When Ryan D’Aprile talks, brokers listen. Not only was Ryan a top 1% broker in Chicago, he now spends 100% of his time training his hundreds of agents at the firm he founded, D’Aprile Properties. Ryan has helped his own real estate brokers become top producers and has a step-by-step approach with a proven track record. In this conversation Ryan talks about some of the underlying strategies and principles paramount to a broker’s success. This episode is chock full of actionable steps brokers can take right now to increase their production!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at ryan@daprileproperties.com and 312.492.7900
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:15
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 Paris, I am your host through the show. And in just a few moments, we’re going to have our interview with Ryan D APR, which I’m very excited about, because I’ve always been a big fan of his and what he’s built. So we’re going to talk to him in just a few. However, before we get to that, first of all, I wanted to give as per usual, a thank you to everyone currently listening. Please remember, the best way you could always thank us is to tell other realtors about us the intention of this podcast, if you’re a new listener, is to get you guys access to the very top producing realtors in the Chicagoland area and find out what they do everyday so that you can improve your own business by listening to their tips and tricks and strategies. So if there’s anyone you think that could benefit from listening, please pass this over. Also visit our Facebook page and like our Facebook page, because you’ll get updates on who we’re interviewing. And you can also ask questions in advance if there’s somebody that you know that we’re going to be talking to. So you can find us on Facebook at keeping it real pod. So just do a search for keeping it real pod. Also, you can stream every episode of our podcast at our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And also subscribe via iTunes, Google Play any app you’re using. That is a podcast app, just search for keeping it real podcast, you will find us and that is it for the moment. Oh one more thing. If you have sent us a request for somebody that we should be interviewing, we’ve gotten now at this point well over 100 requests. And so first of all, we’re so so grateful enough people care to send that information in. But we are so backlogged that we just wanted to say, from the whole staff here, please don’t be offended. If we haven’t replied, we’re just backed up. We have it in a file, we will get to it eventually. But thank you for thinking of us and recommending someone. So if you’ve written us and we have a written feedback, we will do our best to get back to you at some point. But thanks, keep sending in your suggestions, keep listening, and on to our interview with Ryan de April.
Today on the show, we have Ryan de April from April properties. Ryan has a progressive progressive thought leaders focused on providing for his agents and his staff. His strengths are his motivational skills, coaching style, and his dedication to training. And I should mention before Ryan comes on, they have 11 offices. Ryan owns the company they have managing brokers at each location. And Ryan actually travels consistently and constantly to each location, working with the leadership staff as well directly with the brokers and does a lot of coaching and training. So we got him today out of his Lake Geneva office. So thank you, Ryan, for being on the show. Thanks, TJ.
Ryan D’Aprile 3:12
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
D.J. Paris 3:15
Well, I was joking with Ryan earlier that that that was the shortest bio we’ve ever received, which probably speaks to the humility of Ryan is very, very nice, humble guy, but has built up a pretty impressive business. So before we get into what you’ve built, I’d love to learn about where you came from. So can you talk a little bit about your journey and how you got into real estate
Ryan D’Aprile 3:37
share? Yes, I. So I’ve been in the real estate business for about 14 years now. And after I graduated college, I got into the executive search field. And for about six years as as in corporate America, I was buying and selling homes, and then I three flats in an apartment building. And then I decided I should get my real estate license. And I did. And so that’s how I got into it. And it was not until July or August of 2004 When I became really a full time real estate agent. So I had my license for 18 months and was doing it on the side and then realized
D.J. Paris 4:15
just just a positive per se were you did you get your license just to continue buying and selling your own stuff? Or were you looking to be a sort of traditional realtor as well?
Ryan D’Aprile 4:23
Yeah, no, I thought I was I thought I was gonna be a real estate investor and I thought I was gonna do it. You just did the former as I was just gonna buy and sell for myself. I just ended up representing a friend and then another friend and then that kind of got carried away. And so yeah, so I went into it thinking I would do this and I’d be a real estate investor and have access to the tools and technology so I could see what was going on. And then I just fell in love with the brokerage side of it and being a real estate agent for other people.
D.J. Paris 4:51
And then how long were you working as a as a realtor before you decided to open up your own shop?
