Brady Miller transformed from superstar jazz drummer to superstar real estate broker. (He’s still a good drummer) Listen to his story of an unlikely shift to real estate, why mentorship has been critical to his success, and how he built his business to over 300 clients in just 5 years.
Brady Miller can be reached at bmiller@chicagorea.com and 773.977.8553.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:16
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast for real estate agents made by real estate agents. My name is DJ, I am your host through the show and today we have a great interview with Brady Miller coming up in just a few moments wanted to share with you a couple of things before we bring Brady on. First of all, thank you. The podcast has been growing in subscribers after just gosh, I think this is episode 11 or 12. We already have we’re coming up on almost 600 subscribers. So thank you for sharing this podcast with other realtors who you think might find it interesting. What we do here, if this is your first episode listening, is we talk to top producers Top Real Estate Agents Brokers in Chicago and say how did you build your business? What are you doing differently and interview them and let them share their stories. And if you’re somebody who’s looking to build your real estate practice beyond where it currently is, hopefully this will give you some great ideas and save you some time with trial and error and might as well learn from the people already doing it right. Second, we have a new segment coming up, it’s actually going to be broadcast, the ferry for it’s a regular segment, the first Monday of every month with my new co host, Carrie McCormick, who is a 20 year veteran in real estate. She’s unbelievable. She’s super knowledgeable and a lot of fun. And she’s going to be doing this monthly show with me where she talks about here’s what’s going on in the market. And and here’s what she saw the last month, here’s what’s coming on next month. And even my favorite part of what she’s going to be doing is answering your questions. So if you’ve ever wanted to ask a top producer questions like I do every week on the show, you can now do the same thing. So you can actually send in questions that you want Kerry to answer directly through our website, which is keeping it real pod.com on there, as well as all has our Twitter and Facebook and email link. So send us your questions. And lastly, if you are a business that would like to reach 600 brokers every single week through this podcast, you can advertise on the show we’re going to start taking on sponsors on a per episode basis. So if that’s something that’s of interest to you and your services, send us a message and our team will get in touch with you. All right, right after the break here Brady Miller.
Today on the show, we have Brady Miller of the Chicago real estate artists. I’m gonna start that over in one second. It’s not the one sec. Today on the show. We have Brady Miller of Chicago real estate artists. Brady specializes in Chicago’s north side, also far north side and downtown neighborhoods. He strives to consistently get his clients in front of the best opportunities on the market. Since his rookie season in 2012. Brady has helped over 300 clients purchase, sell and rent their homes. I’m gonna repeat that again because it’s so impressive since his rookie season 2012 He’s helped over 300 clients buy sell and rent, generating more than 70 million in revenue. He reached the Chicago Association of Realtors top producer status in his in just his second year and is currently in the top 1% of all realtors in the city in terms of revenue and sales volume. Brady loves what he does and works tirelessly around the clock to ensure each and every one of his clients has the best possible customer service experience. He is it also he’s equally at home assisting buyers and sellers. So whether you’re a first time homebuyer or a seasoned investor, or somebody who’s doing maybe they’re not their first real estate transaction, he can assess so welcome to the show. Ready.
Brady Miller 3:59
Thank you. Did you appreciate it?
D.J. Paris 4:01
Yeah, no, we’re super grateful to have you and I again, just the numbers you’ve put up in five or six years is truly truly impressive. But let’s you know, I also know that you’re not a Chicago native. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got here and how you got involved in real estate?
