Pieter Hanson talks about how he transitioned from a banking career into commercial real estate business and finally to residential real estate. Pieter discusses how his health struggles have impacted his life and priorities. Pieter also talks about today’s real estate market, how agents can stop exiting the business and what are the useful skills for agents even in the era of AI. Last, Pieter discusses keeping in touch in between transactions and how he does that.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Pieter Hanson can be reached at 563-529-4000 and PIETER@PTHANSON.COM.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Can a realtor be successful in both residential and commercial? Well, a lot of people would say no, but we found somebody who would say yes, 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. There 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 Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Peter Hanson. But before we get to Peter, just a couple of quick reminders. Actually, I have something new to say. I normally say the same things every time but I have a new thing. So it was coming to my attention that via the different podcast apps that only about 300 of our 515 episodes show up that is a limitation of what’s called an RSS feed. It’s not we would love to have all of our episodes available. So we actually do but you’re only going to see the top the most recent 300 in you know, whatever podcast app, you might be listening to us. And so if you want to actually go back further, and many people do, because the idea was to create this library of content that would really be applicable anytime. So I’d love for you to grieve and go back into the archives. Well, how do you do that? Well, you can go to our website, keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve ever done is there and that’s probably the only place you can find all of them until they update technology and allow for more than 300 episodes to pass through a fee. But anyway, you guys can go to the website if you want to. We’d love to have you check out the website. We’re very proud of it. And you can listen to every episode we’ve ever done. So thank you for that. Also, please leave us a review and tell a friend but let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Peter Hanson.
Today my guest is Peter Hanson with real broker in Quad Cities which if you’re not familiar with the Quad Cities, this is what borders Illinois and Iowa there’s four cities as as you might suspect, two on each side. This is like the northwest corner of Illinois, and the northeast corner of Iowa. But let me tell you more about Peter. Now after high school, Peter joined the US Navy after his time in the Navy and then he went to college. He actually worked in retail and also then private banking. In 2007. He resigned from the bank and opened a bar and grill that is still thriving today. 18 years later, congratulations for making it through the pandemic also amazing. But that’s not all. He then got his real estate license in both Illinois and Iowa in that same year. So he worked for a local hometown broker in their commercial division from 2007 to 2014. And to 2014 he transitioned to the residential division, where he practiced both commercial and residential real estate and in 2022. If that wasn’t enough, he partnered with a local microbrew and opened another restaurant just this last October I guess last October to October Scott. He has a long term girlfriend named Julie also my mom’s name, who owns a dog kennel with her sister and live and they live on the property. He enjoys golfing, fishing, hunting and casual Jeep and or Harley riding on the weekends. He has one daughter and three grandkids who live here in my hometown. Well not my hometown, but where I live Chicago. Please follow Peter out his website which is Peter Hanson. realtor.com Peter spelled p i e t e r so Peter with an eye at the beginning p i e t Are Hansen realtor.com You can also find him on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, we will have links to all of that in the show notes. He’s probably the only Peter Hanson, which is p i e, t r, so you can find them really easily. Or you can click the links to his social media, right from our show notes. Peter, welcome to the show.
Pieter Hanson 5:18
Thanks for having me.
D.J. Paris 5:21
Really excited to speak with you. It’s amazing, all the things you’ve done. And I think the a lot of what you what you’ve done in your career are some of the hardest professions I’m really, really impressed. Usually people have success at one thing, you are consistently having success and a number, a number of buckets. And I am always so impressed by talking to people who operate at a high level. So tell us see, so from what I understand your story correctly, you went into the Navy, came out, went to school, then had a couple of jobs in retail, and then and then in banking, and then why the switch to real estate just out of curiosity. So I
Pieter Hanson 6:05
opened up the bar and grill at the same time I got my real estate license, and the bar was always a dream of mine to do I had an opportunity, I liked my job at the bank, and the bank is still a great friend of mine and a great resource and, and a great community bank here in the Quad Cities. But I was getting more and more responsibility that I really didn’t like, I was having to work later hours and, and I just thought you know what I’m gonna do this bar thing I’m gonna get out of the bank, and I need some income. And, and I thought, you know, I’ve always thought real estate, people who are successful were successful because of not necessarily how smart they were, but how many people liked them. And I felt like I had a pretty significant sphere of influence, a pretty great background from the banking and, and the retail side and how to deal with customers and people in the public. And so I thought, hey, I’m gonna open this bar, and I’ll ease into the real estate thing. So that’s kind of how it worked. It’s
D.J. Paris 7:11
amazing that you took on two things at the same time, both of which required tremendous activity. However, maybe one feeds the other in a certain way, I suspect, it’s probably been times where patrons of the bar have ended up becoming clients as well. I’m assuming that happens once in a while. So
Pieter Hanson 7:33
to your point, I got into real estate, if you people can remember, 2007 2008 was probably the worst time to ever make this change. And I told myself, that if I can survive in 2007, and 2008 going forward in real estate, if I can survive, then I am going to be positioned perfectly to survive when times are good. And we know that that’s a cyclical thing. And it’s going to drop and up and drop and down. And so I chose that as a challenge and an opportunity to thrive. And I do think that there are some parallels between the bar and real estate. However, when I went into real estate, it was in the commercial division. That’s right. Yeah. And around the Quad Cities, the commercial division is a good old boy network, if you know what I mean. I mean, I were in Chicago, too. I was a newcomer with no experience. And I really had to scrape and fight for everything that I got. Having said that all these people that I’m meeting through the bar, and and all these new relationships I’m establishing are asking me if I can help them buy a house. And I thought to myself, I if I can sell a million dollar building, I can I can sell a house? Well, my broker didn’t allow that. The commercial broker that I work for said, You’re a commercial agent, you refer all those. So I started referring those leads. And finally in 2014, I actually added up the commission that I would have received had I not referred them and I thought this is dumb, I got to get out of commercial and into residential. So that’s how that worked.
