Brandon Zellers with Spears Group talks about his path into real estate. Brandon describes the strategy he uses for the cold calls he makes everyday. Brandon also talks about his other businesses in luxury car rentals space and his streetwear line. Next, Brandon describes how he prioritizes his day and how he’s been able to get a market share in this young age. Last, Brandon discusses the role of social media on the success of his business.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Brandon Zellers can be reached at (850) 736-1168 and brandon.zellers@compass.com.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
How did a 28 year old close $33 million of real estate in his first year in the business? We’re going to find out today? Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this next year? And do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? And are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner, real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering Realtors a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with tons of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you by readily aerial maps. An aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before an investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you could spend selling real estate. And if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or you’re tired of paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. While you’ll love rubbly now readily is a real estate map generator that lets you create custom designed professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales buyers and listing appointments in minutes not hours. Simply enter the subject property address auto populate nearby retailer logos with a click of a button and download your aerial retail map readily turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps more time making money. So get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting rubbly.com. That’s REBL i e.com. And sign up for an account no credit card required. And now on to our show.
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 top producer Brandon Zellers. But before we get to Brandon, just a couple of quick announcements. As always, we first want to start off by saying thank you. Thanks for being part of our show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting our sponsors. And also thanks for telling a friend think about one other realtor that could benefit from hearing from a top producer like Brandon, who by the way, closed over $30 million in his first year and he’s under 30 years old, which is just incredible. So I’m super excited to get to Brandon but please let other people know about our shows, so that we can continue to provide these kinds of conversations to you. So just tell a friend that’s all we ask it. Also leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. If you’re listening on Apple podcasts, you can just do it there or Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, Google Play you know everywhere else podcasts or serve leave us a review we read them and we make adjustments to better the show for you. You know what, that’s it guys. Let’s get right to it my conversation with Brandon Zellers?
Today, my guest is Brandon Zellers from the Spirit group with compass in Destin, Florida, also the 30 a corridor. Let me tell you a little bit more about Brandon. Now, this is incredible. And a lot of times when we have guests on, you know, our audience tells me they sort of tune out during someone’s bio, but I really want you to tune in for this because so much of what we’re going to be discussing today is is really woven into this particular bio. So, Brandon is 29 years old and he has been long interested in every facet of real estate from interior to architecture, but initially chose a different career path. Like so many of our listeners, Brandon had worked in sales roles over the years include locally and in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. He made the move to medical sales and began investing in real estate properties. Brandon’s entrepreneurial spirit eventually compelled him to strike out on his own, earning his real estate license and turning his investments into a full fledged career. Now, he joined the spirits group as a sales associate in 2020. Right and a very difficult time, I think, to become a realtor. And he closed over 33 million in his first year as an agent. I don’t know anybody personally that has done that. So he closed 33 million in his first year and he is 29 years old today. So that means he was 27 or 28 when that happened. But that’s not all he does, which is even more impressive in his free time. He operates Dr. Destin, which is an executive luxury car rental business, and has his own streetwear clothing line called sky sky, sorry, Sy sorry, cyc Syke, sorry, Sy ke the brand partners with organizations committing committing to abolishing slavery and trafficking around the globe. If for more information about Brandon, you can always find him at the spears group. website, which is the spears group.com. Brandon, welcome to the show.
Brandon Zellers 6:21
Thank you for having me. And thank you for that intro.
D.J. Paris 6:24
It’s it’s it’s a I love reading people’s bios, and I love putting them together. And yours really, really stands out. Among the 400 Plus episodes we’ve done, I am, I am really in awe of what you’ve accomplished. And I’ve had, I’ve had Jonathan spears, who runs the spirits group on our show before, I think I’ve actually had him on twice. And he is he’s just been a wonderful guest. And I’m so glad that we’re having you on. What I always like to do is to really start at the beginning, because you’ve done a lot of different things in you know, a short amount of time that you’ve, you know, been working as, as an adult. And I’m really interested to hear about, you know, your, your path into real estate. And I know you started out as an investor. But tell us about that, like, how did you even get started as an investor.
Brandon Zellers 7:16
So I’ll take you, I’ll take you back to 2019. I was in Kansas City. And I really just was struggling overall with you know, I had some alcohol abuse and was at a super, extremely low point in my life. And I decided to just kind of make the jump about one way ticket came to Florida. And I was like, I’m gonna figure it out. I got but I needed to get my mind. I needed to get my mental health back on track. Sure. So I came out here. I knew growing up, I was going to be in sales one way or the other. I thought medical sales would be incredible. So when I slowly, you know, got to recovery, got my mind, right, I started attacking some of these medical sales companies. And you know, putting my name in front of them. I eventually landed one I was there, it was an incredible opportunity, I was able to, you know, get a couple investment properties. This was right whenever COVID was happening. And so I got a couple investment properties. And realized, you know, my true passion is is real estate. I just I loved it. I loved every every piece of it really in the fashion. So the interior design, it goes hand in hand as well. So from there, I was like, Okay, I need to just bet on myself here. So that’s whenever I went and got my real estate license. And I think it was day three of real estate school. I picked up the phone and I called I called the broker or called spheres group. And just as like, Hey, I’m getting my license, I really want to be in real estate. I saw you guys sell the most expensive properties. I’m really interested. And mind you, I’ve never sold a piece of real estate in my life. But I was no I mean, I was determined. I tell people like I was at such a low point in my life, that I was willing to take risks, you know. And so whenever I got on the phone with them that third day, they were like, Yeah, we don’t hire new agents, and kind of went on that. That’s how the phone calls started. They left like 10 to 15 seconds. And I pitched myself as much as I could to the point they were like okay, let’s sit down next Monday. So went up and sat with them had lunch. And one thing led to another and I got on with the spirits group which was you know, one of the biggest opportunities in my life, but that’s how I got into the real estate space.