Brady Miller 4:18
Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it at all. Before this, I grew up in Vermont, went to school in New York, lived in New York City for a long time. My wife, she is a pianist, and she teaches piano her first gig out of college was Professor job in North Dakota. So actually was, I’m a musician as well. So my past is in music and I was when she moved to North Dakota. I was going back and forth between North Dakota and New York City, which is kind of kind of fun, very different places. And then we kind of got a little antsy in North Dakota and she got got a really good job opportunity here in Chicago tenure track professor job. So we were very happy to move to Chicago, I kind of always thought that I’d end up here in Chicago for some reason, because I’ve been, oddly a lifelong White Sox fan, even in Vermont. So some somehow I thought I’d end up here and be close to the White Sox. So that’s been nice. But yeah, that’s how we ended up here. And becoming a real estate agent I hadn’t planned the better. I hadn’t planned on it at all. But somebody I went to school with Michael relink. He, he helped me find he helped us find our first place here in Chicago, and we were a huge pain in the ass clients for him. I think he’s probably saw over 75 places. Oh, my gosh, I’ve tried to I try to look back and think about what I would have thought if I were his client. Or if, you know, I was my clients like what I would have done? Sure. Because we were when we were first looking, I had our puppy with us. And like, we were traveling around with my puppy. Because she was fairly new at that point. So like in his car and stuff, and it’s really hard. She’d be like, freaking out in the car. So he was very patient with me. But yeah, we we took a long time, it was a lot of fun looking for a place. And at some point during the process, he said, you just said, Have you ever thought of becoming a realtor? And I had never thought about it in any way, whatsoever. But I really enjoyed the process of looking for a place. And for some reason, it seemed like a natural, a natural thing to do coming from music. I’m not sure it seemed very smooth. Just I was like, oh, maybe I’ll try it and see what happens. Because Susan has a pretty solid job, my wife. And it seemed like I would have some time to get my feet under me and learn more about the business and grow into it. So that’s kind of what happened.
D.J. Paris 6:58
Yeah, no, that’s I have a couple of things to mention, which is totally off topic. But one of which is off topic. The rest, rest will be more on topic. But I just recently got rid of my piano and not because I wanted to just I moved and it wasn’t really going to fit and your wife can probably relate to this. But getting rid of a piano is not the easiest thing in the world. It was shockingly difficult.
Brady Miller 7:20
I mean, trying to sell it or just No,
D.J. Paris 7:23
no, I was no I was I was even trying to donate it because there’s a charity called I think keys for kids. And it was going to cost me because I was on the fourth floor, we I would have had to spend about $1,000 Just to be able to donate it. And I
Brady Miller 7:39
think that they would come and pay for getting you you would
D.J. Paris 7:43
think but but it just it would cost them you know, the same amount. So it was one of those things where I eventually we ended up giving it to somebody,
Brady Miller 7:50
but it’s not legal to do a bonfire in Chicago. Right.
D.J. Paris 7:54
But, but but also, you know, I wanted to also talk about, you know, you mentioned, Michael, who is the owner of real estate artists by five that correct is that, yes, yeah. And what’s interesting is, you know, you talked about, hey, I put him, you know, went and saw 75 places or, you know, whatever number it really was, you know, you could always argue like, he probably lost money working with you, except now you work with him. And there’s only a handful of brokers, you guys are incredibly successful. So it really was probably the best hire, you know, as far as a return on an investment. Now you guys are work together. And I always think, you know, for those clients who, you know, in particular, sometimes buying clients can take longer to make decisions. And I hear from the brokers here at our office, you know, a lot of them go, Oh, my client just can’t make a decision. It’s like you never know where it’s going to lead. And it’s even spawned a whole career for you, which I think is is so interesting. And let’s talk about, you know, your success. And and I know that’s makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But let’s just talk about how you started your business, being new to Chicago, starting again, you had the experience of Michael, and then you went on board with him. But how did you get started? Being that I’m assuming your your network of your sphere of influence, let’s say was probably pretty small.
Brady Miller 9:12
Yeah. It’s interesting. Michael, he was an amazing mentor. And early on, I was helping with a lot of his clients, because he was always pretty busy. So when he started, he started the company. I was basically his only agent for I think, maybe two years. So it’s just the two of us for a long time. And It aspires especially early on, I was helping him with his clients, doing a lot of showings and just kind of scrambling for a few leads here and there. And pretty pretty early on I’ve managed to somehow I don’t even really recall how I did it. But somehow I was able to nail down some leads on my own through like Zillow and Trulia. Sure like that. They worked out really well that the first sales were it was good Exciting. And then Michael would refer some people to me here and there as well. So it was working with some of his clients. And thing, you know, once once the first sale, I think I had like two sales that kind of came together at the same time and closed, like within a day each day of each other. I remember having one failed sale before before that, with some clients that I learned very early on. I don’t know if I should say this, but like working with, like Chase Bank and stuff is not always the most wonderful thing. Sure. But I think every agent, whenever you see the chase pre approval you’re like,
D.J. Paris 10:42
so yeah, well, it’s, you know, some of those larger lenders are just less flexible. They’re the big behemoth institutions, they don’t have a lot of the even some of the personal sort of touches that can help get a deal close more quickly. And a lot of them it’s it’s just, you’re just not that important to the overall bottom line, I guess. And yeah. Yeah.
