Craig Fallico has over seven thousand contacts in his sphere of influence. That’s what happens when you remain a top producer for 37 years without one down year. Craig discusses how his previous careers of teaching and coaching perfectly equipped him to become successful at real estate. His warmth, empathy, and kindness are evident as Craig talks about the distinction between production goals and “helping goals.” The Fallico Team is one of the top producing teams at Dreamtown, and after listening to this episode, you’ll understand why!
Craig Fallico can be reached at teamfallico@dreamtown.com and 847.226.0834
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host through the show, I believe this is our 75th episode. So a little milestone for us. So thank you to everyone who’s listened, because without you, there wouldn’t be even 74 other episodes, I would have quit after the first one. But the audience keeps growing, which I know I say every week, but it’s true. And it’s really exciting. So I’m so grateful that people find value in it. And if you’re new to the show, what we do is interview top 1% producers, I just did a search of all the producers in Chicago just yesterday, including the suburbs, there’s over 40,000, which means we talked to essentially the top 400 and find out exactly what they they’ve done and what they continue to do to grow their business so that you can learn from the best. And I wanted to give you a piece of advice that I just was thinking about as a marketing guy. That’s really what I do. Zillow just put out their consumer home Trend Report for 2018. And it’s really amazing. If you haven’t seen it, you can just Google search for it. It’s got so much great data. I mean, nobody has more data on consumers buying or selling homes and Zillow, obviously. And I saw this statistic that I thought was pretty interesting. And I thought I’d pass it through before we get to our great interview with Craig Valco, which is that 28% And we’re just talking about home sellers here. Okay, home sellers, 28% of them, how did they find their realtor 28% were referred by friends, relatives, neighbors, or colleagues. And I want let’s think about that for just a moment that these are people that have already purchased a home. So they’ve already worked with a realtor in the past. And still about a third of them when they went to sell the property said asked around to their friends and family. Hey, who do you use? Who’s good, right? So that’s a pretty interesting statistic for me. So like, what can you actually do with that? Well, the obvious the most obvious way is, of course, to make sure that your friends family and previous clients know that giving you a referral or passing your name over to people they know who might need your services is the best compliment they could pay you. However, I find that just putting that as your signature line, you’ll see that often with realtors that say hey, the best compliment you can give me is to send me a referral or I’m never too busy for your referrals. I don’t think that gets the job done. But I also don’t think asking for a referral is necessarily the best way to go. That’s sort of an old school mentality, I found that if you do a really good job, you typically don’t need to ask, but you do need to remind people that you are taking referrals. So how do you do that? Well, in my opinion, as a marketing guy, I think the best way to do that is to show that you care about these clients after the sale. So what does that look like? And by the way, when I think when when they know that you care, and you’re routinely in their life, after the sale after the transaction closes, they will just automatically think about you because they’ll have warm feelings, you will have gone that extra mile to stay in touch. And then when they have friends and family that need help with real estate stuff, obviously your name will be first of mind. So how do we do this? Well, the easiest way is go through all of your clients that you’ve ever worked with. You shouldn’t of course know everybody’s birthday, right? That’s the most obvious thing. But what are you doing on their birthday? Are you sending them an email? Okay, that’s fine. Are you writing them a handwritten note? That’s better? Are you calling them that’s probably equal to writing them a handwritten note. And you should be doing really all of those things, right? Send them an email, give them a phone call and write them a handwritten note that it’s not that hard to do, right? It’s just a couple of minutes per day, most likely, or do at least one of those three, I would say if you have to do just one of the three call them. I as much as I love handwritten notes. I think the phone call goes a long way. And if you’re not really wanting to talk to them, because you don’t really want to bother people on their birthday, I understand that. You can use sly dial if you’re not familiar, just Google it. It’s like 10 cents, and it’ll send your voicemail directly into their voicemail. So you could call them and say, Hey, I just realized it was your birthday. Wanted to congratulate you. So I have worked with a lot of professionals. I have a financial advisor I have you know, I have a realtor, I
have an accountant. I have an insurance person. I’ve got you know, a mortgage, but nobody contacted me on my birthday. Not one right and I’m not putting any of my people who work with me down. I’m grateful. They’re awesome. But none of them do it. You could be the only person that actually picks up the phone and calls them or slide dials into their voicemail. So that’s my only little tip of the day is in by the way, you shouldn’t just do birthday but that’s the most obvious one right? If you know their kids are going off to college or going to, you know, middle school or high school for the first time, or graduating or anything substantial in your clients life, you should know about at least a few items, you should have it in a CRM, and it should remind you, oh, hey, so and so’s child just entered first grade, right? That’s really good stuff. And you contact them and say, Hey, I was just thinking about you, I know so and so just did this in your family, and I just wanted to say congrats. And then you don’t have to ask for a referral, they’re gonna be so blown away that you remember that you thought about them, and that you didn’t ask for something at the end of the call, because it’s heartfelt and as genuine, that they will pass your name along to every buddy, you know. So anyway, just a quick suggestion there. And, uh, thanks for listening, I’ll try to incorporate more of these marketing ideas, because that’s what I do. I’m a marketing person into the intros of these podcasts because we’ve been getting feedback where people seem to appreciate that. So I apologize for the duration, the length of this intro, but I thought I’d try something new. And if you’d liked it, let me know. And I’ll keep doing it. If you say it’s terrible. Stop doing that, get to the interview, I will stop doing it and get to the interview, which I’m about to now. And this is one of my favorite interviews we’ve done. We’re going to talk about genuine and warm and empathic, and a very successful person for well over 30 years Craig Falco is up next.