D.J. Paris 9:53
It’s an amazing story because so many brokerages our own our own include I’m here in Chicago that I work at, you know, we’re always looking to hire agents, whether they’re newly licensed or experienced. But not every firm is like that. And the spears group, for those of you that aren’t familiar, are one of the top producing real estate teams in the country, actually. And certainly within compass, which is the brokerage that that they work with, and Jonathan Spears who runs that team is in his BS, 31 years old. So the fact that he’s even accomplished all that at such a young age is is beyond remarkable. But also that yeah, they’re getting calls, I would assume every day from other realtors going, can I join your team? You guys are crushing it, I want a piece of that pie. And I have to imagine they have to play deep. I imagine they play defense a lot going well, you know, we don’t, yeah, you’re new and we don’t have time, we’re too busy. And they made time for you. And they saw something in you that maybe they you know, maybe they saw in them in themselves as well. And the fact that that they were you were able to pitch yourself in 10 to 15 seconds. I think that’s really important. And I almost want to spend just a moment on that. Having a that’s really what we call an elevator pitch, right? This idea of Do you have a way to present what you know, to somebody, you know, in an elevator setting where you only have 10 to 15 seconds before, you know the meeting ends? How what what did you if you don’t mind me asking What did you say if you don’t? Do you remember what you said in that time?
Brandon Zellers 11:27
Yeah, so I mean, I really talked about. So we live now in Destin is a beach town. So you can only imagine, you know a lot of people here. They work but they also spend a lot of time at the beach. But I’m coming from Kansas City, it’s a lot more fast paced, it’s a lot more Hustle day to day grind. So I just really, you know, talked about my mentality, bringing that that city life mentality to the beach is really advantageous that and, you know, I’m a blank, I’m a blank canvas to them. I don’t have any bad habits when it comes to real estate when it comes to sales in this space. And they can almost create, you know, the agent that they want me to be by handing me the tools.
D.J. Paris 12:13
Yeah, that’s true. However, it is a ton of work, right? They have to put in a ton of work. And obviously that investment paid off, because you know, you did 33 million in your first year, which I don’t want everyone to assume that Oh, well. He was just handed, you know, the 33 million and leads, which, you know, I don’t suspect is the case. And I know Jonathan pretty well. And I don’t suspect he is nice guy as he is. I suspect he’s not just handing you the deals. But but the fact that you did get to learn from somebody who’s had so much success. And it was literally a phone call that you made, you made one phone call. You know, and I’m sure you may be called other places too. But just this idea of, hey, I want to work with you guys. You’re the best. That is. That is that is a really, really impressive thing. So what was it like in your first year? Because you were I guess surrendering to their process, learning their process? Sort of going, Hey, I don’t have I don’t have any bad habits. What was it like to did you find that you didn’t also have some of the maybe the limitations that you might have thought in your mind of what was possible in your first year? Like I suspect most people don’t even assume that that’s even possible to do that kind of production in year one.
Brandon Zellers 13:30
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll go back to you know, about the lead the lead generation and everything. So out of that 33,000,020 8 million was off of cold calls alone. That was strictly cold calling. I mean, I really, you know, I really focus on my processes my systems every day, I go to the exact same spot at the beach. I sit in the parking lot for four and a half hours every single day. I make X amount of calls. And I mean, it’s really just staying consistent with the basics. That’s that’s really all it is.
D.J. Paris 14:07
Wherever you sit I this is this is shocking to me, I need to I need to unpack this. You drive to the beach, which is beautiful and gorgeous. And why not? You live there, right? You might as well. And I had a beach day on Friday here in Chicago and I thought it was going to be just as a quick aside, I thought it would be really busy because it was in the 80s and I was like oh Alaska day for beach. So we went out and we were literally a block away from the downtown but but nobody was out there because it was a workday It was a Friday and and it felt like oh why don’t I do this more often? Right? And so anyway, you drive to the beach, but you’re there to work. So you literally just sit in your car and power on the phone.
Brandon Zellers 14:44
In my car. Yes. It’s it’s incredible. It’s weird. I think it’s weird to hear it but I mean it works like all beach ambassadors that walk back and forth like the ladies are all like my best friends. Now we talk every day. You Here’s your regular. Yeah, I get there like six 7am. I just like to start my day there. It’s very therapeutic, just looking at the water, you know, for sure. And getting in that zone.
D.J. Paris 15:11
I mean, that’s your that’s your office, that’s your own personal space. And it’s actually kind of brilliant in a way, because not only is it relaxing and enjoyable when you’re about to do some really difficult stuff, making four hours of calls every day is not easy for anybody to do. Right? That’s hot. That’s hard. And so you might as well put yourself in a situation where it’s at least a little bit enjoyable. also eliminates distraction, right? Like nobody. I mean, right? Yeah, I guess you could, you know, take breaks when you want to, and go talk to people, but like, no one’s knocking on the door going, Hey, what are you doing in there? What was so is that one of the reasons to is it just gives you that that private time to just get your work done?
