Step By Step Guide On How To Make 2020 Your Best Year Ever In Real Estate • Coaching Moments • Ryan D’Aprile

Welcome to the January episode of Coaching Moments with Ryan D’Aprile!

Over the past decade Ryan D’Aprile has personally coached hundreds of real estate agents to top producer status. He has devoted his career to sharing the strategies that have worked for him (and for countless others) to help agents get to the next level. In this episode Ryan provides the disciplines needed to make 2020 your best year ever in real estate. Follow his suggestions and then send him a thank you! 🙂

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast in the country made for real estate agents and brokers by real estate agents and brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host and guide through the show and today we have our monthly episode called coaching moments with Ryan de Abril. Ryan is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff. His strengths are his motivational skills coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and in Wisconsin and Indiana and Michigan, and hundreds and hundreds of brokers deep real properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focusing on business planning, coaching and accountability. If you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need at your current firm. Check out dia real properties visit deep real properties.com welcome Ryan de abril to the show.

Ryan D’Aprile 1:52
Thanks, DJ. How are you doing, buddy?

D.J. Paris 1:54
I’m good happy holidays. And happy new year.

Ryan D’Aprile 1:57
Yeah, New Year’s right around the corner. We’re coming in early next week. And we it’s that time of the year right where everybody starts reflecting on the previous year and coming up with these new year’s resolutions. I think in our last session, I said everyone should treat the end of each quarter. Like, like a new year. I think a lot of people come out of the gates running. But then 10s of fizzle out. And we’re going to come into that time where we make our New Year’s resolutions. We’re ready to rock and roll. You blink your eyes and it’s February 15. And the excitement’s faded. So I think that happens a lot of people. So coming into this, keep this in mind you guys, when you end the first quarter of next year, which will be here before you know it. Think of that last week of March as another new year because I think if you really focus on doing what you need to do each quarter, four quarters in a row, you’re going to continually improve and be more and more satisfied with your career. You know, personally and professionally, I believe so. But yeah, here we are, and you have any plans for the holiday?

D.J. Paris 3:02
Well, I just got back from Florida and got to spend time for unplugged a little bit, which is hard for me to do. I imagine it’s even harder for you. But I unplugged for a few days. And now I’m back. And yeah, I mean, you know, I think so much of we have between your company and the company I work for we have I don’t know, probably about 1000 brokers total. And it seems to me to be that habits are the cornerstone of success, right daily habits, weekly habits, monthly habits, quarterly habits, and just seems to be what wins the game?

Ryan D’Aprile 3:37
It no and it truly is. The the action that is required to get yourself ahead is the actions the tasks are incredibly simple. What’s difficult is people being consistent. And I think what is the issue there is really kind of how people talk to themselves their internal belief systems. You know, we tend to follow up the stories we tell ourselves. And unfortunately for the majority of us, that story is overwhelmingly negative for many different reasons. You know, the information age, social media, everybody’s showing these, you know, these, these, these lifestyles that they live in, but they’re really not true, if it get beyond the app, but what people do, they tend to compare themselves. And it’s just this this snowball effect of negativity then really takes people off track to doing especially if you’re in sales, the simple tasks, which is essentially relationship building activities to grow your business. So yeah, it is habits and you gotta you got to be very conscious and aware of, of your habits and the habits you want to have and put some structure and guideline in place. So you can make it easier for yourself to do these simple tasks that we’ve been talking about this whole this entire pasture and I figured, you know, DJ, why don’t we talk about this past year and some trends that you’ve seen? And I’ve seen, and then we’ll have some coaching moments as well. Great. So what did you see this past year? What did you What did you notice, within your with your, in your marketplace?

D.J. Paris 5:16
One of the things that our brokers and you know, in Illinois, we call everybody broker in other parts of the country, it’s of course, agent. But what our Realtors were reporting to us is that, you know, years and years ago, there was prevailing wisdom that you wanted to keep rooms really sparse because you wanted people to be able to visualize their own stuff inside of the rooms. And, you know, the idea was, you know, keep it really bear and let people sort of dream and visualize as they walk through. And I think that’s shifted a lot. And the rise of staging companies has become, I think, a lot more relevant and popular. And I wonder if that’s largely due to us being on social medias, particularly Instagram, where we just see perfection every single day, every single day, all day long, nothing but perfect food, perfect homes. Perfect. You know, the we look perfect, because you call it you tap on the picture, and it changes all of our wrinkles, and everything just looks perfect. And so I’ve noticed that staging companies seem to be more relevant than ever. I was curious if you saw that as well. Yeah, I’ve been

