Debbi DiMaggio an author, real estate leader and a coach talks about her experience in real estate business. Debbi explains the importance of being an real estate agent and how she loves working with new people. Debbi talks about her coaching program – Foundation for Success. Last Debbi emphasizes the importance of being present and why meeting people in person is the only way to get the real information about clients.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Debbi DiMaggio can be reached at (510) 414-6777 and debbi.dimaggio@corcorangroup.com.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Today we’re talking to a top real estate coach about what you can do to finish the year strong. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide, and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer, author and real estate coach Debbie DiMaggio. Before we get to Debbie. Just a couple of quick reminders. Please, as always support our sponsors. You hear them at the beginning of the show. And then halfway through the interview. Let them know how much you love them because they help support and keep our show rolling. So check out their products and services. We appreciate that. And also tell a friend about this podcast. Think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing our interviews with top producers and send them a link. You can send them a link to whatever podcast app you might be listening to. Or you can send them right to our website, keeping it real pod.com Where every single episode can be streamed right from a browser. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Debbie Demacia.
Today on the show, our guest is Debbie Demacia with Corcoran in San Francisco and LA she’s also leader of the DiMaggio betta group. She’s been practicing real estate for a long time. Also as an author, a coach. Let me tell you more about Daddy. Now who is a top one and a half. Sorry, one and a half. I’m going to start that one over. Debbie DiMaggio is a top 1.5% producer of all agents nationwide. I wanted to make sure I got that right because that is a truly impressive statistic. She has been an author four times over she is a mother of two a wife and a philanthropist. Her love of meeting people travel design and experiencing new cultures has driven her success in real estate and beyond. Debbie aspires to inspire by living her purpose and passion is committed to helping her clients through their first second or third transaction or when mentoring others on their own paths to greatness. She’s also a full time realtor and a partner in a real estate firm Corcoran icon properties and the marketing director and coach for the company’s ad agents. Debbie loves helping others achieve their dreams whether your clients or other agents helping expand her business into coaching she coaches agents, Debbie also will guide you towards achieving your goals while holding yourself accountable, keeping you on track, which is easier said than done. And as I’m thinking about this out loud and reading Debbie’s bio, I can’t think of too many real estate coaches who have been practicing for 35 years on top of coaching. That is really a huge asset. So please welcome Oh, and let’s do let’s get Debbie’s tagline. First follow your passion, live your purpose. I want to give a plug for Debbie’s books before she comes on. By the way we will have links to all of her books. In the show notes. You can find them anywhere books are sold Amazon in particular, but her books are called The Art of real estate. Real estate rules 52 ways to achieve success in real estate contained beauty and during COVID She wrote beauty at any age because age is just an attitude. Follow Debbie at her website, Debbie and that’s D BB I know II Debbie DiMaggio di MAGG io.org Debbie dimaggio.org We will have a link to that in the show notes. Also follow her on Instagram at Debbie Demacia will have a link to that too. Debbie, welcome to the show.
Debbi Dimaggio 5:00
Thank you. Wow, what an introduction. Thank you so much. Well,
D.J. Paris 5:04
you have done a lot in your career, and there’s a lot to celebrate there and our audience, I hope they’re impressed because I’m impressed. And I talk to top producers almost every day on this show. And I get so excited when I get to talk to somebody like you, who’s not only a successful agent, but also a successful business owner, mentor, author. And now coach. So I am I’m a huge fan of that. I think they are no and a mother and I taught them and it’s that expression, if you want something done, give it to a busy mom, right? They just get things done. So you’ve gotten a lot done in your career. And now your son is working with you on the team, which is really cool. I think that is really, really neat. But I would like to go all the way back to the beginning of your career because people like to hear the origin story. Where did you come from? How did you get into real estate? Why real estate? So can you walk us through sort of how that happened?
