Welcome to the March edition of Coaching Moments with
Ryan D’Aprile!
If you listened to last month’s Coaching Moments, you know that Ryan D’April of D’Aprile Properties spent a full hour on lead generation. We had such an overwhelming response from our listeners that this month he spent another full hour answering your questions! Don’t worry if you missed the last episode – you can jump right in with this one. Ryan has coached (and continues to coach) some of the top brokers in Chicago, and his methods are simple and effective. If you’re a broker looking to increase your production by even one deal a month, you NEED to listen to this episode.
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.492.7900 and execassistant@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers also for brokers all over the country because we are starting to get more traction and people from many different states have written into us. So I know it’s not just local, but we are interviewing and talking with local brokers here. We only talked to the top 1% If you’re a new listener, this is coaching moments with Ryan’s APR. And this is a really super fun series that we do. Ryan comes on every single month, and Ryan’s passion is coaching. By the way, if you’re not familiar with Ryan, let me give you a little bit of information. Here, Ryan, April’s a progressive thought leader, he’s focused on providing for his agents and staff in particular, Ryan’s passion is coaching. His strengths are motivational skills, his coaching style and dedication to training. And what I want to mention is Ryan has a visit right? You have 13 offices, is that right? Yes. Yeah, so write us 13 offices, several 100 brokers. And Ryan spends the vast majority of his time traveling from office to office coaching his brokers. So we’re so honored that he spends time every month doing that here for the 1000s of listeners we have so and by the way, Ryan is also on vacation. So this is primetime that he is taking away from his family to do this for you. So on behalf of all the listeners, Ryan, thank you and welcome.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:15
It’s my pleasure. Thanks so much. Yes, I’m down here in sunny Miami. It’s in it’s fantastic, by the way, because I think of where we are when I left I think was about 25 degrees, what’s the temperature there now?
D.J. Paris 2:25
It is 30. And we haven’t seen we haven’t seen the sun in about four days. So that’s it’s pretty much missing.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:33
You know what I’m, I’m overlooking the intercoastal right now looking at some boats and pool and palm trees. And it’s fantastic. But I gotta tell you something, TJ, there’s no place like home. And as great as Miami is, and I love Miami, I mandu. I love Chicago as well. And it’s all about your perspective and how you put it. So it’s great to be here, but it’s not. So we’re really fortunate to live in such an awesome city.
D.J. Paris 2:53
That’s true. My parents had a place on the intercoastal. We’ve actually just sold it. They had it for many, many years in Myrtle Beach. I think the intercoastal is the largest manmade body of water in the world. There’s something unusual about the intercoastal. So if you’re listening, you don’t know what it is google it is super interesting had to do with I think World War One when it was built out. Yeah, there’s a way to get moved and supplies up and down the coast. But anyway, so let’s get in today. So Ryan and I were talking offline and we we wanted to come up with with an improvement to our series. It’s already great because Ryan’s on it. But we thought he gave he was just true. We the feedback we’ve received has been so incredibly positive and strong that that we’re very, very excited that Ryan’s a part of this. And what we thought would be really interesting and helpful was, for example, on the last podcast Ryan did and I’ll post links to those if you first time listening, you should go back and listen to the other two that we’ve done thus far. But there was so much great content that I think there’s a lot of questions that we just didn’t get to as a result of people listening. So in the last episode, right, well, let’s go all the way back to the first episode. The first episode Ryan really talked about setting up your day, your morning routine, how do you set yourself up for success to dealing with mindset habits, behaviors, etc. And then last episode, Ryan talked all about really prospecting relationship building, how do you actually build your business? A lot about marketing campaigns, and really, really getting into into the weeds in a good way. Specifically granularly about you know, how do you what constitutes a lead? What are the different marketing campaigns? How do you know separate out your contact list, etc. So I thought what we would do is, every other episode, we would go back to the previous episode with questions. So this way, Ryan can get even deeper. And so what I will ask you to do here in just a moment, is right we’ll get into these questions, but I’ll ask the listeners to send us your questions. So if you listen to these and you want to hear from someone like Ryan, who is a very well respected thought leader, send us your questions. You can do that on Facebook, our website, million Ways to get us that stuff.
Ryan D’Aprile 5:01
Yeah, send them in. I mean, it’s there’s so many questions that pop up in people’s day to day activities, you guys send them in, we’ll be happy to cover them. There are, there’s no silly questions, if it’s just something that you might shoot it over and DJ will cover it.
D.J. Paris 5:17
Yeah, and pretty much everything I’ve learned in my life has just been through tremendous, a lot of asking a lot of questions.
Ryan D’Aprile 5:24
DJ, what we’ll do, we’ll keep the questions anonymous, so nobody has to feel like they’re going to be exposed if they’re nervous about sending out a question, mentioned that people’s name.
