Elliot Hoyte, a recipient of N.A.R. 30 under 30 for 2020, attributes his success in real estate to his history with athletics. Elliot played defensive lineman for Boise State University during college before starting his real estate career in that same community. He believes that mental fortitude helped him keep disciplined while he was building his business. Elliot also discusses the importance of cultivating deep relationships with your contacts with gestures such as handwritten notes and small gifts of appreciation.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Elliot Hoyte can be reached at 208-340-8769 and elliot@elliothoyte.com
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Elliot Hoyt. He’s a National Association of REALTORS 30, under 30, winner and also top 1% producer and you’re going to get so much value out of this episode. But before we jump in, we are going to ask you to do two quick things. And this is the best way you can support our show. Well, number one, the best way is to continue to listen and thank you for doing that. But there’s two other ways that we really could use your help number one, tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Elliott and send them over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or if they’re already in the podcast, haven’t pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real and they’ll find us the second thing is to please follow us on Facebook every single day we post an article that we find online designed to help real estate agents grow their business. We also post live recordings of all of our episodes you don’t have to wait a couple of weeks for us to produce them. So you can find us on facebook@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod once again facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Elliot Hoyt.
Today on the show we are chatting with Elliot Foyt from Amherst Madison real estate advisors. Let me tell you a little bit about Elliot Elliot is originally from England and moved to Boise to attend college. His passion for the community commitment to helping others competitive spirit and dream of owning his own business led him to a career in real estate. Elliott is a graduate of Boise State University where he excelled in the classroom and earned a degree in organizational and relational communication. Elliott also made a name for himself on the football field as a championship winning defensive lineman. He attributes much of his work ethic and results driven business to his athletic endeavors. He is the most recent member of the National Association of REALTORS 2020 30 under 30 class, which is a massive, massive achievement. I think there are 1.6 million realtors or something to that effect in the United States. And so to be in that top 30 under 30 is a huge deal. You can also visit Elliot at his website, Elliott hoyt.com That’s elliothoyt.com and please follow Elliot on Instagram. You can find him at at Elliot e l l o it underscore Hoyt H O Y te Elliot, welcome to our show. Thanks for Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on. You’re our very first Idaho. Guest so we’re excited to to so what what how are things are you guys able to practice before we get into you yesterday? How does is Idaho open for real estate right now?
Elliot Hoyte 4:11
Yeah, we were deemed essential. Obviously, there’s some parameters we have to work in for safety clients and homeowners and such. We can’t do any open houses right now. And then there’s precautions you have to take when showing houses but luckily for the most part, while it’s affected us it’s we can still do a lot the stuff we couldn’t do before so I’m grateful for that.
D.J. Paris 4:30
We’re the same way in Illinois, but just to the north of us Michigan’s pretty much closed and New York I know is closed and a lot of lot of states are brokers are unable to to work. So glad to hear that you’re able to practice but, um, tell us I would love to hear about your story at first, of course. You know, I’m growing up in the UK and coming here. But can you share how did you get involved in real estate?
Elliot Hoyte 4:55
So skipping the long story how I actually got here Um, I used to be a brand ambassador for Porsche and also for Mercedes Benz at a local dealership. And I was actually at an event for the dealership at a local restaurant, when I ran into the CEO of my nail brokerage niche like over them as Madison, who was also a Boise State football player. Before me, I bumped into him at this at this bar at this restaurant. And we knew each other from before, he said, Hey, how’s it going? I said, good. I told him what was going on? He told me what was going on with him. He was like, you ever thought about selling real estate? And I was like, I mean, I’d always thought about it, because it kind of like a pretty cool career. I don’t know if that’s like you said, you have to be quite well qualified. I was thinking little though after being a real estate agent, you don’t actually have to too much qualifications. But long story short, he kind of kind of coerced me into it. And a week later, I ended up quitting my job and got my license and went to work. So yes, Nick, Nick, quite off to blame for this lifestyle and that lead?
D.J. Paris 5:54
Well, I actually want to go back. And I apologize. I really am curious to know about about your football career as well. So before before even getting into real estate, how did you how did you grow up playing football? Or how did you get involved?