Brady Miller 11:03
Like promised the world by this by the whatever, the the lender, and then like, at the very, you know, toward the end, it just fell apart because they haven’t done their homework. My clients Good bye. No, that was one of the very first experiences which I imagined, I did so much work for the for these people, when that deal failed. It was pretty frustrating, but not devastating in any way. I don’t think I because I think I come from a background in music, where I went to music school and throughout music school, often was practicing eight or nine hours a day. And certainly, if you’re if you’re going to music school, you’re not necessarily thinking about a career and you know, making money, like a solid job or anything, I don’t know, you’re kind of always really focused working hard on things. There’s a lot of failure involved in that, for some reason I kind of just going through this whole process of working really hard with these folks. And then having it having the deal fail it, it felt, instead of feeling really frustrating, it felt like a really good learning experience the entire time. So I kind of, I kind of think back on every deal. And like, what what did I learn from this deal that I can take to the next deal?
D.J. Paris 12:15
That’s, it’s very true. What type What instruments do you or What instrument do you play?
Brady Miller 12:19
I grew up playing drums, pretty much primarily drums, like jazz and pop and all this, you know, pretty much everything but classical. So that’s kind of that’s kind of what I was doing up until this was mostly just playing music. And in New York, I was doing a lot of touring and playing gigs every night. So yeah, very, very different lifestyle than I have now.
D.J. Paris 12:43
Yeah. So I suspect it is to a degree. I mean, there’s the interesting thing about jazz. Not that I need to tell you the interesting thing about jazz, but what I find interesting about jazz as a discipline is the ability to be creative, within a very disciplined sort of structure, you know, and the idea to sort of, okay, here’s where we’re starting. And here’s sort of where we want to end up. And in the middle, there’s, if depending on the type of jazzy play, there’s obviously room for improvisation. And, you know, and I just think in some ways, jazz musicians tend to be a very interesting mix of, you know, incredibly disciplined players who are able to also, you know, sort of on the fly exude their creativity. So I think I wonder if the discipline associated with just, you know, learning the skill that you know, that you’ve been doing for so long, if that really helped you build your real estate practice at all.
Brady Miller 13:36
i Yeah, maybe intangibly, I’d probably I for some reason, the transition from music to this feels incredibly natural. And also, Michael actually went to music school as well. We went to the same school, to he comes from that background, also, hence, the name real estate artists. So we probably see I think we that’s probably why I’m such a natural fit, I think because we both operate very similarly. Whether we know it or not, I think it just seems to work out that way. So I don’t know that the transition just for me felt very smooth. From going to music to this, like, there wasn’t really, there wasn’t really much of a hitch. There’s definitely a big learning curve for sure. But especially in terms of, like having to deal with frustration and of learning of learning on the job and I don’t know that never really happened. It always it was it was fun from the very beginning and it’s you know, it’s still super fun. I don’t know it’s you were
D.J. Paris 14:35
bait you were basically the kid in whiplash up until you moved to Chicago.