Craig Falco is one of a kind he is because he’s been a successful broker realtor since 1981, has helped 1000s of clients and friends achieve their real estate goals. Plus, he had two great careers as a teacher and a coach for I believe now 37 years in his words, the career all comp the careers all complemented each other educating and motivating people about whom you care. That’s a quote from Craig Craig takes the time to get to know his clients and truly cares about them. And their dreams, once the relationship is established, puts his 37 plus years of experience to work for them. And the end result is nothing short of perfect. He has built his three decades of success on hard work, integrity and honesty. And his accolades only continue to grow. Craig’s father had been in the real estate business since the 1960s. So Craig learned the ropes early on, he worked side by side with his father for many years, as the family business continues at Dream town, as Craig and his son Nick now work as the team leaders of the top producing team at the northwest side, Dream town office, that is a big, big deal. Dream Town is a big company here in Chicago. Everyone, of course, already knows that. But it’s worth mentioning, Team Falco has been featured in Chicago agent magazine for who’s who and Chicago real estate and as rising stars select T and top agent magazine, which is the magazine I also write for. And also, Craig is and his team are top 1% producers, which is also a big deal because they’re 40,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area. So with all that being said, we are very excited to welcome Craig balco to the show, Craig, thank you.
Craig Fallico 8:04
Thank you, thank you so much for doing this. And I need to say
D.J. Paris 8:07
this is true. This is this is a little bit, a little bit in the weeds, but Craig and his team was struggling to get the audio working. And if they are as dedicated to their, to their clients, as they were to get this working. They work diligently for 30 straight minutes, and they got it to work. But I was like impressed, most people would have given up and just said, Oh, I’m done. And he didn’t. So thank you for, for doing that work. Because it’s it I know, that was a hassle. So thank you. Yeah,
Craig Fallico 8:37
giving up is not enough.
D.J. Paris 8:39
It’s clearly that is not you know, so So tell us a little bit. Uh, you’ve been in real estate since 1981, I believe. Is that correct? Yes. So, yeah, tell us that story.