Elliot Hoyte 6:08
So my dad Funny story, actually, my dad’s English, but he actually went to Harper rain in Illinois, near you, actually, in Chicago, a junior college, he played football in America for two years, for the top Iranian then play for the University of Akron, in Ohio. And then played in the World League, which is the first year of American football, Europe. So that’s kind of my background, but I played rugby my whole life. And basically, I was begging my dad to play back home club football and up until the age of 16. And he finally was like, Yeah, let’s let’s find a place and had to travel two hours to play football because there was no local team. Yeah, so I had to play I had to traverse play club football. And, yeah, that’s how I got into football. And I went to a Boise State’s summer camp my senior year, because I had a mutual friend through rugby, who actually ended up playing at Boise State years on. And yes, kind of through that connection, they offered me a scholarship on the secondary account. And I was like, Hey, I got nothing to do for the next five years. So let’s go play football and get scholarships ended up
D.J. Paris 7:03
that’s amazing. And and you’ve stayed and now are building a nice career for yourself in real estate, which is, which is awesome. Let’s, let’s let’s talk about that. Because I know I assume and this is probably a reasonable assumption, but you’ll you’ll have to tell me how the discipline needed to perform at the collegiate level, in athletics in any sport, obviously, is takes a tremendous amount of effort, discipline, dedication, I’m wondering how closely that parallels what you see is as the secrets to your success thus far in real estate,
Elliot Hoyte 7:40
I think there’s a definite translation, obviously, you go from doing something very, very physical. And I guess some would say, somewhat dangerous to something that’s physically for the most part passive. But the biggest thing that I carry over from football, taught me was just what you said was discipline. You have certain habits as an athlete, that you have to, you know, your schedules and your habits that you go through and accountability. And that translates to this day, I mean, even with what’s going on with this pandemic, I still come to the office Monday through Friday, nine to five, sometimes 7am To get my day started, because it’s all muscle memory. Like I wake up and I do everything. Like sometimes I can do anything on the schedule. I don’t know about you, I just I just wake up and I come to the office, because then that to me, this is my, this is now my practice note, in a way, you know, yeah. So yeah, I think there’s a massive translation, just that discipline I had with football and accountability. Make yourself accountable in your career, too. So
D.J. Paris 8:29
and how many how many years are you in now? For into real estate?
Elliot Hoyte 8:33
This is my second year. So first house that actually sold was March of 2009. Teen? So yeah, I’m only I’m only just into my second year. It’s kind of kind of crazy. So
D.J. Paris 8:47
yeah, in fact, I’d love to talk about you know, because you’re so new and at the same time, you have earned quite a reputation at least, not just locally, not just in the state of Idaho, either. But nationally, you you’ve been awarded this 30, under 30. We’ve had a number of other 30 under 30 winners on and we’re so sort of occurred to us, we’ve been doing this for years. And we saw that the the list had come out about a month or so ago and and we went oh, let’s let’s start talking to some of these these up and comers because really, you know, it’s funny. I You guys are at this interesting stage where you’re at the beginning, most of you are at the beginning of your career, and yet you’re having this tremendous, tremendous success. So um, can you talk a little bit about you know, okay, you got your license you used you your your former friend and now is who owns the firm convinced you to get into real estate. You know, being that you’re you didn’t grow up there, although you did attend school. How did you start to grow your business? I imagine the sphere of influence probably wasn’t that great. I don’t know. But tell us about how you did get started.
Elliot Hoyte 9:55
Luckily I luckily I was I guess to start with the sphere, swing sphere thing, sorry, I, I did quite a good job in college and networking. And that I mean Outside of athletics. So I did a lot of community service stuff I had network when I coped with local businesses and people of that nature. So I kind of organically grew the sphere without even realizing it people that just you know, liked me because I was a football player and after 10 have to be a half decent friends, I guess in the end. And then the biggest thing, believe it or not, was my job at lower person working for that Porsche Mercedes brands. I had a lot of clients through that, obviously that kind of knew and knew liked and trusted me and is only real estate agent tell you, if you’re known, liked and trusted by someone, it’s a lot easier to do business. So yeah, really, really, a lot of my clients have come from both my time at Boise State networking. And then from my old job to some extent to the first. The first I got actually got my license in June of 2018. So anything for seven months.
D.J. Paris 10:58
Yeah. And by the way, that’s that’s not an uncommon story. So we’ve done about 160 of these episodes, and it is not uncommon, although certainly not a comfortable time for anybody when they’re starting out if they don’t sell a home for seven months. But, but but not uncommon.
Elliot Hoyte 11:14
Yeah, yeah. And I was, I think I’ve grown up a lot in the last 18 months even. I thought getting into this, I probably had about three, maybe four months in financial reserves. And I was very arrogant, I think in the sense of like, oh, you know what? I’ll be doing I’ll be doing million dollar deals. Next week, I was thinking to myself, yeah, three or four months, that would be enough. I’ll sell a couple million dollar houses next week. And I’ll be fine. And I tell you the reason why I thought that one of the guys who was actually my mentor, his name’s Matt Boucher, and he’s at our brokerage here. He’s a co founder of the brokerage, he is one of the top producers in the entire state. He’s number one, two, or three every year, when I got into the business, and I was I was kind of mirroring Matt, and kind of learning from him for the first couple of weeks. And this guy slinging out I mean, I’m not kidding, million dollar properties, closing on them every other day and stuff, because I’m thinking that’s normal. But Max Ray is running a business up. In my head. I came in arrogantly, yes, fine, I’m gonna get this done. And I was humbled very fast. I was actually humbled to the point where I was down to about $17. In my bank account, I was driving Uber for two or three months to pay my, my dues just to get through to the next year. And that was probably it was one of the worst times in my life, but it built so much character. And it’s sling that that toughness that it kind of built in me sling shot me to where I’m at right now. I think so.