Ryan D’Aprile 6:20
seeing more and more of that coming along. And I’ve seen a lot of agents getting skill sets, or vendors that they know of, and working with it, to to add value to their sellers homes. I think it’s important, I think there’s so much we do as real estate agents, I think, still today, the number one value that we add to the marketplace is emotional intelligence, because it’s such an emotional transaction. It’s the biggest financial transaction. But I think it’s also the biggest emotional transaction that so many disruptors have tried to come in and change the model of our business. But you know, they’re still losing 10s of millions of hundreds of millions of dollars. And you’re not grasping the fact that this is really a human experience people are going through. But then the next level beyond that is, yeah, it is it’s that staging, or it’s at that touching the house up and moving things around, you know, a number of my agents are incredibly talented, actually using the stuff that is in the home, but just rearranging it. So it’s organized in a different way. And just, you know, moving things around. And so yeah, I’ve seen more and more of that. I see more and more that come but as a real estate professional, and as majority of the listeners here are real estate professionals, I think that’s something to to be aware of. But it’s don’t go down that rabbit hole making that your sole focus, because I think that’s one of the things I’ve noticed with a lot of agents is, is you see a trend or something like a trend that you just mentioned, you know, with the staging, and that coming up in HGTV and everything else. But at the end of the day, we are in a sales function. And you need you need to focus on generating business generating leads, what’s a lead? Somebody wants to buy or sell? Where do you find those people? Well, there’s many different categories. The best category, the best place is your network. And so I still think that 80% of your focus in your activities should be that relationship building activity. And I think the other stuff that comes along and selling a home comes naturally to most of us.

D.J. Paris 8:27
I think I think you’re you’re so right. And I talked about this in a another episode I did recently, where I said make this the year that you demonstrate how much you care about the people in your network, and what that what I thought that looks like and I’m curious to get your opinion, and maybe you could even give us some additional strategies or some additional thoughts around it. But I thought, well, how do you show that you care, you’re to your sphere of influence individually, if you you know, it’s hard to do that if you don’t know much about their lives. And I thought make this the year that you do keep tabs in a in a positive way on what is going on with the people that you do care about your sphere of influence, take notes know about their children know where they work, know what’s going on in their lives by this is a Rhian tip from from a long time ago is follow them on social media check in see where they’re vacationing, what’s you know, what big life events do they have? And this gives you a reason to reach out. And

Ryan D’Aprile 9:26
that’s your Yeah, DJ right? That’s, and for everybody listening here. You guys. That’s your job. That is your job. That’s what you have to do. People hire real estate agents that they know like and trust. You know, it’s cool to be the next Instagram star and have the greatest stories out there. But if you’re not connected with these people, they’re not going to care. They really aren’t. And so social media is a great tool. I say it’s an r&d it’s research your network and develop a relationship with them. That’s what I use it for. I actually don’t think it’s the best advertising tool I’m sure there’s a lot of people just You know, you’re out of your mind. But you know, we’re not selling a commodity, you know, again, it’s a huge emotional transaction. It’s a huge financial transaction, the sales cycle seven years. And what I mean by that sales cycle seven years is that most people live in their home for seven years. So the transaction, you know, is a longer cycle. So you gotta be focused and do make that this year, make that every year actually. And until I see something, you know, for almost 20 years, I’ve been in this business. And I’ve been in this business since the, you know, the dawn of the social media and the Zelos. And still nothing can hold a candle to an agent who has a relationship with their neck network, nothing. So, you know, until something shows me, you know, there’s a lot of trends, there’s a lot of instructors as a huge money out there, then these hedge funds in these publicly traded companies that are willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m not willing to, as a individual real estate agent, I don’t need to follow those trends. I’m going to follow what’s tried and true. And that is really being in connection. In flow with your with your network.

D.J. Paris 11:07
I asked a recently asked to one of the very top top top producers here locally in Chicago, Melanie Julio, what’s the secret of her successes? I think she’s a top 10 out of 46,000. brokers. And I said, if you had to narrow down to one cornerstone activity, what what is it? And she thought about it for a second, and I wasn’t sure that she would even have one because obviously, realtors, everyone listening, you do a million things for your clients. But she’s like TJ, if I had to say one thing, she goes, it almost sounds silly to say this, because of course I do this. But she goes, I don’t think everyone does. She goes I call every single client. Now this is once their client. She says I call every single one of them every single week just to give them an update, whether there’s anything to report or not. And I said, Oh, okay, that’s a pretty simple suggestion. She goes, you’d be shocked that pretty much nobody does that. And that’s, that’s just once they’re a client, right? There’s so much you can do to stay in touch, Like Ryan said, the sales cycle seven years, what are you going to do for the next six years? To demonstrate that you care about your client?