D.J. Paris 9:18
Wow. And now you do you do both. And now
Pieter Hanson 9:22
I do both. Yes. So one of the things that when I when I got my license and I worked for a local broker, one of the things and I and I actually went from the commercial broker to the residential broker was the same broker. But the policy the company policy is that that you can sell residential and commercial but you say it can’t sell commercial and residential. And the way they explained it to me was that if you went to the ER to get your fingers stitched up because you cut it with a knife, you’d let a thoracic surgeon so your finger up right. But if you went to the emergency room for How to Have a heart transplant, you wouldn’t let an ER doc do that. Right? And so they kind of compare that that, you know, if you can do commercial, you can handle residential, but the same does not always work the opposite way.
D.J. Paris 10:14
How do you feel about that? Now? Do you agree with that? I will tell you my my opinion, it depends again, on the sector of commercial because certain sectors are certainly more complicated, and, you know, industrial buildings and land development. And some of those things, to me are like almost like Alien and foreign. But I don’t totally disagree with that. I think there is some intelligence there that a residential agent ought to, in many cases refer to a commercial broker, but a commercial broker, certainly, I think the training tends to be a lot stronger for commercial, there tends to be a just a lot, you’re serving a lot more masters in a deal. There’s a lot that can go wrong, and you just are exposed to a lot of different things. But I’m curious what what are your thoughts today on on that policy?
Pieter Hanson 11:01
I do agree with you. 100%, a commercial agent, you know, commercial is Buyer beware. So there aren’t as many disclosures and cover your, your rear end kind of documents, but at the same time, it’s a slower sales cycle. And you really have to learn to think outside the box, get creative and understand spreadsheets and, and how accountants feel because a commercial decision, commercial building is sold on a financial basis based on the numbers not Oh, I love this building, I have to have it. Whereas a house is a very emotional decision. And, and as long as you qualify can make it happen. That’s
D.J. Paris 11:41
amazing. I have my brother in law is a commercial broker in Tampa, and he works with a lot of retail, and shopping centres and things of that nature. And so, which is a little closer, I guess, in some ways to, to residential, maybe. But it’s, you know, he can work on deals for two or three years before they close. And then when they close, it’s a wonderful day, but it is a lot of hand wringing and sweating for those three years. Well, yeah, for sure. For sure that residential provides probably more stability. And also just, you know, there’s just maybe just more opportunity there in certain markets,
Pieter Hanson 12:21
well, in the train, the transaction is way more fun to you know, there’s nothing more satisfying than helping a first time homebuyer or, or helping somebody find a home for their new family that they absolutely love. And you get to work directly with them. And it’s, it’s not as intimidating and it’s just a it’s a it’s it’s more stressful in certain certain circumstances. But it’s also more fun.
D.J. Paris 12:47
And by the way, we should also mention that, you know, you had a health challenge in the early in the mid 90s, which I’m curious if if you’re willing to share a little bit about that, sort of how that has impacted you, your life and your priorities. I didn’t mention that, of course earlier. So, so
Pieter Hanson 13:07
I was working at a local clothing store, which was a, you know, for those people in Chicago, the old Mark shale type of of store and high end clothing store and the gentleman that owned it was about 10 years older than me and was an amazing mentor, when it came to customer service and work ethic and doing the right thing at the right time. So I worked for him for 12 years, and towards the end of my tenure there. I got very sick and ended up having a bone marrow transplant at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. And and that was a pretty scary experience because the mortality rate at that time was wasn’t super great for for what I was going through but, but I survived. I’m here and the lesson that I took out of that is that one never give up and always have faith that that things will work out to never worry about stuff you have no control over because you just it’s not worth your your your sweat equity. And three, live every moment like it was your last and take chances and work hard and it’ll all work out.