Brady Miller 14:40
Not a very realistic movie, but
D.J. Paris 14:43
your fingers never bled and you didn’t
Brady Miller 14:46
you’re playing the drums wrong if your fingers start bleeding
D.J. Paris 14:52
great movie though, but, but anyway, back to you know, back to those and I also wanted to talk about buying leads just for a brief moment because it’s a very interesting thing you talked about, hey, when I started, I purchased some leads, Zillow, Trulia, etc. And, you know, it’s funny, there are a lot of sort of purists out there that will say, Oh, you know, you shouldn’t have to do that. And I always think, why should you know it look a lead as a lead. And so, you know, those leads are definitely much different than referrals and people you meet, you know, and you have to work them a bit differently. But I think that, you know, any opportunity to get in front of people who are interested in buying or selling a home is certainly worth pursuing, you know, whether or not, you know, the other thing I also find is that, because a lot of times those leads, you’re not the only person that might be getting that lead, right, there might be a couple other brokers who you are sort of in competition with, depending on how that lead is sort of circulated. And I find that most brokers really aren’t very good at working those types of leads. Did you? Did you think you did anything special or different from other brokers, when you were working those initial internet leads,
Brady Miller 15:59
maybe, maybe just being in it’s really, really hard to do, but maybe just being as responsive as possible, because sure, because the vast majority of them are not good leads. Sure, and don’t mean anything. But sometimes you can be really surprised by the ones that do work, like, you’ll think one’s terrible, and then you’ll get a response back, and it’ll be somebody you know, wonderful, really eager to work with you. So you never quite know. So as much as I possibly can, and I can’t always win, sometimes when you get a flood of leads, a lot of them dropped through the whatever, save whatever. But yeah. But again, responding quickly, I think is super important. And then responding honestly, and, you know, maybe with some sort of valuable info, you know, right away is always helpful.
D.J. Paris 16:50
Totally. And yeah, there’s a lot of statistics that say, if you let a lead, sit an internet lead, for example, sit for more than like a minute, it goes down. And it’s, you know, your ability to close by a tremendous percentage, it’s like, really, really quick. And then there’s a lot of also those leads, sometimes you have to call them seven times over, over a certain period of
Brady Miller 17:09
time. But I’m really terrible about about don’t respond right away. I’m really terrible about following up. So I have to learn the systems better for myself, but
D.J. Paris 17:18
well, you’re clearly doing just fine. So, you know, I let’s talk about, you know, imagine at this point, a good percentage of your business is probably referral based, I would assume. And can you talk a little bit about sort of what you think and again, it’s so it’s always such a difficult question. When I say, Well, what do you think you do differently? Because every successful broker just kind of shrug is going, I don’t know. Like, they don’t understand that they’re in any way unique. You know, they just go I do what I do. I try to do a good job, I answer the phone when people call and but is there anything specifically that you that you that you can really, if you don’t have anything specific, that’s fine. But anything that you think you do, that maybe other brokers don’t do, or maybe aren’t as responsive with?
Brady Miller 18:03
Again, I don’t really know, I’m not sure. But one thing I’ve kind of always thought about, and I see just in general, a lot of people, clients, other brokers, I tried to write emails and texts, as if I’m speaking. So I try to, I try to, I try to make everything I write reflects how I would talk to somebody, or at least approximate it, without all the hitches in my pocket. But sometimes I feel like you kind of have to reflect your personality, in every, in every communication you make, which I think helps kind of keep things flowing. I’m not sure I’m not sure if it helps or not. But sometimes, sometimes, like, I’ll get a text from an agent or an email from an agent. And I’ve spoken to the agent and I know them well. And then sometimes you don’t know the text, the way they communicate via email or text. seems much different. And I always wonder if that sometimes comes across to some, some people?
