Grant Muller with The Grant Muller Team and Speaker, Author, Certified High Performance Coach™ shares his diverse business background and expert negotiation skills. Grant describes how he transitioned from a person who abused with narcotics to a very successful real estate businessman. Grant also talks about how he always wanted to be a real estate agent and describes how he used his experience in consumer services to build his business in real estate. Last, he talks about his book ‘Top of Heart” and how you can build your business by building genuine and meaningful human connections.
You can buy Grant’s ‘Top of Heart’ book here.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Grant Muller can be reached at (720) 289-1799 and grant@grantmuller.com.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Today we’re going to show you how to go from top of mind to top of heart. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. 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 Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer and coach and author grant Mueller. Before we get to Grant’s just a couple of quick reminders. As always, the best way that you can help keep our show moving forward and expanding is by telling the friend think of one other realtor that needs to hear what you’re about to hear from Grant and shoot them over a link. Also leave us a review whatever podcast app you might be listening to us on whether it’s Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever, let us know what you think of this show really helps us as well. And one last thing if you’re not following us on social media every weekday we are posting a short form video clip from a recent episode that is a sort of a 62nd actionable you know video, the best way to say it sort of like the best hits of our recent episodes so you can find us every every social channel, just search for keeping it real podcast, hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it. All right on to my conversation with the great grant Mueller.
Today on the show, our guest is top 1% producer and coach and author grant Mueller with compass in Denver, Colorado. Let me tell you more about Grant. Grant Mueller is a speaker, author, certified high performance coach and realtor on a mission to help real estate agents achieve more without endless hustle. After becoming a millionaire before the age of 30 grant fell into a downward spiral that caused him to lose everything moving past addiction and homelessness. He built a remarkable real estate career as a consistent seven figure earner, and grant knows what it takes to sell. And it all starts with a heart centered approach. And his new book top of heart tells the story of how he went from homeless to over 1 million in gross commission income. Please help me welcome grant Mueller grant. Welcome to the show.
Grant Muller 3:47
Thank you DJ, I’m looking forward to our conversation.
D.J. Paris 3:50
And by the way for everyone, I want everyone to do a couple of things. First, go to grants website, Grant mueller.com. gra ntmuller.com, you can learn about all things grant author, he’s a coach, he has some free courses for you as well. So go to grant mueller.com. You can find on Amazon by the way, it has a perfect five star review from all the people that have reviewed it. And it’s not just like friends have reviewed it. Lots of people have reviewed this and they’ve all given it a perfect five stars. And it’s an awesome book. So please go on Amazon and purchase it. We’ll have a link to both grants website, all of his social accounts as well as a link to buy the book right in our show notes. But anyway, Grant Thank you again for being on our show. We appreciate it.
Grant Muller 4:39
Yeah, absolutely. I think after that introduction, there’s nowhere but no, we’re a bit down for me. So
D.J. Paris 4:44
I like to set up my guests for failure. I’d like to this is this is the mountain I’ve put you on it now. Let’s topple you over. I am I you and
I didn’t not
understand, you know, we sort of you know, oh, I’m sorry, are we? I am cutting out aren’t we? Okay. My apologies. Am I still cutting out grant?
Grant Muller 5:20
Yeah, you’re better now. But you that’s the second time you went out. So, boy, yeah, we might Yeah, we’re
D.J. Paris 5:26
having for everyone listening. I apologize. This is a Comcast issue for our entire business is dealing with this. So if this continues, I won’t know. So grant, will you tell me if I keep cutting out and then if we need to reschedule if it’s bad enough where we can’t do it? So we’ll try to fix this in post but um, let me know if it’s if it’s unlistenable. And we’ll just we’ll redo it for next week. So my apologies. No worries. Oh, no, no, everything looks good again. So we’ll see you there. Oh, the internet. It’s fun. You for a grant for telling me that. So so yeah. So I want to hear your story. Because I what I’m always most impressed with, is people who pull themselves up, it’s not even about failing, because everybody fails. Everybody makes mistakes. Everyone has hard challenges in life. But it’s it’s the resiliency that is that is built, you know, the from the ashes, right? It’s the strength and, and, and resiliency that comes out of tragedy that I am always so drawn to. And so I’d love to hear your story about how you, you know, overcame the obstacles that have showed up in your life.
Grant Muller 6:37
Sure, absolutely. Very quickly, early on. As, as a kid really, I learned how to pretend to be someone I’m not to fit in. And to get along with everybody. And it was a lesson I learned very early on. And as I got older, I kept pretending to be someone. I’m not just to kind of make it and to fit in. And in middle school, I started drinking. And by high school,
D.J. Paris 7:07
middle school, that’s amazing. That’s that’s a really early.
