who got had a listing that was it was in a sort of obscene ly expensive home. It was like maybe a five or $6 million home In one of the suburbs here in Chicago, and I said, Oh my gosh, that’s a dream listing. And she’s like, well, sort of, she’s like, Yeah, she’s like, here’s why it’s kind of not. And she ended up selling it. But she goes, I had to she goes, I have to find the buyer like the buyers, because because how many people are just waiting for a $6 million home to go on the MLS? Almost nobody, you know, point 000 1%. So she’s like, it almost doesn’t matter that it’s on the MLS because what what what she had to do was actually reach out, she had to search the MLS for any agent that had a buyer that had closed a property in like the last 10 years that was in that price point and reach out to them and proactively say, Hey, I know you deal with buyers like this, you have to come see this. And she said it was the most work she’d ever done the listing the home, she’s like, that’s easy, the hard part, in this case, it’s so you have a very unique property that you’re trying to sell, you have to go that extra step, because anybody can dump it up on the MLS. And, and but you know, unless there’s a lot of people looking for 30 acre, you know, for farm, sort of, you know, land, and that’s just probably not a ton of people. So that’s such a smart strategy and probably makes sense. And I know why you’ve been so successful. So
Natalie Taflinger 31:09
I do and I would, I would say, my husband and I, we’ve kind of had this discussion back and forth, because there have been a couple, probably what you would consider difficult listings come across my path. And I never ever want to turn down the opportunity to try to sell it may be difficult. And a couple of times he’s been like, Are you sure you want to take that on? Absolutely, I would rather the opportunity than not have the opportunity. So it’s, it’s a mindset, it’s a perspective. You know, I had to sell while I was given the opportunity to sell a home, that was a more challenging home to sell, have one of my dear, dear friends. And my husband said, I think we should not do this. I think you should just pass you know, there’s
D.J. Paris 31:50
a friendship.
Natalie Taflinger 31:52
What if, what if it goes wrong? I looked at him, I said, you are looking at this all wrong. I said, I’m going to sell it. And when I do, it’s going to build something beautiful between us. And it has they have continued to refer me there probably at least three referrals a year for me. All based on that all based on that first house that I sold for them.
D.J. Paris 32:11
So I have to ask because you are a mother, you sold 126 homes last year? How are you? What is your work life balance? What tips do you have for for agents who maybe maybe they aren’t even as busy as your listeners? Some of them are? Some of them aren’t. But how do you do it? All right, moms, they always, you know, call like working moms or superheroes. But how are you actually balancing this because you are a busy person.
Natalie Taflinger 32:36
I’ll tell you I grind grind grind during the day as much as I can while they’re at school. And I do take appointments in the evenings and at the convenience of my clients. But all of the all of the things that I need to be getting done that don’t involve appointments and clients. I’m very, very focused. I mean, I feel like I have the ability to focus and and when I need to get things done, get it done, because I know I have this limited time. So that’s that’s probably one thing, just a matter of being able to focus and I have built you know, it has been made. I’ve have oh gosh, oh, let me forget to say this. So I have an amazing administrative assistant. So the little tackling or team started off with just myself at the beginning. And then I got to about 50 transactions. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, I can’t it’s not physically possible you I cannot do this. And so I fell into this wonderful relationship with transaction coordinator, administrative assistant, whatever you want to call her Christy. She was here in Florence. She was actually a past client. And we just came to the past realtor past client. And we fell into this. So I needed needed her, I still need her well, about six months into her starting with maybe in my assistant, her husband got transferred to Jacksonville, Florida. Oh, wow. She didn’t want to stop working for me. I didn’t want her to stop working for me because she was amazing. And we have been doing remote work together for over four years. So it’s been just phenomenal having her so that’s key. I tell everyone when you get to a certain level, know your limits, know what you can do and not do don’t don’t over commit and under deliver because your clients will know. So there’s a time when when that growth that you just know it’s time to expand. And so that’s been helpful and work life balance as well just knowing when to expand. And then after Christie, just recently now this is all just late 2020. Early 2021 is kind of the new growth of the tackling or team because I want to continue to help more people. So my sister who actually lived in Memphis, Tennessee, moved to Florence, South Carolina, got her realtor license and now so she’s a buyer’s agent. Now she’s working specifically with buyers and so I’m helping her she’s a natural, she’s phenomenal at it already. So I have my sister’s a buyer’s agent. My husband, who has his master’s degree as well just recently resigned from his 15 years in corporate America to become an operations manager. So now Andy got his real estate license. So he’s realtor and Operations Manager. And then most recently, I had another agent Come on, she’s gonna be a buyer and listing agent. She’s a newer agent about a year. And so I’m mentoring her and she’s on the tackling her team as well. So I feel like what started as just little little Natalie is definitely grown into a little bit more.