D.J. Paris 14:16
I couldn’t I couldn’t add on to that at all. That sounds pretty like a pretty great credo to live one’s life. I want to talk about your success in a sense of, you know, achieving the goals that you set out for not necessarily anyone else’s measure of success. You do a number of different things you do them well. And I’m curious in in real estate, sort of. If you know for our listeners, what are some of the things that you or activities or thought processes that you have that you think separate you from maybe other agents that aren’t having that kind of success or what might you coach somebody to start doing or do more For over 2024
Pieter Hanson 15:02
One of the biggest things is commitment. And, to your point, when we were talking about the other business that businesses that I was in, I was married to that first bar that still thriving today 24/7 I, I was always there, I had to be. And so the real estate, you know, my first couple years, in real estate, my transactions were four and five, because I wasn’t dedicating myself to the real estate, but it was allowing me to have this in the background, do as much as I can when I can. And then as I got further along in the bar and grill and, and had a management team and could step away from that a little bit, lo and behold, my traction, my transactions went from four to eight to 18 to 28 to 36. And, and the more transaction I have, the less time I spent at the bar. So commitment, commitment, I think is committing yourself to it is the biggest thing. The second thing is having a support network at home, that allows you to answer that phone call every time it rings, to leave somewhere on a Sunday afternoon when you’re watching the football game, and show a property to to stay up late at night and put multiple offers together and to solicit the help of your family. If in fact, you need some help to get something done. So the family network has to totally understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and be committed to your success as much as you are. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 16:39
that’s a really good point. Realtors tend to be, it’s tough to set boundaries as as an as an agent, it’s tough to set a schedule, because of course, things fly at you in real time. And they often seem very urgent, and sometimes they are urgent. And so it becomes challenging for agents. And I think back to what you said about sort of being a part time agent, initially, and I think, you know, it’s one of those things, which I hear this a lot because I talk to a lot of new people who just pass their exam. And they say, Hey, you know, I’m just going to be part time for now I have this other job, I need the steady income. And I always say I completely understand I mean, I you have to pay your bills, you have responsibilities. And I say it’s just a harder path. It’s a tougher path. Because you’re you’re now having to do these two things, which both are really full time jobs, even if even if you think the real estate thing is just part time, it’s still going to come up when it comes up. And it’s going to be not probably in alignment with your other job schedule. And, and there are lots of people that will say just quit the other job and do real estate full time. And that would be great. In an ideal world for everyone who is, you know, wouldn’t be too much stressing about paying the bills. But that’s not the majority of us. So I’m glad to hear I love hearing success stories where people because it’s so easy to tell somebody will just quit and do this all all and you’ll be fine. And maybe you will and if you do the right if you do the hard work you probably will be but boy it’s a stressful tough but a few years as you get into real estate as you know, foreign foreign five transactions does not make much of a salary. But yes certainly gets gets you on the path. And yeah, but it allows you to then probably find the confidence to or the the reasoning to go, you know, I can do this. And now I can have somebody helping me here at the bar at a bar restaurant. So So yeah, the part time versus full time thing is always such an interesting conversation because people get very adamant about their opinion one way or the other what somebody should do, and I always say, hey, you know, your financial situation better than me. But, you know, hopefully, in an ideal world, you’d get to a place where you can do this full time. But it but it’s a tough path. I mean, it just,
Pieter Hanson 18:52
I liked it. I like the people that that say to me, you know, hey, I’d love to get into real estate, what you know, how do you like it? And I tell them that about it? And they say yeah, I’m just, you know, I’m just really looking for more flexibility, a more flexible schedule. And I kind of I react the way you just did. And I’m like, Well, you’re right, you do get some flexibility. You’ll never miss your kid’s Christmas concert. You’ll never miss their ballgame. You’ll never miss their First Communion. But guess what? When it’s over, you’re going right back to work if you’re gonna do anything.