Craig Fallico 8:49
So I got into it, because, you know, I was a teacher. So, contrary to popular belief, teachers do not make millions of dollars. And my wife is a homemaker. And we have two kids. So there’s no way I’m going to feed the family on a teacher’s salary. And my dad was in real estate. And of course, you know, he had such a great attitude. He loved life. He loved his clients, and I just loved what what it looked like, you know, it looked like it was rewarding fun. And it was perfect for a teacher because most people want to look at houses in the evening or on weekends. And that or often as a teacher, you take all the time that you that you all your breaks and everything to do the real estate business, which is what I did. And they’re perfect mirror careers, you know, because each day in the classroom, you’re motivating and inspiring and you’re becoming motivated and inspired. You know, people ask me What I miss most most about teaching and it’s the natural motivation and inspiration. And real estate gives you that you know, because you’re always educating people, areas, pricing, market conditions, more get you information, everything. So you’re still you get to be an educator when you’re a real estate broker, if you care. You know, one of the things the the mantra for me as a teacher was, kids don’t care how much you know, they know how much you care. And I really think that that’s the client’s situation as well. I think clients care that you’re professional, and you know, something, but there’s no question that if they sense that you care about them, they’re there, they want you to represent them. They they trust you, you know that they know that you care about them. You know, I don’t want to say that I love my clients, because that’s, that’s a very strong word. Sure. But But I constantly and always, which is probably why I’ve never had a bad year, is because I really care about them. I put their needs first. I put their interests first. A great example of that is with no, I brought my son into it. Right. So Right. I, he always when he first came into business, he said, I want to produce $10 million. Sure, who does it? Yeah, right. Exactly. I said to him, I said, No, you don’t. You want to help as many people as you can. Right? So rather than setting a goal of 10 million, why don’t you set a goal of helping 50 people, or 35 people or whatever it is your first year, because that’s what this is about is helping people and then think of how you build your business. Right? So if you help 50 people, and they refer one person, now you have 100 clients, you’re so right, right. And so like, some people only focus on big properties, right million dollars or more sure. And they do 10 million, but it’s only eight transactions. So they only help eight people, they made good money, but they only helped eight people. So their their book of business, their business that they’re building, would take much, much longer. Where my my theory, my practice, it’s not a theory, it’s a practice is help as many people as you possibly can. And, and what that turns into is immediately my sphere is 7000 7000 in my sphere, of influence of people I’ve helped with real estate, whether it’s purchasing, selling, renting, whatever it is, and their friends and family. So and that just continues to grow. And now my son in just a few years has over 1000 in his fear. So the practice works. It’s not a theory. It’s a practice, and it works. But it’s
D.J. Paris 12:33
such a it’s such a great way to to it’s not even just a saying or or something that sounds cool, or sounds right. It actually does. Like you said, it’s a practice that works. And I think you’re so right. I interviewed this is a many, many episodes ago, probably 30 or 40 episodes ago, we interviewed Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg from their team. And it Keller Williams and I had asked them, right, Dre guys with great reputations, wonderful guys. And I had asked actually, Josh said, Well, what are your goals, production goals, when you similar to the story you had with your son? And he goes, Yeah, we don’t think like that. And he didn’t use the word help. But he talked about, you know, if we, if we were specifically talking about acquiring new business, he goes, Yeah, you know, if we talk to X number of people a day, we will get to whatever production goals that you know, they we don’t even set production goals. But we will get to those numbers just by default of the number of people we talked to, which is not as elegant of a way as the way you said it, which I think is better, which is how many people can I help this year, and as we know, the law of reciprocity, people who you help and and that you care about not just help but that you care and help are going to tell every single person they know about how great you are, which obviously is, you know, was resulted in a 37 year pretty impressive real estate career with no doubt there’s
Craig Fallico 13:59
no doubt that 789 That’s 8182 83 that’s the many recessions of the 90s. None of those years were now they were average. You know what they weren’t down? Why not making a good living? Yep. Making taking. I took care of all my giant family, you know,
D.J. Paris 14:17
unbelievable. Yeah. And were you born here in Chicago or I was
Craig Fallico 14:21
I was born here in Chicago. Correct. And I lived in Chicago, on berry street till I was a youngster my dad moved us out in when I was in first grade to Park Ridge. Sure. And I’ve been here ever since. And this is my hometown and it’s our area of focus, of course. But of course the northwest side of the city, the northwest suburbs. Look at I’ve sold properties in Antioch. Lansing, sure, West Chicago, because they’re my clients. In You know, so many of my clients are my friends, you know, and they didn’t start as friends. They started as clients So think about that, too, you know, it’s been it for me, it’s always rewarding. You know, I never, I never get up and say, I don’t want to do real estate, you know, I get up every day and say, this is this is a great profession. Now, it’s very demanding, like any profession, right? Sure. If you want to be good at it, you got to do it. And you got to do it all the time, you know, and there’s no substitute for that. You know, I always tell people, they, you know, they, they showed the the dream town top producers at our 20th anniversary, right? Sure. And I was one of them. Of course, I was one of the younger ones. So think about that. So that’s amazing. I told my team was at the thing. And I said, See that, look, all you have to do is work really hard for 30 or 40 years? And boom, you’re an overnight success.