Grant Muller 7:09
Yeah, yeah. It was late middle school, but it was middle school. And by high school, I was drinking every day. And I somehow made it through high school. And as I went into the workforce, I started to figure out that workaholism has way better side effects and alcoholism. And so, I kind of cold turkey, quit drinking for a while. And I worked like a madman. And I was a stockbroker at Charles Schwab. And a year into that job, I was given a team of 24 stockbrokers to work under me. I was actually the youngest manager they’d ever promoted. So I had incredible success. A year later, I was the senior manager of a department with 60 people in it. And then shortly after that, I got recruited to an internet startup. Now, this is the late 90s. So Internet startup was just everything was everything. Absolutely. That tech boom. And it was a software company that was starting an internet services division in Denver. And which really dates it right, because now internet is everything. It’s not a division. And I was hired as the head of service, because I love customer service, consumer service. And that’s what I’ve been doing at Schwab. They hired me as the head of service. I showed up at my colleagues apartment where our first Denver office was her living room. And I said, Hey, I’m the head of service. And she said, Well, great. We have no clients. So you’re also the head of sales. And I said, Well, what are we selling? And they said, well, we don’t really know yet. But this internet thing is getting really big. And we need to figure out how we use our software for the internet. We want you to go find our first 50 Beta clients, and let them help us design the product. So we found the first 50 Beta clients. We went public, we all got rich, you know, Porsches and Ferraris started showing up in the parking lot. breakfast lunch and dinner was catered. I had a foosball table right outside my office. This is before Google. Before it was cool to show up to work in holey jeans. We were doing it. And it was really cool. Except I remember the night that we went public. And I was in my fancy condo overlooking the skyline of Denver. And I remember thinking to myself, well, I’ve done it. I met met my goal. I’m a millionaire by 30. But I thought is this it? Is this all there is? I was miserable. I was unhappy. I didn’t like who I was. And I was still pretending to be someone. I wasn’t at this internet company pretending to become a tech bro. But it wasn’t who I was. And so I think sometimes when we go after goals for the wrong reasons, in this case to make me feel better about myself, when we get those goals, and they don’t fill that hole, it’s just devastating. And that’s what happened to me, I started drinking again. And within a few months, I tried cocaine for the first time. And a few months after that I was fired because I was a daily cocaine user, from the very first moment I started. And so I went downhill very, very quickly. But no problem. I’m 28. I’m a millionaire, and at least in stock options, and I kept partying, I didn’t worry about it, I thought, This is great. I don’t have a job. Now to get in the way of the endless party. I was spending about $30,000 a month on cocaine, partying, various trips. And one day one of my checks bounced. And I thought, oh, it’s kind of weird. I need to exercise more shares, you know, when you’re spending $30,000, a month on party, and you don’t really sit down to balance your checkbook. In all honesty, I still don’t balance my checkbook. So I called up to exercise more shares. And they said, Mr. Mueller, we don’t see any stock options in this account. And I said, That’s right. Obviously, there’s misunderstanding. I have 16,000 shares, the stock options go look again. Well, it turned out, I had 90 days to exercise the shares after I left the company. And because I hadn’t, I forfeited about $1.2 million of stock options. In a moment, everything was gone. And we liquidated the cars. We bought coke with the liquidated cars, we did the Coke, within a week from then, that cars were gone, the Coke was gone, the friends were gone. And I was left in this condo miserable, pretty close to broke, with no real prospects. And long story short, I was foreclosed on a few months later. And I spent the next few years either couchsurfing or in the end, living on the streets. So that’s a little bit of the background. Luckily, things got bad enough for me that I was super desperate to do whatever it took to get clean and sober. And I believe that’s often what addicts need to get clean and sober as the willingness to do whatever it takes. And it was bad enough for me, I was supposed to go to prison for four years. And through what I believe was some kind of spiritual intervention, as well as a really loving family that didn’t give up on me. I ended up going to 30 days of rehab, and probation instead. And yeah, so that really quickly because I know your question is going to be well, that’s great, but how’d you end up in real estate. So I had always wanted to be a realtor, I had bought some investment properties along the way. And I really had a less than favorable opinion of the service I was getting from most of the realtors, being a guy that was doing consumer services for a living, I thought there was an opportunity to really professionalize and to really add some attention and beauty to the customer service process that I didn’t see. And so I’d never wanted to give up those great jobs, though, to become a realtor. So now it’s 2008. I’m living in a storage unit. And the market is at the very bottom, and my life is at the very bottom. And I think well, what better time than now. So that’s how I ended up being a realtor.
D.J. Paris 13:42
What and you got in it, possibly the you could argue in one of the most challenging times in real estate, you know, back in 2008 2000 to 2010. That was a huge crash. For those of us that were alive during that time, or remember, we’re practicing during that time. Although I might say, I might suggest that could have been a great time to get in only because there were a lot of people exiting the business around that time as well because it was so challenging to be a realtor during those those years. So I imagined kind of a trial by fire scenario where you probably got amazing training during those the that time as people were fleeing the market, which isn’t too dissimilar from what’s happening even today, we’re seeing a lot of agents leave the industry 2023 Here, rates are high, of course, inventory is lower than in most markets. So we’re having we’re seeing people exiting the business and we’re seeing the agents who are really stepping on the gas picking up that market share. But I want to just dial go all the way back to something that you said at the very beginning that I want to just make a point of because I’ve had a similar experience and and Grant was talking about once you achieve some major goal that he had this is this all Altair is moment. And I had a similar experience just a few years ago, I had always wanted to write. And I had a much, much smaller sort of goal. But my my lifetime dream was to write a funny article to be published in a in a humor magazine. And that was always kind of my thing. And there weren’t any humor magazines for a long time, National Lampoon was kind of the place I wanted to do that with, but they went out of business. Anyway, then, I had the opportunity to, I think, three or four years ago to actually get published in a magazine like that. And it was a big deal. For me, it was kind of like, my life’s ambition was just to be recognized with a piece of humor. And I remember that day being one of the saddest days of my life, and I couldn’t quite figure out why. And I remember going, well, this is a bummer. I thought this was gonna be the best day of my life. And I was very honored. And I was great. And I, it was a good piece. And I’m really proud of the work that I did, and it got published, I’m super proud of it. But I was also horribly depressed. And I think that is a very common thing, that all of us need to realize that that, you know, we sometimes we look for some external event, it’s like, that’s going to be the thing, if I could just achieve that, if I could just get you know, whatever the goal is, then I’ll be happy. And what you find out, at least what I found out is that it was the journey was really was really the real benefit. When I actually achieved the goal actually got really depressed. So it was like, Oh, the juice is it when I achieve the goal, that juice is all the work I did up to it. So I’m curious to get your thoughts on that just I just wanted to touch on that before we get into, you know, everything else.
