Michael Hall finished 2018 as Baird and Warner’s second highest producing broker in Chicago and also placed in the top 50 of brokers in Chicago (this is out of 40k brokers!). As a top agent for twenty-four years, Michael talks about how open houses started his career, how listing presentations are like dating, why he encourages brokers to spend 50% of their time searching for new clients, and why he knows that you can grow your business in any type of market with the right attitude.
Michael Hall can be reached at 773.398.4359 and michaelhall@michaelhallgroup.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I am your host, and guide through the show. And as always, we start out the show by saying thank you, to the listeners, we have, Gosh, 1000s of you now. And the only reason we have 1000s of listeners is because well, I’d like to think it’s because the content is so amazing. And I believe it is not because of me, but because of our guests, but also because you share this podcast with other realtors, so that we spend no money on marketing. So we’re really appreciative that you have sent this out and made this a popular thing. And I think we’re probably still the only podcast in Chicago that has these kinds of conversations. If you’re new to the show, what we do is talk to top 1% producers and ask them how they became successful. We believe success leaves clues and we’re 80 Plus episodes in now and we continue to keep going so we appreciate everyone’s listening and also passing this along you can download and listen and stream every single episode we have on our website keeping it real pod.com Obviously you can find us as well iTunes, Google Play and please subscribe to our Facebook page, keeping it real pod where we post links to every episode and also links to our guests information as well. On to our interview with Michael Hall.
Today on the show, we have Michael Hall from Baird and Warner Michaels client centered approach to real estate has led him to concert consistently outpaced the market in 2018. Michael finished in the top 50 of Agents Brokers in Chicago, she has a very big deal by the way on pausing his his bio from over there’s a 40,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area Michael finished in the top 50 last year, and he’s also second in the city at his firm Baird and Warner for sales volume and units. Originally a teacher, Michael’s philosophy is to provide each and every client with an unprecedented level of service, best resources in the industry and the benefit of expertise that results for 24 years as a top real estate consultant and broker, a true student of real estate Michael is constantly looking for innovative ways to improve his business and help his clients reap more. In 2014, he founded the Michael Hall group at Baird and Warner to better serve his buyers and sellers and foster synergy among fellow colleagues, the results have created raving fans and Business Growth far outpacing the market at large. And we could not be more excited to talk to Michael Hall. So welcome, Michael.
Michael Hall 3:03
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
D.J. Paris 3:05
Well, thank you for being on the show. And I say this a lot because we we only interviewed top producers, but we know you don’t have time to do this. And the fact that you’ve made time for us is really, really we couldn’t be more appreciative. So and on behalf of the listeners, thanks for being on the show.
Michael Hall 3:20
You’re welcome.
D.J. Paris 3:21
Well, you know, you boy have had a very impressive career here in Chicago. Everybody knows you. I would like to know about how you got into real estate, you know, 24 years ago? And can you do you mind telling us that story?
Michael Hall 3:33
Sure, absolutely. So I actually was working on a PhD in Spanish literature, and was on track to become a professor, when I decided to take a year off and reevaluate, if that was really the career that I wanted. And in that year off, I started a business venture, which did quite well. And I had, within a year’s time I had two locations working on a third. Wow. And I thought, well, you know, heavy money’s kind of good. And I’m pretty good at this business stuff. I don’t know, maybe I don’t want to be a teacher. So I came to Illinois to speak with my grandfather, who he’s now passed away, but he was the smartest person I knew. And he had been involved in commercial real estate large projects, and was just the smartest man I’ve ever known. And I said, you know, well, I don’t know, I guess I should finish up my PhD. And he said, No, don’t do that. And I said, why, you know, I’m thinking Why doesn’t he want his grandson to get a PhD? So because you have very expensive tastes young man, you’ll never be happy on a teacher’s salary. And then he added and let me tell you something about rich people. He said rich people own things. They own businesses, they own property, but they don’t work for someone else. My grandfather had never worked for anybody in his life. He was endure or so. He felt very strongly that I was would be a great sale. This person, he said, You need to get into real estate, you will be a great salesperson. He said, get into real estate start selling and start buying. And, you know, it was just like, wow, I never thought about that. I’d been so scholastically devoted my whole life that it was just came out of nowhere. And somehow, I took a leap of faith. And that’s what I did. I got my license a few months later. And by the third year, I was number one in my office and you know, just kind of catapulted to where I am today, after 24 years. Wow,
D.J. Paris 5:34
what do you think you did in your first year? I don’t mean production wise, or number of clients. But how did you? What did you do day one? I know it’s hard probably to remember. But what did you do in your first year? As far as how building your business?