D.J. Paris 19:09
No, I think that’s a really important point. So I’m, that’s very interesting, because what I do, and I do mostly recruiting, I recruit brokers, and one of the things that I do and I don’t know how this is received, I assume it’s received well is I get really excited when someone is interested in like joining our firm. So when I’m emailing, if they’re emailing me and we’re communicating in that way, I tend to put a lot of exclamation points not at not an obnoxious amount and not in a, in a way to sort of fake some sort of excited, you know, you know, message that isn’t really sincere because I am legitimately excited when somebody wants to join our firm. And if they talk to me on the phone, they’ll hear the same thing and the way I speak and so I actually put that into my communication and I assume it’s well received, but I imagine it’s it’s pretty different because sometimes People will call us or call me and say, Well, I’m interested, tell me more. And then, but I know they probably call three other firms too, which makes sense. And they’ll say you’re the only one that seems genuinely excited to talk to me. And I don’t think that makes me special. It’s just who I am. But I try to I’m the same way I try to reflect that in the marketing that we do as well as the my communication because it’s it is actually how I feel. I think that’s I think that’s actually a really important subtle point. So thanks for that. But let’s, let’s actually talk about a few of your experiences that you had at least you wanted, you’d mentioned you had a key incident at Malibu east and I was wonder if you could tell us sort of what that
Brady Miller 20:42
what happened there. Yeah, I I’m really terrible at telling stories. And I was thinking today. Like, I could probably tell a million stories, but I don’t know how to tell stories. Which is, which is kind of funny, but But I did think of this one, which happened pretty early on with some clients. It was like a guy and he brought a bunch of friends with him to the showing. And it was really fun. And we were we did this showing in Malibu East it was like near the top floor. I don’t know if you know that building. 60s 6033, North Sheridan. They were being out on the balcony. And I fumbled with the keys. And then like trying trying to catch the keys, like stopping them with my foot. I literally dropped kick them over the balcony. Oh, no. Because I was just I’m a clumsy person. And like, all the way down to the bottom where the pool is and everything. So
D.J. Paris 21:35
I was like, that’s, that’s it? Did they go into the pool or just
Brady Miller 21:39
going in the pool, but I didn’t know where they went. So these? Yeah, my client and his friends were like, super nice. And like after the show, and we went down there and like, did a search party for the keys. And it took like, 10 minutes to find that. But I thought that was funny. Because that, I don’t know, I should have been super embarrassed. But they were like, I think they probably knew that I was fairly new in the business. Yeah, and, you know, I worked with them for a while and they bought something and they repeat clients and everything. So
D.J. Paris 22:06
that was good. Well, well, and it’s, I mean, it’s also a super funny story. And it’s also a very human experience. I mean, we all have clumsy moments, I would think you’d have less clumsy moments than the average person being a drummer, you’re pretty precise with your hands. But but with you know, it is funny because, you know, this sort of idea of always being perfect, is so interesting. And probably not something that’s very relatable anyway, to your clients, you know, clients, you know, we all trip over things and drop things and, and break things. And so to see your realtor have that moment of like actual humanity or, you know, they’re just a regular person to I think in some way probably endears them to you. You know, unless they’re expecting you to be perfect, which, you know, is a different type of client, I guess. But I imagine when you’re like, Okay, guys, I need your help finding the keys. I imagine they all probably just like, yeah, no problem. We’ll help you out. It was probably was more funny to them than anything.
Brady Miller 23:02
Yeah, they totally offered. I wasn’t I wasn’t gonna ask them to help. But I think they probably thought it was kind of funny.
D.J. Paris 23:07
Well, it is funny. And then also, you said your most unusual real estate experience was you also Rogers Park? Experience a short sale? Can you tell us about that?
Brady Miller 23:18
Yeah, this was uh, this one was probably the scariest one I’ve had. It was like a short sale that is supposed to be vacant. And I went inside, my client was looking in one room and I had, there’s stuff on the counters, like food on the counters, and things like that. So we thought that was a little odd. But maybe the owner was here occasionally. But yeah, we were told it was vacant. And we’re like knocking on one of the bedroom door because the bedroom door was closed. And it swung open. And there was somebody pointing a gun at me. Whoa, on the other side of the door. And she was a police officer, actually. So it was very interesting. So I don’t know if it was like a friend who was crashing there. But the listing agent didn’t know anything about it. But thank goodness that it was a police officer. And like a junkie or something with a gun.
D.J. Paris 24:11
So wait, wait, wait, the police officer was in the closet? Yeah,
Brady Miller 24:15
no, not the closet. And in one of the bedrooms. I’m sorry. In one of the bedrooms. She was just like a friend of the owner or somebody who had
D.J. Paris 24:22
a key or something that was Gotcha. She thought you were breaking in or wasn’t sure Yeah, cuz I think she was
Brady Miller 24:27
sleeping. And I probably will woke her up and knocked at the door and she kind of freaked out and you know, put the gun in. Yeah, so that was like, that was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. Because I don’t even think I’d ever seen a real gun before. Yeah, that’s amazing. So and then, yeah, that’s That’s the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. I’ve had a lot of weird ones.
D.J. Paris 24:48
That’s that’s pretty weird. And also traumatic. I
imagined at least a little bit. Yeah, no, of course. I might have skipped a beat for that. Oh, yeah.