D.J. Paris 5:30
Very good point. Thank you for mentioning that. Okay, so let’s start to go through some of these questions. We talked a lot about one of the constant themes has been in the different episodes we’ve done is how consistency is the mother of skill, repetition, and building those, those have those daily habits, weekly habits, etc. Now, assuming brokers took your advice from the previous episode, which was all about how to find people that need your services, and they really started to implement those daily habits and reaching out staying in touch, etc. How quickly in your experience, and I know this, this can vary, of course, but how quickly does a broker start to see results as far as actually finding clients from that from doing those efforts? So,
Ryan D’Aprile 6:18
you know, it can vary on the it could depend on their time, their tenure in the business? Sure. So, um, I’ve had agents, majority of our company, one thing that I’m incredibly proud of, and it’s interesting, you know, innovation, you know, comes from need and, and one of the reasons our company has grown, is that we are not an organization of recruiting agents from other companies. Right. You know, there’s, quote unquote disruptors out there, sure. And essentially, they’re paying money for high agents and producing agents to come over Yes, I’ve had a lot of agents from my company get recruited out by leading real estate companies in our area, because of just higher commission splits and paying for them. And we haven’t had that luxury, we bootstrapped our organization, like I told you, DJ before the call. And what I’ve had to do over the past eight years, is bring people from that in the industry, and coach them all right, and of our 400 agents, 95% of them, were probably not licensed five years ago. And there’s some of the top producing real estate agents in Chicagoland and agents that get plucked away from our company, I’ve actually learned to be proud of is there some of the top top producing agents and those other companies, and they’re highlighted, and they’re rewarded. And, and I’m proud of that, because they were not in the business prior or they had been for a while. And they just didn’t kind of have a focus on what needed to be. And a lot of it was perspective of, this is what you’re going to do, and it’s going to take time. So that was a long winded, and I have a tendency to do that. But to tell you the experiences, I have people that have never been in the business, I people have been in the business for, you know, three, four or five years, something even a decade. And the timing is different based upon the tenure. So for somebody who’s brand new has never been in the business before, to follow the system, and you fall to a tee, it’s the first 12 months is going to be laying the foundation, sure, you’re not going to see a lot of results. And it’s like a plant germinating underground. So you’re not going to see anything but underground, there’s a ton of stuff happening. And it’s a second 12 months that you start to see the results. Okay. And then it’s the third full month, the third year, where what you did in your second year, which is, which will be a phenomenal amount of business, you’ll actually double it in your third year, but you got to follow the system. Now there are agents who have been in the business for three, four or five years, I’ve seen it happen in three to six months, surely off for them, because they have a foundation, they have a network, the network has a vague familiarity with them, and that they’re in the real estate business, they just have not been consistent in their activities and what they need to do. And I found it’s a three, four or five, six months of them doing it. They’ve gotten they’re getting tremendous results. They’re just they’re thrilled with so but that being said, Everybody’s struggling in those one to three months, or those first 12 months. And what they’re struggling with is the emotional factor that they have people compare themselves. I have agents that have not been in the business for, you know, eight months, and they’re comparing themselves to top producers. And I say, Listen, don’t do that. You got to give yourself time. Everybody has a starting block. And it’s just, it’s the biggest, the biggest. What’s the word I’m looking for? thing that will take somebody off shore their path is ego and self doubt. And and what they’re doing is they’re looking outside and they’re comparing, and they just can’t do that. Yeah, there’s
D.J. Paris 9:43
a great expression that says never compare your insides with someone else’s outsides.
Ryan D’Aprile 9:50
That’s right. That’s the truth. And a comparison is the thief of joy. And we all do it. I’m sure you do it. But you got to have that environment and I’m I think for individuals in the real estate business, coaching is incredibly important. And whether you get it at your company or you get it from an outside vendor, it’s important because you need that second or even third set of eyes to keep you focused on what you need to do. And then also keep you encouraged and to remind, you know, look at what you’re doing. I know how you feel, look at what you achieve. And it’s kind of that reason.