Debbi Dimaggio 5:59
I can so when I was growing up. People always ask you what do you want to do when you grew up? I had no idea what I wanted to do. I figured one day it would hit me. The only thing I knew I did not want to do was real estate. It my dad was he used to buy and sell he was always on the phone. He was managing his investors very different. I’m a residential sales for over 35 years. And he was it was real estate. Nonetheless, he was on the phone, there was no cell phones at that time, he was always tethered to his phone, he was always working. I didn’t like know that we couldn’t go on proper vacations because he always had it in the works. So I so for as long as I can remember until I was probably 27 when it when I finally started real estate. The only thing I didn’t want to do all my life was real estate. And then I realized when I was working for other people, I worked in magazines and did some different things. Some days, I’d have a job for a week, a day, two weeks, I said this isn’t for me. I know there’s something out there. And that’s why I talk about people living their passion is so important. I kept trying and thankfully I have parents who allowed me to continue to try. And it just I realized I can’t have a boss, I don’t want someone telling me what to do. I like to work really hard. And I don’t want to work really hard and not be compensated for that. So it all kind of populated into real estate, which started out in rent tools in San Francisco. And a friend of mine, Adam and my partner said Debbie would rentals and this is the time before Craig’s List 19. It was 1990 390-490-1990 1990. About there was We’re in San Francisco, there, there was no Craigslist. So you would as a rental agent, you’d call on owners, property managers in San Francisco, these big gorgeous buildings. So you call to get a listing, like one building might have you know, 20 listings, and you continue to call and then you would work with people to get them into rentals. And it was so lucrative and I loved it. But I will tell you when I was 25. And this is where my coaching when I go back and how I’ve written my coaching programs. When I was 25, I was so lost, I was living in LA I loved LA but I wasn’t liking what I was doing. My fiancee at the time says get get your real estate license, which I did, but I hated being home. So I was super depressed. And I wrote out what I like what I like to do, I didn’t know what it was. I said I love working with people. I love meeting new people. I love helping people. I love doing something different every day. I don’t want to be tethered to a desk and I like a beginning, a middle and an end. And so that translate a couple of years later into this call of a friend’s and Debbie should get into rentals with me. And real estate has a middle a beginning, a middle and an end. And I get to meet people all the time. of all different nationalities of all different backgrounds because I’m from a little town called Piedmont California. We’re near Oakland and near Berkeley and it’s only 10,000 people and 4000 home. So I grew up there we raised our kids there. My parents still live there. So when I say meeting other people I get so excited. As soon as someone walks through the open house. I’m like, Oh, where are you from? You know, you know, they’ll say where they’re from now or no or where did you grow up and there’s always some crazy long story and I’m like, I’m from Piedmont. I grew up in Piedmont, I went to Cal and anyway, so that’s kind of where the tip of the iceberg where it started. And I’ve been doing practicing real estate for over 35 years and I still love it and I still get to meet new people every day.
D.J. Paris 9:50
It’s an incredible story. As as a coach, I think it would be fun to kind of dive right in to what’s going on today and and obviously San Francisco has a unique market as well, that isn’t always tracking the same as as other other markets here in the country. But I suspect it’s happening in San Francisco too. Of course, you’re dealing with, with inventory issues. I mean, San Francisco always has inventory issues. That’s part of the charm of it. But it also makes it incredibly challenging for people to build careers there. But, you know, you you mentor agents, you coach agents, you’ve written books, helping agents, what would what are you telling your clients agents right now? Who are, you know, struggling a bit, maybe they’re not getting as many listings, you know, there’s not as many buyers flooding the market? What are you telling them to do now, just to sort of stay engaged and busy? Yeah,
Debbi Dimaggio 10:49
sure. So that kind of taps into my coaching program called foundation for success. And it’s, it’s back to it’s just basic things. Okay. First of all, you can’t sit at home, you know, waiting for your phone to ring, you’ve got to be out there engaging and connecting. So you. So the first thing I said, we hire a new agent, I say, you have to be in the office sitting next to Adam Adams very structured, he likes to be behind his desk, he’s there, that’s where he works for me. I’m up in our loft at our house right now I’ll be in the car working, I’ll pull over and work, I’ll be, you know, checking on one of our properties that we’re preparing for market, I’ll just stand outside, I’ll be on the phone. So with the new agents, I sit down in front of Adam, Adam will be talking to ad agents over the time people call him with issues and problems you can hear how he is speaking, and what kinds of problems arise, you will never know until you hear it. And there’s always different kinds of issues that come up. But when you’re sitting there and listening to him. So that’s the first thing be in be present. The other thing is, so when you’re there, and an agent like myself, we carry a lot of listings, we’re very busy, Adam, and I chase very grateful for that. But if you’re there, and I see you’re there, and I get a client, a buyer that for one of my listings, and I don’t want to write it and maybe Adams writing for another person, I’ll say, hey, Dre, I you know, do you want this buyer? I mean, because they’re They’re so mean being present, that is my number one be present. The years