Grant Muller 16:38
Now, it’s a super important theme. And it’s one that runs through my coaching, it runs through the book runs through a lot of the work that I do, I really believe that achievement comes from fulfillment, not the other way around. Yeah. So when we are fulfilled, fulfilled when we appreciate who we are, and maybe we don’t always like every part of who we are. But when we love ourselves, and we appreciate who we are, we appreciate the journey that we’re on and we bring some joy to our daily existence, achievement will flock to us. And just to put it in real estate agent terms, when we go to a listing appointment. And we’re solid about who we are and the value that we deliver. And we love being there simply for the act of being there and finding a way to serve, the person that we’re meeting with, it’s much more likely we’ll get the listing. fulfillment is where the achievement comes from.
D.J. Paris 17:31
100% I always think like, outcome is kind of up to the gods, like the outcome is, is up to things that are largely for the most part outside of our control. Sometimes things fall our way, sometimes they don’t, and we can, you know, improve our skill to have them fall more likely our way than not. But the end of the day, the one thing that we always have control over is our effort, our actions. And if we can derive fulfillment and pleasure from the work itself, then the actual goal becomes less significant, right? It becomes about the work. And the work ultimately leads you’re going to get the goals anyway. But what’s nice is you don’t have to live and die by the goals. You live and die by the work. At least that’s the way I’ve just tried to live my life.
Grant Muller 18:21
Absolutely. It’s so much more fun that way too. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 18:24
it is a lot less stress. Yeah, exactly. I want let’s, let’s talk about so let’s talk about real estate. So, you know, I didn’t want to talk about the book as well top of heart, which you know, again, is is a take on the expression top of mind. You know, we think oh, I want to keep our clients, we will always want to be top of mind when we actually want to be top of heart. And I am super interested in learning about what that means to you and how you keep yourself on top of heart with your with your clients and how you train agents to do the same.
Grant Muller 18:59
In 2008, I got I got a job at the front desk of a real estate office. nine bucks an hour living in a storage unit
D.J. Paris 19:06
after being a millionaire lost everything. Yeah, you’re back at the bottom. Yeah. But I,
Grant Muller 19:11
to me, it was amazing. I went to work, I got to go to a clean place to work. Instead of the life I’ve been living on the street. So it was fancy to me. I remember just thinking the glass doors were also clean. I mean, everything was so pristine. It was a big deal to me just to be inside just to have water or soda when I wanted. It was a huge deal to me, wasn’t hard to impress me. And I learned from being at the front desk a little bit about while I was getting my license. I noticed agents that did well and agents that didn’t and what they had in common, and a lot of them had this ability to just be they were just they seem to be the ones that I looked forward to. When they came through the door of the office. They were the ones that look forward to seeing those will also the same ones that seem to be have a higher production, and I didn’t quite put all of it together. yet, but I know now those are the people that when they reached out to the clients, the clients want to hear from them. Yeah. And so I, I got the but it took me a moment. And this was 2009. When I got my license, I started running Craigslist ads for foreclosure properties, and did the Direct Marketing route. And I was calling anybody who left a phone number I was calling beating them off reading the sales script to get an appointment. And I eventually fell upon a few clients. And at one point, I got a phone call from somebody, this is after I’d done four or five deals. And they said, Hey, so and so referred me to you. I’d like you to help me buy a house. I heard you’re a great agent. And I started taking them through the sales script. And they stopped me and said, No, no, you don’t, there’s no need for that.
D.J. Paris 20:49
You already got the sale.