D.J. Paris 10:24
Yeah, I mean, even our own, the owner of our company, his name’s Nick, he started at Coldwell Banker in I think 2003. And he ended up he wasn’t the Rookie of the Year with Chicago Association, realtors, but he was of the like, top five or something. And so I asked him years ago, when I started working for Nick, I said, Hey, you had an amazing first year back in 2003, how much you started currency, how much production did you actually do? And he goes, Oh, that’s a funny question. He said, I did zero production. For the first six months, he goes, All I was doing was all of laying the groundwork, and just making the calls and doing all the things you’re supposed to do. He goes, then in month seven, I ended up closing seven sales transactions. But if you would have looked at that first six months, he goes, if I would have thought about having zero money I’ve generated I would have felt like a huge failure. And he ended up being one of the top producing rookies. So yes,
Ryan D’Aprile 11:16
right. Well, you know, that’s, that’s I’ll draw it because it’s funny. That’s actually the same year I got in the best Yeah, was 2003. And I tell everybody who is new to the business or whatnot, it takes us time we go over it. Okay, you’ve been in the business for five years, you get the results you want, here’s the timing is going to be okay. You’re brand new. Well, let me tell you about my experience when I was brand new, and I had I had a career, I was an executive search. I got my license in January 2003. It wasn’t until July of 2004, that I quit my career, and became a quote unquote, full time real estate agents. And anybody and everybody could do it. I mean, 2003, I had a daughter, I had a wife, I had a mortgage, I had, I was working probably 45 to 50 hours a week, do an executive search, I was going oh my gosh, at night to get my MBA, and I travel maybe once or twice every other week for my business, the executive search business that I was in, but at the same time, over 18 months, I was able to lay a foundation. And that set me up to walk away, and I never looked back. And DJ three years later in July 2007 was July or July 2004, three years, laters, July 2007, with the great recession. And you want something I didn’t skip a beat in 2000 789 10. They were I’ve told people this over and over again. Sometimes I’m tired of hearing myself speak because I’m repeating. But it’s just how people learn. It’s like, those were great years. For me, it was terrible what people were going through. And there was a lot of emotional stress, seeing friends and family and colleagues and clients that we were doing a ton of short sales for and helping them through the business. But for me as a real estate agent, our business was plentiful, it was all around. It was there, then it’s there today. But it’s about living in abundance versus scarcity, which is, you know, you have these conversations, we talk about this, we read books, we listen to podcasts. But man, this is not a one and done thing. It’s like you have to go to the gym, you gotta go to the mental gym, every single day to check yourself, especially if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, which real estate agents and loan officers. We are entrepreneurs. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 13:21
And don’t step on the scale every day and look at the number right like stop judging your daily performance judge the work you’ve done, don’t judge the results, the results, you know, this is a well trodden path. The path to success in this industry has been well documented. It’s same with with fitness, same same with really any part of life, you know, people have figured this out already. But if you just gotta keep doing it,
Ryan D’Aprile 13:46
it’s so true. It’s and it’s so great. I love when we as we coach people, we learn from the people we’re coaching. And I’m gonna reference one of our agents, his name’s Mark, play sec. And he was one of the agents that I saw. In the beginning parts of me coaching him was like 30 to 60 days, he taught me a very valuable lesson, I have what’s called the dashboard we have with this snapshot. And Mark said, Can we do me a favor? Can we not look at my goal, and we can’t look at my results? Can we just focus on it? That’s, that’s awesome. I said, Yes, Mark? Absolutely. We can. In fact, Mark, I’m gonna steal that from you and just use my future coaching, if you don’t mind. And that’s the beautiful thing about the business and being in what we do is you can learn from everybody and anybody regardless of title. Yeah, great.
D.J. Paris 14:25
What are your thoughts about finding an accountability partner, someone that is, you know, probably on the same path as you who wants to do a lot of daily activity. And, you know, we know famously if you’re Brian Buffini fan, he had Joanie ago, and they were accountability partners. What are your thoughts on that? My name is Joe. That’s funny.
Ryan D’Aprile 14:45
Yeah, it’s randomly Yeah, we’ve never met but he lives in my in my neighborhood. Um, it’s important. I mean, and they you don’t have to, they don’t have to have the same tenure. They don’t even need to be the same business if they understand the concept of what you’re trying to achieve. And it’s focus on self improvement, working on the activities that you need to be doing and staying accountable. I think everybody will benefit from an accountability partner. I think everybody needs an accountability partner in the business that we are, we are in. But it’s important. The countability partner is discipline. Because there are so many distractions in our business. And there’s all these new things, right? There’s this new digital, there’s this new lead generation app, there’s this new this and there’s news that you’re really, you really have to focus on somebody who understands the fundamentals. And you have to understand what the fundamentals are, and then commit to each other saying, let’s stay focused on what’s tried and true. Let everybody else all the disruptors and technology and let everybody else prove it out and see what happens 10 years from now, or five years from now, or even three years from now, if we have to shift gears, and let’s just measure the results we have, and what we’re gonna do over the next 12 to 24 months. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 15:58
if you if you’re not sure how to find an accountability partner, and obviously, the most obvious example is if you work in an office where there’s other brokers, you know, that should be one possible source. Or if you’re a member of association, which everyone who’s listening probably as a member of car, Main Street or short Barrington, you know, one of the association’s, they have all sorts of events and where brokers come and hang out, and, you know, the YPN is, is another organization where lots of brokers go to learn, you know, that would be a place to go and just start meeting brokers saying, hey, I need somebody that can I can do a daily check in about my activity. And hopefully, we have similar, you know, goals around habits, and you can find people there out there. Absolutely. Let’s go back to the let’s say, You’re a newer broker, or or maybe not newer, but somebody who is, you know, has it’s a slow period right now, we know that the sales markets a little bit slower currently, maybe the calls aren’t coming in as frequently. So aside from the daily activity that we talked about, on the last two episodes, what else? You know, what are your? How much of your day should be spent marketing if you have no clients currently to service?