Ryan D’Aprile 12:11
Yeah, and what Melanie said, she said, you said something that just triggered me. She said she shocked by how many people don’t do that. And I want our listeners to hear this, to be in the top 5% to be the top 5% producer in your marketplace. It’s simple. It’s easy. And it’s it’s a choice that you make the other 95% choose not to be in it. I mean, that’s it’s that simple. They make daily choices not to be in it. There is nothing that is complicated, difficult. In fact, most people are overthinking this. And like Melanie said, I mean, what a common sense, you know, approach call your clients once a week. Yeah, right? Of course. Right? Right. In Melanie’s brilliant for saying that, right. I’m just I’m talking to the 95% who don’t like this is what you have to do. You’re in a service business, you’re in a customer service business. And either the you know, and even if it’s not your customer, your network will if you want them to be your customers and clients, then you have to serve them, you have to have a focus on them and the relationships.

D.J. Paris 13:16
Well, that and that’s once you know, you’re right. And that’s once you get them as a client. But as Ryan, as you just said, look, there’s a sick, you know, six to seven year window of time where they don’t aren’t looking to buy or sell or transact in any way in real estate. That’s the heavy lifting, right? That’s where you need to stay in touch. But then a lot of times, at least brokers here at my firm will say, Well, why do I Why should I? What do I say? What? When should you know? Why would I call them? It’s like, well, that’s when you should know everything about their lives. So it gives you a reason to reach out so that you can consistently show them that you’re paying attention that you care that you’re involved in their life, you’re interested so that when that seven year marker comes due, obviously, they would hope to go to the person who has cared the most for the last seven years.

Ryan D’Aprile 14:02
Right. And so those tools as individuals, right, it’s one thing is they’re going to ask the question, What do I say? And then I say back to them is that is that’s a defense mechanism you’re using to put off doing what you need to do you know what to say, you’re going to find out what to say. And the truth is if you want to have if you want to have more, you have to become more. And you know, any any top person in their field has depth. And you have to have depth and it takes hard work. It takes commitment and you know, born and raised in this amazing country they have we’re programmed for quick and easy. You know, you know, I have a large organization that we built over the past 787 to eight years. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t immediate. And it still isn’t easy today. I mean, it’s Saturday, and I’ve had three appointments this morning, by the way, to those that that might scare you. Do. I’m also a family man, I have a wife, I got three daughters, I coach my kids basketball teams as well, they weren’t in basketball anymore, but I’m with my kids all the time I travel with them. So don’t be afraid of success, either. There’s more than enough time. In the day, I think, you know, in our last podcast, DJ, you know, I said, What does? Like remember the names? But what Warren Buffett? And what’s the Virgin Airlines guy? Richard Branson, right? And Elon Musk, what do they all have in common? 24 hours in the day, we all have 24 hours in a day, a lot of people are afraid of success. Don’t be afraid of success, success will give you more time. It’ll give you more freedom. And it’ll give you the ability to make choices. What you have to embrace is discipline and structure. Because there’s so much time in a day to do all these things and not get out. And the things that we’re talking about the activities, and it’s going to take your business to the next level, I mean, really only takes an hour and a half to two hours a day, and that everybody has an hour and a half to two hours a day. But I want you this year to make a New Year’s resolution is to call yourself out on the excuses. You know, when when you start to make excuses to yourself. So yeah, I had this and yeah, that don’t Don’t, don’t allow that anymore for yourself. Everybody, including myself, we need to stop looking outside, we got to start looking in, we got to look in the mirror. And we have to hold ourselves more accountable to doing the things that we have to do. And again, to be in that top 5%. It’s a choice. And it’s simple to be there. Most people choose not to be there.

D.J. Paris 16:36
Yeah, I think you’re right. And because the the path to success is well trodden, it’s not a secret. It’s a readily accessible hack. Listen to any episode in this entire podcast, and you’ll hear the exact steps to success from top producers. And it is rarely mind blowing and novel and, you know, secretive, it is always usually the same exact message repeated over. And I would say once you develop whatever those daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly activities are to grow your business, most important one, I think being daily, you know, what can you What are repeatable tasks you can do daily, then I think it is so helpful to have an accountability coach, or a partner, or a firm that can hold you accountable. Because in, you know, Ryan and I are similar is is we need that as well in our own lives with with our own businesses. And, you know, we can’t do everything ourselves. So