Grant Muller 20:50
You got this later. Whoa, bro, like back off, stop selling. And let’s just meet. And I thought, Oh, is this what they’ve been talking about when they say real estate’s a relationship business. This is kind of cool. And that was my first referral, client referral. And now 98% of my business is repeat clients and referrals from clients. And I just fell in love with that process. And there was some times along the way. And I won’t get into all that now. But where I thought, well, if I’m going to do relationships, I’m going to do relationships on a huge scale. So I could build a huge business. And I kind of went up some peaks and valleys along that journey. But what I finally started to figure out, I was in recovery meetings at night, sure, learning how to get real for the first time in my life, to get real with who I am, my circumstances, the challenges I had. But then during the day, I was learning some top of mind tactics. And by the way, I think top of mind is great, but I was learning some tactics that didn’t feel congruent to who I was. And I felt like I was gonna have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, you know, to have a really nice, friendly phone conversation, and then at the end to say, Oh, by the way, who do you know, though, I need to buy a house next year, six months,
D.J. Paris 22:06
and I battled just that, oh, man, I
Grant Muller 22:09
thought am I gonna have to pretend to be someone, I’m not again, to make it in this business. And I was virtually unemployable at this time. So I had to make it work. So I did some of that. But I started to learn along the way that when I created real genuine emotional connections and relationships with clients, and with people in my sphere, referral started to happen, almost like it was magic. And so what I like to say is that the know like and trust the top of mind, is absolutely a great place to start. It just doesn’t go far enough. And so that’s what type of heart comes from. So it’s know like, and trust is top of mind. And then on top of Top of Mind, so building upon that model is top of heart. And top of heart is the mindset, the skill set, and the heart set. And the mindset is to get real, to be who we really are this short version. But once we’re real with who we really are, and we’re creating great relationships, it’s not. It’s good. But what if we’re not really good at what we do? What if we don’t have the skill sets or the habits to follow through on what we need to do we use you and I were chatting before about consistency. But if you don’t have the consistency to do the things, so you’ve got to have the skill sets. And then heart set is all about how do we get present? How do we get connected? How do we build a community of people that we can be a part of that we can lead, and that we can serve. And that will then of course, also serve our business. And so it’s mindset skill set, heart set is top of heart.
D.J. Paris 23:42
I love that those are all super important. And I think you know, we you’re right top of mind is better than not being in someone’s head. But being in their heart is really where you can live forever. And then you have this ability to really connect with somebody at a deep level. And in real estate, you are helping people make deep emotional decisions. These are difficult financial decisions, they’re obviously big financial decisions, and they’re typically pretty emotional. And so I think you’re so absolutely right that, yes, we want to connect at a deep level emotionally, we also want to make sure our core competency our skill level is actually you know, good so that we can, you know, support and treat our clients in the way that we need. And then also just running a business, you’re doing a ring a lot of hats as a realtor. So what are some of the ways in which you suggest agents start to think about sort of penetrating into their clients hearts?
Grant Muller 24:45
Great question. You know, in I think a lot of us try to follow the rules, and we’re raised to follow the rules to do what’s expected of us, you know, to keep relationships kind of safe. insecure, and a little superficial, and in business and sales and real estate, it’s like that even more. And these, these top of mind tactics really, they keep us in front of rather than with people. So we’re really learned in real estate and think about some of the real estate coaching classes or classes you’ve taken, they really teach us to stay relevant in people’s minds rather than real with people. And, you know, that’s over that that world is done. The age of putting up the business front, it’s done it playing, you know, playing numbers, games, and calling human beings targets, or prospects. I think it’s time we bring the humanity back to business, and that we really treat people as human beings. And so to answer your question very directly, I think one of the greatest gifts we can give another human being is to allow them to be seen and appreciated, as they really are. Therapists call this positive. Think about just a second year unconditional positive regard is what a what therapists call it. And when I came across that term, I said, Oh, yeah, that’s it. So how do we hold people and hold space for them, and allow them to be seen and feel safe as they really are, that’s an incredible gift, we give another human being. And when we do that, then we start to enter that heart space. And when we get real, and we show up as we really are. Now, instead of a me and you thing, we’re a wee thing, right? And when we create that relationship at that level with somebody, and by the way, this doesn’t have to be a friendship, don’t get me wrong, we don’t have to have a bunch of pretender friends. This not all of my clients are friends with me. But we connect in some way emotionally. And that’s the difference between somebody saying, Yeah, I’ve got somebody you know, you can use as a realtor, if they’re asked, versus somebody just hearing somewhere about real estate across the room and going, you got to call a DJ, or I’ve never talked to you again. Right, right. Head to head to heart. That’s the difference.
D.J. Paris 27:09
Yeah, it’s absolutely, you know, you said something very important, which is about letting a creating a space where someone can be authentically themselves. It’s like, okay, what does that actually mean? What I think it the way that I interpret that is providing a safe, non judgmental place, where, for example, if I’m a realtor, and I have a client, where a client can, you know, express their emotions, they can talk about what their experience is buying, selling, you know, getting ready to buy or sell any part of the process, there’s an expression in a men’s group that I’m a part of called all of you as welcome. So it’s a very similar sort of idea, what you were saying, which is bring all of you to this, you don’t have to be a certain way you just have to be, and I as the agent will be here to allow you to be, and I will help guide you through this process. Is that kind of the way you you think about it?