D.J. Paris 12:37
Well, and now you know, in thank you for that story. And now you know that even if it all goes away tomorrow, which it isn’t going to, that isn’t going to happen. But if it is, you already now have an actual experience of being down to almost no no income, no reserves, any any and look where you are now. So I think just even that experience alone is like, oh, there’s a little bit of relief there in case anything changes. Right now, obviously, the whole world has changed, at least temporarily, and probably in some cases permanently, as far as how we do business. But to now know that you know how to pivot and how to rebuild is obviously an amazing skill to have cultivated I know you didn’t intend to cultivate it
Elliot Hoyte 13:18
wasn’t by choice. It wasn’t by choice. I’ll tell you that.
D.J. Paris 13:21
Yeah. But honestly, like, it’s a good thing too. Because now for the rest of your life, you’ll just, you’ll just know, well, if it all just goes away tomorrow I can do I’ll rebuild. And that’s that’s a remarkable thing, especially for somebody as young as yourself. But so I have another question about Uber, because obviously, you were I don’t know that we’ve had anyone on our shows who’s been driving at any point for them. So I’m curious, did it ever happen? Where while you were driving that anyone ever became a client? I’ve always thought, I don’t know what the rules are with Uber. Maybe they don’t really want you mentioning stuff.
Elliot Hoyte 13:52
I can’t I can’t remember they may not want me mentioning. But hey, I rather rather ask for forgiveness and permission. I had a I had a couple. I’ve had a few people that I met one guy that might be a client one day, funnily enough, actually met my my chosen home inspector, believe it or not. I met him hoovering. And he’s done. He’s probably done 30 plus maybe more home inspections for me in the last year. So I guess that’s kind of a funny story that way. And yeah, I just a lot of its confidence to like I, I kind of pretended that I didn’t need to be doing Uber because Ben’s leave me, I was like, Hey, I know I need to be doing this. If I tell him, I’m an agent, and I just do it to networking, then we believe and I might get some leads. Nothing’s mature, because kind of coming from it yet. But maybe one day someone will turn around and say you bid me
D.J. Paris 14:41
so so. So how did you end up, you know, starting to build your business. So the first six or seven months you said were pretty slim. What were you doing during that time? And was it just a delayed payoff like you were you were doing the activities correctly, and it just didn’t hit as quickly as you wanted? Or was it to take a while to figure out Want to do to build your business?
Elliot Hoyte 15:01
It was a little bit of both. So my first, my two first closings came from my very first open house in August, which is crazy. So first open house in August, close on those clients in March. And so yeah, it was it was from doing open houses that really helped, and then having a really good follow up system. So these clients, these people I met in my very first open house, I had a very meticulous plan for following up with them. And it wasn’t necessarily like, Hey, let’s go look at houses, it was just being present in front of them. And I do that with anyone I come into contact with, if I can bring value to them and stay in contact, it comes back around. I mean, I learned very quickly with real estate. There’s no such thing really as a deal tomorrow. Everything has to there’s like a cultivation process. And that’s yeah, I guess it’s what it is I just kind of stuck to a system. And the floodgates opened about six, seven months after. So
D.J. Paris 15:51
do you mind sharing some of the follow up strategies or the frequency just to give our listeners an idea of what that looks like?
Elliot Hoyte 15:59
So I probably should have more of a written plan. I keep waiting many mental notes on a lot of agents do that. One of the biggest things I like to do is just like coffee cards and handwritten notes. If I’ve ever correspondence with somewhere I see them. I’ll write some kind of handwritten note to start that dialogue with a coffee card, just say just rerecord the conversation, let them know you listen to whatever it was they’re saying the time reflect on what it was that you spoke about to an extent, and just say, Hey, I’m here, if you have a name as a resource, whatever it is, make it genuine. I’ll send out Henry thank you cards. And I’ll keep a rolling kind of top 25 to top 30 People that are either advocates of myself, or are people that I would probably be doing business with in a period of time. And I’ll do like quarterly gifts like small things like we did Christmas wreaths last holiday season. Just little things like that, like little gifts, I should have a plan written out for it. I kind of just have this mental clock and I’m okay, now it’s time to be doing this stuff and become a follow up that way. So
D.J. Paris 16:56
well, you just really mentioned two big things that I just want to reiterate for our listeners. Because first of all, these are pre clients, these aren’t clients yet, and you’re doing two things that 90% of agents, this is a guest, but it’s probably true. Don’t do, which is to say the power of the handwritten note is number one. And it’s just shocking how few people who work in a consultant or a sales capacity or service capacity do not do that. I think about the different providers I have in different areas of my life that earn service fees for me. I never get a handwritten note I met maybe you get like, sort of one at the holidays, which just you know, or maybe it’s even stamped with their signature, which again, I’m not complaining about but the idea of a you know, even a three sentence handwritten note is a bit of a lost art. However, the data that from studies that have been done and even through modern you know, modern time now still say that people desperately want handwritten notes, and very few people do them and, and the most successful agents I know pretty much all do them. So I want to commend you, of course, for it’s like one of those things we all know we should be doing.
Elliot Hoyte 18:08
Everyone does it. Very few people. I tell you what’s funny, I’m sorry to interrupt you. I actually got I had a my very first Thanksgiving. I can’t redo this now because of how much time I don’t have now. I actually hand wrote thank you cards to like almost 100 People who hand wrote Thanksgiving cards. Oh, wow. Almost 100 people that I knew, nobody knows that nobody know. Yeah. And it was crazy. I mean, it took it took a couple of days probably. But that turned into actually a client that ended up being like $1.2 million between the listing and the buy side.