D.J. Paris 35:20
Well, I’d love to hear a little bit of the highlights. You’ve just given some highlights. But I know that you’ve there’s probably a few, a few others you’d like to mention. But yeah, that’s an incredible growth and makes perfect sense. I guess you build a team when it’s when it’s necessary. You just build person by person?
Natalie Taflinger 35:36
That’s right. Absolutely. I a couple highlights. So one highlight is just the honor of serving multiple members of the same family. So I started with a mom and dad and I helped them sell a house and everything went wonderful. And then their son got to the age where he needed a home, he and his wife, and they referred me and so I helped the son and the daughter, and then their daughter moved from Charleston to Florence. And they needed a home. So I’ve had the opportunity. I mean, what it just blows my mind of what an honor that is to be able to help continue to continue to help the same family through the everyone has in their family. Yeah, that’s incredible. That is now my favorite story is I think it was probably my first or second year. And there’s an agent in Florence. She’s phenomenal. We all look up to her. She’s been doing it for 40 years. I call her the queen. And one time I had a friend and I thought I was gonna get this listing. It’s in a great neighborhood. And I saw him at the pool. And he said no, and we’re going to use this other realtor and he said that the house sold like that. And it was her buyer and the what he described to me my husband and I coined the term acquire factor because she had three transactions out of the out of the 133 sales out of the one given situation. And so the first time I had my first was no trifecta. It was trifecta. She had the trifecta. First time I had my trifecta, I was like, Oh, this is so cool. I just achieved something that one of my idols in real estate had achieved. And it was a milestone. And then it was just this past year, we had to coin a new term that caught that dot because I had four I had two listings, and I was dual agent on both of those listings. And they were all interrelated. So my seller edible my seller of listing number one purchased my listing number two, and then my buyer bought the listing number ones house so there were four different transactions all within the dual agency. Wow, that
D.J. Paris 37:47
is a quad quad quad quad factor you should yeah, that would be the name of your book if you wrote about how to be a successful real estate agent be an awesome idea that is well, Natalie thank you so so much what I want to do too is also mentioned that anyone in the Florence area um that uh Can you can you talk about the the areas that you do service in case there’s any buyers sellers, renters investors that want to work with a tackling your team, what areas do you service?
Natalie Taflinger 38:19
Sure, so you the Florence area, we have a surrounding area, Darlington Hartsville Conway the beach King there’s there’s several different areas right within this surrounding area that I service, but those are the main areas Florence, Darlington Hartsville Conway and then any other small kind of surrounding area
D.J. Paris 38:38
as well. I have been to Conway and I picked up I picked up a I picked up Thanksgiving dinner once when we were eating in Myrtle Beach we drove because that’s about an hour’s kind of way about an hour from Myrtle Beach or 45 minutes, maybe about 45 minutes. Yes. So I had to drive all the way over there to pick up catering, then bringing it back. So I’ve been to kind of way but that our audience doesn’t care about me visiting Conway but But if anyone does live in the Florence or surrounding area and you are looking to work with one of the very top Realtors in that area. In fact, she just broke the record for this for the number of transactions in a given year in the entire local association history. Reach out to Natalie on the tap on your team. What is oh everyone can visit her directly at her website. Which is bear with me one second. I’m so sorry. It is Natalie tackling er homes.com again Natalie’s Haflinger that’s TAF L. i n g R and homes is plural Natalie to Haflinger homes.com. And is there any way people can reach out to you via email?
Natalie Taflinger 39:43
Oh, absolutely. It’s very simple. Natalie at Natalie tackling our homes.com so I kept it simple and there Natalie at Natalie tackling her homes.com
D.J. Paris 39:52
Perfect, perfect. Well, Natalie, thank you so much for being on the show. Congratulations on your incredible success. Five years 100 26 transactions in just the last year alone, is during a pandemic, on top of that is beyond beyond incredible. And we’re gonna continue to watch your success and we’ll probably have you back on the show and if you’re gonna say, oh, remember when I was only doing 126 homes a year, double that because you’ve doubled it every year. So, so now now but anyway, we’re so proud of what you’ve accomplished and we’re so excited to share it with our audience. For everyone that’s listening and or watching please support our show the easiest way you can do that is think about one other agent either in your office or just in the realtor community that you know that could benefit from hearing from somebody like Natalie and send them a link to this episode. You can find us right on our website which is keeping it real pod.com Or having them pull up a podcast app and search for keeping it real should pop right up and then also please follow us on Facebook you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod we post all of our episodes there of course along with we do we find an article every day written specifically to help agents grow their business and we post that there and when we’re doing these, these episodes, we actually do them live on Facebook. So again, facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod, Natalie, thank you so much. And we will see everyone on the next time. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, bye bye
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