Grant Muller 28:08
Yes, absolutely. And I think the way that we create that permission, is that we lead the way. So we bring all of who we are, we get clear about our own beliefs and our own strengths and our own values. So that we bring all of us to the transaction. Now, by the way, I’m not suggesting some kind of, I’m not a therapist. So guess what, I don’t have to just take every client and give them unconditional positive regard. I can have lunch or coffee with somebody and think you know what, I’m going to love them from a distance, I don’t think that they’re a great fit for me. So because I invest so much time and energy in the relationships for the people that are in my community, what people call it, their sphere, I call it my community, and I invest a lot of time and energy and love there. So you have to be somebody that I genuinely want to serve. And honestly, that’s not most people. So I have a process for meeting people and kind of letting them audition to be a part of my community. I don’t tell them they’re auditioning, of course, that would be terrible. But it’s just, you know, a way to think about it. And so, so I’ll add somebody to my just met tag in my CRM to put us to tactics level, and then I’ll invite them to coffee, and I’ll get to know them. And it’s not about judging them. It’s not about being friends or not, it’s about do we click? Do we do we have some common values? Do we click in some way? Is it easy? And do I have energy when I leave them or have they drained my energy? That’s, that’s it. It’s really
D.J. Paris 29:39
important stuff. And I could not agree more. It’s like, we have such a really huge opportunity in this industry where it’s such an interpersonal business, real estate, and it allows us to really work on our ability to deeply connect with other humans. Yes, we have to be great realtors, we have to have the skill sets. to actually perform the duties, our clients and trust upon us, but also this idea of it’s, it’s bigger than that, right? So so you know, a lot of emotion goes into these sort of, you know, transactions and relationships need to be pretty solid to help guide somebody through. And so what you’re really talking about is building intimacy. It sounds like, you know, when you’re you’re meeting with or determining if they’re, you know, what level of intimacy and intimacy is not a scary word, but it’s just about connection. You know, we’re talking about connection. And when people feel connected, they, like you said, they shout across the room, oh, my gosh, you need a realtor talk to talk to grant.
Grant Muller 30:42
And understanding what the person across the table needs from us. I have I wrote about a senior citizen in my book, who, you know, every time I went to her, I needed to add another hour to that time, because she needed that space. To share some of her life story, it became a, you know, it became a huge lesson for me, I learned so much from her. And I learned to slow down, and to realize that everyone has a story that could be valuable. The lady that I had lunch with today, right before this, she needs 25 minutes for lunch, bing, bang, boom, out, she wants to see me, she wants to hear me, she wants to tell me what she needs, you know, she’s kind of a networker, and we want to exchange some value real quick. She’s very business minded. And then she’s out the door, those two people need something very different. I had a client’s once once who unfortunately lost her son in an avalanche. And I ended up having lunch with her. She didn’t cancel the appointment. I didn’t know anything about this. And she cried through most of lunch. And I, I didn’t know I had no value to add, I have no children. I have not lost somebody in that way. But I created a space to allow her to have the space. And so I think it’s about understanding what people need from us and meeting them where they’re at.
D.J. Paris 32:00
Yeah, and not in your right you can have I always think there’s a distinction between judgment and preference, right. So we can allow people to be authentically themselves, which means you are free to express yourself as you are. And and I just lost my own train. Oh, but But I may still have a preference. So I can still have a preference that oh, that person I connect with better than this person. It doesn’t mean that person is good, bad, indifferent. It just means, like you were saying, Do we do our energies connect? And that’s really what you’re ultimately looking for in a client? What are what are some of the ways in which you determine whether your energies connect, when you’re like you were saying you have a just met person in your in your database? You take them out for coffee? And how do you then proceed from there.
Grant Muller 32:50
It’s a feeling I wish I could use, I wish I could give you some smart matrix I use. But you know, I generally no, it’s, well, I’ll put it this way, I treat those relationships, like I do any other relationships in my life, we all know, if we want to continue a relationship with someone or not. So I allow that that relationship to follow its natural course. And a lot of times, in my life, at least I’m a bit more of an introvert, I’m a bit of an acquired taste. So a lot of times for me, the natural course of a relationship is I meet somebody and immediate doesn’t really go anywhere right away. That’s just not who I am necessarily. So if it’s easy, and it feels like it clicks, then then I’ll know it. And so I just treat business relationships, like I do regular relationships, I just treat them like real relationships. And that sounds so simple. It’s taken a lot of work for me, that’s why I had to write a book about it to kind of figure out what the process is, but, but I had to get really clear about who I am, and what my values are. And then it’s easier for me to look for similar values, or at least values that are adjacent, aligned as best but if they’re even adjacent, that’s great. Um, you know, you might love serving a certain underrepresented population in your nonprofit work that’s very different than the population I love to serve. But we have the same heart for service. And so then that would be, you know, something that we have in common that we can then put to work in our relationship. So some common common beliefs, values, strengths are really valuable.
D.J. Paris 34:31
And it’s important for I think, one thing, I would put this in the soft skills category, but equally as important as any of the harder skills category is really thinking about who your ideal everyone listening, who is your ideal client, and I know there’s lots of different categories of clients. Not everyone is going to fit in the same in the same bucket. But what kind of clients do you meaning listeners? Do you you resonate with Who do you? Like? Do you like working with people that are the data driven? You know, just want to see the numbers non emotional, you know, sort of more empirically objectively based people? Or is it more of the deeper connecting touchy feely types or somewhere in between. And obviously, there’s a million different personality types. But thinking about what you resonate with what lights you up, Mr. or Mrs. listener, here is thinking about what what you’re looking for in the same thing that you do if you’re looking for a romantic partner, a business partner, friend, I mean, these are really important questions to ask yourself, because what what your brain can start to do is start to filter and look and start to seek those people out. But you don’t know until you know what you’re looking for. So I think what you’re saying, Grant, it’s so it’s a simple thing to say. But it’s really profound. And something that people can do over and over again, to start thinking about, if I could design my ideal client, what would they look like? What would how would they respond? How would they act now? Nobody’s perfect. So you can’t Don’t create a perfect human being because no, that doesn’t exist. But if you get some of the certain qualities that you look for, you know, how agreeable are they? How decisive are they these are things that you should be looking for, so that you can you know, better communicate with these people?