Ryan D’Aprile 17:11
So it’s a great question. So marketing, marketing should not be that complicated or difficult or even time consuming. I am very what’s the word I’m looking for? Marketing should be a campaign and should be combination of direct mail, email, digital social, it also probably should not take more than an hour to two a month right to achieve. What you should be focusing on right is the relationship building activities.
D.J. Paris 17:45
So how much of someone’s day should be spent trying to get face to face in front of people to talk about possibly assisting them or letting them know what they do? Well, let’s talk about that.
Ryan D’Aprile 17:57
And let’s talk about face to face and doesn’t have to be face to face. That’s that’s one, right. And DJ doesn’t have to be talking about assisting them, right? That’s too true. So if we go back to the theory that 16% of our network has a need of buying and selling a home every year, right? And then everybody in our network knows, at least for people who are buying or selling every year, what the focus needs, to be honest, is how well these people know who you are. Do they like you? And do they trust you? Right? Because in our business, which is a high level, consulting business, you know, focusing on a lot of emotional intelligence, taking people through the transaction of a homesale. They want to work with somebody that they know, like, and trust and like, anybody, everybody, I mean, life is coming, you know, at us at at a wicked rapid speed. And so sometimes they work with a real estate agent that they’ve never met before, just because that person was right in front of them at the time. I think it’s takes people I believe, it takes anywhere from six to to 18 months for somebody to purchase a home, but they pick a real estate agent and one to three days. Right. And so how much time do you need to be focused on the relationship building? Is is the question. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 19:11
And here’s then oh, God, I’m sorry. No, go ahead. I was gonna say, here’s a really hyper specific example, if people are thinking, Okay, well, that’s great. I, and I have this contact list. And I don’t want to call and pitch what I do, because nobody really is interested in hearing me say that. I’m also you know, I’m a realtor, and I can help you, how can I provide more value to them? You know, here’s a really timely example. So, and I sent this to our own brokers, I don’t know how many of them did it. But if it was, if I was out there producing and I was not that busy. Even if I was busy, this is a great way to add value. You could in goes to Ryan’s question, does this have to be face to face? No. So here’s what you can do. You could call up everybody you know who’s a homeowner and say, Hey, I don’t know your mortgage situation. Obviously, it’s none of my business. But I don’t know if you’re aware, but mortgage rates have actually dropped. It may be a good time. I don’t know if it is for you or not, but to consider refinancing and if your mortgage person hasn’t contacted you, you may want to reach out just to see if it’s an opportunity to refi. If you don’t have a good mortgage lender, I can certainly pass over. But I just was thinking about you thought that might be of use. That is a huge amount of value you can bring to somebody right now and gives you a reason to pick up the phone.
Ryan D’Aprile 20:19
Yeah, so in here’s another technique that I like, I like to look at it as your network as a whole. And you need to see your network, you have to stop and write down your network, type it out. Visual, and so you could see it and then you have to count it out and figure it out. Now, you need to have certain information on your network and who they are. If they have a partner or significant other or a husband and wife, you probably should know who that person is and should have that written down. Right? You should know their home address. Yes, regardless if they own or rent, right. During the real estate business, that should be your number one priority is finding
D.J. Paris 20:52
out Yes. Know, their birthdays know if they have children. No, you know how old the children are all sorts of things.
Ryan D’Aprile 21:00
So start with that. And then you say, Okay, well, what’s the number? And let’s just say there’s 200 people on your network, right? Okay. Well, now let’s, let’s look at our, let’s look at this as a career. And I’m going to work Monday through Friday work, maybe nine to five, right? That’s what we do when we get a job. So we’re going to time block, and we’re going to set out an agenda I’m going to follow I’m saying, okay, there is approximately 63 working days in a quarter. Okay, so we’re not counting Saturday, we’re not counting 73 month quarter just about practicing 63 working right? You take your network divided by 63. And it comes out to approximately I’m going to round up running up. For for context today. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 21:39
it’s not not terribly difficult.
Ryan D’Aprile 21:42
It’s not, and it’s imperative that it’s done. You know, and if you skip a day, fine, it’s eight. But that’s your job, right? That’s what you need to do. And it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s so easy to get distracted in this business with the newest trends and technology. And well, this is a, I’m gonna go make a Facebook video, which is great, do it. But don’t forget what your job is right, and your sleeves can be rolled up. And you need to be getting into the relationship, building techniques of your network, in which we’ve said before, you should be at least in touch with them four times a year, at least. So and then the other thing is realize that, you know, there’s so many coaching platforms out there for everybody, and techniques and closing techniques and, and overcoming objectives and whatnot. And I look at my network, and I’m like, I’m not closing these people. I’m not selling them, you know, I’m not going to overcome them. They’re not out there to win something, right? I’m there to solve. And the first thing to do is earn their trust, yes. And the only way you’re going to earn their trust is over time, 12 months, right? And 24 months, and that gets better. Because what you’re doing is you’re reaching out and you’re creating a relationship, a bond, and you’re somebody that can relate to you happen to be in the real estate business. And you’re good at what you do. And you care about these people. You love them, right? They’re important. They’re your network. So when the need comes, they’re going to reach out to you. And guess what, you do not need any closing technique, right? You don’t have to come over any objectives, right? Because you’re not selling.