Ryan D’Aprile 4:59
That’s a great Question. It’s, it’s, I’ll try to keep this story short, but I opened up my own shop right away. Yeah, you know, DJ, I’ll tell you I am not kidding. I’m the only real estate agent I know, that was not hired by real estate company because I interviewed. Sure. I interviewed with a company. And and I think the quote was, you know, we’d like you, you make us a little nervous. You seem a little hyper. Why don’t you go sponsor yourself? And it was 2003. That’s amazing. Yeah, you know, so in those times, you didn’t, you get your broker license, and you can send your paperwork in the IDF, PR and wallah, you have a real estate company. And I didn’t know any better. And again, you know, I joke around with a lot of my agents, because I’m trying to empower them in understanding that we all go through like these challenges and whatnot. I’ve been rejected over and over and over again, in my life, and through many things that I’ve tried to do, and you want to get a real estate license, you know, where a lot of people just, you know, if you fog up a mirror, and they bring in, I’m the only one that wasn’t hired, and yeah, I was gonna
D.J. Paris 6:01
say, it’s not like you’re a complete Bozo, who is like, No, you’re clearly not. I have never heard of anyone being rejected by pretty much, you know, most firms. So that is,
Ryan D’Aprile 6:14
April, there we go. That’s me. Was off. So okay, fine. So that’s, that’s how it happened.
D.J. Paris 6:20
What and what? How did you you know, I’m sure people listening who are brokers fight would find that extremely confusing to think, how did you learn everything, you know, sort of on your own did? How did you sort of build your knowledge base there?
Ryan D’Aprile 6:36
Well, so I just started. So again, you know, it’s one of those things where I kind of built that, you know, maybe you could say, a little chip on my shoulder type of thing, because I had that mentality where I had, you know, various struggles, and I was trying to kind of get in. And so I think that motivated me, and I just said, Alright, I’m just gonna figure this out. Again, I was working full time, I was working 50 hours a week, I was traveling, I was getting my MBA at night, and we’re having our first daughter, oh, my God, I was busy. So I just didn’t really think too much. I just, I would reach I can’t recall because we’re going back 14 years now. Surely, I somehow managed to get on the MLS. I think I called the Chicago Association, realtors and said, you know, where do I do? And they said, go here. And then I opened up an email marketing County, and they started doing, you know, direct mail, like, like printing out a Word document and folding it and stave off, you know, just kind of bootstrapped, stripping, and I just went through and, and that’s just how that happened.
D.J. Paris 7:36
And at what point did you decide to go full time.
Ryan D’Aprile 7:40
So it was in July or August of 2004. So a year and a half of it, because it was, it was January or so of three, I got licensed. And then I find myself in July, well for 18 months into it. And I have a daughter a baby. Now I have three now. But I had my little girl and my wife hadn’t gone back to teaching, she was a school teacher. And I’m like, I just I love this. And I love the freedom. I love the flexibility. And I’m doing very well in this. And I was also DJ, I was young, and I was dumb. I was 28 or 27 and 28. And I just shirt, I’m quitting, this is what I could do, I could you know, I’ve done it for 18 months. And looking back, if I didn’t have the salary at my corporate job, we would have been able to make ends meet. So let’s just go for it. And so it was in July or August 2004, I became a full time real estate agent.
D.J. Paris 8:29
And how long after that, did you decide to bring additional, you know, members to the team.
Ryan D’Aprile 8:36
So, you know, throughout the next, say, six or seven years 2000 Up until about 2011. I was you know, I call a one man shop and it wasn’t and I’d had would anytime we’d have anywhere from eight to 10 or 11 Real estate agents at the company, maybe at one point 12 or 13. But I wasn’t giving them any attention. It was
D.J. Paris 9:00
just a Yeah, sure. You were still producing, you were still always producing,
Ryan D’Aprile 9:03
I was selling a lot of real estate. And I hired a you know, an office manager, a secretary and I had the copier and the office space and one of the buildings that I own, but I would not have called that a real estate company. I would not have done that. In hindsight, you know, whatever. But it was, you know, I because I was very successful during those times. But I was really distracted by owning a brokerage at the same time as well because I had 10 or 11 people and though I joke around and I say well I didn’t pay much attention to them. I’m not that kind of person. So I would not be but it wasn’t purposeful. I didn’t open it to grow real estate company. I open it because I didn’t get hired somewhere and I needed to have a place to hang my thing and then I’d have you know, people join me and I wasn’t focused on growing a brokerage just focus on being a real estate agent. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 9:47
I think I’ve heard that. And I know when I started our firm we only had maybe 10 brokers and my our owner was still producing I think once we got to like 25 or so So he was able to step away from producing and focus more on building the business and helping brokers. And I don’t know, I don’t know what that number was for you. But But I know that struggle of being small enough where you still have to produce and at the same time, not being able to maybe give, you know, the team as much attention. But that’s all changed for you, which is amazing. You guys have hundreds of brokers now. But let’s Can we talk about how that how that’s built for you? Because I mean, you have impressed. I mean, it’s you, outside of all the franchise firms? I don’t think there’s anyone I can think of that has that many offices that’s an independent brokerage in Chicago, or is that I can’t think of Well, I