D.J. Paris 18:42
So let’s let’s just even say that took let’s say it took two minutes a card times 100. That’s 200 minutes, you know, what is that? Like? 4334 hours? Yeah, that made you and I mean, not not that you’re doing it for money. But if you actually look at the return on that investment, for a 1% return, right, and basically one one of those people became maybe more did but at least one did. That’s the best stuff for hours. You ever spent
Elliot Hoyte 19:09
about $35,000 in GCI for spending an hour? I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t write a card for two minutes to not receive that kind of compensation if you just want the money. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 19:19
yeah, it’s, it’s the best ROI I’ve heard I, I really and also want to also mention the gifts too. And this is something that again, I don’t know anyone’s ever a lot of people write personal notes who’ve been on our show, because they’re all top producers who know how important personal notes are. But as far as sending gifts prior, I think that also is going a step so far above and beyond what the average agent is going to do that you’re these pre clients or call them future clients are certainly going to be impressed by I imagine you get a tremendous response to that.
Elliot Hoyte 19:51
For the most part. Yeah, I really call I call those clients. It’s a warm list. Basically, it’s a list of clients that you know, there’s something there and I think The most important thing with it too, is whatever you’re giving out, it has to be relevant to the occasion as far as if it’s seasonal, and also has to be genuine too. Because if you’re just sending out like, kind of half effort, things that don’t bring value or aren’t genuine, then then people see through that. So the things I send out, I’m genuinely I do genuinely say this. I’m not just looking for a lead or a deal from it. I’m just seeing, okay, how can I somewhat selflessly provide something of value to someone else? Because people don’t always remember what you say, but they remember them the way that you make them feel? And that’s very, very important.
D.J. Paris 20:33
Yes. Let’s, let’s, let’s talk more about that. So, see you you started, you know, doing production last year? And and then, you know, did you did you see a tremendous, you know, sort of acceleration of your business from those activities you were doing and in the first six or seven months,
Elliot Hoyte 20:56
yeah, the biggest month, I had actually my boards behind me, I compared 2019 to 2020, the biggest month I have when things really opened up, it started it started in about me. And then the the biggest month was July. So this is my first year as my first kind of full season. 3.6 3 million in close properties in nine closings in July. And that’s probably what it was. Yeah, it was kind of hard to believe because I went from I mean, I went from driving Uber, being in minor depression, because of my financial life situation to, you know, doing as much production in the month is most of the top 1% of agents in our entire market would do. So it was very humbling. Yeah, there was I think July was kind of a poignant moment. So
D.J. Paris 21:41
and what why do you think that is? Obviously you had a great mentor? And you were you were doing sounds like you were doing all the right activities? Was it just as simple as that? Or was there anything more to the secret sauce? If there is one,
Elliot Hoyte 21:55
I think I think there’s definitely been the right activities from a real estate standpoint. So doing those hammering cards and kind of having that discipline. But also, I can, mostly because I was an athlete. I mean, I hate to refer to it all the time. But this is what is my part of my identity for life. Even more so than the physical act of doing these things, is having that mental fortitude and the positivity to just understand that like, even if you have a bad day, in real estate, let’s be honest, we probably have more bad days, I think that we have good, it just happens that the good ones are that good that overrides it, you have to just always kind of hold up for the good times don’t allow, people always talk about energy. And there’s kind of that peak performance where you want to kind of ride on this curve. You never want to have the lows too low, for the highest high. And I think a lot of agents from my experience in a short period of time. They allow their emotions to dictate the way they do stuff, you have to kind of have this positive affirmation, just try and stay on this even keel. If you go too low, it affects you go too high, it affects you too. So it’s a mental side to it, too, I think,
D.J. Paris 22:52
Well, you had to show up to practice when you’re when you’re in college on days where you didn’t have time to show up to practice or hit the weight room, you know, there’s classes there’s a lot or you just weren’t, uh, not feeling well, or
Elliot Hoyte 23:05
we used to get these them once. You know, there’s more Yeah, that’s literally it. Now you say it and more think about it, that there’s times it was football where I did not want to be out in the 100 degree weather running around, or I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to do that. But it’s tough luck. I mean, that’s what it takes to be a champion or to succeed. And that’s the same business, you have to show up when you don’t want to do something.
D.J. Paris 23:23
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s exactly. And I was talking to my girlfriend before, before chatting with you. And I said, you know, athletes always tend to do well in business, or a lot of them do, simply because they already have that discipline. And they understand that motivation is not really where it’s at. Because if you’re waiting around for motivation, or inspiration to hit you, like, unless you’re very, very lucky, it doesn’t hit all that often. But discipline is something that you can anyone can cultivate, you know, on their own. And that’s what actually is going to get you the probably the most results and unless you’re just really lucky and you get hit with inspiration at the right moment. But if it’s like me, it’s just putting your head down doing the work keeping your blinders on and, and doing the fundamentals day after
Elliot Hoyte 24:09
day. 100% No, it’s all about the discipline. And again, just to use kind of an experience I had that those drove me in business. When I was at Boise State. I was there for five and a half years, redshirted my first year I kept a list of all the guys that didn’t make it from the beginning to the end so guys that were on the team and either left and transferred or were kicked off the team for behavior whatever it was, it was couldn’t hack it in that five year span. 86 guys were on the team with me that come in when and a lot so a lot of a lot of life is just outlasting people. I don’t mean that in like in a morbid way, know that most of the fact that just showing up and doing the work is enough to help people, a lot of people and it’s the same in business and in real estate too. I think.