D.J. Paris 15:49
Right? Yeah, that has been the, the the rule and not the exception of about every single person we’ve ever had on the show. These are all top one percenters like yourself and your team. They none of them, although with maybe one or two exceptions, really, everybody had a tough first couple of years, because that’s how it works. But they stuck with it. And they continued to help. And and, you know, the clients know, they cared about it. And then over time, you know, becomes all referral based, or at least mostly referral based. And then they, you know, 20 years later, they’re, they’re doing exactly what they, you know, production wise what they want to, but that’s really impressive. And I know, over the years, you of course, have seen Gosh, knows how many brokers come and go, who could have maybe didn’t do the work necessary? What What have you seen, that separates somebody who aside from just, of course, the hard work, which is hopefully obvious to everyone listening, although maybe not. What other? If you have any other advice? If you talk to a newer broker, like, here’s what you should go out and do or somebody that’s just looking to increase production?
Craig Fallico 17:00
Well, I think it’s, you know, right now, you have to obviously be, you have to be involved in social media, and you have to stay on the cutting edge of every new technology. And really, that’s where my son, Nick has enhanced our business. You know, it’s been great. He’s, he’s put us on all of these avenues of using technology properly, and good follow up. But I don’t think that there’s any, what’s beautiful about the technological age, is that you still have to have a soul, right? In order to be successful, you know, you still have to be able to connect with people. You still, like think about real estate, especially right? Is anyone ever going to buy a house without ever seeing it? I mean,
D.J. Paris 17:46
maybe maybe an investor, but that’s about it, or multibillionaires
Craig Fallico 17:49
or something, right? Really, the 99.999% of us have to see the house, of course, and, and so you have or the apartment, or the condo, or whatever we’re talking about are the two flat, and so they’re gonna meet somebody there. And can you imagine if they walk up and they meet somebody, and they don’t trust this person, right? Think they’re gonna sign a million dollar contract or a $500,000 contract or a $2 million dollar contract with somebody they don’t trust? I don’t think so. Right. You know, and, and, and that’s the thing about this business is it’s very human. It, it definitely requires a humanity level humanity’s understanding. It requires EQ, right? Emotional intelligence, because you can’t connect with people, unless you are soulful, unless you’re caring unless you’re have some kind of empathy, unless you have some kind of expertise in the field of connecting, you know, and I think that’s, that’s absolutely critical. And people say, well, that’s natural. I said, No, it can be developed. Yes, absolutely. It’s, it’s developed with practice, you know, get in front of as many people as you can, obviously, if you’re, if you really care about a person, you could, you could fumble a bunch of stuff. And they’re okay with that. Yes, as you can.
D.J. Paris 19:18
Well, and just to interject for a moment, because I think what you said is so important and easily forgotten, in particular, by newer brokers whose biggest fear and it’s a reasonable fear, it’s a rational fear, I’d have the exact same fear which is I’m brand new or newer. And I’m there’s going to be things I don’t know the answers to, and I’m afraid of looking silly in front of a client. And while again, I believe that is a reasonable thing to be to be have some anxiety about. The reality of it is you will largely be forgiven if the client first of all the client believes you to be honest. And then number two, if they believe that you care about them, and you go, Oh, hang on, let me get an answer for you. I just want to check with my team and get back to you or I don’t want got 100% on that, let me get back to you. People are largely okay with that answer, if they feel that you are that you care. So I, that is
Craig Fallico 20:09
so great that you said that because that’s going to help a lot of people. And I use that with my new team members, I tell them look at if you care, everything else is going to be okay us, because you’re going to because you’re going to do everything you can for them. And they know that. And that’s what they want. That’s what they want. That’s the person they weren’t working for them. You know? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 20:29
I mean, you know, it’s funny, I was just thinking as this example of, and again, this is really more of an opportunity for it. Well, no, I take that back, I was gonna say it’s an opportunity for mortgage lenders. But I remember when I bought a condo, I don’t know, 12 years ago or so. And I ended up refinancing it I don’t know, three or four times over the over that period. And not once and this is not a slight towards my lender. But I bet this is pretty commonplace. Not once whenever rates dropped, dropped, or it made sense to refinance. Did my lender ever proactively contact me and say, Hey, I was just thinking about you rates have dropped, and you may want to just look at refinancing. Now, maybe there’s a reason he didn’t do that, or whatever, or maybe just forgot about me, I don’t know. But I know that every time I and by the way, my broker didn’t contact me either. And I’ve always thought, well, that’s kind of an interesting opportunity for brokers to reach out. So if you’re looking for reasons to care about somebody after the sale, even if it’s just hey, it’s that school time, and I know that kids are back in school, how’s that going for you or whatever. But certainly an idea is to contact them and say, I don’t know, if your lenders caught, you know, maybe now’s not the right time to do that. But, you know, if there’s ever those kinds of opportunities, where you think, Wait, you know, maybe they should refinance. Another reason to reach out and show that you care.