Grant Muller 36:22
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say, you know, I tend to get along with a lot of different personality types. But for me, I look for some common shared interests, so or goals. So I’m really big into horses. And many of my clients are horse people. And the cool thing is, I get to go do the thing that I love the most in the world. And by doing that, I naturally meet people who also love this thing. I love the most in the world. And so now, instead of us sitting across the table, looking at each other, we’re on the same side of the table, sharing in this in this thing we love together, and what builds better connections and sharing something you love together. And then when we do the real estate thing, the real estate thing is almost like a side note. It’s like we have a lovely day together. And then it’s oh, by the way, can you would you call me some time we actually want to have you over look at the house, you can help me sell sell is Do you still do that? Right? Yeah, I do that cool. And that’s that it’s that simple. And when it happens in that flow, it’s just, it’s beautiful. The other Monday morning, two weeks ago, I rode, I rode horses, through this beautiful, beautiful ranch property with one of my best clients, and a person who’s a great friend. And we had a view of what a great Monday morning. And just trust me when I say the numbers are super lucrative. So how, you know how beautiful is it to bring all of those things together. And I think that’s a big reason why I get to do the numbers I do without burning out. Because I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not I’m living congruent with my values. And I’m having a great time along the way. And that’s a lot of what my coaching is about is helping people to find a business plan that works for who they really are, so that they’re not failing to implement somebody else’s plan for them. Because I feel like we learn things that don’t feel right for us. So then we don’t follow through on them. And then we beat ourselves up and think there must be something wrong with us. And that’s just no way to live.
D.J. Paris 38:29
I agree. But let’s talk about your coaching. Because you just said a lot. And I was going to start heading down a different avenue. And I realized I would be hijacking the entire interview. And I don’t want to do that because I want to learn about what you actually offer with respect to coaching. So let’s talk about Grant Mueller. By the way, the web, the book, again is top of heart, find it on Amazon, anywhere books are sold, we will have a link to that in the show notes. And grant mueller.com is where you can go to learn about the coaching program. Let’s talk about coaching. So what does coaching mean to you?
Grant Muller 39:05
So in real estate, and in most of the world, training is confused with coaching a lot. So training is around learning tools, tactics, strategies, from another person who teaches us the method, we take that method, and we follow through with that method, hopefully to get similar results. In coaching, we believe that you have the answer to the problem. So in my coaching, and specifically High Performance Coaching, my job is to guide you to find your own truths. And sometimes those are emotional truth. Sometimes those are business truths. But I want you to help you find your own truth. And I believe that personal development is business development. Jim Rohn a very, very old time personal development guy used to say that and it’s so true, and we’re in a business where we actually get paid better When we improve ourselves What a blessing to be in that kind of business, if you’re a CPA, you don’t get to say that. So as we get we are the product that we offer the community. And so when we improve ourselves, we improve our product, we improve our business. And so in high performance coaching, we work through five big habit areas that have been proven through scientific study, and to be key components of high performance living and life. And high performance is around performing at a higher level in a sustained manner, while improving our relationships, and our wellness, so this is not peak performance, where we kill ourselves the hustle and grind. And then, you know, we end up petering out on the other side, because we’re exhausted, burnt out and not happy. That’s no fun. I like you know, my story, you know that I’ve been there done that. And I don’t want to go back there. So this is around living a fulfilled, inspired life. And then we happen to do really well financially at the same time.
D.J. Paris 40:59
Yeah, it’s kind of an all things, all things improve, I guess is always the, the intention, and always readjusting and recalibrating. I know that for me, like, recently, I have been doing too much service, stuff with respect to the real estate industry, I give too much of myself. And as a result, I’m a little bit out of balance. So it’s a good problem to have, it’s still a problem. So as a result, I have to read stuff as well. And so having a coach, I think it any part of your real estate journey, or just personal journey is is going to be critical, because you can have somebody who can see maybe the imbalances that that you’re currently stuck in, and everybody’s imbalanced at some some part of their life, right? No, no wheel is perfectly round. If it’s if it’s representing somebody’s entire life, there’s going to be bumps along the way. So it’s really nice, that since can’t smooth out all of our own bumps ourselves, which would be great if we could, but we can’t. So the good news is there’s people that can help us identify these bumps and smooth them help us smooth them out ourselves as well, which is through coaching. And so I am the biggest fan of having a coach. I mean, every professional athlete has a coach, and they’re already really good at their job. So I’m assuming that the rest of us need coaches as well. But yeah, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about that. So right now, it’s 2023. We’re halfway through a little bit past halfway through the year. And you know, let’s face it, it’s a tough year right now. It’s not the sky is not falling. So that’s good. There’s still business to be had, but it’s not quite as busy as it was in previous years. We’re all feeling that we all get it. Yes, it’s a little bit of a bummer. So what are what are grant? What are you sort of encouraging agents to do to stay productive stay positive to stay, but also realistic to also understand what what’s going on right now?