D.J. Paris 23:17
I have a I have a friend who’s who’s an entrepreneur, who is just now getting into the real estate business. And he’s a he’s a tech guy. And he said, you know, because I figured out and this is going to be no surprise to you. And this is more of after the sale. He said brokers, you know, largely do not do a great job, generally speaking, of staying in touch after the sale, right? Because it’s maybe you know, before that particular individual needs to use your services, again, might be, you know, God knows how many years. So oftentimes, people buy or sell a home, and then maybe they get sort of forgotten about by the realtor. So he created software that he’s working on developing that basically sends out push notifications to like the home these will be for homebuyers that say hey, now that you’ve just bought in particular first time homebuyers that you’ve just bought your first home, here’s when you need to worry about changing your filters on your furnace and about you know, things like that, that really, the realtor could could schedule into their day and say, okay, in four months, I’m going to call teenagers. Of course
Ryan D’Aprile 24:13
they need to it’s their job. Yeah, these people just made the biggest life purchase or biggest purchase of their life. And you are not to go radio sound right? You are you You and we have in our in our what we call our dashboard. In our closed tabs, you have a responsibility call. And I’m saying call them nine times at least nine times after the close transactions. How are you Everything okay? Do you need anything? And I’m not going to worry about what they’re thinking cuz most agents don’t come up with objectives. Well, what are they gonna think? You’re gonna think you care, right? Because you do right? And there is a lot that goes on. And you have to call them and let them know that you’re there and I tell you, this isn’t something I invent Did you know I’m gonna give credit to speech that wasn’t even there? One of my agents told me about it. You we know the name Mario. Sure.
D.J. Paris 25:06
Very and he’s gonna be a guest on the show coming up very soon.
Ryan D’Aprile 25:10
Fantastic. I’ve never met Mario Greco. And I’ve never seen Mario Greco speak. But one of my agents did. And they came back and they said, you know, Mario said something very interesting. He’s got a team. He’s got a team of buyer’s agents. And he doesn’t even work with the clients. But after the closing Myro forces himself to call the consumer six to nine times after in any think he made the either I drew the conclusion, my own brain if he had said this, an agent told me I don’t exactly remember what that client is. Now, Mario’s again, even though another agent on his team worked with him, he does such a good job of staying in contact with that past client, even though he wasn’t the agent. His team was when he was an agent. He focuses on what’s important, when let’s look at where he is, right? All right.
D.J. Paris 25:57
He’s a struggling real estate agent. Super struggling. It’s funny. So a couple of months ago, he had he had written us out of the blue, and he goes, Hey, I think he was trying to be funny. He was like, How come you jerk check. And he didn’t say it this way. But he was being cute. She’s not gonna be jerks. haven’t interviewed me yet. And we went, Oh, believe me, we’re dying to interview you. And he he was really funny about it. So he was actually just at the event you and I were talking about as one of the speakers. But yeah, so there’s a reason why people like that are so successful. And it’s not by accident.
Ryan D’Aprile 26:27
When it’s it is in its in its prioritizing. So when I coach our agents, I ask them, Is this a priority? You know, you have to ask yourself every morning, what’s the priority in your network is your net worth, right? And what most people are doing is 90% of the real estate agents that are selling 10% of the real estate, is they’re not prioritizing your day, and what’s important, and the 10% of the real estate agents that are selling 90% Of all the real estate, they’re prioritizing, and they’re focused on attracting sales, not chasing sales, and they’re doing it through relationship building techniques. Not closing techniques.
D.J. Paris 27:09
Yeah, I think if you if you go approach it from the perspective of what value can I bring to my contact list or to anyone I come in contact with? What value can I bring, you will be so incredibly valuable and sought out you’ll never have to do what’s that cheesy line that use that that is taught, which I hate, which is I’m never too busy for your referrals, you will never have to say that. You know, because you’re you’re so I’ll tell you, you know that like people like Ryan, I’m speaking now, just to the audience directly. Look, Carrie McCormick comes on the show once a month, she is the 19th highest producing realtor over the last 12 months out of 40,000 Realtors in Chicago, she is beyond too busy to do this. She’s a one woman shop, there’s no team there. She’s an incredible in AI and she comes on every month and goes how can I add value to your listeners? Now? Does that directly benefit Carrie? I don’t know. Maybe she gets clients from it. Maybe she doesn’t, I really don’t know. But she provides so much value that she is known in this industry as somebody who is obviously very knowledgeable. But you know, a Joel shop from guaranteed rate came up to me at a con a thing we were at. He goes I have to be on your show, I have so much to say about lending, I won’t even promote guarantee, I just want to talk because brokers need to know certain things they don’t know, people like Ryan come on every month for that, you know, take time out of his vacation, these people become so incredibly valuable. They don’t ever have to ask for business.