Brandon Zellers 15:53
Yeah, the isolation, I’m really not an office person by any means. I like to, I don’t want to say like, have control of my space, but have control of my space. You know, I like to just get in my car, have my go get my coffee, go get my breakfast. It’s very routine based. That’s how I operate. So once I, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So I started started working. Like why would I stop now. So I still do that to this day. I am
D.J. Paris 16:22
in awe of that. That is that is remarkable and smart. And really something that anybody could do who owns a vehicle, right? Like, anybody could go do that. And it’s it’s a great way, if you find yourself being constantly interrupted by people in the office or at home. It’s like, Hey, I’m going to work. I’m going to a park. I’m going to the beach. I’m going, and I’m just going to Yeah, that’s Oh, man. I’ve never heard anybody say that. I absolutely just love that. And then let’s talk about those cold calls. Because I know everyone listening is going like what kind of cold calls is he making? So what what Who are you reaching out to? I’m just curious.
Brandon Zellers 16:56
I’m reaching out, I work primarily with a lot of investors. So we’re in a second home market here very vacation rental base. We have one of the great best returns in the whole country, when it when it comes to an annual, you know, return 10 to 12%, you can’t on a $4 million house like you’re not finding that anywhere else, except for Destin, Florida. So it’s pretty incredible. Which makes, there’s a lot of buyers always coming in as a lot of sellers. So I’m usually just trying to play matchmaker with that I’ll either have a buyer that is looking for a great return property, or I have a seller or I’m calling on sellers, to see if because I know this house is 4000 square feet, eight bedrooms, X proximity to the beach, it should do blank. I’m looking for those properties, if they were purchased 2019 2020. And I’m calling them I’m cold calling them and I’m asking, you know, what’s your price? conversation started.
D.J. Paris 18:02
This is really interesting. So you see yourself, maybe as much of a like a matchmaker as a like, you’re looking for opportunities, and then you’re looking for people to put those opportunities. Who would be interested in those opportunities. So when you say cold calling, you’re probably calling Are you calling other realtors as well to say, hey, you know, I know you work with these kinds of clients. Are you calling about just big, big investors from all over the country? Like, like you mentioned, I’m just curious, like, what type of people are you reaching out to?
Brandon Zellers 18:33
Yeah, so occasionally, it’ll be agents, especially if I have, you know, a hot property. And I’m looking to flip it quick. I’m calling all the agents who, you know, are in the same space as me when it comes to the investors and seeing who they have for the property. Because all of our a lot of our, you know, buyers aren’t just buying one and they’re done. They’re buying 1234 If there’s a good deal, they’re buying it, which is awesome. But I just tried to I tried to add value on both sides. Sure, kind of how I look at my day to day work. And
D.J. Paris 19:11
you’re also doing something really sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, but you’re doing something really, really smart that I think anybody could do who had people purchasing properties, you know, two plus years ago, where, you know, maybe the value depending on the market, of course, not every market is up anymore. But some markets are and some properties are and you’re basically calling people who bought and saying hey, your place is worth more now. And I’m curious if do you find that the agent that helped them buy the property at first, has you have you found that that those a lot of times those agents aren’t staying on top of their clients and aren’t going hey, by the way, you’re up like 20% You know, from from two years ago, we should you may want to sell this thing like are you running into people going I already have an agent Have you run into a lot of people going? Yeah, I haven’t heard from my agent in a long time. I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests, of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode.
Brandon Zellers 21:26
That is what I had to figure out with my approach. You know, if I approach it with, we just sold the house next door? Would you would you be interested in an offer that kind of just piques their interest? You know, sure, and I can just get the conversation started. Usually I do have somebody. But there’s often times where they aren’t interested. But their price is literally 30% higher than I anticipated it was going to be it’s going to have to play a game like okay, is this even worth exploring? Or do we just kind of keep doing move on? But occasionally, obviously, we do have the sellers who are dedicated to their previous agent, which is, which is fine. But we just got to make the call, that’s the most important thing. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 22:15
I guess it is because you know, a lot of these people who have, you know, second, third, fourth homes that they use themselves, or if they’re investors who are looking, you know, for opportunities, they probably oftentimes don’t care who makes the call, they just want the deal, right? So they’re, it’s probably like, whoever gets to them with the deal is likely to maybe, you know, has a good chance of closing it too, despite whatever their previous relationships might be.
Brandon Zellers 22:42
Yeah, 100%. And it’s, it’s weird, because as you know, in real estate, it’s the only industry where you’re collabing and competing with the same people, you know, like it’s it makes it it makes it an interesting, dynamic. But the collaborative part is very important. So there are some I mean, there are times you don’t want to, you know, rub anybody wrong or step on anybody’s toes, either. You’re always just treading lightly.