D.J. Paris 19:24
Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s, it’s how, you know, I was talking, I was just at the gym just before I came here and I have a trainer and it’s kind of funny. It’s, it’s similar to what you just said, we were talking about training. And we do like weightlifter style workouts. It’s a lot of heavy weights, resistance, things like that. And I was telling my trainer been with her three and a half years and I was kind of laughing because it is kind of funny. I said working out is all about how much pain can you tolerate and pain maybe isn’t the right word discomfort, I guess is maybe a better word. How much discomfort can you tolerate and are you pushing against resistance? And that’s how you build muscle. And it’s pretty much as you know, of course, and our listeners know how you get better at any skill, really. But you have to be willing to tolerate some discomfort, you have to be willing to go to the, you know, go to the child’s recital and then go, I gotta race home after this, and I’ve got work to do. And yes, that is not fun for anybody to do. But it is certainly what is required. And so, you know, realtors, you know, a lot of times only learn that once they’re in, and then they’re like, Oh, I didn’t realize the commitment. For sure, would love to talk about, again, back to sort of your success, you know, being dedicated, fully dedicated, and understanding what is required. How well actually, let’s talk about this year, because we’re talking you talked about the market, of course, being cyclical, we are in a difficult market, I would assume in most, our sorry, difficult time to be a realtor in most markets in the country. Occasionally, I talked to somebody who’s up 50% for the year, and they’re, they’re the unicorn, most people are struggling, at least our agents, our agents are struggling here, we have almost 800. And, you know, most almost all of their productions were down for this year, which of course, is is not fun. But I think you brought up a really good point, when you said that you started in 2007. For those that again, don’t remember, that was a very difficult time. Now in a in a in a way, though, it was really the best possible time for you. Because as people were exiting the business, you were getting in, and you were like, if I can survive this, then it’s gonna be really not as scary the next time when it’s when it’s a market. And I’m curious how you view today’s market, I we’re seeing a lot of agents exit the business, we have a holding company, which is for agents who don’t practice, we went from like 800 agents in our holding company, which is just, you know, a place to hold the license to over 1000. Within this year, just so many people leaving from from the industry. Curious, like if you know what you think about that? And how agents could, you know, stop, you know, exiting the business. I
Pieter Hanson 22:12
feel like if and I don’t know this to be true, but I suspect this to be true that if you looked at the jump that you made in the past year from 800, to over 1000. If you looked at those agents, my guess is that a majority of those agents have not been Realtors for five years. And so yeah, I feel I feel like they got in the business when times were great. And deals were being thrown at people at a crazy rate. And you had to be an absolute idiot not to get some deals done and make it you know, but now now they’re actually having to work there. And you’re having to market themselves. They’re having to, to work weekends, do open houses do things to get creative, and they’re like, God, this sucks. I’m, I’m working way too much. And so and so that it’s almost like attrition, you know, they just get the retention going and get out. And I think that’s, that’s probably and I’m down this year as well, a little bit. But, you know, I opened a new restaurant last year, and we opened a new brokerage and I left the old firm and started the new firm. And there’s reasons for that. But I feel like those of us that have been in the business for, you know, 1520 25 years are a little bit insulated, because we’ve got our residual clients and our reputation. And so I feel that the the economy does affect it some but but we’re the veterans are a little more insulated than the newcomers. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 23:34
And speaking of a veteran in a different way, forgot to, of course, thank you for your service as as as a Navy man, to our country, and to all of our listeners here. So thank you. Awesome. Thank
Pieter Hanson 23:47
you. Well, so
D.J. Paris 23:49
yeah, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about activity. So if you were a brand new agent today, and I want to sort of set this up. So Peter was was talking about, you know, a lot of these people who have like in our, in our case, our other our holding company. Yes, he’s right. The vast majority of people who have joined our holding company recently are people who either were nearing retirement or just like I’m done, or they were within their first few years, not doing well, and realizing they didn’t want to pay their MLS dues going forward. So, of course, that all that factors in but if I was a brand new agent today, I would actually be excited, because I would there are people leaving the industry, which means there’s market share to pick up. And I think now is the time where agents should really step on the gas in their marketing efforts in their outreach efforts to try to pick up some of these, some of these these clients that you know, maybe they’re not buying right this moment or selling right this moment. But you know, they will be at some point and their realtor may be exiting and leaving. Or just, you know, not working as hard right now. That’s another thing that happens. Even successful agents in down markets tend to, to relax a little bit more. So I think now’s a really good time to get in, although not certainly an easy time. Curious, your thoughts. So
Pieter Hanson 25:10
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding that. I do feel that when it comes to work ethic and marketing and timing, you know, when in 2007, when I got my license, Facebook was just kind of a brand new thing. And the kids today that are starting to be realtors, and even the, you know, late 50s, early 60s, agents like myself, are having to adapt to the digital age, that computer isn’t going anywhere that Facebook is only going to get stronger marketing and digital media is incredible how you can get your, your name out there and shoot high quality videos. And if you can embrace that, and you can run with that you will be successful going forward. I struggle with that a lot. But, but I happen to have a team that is very good at it that we collaborate together and they’re helping me succeed in that arena. But I feel like agents today are poised way better than, than those of us that used to look in an MLS book, literally a paper book. No, no online stuff, you know, and now, your client comes to you more educated than you sometimes on a property because of the information that they can find. So I feel like the agents today are really set up for success if they if they take advantage of the digital because if they don’t, they’re going to be left behind and the AI for that matter. That’s a whole nother issue. But how amazing is AI and as scary as it is, it’s going to be incredibly helpful in our industry used properly.