D.J. Paris 12:28
before, I’m sorry, Debbie, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it’s so funny. I, before I started this podcast, I’m from a little, not a little town, but a smaller town in Illinois called Peoria. And I interviewed somebody who was like the seventh best realtor there just because he was a friend of a friend, because that’s where I grew up. And so this is all before I had the show, and actually was the impetus for this building the show. And I said to him, Brian is his name. I said, Hey, Brian, why is it that out of the 1000? Realtors in the area? Why or why do you think you’re number seven? He goes, Well, I’m not smarter than than anybody, are everybody. And I’m certainly not more skilled than everybody. But he goes, I show up on time to the office. And he goes, he goes, he goes, you’d be shocked the people that produce. And this is a long time ago, and not everyone works in an office anymore. But But if he would say the people that produce her, they’re like, eight or 9am. And they start working, and they actually start doing things. And I go well, yeah, there’s more to it than that. He was not really you guys. It’s a lot about showing up and just doing the work. And I I know, that’s not always the most exciting thing to do here. But it is the truth. Right? So that’s the
Debbi Dimaggio 13:39
thing that there’s no science to it. You know, you don’t have to be super smart. You have to be show up, be present, be kind, communicate. I mean, I just did a deal with an agent. He said, Debbie, do you know I’m new? And I said, No. I said, I want to commend you. I know, you have been so communicative. It’s been amazing. We had a few little things, but because we you know, we jumped off of a text off of an email, how to voice to voice conversation, we knew what was happening. We knew the insurance was a problem, you know, with all our fires here in California, so but we talked through it so we you know, we and I said you come to the office, I want to hire you. I mean, he was so good. And there are so many agents who have been around and are not communicative, communicative. And it’s a it’s a bummer because it affects the deal. It affects how you’re feeling. I mean, yes, you’re always stressed with your seller, your buyer because they’re going through a big transition. So we’re supposed to advocate for them and we’re supposed to like, make it work and if you can’t get a hold of someone, it’s so aggravating it’s so it’s, that’s also very important. You have to communicate, it’s I can’t even tell you how important
D.J. Paris 14:59
you No, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I was just thinking, as you were talking about the texting versus talking, I was thinking, Well, why is it that texting isn’t as effective to deal with frustrations and stuff? It’s because I don’t know why necessarily. But on text, you don’t get to discharge that stress as easily, right? If you get a sort of a message that maybe is a bump in the road in a transaction, or the other side is doing something weird, and you’re like, God, you get all frustrated. And as you said, Hey, let’s chat on the phone. Maybe we can work this out. And you’re able to work with another human and actually talk about the frustrations. That doesn’t translate as well on tech. So I think you’re so right, that moving away from texting, you know, even just with the the co op broker, the other agent on the other side, you know, get on the phone with them talk about what’s happening. Just
Debbi Dimaggio 15:49
I’ll give you an example of this. Okay, first of all, you need to know, you really need to know who you’re dealing with. Culturally, we’re all different. I’m 100%. Different people have different backgrounds, it’s like, then you know where they’re coming from, right? You have to know who the person is. So you can you understand, so it’s not like a bad thing. It’s just that you know, where they’re coming from, what their upbringing is how they might react. So that’s number one. So we were doing a transaction and the buyer, this girl, she had just come out of a divorce. She had bought homes before. But her but her in the Oakland area, her father lived in LA, completely different markets, Northern and Southern California, completely different. So once said that the agent I was working with wouldn’t get on the phone wouldn’t get on the phone. So I didn’t want to be mean, but I called her broker who was a friend of mine. And I said, Hey, Vanessa, I just, you know, it’s not an issue. I just if I can communicate with her on the we would understand what’s happening. So when the agent finally coming back, she explained her father’s in LA, he’s dictating from behind. He’s trying to protect her. I said, Okay, I get it. I go, I totally get it. I was in LA at the time, we were doing the deal in Oakland, and I was in LA on the phone with her. I remember I remember everywhere I was when I’m talking on the phone, I’m walking down Melrose Place from Alfred’s anyway, I said, Okay, that makes a ton of sense. In LA, they negotiate up in Northern California, we get all the disclosures ahead of time, the home inspection, the roof inspection, as the listing agent, we have everything. So when we present it, they know what they’re buying, well in LA, you go into contract, and then the buyer does all that. And then they renegotiate. So long in the short of it once I understood where they were coming from, we were able to move through it. But you can’t talk about that on a text.