D.J. Paris 23:10
But I love that idea of I have a friend who did a very similar thing to what you were talking about. And she just sold a six point something million dollar property here in Chicago, because she literally the the buyer, she had a listing, that was 6 million and the seller pulled out at the last moment the seller was like a little wacky, and anyway pulled out after our contract was already signed. And I’ve gone through attorney review and the seller just says like we’re canceling the deal. Well, she was on the listing side. And she was like mortified, because this was her biggest transaction ever. She’s professional, she’s very well respected, respected, and the seller pulled out. So what she did is she knew that the buyer was still wanting to buy something. And she literally walked next door to the property that was also worth $6 million, and said, Hey, I was representing next door, you know, it didn’t happen. If you’re looking to sell, I have a buyer for you. And it wasn’t even her client. Right? It was just, you know, whoever the buyer was, who was gonna buy the original property. And she said, I don’t know, I don’t know who you’re, you know, who you normally work with. But I think I can get x for your property if I can get that for you. Would you sell? And they were like, yeah, totally. And so she ended up salvaging that. And it’s the same thing you were talking. I mean, it’s really the same sort of opportunity. And nobody had gone to that person and said, If you sell right now, you could probably get 6 million or whatever it was. And so my friend did it and got the deal. And I go, do you know who the realtor was that originally was on the buy side of that original transaction. And she’s like, Oh, I totally know who it is. But they just dropped the ball and didn’t stay in touch. Yeah.
Brandon Zellers 24:50
It’s, I mean, it happens to all of us. You know, we all so it’s what comes around goes around But what we call that is, you know, prospecting with purpose. That’s what we like to wear, we already have the one side, we know exactly what they want. We go after that directly. And then when you because when you’re making those calls, it’s not as cold. I mean, it’s still cold, but it’s not as cold. Because you do have, it’s not hey, would you be interested in selling? We can list it for you. It’s, hey, we just sold this house, we have x amount of buyers who are also interested in the same type of property. You have it? What how do we make this work? How do we get this deal done? What’s your prize?
D.J. Paris 25:38
That is a brilliant, that is a brilliant strategy. It’s very simple to but it’s, it’s this idea of having a reason to call and not. It’s not like, hey, I want to build rapport with you. And I want to, you know, over time, win you over it. And of course, if you want to do that, as well, but this idea of leading with it’s kind of like, every year when I get to tax time, my accountant says hey, I need all your taxes. And, and I love my accountant, I’m in no way. This is gonna sound like I’m like being disparaging towards her. She’s wonderful. But you know, what I would love is if she called me and said, Hey, here’s like this new tax thing just changed. And what I really want you to do is think about this for next year, so that you can, you know, again, bringing an opportunity to me, right? And look, I’m not saying she’s not supposed to she doesn’t have to do that. But boy, I’d love it if she did because every year I Google, I go with any tax law changes I should take advantage of. But if somebody were to bring that to me, I would be I would be indebted to them. So I love that prospecting with purpose have a reason to call somebody not just a hey, what’s going on? Are you thinking about buying or selling? You know, that’s really, really smart. Now you do more than just real estate. So you didn’t just and by the way, 33 million in one year, even if you did that on one transaction, which I know it was many, many transactions. That would still be a full time thing. Yeah. And on top of that you operate Dr. Dustin, which is luxury car rental. How’d you get into luxury car rental?
Brandon Zellers 27:04
on accident, honestly, it’s kind of a funny story. I when I was in the medical sales space. I’m obviously moved down to the Florida there’s a lot of people with jeeps, I thought needed a Jeep to Jeep Wrangler. I had a Mercedes Benz CLA 250. That’s the car I bought from Kansas City here. And I had I had someone who was actually going to purchase the Mercedes. So I went ahead and bought the jeep. She backed out of buying the car. So I was sitting right with two cars. Awesome. I put it on. I put it on. There’s an app called Turo. It’s like, Sure, it’s essentially Airbnb for vehicles for renting your vehicles. I put it on there. It does. 3,001st month on a car. I was like, wow, hang on. Like, hang on.
D.J. Paris 27:56
That’s all my payments for a year or more.
Brandon Zellers 28:01
I was like this. At that time, I was only one of six vehicles on the whole, like in this area. It was relatively new here. And so I was like, this is interesting. Kind of that was the end of 2020. Are you Yeah, at the end of 2020. And then in during 2021 is when I really you know kicked it up. And it’s I just copy paste, copy, paste, copy, paste. It just kept adding, adding adding. I hired a director of operations from Kansas City, he moved down here, because now we’re up to 20 vehicles in this full plot. Yeah, I mean, we have it started with that Mercedes, but we have, you know, BMW IA, with the doors that you know, come up like that really cool. Some BMW M six, lot of Escalades because there’s a bunch of families that travel like in packs. So the asteroids are amazing. And you know, there was a there was a rental car shortage at airports, so people will just Uber. But there’s also a shortage of that here because everybody wants to go to the beach. So they’re quickly they’re calling us like, after one day, again, this is everything isn’t going to work. You guys have any cars. And so it’s kind of cool, how it’s how it’s worked out, I’m looking forward to, you know, continue continuing to grow that just to see what happens. It’s a fun business that allows me to, you know, drive multiple cars, I love cars. So it just allows me to have multiple cars that are kind of paying for themselves and switching in and out of them. It’s it’s cool. It’s cool. I love it.