D.J. Paris 26:53
I used chat GPT this morning to calculate the probability of i I’ve met my producer for this podcast is a lovely woman zonna. She’s been with me for four years she lives in Kosovo, she’s originally from Albania. It just so happens that I met another woman unrelated to Zonta independent, who is on I’ve never met in person we meet for we we talk almost every day virtually, of course, he lives in Kosovo. And I met a woman recently, who not only knows Ana, which is complete coincidence, went to school with her worked in the same office as her at the same company, even at one point, and now lives in Chicago. And I said I wonder what the probability of that is. And so I put chat GPT to work and and it didn’t come up with it gave all sorts of interesting equations and eventually said it was one in four quadrillion was the probability which I suspect is probably I don’t even know if quadrillion was an actual word. But I guess it comes after billion trillion, I guess, quadrillion, but regardless, it’s a very low probability. But I love that chat, GBT could figure out some estimate of that. And I think as as realtors, you know, the AI is is going to be really cool, because it will allow us to be more persuasive in our listing descriptions that already does that. It allows us to maybe give some great marketing ideas. You know, if I was an agent, I go, I don’t really know what I should do today. I would go straight to chat GBT and say Hey, can you give me five activities that I could do right now, as a realtor? That might be a good idea for outreach or meeting new people, or I want you to add more people to my database. Where should I go? You know, and there’s all sorts of great suggestions that a chat GBT can have. I have a friend of mine, who’s a CEO of a digital storage company. And he doesn’t have a chief marketing officer because he has built one inside of chat. GBT. So I’m our chief marketing officer. So maybe my jobs on the line. But he’s doing that now. So there are some really cool things coming. And I’m curious, I all this being said, I the My question is, where do you think the important skills that a realtor is going to need or needs today or needs for the future? If it isn’t, hey, I’m the gatekeeper to this building or this property? Yes, they’re going to they have access to pretty much all of that data and information now, Zillow basically changed changed that whole dynamic, but what are the skills that you think realtors are still valued and useful for today?
Pieter Hanson 29:26
The every, every deal is different. And even though it might be cookie cutter to a certain extent, there’s certain steps that need to happen. People don’t know how to negotiate first of all, they have no clue. They talk too much. There’s a lot of things that a realtor does if he educates his buyer seller properly to ensure that that is going to transaction is going to go smoothly and that everything is anticipated. I like to find myself a prop One find her not a problem solver. I want to find the problem before it happens. And so I don’t have to solve it on the spot. And I think people that try to do this on their own, leave money on the table, frustrate themselves and inevitably lose deals because they don’t know what they’re doing. And everyone thinks with the internet, they can they can handle it. And you know, some people probably can, honestly, but I think the majority of the general public needs us desperately. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 30:31
I think there’s a lot of soft skills or interpersonal skills that come up that are really important stress management, emotional regulation, under understanding how to deal with adversity, and urgent, bad news that comes up. And in every transaction, there’s some bad news that happens at some point, and it’s going to come up a lot of times unexpectedly, and then it’s about how do I make sure my client is able to remain stable during this? Or what can I do to keep my, my, my client moving forward, or at least understanding sort of the gravity of what’s going on, without succumbing to, you know, sort of, you know, being completely stressed out, because, of course, nobody wants a stressed out client, I went, I bought a condo three, three or so years ago. And even though I’ve been in this industry, I mean, I’m not a practicing agent, but I am licensed. But even being around top realtors, like you and all the agents, here we have about 800 agents in our company, you would think I would have handled that a lot better. And I did not I was stressed. I was like, convinced I was making a horrible decision. I had to I had to basically at some point, I sort of went to that philosophy of an attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client. So I said, I’m not going to represent myself because I am not, I am not the the most objective party here and I’m just getting too emotional. And it made me really appreciate realtors that are excellent at keeping things, you know, decoding the information that’s being sent from the other side, putting it in a way that doesn’t make me completely nuts and or the client completely stressed out. So I think those interpersonal skills check GBT hasn’t yet solved for that maybe it will someday, I don’t know. But certainly, the you know, the the human skills are really, really important. And it made me realize that after my last purchase, well, and
Pieter Hanson 32:33
I and I think I agree with everything that you said. And you know, I aligned myself with real, because of those technology options between the Knowledge Library, their, their revenue, share their bolt, their AI, or their AI, this company is leading the industry in, in what’s happening in the future. And, and as much as I am a hometown guy, and as much as I am a local shop local, be local, I own businesses, I want people to support me, in this industry. I just don’t feel like the local brokers have the funds and to keep up with technology and provide their agents with life changing financial, security and future that that everybody’s going to need and need to have if they’re going to succeed in this industry.