Michael Hall 5:49
Well, the first thing that I did, I as a salesperson, I mean, I really, that’s really what I am, I, I decided right away that the best thing to do to have sales was to be in front of somebody to sell them something. If you’re not in front of somebody who might buy your product, well, you’re probably not going to sell very much of your product. So I devoted every single day to connecting to humans, who might be buying or selling real estate. And it was a little easier to do that when I first started because there was no internet. And I started Sure. So you know, people got the Saturday paper, little black and white photo, every picture looked the same. And they had to go to the Sunday open house to see it. So I open house like crazy. I had I didn’t have listings, because I was a brand new agent in my 20s. So I held open houses on other agents listings. And I just met people and connected and conversed and talked. And before long, you know, they had assisted me as their buyer’s agent to help them find properties.
D.J. Paris 6:57
Yeah, it’s funny that the doing open houses when you don’t have your own listings still seems to work today. And a lot of the people we’ve interviewed on the show even new mortgage brokers who have been more recently introduced to the business, that’s almost a universal experience. Unless, of course, you just happen to have you know, dozens of friends waiting to buy and sell condos, right when you get your license, which isn’t usually the case for most people. So the fact that you were doing open houses, it still seems to work. And so yeah, that’s very, very, very interesting. Tell us a little bit about how you how your business has grown over the last 24 years?
Michael Hall 7:38
Well, it’s, it’s been for the most part, organic, you know, hard work, you know, people always want to know, when you when you hear Realtors discussing other top agents, everybody’s like, what’s their secret, right, you know, what’s their secret? You know, what’s the ancient secret, and there really is no secret, you know, good business is one small idea after another that you implement. You don’t just come up with the idea, you actually execute it. And it’s one tiny little idea, one followed by another. So basically, you get one to 3% better every single year. So you’ve been in the business for 10 years, you’re 100% better at what you do. And your business. So part of it is just, you know, smart, organic growth. But I did have a phase where I catapulted and that was when I the time I think I was selling like around $12 million $13 million a year. Sure. And feeling kind of stressed out. And I had, you know, marketing prospecting programs that I had going, I was working, cancelled and expired. Sure I was when I would sell a property, I would send out a just sold to the neighborhood, saying, you know, I just sold your neighbor’s Sure, call me. And so but what happened is, I get slow, and I prospect, and then I would get busy again, and I wouldn’t prosper. Right. And so I realized that if I wanted to grow, I had to keep the prospecting going. And so I had to really dedicate a chunk of time in my day, when that took place. The next thing I knew, I was like, 9pm at the office, printing out flyers, stuffing envelopes, you know, getting to the office early, and then I decided to hire someone to help me because I realized, well, if this is profitable, why don’t I just double what I’m doing and then that will pay for this the salary of this person that does this and executes it for me. So that was a big leap of of for my business was to actually bring in somebody to make sure that the prospecting occurred every single day with regularity.
D.J. Paris 9:53
Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world and certainly easy for a broker once they get busy with having CLI As where they’re spending, you know, maybe seven of if you’re working an eight hour day, which I know you’ve probably worked much longer than that. But if you’re spending, you might be spending six to seven hours a day servicing existing clients and not, you know, then just the outbound marketing meeting, new people might fall by the wayside. So hiring somebody for you seems like that, that worked really well, to enable you to continually serve your clients and also keep the prospect up.