Ryan D’Aprile 10:40
think there’s a really big one that we know about there. That’s not
D.J. Paris 10:43
okay. Well, okay, aside from the biggest firm in all of Chicago, who I just put in the the franchise category, but of course, they’re not a franchise, aside from them. You’ve got to be it right? I mean,
Ryan D’Aprile 10:53
I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention to that part of it. I gotta be honest with you. I don’t think of it as you know, I’m a little bit funny. I don’t know a lot of people in industry, I don’t know, a lot of other agents in the industry. I’m, I’m kind of like Kaiser. So say when it comes to the, the industry of other real estate agents, because I’m just so and have been focused on the agents that we have, right, then I’m not really familiar so much. I mean, I do know, players out there, but no, there’s there’s other other firms out there that are larger than us. And it’s, it’s, I’m more focused on, you know, I think the value that our agents can extract from the firm and what we can provide to them. And, you know, what do we do every year, you know, that could add more and more value and better than we did the year before. It’s a fun journey. I mean, because I mean, three years ago, we’re a totally different company. A year ago, we were totally different company. And it’s, it’s evolving, and it’s all evolving for the agents. And we’re coming up with so many different things. And you know, it’s not for everybody, sometimes it’s like, wow, this is a lot of change. And you know, so it’s one of those things that you have to understand is we’re a very entrepreneurial type organization, that its core focus and priority is, how do you help an agent, grow their business, be purposeful, and fulfilled and not get burnt out? And then what are the tools that they can use to make it easier for them? And who are the people that we can put in place so that they don’t have to put people in place themselves to do the things that they want to do? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 12:26
that all sounds absolutely right. For this sort of where we are and in the brokerage business? Today, can you talk a little bit about what you guys do since again, you know, and I, to a degree, have blinders on myself for the firm I’m at but I, what you’ve built is pretty impressive. And having all of those offices and physical locations, there are some firms that just have, like, an act like a meeting room. And so they call that an office, it’s not really you guys have actual physical offices, brick and mortar, with resources and people and staff. And
Ryan D’Aprile 13:03
yeah, we have an managing broker and an office manager in each of those offices. So they’re, they’re fully staffed, and then they’re supported with, you know, a, you know, a corporate staff of over 40 individuals in marketing and compliance and training and education and accounting and whatnot. So it’s, it’s a very, you know, it’s a, it’s an expensive proposition, I guess you could say that way. You know, it’s we put, we sink a lot into the company to provide, you know, the best experience we can provide to our agents.
D.J. Paris 13:38
Yeah. And I love the fact that your one of your core focuses at the company, aside from running it and building it and being at the top of the corporate ladder of the company was also going down into the trenches and working specifically and directly with, with the brokers and traveling around to all the different locations. By the way, we should mention you have locations in Indiana, as well as Wisconsin, so it’s not like they’re all, you know, very close by so.
Ryan D’Aprile 14:06
Yeah, no, that mean, that’s what I and that’s what I enjoy to do. And that’s really what is I have a leadership team. And they, I say they run the company from the day to day basis. And they’re really the business executives. And what I am is I’m a coach. And so like, right now I’m in our Lake Geneva, Wisconsin office, and I my meetings today have been Google Hangouts with agents and I’ve been coaching and training agents. And then this evening, I have agents coming to our Fontana Wisconsin office, and they’re actually bringing their spouses because on a quarterly basis, I’ll go to our various offices and I invite the agents come in and bring in their spouses and what I do is I do a coaching and I coach the spouses and explain to them hey, this is our business. Is this what they do and this is how you can help them excel because it’s such a siloed business, you know, because we’re all independent contractors, and that’s where the danger comes in. Most dangerous zone calm, so I’m like, how ever you can create accountability around you and, and we have something called our dashboard and we recreate I created this dashboard and I, and our agents use this dashboard and then I bring in. So So for example, I’ll have the spouses come in and the agents, and I’ll do coaching and explain the dashboards. And I’ll say to the agent, spouses, like, Look, you have this, you have s access, let me show you questions you can ask and have conversations with if you guys are interested in it, to help you, you know, help you help your, your wife or your husband grow their business and stay focused on what’s important for them.
D.J. Paris 15:31
Yeah, and that’s, that’s, by the way, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anybody at any firm reaching out to the significant others of the brokers and saying, Hey, here’s how to how to help your significant other grow their business. And then you know, just even have that thought is a pretty novel thought of it’s absolutely a great idea. Because as you’re you’re right, it is such a siloed business. And it really, leads can come from anywhere more, most of the time, they’re going to come from the existing network of that particular broker. And I know that’s a huge passion of yours is talking about how to expand that network, how to deepen the relationships in that existing network. Can you talk a little bit about you know, how you, you know, discuss that when you’re at your, your coaching and training meetings?