Craig Fallico 21:48
You’re right. And that’s See, that’s the part of our business right now that’s under attack, is our sphere is under attack from technology, right? Great. All of the algorithms, you know, it, if we’re not staying in touch with our people, who’ve we’ve, we’ve built this wonderful trusting relationship with them, we’re going to lose them, you know, it’s unlike before, you know, like, like, 1020 years ago, this was your guy, this was your guy, right? Or this was your gal. Now, they’re being attacked by these these computer programs and these algorithms, and you know, they’re not even humans, but they don’t know that. And there’s, you know, someone’s reaching out, and I’m saying, Hey, did you go about this, and they’re reading it, right. They’re reading what they like, what their interests are, what they’re doing. And so they’re even attacking them at the right time, too. So we’re what I’m telling my team now, and this is just this year, I started this, we’re saying, Hey, guys, stay in touch, stay in touch, you’ve earned their respect, you’ve earned their trust, you’ve earned their business, make sure you keep it, you know. And that’s by staying in touch. And not just with, you know, like, not just simply through a CRM, right, and talking about, you know, community events and inviting them places. And, like you said, checking in on school, like, whenever when rates go down, I blast all my people and say, just what you said, Hey, if you’re not going to take advantage of these rates and purchase, maybe take advantage of them and refinancing, you know, so I do that. And what you said is so, so big, is just stay in touch with your sphere, you’ve earned their business, you’ve earned their trust, you know, just just stay in touch. You don’t even have to do more than that. You have to give them exactly. Check in with them. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 23:43
you don’t have to give them anything you’d like you said, I think what you said is really, really big, which is you’ve earned, you’ve earned their their you know, that that they’re in your sphere, you’ve earned that in whatever way that was. And the other assumption I think, is a good assumption to make is just assume they’re going to forget that you’re a realtor, if you don’t stay in touch, because we’re not that important to anyone else. Right? But people remember that. Oh, yeah. Craig’s Craig’s a realtor and he did a really good job. I mean, it’s just I always say assume everyone forgets about you. But they won’t forget about you. Of course if you stay in touch so right. Why What a great Tell Tell me about about your team. I obviously your your son is on there is it is it just you and your son? Are there more members?
Craig Fallico 24:27
Well, Nick and I are the team leaders. Yes. We have eight other people. We have Kristen, who is a city gal. She focuses a lot on our city business, which is great. We love having her there. We have Pat who is has an HVAC background. So he’s like, you know, like our blue collar her like response guy, he’s really connects with them. We have an attorney who’s also a realtor. So he’s, he’s a great fit for so many of our clients that you know are very I focus like that on lawn stuff, you know, like you don’t I’m saying I’m more serious buyers that we AM, we have a husband and wife team that’s really down to earth. They’re both teachers. And they both do real estate and teach following in my footsteps. And, and one of and he is my former student athlete.
D.J. Paris 25:20
Oh my gosh, he’s, that’s amazing.
Craig Fallico 25:22
I gotta tell you a story about. So I was. So one of you have a bunch of brokers, you might even interviewed some of them that were my former students or student athletes. And one of them was shadowing me as a real estate broker coming into real estate. And she noticed that a lot of my clients and customers were my former student athletes. And she said, Boy, that’s a great way to get clients is you know, having taught them. And I said, not if you’re a crappy fat.
D.J. Paris 25:51
That’s true.