Michael Hall 10:28
It did, the only problem is that it worked too well. And within, within two years, I was on, you know, the verge of a nervous breakdown. Because, you know, we couldn’t keep up. So then I hired instead of, you know, I had my part time person that ran the prospecting, which for me, was primarily male, and some online stuff. And then I ended up hiring a licensed agent who came out and helped me do the showings. And ultimately, you know, I decided that, you know, I’m gonna, I think I could provide better service if I had other people doing the things that I’m really bad at. And that’s the I think that’s the key for all business owners, you have to look at what you’re good at and do that and what you’re bad at, have somebody else do. So on the nightmare with paperwork, I hired someone to do the paperwork, I wasn’t good at following up on the prospecting, I hired somebody for that the next. So you just sort of decide what you should parcel off and have other people do and as you do that, it creates more time for you to do what you’re really good at. And then if you focus all your energies on the things you’re really good at, you will grow your business, it will happen. And that’s what happened to me. So my team went from a person and a half, to two and a half to three and a half to now it’s four and a half people. Wow. Not including me. So I’m, I’m the extra person,
D.J. Paris 11:52
you’re the half of its, you know, and for a lot of our listeners to who think, Well, I’m not a top producer, I can’t afford to bring on someone else. I think I would challenge that because there are things thankfully due to our interconnectivity with the world, there are lots of people that you can hire who aren’t even necessarily local, maybe global. For example, I have a person I hire for $10 a week. And what she does is she calls me every morning at 730. In the morning, she’s from the Philippines. And she asks me did you do there’s some habits, I’m trying to cultivate healthy habits in my life. And she the about 10 questions, she asks me every morning did you do you know, she just goes down the list. It’s a 92nd phone call. And it has made a tremendous difference in my life, because it gets me to actually follow through on some of these things. But it only cost me $10 a week, and it’s the best $10 I spend. So if anyone’s listening, there are resources to find, you know, maybe it’s on a smaller scale, but you can find help, especially for you know, for very specific tasks.
Michael Hall 12:55
You can and the you, you’ll reap that reward. If you’re smart with the investment, you’ll reap that reward in the same year. So it’s, you know, it’s not like, you know, I think people feel like they can’t afford it. But I would argue you can’t not You can’t not afford it. Because for every dollar you put in, you’re going to make more than what you put in, if you do it wisely. So my recommendation is to look at what a look at what’s working for other agents and to mimic that. And that’s kind of what I did, I looked at well, who’s who’s big, who’s doing a lot, oh, that person is doing expireds and cancelled. So that person is, you know, doing video online, blogging, so you see what other people are doing. And then you start to do the same things and you find, you know, what’s a good match for you and your personality?
D.J. Paris 13:39
I agree. And I also think that brokers often forget that top producers are also at least the ones that that we’ve reached out to, for example, people like Michael, who so generously is here. They don’t really have time, but they make time because they tend to be willing to share, hey, here’s what I’ve done. As Michael said, there really aren’t any secrets, or if there are, no one has yet shared any real secrets with me on this podcast. But I don’t I don’t know that there aren’t secrets, like Michael said. But it’s funny every time we do a podcast every month with Carrie McCormick from App properties, and she comes on and says, Here’s what brokers need to know about what’s going on in the market. It’s very generous of her. And she says every single time she does an episode, she gets about four or five brokers who call her say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast. Do you have a few minutes to give me some advice? And she very generously does that. But I find that you know that people like like Michael are actually pretty approachable. Certainly we reached out and he was he was very agreeable to come up. But yeah, you can learn so much. I mean, the whole purpose of this podcast is to collect these great ideas so other brokers can learn. But yeah, I think that is really couldn’t be overstated. Like learn from people, they say stand on the shoulders of giants, find out what they did and and move forward and don’t try to reinvent the wheel. But let’s talk about the client experience because obviously, you it’s not just a matter of prospecting, obviously, your clients are really, really like your service. Can we talk a little bit more about why you think clients gravitate towards you, and why you think your business business has grown so much over the years?