D.J. Paris 29:38
I had a Jeep Wrangler many many, many years ago and here in the city of Chicago, which people oftentimes are like it it was it was a manual, it was a you know stick shift and I remember people thinking like oh, that just sounds terrible. And I’m like well it’s not great in the winter but because you know we like maybe I’d get the hard top on in time for the for just for ease or something, but what if I didn’t then it was it was fun. But I know man, rank. wranglers are super fun vehicles to and certainly in a beach town, they’re just everywhere. And so I love that you have these like this luxury fleet and you like building that business you saw an opportunity. I also want to talk about your, your streetwear. Why psych because there’s a you know, you talked about prospecting with a purpose, you know, there’s a real purpose and mission behind what you’re doing with with clothing, your clothing line about, you know, dealing with sex trafficking, slavery, things of that nature. How did you get involved in that.
Brandon Zellers 30:36
So that that actually goes back all the way to 2017. My uncle, and I actually, were just sitting, sitting in his basement. And like I said, I’ve always been into fashion. He’s always been like, my business mentor growing up, I just watch him being entrepreneur. And so here I am, like, young kid, like, hey, let’s start a clothing. Let’s start a clothing brand, not realizing it’s like literally one of the hardest industries to get into, like competing with
D.J. Paris 31:06
dickless big boys who get all the shelf space, they get all that. I mean, if you’re talking about retail, it’s like, the hardest thing to ever break into.
Brandon Zellers 31:15
Yeah, like it’s, and so it’s kind of our, it’s become like more of a lifelong mission. Like, we’re just never gonna give it up. We slowly grow it, you know, every year and my end. But the I once held, I can’t say the Fashion Week, I did a runway show for for the brand. And it was really cool, because it goes back to, you know, abolishing the sex trafficking and all of that it’s we we had like the models with their hands tied up like very, you’re making a statement? Yeah, it was, it was a very statement, which it did exactly what it needs to do. It was an incredible experience. And that kind of, you know, put our brand up there a little bit in our city, which was really cool. And we’ve kind of just been keeping keep going with that. We were very, we were very involved with a 21, which is a huge, you know, campaign for all that. And it’s Yeah, I mean, it’s fun, it’s something we’ll just do forever. I don’t think it’s ever going to be our, our priority business. I wish one day it would be that’d be awesome. If I if we had a massive brand, that was just helping, you know, global issues, like that’s incredible. But on top of that, we also have a wholesale a wholesale side of it as well. Sure. So we do merch and fulfill orders for a bunch of companies. So I love it. It’s kind of just a well oiled machine now. So yeah, I
D.J. Paris 32:51
I also wonder too, and I don’t know, if you talk about that with your clients, that oh, by the way, I have this this other thing, I’m not I’m not sure the pros and cons of talking about other businesses when you’re, you know, working with somebody on a real estate transaction, but I suspect if they were to hear the mission, and oh, by the way, I have this other thing. And here’s what we’re trying to do with it. I mean, who’s whose heart wouldn’t melt a little bit, you know, and sort of, you know, feel both sad and also grateful that that you’re out there trying to, you know, make some of those changes. So, I’m curious, does that ever come up when you’re working with clients? Or do you more keep that you know, more low key?
Brandon Zellers 33:31
Um, I usually wait till there’s a good segue, organically. Sure. And client to client, depending on because a lot of my clients are, you know, friends now. So, some of them, I definitely do bring it up, but it just, it. It differs on who it is, I
D.J. Paris 33:49
guess, of course, yeah. Well, I just I just applaud you for trying to make a difference and giving back and, and I wonder how much of this idea you talked about the beginning, like going through the surrender process of, you know, dealing with your own, you know, issues and challenges and sort of surrendering and saying, hey, you know, I’m going to make this better. I’m going to get the help you know, that that is needed and then going to the spirit group saying, Hey, I’m new, I need help I you know, I’m, I want you guys to mentor me and and here you are, but question more about prioritization, because I think a lot of us have struggled with that. So you know, not you know, not many of our listeners probably have, you know, a rental car business as well as as well as a fashion line. But but they have other things. They have families that are taking care of children, they’ve got other jobs. How do you prioritize your day? I know you’ve talked about hey, you know, you’re spending at least half a day or so. You know, at the at, you know, at your real estate job. Probably more than that is my guess. But how do you figure out where to spend your time?
Brandon Zellers 34:56
At the beginning, I’ll be honest, I didn’t. I would just try to do it. everything. And that’s why I mentioned how I had to hire someone to, to move down here and help out with the business because I had to give some of that away in order to grow. And so that’s kind of been a huge value add in terms of my business and priority prioritization, because now I’m able to focus on, you know, the bigger projects that will, you know, in the end help everything else that I’m working on. So that’s really, it’s for me, real estate. I’ll check in on Drive and stuff. But we have that that system is beautiful right now. It’s going great. We’re still growing it. And then Psych. Like I said, it’s with a couple partners. So we all that’s like a weekend thing we get together once or twice a month and chat about that. But I just like to keep my mind I like to keep I like keep going. I like to keep my mind busy. I like to see what all I can explore. I’m hoping to, you know, start on a couple new adventures as well. So this this upcoming year.