Brady Miller 24:59
Oh, nobody’s supposed to be They’re I’ve no clue what that was. Sure. There was a police officer to like, you know, crashing in an empty room. So, yeah, did she broke down or anything? So somebody must have known she was there or occasionally was there? I’m not sure. But
D.J. Paris 25:14
yeah, that’s why that is interesting. You know what? So you, you’ve done so well. And you know, you’re at a relatively small firm with big numbers. So I don’t want to make it seem as if you guys are this little boutique firm, because you put up big huge numbers. But for somebody who’s newer to the business, or just looking to grow, and I again, whatever comes to mind is is would be helpful is like, what do you think somebody who’s new should be doing? Or where should they be focusing their energy on how to get better and get more clients? Anything? Any advice you have?
Brady Miller 25:50
I don’t know, my, my experience was pretty unique. And I definitely had a lot of help early on from from my broker. I imagine if you’re in a place where you have like family and friends living there, maybe we’re, you know, nicely working your friends and family for any sort of potential referrals and just getting your name out there might help. That’s probably pretty common advice. But I know we have some family here and, and some friends from back in college who have become clients. And then you know, those friends that refer to other friends who have become clients, etc. So it definitely the sphere of influence helps. So maybe early on, but that’s a big deal. Maybe if you have the ability to to buy some leads on Zillow or Trulia or an Android, I guess it’s one thing now might might be helpful early on just to see if you get a few leads here. And there. You can, you know, work those leads really, really hard. And, you know, try to provide the best possible service for those people and see what happens that can always help. I also became a Redfin partner agent pretty early on. Gotcha. So I were like, especially in 2013. I had, you know, a good number of clients who are Redfin, who came came to me through Redfin. And that was really great for me, because red red fin leads are generally pretty warm. Lot of first time buyers who were my age, like, I, I really love working with buyers. By the way, that’s my favorite part of the job. I know a lot of people push listings, like, you have to have a lot of listings for the business, but, and I’m getting a lot more listings now. But I really, really liked working with buyers so much. Yeah, but uh, but that was pretty helpful early on. Being a Redfin partner agent, gave me a lot of experience was with buyers, and a lot of those buyers referred a lot of people and, and have become repeat clients as well. So that was helpful early on to starting in 2013. That I and right now, I don’t do much with them at all. Most of my clients now are like referrals and repeat business. But But yeah, but that definitely helped. I’m not sure how easy it is now to be a Redfin partner agent, so that I’m not sure what the situation is there. But
D.J. Paris 28:23
I just interviewed this, actually, it’ll be two episodes ago from from when this one is published, but I just interviewed one of the top red fin brokers, because I was interested myself and how it works. But I wanted to make a point to, to solicitors, because oftentimes, especially for newer brokers, and I don’t know, if you’d be, if you would, how you feel about this, what I’m about to say, but a lot of times, new brokers in particular feel that, you know, they’re going to join one of the larger franchise firms, which I like all those firms, I think they’re excellent, they have amazing training, great support, great tools, everything. And, you know, a lot of times people will join for those training programs and or, you know, the the support, and I think that’s there’s nothing inherently there, that’s a really good idea. But then I also meet brokers, someone like yourself, who had, you know, works at a smaller firm with, I’m assuming, you know, a different type of training program. And in your case, you know, you had one of your good friends was really your mentor, and also your partner through through the first you know, however many transactions and deals and you probably still, you know, work together today, and how successful people can be where they go to firms where, you know, they’re not going to have that three week intensive training program, and they just learn on the job because they pick a good partner, a good mentor. And I’ve always thought like, to me those those people are so interesting, because, you know, the prevailing thought for a lot of new brokers is I better go somewhere that really has all of the resources I’m going to need, which would be a large franchise firm and you didn’t do that and I just was curious on, you know how important that relationship you had with and half with Michael like was to you growing your business?
Brady Miller 30:08
Oh, sure, yeah. Cuz he started that company and we were both pretty much learning on the go in different ways. So my pretty much my training was like jumping into it and asking him a lot of questions and making a lot of mistakes early on. And I, you know that that helped me move things pretty quickly, I think. You know, obviously, I learned I learned a lot of stuff just from getting the license, you know, a lot of the legal stuff, so I knew stay away from but I didn’t, I didn’t really do much in the way of training at all.