D.J. Paris 17:49
Right? It’s yeah, there’s too much context. There’s too much nuance. And, and yeah, and there is, you know, it’s how we, it’s how we connect to other people is through face to face or voice to voice communication. And, and a lot of problems get resolved as well, just because two people are wanting to work together to get this deal closed. And so yeah, exactly. That’s so that’s, that’s a great tip. Oh, where else do you see agents struggling today? Like, as far as staying busy staying active, obviously showing up you mentioned, you know, being being communicative? What are some things that agents can do today to make sure they’re staying top of mind in their sphere? So when their sphere is ready to move, obviously, they hopefully choose them? Well,
Debbi Dimaggio 18:39
let me ask you a question. Where, where do buyers show up? Where do you see buyers?
D.J. Paris 18:49
Yeah, so where do buyers show up? They show up on Zillow, they show up or digitally, they show up on Zillow, they show up at open houses. Exactly.
Debbi Dimaggio 18:57
Okay, let’s get their open houses. Why as a new agent or an agent looking to build their business because of a slower market? Why aren’t you creating opportunities for yourself? How hard is it to say Debbie, you’ve got three listings. Can I hold it open? On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, so people love to look at houses. So one of our agents Chris Nava, I love this story. New agent. First thing he did before he started with us. His partner bought him our book, The Art of real estate. He had read the book before he came to us. He said, You tell me what to do. I’m gonna do it. He did it in more. He was a flight attendant full time. He would get home like at midnight on a Friday. He would do one of our open houses on Saturday and one on Sunday and he would show property on Saturday. Was he complaining or was he saying I don’t have things to do? He was so busy. I will tell you he is so successful now and he sat right in front of Adam for probably the first five years, I
D.J. Paris 20:02
love that. I love that. And you are so right. I love it when I hear. And I don’t hear it as much anymore. But But years ago, I would hear things like open houses don’t work anymore. And I’m like, Well, everyone I ever interview on The Show says they still work. And what else are you doing? It’s such a great opportunity to just learn how to talk to people about real estate, if nothing else, talk to buyers, you know, and learning how to present a property. And so for anyone listening who is like, I don’t have any listings, what you do is you ingratiate yourself with some of the top producers in your office like Debbie, and he called Debbie, please, please, please, please, can I do this? And if you you know, show enough initiative, Debbie’s gonna be like, sure that makes Debbie look good to the seller as well. It also is it’s a win for Debbie. And it’s a win for you. And you get some leads out of it, too. Yeah.
Debbi Dimaggio 20:50
And you and you. So not only are you meeting potential buyers, you’re meeting people who are just looking because they like everyone loves design. So they might just be in there. And then it might occur to them. Wow, that person was so nice to me. I’m not moving. But I know someone who would really benefit by Debbie service. And then you have the other one sellers. You’re in there. Meeting sellers, one of our agents was doing an open house, she ended up losing the listing because the woman wasn’t she was not her price point was what she wanted too much. But she also wanted to give it to her new son law. So but she lost it after being on the market. But she ended up meeting a seller and now she’s listing another home, if she didn’t give herself the opportunity for people to meet her. And she’s not a Piedmont agent. So there’s no way they would have found her if she wasn’t sitting at her open house.