D.J. Paris 33:27
Yeah, I agree with you. 100%, as well, I would like to talk about customer service, actually not customer service during the sale. So we’re going to talk about customer care, I guess maybe it’s the better word. I’m not sure what the official word is. But keeping in touch in between transactions. So we know somebody buys a home, depending on your market, they may be moving five to 10 years, who knows every markets a bit different. But you know, there’s some predictable patterns there. So you’re going to have this period of time, where likely they’re not going to actually need you day to day to help them with a transaction. But what are your suggestions for making sure that the client doesn’t forget who you are number one, and we say that sort of is a bit being a bit facetious. But people there are there are amazing studies out there that will show there’s a certain percentage of people who like their realtor, if the transaction closes, and then two years later, they’re like, I don’t remember who our realtor was. It’s a much higher number than then I’ve ever thought happened to my parents. They sold a property and out east and great realtor and then two years later, I go What was I per Realtors name? My dad’s like, I have no idea. So that is that happens. And so I’m curious on how you think about making sure that that doesn’t happen, of course with your clients. So
Pieter Hanson 34:47
I tend to if you see something, say something is my attitude. If I think that I need to call DJ, I haven’t talked to DJ, I just pass DJ on the interstate, I saw him at the grocery store. I used to think to myself, Oh, I gotta call DJ. And then two days later, I’d run into DJ and I’d say, oh, DJ, I was just gonna call you and DJs. Like, yeah, whatever. Well, I pick up that phone and I make that call. And Julie knows that sometimes I sit in that garage for 45 minutes after I’ve been home at night, because I made that quick phone call to DJ and we struck up a conversation and talk for half an hour. So if you need if you think about something, call them one. Two, I send out postcards because I like to run into DJ at the grocery store and say, Hey, I got your Thanksgiving postcard thanks for thinking of me. Boom, I know, it’s corny the mail is is somewhat antiquated, but I still use it. I’m older, I’m comfortable with it. The the the most important thing that I think is front of mind, you know, all the avenues that we have with Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, posting things online that aren’t asking necessarily for someone to respond, but but maybe giving them a little knowledge about the community, hey, this, you guys have seen this bank building forever. This was built in the 18th, you know, front of mind stuff. So so people say themselves, oh, there’s Peter, there’s Peter without actually going out of their way or opening a piece of mail or answering the phone. So and I need to get better at it myself. And then lastly, Card Writing. I go through spurts where where I’ll write out 40 cards, and I’ll mail you know, 10 of them a week. And, and then there’s times where you know, I haven’t done that since September. But I need to do it again. And I’ll get motivated. And I’ll have a day. And I’ll just knock out a bunch of them. That I think is impactful too.