Ryan D’Aprile 17:33
well, I learned a great thing about time management. And now this is now I’m speaking to the, to the top producing agents, right. And, again, you know, there are a lot of real estate agents making 234 $500 million a year in this business in Chicago. It’s an incredible business, you can make a lot of money doing this business, but you do have to get into time management. I saw somebody the other day, and I can’t recall who it is. But he said, you know, if you’re making $500,000 a year, you’re making 250 bucks an hour. So, you know, I think about myself or a close friend that’s in the business and in this individual set. So if you’re, if you’re mowing your own yard, or if you’re doing your own laundry, and you are actually capable of earning that kind of money to doing those tasks. And so you could pay somebody 20 bucks an hour to do that. You’re costing yourself $230 an hour to do your your yard work, or $230 to do your laundry like look, I love gardening, and I love yard work. So I think that’s a bad example, maybe on a Saturday or Sunday, I need to get out. But I do think coming to doing the laundry and, and even sometimes grocery shopping. And if you are a top producer, one of the most important things is that you maintain that. And so you got to think about the willpower you have and these daily tasks. And I think one thing you should think about in this next year is what at your home, can you outsource. And again, I’m a father of three girls, and if I was outsource housekeeping, with somebody, a housekeeper coming in half to three days a week, you know, my parents, my children are going to look back in their life to say, we were worse parents because somebody else folded our clothes. You know, we’re able to provide a lifestyle for them. Because for us to do the laundry class, my wife $230 An hour uses track what it costs us to pay somebody to come in and keep the house clean. So it’s tangible when you brought that up. It just brought up a good point. And I want to

D.J. Paris 19:39
Well, and I think you oh what Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the most important thing is quality time, right? And that’s what you never want to sacrifice. But it’s funny, I have a friend and she works in a completely unrelated industry. And I want the point I’m about to make here and I’ll make it first so that you guys can understand the context of the story is a lot have times people who are listening go, Well, I can’t, I don’t have an accountability partner, I don’t know anyone or I can’t afford a coach. I’m going to challenge that in. First of all, there’s always people you can meet that, that you can hold each other accountable. But if you want to hire someone you can’t afford, you can’t afford it not have a coach. I agreed, if you’re agreed, I want to share just how inexpensive it can mean. And this isn’t a coach so much as an accountability partner. But this is how inexpensive so I have a friend and he is in a completely unrelated industry. He’s he’s in us, he has a salary job, and he is struggling waking up in the morning. And I know for those of us that have no problem waking up early, and getting to work on time, we sort of know how to somebody struggle. But look, everybody struggles with something. This is what he struggles with once he’s at work. He’s a total superstar, he wins awards. He’s a total great guy, employee, except he just gets to work 10 minutes late, and his boss is about ready to kill them. And so he goes, I cannot afford to lose this job. This I’m screwing myself up in this, but he just can’t do it. So I said, Well, you know, you can hire somebody that will wake you up every morning on the phone. And he was like, What do you mean? I said, Well, you can hire people to do anything. And he found somebody, I think they’re in the Philippines. And they wait, they call him like three times in the morning. And they force you know, sort of forced him to get out of bed. His best all yesterday was answered the phone. So anyway, this, the solution has worked for him. And I have a solution for that. Well, I just want to Yes, and I want to hear that. But this this, what’s amazing is the total cost for this is trusting him $10 A week, $10 a week to save his job. And so my point is, is we live in this gig economy where people are willing to help, like Ryan said, you can have somebody come in to fold your clothes, it might be less expensive than you think. But again, look to see what you would be earning. If you were working or maybe spending time with your family. You know, that’s there’s a cost associated with that if you don’t do it, right.

Ryan D’Aprile 21:51
If you don’t, and I even think of my wife, she’s a Top Producing agent she sells. I think she’ll sold $22 million in real estate this year, right. And these past weeks, she’s just slaving over wrapping the gifts not just for the children, but for her clients and everything else. And we’re, you know, again, none of us are perfect, right? And I’m running it, you know, a million miles an hour, and I heard this person on a podcast is Oh my God, Jesus, that’s brilliant. Why aren’t we hiring somebody to do these gifts for her. So she’s not exhausted at the end of the day. And she could focus on what she did to do another 20 plus million dollars in 2020. So hey, you know, a DJ, I want to shift focuses here, and, you know, and continue to add value to the listeners. Let’s talk about some market trends of what we saw. And I recall last year, also in the first quarter last year, seeing just a drop in activity. Do you recall that? It was I don’t know if we’re going to it was remarkable. I said, oh shit, what’s going on here. And we started seeing a lot of shifts in supply and demand. And in June or July, it was around June or July, I was going over some supply and demand data with you. I figured why don’t we look back at the year and look at where we are right now. And let’s just look at the entire Chicagoland MLS. Let’s look at some of that data. And then let’s look at the city Chicago, and let’s look at the attached and detached market. That’s fine. Okay with you. Okay, so we saw a huge drop in the market in the first quarter. And then activity really picked up. We as a company finished very strong, I believe a lot of other companies did. We’re up almost 20% over last year, our organization and you know, our organization is a little bit unique. Because we’re not such a hardcore recruiting company. We’re in our marketplaces, you see these agents shifting from office to office. As you know, a lot of our agents were not licensed five years ago. So we saw a lot of so what I’m what I’m pointing to is not something about org organization. It’s more about the marketplace. A lot of our agents started with us five years ago. And we seen when we had a an O ship moment in the first quarter, what’s happened in the marketplace, we finished really strong we were up almost 20% over last year. Now looking back, I’m going to look at the ship. Let’s see here, like put my data here. I had it and I just lost it. So let’s look at the entire MLS. And let’s look at the detached. Let’s look at the detached so the single family home market and the entire MLS and let’s look at let’s look at some supply and demand. And this is the you know supply and demand is the cause. And price is the effect. So