D.J. Paris 36:05
Amazing. Do you well, you know what we’ll leave that for? We won’t, we’ll leave that for a future episode. Because I’m curious, I don’t want to, I don’t want to spoil whatever secret secret of cool stuff you’re working on. I’m just excited to watch it come to come to be. But I do have question about this idea of competition, because again, for anyone listening, they just thinks, wow, they live in this vacation area, lots of wealthy people come and go. It’s just you know, handing out money and opportunities, which we you know, I’m sure is not the case. But there’s also fierce competition, because it’s not like you guys are the only brokers in town, right? Are the only actors in town, there’s probably 1000s. So you’re competing against people who have been doing this 3040 years who have really established impressive, you know, histories, right? These are not, you know, not Bozo, you know, who just got their license and you know, 55 years old person, this is somebody who’s B, these are people who have been working in this area for a very long time doing very well. And you guys come along, and you are grabbing up market share? Why do you think you’re able to do that at such a young age? Is it strictly because as you said, you prospect with purpose, you you have a reason to pick up the phone and call someone? Or is it more than that?
Brandon Zellers 37:22
That’s definitely a piece of it. Another piece is, you know, Jonathan has really pioneered a big part of this market, you know, him coming in at such a young age, and accomplishing everything he’s accomplished, you know, over a billion, that he hit that three years ago, you know, in his career, that’s, it’s incredible. So he’s really set the stage, and we’re just blessed to work alongside him and leverage his success to help us and help our brand. You know, that’s part of it.
D.J. Paris 37:52
Yeah, I guess it’s funny, he’s only 31. But he’s sort of like the big he’s been the big deal in that areas for years now. So I guess he’s, he’s not the new kid on the block. But at some point he was and, and this idea of being able to, you know, out, come out compete, you know, some because again, when I guess when you’re dealing with with multimillion dollar properties, you know, I’m guessing that, you know, a lot of times the buyers and sellers it’s not they don’t interview just one agent, they probably interview Yeah, many agents. So how do you, you know, how do you feel like you compete? When you’re up against other agents for one transaction? Like, what is it that you think you do, that’s maybe a bit different.
Brandon Zellers 38:33
So we focus on being proactive, as opposed to reactive, and building the relationships over just having a transaction, those two things alone will set you apart from 99% of your competitors, you know, truly getting in having great conversations with the seller, or the buyer, whoever you’re being interviewed with, and adding value will win every single time. And just we’re authentic. We know the space really knowledgeable on the area on the on the properties on the pricings. And it’s, it’s something that we’ve found success and just following those simple steps. So
D.J. Paris 39:16
yeah, it is funny. It’s like, when I first started working at the company here, I did not have a real estate background. And my boss said, I said, What do you think that because he was like, the Rookie of the Year, his first year and he was in his? I don’t, he might have been 30 years old, maybe? No, late 20s. And he was Rookie of the Year in Chicago. It’s kind of a big deal. And it’s a really big deal. And I said, Why do you think it was because and and Nick, our owner is like the nicest guy ever. He’s not particularly salesy, and he’s just a good guy. And I said, What do you think it is? Why do you think you had so much success in your first year? He goes, I don’t know. He goes, I only had one rule, which was I never wanted a client to have to call me first. Right? I wanted to, I wanted my clients to be like, I don’t have to ever call like they’re calling him Yeah, you know, he’s calling them going, Hey, here’s what’s going on. And he was my realtor. And I thought back because he was my realtor years before. And I thought back to my experience with him, and I had never had another experience. So I didn’t know it was anything special. But I went you right? I never had to call you when I was worried about a particular thing in my transaction, you always called me first. And it is funny. You’re right, it probably that in and of itself, being proactive versus reactive, probably does separate you from close to 99. Even if it’s just 90% of the competition. That is nine out of 10 people who are in you know, I want I’ll say finish to this. But I interviewed the one of the top, I’ve interviewed actually a bunch of the top Realtors here in Chicago. And one of them said the exact same thing. She goes, I call every one of my clients every week. And I was like, and she goes, No, that’s about it. Like, is that it? She goes, Well, there’s more to it. But that’s the thing. I do that like no one else does.
Brandon Zellers 40:52
You gotta you gotta touch them. Yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to be top of mind.
D.J. Paris 40:58
And curious about social media. Because you’re a young guy, you You certainly are no stranger to social media. Have you? How much is social media played a role in in the success of your business? Or has it not? I don’t know, if you’re, if you’re the investors and buyers and sellers, are checking you out on social or just curious what what if you’re utilizing that?
Brandon Zellers 41:21
It’s funny, because I thought that none of them were checking me out on social because they don’t follow a couple of them over the past month, you know, have mentioned that? Oh, yeah, I saw you. I saw you on Instagram, Facebook, and I was like, okay, they are watching. And I don’t know if it like, I assume that it’s helping. You know, I like to my clients say that I’m annoyingly persistent in the best way possible. And I think that’s one of my biggest strengths, because I’ve heard that multiple times. Because I just, you know, persist without exception. Regardless, like you have to just push through, oh, you can hear no, a million times. And you have to follow up. I think a big piece of this is you have to follow up. But I mean, I link all of my socials in my virtual business cards and everything. So they it’s they always have access directly to it. It’s hard to say if it I would, I like to say that it that it helps. I know there’s a lot of agents right now who think they can post on Tik Tok when video and they’re going to be selling 100 million, when it’s really still not that not that simple, especially with the market shifting. You have to, you have to maintain the fundamentals and the basics, which means you’re going to have to pick up the phone one way or the other. You can post the videos, I post the videos. But you have to stay true to the basics.