Ryan D’Aprile 16:18
Sure. So I built this dashboard, and it’s focused on the network, and I divide the network up from the network to influential people. And then you have these various tabs and channels of where your prospects, your active clients, your pending sales are as three different channels, and then you have your past transactions. And, you know, first and foremost, when people first come in and get coached and trained if they hear marketing from me. And I think that is one things, I try to get them to understand that that’s actually not what I’m pushing, there’s an element of marketing that you have to have. But what the dashboard is built up is it’s for relationship builder. And, you know, people do not hire real estate companies, they don’t they hire the people, absolutely. Some of them, you know, they like and they trust to hire their friends and the family. And, you know, so we just really focus on educating our agents on a year, the brand and B, it is your responsibility, your job, it’s the lifeblood of your company, to be focused on those relationships, and be purposeful on them. So that’s, that’s what we work on. That’s what I’m very passionate about. And, and that’s what you when you say, I’m going to office office, that’s what I’m doing in group sessions, and we can we can sessions and or, you know, once a quarter like do a random bringing their spouse, night, it’s, it’s all about here is your business. Here’s the platform we built, we have it on here for you. Now, this is a roadmap that you could actually follow. And and be you know, you know, be focused on building these relationships. And I even go so much to the levels like don’t call these people and ask him for
D.J. Paris 17:57
Oh, absolutely, yes. I could not agree more. Right. And
Ryan D’Aprile 18:01
there’s so many different coaches and trainers out there. And, and I’m not saying you know, I they’re all good, you know, find what works for you. Sure. Mine is, is that, um, I don’t want to cheapen the relationship, when I call you and check in. How are you? How’s How’s you know? How’s the dog? How’s the kid? How, how’s your how’s your job coming along? haven’t talked in a while hope you’ve been doing well, and that’s it, I’m gonna keep it relationship,
D.J. Paris 18:25
right? I’ve always just just interject, I’ve always thought like my insurance agent, who has been my insurance agent for, I don’t know, 15 years, I’ve never met her. There’s no need for me to meet her. She’s very nice. Alright, I think I talked to her once on the phone. But every year at the holiday season in December, she sends me a like, Happy Holidays card, which is fine, whatever, she sends it to 2000 other people that are her clients, I’m you know, not the only one. And it’s fine. It’s better than nothing, I guess. But I always thought what if it was just a random Thursday, and I got a card from her that said, hey, it’s just random Thursday, you’ve been with me 15 years. I just wanted to say I really appreciate it like little handwritten note. And that’s just a really small example. And it’s not even really a super personal or, or deep way to communicate with me. But it would mean about 1000 times more to me than the holiday card that that I received seven other people who I do business with to write and again, you know, there’s a lot of different
Ryan D’Aprile 19:25
Well, there is and I mean, that’s a great, you know, contrast to bring up because it’s the insurance business right and our business is going through so many changes and I think it’s responsible of the broker owner, the coach whoever it to help agents stay focused and keep the blinders on because there’s a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of changes going on. But you have like the insurance business that you just brought up, that’s a commodity and there are big private equity, big money coming into this thinking. You don’t need a real estate agent and until you become a real estate agent and you go through the the transact Trying to understand is probably 90% emotional, and 10% logical and realize no, you that human element is what they need. And that’s what we do. And you know, you better be friends, you better have flow, you better know these individuals, because when they go to that they feel vulnerable. And they’re gonna want to reach out when I need life insurance. Or if I need, you know, insurance for my car, my house, I want to bundle it, whatever. I’ve had the same one for 15 years to write. It’s but it’s not because of the relationship I have with it’s
D.J. Paris 20:32
just it’s just, you know, or and it’s easy. Yeah.
Ryan D’Aprile 20:35
It’s set up. And I don’t think about it. Me too. versus us house I lived in for 10 years, and I got three girls and I got to be in the school district. And by the way, when things get stressful, I get crazy. So when I get crazy, I need somebody to talk me through shit, because that’s what I’m going to do. And that’s what happens in the real estate industry.