Ryan D’Aprile 28:32
It’s true. And it’s it’s sad. It’s understanding the more you give, the more you get, and you become addicted to it. Because what you do is you’re you’re actually caring about other individuals in our industry. There’s like, there’s no competition. We you know, we are there’s no competition, right? We’re our own competition, and go talk to any successful real estate agent, there might be an exception here and there. Sure, almost all of them are going to be kind and willing to give their time and help out because they understand that there’s abundance. There’s more than enough. I’ve heard people say to me, in the past, and they say, Well, I don’t want to compete with a managing broker who sells. And my thoughts of that is like, well, you can’t compete with your manager broker because your managing broker has their own network, just like you have your own network. And you just have to understand the fundamentals of the business. And now, I do understand the managing broker not selling so they could be there to support you. I’m 100% behind that me too. Right, right. So I get that and, and create a support and environment where people who are agents and an organization have the time to go and they get the resources they need. But my point is, is that there’s no competition because everybody has their own network. Are you going to bump into people who have crossovers and networks? Yeah, sure what you’re going to capture 75% 100% We’re going to capture 75% and 75 percent is enough. You know, and I think we have to realize, what is our why, why did we get in this business and a lot of people is like, I want to work for myself, I want to be able to come and go, I want to, you know, I want to have purpose and fulfillment. And so Okay, well, great, well, then if you look within yourself and your network, you’re going to find out that there is enough there to give you what you’re looking for, and your why and what you why you got into this business, if that makes
D.J. Paris 30:27
sense. Makes Perfect. Makes perfect sense. I want to switch gears and talk about a very specific question that that I have for you, because I’m curious. And I know you have your own proprietary software you’ve built for coaching for your team, or your brokers. What are there any techniques? Are there any apps or technology services that you recommend for brokers that are trying to stay on track? Whether it’s real estate related specifically, or just habit? Are you using anything? I have a few that I use that I can talk about in a moment, but curious to see what you’re using tech wise?
Ryan D’Aprile 31:03
Yeah, so we’re using something that I built out. And what I did is, we looked at a lot of other things that are out there. And there’s a lot out there. I mean, let’s talk about top producer, a lot of agents use t shirts, right? What I found is a lot of these things have too many bells and whistles, right? Or distractions. And so what we do, and so I guess I’m not gonna be able to answer your question, I think DJ would have handed off to you to, to give out some apps, and I’m not adding value there, I apologize. But what I have done is I mean, anybody can do this, you just have to write down your visual flow of the process and what you have to do, and eliminate as many distractions as you possibly can. And remember, marketing is incredibly important. But it is not, it shouldn’t be overwhelming. And it shouldn’t be taking up a majority of your month. I mean, should we not even take up a majority of date should be able to be accomplished in a one to two hour three hour time period. It’s all about relationship building. So I don’t have apps that are out there. But I mean, everybody ever, there’s so many things that are out there, but just focus on what’s important. And it’s how many times have you touched this person in your network? Right, like literally reached out and engage them? And what apps do you use?
D.J. Paris 32:15
Well, I again, and I’m not a producing broker. So I’m just I’m going to talk just broadly about habit building and habit forming. So there’s, there’s two things I recommend, although there’s a million other options, and certainly this isn’t necessarily the best option, but it’s worked well for me. So if you’re looking for just a to do list manager, the best one I have found is to do just, it’s free to try it. And then I think it’s like 50 bucks a year, it’s really inexpensive. But if you’re looking, so I use it for daily habits, so I have a certain number of habits that I’m trying to cultivate. They could be just a check my finances once a day, it could be reached out to five of our brokers to let them know, we appreciate that they’re hanging their license with us and that we’re thinking about them. That all sorts of you know, for me, my whole life is just small daily habits. I don’t look for the big wins, I don’t know that there are a lot of big wins, but there’s a lot of small wins. And so for me, it’s did I make my bed today, things like that, right? So anything that’s going to help me feel better and more productive. But I I’m a scatterbrain I’m a creative person, I deal very poorly with organization and also prioritization. So that leads me to my so Anyway, check out I think that’s safe for that’s it, what’s it called to do list so to do ISD,
Ryan D’Aprile 33:26
I think that’s a great point, I think all of us are scatterbrains, because we have so much going on, whether you’re creative or not, there’s just too much going on, I had to relate to habits, because that’s all this is. And that’s a lot of what this app that we use is based sure, but I lost 20 pounds 20 to 25 pounds, about five years ago, and I’ve been able to keep it off and the app that I use was called lose it. Yeah, and it’s a simple tracking app of the calories on my intake. And but what it did is it forced me to do an activity of tracking the calories, right, that became habitual for me. Now I have my days off for all I can literally eat a pizza by myself, and you know, and do all these things that but typically on a you know, five to six times a week, five or six days a week, I’m aware of the chloric intake, and at least a little bit of where it is and and so you know, I am an avid coffee drinker. You know, I used to be with cream, a little sweetener, now it’s black, right? But it’s because that app, lose it to your point when and creating different habits. And you know, I haven’t used that app now in four years or five years. But I tell anybody if this is something that you’re looking to do, go to that app, because it teaches you how to track which any good real estate software should be tracking your activities, which then are going to highlight the importance of what you’re doing. Yeah, that’s