D.J. Paris 42:44
Yeah, you know, I almost forgot to ask this question because I oftentimes we ask all of our guests ahead of time, a few questions to kind of give me some things to talk about. And I almost never get to this question. And the reason I’m going to get to it isn’t so much that it’s as funny as it is one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard for for real estate. So I really want everybody to pay attention. I honestly, truly believe this. So one of the questions we ask is, what’s your funniest real estate experience? And so I’ll just tell the quick story. But I want to talk about how you solve the problem versus the actual story about the problem. Because the problem was you were brand new in one of your first showings, and you were on your way to the showing and you blank or maybe you were at the showing, but you blanked on all the information. Right? You didn’t have it memorized, which I mean, who does Right? Very few people do. So tell me about how you saw that? Because well, actually, I’m sorry. Tell us the story about how you blanked on the information. I do I actually do.
Brandon Zellers 43:42
This was at the very beginning. I had already. I mean it’s it’s nerve racking. We’re in multimillion dollar properties. I just started, you know, like, I don’t know really what I’m doing. But I’m here, like, no owl, but here we are. And so I’m like, you know, trying to fake it till I make it until that gets real without a showing and I’m sure know how, how tall the ceilings, what, what kind of lights, what kind of floors, and I’m just like, oh my gosh, like just unprepared. I thought I was prepared. I was unprepared. I wasn’t ready at all. And it was the most embarrassing thing by far in my real estate career. And from that moment, like I would just either walk through the house and talk in my phone. So I had all the information or I’d go on the MLS, type out a bunch of notes. And then what I would do is I put like a text to speech. And so basically you just copy all everything you wrote. And then you can have like a Siri voice basically play it back. So then like for if I knew I had a big showing coming up, I would just if I’m representing the buyer, I would just you know, drive, put it over my radio and just let it Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Just so that I knew. Yeah. Like just the system. overload, but then when someone asks a question, you’ll subconsciously like know the answer, because you heard it 4500 times.
D.J. Paris 45:08
I mean, it’s it’s sometimes they always, you know, sometimes the what’s awesome is razor the most direct solution or the simplest solution is oftentimes the most effective and, or something to that nature. I probably did not sort of quote that correctly. But But we understand the idea. And that is a brilliant and simple idea, right? It’s like, yeah, how cool is it to be able to walk through a property when a client asks a question, you don’t have to go to your phone, and you don’t have to, I suppose suppose you could, if you really needed to, but you’re like, I already know that because I’ve heard it replay over and over again, on the car on the way down. I’ve never heard of another agent doing that. So that is, I’m so glad that you shared that with me.
Brandon Zellers 45:48
Absolutely. I have some weird, weird things, driving to the beach and then driving and listening to MLS bios.
D.J. Paris 45:56
You know, though, but that’s really, it’s smart. It shows preparedness, it shows this idea that I take this very seriously. And I’m going to go to the beach because I like the beach, but I’m going to work and I’m going to work and I’m going to sit in my car and make dials. And I don’t know how many people make four hours of dials a day, I suspect it’s less than 1/10 of 1% of Realtors, it’s probably essentially nobody and, and you’re doing it and you close 33 million, and you’re a nice guy, you’re not you don’t seem to be a pushy salesy kind of guys, that’s not your personality. And, and it’s not the Spirit groups personality, either. I know, I know some of those guys. And they’re just nice, easygoing people, but they work hard, and they’re smart. And that’s a really smart thing to do. And it’s in it’s hard work to, it’s not easy to sit in the car and power on the phone all day long, trying to put deals together. So how much of how much of your success is just just the discipline of
Brandon Zellers 46:48
it? I would say, you know, a large majority, definitely is, you know, sticking to the processes. You know, Jonathan said at the beginning, when I started that, that was the most important thing, you have to you have to get a system in place, you have to get in process. And then you have to stick to it, you have to, there will be days that are worse than others days that are better than others who allow them knows, and you have to learn from your failures. Like I’m not afraid to fail, because I felt like I failed in the past. And I’ve you know, overcome that. Yeah, 10 fold. So, you know, back to like the drinking and then overcoming, I’m sure you’re sober now as of two weeks ago, so congratulations, and little things like that just one day at a time. And then taking risks. I mean, you have to take risks.
D.J. Paris 47:40
I think a lot of realtors could probably benefit from some of the lessons in the 12 step programs in particular, you know, for those of you that aren’t familiar with with 12 Step programs, one of the one of the sort of biggest things in them is is this idea of, of structure and having like, if you’re a meeting person, there’s meetings and you go to them as regularly as possible. And that in and of itself, just people going to these meeting rooms and saying hey, I’m I’m struggling, or I’m here to be of service, oftentimes helps keep them on track just going somewhere and doing it and you’re you know, you’re sort of saying the same thing, I go to the beach, I pick up the phone and I start dialing and some days, it’s easier than others. And some days, I you know, I strike gold and other days I do not. And but I’m just going to keep doing it. Because ultimately, you know, there’s a track record of it working for other people. And so I think there is something to this idea of structure routine. Obviously, discipline is, you know, like anybody would disagree with how important discipline is. But it is remarkable that you were able to sort of rebuild, at at a time when, you know, alcohol in particular can really take somebody down down for the count, you know, you probably, obviously are aware of that, and people, most people who have that illness do not recover. And so this idea that not only did you recover, but you’re thriving is truly truly impressive. And I wonder if you hadn’t have gone through that experience. I’m curious, would you would you be as successful as you were today? Like, if you were still able to do it all? And you know, continue, you know, with some of the the behavior that maybe wasn’t so how healthy? Do you think you’d be able to keep it all together?