D.J. Paris 24:33
and this will be really helpful because we know we do need to recognize patterns and trends and market is cyclical. And I’m really excited to see what is in store for the future with mortgage rates being very reasonable right now. And you’re still we’re now seeing a lot of activity our business as well is up 20 to 30% with our brokers so I’m I’m we’re very we’re very excited and grateful for that. But I’m curious to know what the future is going to bring Um but also to look back and see see what finally we saw that ramp up and you know later last year and it was it was very well received because we were nervous earlier earlier in the year with the slowdown

Ryan D’Aprile 25:12
was so many all. So this is detached in the entire MLS so it’s all Chicagoland area this is the entire time period over two years, inventories up 12% But the good thing is under contracts up 6% And the sold rate is outpacing what’s for sale by 1%. So 13% more single family homes and the entire MLS have sold. So, um, you know, this flies up, but the demand is still there, which is great. So now let’s look at the all MLS price for single family homes. Okay. What we’re seeing in single family home market is in the entire Chicagoland area, the entire MLS. home sellers are asking 11% More in November than they were two years ago. There are, they’re going under contract for two and a half more than our price two years ago, but they’re actually closing for 7% more. So I’m seeing still a healthy, healthy market where we were starting to see a shift in June and July, right, we had a slow first quarter. And then you start to see in half mark halfway mark of 2019, you are seeing a rise in demand and a huge opportunity, a rising supply and a fall in demand. But a lot of markets. Now this is you know, real estate’s hyperlocal. Okay, so this is the entire MLS, but then you zeroed into a lot of markets and a lot of sellers get very savvy and they drop their prices and and what has happened and in relationship that is that they actually homes are selling for more. And this is where it’s hard to convince your sellers. But if you ask less you actually get more versus the other way around. So that’s in the entire MLS let’s see what’s going into the city, Chicago. Okay. Any questions on that? DJ? Does that make sense? So let’s look at the condo market in Chicago. And we’re gonna go into supply and demand. Holy cow. Okay, I wasn’t I didn’t know this information and prepare for this. So in Chicago, in November of 2019 versus November 17. There are 32% More condos for sale than they were were. There’s negative 6% under contract. But there are 4% More that sold now this is supply. So we’re seeing a huge influx of supply. Here. Let’s look at what’s happened with price. So which says there might be some downward pressure on condo prices. Here, let’s pull up. And this is the kind of information to our listeners. Regardless if you’re in Chicago, or you’re in Florida or work California and you’re listening to this podcast, this kind of information, you need to go to your broker and research on your own and find out and have at your fingertips so that when you meet with your clients, you’re you’re educated and you can help them make informed decisions here. So let’s go and look at the condo prices in Chicago. This is the city of Chicago. Now, this is not Chicagoland. So you’re getting a little more local, but I’m really more regional here than local. So people are asking a percent condos are are for sale are being offered 8% More than they were two years ago. They’re under contract for 3.3%. So the trend is following. And they’re selling flat as they were two years ago. So we’re seeing a shift in the kind of market in Chicago. Because does that align with what you’re saying?

D.J. Paris 28:55
Yeah, I guess so. You know, I haven’t really I’m not out there producing so it’s easy for me to to know or not know, or they’re easy for me to not know. But yeah, I mean, we are I am hearing that from our brokers.