D.J. Paris 21:46
It’s incredible. i i We have about 800 agents here at our firm, and I could not bang the drum harder, saying please ask another agent to sit in open house in an area that you want to specialize in. And and you know, they might not be able to say yes, it just kind of depends on the seller, obviously. But most cases, they will say yes. If you’re exposed,
Debbi Dimaggio 22:09
I mean, you want to expose your home to potential people. The other thing is if when homes, there’s right now in our market, some homes are selling in multiple offers still, and others are taking some time. So we had a house that took a long time to sell. And we had it open. Every weekend, we not only gave opportunity to other agents in our office, because we’re partners, we are partners in our firm, we were able to give our agents opportunities, we were able to meet new people, new agents, new people from the community we might not have met before. Now remember, as a realtor, you’re a kind of a little bit like a celebrity people see you because we market ourselves, you know, you’ve got your photo here and there and everywhere. So you have to give those people the opportunity, the public to see you touch you feel you. And if you’re not there, they don’t, you know, they don’t really know how to, you know, sometimes, yes, yes, they’ll pick up the phone sometimes, but it makes it better if they can find a connection with you by meeting you.
D.J. Paris 23:10
Yeah, that is such that is such a great a great tip. It’s, it’s amazing. And by the way, we should mention because I always wait till the end. And then not everyone makes it to the end of every episode. So I’m sort of remiss if I don’t do this now. But by the way, if you are a realtor in either the bay area or working in, in Los Angeles, and you are looking to maybe explore what other teams or other firms have to offer, Debbie, I mean, we were ran through her bio at the beginning, it’s really impressive that they are looking to expand their team. There with Corcoran, they’re awesome. 35 years experience top, you know, one and a half percent producer, Debbie and her team are awesome. So if you have interest, you know, the best place to learn about all things, Debbie is you go to our website, Debbie dimarzio.com or.org, rather, will have a link to that in the show notes. But she is also taking on new agents. Perfect. Thank you. And, and by the way, if you are not in those areas, but you want to be coached by somebody who is a 35 year top producer, I think that’s a pretty good idea. So you can also reach out to Debbie too, so anyone listening could benefit, you know, from reaching out to Debbie and you have lots of other programs as well. And books. So check out all things Debbie at our website. So Debbie, I’m curious to have we talked about open houses sitting open houses as a great idea. Let I would love to talk about marketing because I think the landscape of marketing has shifted. Obviously different age groups require different sort of processes. I grew up you know, on the telephone talking to my friends, that has gone away. Nobody does that anymore. But you ya. So, you know, it’s funny, but people have to be marketed to and sort of ever expanding ways. What are you how are you seeing the most success So are where are you seeing opportunities with marketing? And how are you reaching out to find new clients?
Debbi Dimaggio 25:04
Yeah. So now there’s, there’s all ages, right? You’ve got young people, you’ve got middle, you’ve got older people. So let’s start with the older people, a lot of them aren’t on email to receive a newsletter, they might not. They’re probably probably not on social media a whole lot. So you still have to do some of that postcard marketing. You do have to add that in. Because recently, we did a postcard mailing. We don’t do it often enough. But we did. And someone got that postcard and called me and said, I love the way you marketed that home. So you do have to do that. That’s important too. And maybe you don’t do it quite as every month, maybe you do it every quarter or something. But that’s really important to do postcard marketing. And those older people, I will tell you, they come in with that postcard three of them, they come in, and they’re like, I don’t know who I am. I’m here I got your postcard.
D.J. Paris 26:02
And so do you recommend for postcard marketing to you know, in an area that you’ve just sold? Maybe also, blanket is that sort of how you’re Are you doing it a different way.