D.J. Paris 24:51
Yeah, my mom is a bit of a workout person forever. And I used to ask her how do you get up every morning and workout? And she goes well, I have my She was right by my bed and I just step into my shoes because she goes, if I think about it, I don’t want to do it because nobody wants to do it. She goes, yeah, just put on my shoes. And then she goes, as soon as I put on my shoes, I’m heading towards the car and I just make it, you know, and I said, Oh, it’s she goes, because she goes, once I’m there, I’m going to do the work. But she goes, you know, she goes, if I waited around to be inspired to go to the gym, she’s like, I’d never go to the gym.
Elliot Hoyte 25:24
So any of us would, yeah.
D.J. Paris 25:27
My boss is great. Just before this this interview, every day. He’s the owner of the company. He goes, if he was here, he’d pop his head in. But he’s not here at the moment. But he goes, what to do some push ups. And I don’t know, I never want to do push ups. But should I do push ups? Yes. And so he just he just cranks them out. So we just had a little push up session. But, but But again, the idea of of, you know, looking for motivation, waiting for inspiration to hit is is great and wonderful when it happens. But the good news is, you know, we can all control our habits. Well, we can learn to cultivate our habits, I guess. So. So thank you for that. I I just thought this was kind of a it’s a funny story that I’d love to hear from you about. You had a big listing. I know you have a lot of big listings, but you had one that had to do with I think there was there was a dog that was that was left and you had to sort of deal with that. Do you mind sharing that with our Yeah,
Elliot Hoyte 26:26
I will preface this with the fact that I’m a dog lover. I have a golden retriever, who’s nine months old. So I do love dogs. But dogs aren’t the most convenient thing to have running around almost million dollar open house. So yeah, my my client who, who’s great guy, awesome. Sometimes can be scatterbrained. And I guess he’s used to leaving his dog when he leaves town a lot in travels. But he’s used to leaving his dog on at the property. And he has a neighbor that looks looks after. And I anyway, I’m getting rid of stuff this open house. And this is in a really prestigious subdivision and Eagle, which is the city about 20 minutes, just west of Boise. So I’m getting ready to set the open house. So I stopped putting the signs out, I go to open the front door. And this is a this is a 6000 square foot house is big. So it takes time to set up. So I’m getting in there turning the lights on open up a door, and the dogs in here and I’m like hang on a second. Like the client, I thought the client is out of town. And I call them up on that, hey, you know, the folks here? And he said, Yeah, I think you could just do something with her. And I’m expecting a lot of guests for this open house. So anyway, long story short, poor dog had to put her in. Anyone that has a big pool will understand the other kind of like a pool where he might have the equipment for coronation and everything. So I have to put the dog in the pool room and every 20 minutes go and check on her and give her a treat and let her out and keep her quiet. So she doesn’t disturb the guests. I mean, most people like dogs, but I don’t want the dog running around the house during that time. So yeah, yeah, it was a strange and somewhat funny experience. But she she’s lived to tell the tale. So
D.J. Paris 27:58
that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s funny. Let’s talk a little bit about sort of, you know, what you do for your clients? So So you just well, actually, before we get to that, I have a different question. So sorry, change gears just slightly. So you just were awarded this 30 under 30. By the National Association of Realtors, only 30. Brokers under that age at that, you know, are you get that award per year? Can you? Do you have any understanding of why they may have selected you why, why? Why they’re they’re acknowledging what you’re where you’re at in your career.
Elliot Hoyte 28:29
So the three criteria that I remember, I had to fill out quite a lengthy application and answer a bunch of questions. And the three things they were looking for, if I remember correctly, were diversity. Being being a black English guy in Idaho might be somewhat diverse, I think. So I think that definitely helped business business production to an extent, there were some people in that little less business than me some that did more, but that does play a bearing. And then kind of business innovation, and roles in the community like do you do further philanthropic work? Or do you do charity work, that kind of stuff. And I believe I took most of those boxes. So I’m assuming that was quite a big driving factor and have a relatively unique story just in my background, and hopefully, that inspires some other people. So they kind of thought maybe I had a chance to be a role model of some extent to people. So
D.J. Paris 29:20
do you mind talking a little bit about the role of philanthropy? And obviously, you’re doing it I assume for the organizations you support are because you’re passionate about them? Have you found that business has naturally trickled in as a result? Obviously, again, understanding that is not your intention. But have you found that that helps in business as well? You know,
Elliot Hoyte 29:41
I don’t think there’s not very many metrics to track kind of charitable contributions to business necessarily. And it sounds somewhat cheesy, but if you talk about good energy, if you do good things, yeah, it circles around like, I have the weirdest circumstances sometimes where I do something that I guess it could be perceived as nice And within a couple of hours, you get a referral call or text or something. And I can’t necessarily say that what I’ve done charitably with those contributions has come back around unless it’s just universal, good energy, I really don’t know. I’d like to think of some instances. But I feel like if I was to come up with instances, people themselves may do charitable work for the wrong reason, though, you really have you have, you have to really be selfless and be genuine in that, find something that you care about, and find people that you can support. And if something comes around from a great if not the worst case scenario, you feel great, because you help someone else who needed help.