Ryan D’Aprile 29:07
Alright, so let’s look what’s going on in the Chicago single family home market. Okay, there is negative point seven. So there’s 1% Less homes for sale than there were two years ago. So there is a downward shift in supply. It’s almost flat, though. And it’s up under contracts of 1.4% and sold up 1%. So the single family home market in the city of Chicago is much healthier than the condo market is. And let’s look at what’s going on with the price then. Chicago detached price. Well, people are asking 18% More than they were two years ago. They’re selling 8% more and they tune it they’re under contract for a percent more in goodness. They’re selling at 11.8% More than they were two years ago. Now here’s the thing. I want all the listeners especially the Chicagoland listeners to understand This is I think in I think in Chicago north, there are like 42 different neighborhoods, in Chicago Association, realtors, North any of Chicago rules, association, realtors, south, this is all Chicago. So you really got to dial this in, this is more of a regional conversation what’s going on. But real estate is hyper local. So this is totally different. I could get in a geographical area of Wicker Park or Ukrainian village or, or Roscoe village and you know, Lakeview or whatnot, I could do all Lakeview I could do Old Town, Linkin Park. And, and, and, and things shift. So there’s a lot of data out there. And there is a great author, and I can’t remember his name, but he wrote the book to Sell Is Human. But he said, Dan Dean, what’s his name to sell to human? Oh, come to me. But it again, your job, your number one focus, if you want to move the needle, and be more successful in this business, you need to focus on relationship building. But then you have to focus and shift over to some skill set building. And this is a skill set that I think really consumers are looking for. And what this is, is being a curator of knowledge. So we live in the information age, this information is at everybody’s fingertips matches mine, your sellers, and your buyers, they have access to it too. They just don’t have time for it. So we have to be the curators, and we have to be able to explain to them what’s going on and help them make decisions, especially if they’re selling their home. And they gotta understand why are selling their home, and always talk to their why. And then say, Hey, here’s the flags that are blown in the wind, this is what direction now you get to make the decision. And I think as real estate professionals, if you are really good, if you’re really good at daily activities and creating relationships, and you spend a few hours a week on your skill set and understanding the data and what’s going on here and there. And then like you said, DJ in the beginning, you know, maybe look at some staging and some other value adds don’t go crazy don’t know, be a master of few, right? Not a master of all because What’s it saying jack of all trades and master of none. Right pick pick one or two things that falls in your wheelhouse, which we like to call your dharma and in make yourself shine by focusing on that skill set activity with the activity that’s going to really move the needle in your business is the relationship building activity.

D.J. Paris 32:29
Yeah, that’s, that’s really I think both are so important. And so if you think about it, from everyone who’s listening might start saying okay, well, how do I do this? Well, maybe you alternate if you’re first of all, you need to have a communication policies, right. So think about all those people in your sphere of influence, who aren’t looking to buy, sell rent, you know, in the immediate future, but you want to stay in touch. So maybe one month, you’re noticing that they went on vacation, and you can contact them and say, Hey, I saw you just had a great vacation more of a human connection, more of, uh, shows that you’re paying attention to their lives. But then you know, that’s right. And so that’s really just some of what you need to provide, you need to also have a skill set about your, your career, your your industry, so that you can provide additional value. So that’s another reason to contact Hey, I just saw that you guys are in Wicker Park right now homes or condos are selling for 11% more than they were two years ago. I don’t know if that’s of interest to you. I don’t know if you guys are thinking of moving but I just wanted to share that with you. So you were in the loop on what’s going on in your in your neighborhood. That’s a tremendous value add that, again, all your competition is not doing. But these are the people that want to work with you, they like you. But they also want to be reminded from time to time that you do have this skill set that you are good at your job. And Ryan looked up that data and all of 20 seconds, right? This isn’t hard to find. But you need to be able to provide this to be able to I got a postcard recently in the mail from Michael. Michael Rosenberg. And it was he has sold more condos in my building than any other realtor. The reason I know that he put it on the postcard, which I thought was very smart. And then not just that, then on the backside, it had all of the current condos for sale in my building. It had the mons who have recently closed in the last 90 days. And I could easily see. I mean, think about how much value there was in just that postcard. I now know what’s going on in my building. I now know who sells the most. And and I know Michael personally is a wonderful guy. But I just thought well, boy, that was a great postcard. Right? So you have to think about how do you continually add value? How do you how do you get that sort of information out to your to your sphere of influence, right?