Debbi Dimaggio 26:13
So I have two areas that I really liked to mark it that I really networked in from so Piedmont is one of them, where I grew up where our kids grew up. So I really like I’m, it’s my, it’s my area. So I really and I know everything about it. So and I know how to connect people, someone needed to get into a preschool out of made a call got him into the preschool they had tried for years and couldn’t get into the preschool. So we’re really hyper connected. Then we moved up to a little community up the hill, two minutes away, I hilar Highlands. And it’s nice because it’s this pretty this community of six HOAs. And we live overlooks San Francisco Bay. And so it’s like a really nice finite area to market. So we’ve had six on our little teeny Street, we’ve had six listings, and we’ve sold some of them two and three times on our streets, not even in the so it makes it a really defined area. But yes, wherever you are, if you’re you know, you’re in Chicago, and you’re like, I’m going to do the gold market to the Gold Coast, or whatever it is. Or, like, if you’re in an area with high rises like Chicago, you know, do one whole building like really try to take advantage of that. So yeah, so postcard marketing, newsletters, through E blast is important, you know, you will get some unsubscribes and I’m sensitive, so it hurts my feelings. But it’s important because then other people will be like, Oh my God, thank you or I missed the last one, who was the dog walker you recommended. So I’m trying to make it I’m really into marketing. And I’m the marketing director as well of our ad agents. So I’m very, like font sensitive, I can’t even watch TV without noticing fonts, I can see your font in the back keeping real podcasts. I mean, I just noticed things like that. Right now I’m working with someone to do a new newsletter with not as detailed because my other ones tended to be too long. So trying to condense it and just make it you know, very clean and fun. So newsletters are very important because people do get those and they do like some of the information. Don’t make it too long. You know, handwritten notes are super important. So what I literally just started doing at my open houses, I have a little card with Chase and Adam and I and then Corcoran on the back and my contact information. So as I was sitting at the open house, I was like, thank you so much, and I don’t put the address, I just thank you so much for stopping by, let me know if you’d like more information on this house or any others in the neighborhood. And then I can send them off with that card. If you know if I instead of giving them my business card, I can give them that and it has a little personal note, but also writing personal notes. Just in general, you know, it could be anything Do you know try to connect with your people past clients, you know, congratulations or it’s been a year Happy Anniversary or there’s a million reasons to you know, send someone a note or I thought you might be interested in this restaurants really fabulous, you know, but just keeping in contact with people. I know I’m talking a lot but you like right now I’m in the midst of putting my top 1000 people and as you go through it you realize God I really do know all these people. But don’t forget it’s not just buyers and sellers or family or friends. It’s the other one my most love ID beloved way to get business. Other agents, any agent listening to this show reach out to me I’d love to pay a 25% referral fee. I love to refer you someone I just wasn’t. I was in the Hamptons. Two weeks ago, referring another Corcoran agent didn’t have to go to make a personal introduction but it’s a friend of mine and she was selling her home. So I went and then I had just met Maula at in Nashville at our conference. We We’re both on the marketing panel. And so I said, I’m coming out, I’m going to introduce you to my friend who’s selling her house in Southampton. So I got to connect them and I’m gonna get a referral V, I got to spend a week in the Hamptons and I got to, you know, really solidify our bond with the agent who I only met briefly when we were in Nashville at our Corcoran conference. So no matter where in the world, a realtor is, I want to know them. Because I, I might have a need to refer someone in Chicago, I can’t even think of an agent I know in Chicago, actually. So
D.J. Paris 30:33
hear that Chicago agents, opportunity knocks, for too many beat because, you know, look, Debbie works in an area that people move into or move out of, I mean, obviously, there’s people that have lived in, in the Bay Area, their whole life as well. But a lot of people aspire to living in New York, San Francisco, you know, places like that. So not everyone’s from there. And sometimes people don’t always stay there. So and obviously, in the tech space, you know, it’s gonna attract a lot of people moving in and out as well. So yeah, great opportunity there to, to really, you know, so for everyone listening, think about where do the people in your community who aren’t born and raised? Where did they come from? Is there some patterns there that we can start to explore? And where did they leave where maybe once they retire? Where did they go, another opportunity to look for some patterns, and then reach out to other agents. You know, if everyone leaves and goes and retires down in South Florida, well, there you go, start making some introductions, start start making start For start, sorry, start meeting people in South Florida, who, you know, who obviously wouldn’t be happy to get to get those referrals, and you get that, you know, 25% referral fee. So, brilliant idea. That that is really something we don’t talk enough about on the show is referrals in that way from other agents. So I appreciate you saying that. So I guess it also playing nice in the sandbox, I want to talk about, we talked about the importance of that. And meaning, when you’re doing a transaction, even if you’re, you know, working against another agent, you are still cooperating or attempting to cooperate to close the Commission, the deal. You know, how important is that?