D.J. Paris 30:31
Yeah, and that’s really important is to feed yourself with with doing that sort of work if you have the time and the energy, because what that will do is it will actually, it’s an investment you’re making not so much in your business, but just like working out, it’s an investment you make in your overall well being. And you know, you’re you’re working out for your physical health, you go out and give as much as you can, and that’ll feed your soul. And that will just naturally whether or not business comes your way, you’re going to just have more in the tank to offer to business because you’ll just be a more more rounded person. So yeah, thanks for that reminder, I, I actually just found out I’m just gonna throw this out there, my girl, I forgot the name of the organization. But right now, since obviously, most of the country is at home, there are a lot of seniors at senior centers that are very lonely, right, maybe they don’t have a lot of family, or maybe their family isn’t connected online as easily. And so you can actually now sort of adopt a senior and do these zoom meetings. So I thought that was kind of a neat thing that all of us could do. And I’m going to sign up for that later. But just as an idea, my girlfriend was just telling me I thought I thought I’d mentioned and I Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I never thought of it doing that. Because the philanthropic work I’m involved in, I’m not able to do right now because of this. So you know, there’s ways to pivot I want to talk to also about pivoting yourself. So now that things have changed, at least, hopefully just temporarily here in our country and the world. But also, with your ability to do business has your activity as far as what you’re doing on a daily basis? Has it shifted? Or is it basically Hey, yeah, the world’s changed, but I’m still kind of doing the same activities.
Elliot Hoyte 32:14
My attitude hasn’t changed. As far as you know, there’s work to be done. Like I said, I still show up and do my thing. One thing that has changed, which is really interesting, and it’s more efficient is this zoom thing has been great. So I’ve met with, I think, at least at least five clients in the last week, and done and execute full buyer consultations, including paperwork, using Zoom. And it’s been a great tool, because instead of that, instead of sitting down with someone and going through a paper line by line and trying to explain what it is assigning, you can screenshare and people are so more, you know, responsive to technology, it’s easier to go through and just say this is this, this is that go through it explained that way. And it cuts down on time, because you don’t have to, you know, I don’t have to make sure the conference room is free. I don’t have to have them travel to and from, and most people are okay with it. So yeah, I think for me, it’s been more efficient. I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I don’t know if that’s me, or if it’s just circumstance just happens. But yeah, it’s been. It’s been an adaptation. But it’s worked out for the most part in my favor, I think so.
D.J. Paris 33:15
Well, and now the whole or at least this country, we’re all everyone’s on on Zoom or FaceTime, or Google Hangouts, or, you know, you know, GoTo Meeting. And so now we’re having these meetings with our friends, our family business. And so it’s just, it’s now part of the Zeitgeist. It’s just part of America, culture, American culture, sort of tragically, you know, for reasons we would prefer it not to, to be, but it is where this is where we’re at right now. And so I think a lot of businesses are going to find that these these zoom meetings, or these visual meetings, are really going to be just the norm and will hopefully save everybody time for sure.
Elliot Hoyte 33:58
Yeah. Yeah, time is money, especially in real estate. So if we can save time, and why not?
D.J. Paris 34:03
So so you’re somebody who’s, you know, you’re in your second year. For anyone listening, who’s who’s within their first few years. And we’ve shared, you’ve shared a lot of techniques thus far. But is there anything specifically you know, we talked about networking, we’ve talked about the importance of follow up a personal notes, gifts. Is there anything else that you recommend and you’ve seen? I’m sure you’ve been in several, you know, a few years you’ve seen probably agents have success and agents not have success. You were your work? Were the one of the top agents in the state as well. So are there any other tips anything else that comes to mind that you think our listeners could benefit from?
Elliot Hoyte 34:40
I think the number one thing is to educate yourself to be a sponge. Never be to never be too afraid to humble yourself to learn. I’d like to think I’m quite well rounded and what I can do as an agent, obviously, I can help I help people buy properties that are primary residences or sell them and also the investments I just It has been really big for me recently, too. And that’s, that’s something that I had to learn because I wasn’t never naturally a numbers guy. And I had to kind of learn about cap rates, or cashflow, and buy certain development processes. I think just being a sponge and learning as much as you can, you’re obviously there’s a, there’s a point where you overload yourself if you do too much. But I have a good friend of mine now, he actually owns a gym equipment company, and I had lunch with him a few months ago. And I was talking to him, he started smiling. And it’s kind of like is this this is our first formal meeting, he says, Why are you? Are you kind of smiling? I said, Well, you can have smiling, he goes, I can tell us something different about you. So what do you mean, he goes, you’re like me, you’re obsessed and somebody made like you’re assessing what you do. And I think there has to be some level almost an obsession, especially in this business, because you have to learn so much to be a valuable tool to your clients. If you don’t have information that you can share, and bring value to them, what makes you different from the next agent? That’s what you have to ask yourself, like, what is my skill set? What can I learn, if you can’t do that, then you know, anyone can be clerical and write a contract for someone, or, you know, post a listing, but until you can provide information that helps your client make an informed decision, that isn’t, you’re not any different, you know?