Ryan D’Aprile 34:41
And I think you know, to wrap this up, you know, for all the listeners out there is you know, we’re going to come in next week. It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re going to have a new year and when you guys listen, this is probably gonna be the first week of January whatnot. Now as you know, now’s the time, you know, to start to organize your business and to focus and and first thing you do is you got to believe in yourself, you got to understand how powerful you are as an individual, and that you have a network or that you can create one over the course of a year and a lifetime moving forward, you got to believe that if you create relationships in your network, everything else will fall into place. Because it will and opportunities will just unfold. So it’s really the belief that you have in yourself that you need to focus on daily, I believe in you, but that’s not enough. You need to, and that’s where it really starts, it doesn’t matter what I think, or your spouse thinks your parents are, or your friends, it’s what you think. And it’s what you think about yourself. Everybody else is So, you know, really wrapped up and you know, what, you know, self doubt, anxiety, self loathing, we’re all so wrapped up in ourselves. So just focus on that, like, how do I make that belief positive, so that I could do the simple things that I have to do day in and day out? That can really change this year, which that can be the catalyst to change in my life. Absolutely. And,

D.J. Paris 36:07
you know, if you just focus on how do I demonstrate to the people who, who liked me the best, and who I like the best, my sphere of influence? How do I demonstrate that I care? And you break that up into several categories? One is a personal connection, right? Do you know what’s going on in their world their life? Can you celebrate with them and be there for them when they’re struggling? And then also, how do you demonstrate that you have a skill set about real estate because as Ryan said, they have access to the status, Zillow is available to everyone, and everyone’s going there anyway. But do they have the time to really drill down into the data? And I would say, you know, look, every time I’ve ever had to refinance, my mortgage lender at the time, never called me and said, hey, it’s a good time to refinance, I had to get that information. And maybe there’s a reason maybe they’re not incentivized to do that. But boy, as a realtor, that’s a great reason to pick up the phone, it’s a great reason to let them know that homes are selling for more or less, or now’s a good time to buy. And just making sure that they know that you have that skill set in addition to also caring about them as as individuals. And you can do this daily, right? This this is not a massive undertaking, right? This, you know, your your sphere of influence is what 300 people on average, somewhere around there, you know, break that up.

Ryan D’Aprile 37:24
And I’ve got I’ve got several agents that have less than 250 people in their database, and they do over $10 million annually. That’s, it’s less is more people. Yes. You just go deep.

D.J. Paris 37:37
And the only way to go deepest, do consistent action. So every day have a certain number of people that you in your database that you are contacting and demonstrating value to right this is goes back to that old Brian Buffini thing is how do I win the day. And of course, you have to work with your existing clients and your that’s going to be the bulk of your day, then you’re going to but don’t forget the the building relationship part as well. So the exhausting part of the day is dealing with clients stuff. But remember, how do I add value to the people who aren’t yet my clients are in between sales. And I want to make sure they are always remembering that I care about them. And if you just have, you know, put them on a schedule, and every month they’re being contacted, or whatever your schedule is have something to talk to them about

Ryan D’Aprile 38:23
it. And I’ll break it up for you guys here. And I think maybe DJ we wrap on this, I think it’ll be a strong one for everybody to to make a plan for next year. Okay, let’s say you have 250 people in your database. And let’s say your business is plugging along and you’re happy where it is and you want to maintain it, then I think you really should connect with everybody wants a quarter meaningfully, right. And I call them asking for a referral. And I call them asking if you know anybody wants to buy or sell, you’re gonna call them send them a text message, write a handwritten note, send them a Facebook or LinkedIn message, commenting on something you saw was just thinking about them. Now, if you have 250 people on your network, and your dashboard was what we call here, if you have 250 people in your CRM, your dashboard. That’s that and you work Monday through Friday, take Saturday and Sunday off. It’s for context that day. That’s less than 30 minutes of work. Come on. Now. We all can do this, right? So I say Come on, like, really make it a mission to do that. Now, if you want to get your level and you’re not at $10 million a year, and you want to be at $10 million a year. Great. Then do it once a month do for 12 months in a row. Now remember, you have to have an automated marketing plan. That’s a whole other conversation. You know, your network should get direct mail from you. Every other week, they should get an email marketing from you on a monthly basis. You should have some type of digital presence and they should really forget about it because that’s just branding. The work is the relationship building. But if you’re not at the $10 million mark and you want to get there, okay then there are 20 working days in the month. There’s 20 So if you take the 250 People need divided by 20. That’s 12 contacts a day, again, 12 contacts a day. And let’s just say it takes 10 minutes to do a contact to send somebody a Facebook message or a text message. Forget email, email is the worst, okay? It’s really, it’s meant to be personal. It’s to be a call, a text message, a handwritten note, or a direct message via LinkedIn, or whatnot. It’s two hours, it’s 125 minutes a day for five days a week. You know, we have two hours to do things subconsciously, running errands, taking dry cleaning in and out, why don’t we spend those two hours on an activity that’s going to really move the needle for you so, so think about where you are, reflect on 2019? Hopefully, everybody had a wonderful 19. And if you want to maintain your business, stay in flow with everybody wants a quarter. And if you’re looking to have a breakthrough year, do it once a month, make this year a commitment, break it down? Each quarter, see how you do reflect in the last week of March? How did you do in first quarter, but guess what? If you botch it, and you didn’t do it, that’s okay. You get the second quarter start all over and do it again, spend two hours a day contacting those? What is it 14 People 200 divided by 12, not 20 was 12 people a day to be in contact everybody in network once a month, you will guarantee guarantee authors.