D.J. Paris 20:54
Yeah, I use I’ve said this example before, and I apologize for the listeners who may be hearing it slightly in a different way today. But I think it’d be interesting to get Ryan’s take on this. So why are you I was in the technology field for many, many, many years doing marketing. And I was now 29, I think are 30. And I was still renting. And I just and I was I don’t know, relatively intelligent person. It wasn’t I wasn’t a complete moron. But the truth is, I had no idea how purchasing a home worked and literally did not know really all that much about what a mortgage was, if you were to press me, I really couldn’t talk much about it. I didn’t know what downpayments looked like, I just had never learned on my own. And no one had ever asked me. And ultimately, I figured it out on my own. And by doing so I realized oh, and I had a few friends that were realtors, if they would have come up to me and said, you know, has anyone ever talked to you and explained how a mortgage works? Like, do you have awareness of what that is? And how that works? I would have been like, no, please tell me. But I was too embarrassed to ask myself talking about, you know, emotionally, it was like, I don’t want to admit that I don’t understand that. So I never went anywhere. And as a result I bought probably a year or two later than I could have just because I didn’t know. And he would talk about like relationships is, I think a lot of times Realtors need to understand that not everyone really understands how buying and selling properties work. And you get to be that knowledge source. And
Ryan D’Aprile 22:25
anyway, agents start to take for granted their knowledge, and they start to forget their value that they’re adding. And I think I always try to reinforce the value you’re adding is your emotional intelligence, in addition to your real estate intelligence, and you know, yes, okay, we’re in the business seven days a week, you know, every week in our we’re thinking we’re consumed about real estate, well, if I have a friend who is a corporate attorney, or a dentist or whatnot, I think about real estate all the time, it’s the last thing on their mind. And so I think the biggest challenge in keeping some agents focused and fulfilled and moving forward is to continually reinforce that the consumer, after 20 years of the internet, and you know, 10 years of a smartphone and all the access to technology they have in a in a snap of the finger, they still know the value that we provide, they might not be able to write it out, but they’re still coming to us. And so there’s tremendous value that we provide. But you need to know it more than anybody else. Because you own your own business, and you’re independent contractor. So it’s not like you’re going to come in at nine o’clock, you’re gonna leave at five and you’re another manager, you’re gonna get reviews, you’re gonna get a paycheck every two weeks. So it’s really important to understand your value and your why and why you’re doing this. And that sounds like something you do like once a year, it’s like something you have to do on a consistent basis. And in a group. That’s what we do. We do group and we do community, and we do culture, we focus on our company, because essentially, we look at ourselves as like a gigantic consulting firm brollies, owners of businesses, and everybody says that and I get you know, everybody talks like this now, and, and they say this, but it’s really true. You have to, from a brokerage standpoint, you have to truly understand that you are a consulting firm to, you know, 100 200 300 500 How many business owners out there and provide not only a platform of marketing and technology and service, but also a platform of culture and community to keep them engaged?
D.J. Paris 24:30
Yeah, well, I do. I could not agree more. I am curious, when what you if you have advice, and I certainly am not asking you to give away all of your trade secrets, because if people are, there’s no, that’s That’s true, too. But that being said, just being respectful of your process, what I’m curious about because you do so much direct one to one and in group coaching as well. When you have a brand new broker because we have a lot of people that listen to the show who are brand new or just got their license recently. license, what do you have a couple of key things, you say, Look, you have to go out and do X, Y, and Z with respect to like their network?
Ryan D’Aprile 25:09
So that’s a great question. Um, so I started, I really think I started our company in 2012. So as I told you, I became a full time agent in August of 2004. And I was selling real estate and it happened to be just happened chance 2010 I started coaching a handful agents and I in some are brand new, the business and some are struggling, and I coached him for two years, and got them to where they wanted to be. And that’s in 2012, I, I just I had said to my wife, I said, Hey, I found my purpose, this is what I love, I was selling 30 to $40 million of real estate a year. But when a couple of agents came to me, and I saw over the course of 18, to 24 months, their life’s changed them changing debt that just ignited me to launch and say, Okay, I’m gonna start a real estate company. So it’s 2012, when I started it, in 2013, when I stopped selling, and it wasn’t because we got so big, where I stopped selling is my license, my wife got licensed in 2010. And she started getting coached and trained. And it was in 2013, that she could actually start caring. So here’s my word, you know, but but but my point is, is this in 2012, and 13, when I decided we want to start a real estate company, I realized that the recruiting game was gonna be very hard for me. And this is a recruiting business. And, you know, my agents are inundated with O shirts all day long to get recruited, recruited, recruited. And what I decided is, you know what, I think it’ll take me 18 months to take somebody who’s never been in the business, and train them to be a top producer within 1824 months, I can get that.
D.J. Paris 26:49
And that’s, that’s a very aggressive timeline and an impressive commitment for you to.