D.J. Paris 30:48
Well, and that’s, that is not uncommon. I mean, we, we have lots of brokers at our firm, we have almost 600 now. And a good percentage of them came over from other firms and a certain percentage of the ones that came over from other firms versus like brand new brokers just passed their test, the people that transfer over, at least half of them came from firms where they were just smaller firms who didn’t have, you know, the training resources that, you know, one of the big franchise firms, of course, is going to have, and I’ll say, like, Oh, how did you train in there? Like, I didn’t really have a formal training, I just, I just guess, got to it. And then I had a support system in place when I had questions. And, and it seems like some of those brokers in some ways, I think, in some ways, or you could argue or may be better equipped, because they just had to make it work. And, you know, they were just sort of trial by fire. So you’re certainly seemed like a product of that sort of situation? And it’s, it’s really impressive.
Brady Miller 31:47
Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s been really fun. I part of it is probably the most important things really are just listening to buyers and, and being empathetic with every single client that you have, is important, because everybody’s completely different. But obviously, they everybody shares something with you. So. So that’s just helpful, a lot, a lot of listening and making sure you understand what they’re saying, and what they’re asking for. And even even sometimes, if they don’t really know what they’re asking for, you can usually pick it up pretty quickly. And help out that way. But yeah, never, never tell a client what they want, necessarily, you should always learn what they want, and listen to them all the time. And then you you know, you can figure it out, but always always be empathetic to everything. I guess it was very helpful.
D.J. Paris 32:38
Well, yeah, it’s I agree. And it’s such an emotional, whether they’re buying, selling, or even renting at such an emotional decision, that there is a tremendous amount of empathy that, you know, if something doesn’t quite go, right, they’re certainly feeling a certain way about it. And I think so, so many of us in those types of transactions, where we’re the consumer, we rely upon the real estate professional to really guide our hand through it, but also understand what we’re feeling. So I think that empathy is really, really important. Like, we just had a broker from another firm call in to our support line, they had scheduled an appointment with one of our brokers listings. And the reason this broker from another firm called was, she said, Oh, I’m at the listing. And the lockbox, there’s no key in the lockbox and, and, you know, the act, the actual answer that we could give her was, oh, you know, you’ll have to contact that broker of ours and ask them, you know, because we, you just have to, here’s their phone number. But but so that was the, ultimately the information we gave her. But I happened to pick up the phone and I said, Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry. Because I can just imagine she’s there with her client. She’s there looking to you know, and, and I’m sure those things happen, you know, who knows why that happened. But I said I am. I’m so sorry. That’s happening to you. I wish I could fix it, you know, and it was I sincerely could feel that, that that she was like really bummed out, which who wouldn’t be, and again, it happens, but it’s something you wouldn’t expect to happen when you’re working with a buyer. So I’m sure you’ve dealt with at a time or two, but it was like, you know, just the fact that, you know, she was probably not super happy. And and I was like, legitimately bummer for her, even though I don’t know who she is. And she was really appreciative. Even though I ultimately said, Oh, I’m sorry, there’s really nothing I can do. But here’s, here’s the brokers phone number, give them a call, I’ll reach out. So I think you’re right. Empathy is really, really important, just in general in life, probably when communicating with other humans. But, but that’s, that’s a great piece of advice. Well, I think we have said it all, and I really appreciate your time, but I want to also give your contact information in the event that you know, any buddies listening out there wants to work with you. So I know the real estate the website that real estate artists have is Chicago R e a.com. Again, Chicago rei.com. But Brady, how could someone get directly in contact with you? What’s the best way for them
Brady Miller 35:06
to reach you? Sure, I can be easily reached via phone and text via 773-977-8553. And my email address is B. Miller. So B M I L L E R, at Chicago, R e a.com.
D.J. Paris 35:26
Well, Brady, thank you so much for your time. I know you’re busy. And also congratulations on all the success and best luck in the continued success with you and the firm.
Brady Miller 35:37
Thank you. Did you wait yeah, what you’re doing here is awesome. So so keep it up. Keep listening. I’m looking forward to hearing more
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