D.J. Paris 41:25
I mean, and let’s not gloss over that word guarantee. Ryan’s not using that word lightly. That is absolutely the truth. So you know what, here’s one simple thing we do.

Ryan D’Aprile 41:35
I’ve never had anybody that I’ve coached follow the system not have success. I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve coached, that have not been successful. But that comes from the belief system themselves, and then not doing the activities after they leave, or they follow a trend or they do this and do that. But quite honestly, anybody who has came and followed this path has had total success in a short time period in three years. Now I’ve worked people for two years, and it’s take them two years to get on board. That’s a whole different conversation. But the ones who get on board that buy into this, it takes two to three years to have to be in that like, top 20% in Chicago. So I’m 12 $15 million real estate here, it’s guaranteed to happen.

D.J. Paris 42:19
What we need to have your your wife on here, one of these days, I’d love to hear her perspective on what it’s like to not only raise 333 daughters, but also produce an incredible amount of production, or produce a number of sales per year, I’d love to have her on one of these days, too.

Ryan D’Aprile 42:36
Yeah, I have a lot of agents that that actually do that a lot of a lot a lot of mothers and fathers in our company that are doing the kind of production my wife is doing. And you just let me know and I happily have them come on in and we can do

D.J. Paris 42:48
a q&a that would be that would be great. And a really a great place to to also mention Ryan’s company is always looking for brokers who are wanting to be coached, or wanting to go to that next level. And this is exactly the kind of service they provide. They have eight coaches, there’s 14 offices, and they work they really do work individually with every single agent to help get them to where that agent wants to go. Um, Ryan, if there are realtors out there that are looking for a new home, maybe they’re not getting the attention that they need or deserve. And they want to, you know, work for a company like yours, what’s the best way that they should reach out?

Ryan D’Aprile 43:25
Sure, yeah. So to go back with what you’re saying is, you know, everybody needs to have a coach. And if you don’t want to pay for the coach, we have a traditional brokerage that we run 13 offices, we’re approaching 500 agents. And every one of our coaches meets with our agents on a weekly, bi weekly or monthly basis on the schedule that the agent and the coach work out together. And it’s included essentially in as who we are as a company. And then we actually do your marketing for you a lot of things that I’ve realized is that I’ve coached and I’ve preached agents to do their monthly marketing, we have shifted, and we’ve just taken another hands and we’re just doing it for them. You take those two, those two elements, you put them together, you have a great formula. And if you want to explore it, you know you could reach out to me or any one of our managing brokers, you go to our website, reach out to one of our major brokers or you just pick up the phone and give me a call three one to 5906416 we’re local, we’re here in Chicago, we’re throughout the suburbs, and except time to meet with you and one of our coaches and just do a consultation, see where you are and see where you want to go. And

D.J. Paris 44:34
and also go to do real properties.com You know, don’t worry about trying to spell that because it is in the notes of the episode here. So if you’re listening on an app, just go to the notes on deep real properties.com And we’ll of course link to there and were so gracious and by the way. If you’re here in Chicago, you know in there are a great option. If you’re looking for a new firm. If you’re not here in Chicago, maybe they’ll expand tend to your neck of the woods. But there are companies like Ryan’s probably in your own area. But reach out, you know, you deserve a managing broker in a firm that is able to provide you with that, that help because we all need help. And we can’t all do it ourselves and Ryan, and I have coaches and we need help. So you probably could use some help as well. So look for someone in your neck of the woods that is able to provide that support. Ryan, thank you, once again, we had a great 2019 as a podcast, your episodes are so popular and so well received. We’re so grateful again, for you spending the time that I know is not easy for you to carve out for. So very much appreciated. And for everyone who’s listening, please tell a friend we have actually I was telling Ryan just before we started, we’ve actually doubled our number of downloads from last December through this December, which we’re super grateful for and that’s all because of you the listeners. So make sure to tell a friend if you have any other realtors or anyone else in his service or sales related industry that could benefit from this information doesn’t have to be realtors, but especially Realtors let them know that this podcast exists, help spread our message so we can continue to provide this content for you on a regular basis. And we really appreciate it. So Happy Holidays, Ryan, to you and your family. And also thank you thank you for all of your hard work with our podcast this year. Thank you for the listeners for continuing to support our show and telling a friend and beyond. I guess what that will end with a Happy New Year message and we’ll see everyone in 2020

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