Grant Muller 43:05
There are many parts of that question. So you’re it’s a tougher year. And look, I’m I’m down from where I want it to be this year as well. So I’ll be super transparent about that,
D.J. Paris 43:17
by the way, by the way, everybody is. So yes, Grant is not alone. Yes, there’s exceptions. There’s a few people out there who are like my business is up, and 99% of us are struggling.
Grant Muller 43:29
I have I have a coaching client is having his best year ever. And I’m, I’m really proud of him. And I know I can see why he’s been building the momentum big time. And for me, you know, you don’t put out a book into the world and maintain great balance and all the other parts of your life. It just doesn’t happen. And that’s okay, I made that conscious decision. So the first thing about that rounding out conversation that you had is that in coaching, we make intentional decisions, rather than just letting things happen. So you know, if you’re going to take two weeks off from the gym, to push this big project through, so be it. That’s very different than looking back two weeks later and saying what happened in my life. And so we tried to be a little intentional about the trade offs that happen. But absolutely, then there needs to be trade offs. The second thing is when times get tough. I’ve always been taught and I always teach to look at the last 12 months of deals. And that makes sure you’re very clear about where that business has come from in its majority. If you’re if you have a fairly busy real estate practice, likely most of it is repeat and referral. Almost always is the case. Not always. But whatever that thing is whether it’s Zillow leads or its repeat and referral. Find ways to double down on that. So if I usually reach out to my people in my sphere once a quarter, I might add in an extra email I might make sure that I spend more time at lunch face to face with more people than I usually would, I might go a little deeper into my database than I usually would. But making sure that we’re taking massive action. So that’s number one. Number two, cutting back on expenses that aren’t necessary, and I am the president of the fanclub have expenses that aren’t necessary. You know, I think it might have to do with just my background of not, you know, living on the streets and not having everything for a while. So when I started making money, believe me, I want it if it’s pretty and, and fun and expensive, I want to buy it, but now’s not the time. And so understanding that, and the reason it’s not the time is not necessarily because you won’t make it through, although that could be the case. But more importantly, when we reduce the financial pressure for ourselves, then we don’t show up with commission breath. When we meet with clients, we have the ability to say no, I said, I said, No, thank you yesterday to a listing. You know, the seller said you have the best program, so and so as the best price, will you match the price? And I said, Thank you for asking, no, thank you. And I can do that, because I’ve reduced some of my expenses. And so I think when we reduce some of that pressure, we give ourselves some room to breathe. And then we can look at things logically and say last year, most of my business was repeating referral, I did it through three big client events, they were really expensive. So this year, instead of that, I’m going to reach out and do a wine club, I’m going to do a day at the park with without all the fancy stuff. Or I’m going to be together face to face with as many of these people as possible, or I’m simply going to text or Facebook Messenger and reach out and find out how people are. But in one way or another, we need to get into massive action, I’d love to say there was some easy button. But that’s just not the way it is we’ve got to get into some massive action, but in a clear, concise way with a plan. Rather than flailing. I see a lot of agents, unfortunately, that do nothing. Because it doesn’t feel like anything’s gonna make a difference, right? Because we have a short term problem with cash flow. And real estate isn’t a short term sales cycle. It’s a long term sales cycle. So the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is now so we have to get into massive action now. And I think what that does, I’ll give you an example. In my case, this year, I’m okay treading water. I’ve had some other big goals. I’m going to tread water this year. But I know that just the very act of all the momentum required to tread water this year, is going to give me a huge lift going into next year, because now I’ve got that massive action program in place. So as 6070 80,000 Realtors exit the business, my market share and your market share is going up without doing anything. But if we’re in massive action this year, will improve even more when we get some wind in our sales.
D.J. Paris 48:02
I was the other day with a top producer who was young, a young man he’s in his early 30s. I don’t know if that’s young anymore, but to me, it’s young.
Grant Muller 48:12
He’s young to me. Yeah. To me,
D.J. Paris 48:14
do you and me that’s young. And he was saying they were asking him? How do you what are you doing right now to step on the gas? You know, what, what are you doing to stay top of mind in the not top of heart necessarily, would grant could teach but just at least top of mind. He says you know what I do every day, here’s what I’m doing now is I’m doubling the amount of time I reply to Facebook and Instagram comments or posts. And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And I thought wonder why he’s doing that. And then I thought about it a bit. And he goes because it he explained it. He said because people post, typically on Facebook and Instagram, they post emotional parts of their lives, you know, typically victories, you know, things to celebrate birthdays, you know, events, whatever, special moments in their life, vacations, whatever. And so he goes, I want to celebrate with my clients. So I have to know what what they’re doing. And they’re going to post mostly, or post on Facebook or wherever. So I want to let them know that I acknowledge that, that I see that they just did this great thing. And I want to celebrate with them. So and this is his personality, and he’s like so I write 30 comments a day. He goes I’ve you know, so many Facebook friends and Instagram friends, and I’m constantly just, you know, giving validation, but he’s like it’s authentic. Because I authentically I’m excited that they went to Cancun or they just had this fancy dinner or their child just you know, was in a recital or something. And he’s like, yeah, he goes, that’s where I’m stepping on the gas. And he goes, I do it every single day. I do minimum of 30 comments and he goes in a year or two, I will have more business than I know what to do with and I said I love the right.