D.J. Paris 36:06
You’re right. And this idea of being able to provide value means you you got you know, and in the obsession part of it, too, I want to, you know, I imagine a lot of agents. So Elliott was just mentioning that he added investment knowledge, investor knowledge into his his skill set, which again, is not something that most Realtors focus on. They work most realtors in the country focus with traditional buyers and sellers, not necessarily real estate investors, and then all of a sudden investor comes your way. And you go, you know, that’s not really my specialty. And then you have to, you know, either try to hack your way through it or you refer it out. Whereas somebody who’s really dedicated to this craft is it has that obsession of like, I never want to not be able to help somebody by because of my skill set not being strong enough. So I imagined was that the reason why you you decided to add invest investments in Did someone find you? Or did you just know, hey, I don’t know enough about this, it’s time. But there’s a few instances that
Elliot Hoyte 37:05
drove me to it. I think there’s a couple of I had one of my old friends from college was looking to buy an investment property out here. In Vegas, now, he’s looking to buy an investment property for his sister to rent out with friends while she was going to Boise State, and they obviously use that as kind of an investment vehicle. So that was one of the things that prompted me to start understanding a little bit more. And then to obviously, personally, I’ve now started doing a little bit more of investment on my side in my second year kind of understanding, okay, putting my money in certain in certain projects. And then I guess, the third was somewhat selfishly, if you can bring if you can provide an investor who is truly interested in purchasing a property or a piece of land or whatever it is, with tangible evidence that says this is a good investment, there are a lot more apt to purchase that than your regular traditional person buying a property off emotion because it’s their primary residence. If you can show someone this is going to make them money, this is going to achieve the goal they want, how they’re going to reasonably say no if they have the means to do it. And in it from a selfish standpoint, those are some of the easier quote unquote, deals you can do because you’ve done it for them. You just got to show the numbers. Yeah, like it’s like being a golf caddy. You just help them pick out the club and they go and whack it. So you go.
D.J. Paris 38:16
Well, that’s the thing, too, is a lot of realtors think, well, I don’t know any investors. It’s like find the deal. The investors will find you that’s finding the cash is easy right now cash is cheaper than it’s ever been. It’s so incredibly inexpensive to borrow. So the the investors are there, what they’re looking for, is you to bring them bring them the opportunity.
Elliot Hoyte 38:35
Yeah, I think people look at it the wrong way. Exactly. They try and work backwards. Like let me find the investors and then find the opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, you do have to do some networking to know who truly is in the game for investment. But you can’t you can’t wait for it that I one of the things I’ve kind of understood recently is real estate. It’s just it’s basically people, meeting other people with opportunities, but the biggest piece that you have to create as the opportunity so yeah, for sure you hit the nail on the head with that one.
D.J. Paris 39:01
You also do a lot of relocation. Can you talk about that? And sort of you know how that works.
Elliot Hoyte 39:07
So yeah, Boise’s Boise, if you look at different there’s loads of different studies of voices consistently one or two, in, in growing housing markets and relocation in general voice is a really it’s an up and coming city has been growing for several years now. It’s one of the least regulated states in the country, which is very appealing for a lot of people that come from, you know, pretty more regulated states or, you know, different political things that I won’t get into at Boise is kind of just Haven outdoor lifestyle. There’s still City Living Great food, great people. It’s got a strong economy as of right now at least. So yeah, that’s been that’s been one of my increasing focuses just because you can buy a house in Boise. The median sales price right now in Ada County, which is where Boise is situated is about $350,000. You got to LA Seattle, these other places where people may have more wealth than Money, that paying astronomically higher prices in comparison. So it’s seen as a landing spot for a lot of these bigger cities.
D.J. Paris 40:08
Yeah, it’s it does always show up on on lists. I need to I’ve heard it’s just so beautiful to I need to, I’d like to go out there. It’s actually I’ve driven through I’ve driven I was a brand ambassador for a beer company many million years ago, right out of college. And I traveled the country. I’ve driven through Idaho, but unfortunately, not spent time in Idaho. So I need I need to go go somewhere, because I don’t it’s technically checked off my list of visited states. Except not really, because I haven’t done anything. They’re just Yeah, so So I definitely want to come out and visit and see the city and see what what all the how you know what all the hubbub is about? Because it certainly it’s just on that list of like cool cities like Asheville, Austin, Nashville, places like that. Charleston, you know, it sort of is in that same group of like, cool, cool cities.
Elliot Hoyte 41:00
There’s nothing if nothing else, you will come and see the blue turf. If nothing else,
D.J. Paris 41:03
yes. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Absolutely. For sure. And I also want to talk about, you know, being that you’re in a hot, you know, real estate town. There’s also a lot of competition, right? There’s lots of agents because of course, real estate so attractive right now in the growth, I imagine that spawned a lot more real estate agents. So what do you think it is that you do differently than other agents to help grow your business?