Ryan D’Aprile 26:56
Well, and so I have and so as you’re asking me that question, your question was, so that listeners can hear, what do I tell agents, I show graphs, and I have in front of me, I’m looking at, you know, I’m looking at for agents that were not licensed in 2015, and 2014. And by the way, year to date, $17 million of closed residential real estate transaction, by the way, that’s not a team, that’s an individual agent, $7 million, closed year to date, $8 million, another $16 million, year to date, and another person at $10 million. And I show look, they were not licensed in 2015, or 14, and look in 2015 14, they sold two homes, right? They just sold two homes. So here’s this system that we’re going to show you, here’s your dashboard, the biggest thing you have to do is have faith. And here’s a whole, you know, 300 agents of which probably 80% came in organically to the industry through us, getting them a license and teaching them how to do it. Now we have agents coming to us. Not in droves, but we have existing agents coming out saying look it you know, I’ve been doing this for 678 years, and I’m barely hitting the three or $4 million mark, and we’re able to, you know, get them going in a short time period of six months, because it got at least that foundation that basis. But again, going back to the questions you answered is we have all the proof in the pudding. And we have graphs and pie charts that we show people. And even after we show it to them, TJ on their six month, they’re like, oh my god, what am I going to do? This is like not right, this is normal. Look, it’s normal, the struggle is normal, right? She’s close $12 million in the first six months so far. But remember, she did $800,000 in volume her first 10 months. And she thought she was a failure to or you know, are struggling and this wasn’t made for her. Like don’t overestimate you know, what you can do in a year and underestimate what you could do in a decade. You know, there’s a plan there’s a lot of people here that care about you. There is a system we filed and we’ve had so many people that have done it just keep the faith in watch it will work out
D.J. Paris 28:55
yeah and and you know, it’s it’s you’re building a business and a lot of people who when they get their license have never built a business for they don’t under they’ve certainly are not, you know, told in school, hey, it’s probably going to be a couple years before you’re not completely freaked out about your production. And that’s normal and it sucks because nobody wants to be freaked out but every single top producer we’ve interviewed for the show is freaked out in their first year and I don’t mean consistently but they’re just like there’s there’s moments of frustration because let’s you have a bunch of friends lined up ready to buy and sell condos on day one, which nobody does. It’s it’s it’s a process and and and you know, so that’s why I imagine you spend so much time talking about network because you and I both know and of course, everyone who’s listening knows the vast majority of buyers and sellers and investors as well. Go who do we know who’s a realtor who was good? That’s the vast majority of our, you know, the single digit as far as consumers. Choose their realtor through Online lead sources like Zillow, Trulia, etc. It’s like single digit. So the vast majority of everyone else guys, who do we know. And so,
Ryan D’Aprile 30:09
I know I love the statistics, you know, like 98% of all home sellers start their search on internet. So yeah, of course they know. You know, but I mean, in that I don’t want to, you know, poopoo tech like that stuff and say, Oh, I’m some dinosaur living in a kid, you know, I’m not our caveman living in a cave and my, my heads buried in the sand, but no, but it’s, it’s just that technology should complement your business. But it’s not going to replace the human interaction, it’s not going to replace relationship building. And if you’re going to rely so much on technology, you’re you’re going to be really fine in this business. But a very expensive because it’s very expensive. The source channel, you know, and, and then B is very arduous. And it’s very, it’s, I remember, I had this, this agent has such any stories with our family, such a nice guy, but he was foreign, okay, he, he grew up in, he grew up in, in Egypt, and he, and he came over here, and he was one of the kindest guys you’ll ever meet. He said, Brian, there’s like 10 months in the business, I’m gonna get out of the business. And I said, why? And he goes, people just don’t like me, here I go, What are you talking about? And now this man has a family. And he has two kids, and he’s raised his kids here and there, you know, you know, like sugary teens. And, and I just didn’t buy it. Like, there’s no rights people don’t like you, you’re like, the nicest guy in the world. I love you. I’ve known you for 10 months. And he goes on to explain this with a couple of the agents in this company, you’ve given me some leads, there was no shirts, right? And,
D.J. Paris 31:46
of course, they haven’t called you back. They wouldn’t call it wouldn’t call it, they don’t call anybody.