Debbi Dimaggio 32:14
Well, first of all, change the language you’re not working against you’re working with. So when we go into escrow with an agent on the other side, listing agent, selling agent, you’re working together, it’s not about you, it’s about your clients. So you’re working together and collaboration to make it go through as smoothly as possible for everyone, it’s going to be easier on you. And you know, I mean, we get wrapped into every deal emotionally, you can’t help it because you’re helping someone in their stress. So it’s the agents are there to you know, to work. So you want to make sure you’re communicative, you’re kind now, not only when you’re doing the deal, it’s important. But that’s, of course, one very important, but when you’re up against five other agents, and they know that Debbie and Adam are easy to work with, they communicate, they’re going to get the deal done, do you know how many times we’ve won a deal, or got a counter because they didn’t want to work with so and so they wanted to work with us. So that benefits our client, and then it benefits the agent because she knows that he or she is not going to be suffering with another agent who’s not doesn’t have those qualities.
D.J. Paris 33:27
Yeah, that is that is such an important point is is, you know, really having a reputation of being easy to work with. And you just said it yourself. You know, sometimes highest and best doesn’t win the deal. Because they go oh, that’s a person that is difficult to work with. Maybe it won’t close. I don’t you know, I’ve it again, you want the reputation of Oh, thank God, it’s an offer from daddy. That’s what I that’s what you want to say. Exactly.
Debbi Dimaggio 33:54
And then the other one is, oh, and then just been working with other realtors. So if other realtors in the community, they will call on you do you have something coming up or I have this coming up, you’ll get leads ahead of time saying oh, I’ve got this property coming up for two and a half million. It hasn’t hit the market yet. And you’ll get these calls. I remember one of our agents said well, I want to be like you guys, I want to be the cream of the crop or I get the call from all the other top agents. So it’s it’s it’s a benefit to your clients by just paying a human being and being kind and communicative. And it really pays pays you back because people want to work with you and it helps your clients get the deal.
D.J. Paris 34:44
You said something and it was just a language thing, but I think it’s very impactful. You said something very important. I I mistakenly said when you’re working against an agent, I’m glad you corrected me because you didn’t just say you know working on a deal with somebody you said a very specific phrase, you’re working with another agent. So I thinking about this when I talk to other agents and I go, Oh, have you ever done a deal with so and so we talked about it as I did a deal with so and so. But I very rarely hear somebody say I worked with another agent and working with sort of presupposes that there’s some sort of harmony there, and some sort of Team collaborative effort. And even if it’s just a little language thing, I think that wood is really great way to sort of trick the mind into thinking this is a more, you know, easy relationship and friendly relationship by saying, Oh, I’m currently working with so and so at a different firm to help close this deal. I think language really does impact how we feel about things. Oh,
Debbi Dimaggio 35:42
yeah. I mean, the language and the positivity, I mean, because in your mind is like you’re seeing something go smoothly, as opposed to like, like, if I named an agent that I know is difficult. I’m like, you just go off, it’s going to be so tough, or they’re going to she’s going to come back and renegotiate even though she already signed off. And it’s like, and then you kind of are stuck, and you have to deal with it. Right? So it’s just idea I can’t say enough about just working together. And collaboration is so key. Let me tell you a quick little story and agents, new agents just came to work with us. And, and, and this is just about your intuition and following your gut. So she came in to the office, and she was like, I met this lady the other day. She’s like, 87, and she was so nice. And she’s like, and it’s in, you know, this area, she told me the area, you won’t know it. But anyway, she’s in this area. That’s not so great. She’s like, but she was so nice. And she loved me, you know, we just really hit it off. And she invited me to this event. And I’m like, great, and she’s just really just like so excited. She’s talking about it. And I know because I have an 87 year old friend of Velma. And I call it Driving Miss Velma. And I take her out to lunch and she doesn’t have anyone. And I just I feel so good. Just being with her. She’s leaving to go out of town tomorrow. So when she gets back, we’ll go have lunch. And you know, I’m busy. But I always try to make time for Velma. And I have a good time. And it makes me feel good. And I know it makes her feel good. Sometimes I have her to my open houses just to be around people. Well, anyway, Dre is really excited. She’s sharing the story. And then she says I went home and I told my husband and he said, Why would you want to go out there? Why would you want to do anything out that in that area, I said, Oh my god, I go, I’m gonna cry. I said, stop right there, I don’t need to hear any more. When you were telling me you were lit up, you were so excited. You do not know if she has some other friend who’s going to end up giving you a referral because she’s like talking about how much she loves you and it’s going to be right smack in your neighborhood where you want to sell a house, you have no idea. If the gardener is going to have a referral, you have no idea who is going to have that referral. But that’s not the point. The point is she lit up when you light up and you’re being your authentic self and you’re feeling good. That’s when you start to attract I said it’s not like for like it’s not because if I do this, I’m gonna get this, it’s like because I did this, I just got a listing the other day at the open house because I was so happy and I was radiating and I just attracted that positive energy. So you just do don’t don’t, you know, like for like, it’s just you don’t know where it’s going to come from. That’s how I’ve always done my business. I’ve never, I’ve never like Oh, um, I got this listing, I’m only going to spend $1,000, not $5,000 on the marketing because I don’t, it’s not going to be worth it for this deal. It doesn’t matter when you have a really beautiful listing market the heck out of it, because now you have all those assets for all of your marketing and social media, which we haven’t even touched on and all of that. So you go with your gut and just watching her radiate was just was great. And I knew exactly.