Michael Hall 15:21
Well, I think, you know, I say this all the time to buy, you know, when I’m training other agents and helping them I say, you know, look, it’s like a date, the first time you meet a buyer, it’s a date, the first time you do meet someone to do a listing presentation on their home, it’s a day, it is mostly really about chemistry between personality types. And so I think that when I’m in front of a buyer in front of a seller, I try to treat them like they’re my best friend from college, I’m thinking, What would this and I say, What do you want to talk about? What what are you looking for? I mean, ask a lot of questions. And I think that if you listen more than you speak, you’ll be able to connect with somebody. And it’s really all about the connection. And sometimes you don’t have chemistry, and they end up with another realtor. And that’s okay. There’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of realtors, and we’re not all matches. But I think beyond that there are people do also focus on the differences between realtors that they are considering working with Sure. And you know, for me those differentiators, I think, are well, first we’re very down to earth, very approachable. And we, you know, we really try to, you know, make it a pleasant serene experience for them. But beyond that 24 years of experience, I know, I always ask people, How did you pick me? And they a lot of times will say, Well, you’ve got a lot of experience? Or they’ll say, Oh, your reviews online, right. So I think for me, it’s mainly because I’m getting old 24 years and having lots of sales in the neighborhood. That’s one reason I also keep my stats, I think every agent should be keeping track of their days on the market, their listing sale price ratio, see how it compares to the neighborhood at large. That is part of my listing presentation. And a lot of people have said, we picked you because you talked about things that other realtors did not. And if you and then of course, as you do this when you do it well, a majority of my business comes from repeat clients from referrals. And as a result, we have a lot of great reviews which we would not have if I did not have such an amazing team behind me.
D.J. Paris 17:23
Do you just just for my own curiosity? As far as from a review perspective? Are you asking clients after a transaction? Or maybe even before the end of the transaction? Are you proactively saying, hey, we’d really appreciate it if you would write a review of your experience, or do you just let that happen on its own?
Michael Hall 17:42
absolutely, positively 100%? We asked. Yeah, I assume you that. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, for us. I mean, sometimes we asked why Sure. Well, because sometimes we’ll ask and we know that we did a great job. We know they loved us, and we think they’re probably Yeah, so we sometimes we don’t get the review the first time. But we’ll ask one more time. We don’t usually ask for more than more than two times. But yes, you should be asking every client for review, unless you don’t pick it up.
D.J. Paris 18:14
I had this experience recently, where I went into two unrelated real estate just walked in for I was getting a storage unit and I for like 35 bucks a month. It was very, it wasn’t even one of their more expensive units at a small thing, but I just needed for half a year. And you would have thought that I made their entire sales quota the way they treated me like that I was a big deal. And I know I wasn’t. And it was it was so over the top in a good way and really went on to make me feel like I was this special client of theirs. And and then at the end of it, they after I was paying and signing everything they said would you it look, please if you would write us a review, that would be the nicest, thank you. Because I was saying, Well, you guys really treated me well. He said, Well, gosh, you should really write us view. And then I got back to my desk and I forgot about it because I you know, like you were saying people get busy. They sent me an email the next day and said, Hey, I don’t mean to bug you. But boy, we would love it if you could share your experience. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I forgot. And I went on and and then I wrote it on Facebook, Yahoo or sorry, Facebook, Google, I think even in Yelp. So I did three different reviews for literally a $30 a month service because I went I’ve never been treated so well. So I think you’re asking for it is is a very good idea. Because yeah, people are busy.
Michael Hall 19:33
People just get busy. Absolutely. They’re usually happy to do it. They just get busy. So yep.
D.J. Paris 19:38
And you know, we have 1000s of listeners now which I’m very grateful for as well because it’s a lot of fun to do these when people listen. One of the biggest questions we get from from our listeners is, hey, I would like to be a top producer. And again, I know there are no secrets or no magic formulas, and hard work is always the real answer. Are there any specific techniques or strategies that you would recommend maybe somebody who’s brand new, or somebody who’s just looking to grow anything that you think would be helpful for the listeners?