D.J. Paris 36:49
How many handwritten cards do you receive? Not once you’ve sending out? How many do you get in just estimating in a given year? 10. Okay, so less than one a month. Mine is much less than 10. I think I meant like two to three a year. And again, I’m not complaining it’s I’m but I’m so honored when anybody spends two minutes to write me a card. I don’t know what it is about receiving a card in the mail, a handwritten card, but boy, it just, there’s a tangible feeling there. That is way beyond a digital, Hey, I saw that you went on vacation, a little, you know, Facebook, like or whatever. Those are great too, of course. But there is something really, really powerful about somebody wrote this card, they put a stamp on it, they addressed it, they dropped it in the mail, as a lot of steps there that are super obvious to somebody when they receive that. And I think it’s kind of baked into the experience. So I am with you. You talked about mailers. I am a huge fan of mailers. Number one because most people aren’t anymore, as you said, you know, people are more digital, of course there, which is exactly why mailers should happen because you’re not getting that much mail anymore. I’m not getting much mail anymore. Even the junk mails is toned down. I’m like what’s happening with all these companies, a catalog companies, I guess they’re all online, but but I don’t even get a lot of the catalogs anymore. And so I’m like, wow, my, if somebody were to send me a postcard, I would absolutely see it now, maybe 15 years ago, when the mail was just, you know, insane. Maybe it would get lost in all of the catalogs and junk mail. There’s not as much anymore. So I think it’s a perfect time to send a mailer. And to your point. This is a way if you’re sending mailers once a month, once every few months, it’s pretty hard for somebody to forget about you, even if it’s just a postcard, because your names there. They might they you know, every realtor sends out an email newsletter. And I’m not saying that’s a bad idea. It’s a great idea. But everyone also does that. So you want to do things that maybe are a little bit more than just that. I’m not saying don’t do an email newsletter. But I love that and handwriting a card. I don’t know that there’s a better way to tell somebody I care that even just hey, I was thinking about you, I hope you’re doing well. Whatever. Well
Pieter Hanson 39:06
buy, sell, build, get buy, sell, build QC, you know, between Sarah and Andrea, my partners, we’ve got things planned into the fourth quarter of 2024. Whether it’s mum delivery, like we did this year, we bought 500 mums, and the back of my truck was filled for two days delivering these mums and people just absolutely loved them. You don’t need to say hi to them, put it on their porch with a sticker on the thing and a postcard in it. And they would text you and they’d say, Dude, we’d love the mom, thanks for thinking of us. You know, I mean little things like that. And our brokerage does those things extremely well. What’s
D.J. Paris 39:44
really fun about that stuff to it. I talk a lot about these kinds of fun activities that realtors can do. They don’t have to be expensive. They don’t have to even cost anything really picking up the phone and saying hey, I’m thinking about you. How are you doing? What’s going on? You know, and not necessarily Hey, I need to buy or sell right now I’m your guy, but calling and just saying, Hey, I was thinking about you, how are you? And or I saw this thing on LinkedIn, maybe it looks like your company just did this something big or you got a promotion or whatever there are, those are always the things I think that win the race. And also at the very least, even if it doesn’t necessarily lead to a transaction, you’re going to feel good about yourself when you do something nice, like drop off a mum or two on someone’s doorstep. And then they find it later. Boy, I mean, you can’t you almost can’t put a price tag on on how successful that kind of campaign is. Because people will be talking about it. Like who gets just random flowers from people, nobody, nobody only from your spouse or partner or boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Those are the only people giving anybody flowers. And so the idea of even just doing a little thing, like mums, and mums are cool to their unique. I love that idea. Yeah,
Pieter Hanson 40:59
we have we have a good time doing it too. And it’s a big collaboration in the office and it gets brings everybody together to work under under one roof for a common goal. And it’s it’s great team building. And it’s just fun.
D.J. Paris 41:13
And you know, it’s funny, we should probably talk about this only because it’s the end of the year. And this is you know, holiday cards and holiday gifts. And agents always struggle. Should I do something for my clients? There’s pessimistic people that will say, Well, if you do it once, you’re going to have to do it every single year forever. It’s like, well, I don’t know, that doesn’t sound so bad. But for some people, they struggle with this. I’m curious on your thoughts about end of year, sort of stuff with clients? Do you do them? Do you wait until a different time of the year or, you know, just curious,
Pieter Hanson 41:45
traditionally, some of my partner’s that had a holiday party. And they’re really expensive. And people look forward to him every year. And they say, Hey, are you guys having your party this year and, and I personally don’t do that. I like to reward the client. At the time the transaction closes. And depending upon how close they are, the size of the deal, whatever dictates, you know what, what I might do for them. But I always do something for them. The remaining time is I might single handedly call someone invite them to dinner with Julie and I. And as much as she sometimes doesn’t like doing it, we tend to have a pretty good time hanging out with someone that we don’t normally hang out with and learn something about that person that we never knew. Generally, that’s our takeaway. I never knew that about it, you know? So we try to do a little bit of that, but I don’t do anything it a certain time of year to reward them necessarily. Yeah. Well,
D.J. Paris 42:46
I think that’s very encouraging. For everyone listening who goes, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t do anything for the holiday season, December holiday season for my clients, it doesn’t really matter, do something throughout the year. And then at the end of the year, not as important, of course. But I love this, this idea of customer service and customer care, really, to me and hard work and discipline and all of these these things, but Customer Care is just the the key, I think it’s really making sure that people when they think about you go wow, my agent knows what’s going on in my life stays in touch with me. And is is is, is doing some sort of ongoing communication. And you said something very important, I just want to want to end on which was, now we have mobile devices, these super powerful, you know, almost magical devices in our pockets that shoot near perfect video, and for essentially for free of the cost of the device. And you can you know, learn a little bit about a building or maybe a local retailer, if you want to support local businesses, or maybe even interview a local business owner and say, Hey, I’d love to just learn about your business or your building or whatever. And you could post a quick one or two minute video on social media about that. And you could do that every single day of the week. If you if you didn’t if you weren’t slammed with clients, and what does that do for your public the people that are following you? They they think, wow, this person is really into real estate or they’re supporting our local community. They’re active, they’re doing things. So I am such a fan. I just I know you said it sort of quickly. And I wanted to go back to talk about the importance of providing value on social media as opposed to just hey, look at this cool this home I just sold, which is fine. I just don’t think that should be the only thing because right after I see that stuff, I was going I don’t care.