Ryan D’Aprile 31:53
You, it’s it’s strangers. And this is just in. And you know, what he’s thriving? Very well, this day. And, but it’s like one of those things. And even though I talk about and I do, we can coaching sessions and evening coaching sessions, and, and, and and I do videos to our agents and all these other things. Sure, forget about it. Even Even my agents will forget this fact, through Twitter. So you got to repeat Oh, for sure. I’ll
D.J. Paris 32:19
tell you this quick story, because you’ll get a kick out of this. So I had somebody who was interested in looking at our firm, who I don’t, it doesn’t matter where they currently are. But there’s some firm I’m not even sure where and they are I gosh, I probably going to have the numbers wrong. But let’s say they’re three months in the business, maybe six months, and I and they’re struggling. And so they’re sort of looking around to look at other firms to see what would might be a better fit. And I said, Well, just out of curiosity, because I believe the firm that this person has had is a firm that has really good training, you know, like well known as having good training. And he was this gentleman was asking me about the training we have in our firm, and I was telling them and I said, but you’re at a firm that I know has good training. Did you go through it? Yeah, I went through it. And I said, Okay, well, what are you doing? Why? Why do you feel that your current firm isn’t a good fit? And, and he goes, Well, I don’t know. But I said, What are you doing to build your business? And he goes, Well, I’m calling expireds and fizz bows. And I said, Oh, I said, you’re in. You’re doing that now. And he said, Yeah, he goes, and it’s really hard. And I was like, Yeah, that’s really hard. And I just was flabbergasted. I said, did someone at the firm tell you to do that? And he goes, No, no, I thought of it on my own. I was like, that’s probably not a great call. Because if you’re calling somebody and you happen to get somebody on the phone, who doesn’t hang up on you, and they go, you’ve been in the business three months, and you want to sell my, you know, million dollar home, like, that’s a tough sell. So I was like, ah, you know, oh, my gosh, and it’s a hard grind. And I’m not, you know, I mean, look, maybe there’s some people that can pound out two to 300 dials a day, and maybe get lucky once in a while. But oh my goodness, like I said, you just need to go out and meet people face to face every day and say, Oh, I do this. And I’ll stay in touch. And let’s learn about each other. And, you know, it’s not that simple. But gosh, it’s a heck of a lot easier than making calling fizz bows, oh, my God.
Ryan D’Aprile 34:08
Well, this, you know, so you bring up another point, too. And this is something for you know, I think the listeners to all here there’s a there’s a point that we call it, people get into the danger zone. And yet they learned the fundamentals. And they learned the basics. And you know, what, after 1824 months, often they’re doing eight, nine $10 million? And let me tell you, yeah, for sure. Living you know, and especially when you’ve been in business for two years. And then what they’ll do is they’ll get away from the fundamentals. And they have two reactions. One I’m gonna change the external, the environment around me, or two, I’m going to ask for help ask what I’m doing wrong. And then when they do that, you could point out like, look, remember when and it worked. For the bi weekly meetings and you came to the weekend coaching, you don’t have to come every year but you came and look at that and then and then boom within six months are back to where they want to be. And so it’s just a lesson in life. for everybody’s like, You got to look within, you got to really look within and ask, What am I doing? And what do I need to do? To get me to where I want to be? And it’s a big responsibility. But it’s it’s at least control, we should have control over yourself. I don’t have control over any of the external factors. I have control over me. Well, yeah,
D.J. Paris 35:19
and and if at the end of the day, if you look back at your business for the previous year, and you say, Well, gosh, 80% of the people who, who became clients were part of my existing network, then okay, let’s deepen those relationships with my existing network, let’s continually focus on, you know, is you’re saying like looking externally, well, maybe another firm would give me leads, or maybe another firm has better training, or maybe it’s going back to the fundamentals of exceed expectations, make sure you have great relationships, stay in touch with your clients, meeting some new people here and there, build those, you know, your right fundamentals. I mean, it’s the same for me, I’m on the recruiting side. And for me, it’s real simple. It’s like, if I talk, I need to talk to a certain number of brokers every week, and tell them about what we do, etc. And ultimately, that will never change. That is exactly the fundamental, I need to remember that, you know, it’s easy for me to forget that it’s it’s not a lot of fun to always go back to, you know, dribbling the ball up and down the court. But oh, it’s a good idea. come game time to have all that practice. And to never forget that the fundamentals, I love that you’re such a fundamentals guy.
Ryan D’Aprile 36:24
I was with an agent yesterday. And sage has been with me for about six years now one of the original agents and he’s a Top Producing agent, he does a great amount of business. And we had a coaching session, and I hit the Tab and I said, let’s look at this. This is 2014. And I think he had like 26.
D.J. Paris 36:42
And a good year. That’s a good year. Yeah.