Michael Hall 20:10
Absolutely. I mean, look, when you first start, you don’t have any clients, right? So 100% of every working hour should be promising. And, really, I tell this to all of the agents that I train, I want you to spend at least 50% of your day, prospecting for new clients getting out in front of people, your marketing systems now are fairly automatic, right, it leaves a lot of time for you to grow your business. And even if you’re out with buyers, you know, you’re not showing eight hours a day with buyers. So you’ve got a lot of time, and you need to spend, I find that newer agents are most of the time not spending a lot of time prospecting. And so every day that you do not get in front of potential new clients, whether that’s face to face, online social media, or you get in front of them by sending a piece of mail is another day that you will not get a paycheck. And I know there’s a lot of agents out there who today maybe didn’t do any prospecting. And so it’s you have to, you really have to spend at least 50% of your time on prospecting. And once you say, and if you say to me, I’m too busy to spend 50% of my time on prospecting, then my answer is, you’re making enough money to pay somebody else to spend 50% of your time on prospecting, if you really want to have growth. And I think that the the last thing that I would say, is, don’t give up. So many of the new agents, they do something for two months or three months, you know, maybe they try open houses, and they do it for three months, and they don’t get a sale. And they say, Oh, I’m just not good at Open House. And and they give up my I’m telling you, it takes time. These are seeds that you plant, and they take time. And the last thing that I that last bit of advice I would give and this is good for everybody. And honestly, if I had applied this to my own business, I would be retired and filthy rich now, instead of here talking with you, although I’m happy, I’m here talking with you. And that is do not let perfect get in the way of progress. And I tell my clients this all the time, because are my team this all the time, because I did for years, I was such a, you know, type a I’m a very type a detail oriented person. And so I wanted to maintain control of every aspect of my business. So even though I really needed help, I thought no, I can give better business. By doing everything myself. And I when I had new ideas, I didn’t really execute them because I worked on them for months, right? And never felt they were perfect. And now we launch we take a reasonable amount of time when we have an idea, but then we launch it and you tweak it as you go. And I find a lot of new agents. I see them in the office, they’re sitting at a desk all the time. And I see they’re working on their listing presentation, but they work on it for like weeks. So just don’t let perfect get in the way of progress. It’s about reaching out. It’s about connecting. It’s about you know, being a human helping another human with something they need. In the end. That’s really all real estate is it’s really all sales is is its people, people who need things, people who give them things. So it’s really about people. Don’t worry too much about your forms. Don’t worry too much about your listing presentation. I remember when I felt about four years ago, I felt like my listing presentation wasn’t that great. And I was wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And I met with Milly Rosenbloom, who everybody knows. She’s the number one agent at Warner. And I went out to lunch with Millie and Milly, Milly took my listing presentation. I wanted her to look at it. And she said it on the side and she said, listing presentation she said they just want to talk to you. She said sometimes I don’t even open it. She said just ask them what they want. Tell them what you do have a conversation, make a connection. And it was awesome. Because all of a sudden, I let go of the anxiety of my listing presentation not being perfect. And I realized it was about connecting with the people. So you know, you should have a good listing presentation, you should tweak it. But I have definitely beat out other realtors who I’m sure had better listing presentations. You know, but that’s because I didn’t let that perfecting get in the way of connecting with the people. So just don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 24:27
and I think that can manifest in particular for newer brokers. The biggest fear I hear from brand newly licensed brokers is, you know, with respect to going out and connecting face to face meeting people every day, as you as you recommend it. The big question or the fear, I believe is what if they asked me something and I don’t know the answer, and I go, Well, of course you’re not going to know the answer. You’re brand new and it’s okay. All you have to say is that is an amazing question. Let me double check with my team so I can get you the best possible answer. I’ll get right back to you. Right and 99 1% of the time that is a good enough, at least immediate response, and then go back and get the answer. And like, don’t worry about knowing everything because you won’t. But don’t let that stop you from going out and meeting people. I mean, if I say, I don’t know, and I’m not a Producing Realtor, but in my own business, I say, I don’t know all the time. And I’ve been doing this quite a while. So I think this idea of, of knowing everything, or having everything perfected is really just going to get to stop you in your tracks, like, like Michael, Michael said. But yeah, I hear that a lot from from new brokers who are just worried that there’s someone’s going to ask a question that they don’t know. It’s like, that’s okay.