Elliot Hoyte 41:31
I think we touched on most of the points already, really. But just to reiterate, I think bringing value finding opportunities to people. And that can mean in a market that is this hot is finding properties of buyers off market, for example, because when things run amok, it’s very hard to compete at certain price points. But yeah, I think really bring information of value to people make those decisions. And then the other one really is his work ethic. That sounds crazy. But I’ve heard so many stories from from people purchasing and transacting real estate aren’t agents, or my agent won’t pick the phone up at this time, or they won’t get back to me in this manner or the eight, unfortunately, you know, not naming names or begging anyone I hear probably more bad stories about real estate agents, and they hear good. So for me, I’m like, okay, what can I do to buck that trend? How can I be overly nice? How can I be overly dedicated to my clients? And sometimes, you know, you know, my wife will tell you this, I probably do more than I should reasonably. But I mean, as an athlete, that’s what it takes to be great in my mind is you have to be more than you originally would expect him to do. So same same kind of deal, I think, well, I
D.J. Paris 42:33
What a great what a great final final statement do more than what is reasonably expected of you. And you will have a more than reasonably expect reasonably nice life. You know, I think, I think I think that is is a perfect place to wrap. And I want to remind all of our listeners to do two things. One, I’d like you to, to visit Elliott’s website, not just because it’s his website, and he’s our guest and we want to promote it. It’s actually a really nice looking clean website. So I’m impressed with the design and sort of user experience of it. So follow you can find them on Elliott white, that’s el liothoyt.com. And also please follow him on Instagram. He is a he’s he posts on Instagram, he is very cool and interesting Instagram account so everyone should follow that’s at Elliot underscore Hoyt again, H O Y te. But Elliot, for anyone who’s listening who might be wanting to work with you directly be you know, people in the area. You’re the Boise community or nearby, you know, surrounding areas, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?
Elliot Hoyte 43:40
They can call me and text me if they want. I’ll give them my number, I guess. So my work number is 208-340-8769 You can call me or text me. And then email is always good too. And my email is E ll IoT at E ll IoT HR yt e commerce Elliot, Elliot home.com And yeah, I just love connecting with people, even if they’re not looking to necessarily transact real estate, I was looking for some business ideas. I’m a business minded person just opportunities to connect. I’m all ears and I lend five minutes of my time to anyone that reaches out to me.
D.J. Paris 44:13
And if you’re lonely and you just want a personal note, meet Elliot he’s gonna write you on.
Elliot Hoyte 44:18
I will write you one and I’ll send the Dutch Bros coffee code.
D.J. Paris 44:21
Yeah, I I’ll tell you, you know, just as a funny aside, I think about this a lot because I’m a big fan of personal notes as well and I think about how many I received and in a year’s time and I would even say friends and full exclude boyfriends don’t write write me really. But let’s say my family sends me you know, birthday cards and whatever. We’re going to take all that out of it. Just a legitimate handwritten note. That has nothing to do with my birthday or holiday. I’m going on zero I get zero of those a year. If I get one I’m like, oh my god, somebody thought to write me something. So this is one of those things that I know where Wrapping up, but boy, it could not be overstated. And you will be just about the only person doing that for that individual. And that they will remember that, that people are so impressed that that you take the time and the consideration and care to crank that out. So I couldn’t, obviously a lot of real estate training programs, how effective it is, as well certainly, it’s not a new idea, but it’s actually a very old idea, but it should be should be done today. So and Elliot, I know agrees because he’s the one doing it. But on behalf of our listeners, we want to thank Elliot as well for his contribution today. Also, we are excited to chart your continue to watch your progress and success in the real estate community. So Elliot, thank you for your time and today. And also any analysis Eliot is just as busy as ever along with pretty much everyone we interview such since our current situation has happened is he’s busy. So he took the time out of his day, his busy day to do this. So we thank you, Elliot also are actually to our listeners. On behalf of Elliot myself, we also want to thank you for continuing to support our show, listen to episodes to quick things, please tell a friend think of one other realtor or real estate professional that or sales professional in any capacity that might benefit from hearing from this interview and pass this over to them. And also visit us online keeping it real pod.com all our episodes are up there. And actually I’m in the process. Hopefully I’ve got it done today. But by the time this comes out, it’ll be done. We have a new website, that’ll be a lot easier to find things. But also second thing, or follow us on Facebook, you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping a real pod we post links to our episodes, we show the live video feeds as we’re recording in real time. And also we post an article every single day that we find helping Realtors grow their business. So Elliot, thank you for for coming on the show. And congratulations on all your very very, you know young and impressive success. It’s just incredible. So keep
Elliot Hoyte 46:59
having me on man. I’m just a product of product of some good people helped me on the way so good. Yeah, no, that’s
D.J. Paris 47:08
it. I mean, that’s the eye mentors and you you’ve had obviously great coaches in your life, probably on and off the field. So thank you for being a coach to our listeners. This is really, really, really an awesome episode. So thank you. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.
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