D.J. Paris 34:47
awesome. I probably for a lot of our listeners who are into productivity, self improvement, they’ve at some point they’ve come across David Allen’s getting things done if you haven’t you Google it, there’s a whole Almost cult like status around how impressive and workable it is, and what getting things done is, is really a blueprint for how to organize your life and how to organize your day and prioritize. However, if you’ve gone through those in even just read the book, it’s incredibly complicated and daunting, and a tremendous amount of work. So I’ve always struggled over the years as somebody who naturally struggles organization, is how do I actually create a workable system that’s simple and effective. And I found and I’m gonna give a plug to this because it was the best $99 I ever spent. Whereas a guy named Thiago forte in any way you the name of his program, you can just Google it’s called Getting things done like a boss. And he essentially says, okay, here are the actual principles of what you need to do every single day to prioritize your day, and move through it. And then here’s how to check things off and organize it, and how to organize data and all of that, and it’s all video system. And it helped me so much in just creating a framework because I left my own devices, I wake up, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing today. But now I have some something to actually prioritize and schedule so that that’s just been helpful for me. Obviously, there’s lots of other systems.
Ryan D’Aprile 36:07
But teaching circling back also to your second, or your first question, how we open this up is like, how long does somebody have to wait? Right? What’s the time, right? And there’s a key word in there. It’s called Wait, you know, and yes, it’s a part of the recipe, and you can’t escape it. So just don’t self destruct. And self destructing is where it’s not working. I’m going to try something else. Look, this is how you do it. I’ve been doing it for 16 years, I’ve done this with 400 people, some of the top selling real estate agents in the Chicagoland area, who weren’t even licensed four years ago, had followed the system to a tee and I’m talking about individuals signed 10 1215. One is targeted at $35 million. This is not a team, an individual agent wasn’t licensed in 2014. But these people had to wait, we all have to wait. And what happens is we’re so ambitious, and we’re so quote unquote, driven, and I’m different, I demand more out of myself. That’s what people that’s fine. I understand and you’re going to get the results. It just depends. Are you going to crucify yourself along the way and everybody else around you? Or are you going to allow the weights and the germination process to do what it has to do? You can’t you don’t, I mean, I think Starbucks was started in 1978, or something like that, ask anybody wants to and they’ll say 9090, or something, because that’s when it started become mainstream, you start seeing it everywhere. And then he bought the company sold his copier business and bought Starbucks, I think in 1978, or 1980, or something, it’s like successes and overnight, we overestimate what we can achieve in a year. And we underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. And another thing that I have written up on boards, and I tell people is a year from now, you may wish you started today, right? A year from now, you may wish you started today, because you got to start somewhere. And you have to allow the germination process, which is essentially a time that you’re building trust with these individuals to happen. That’s why I had a job for 18 months, you know, I worked and I got I was getting my MBA, and I had a new daughter who’s 15 years old, it’s probably gonna be coming here pretty soon. But um, because she went out to breakfast with the girls this morning. But that’s those are the things that we’re asking about is like, there are, you know, and also to all the real estate agent list agents listening to this, there’s another ingredient, and it’s called you. So like I tell all our agents, we’re going to be there, we’re going to show up, we’re going to help you, we’re going to do the marketing for you. But there’s things that only you can do for yourself. And it takes you that’s the biggest thing that’s our biggest struggle is ourself. And it’s a big responsibility to say that you are responsible for your own destiny. However, it’s also the keys to freedom, because I can have a boss, that’s a total jerk, I’m not gonna be able to change, right boss, what I can do is I can change myself in my activities, and then I will start to get the results that I want.
D.J. Paris 39:16
And, and by the way, we are all not capable of doing everything ourselves. And there are parts of of all of our personalities where we’re like, I am not good at that. And, and when when you can recognize Hey, that’s not my strong suit, you can find a partner and you can find it you can you know, delegate it, you can find you know, now we live in such this this global service economy where you can find people overseas to help you with things for very inexpensive. So if you think well I don’t have enough income to pay for a full time assistant. I understand that there are virtual assistants that will do it for you know a few bucks every time they do a transaction or they help you with whatever you need. It’s there are so many opportunities to that you should feel focus on, you know what, what you’re passionate about what you’re and let’s and don’t fool yourself with trying to be perfect at things that you’re just not good at?