Michael Hall 25:39
Yeah. People don’t care if you know everything. They care if you’re honest. And you can get them the answers they seek.
D.J. Paris 25:47
Right? And yeah, and yeah, and hopefully, everyone listening works at a firm where they can get of course, those answers. And if you don’t, you deserve to work at a firm that does provide good support, because for new brokers, obviously, that’s the biggest thing they need is answers to questions from their clients. Obviously, a firm like Baird, and Warner is going to be able to provide that. What one other thing I want to Oh, I wanted to ask this because I normally never get to this question. We always ask every guest ahead of time, tell us this, the answer this question. I never get to it. But I thought this one was interesting. And I would like to get to it about you had a a you. I know you’re not going to reveal the name. But you had worked with a celebrity at one point. And you had a funny story about finding them a place if you don’t mind telling that.
Michael Hall 26:36
Oh, yeah. So I, I was fortunate enough to have a client who worked at Harpo studios with Oprah Winfrey. So every once in a while the celebrities that would come in would want to, they would be interested in seeing real estate here in Chicago. And so I had the fortune of being able to take a few of these celebrities out and I had one in particular who wanted to view but she wanted to be able to jump out a window and be caught on that thing that that you see in the movies, the circle thing that the firemen Oh, sure. You know, because she said I’m terrified to fire. So she it was it was very, it was, of course a challenge to find something and she wanted to be downtown. So imagine trying to be downtown and having a view. But I want to be able to jump out a window if there’s a fire.
D.J. Paris 27:30
Did you were you able to actually find something for that person or
Michael Hall 27:35
we found something that she liked. And in the end, she did not purchase anything in Chicago? I think that you know, it was an idea that she toyed with and quite frankly, I think she was really surprised by our prices here. She thought they would be more inexpensive than they really are. And so, yeah, you know, which is a common common thing. Of course,
D.J. Paris 27:59
why that? Yeah, boy, that is funny. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to answer a question like that when somebody says, Well, you know, I need to be able to, I guess that just means keep them low to the ground.
Michael Hall 28:11
Yeah, well, you know what I’m going to this is the new thing here that we we are calling ourselves matchmaker like it. So yeah, that’s our big thing. We’re releasing a new website in a couple of weeks. And we’re going with a noose new advertising marketing blitz. And we feel like we’re matchmakers. So I don’t care if you want a place that, you know, your dog has his own balcony like we’ll try to fit for you. That’s, that’s the thing, you know, because that’s if you know, once again, it’s people want things we give them. So when somebody says, I want to have a view, but I want to be able to jump out a window and live, you know what I dug in, I scratch and I found something. So it’s a big city, you can find almost everything here if you’re if you don’t give up well, and
D.J. Paris 28:57
I think to that point, you know, the client says, This is what’s important to me. And the broker says, Great, let me work on that and get back to you. Right, you didn’t have the answer right away. You went and found it. And yeah, and I think this idea of caring, which obviously you do, as evidenced by, I don’t think success is by accident. And I think that, you know, really caring and being able to say let me see what I can do is is often probably a bit understated in this industry. I think there’s a lot of brokers who don’t realize how important you know, going that extra step, the hard work portion really goes to demonstrate care. You know, it’s I care enough about you to find that dog balcony for you. And I’m going to do my best to do it. And I think a lot of brokers probably wouldn’t go that extra step.
Michael Hall 29:45
Yeah, for sure. I find a lot of brokers are sort of they have a formula. And when somebody falls outside of the formula, they’re not sure they’re interested but I would say this if you go out of your formula, and you find somebody what they want, you will have a fan for The rest of your life?
D.J. Paris 30:01
Oh, gosh, no, yeah, no question about that. And, and that, of course, you know, it’s how almost all of us find our broker through somebody we know or, or a referral from somebody we know. And we just forget just how important it is that every client is, or at least as many clients as as possible are raving fans, which means you do have to go above and beyond and obviously, Michael does that. Well, I have we I think we are getting to the end here. We’ve gone through so much, so much stuff. I did want to ask you one more question. I apologize. One last question. About About you wrote a funny experience to us about getting locked, locked into a rooftop deck. Which Imagine you are not the first person to have done that. Not first realtor for sure. Could you tell us that story?