Craig Fallico 25:53
So so obviously, I did an okay job in the teaching end of it today, I have all these clients and customers. But but it’s so true. I mean, if you do a good job, and I’m very proud of my three careers, I had a great coaching career. I had a great coach wrestling here in Illinois, I had a great teaching career. And I’m having a great real estate career. And you know what, I apply the same philosophy and all of it. I absolutely love the people I work for, you know, and that’s all my students, my athletes, my clients, I do, I put them first. You know, my wife often says to me, she says, Well, you quit, quit giving. Like, I’m always willing to do something for somebody, you know, run and do it. And, you know, don’t give your time away. You don’t give your money away. I said, Honey, it’s worked so far, hasn’t it? So it’s alright, let’s just keep it going. Yeah, but she she says it tongue in
D.J. Paris 26:48
cheek Well, and, and to honor you for even doing this podcast, you are also giving your time and money away to to spend time with us. And again, it’s it’s greatly appreciated. When I first started, the podcast was this idea of giving back to the to the community, and it doesn’t make me a good person to do it. I thought it was a good idea. But I wasn’t sure that top producers in particular people like yourself, who are way too busy to spend this point almost an hour now. You know, we’re busy day, which is it’s busy. And I thought they’re not going to have time because they don’t have time. And what I found is exactly the opposite. Well, number one, they don’t have time. And number two, they make time. And it’s it’s incredible. I don’t know that anyone’s ever turned us down. And it’s you know, there’s it’s really impressive, but I think it speaks to how much brokers who are doing well like yourself who have earned that spot, feel about giving back and just giving each other?
Craig Fallico 27:45
I have this team member Chris, who was my former client, right? So now that’s that’s a problem if you have all your clients as your team. But, but Chris is, Chris is great. But but just like you said, you know, he said to me the other day, he goes, Well, you share. I mean, I’m here in my big office, I share with everybody, I tell people what I’m doing and everything. And I said, Chris, I don’t think you’ll find a long term successful person that isn’t happy to share their strengths, their successes. And here’s the other thing, because I was a teacher probably I don’t know. I love learning. So I’m also asking, it doesn’t matter if you’re in it for a year. And think how much my son has already taught me just in a few years. You’re right. I mean, I you have to also be ready to learn and change and evolve and, and get better, right? Get better. And that comes with sharing. There’s no way you can’t get better by sharing what you do, how you do it, what works. Also share what doesn’t work. You know, I do this Monday morning quarterback same with your team. And I and I go over the whole week. And I you know, because you know the Monday morning quarterback they know everything
after the fact. Yeah, right.
Exactly. So I tell him all the things that went well, the past week, or all or some things that didn’t, and tell him watch out for this, or I made this mistake, don’t you do this? You know, that’s part of it, too. sharing everything. You know your successes.
D.J. Paris 29:20
Well, that not to put you on the spot. But since you brought it up, could you share something that you did that didn’t work? And again, I’m the same way there’s a million things I’ve tried in my own business that that has not worked. But any advice you have of things to maybe avoid or things that didn’t yield good results for you that you maybe would want other people to hear to save them maybe some of that headache.
Craig Fallico 29:44
I think I think that you you should never not try certain things that you have a short feeling about. It might not work out. I’ll give you an example. So I’m driving around town. I’m seeing all these garage sales, right? So I said hey, Nik, you’re my son. Why don’t we make teen follicle dream town garage?
D.J. Paris 30:05
That is a great idea. I think that’s a great idea, isn’t it? I think so sure. Never heard of it. It’s great.
Craig Fallico 30:11
Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was too, you know what? Nobody called? No, we put it on social media, we suggest a call and we’ll bring it to you, you know, you don’t even have to, there’s no money involved. There’s nothing, just email us or call us, and I’ll bring it to you. So nobody was responding. So then I was like, driving around, stopping at people’s garage sales and saying, look, at this time, I’ll give you this site. You know, I mean, unless they knew me, they didn’t want it. So it was I thought it was a great
D.J. Paris 30:41
as somebody who’s a professional marketer, to me, it still sounds like a great idea. But but but it didn’t, it didn’t work.
Craig Fallico 30:47
Well. Just just Yeah, didn’t work. So now I’m
D.J. Paris 30:54
glad that is so funny. I thought for sure. That would have followed in the success category. But the point is, is that you had a thought and an idea you executed it. And again, not everything works. In fact, most things probably don’t work. But but it’s a good it’s still a good idea.