Ryan D’Aprile 40:08
Well, ideally, you know, the brokerage will even provide most of the shorts, like we have assistants, you know, a lot of agents that are companies that will only hire assistants, and that’s fine. But it’s like, well, when you hire assistant, you have to pay them every two weeks, right? But you also have to manage them, you have to interview them, you have to review them, there’s Are you a manager? Are you an entrepreneur, or what are you and so like, at our organization, we created a Assistant Program, where they’re not responsible for hiring and training them or even paying for them or managing them there. They know what they need to do, where they need to add value, and they assist the agent. Same in the marketing, we do a lot of the marketing. So we just say focus on being right, you do what you can do, you have control over. And I’m the perfect example of that. I mean, I have a, you know, I have, you know, a right and a left arm at my company, I have, you know, partners there that run a marketing department or operations department or a kind department, I am clueless on how to do that those kinds of things, what I do is I focus on me, which is I feel adding value to people motivating them coaching them and saying, Look, I was a real estate agent, this is what I did. This is what I did for over a decade, this is how I got to where I am. It’s simple. This is where I shine, I let all the other things I hand off to other people. It’s very important to find what your lane is, and stay in your lane
D.J. Paris 41:21
is and I think that’s a great place to end. I have one final question is, is there a book that you recommend that you’ve that is really I know, there’s a million books you’ve read that have impacted you anything more recent that you’ve stumbled across sets that you want to recommend to the readers?
Ryan D’Aprile 41:37
You know, it’s so it’s interesting, because you could ask me this and you know, in any given hour, my answer is going to be different. Right? You know, and so, I think just because I was just talking about how we self destruct, right, I’m gonna go into more of a mindset type of book, philosophical, kind of allowing the world to fall in the line view. This might be a little deeper people, but I’m a big follower of Deepak Chopra. You ever read anything by Deepak Chopra? Sure. Of course. He’s my guy. And I love it. Man. He wrote a book called Synchro destiny. Have you ever read it?
D.J. Paris 42:12
Yes, I don’t think so. But I know the book,
Ryan D’Aprile 42:15
EJ read it. It’s phenomenal. And I’m having so much fun with my niece, who is away at college. And we talked about, there’s no such thing as coincidences. These are the thoughts that you put out there, you become aware of them. And it’s just signals that these things are coming to you. Same with growing your real estate business or your mortgage lending business, follow these steps and then become aware, then walk away, let it go. You can’t force it, you have to wait. And you could do other things. Go for a walk, do what you need to do. Give your time for your energy to build up and watch the coincidence that start popping around. And all of a sudden you realize everything you need, flows into you. And I have moments to this day, where I am just I am off course. And I’m just my energy is not good. And you could feel it. If I walk in the room. What I’m doing is I’m forcing it. And I’m wanting it sooner. I’m comparing everything else. And so I go back to these books and one of them is Synchro destiny by Deepak Chopra. It’s phenomenal.
D.J. Paris 43:14
Great. Well, I think that’s a great place to pause for this episode. And so everyone who’s listening two quick things that would help us out tremendously. Number one, send us your questions for Ryan, let us know again, Ryan spends almost all of his time focused on coaching his brokers that is incredibly unique. I’m not even sure that there’s anyone else in Chicago that, that that does that. So that’s how useful this these episodes I know they’re useful, because people tell us but Ryan is here to answer your question. So send us those, you can find us on our website, keeping it real pod.com facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod? And or, you know, there’s a million ways to get questions to so please do that. The other thing is we do
Ryan D’Aprile 43:57
want your questions. Yeah. And our next session as well, I want to just tell him what to put out there DJ to hold me accountable. I’m going to focus now on our next session on skill set, yes, listing presentations list price versus sales price, how to articulate your value, as well. So I just want to give the listeners who, who hopefully took away some value today, when we meet up next month. That’s going to be the topic. And then DJ, like you said, the next session after that, we’ll we’ll do a q&a.
D.J. Paris 44:24
So think about what questions you have for Ryan around skill set building. In other words, how to be a better realtor. How do you actually, you know, create more value for your clients to be able to, you know, obviously, service them more effectively. So send us your questions about that. And that’s, in fact, that was one of the questions I had for you that I thought we should hold off on. So this is perfect timing. The other thing that our listeners can do is please tell a friend so there are 40,000 brokers here in Chicago obviously many more nationwide, but if this is valuable to you send it to your other brokers in Europe. First thing that you think could you benefit from hearing someone like Ryan, and all the other wonderful people that are on our show, it really helps us out and keeps us going. And, you know, with zero marketing budget, we now have 1000s of listeners, which is I would, I hoped what happened, and I’m glad it’s providing value, but please pass the word. Other than that, Ryan, thank you for taking time out of your vacation for this. And
Ryan D’Aprile 45:21
yeah, I love it. Don’t worry about I’m gonna accommodate her next.
D.J. Paris 45:25
Great. Well, everyone who’s listening on behalf of Ryan and myself. Thank you. And Ryan, we’ll see you next time. Have a have a great rest of your vacation.
Ryan D’Aprile 45:32
All right, thanks so much. Take care.
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