Michael Hall 30:51
Yeah, absolutely. So it was in Ukrainian village. It was a long time ago, probably nine or 10 years ago, at least. But it was in Ukrainian village. We it was really actually a small building, like a four storey building. And I was showing the penthouse. And we went out. And I did not have the keys, they were on the kitchen counter, of course, the door swing shot, and the door handle was locked. And it was like one o’clock PM. So nobody was home. We were sort of pounding and yelling, and, and so we and of course my buyer, everybody, like the whole party was out on the deck. So it could have been a disaster. But I thought, you know, I never panic. You just can’t panic. Life’s too short to panic, unless you’re a heart surgeon. I mean, that’s the beauty of being a real estate agent, you’re not likely to have one of your clients die on you. So, you know, I just took a deep breath. And I thought, well, well, this will give us a good time to talk about what they want. Before you know. And but it was in the end, it ended up being really funny. To them. They were very nice about it. And we did talk and we really did connect in a way that we might not have otherwise, although I don’t recommend this as a technique. And you know, so eventually, we really were up there probably for almost oh my gosh, yeah, it was a long time because people were going by in the street, and we were waving and yelling, but they were either not hearing us or they were just like not sure what to do with. Yeah, yeah. And so finally somebody like it was almost 3pm. And somebody who lived in the building was walking up. And I was able to say, hey, we’re in the penthouse. It’s unlocked. If you can come let us in. And so a neighbor went into the penthouse unit and opened it up for oh,
D.J. Paris 32:31
my gosh, that’s an amazing two hours. That is a long time. Wow. Well, that what how funny and again, could happen, and probably has happened to a lot of brokers. But yeah, you’re right. What a great opportunity to get to know somebody better. And assuming assuming they’re not blaming you, which of course, I’m sure they didn’t. Yeah, you have a much more intimate relationship at that point. So
Michael Hall 32:58
absolutely. And I’ve been thinking about getting a Michael Hall group drone. So if this ever happens, again, I can call my team and they can drone over, you know, some drinks. Turn it into it.
D.J. Paris 33:11
That’s great. Well, Michael, I think that is a great place to to end and our episode here. And we really appreciate your time. There’s so much great advice, and really appreciate you telling your story with us and our listeners. And if by the way, if there are buyers, sellers, investors, renters, anyone that is in need of a realtor, or maybe they’re not happy with their current broker, you should definitely take a look at Michael Michaels, Michael and his group, you can visit Michael at Michael Hall group.com. He has a new website coming out which may or may not be done by the time this podcast was released. However, his current website looks pretty good as is I know Michael doesn’t like it because he’s a perfectionist. I think it looks pretty great. So even if this gets out before then, you know, definitely go there. You can also visit him on Facebook, Instagram, all the social networks, Michael Hall, just search for Michael Hall group, you’ll find him and you can, you know, obviously reach out to him. Oh, Michael, if there are any clients, customers out there that may be looking to work with with you or someone on your team, what’s the best way they should reach out to you?
Michael Hall 34:17
I think that if they go to our website or our social media and just send us a message there all of the formats we have out there have our phone number and a way to email us or message us. So really, it’s whatever, whatever is better for the client. Perfect.
D.J. Paris 34:35
Perfect Well, and, again, on behalf of Michael and myself that we thank everyone for listening again, if there’s other brokers in in the listeners, offices that are wanting to learn from people like Michael and want to continue to support the show that we do as a way to give back to the real estate industry that’s been very generous to me personally. Please let them know About this this podcast this episode, and follow us on Facebook you can find us at keeping it real pod, also our website keeping it real pod.com You can download and stream all of our episodes and, and all of the of course, it’s on iTunes, Google Play, etc. So anyway, Michael, thank you so much for your time again, really couldn’t have This couldn’t have gone better. We’re so, so thankful that you took time out of your very, very busy day to do this. So on behalf of Michael myself, we say thank you and we will see everyone on the next episode. So Thanks, Michael.
Michael Hall 35:30
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
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