Craig Fallico 31:11
Yeah. And I, you know, I’m not going to give up on no trying to get
D.J. Paris 31:14
sober. But again, if we break down and again, that particular idea didn’t hit, but if we think about, well, what what’s the impetus of the city I want to provide value to because what if you have a garage sale? The biggest issue is getting people to, to know about it, you can post it on Facebook, and maybe you posted on Craigslist, or you
Craig Fallico 31:33
know, next we did Oh, thank you for reminding me. Yeah, that was Nick’s idea. Well, not only do we just give them signs, advertise, this
D.J. Paris 31:39
gets better and better, I still think this is a great idea.
Craig Fallico 31:43
We advertise that we did. So the two or three that that took us up on it. We put their their address of their garage sale on all of our social media, everywhere.
D.J. Paris 31:53
No, it’s It’s but again, you know, what I was, what I was getting to with that was you were still just providing free value to someone who may or may not admit in the market for real estate, but hey, we noticed you’re doing this, we thought this would help your business or your garage sale. And again, just that idea alone, if you constantly are thinking about what can I what value can I give to my sphere or strangers that would actually help them and in this case, I would think a garage sale sign would be very helpful. But regardless, if it doesn’t work or not, you just come up with another idea. And you keep you keep doing that. Correct. So So I love the the intention behind it is so big, and yes, of course you’re getting some advertising out of it. But at the very least you’re just giving people some really nice stuff without asking for anything in return.
Craig Fallico 32:41
Because, you know, I was driving around and looking at some of their signs. Oh, of course. Yeah. And I said, Geez, we could have I mean, doesn’t cost a lot, right? You make these nice signs for them. You know, obviously, our name gets out there. But But think of how nice it is for them. There’s a big blank, white square in the middle for their address. It’s a great idea. But
D.J. Paris 33:02
But again, it’s it’s this intention of just what can we do? What can how can we provide value and and then you know, you just keep keep refining it? Obviously you guys have been doing that for for too. Well, really three generations really? Which is correct.
Craig Fallico 33:17
No third generation realtor. Well, did you know this? Yes, something that’s very cool. We have sold a house a falaka has sold a house on every street.
D.J. Paris 33:29
That is amazing. That is really cool. I hope that’s hope you’re telling that story. Which of course even have some we have a map that is gonna say that is a quite as I can’t imagine anyone else in that area, or even maybe in any other suburb to could even say that. That’s impressive. So
Craig Fallico 33:53
it probably takes three.
D.J. Paris 33:55
That’s probably true, too. But the fact is, is you guys get to hang your hat on that. That’s that’s obviously, you know, that’s really important. And I know if I were listing a home in Park Ridge, and I would my first question if I, you know, wasn’t familiar with the realtor there? I’d say, who’s done the most business here? And, you know, and then I’d probably start there. So obviously, that’s you guys. So and I think that’s a perfect place to end is to say, you know, and I think I don’t this is this something that the audience already knows just listening to crack, but I think you can hear in his voice passion. But maybe even more important is is the sense of caring, it even comes through and how he just communicates with me. And obviously the audience so I think if nothing else you’re taking away, you know, obviously team Falco cares. And their success is followed from caring I imagined caring came first, as Craig has said, so what I’d like to do is make sure that if there are any buyers, sellers, renters, investors, people that are looking to work With Kreger his team, which you should consider working with them, because they’ve been around for a long time and have done very well and their clients all love them is to Well, first you should visit their website, which is Team falco.com. And Chris, what’s the best way that someone who wants to work with you or your team should get in touch?
Craig Fallico 35:19
So always, you know, the cell phone everybody texts or calls, so it’s 847-226-0834. That’s my cell, and then I can dispersed to the team. And then of course, our emails are easy to find. You can even just email us at Team Falco at Dream town.com
D.J. Paris 35:40
Yeah, correct. Thank you again, and to all the listeners, obviously, check out team falco.com Contact Craig or his team, if you’re interested in using any of their services. Also, just for our own website, if you’re unfamiliar, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done. I think this is by the way, our 74th or 75th episode, so huge milestone for us. We’re going to keep producing more episodes, but you can find us at keeping it real pod.com. Also, keeping it real pod is is how you find us on Facebook, which we will be linking of course to this episode to Craig’s team, as well as all of our other episodes are there so find us on Facebook find Craig’s team on Facebook, which is Team Falco and all the other social media platforms we are on they are on find us all stay in touch and we will see you on the next episode. Oh, by the way, if you have any other top producers we should be talking to please send us those recommendations. And Craig thanks again for your time today. You are more than generous. I thank you
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