Ryan D’Aprile 36:44
Great Year, great year. And he’s had a great year this year, right? And I picked, you know, five randomly, let’s say, last time, we talked to him, right? That was asking me to talk to this person. And even this person looked at me as like Jesus, right? I’m like, Yeah, I know, man. But this is what we have to do. And all you got to do is give him a call, ask them how they been? What’s going on? You know, it just keep the relationship with them. Because if you focus on your past sales, whatever works, it does for all listeners, please hear me. Everybody focuses on their prospects. And they focus on the clients that they have. And they abandon their network, and they abandoned the people that bought from them that year, the previous year, the year before the year before. And that I mean, there’s an easy way of doing this business, I swear to God, it’s so easy. It just be friends with all your past clients and be purchasable and continue to keep the relationship. And then you’ll see that you will attract sales, you will not chase them. It might take it’s like the tortoise and the hare. And like that agent that you were saying calling to cancel and fizz bows, and then agents plopping down when we get on Zillow, and be premiere agents or whatnot, fine. That’s your the hair, your rabbit, wonderful rock and roll, I really have the tortoise approach. I’m going to show you what to do. And you know what if you want if you’re new in the business, keep your day job, you know, keep doing what you’re doing follow this path for 12 to 18 months, and then don’t abandon it. Because if you do it like, again, I’m looking at these two charts, I have two agents here. They have close $17 million $70 million pending and closed year to date. And they were hesitant three years ago, you know, right. And by the way, that’s that’s an agent, right? That’s not a team. And they’re going about it the easy way. And it’s all with
D.J. Paris 38:30
you. You know, it’s funny, too. You’re so right. I was just thinking of a real practical example for listeners. So a lot of times, we’re talking about staying in touch with previous clients, right? They were they bought a home a year ago, they’re not going to buy a home or sell but rather sell and, you know, move for seven years. Okay, well, what about calling them on their anniversary date? Hey, just you know, it’s been a year since you bought this home. How is it working for you? Or did you ever edge? Do you have any problems? How’s everything going? Howard? How’s the family? How are the kids? I was just calling because I was so excited to just realize it’s been a year and I just wanted to say thanks again for choosing me a year ago. Like it can be that simple. And, or it can be Hey, I just found you an apartment and you call the person a month after Hey, it’s been a month. How do you still like the apartment? Is everything going? Okay, great. I just wanted to say I was thinking about you goodbye. Like that sort of thing is huge. No one very few people do it.
Ryan D’Aprile 39:22
Of course, top producers do. Yes. Right. Right. Yeah. Then they then they’re pretty consistent and diligent and they understand the pattern. You know, there’s some outliers there’s some outlier pop top producers out there, they’ll probably tell you 6070 prisoners of their business Sure, the purchase business. But again, you know, if you look at their margins, it’s that’s not you know, it’s not a it’s a low margin business.
D.J. Paris 39:44
And it’s a totally different approach because you’re gonna pound the phones and some people very few people but some people are wired for that. They’re like, I’m gonna call this person 17 times, right until they hang up on me. And you know, that’s but that’s not what most of us as consumers want and you All right now I got well, all right, let’s I have taken up way too much of your time and very valuable time because you’re gonna have to travel around and meet with all your brokers. Let’s talk about since you know, since you have this great company, if there are people listening who are interested in learning more about what you guys offer, what is the best way they should reach out to you?
Ryan D’Aprile 40:22
An agent could reach out to me directly, they can email me they could reach out to any one of our managing brokers, I’m very easy Google me, you can find my cell phone. And you know, I’m very accessible. So if you have any questions, my my thing to what I want people to hear is we have several different platforms we have, we have the ability for brand new agents to the business, we have an ability to bring in teams, we have ability for a top producer to come in, we have so many things besides coaching and training, we have the, you know, these these assistant programs and marketing programs, and we’re agents who are at a whole other level where they can lean on our company to actually do the marketing and that stuff for them. We have so many different platforms for them, but the thing is, is if you are looking for something, you know, just give me a call and we just talk it through, you know, it’s it’s one of those one of those businesses that we hit like you said, you’re on the recruiting side. Sure. And, you know, we haven’t adopted that philosophy just yet. But you know what, it’s probably something we got to think about doing and looking at doing. So you see how unprepared I am for that question you just asked No, no, but myself, I guess.
D.J. Paris 41:30
But here’s the beauty of that answer is that you still have hundreds of agents without a recruiting focus, and every other firm has a massive recruiting focus. So I think that probably speaks to the leadership there. Coming from the top down so So really, what a great answer quite honestly. So anyway, I will I will promote. Ryan, if you’re interested in learning more, go go to a D APR properties.com. I’ll put it put a link to it here in the notes. You can contact Ryan directly or any of any of the really the team members are very easy to get in touch with and learn more about what they offer and I were so grateful to have you on the show because again of how busy we know you are so Hey everyone, this is DJ again. And as you can probably tell the software we use glitch to write as Ryan was saying thank you. So on behalf of Ryan, he wanted to say thank you to everyone who has listened and we will see you on our next episode.
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