Brandon Zellers 49:23
I had to say no, not definitely not. My growth wouldn’t have been as quick as it. Yeah, that has been in the last two years. I mean, it’s, I just thank God every day because it’s, it’s, I look back and I’m like, That is crazy. I see old pictures. I mean, I was 70 pounds heavier. Whenever Yeah, so and I always I remember at my old sales jobs in Kansas City, like I would always still be like a top producer. But I there was so much more I could have gave and like this is you know the fruit of that like I’m seeing that I was right because I always be like that You got it, you got to calm down, you got to chill, you got to relax, you got to get better. And like, because when I had laser when I was sober, like I had laser focus, I thought I could conquer the world. And so that’s how I feel today. And so it’s it’s literally I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t go back for anything. Marathons continues, you know, like we’re still, we’re still pushing one day at a time.
D.J. Paris 50:24
One of my favorite quotes is, it’s an old Zen. I think they’re called Cohen’s anyway, Zen saying, maybe it’s not Zen, but somewhere I stole it from somewhere. But it’s, I thought it was a Zen thing, but it’s a great one and it’s Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. This idea that the works goes on, right? But at least at least your your mind is clear. And you’re able to give more of yourself to, to the things that you that you’re involved in and and want to do, versus the things that you find yourself doing to cope with with other things. So I think I think that is is just remarkable and a great place to wrap up. So we want to give a shout out to not only Dr. Dustin but also psych if somebody’s interested in renting a luxury car in Destin. We do have listeners who of course vacation there. So what’s the best way they can learn about your your car rental?
Brandon Zellers 51:23
Yeah, so they can go to att drive Destin, just like it sounds. Drive destined.com. Or honestly, you can type in rentalcars. Destin, and we’re right there. So yeah, there’s multiple, or they can come and DM me at BS LSB. Ze ll A S? and I’ll hook them up for sure.
D.J. Paris 51:43
Awesome. And then if anyone wants to help support the psych, brand and mission, what’s the best way they can do that?
Brandon Zellers 51:52
So on Insta on Instagram, it’s sy Ke, just for letters, and then the website is site brand.com.
D.J. Paris 51:59
Awesome. Well, we will post links to both of those side businesses, because we want to support that. And we honor your time today. And you know, Jonathan, I believe if I might have this wrong, because I My memory is garbage. But I think he had reached out to us and says you got to talk to this guy. He just joined my team. I’m pretty sure he did. And we are we are so honored. Because again, not a lot of people have had that level of success that quickly. And not not that you haven’t been, you know, successful and other things. But just that in and of itself 33 million in year one is absolutely remarkable. And I honor you for that. I’m excited to see your new your new ventures excited to see how your real estate career continues to evolve. And, you know, we’re big fans of the spirits group and what what you’re doing as well. So thank you, Brandon, on behalf of all of our listeners who want to thanks, thank you for your time, I know how busy you are, this is not an easy time to find an hour to speak to us. So I appreciate you doing that. And also, on behalf of Brandon and myself. We want to thank the listeners and the audience for sticking around to the end. We appreciate it. Let’s support Brandon let’s let’s check out oh and by the way any realtors who have investors or buyers or sellers who might be looking to move retire invest down in the destin you know 30 A area they would love to talk to you right? You probably get calls from Realtors all over the country who are like, Hey, I’m looking for, for a team to refer business to so what’s the best way that anyone who wants to either work with you or refer business to you can reach out?
Brandon Zellers 53:32
Absolutely. So just at these Ella’s again, on Instagram, or at Spears group, either one. And if you just want to call we can chat doesn’t have to even be about real estate, we can just you can just call I talk on the phone all day long. It’s kind of my thing. Well, I love it. And next,
D.J. Paris 53:52
he would love to connect. So we will put Brandon’s contact information as well in our show notes. So thank you, Brandon for being on the show for everyone listening, please. Yeah, look at and for anyone out there who is who knows somebody who is struggling in their first couple of years. Or even maybe they’re not in their first couple years and they’re struggling. And then maybe they’re losing hope, right? This is a great episode to send to them that to see what’s possible, when you just put your mind to it and buckle down and really, really just get to work. And so feel free to share this with anybody out there who’s a real estate agent that could use a little bit of motivation and to sort of reset their mind and what’s possible. It’s easy right now I think to to get bogged down and rates are up, inventories down. It’s tough. It’s tough. It’s scary. It’s and yeah, so it’s nice to hear some of these success stories with people who are thriving during, during otherwise a pretty challenging time I think and in real estate. So, Brandon, thank you again. But for everyone out there listening, share this with a friend. Just send them over to keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done could be streamed there. And also leave us a review for listening on whatever platform Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora app, Amazon, wherever Google, let us know what you think of the show. We appreciate it. All right, Brandon. Thank you so much and we will see everybody on the next episode.
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