Pieter Hanson 44:36
You got to start somewhere and you’ve got to do something even if it’s wrong, you’ll learn but what content becomes so important and so impactful when it comes to people enjoying it and not being annoyed by it. I
D.J. Paris 44:51
couldn’t agree with you more and I think this is a great place to wrap up before we wrap. I want to make a mention we have Gosh 1000s and 10s of 1000s of listeners, we’re so grateful for them for sticking with us for as long as we have. But Peter Hansen, he he works for his brokerage, his real, great brokerage, national brokerage. And he and his team are always interested if there are any, any talent that in that area, any agents that think they might be a fit for Peter and his team, please, please feel free to reach out, they’re always looking to to expand their reach. Also, if you’re an agent that has clients that move in and out of the Quad Cities area, but maybe you don’t practice there yourself, certainly reach out to Peter. And if I were an agent, I would be looking to see where people retire from if they move from the Quad Cities, and then I would be reaching out to Peter, if I was in one of those markets going, Hey, I would love to talk to you about when people leave your market, you know, talking and connecting. So Peter, of course, would love the opportunity. He’s a commercial agent, residential agent, he can do a lot. So if you have businesses that are going in and out of that area, or people going in and out, or if you are an agent and want to maybe join his team and perhaps provide some value, he would love to opportunity to see if they you guys would be a fit. So what’s the best way that an agent could reach out to you if they want to partner with you in some way.
Pieter Hanson 46:17
So certainly, the email address Peter at Pt hanson.com is a very effective way. Certainly, you could reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook as well. Those digital media’s provide some privacy yet get the message across and I could get back to you. Certainly, if you were to ask me for any of my cell phone number, contact number that way, I’ve certainly would provide that for you. And, and if you’re any good at the internet, you can probably find that through Google yourself. So any of those ways would be a great way to get a hold of me. And I’d love to sit down and, and tell you the real story and tell you my story. I
D.J. Paris 46:58
love that. And remember, Peter is p i e t er, so he’s super easy to find. If he was Peter Hanson, without the without the AI, it’d be a little harder. So this actually works in his favor. So he’s very easy to find. And he’s a wonderful, wonderful man, and very successful in a lot of different areas. And if I were an agent, I would want to talk to you because I feel how do you do it all? What’s the word of the secrets we got through some of those today, but boy, somebody that, you know, I would certainly want to be mentored by so if you’re an agent in the area, or if you have clients kind of going in and out of that area, please reach out to Peter, he would love the opportunity to connect. And also please reach out to Peter and thank him for his service to our country we our military is is grossly under appreciated, I believe on a regular basis. So even if you’re just want to reach out and say thank you, that would be appreciated for him as well. Peter, thank you so much for your time. today. Thank you for coming on our show spending an hour with us and really giving us a lot of insight into your business and how you juggle many different businesses, but doing them all really, really effectively. And I love that Peter Hanson realtor is the website that’s P e t e r h a n s o n realtor.com. We’ll have links to all of his social media as well as his website, on on our show notes. So please reach out and on behalf of our listeners want to just thank Peter for spending time with us today. And on behalf of Peter and myself. We also want to thank the listeners and the viewers, you guys are the reason we do the show. And if we are planning speaking of Peter talking about his planning for 2024, we are planning for 2024 as well. So if there is a top agent in your market, we don’t really look for guests anymore. Because of the popularity of the show. We’re really, really lucky that publicists usually come to us. But that means we miss a lot of people. So if there’s a superstar in your market, we might not know about them, let us know we’ll reach out and see if we can get them on the show. So think of the most successful agent in your market as a listener and go I want to know what that person does. Let us know who that person is. We’ll we’ll do the rest. But thank you so much, Peter. Really great conversation. And hope everyone I don’t know when this episode will be released. It’ll probably be before the end of the year. So if so everyone have a happy December holiday season. Happy New Year, all of that. And Peter, thank you. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, TJ.
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