Grant Muller 49:53
I love that and when you when you jump in that big, you can have the you can have have the confidence that he has to say, I know that this is going to come through a couple of things you said there I have to jump in on. One is, he’s allowing others to be seen, just like we were saying, he’s giving them the gift of being seen. So number one, one great way to take that, from a top of mind to a type of heart tactic is when we and by the way, I love that he’s doing a genuinely if it wasn’t genuine, it wouldn’t work. Yeah, it would be a bad idea. So if that’s not you find another way. Right? Because Because that’s not for everybody. But one of my favorite things to do. And admittedly, I don’t do it as often as I could. But one way to go from top of mind to top of heart is to make the comment. Congratulations, DJ, awesome on, you know, Mitzi passing this six week on obedience school, your dog, I’m making something up now, you know, great job. But the next level, the double heart level is then put it take it out of social media and put it in the real world. So send a handwritten card that says congratulations on Mitzi on graduating from the six week obedience school thing. And when we do that, and take it out of social media and into the real world, it takes things to a whole nother level. Because there’s so much friction in sending out actual mail. People know what a pain it is to get a stamp and get an envelope, put it all together and write the card. But when you can, when you can create a system for that friction, so it’s not high friction on your end. Ie I’ve got a whole card library over here. You just dash out a card stamp that goes in the mail. It’s easy for you, but they can’t believe it. When they get it. They’re like, Wow, he really cares.
D.J. Paris 51:38
You might even bring a tear to their eye through a simple act of a greeting card. non real estate related Hey, saw you did or accomplished X or whatever. Congrats, so proud of you. You know, whatever. Just, I see you, I acknowledge you. I’m on I’m in your camp, and I want to celebrate with you or be there for you when you need help. That is what every human being on the planet wants.
Grant Muller 52:06
Yeah. And it’s it’s it. There’s no branding, please. No logos? Nope.
D.J. Paris 52:10
No, it sent me the three people’s names of No, don’t do that.
Grant Muller 52:15
And then if you want to take it, and everything is in degrees, everything, everything, everything that I think about is at different levels. So then, I always like to ask the questions, and then how can i What’s the next level of that. And the next level might be this will be ridiculous if your dog passed a beat in school. But let’s say that it’s a, let’s say your daughter just graduated in high school. Now I’m reaching out going DJ, I don’t know how you did that. I don’t have any kids. But I can only imagine 18 years of getting a kid all the way through high school. When can we go out to dinner to celebrate. And now I’m taking you out to dinner, we’re spending time together, we might talk a little bit about your daughter, but really we’re just gonna catch it’s an excuse to take you to dinner. And it’s an easy excuse. And it’s just a way to honor you as another human being who’s done something really incredible in this world. And so it feels good to me. And it feels good to you. And hopefully your daughter comes along too. It’s just it’s that’s top of heart. That’s all top of heart is I make my living that way. I’m not the most social person. So you don’t have to do a lot of this. But do it with people that you actually click with them. You look at your calendar, and you’re excited about how you’re going to spend your day you’re not thinking, Oh no, it’s another two hours of prospecting time this afternoon. I don’t want to do that’s just no way to live.
D.J. Paris 53:30
Now. It’s I’m calling my friends and seeing how they’re doing. It’s amazing. Yeah. And that what a great place to wrap up this particular episode. Grant, I could talk to you all day about this. And we definitely will have you back to talk more in depth. But the book is called top of heart guys. This is the key. Again, Grant said something very important earlier. So wouldn’t it be cool if you were just seeing as a guy that they have to meet? And oh, by the way, you also do real estate, right? So that’s kind of Grant’s whole thing is like you can just be an authentically you. And people will want to obviously tell other people about you and help you in your business. But you have to make space for that. And you have to learn how to build those relationships. Grant is going to show you how and I want to also make one point about grants book. He has a foreword or a blurb at least by Bob Berg who is the king of referrals. This is the guy and he wrote a blurb for your book grant. So that is I can’t even imagine what kind of feather in that in your cap it is but it is a good feather. Bob berg is the man and if Bob Berg says that this is a book to read, it’s a book to read. So I want everybody to go out. I’ve read all of Bob’s books, I think so anything Bob tells me to read, I read and Bob says to read Grant’s book top of heart. We’ll have a link to it on in the show notes and also guys, you need a coach, get a coach now is the time go to grant mueller.com and grant will reach out to you and see if you guys can win We’re together in a coaching capacity. And on behalf of all of our audience, we want to thank grant for coming on our show today. We appreciate you. Thank you for spending time out of your crazy busy day to do this. And on behalf of grant myself, we want to also thank the audience for making it to the end of the episode. And please, the best way you can help us continue to grow is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that’s struggling right now. Every realtors or most realtors are struggling right now. So send them a link to this episode keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done could be streamed there. We’re on all the social channels. Find us there as well. Hit the subscribe button. Leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. We will see you on the next episode. Grant. Thank you so much. And we will we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks man.
Grant Muller 55:46
Thanks very much
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