D.J. Paris 38:58
And, you know, we sort of discard older people in in this in our society here. And we don’t give them the attention that that they need or deserve. And a lot of them are lonely and a lot of them are looking for, you know, some companionship and you know, even if nothing else comes of it but you made somebody smile a little bit and feel a little bit less alone. You’re gonna feel better about that, even if it doesn’t translate into a deal. But odds are I know that I would only refer people that I think care about me in any sort of feel like I would only refer my accountant if I thought my accountant really cares about my finances and cares about me. Otherwise, I don’t want to refer my accountant so you can demonstrate care to people and you’re talking about doing exactly that. Let’s talk social media. So tell tell us what how do you approach social media? Yes,
Debbi Dimaggio 39:50
so well. The reason I’m actually here with you today is because I hired Kim as a coach because when we started we started our own firm Highland partners in two 2008 2009 during the recession, people said, don’t you know there’s a recession? And why are you starting a company and we said, because we weren’t, we wouldn’t have an opportunity at another time. So we just trudge through. So I knew nothing about social media and oh, 809 and so I took it upon myself to learn everything. So in the process, it was a lot of hit and misses. So I created lots of different accounts and was practicing and so I have too many. And then with my Instagram, I have like five Instagrams, the different personalities, Debbie DiMaggio, storyteller, DiMarzio, better real estate, Debbie DiMarzio la beauty at any age, I have so many. So I was like, I have to work with Kim to hone it down. So I’m really working on getting everything down under Debbie DiMaggio. But we had to do social media, because you we weren’t going to start a company in oh nine with, you know, advertising on a billboard, you know, we weren’t going to be calling people, social media was the way to immediately ignite who we were. So we started on that. And then over the years, I’ve refined and now much better at it. But now it’s just there’s so much that comes after us. But it is super important because everyone’s on it. And they I mean, I was asking my friend the other day I go, you don’t watch TV. She’s like, No, I’m doing to duco. And my husband’s on reels, right. So it’s like, people are on it all the time. And so you have to be where the people are. So and again, that’s that’s one segment, there’s other segments. But you can easily take your instinct, I trade on social media for the agents, of course, and anyone who’s looking to sell a product, business or brand. And then you can share that across LinkedIn, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, you know, you can tick tock, another one I talked about called Alignable. You can take the same post and push to put it on all platforms, because everyone’s on a different platform. Like I go to LinkedIn to verify if someone’s real or not. And if they’re not on LinkedIn, I’m like, huh, I don’t think I’m gonna if it’s an agent, let’s say I’m like, Yeah, you don’t really have a LinkedIn presence. So how could you be serving your listings? Because, you know, you’re not really out there. So, you know, it’s, there’s a lot to it. But yes, social media is super important. You want to be in front of business people, you want to be in front of, you know, potential buyers that are on social media, or realtors, I had someone in Utah, someone said, my boss, my boss said, oh, you should follow Debbie DiMarzio she’s really good at social media. And I don’t even know who the boss was. And somehow I met this woman. And I’m like, Oh, my God, I have no idea. I know that. I mean, and my social media is nowhere near some of the people that you interview, but but it works. You know, it works that people do get to know you, you become familiar in front of them.
D.J. Paris 42:46
Absolutely. Let’s talk about your coaching program foundation for success. Tell us about that. Yeah,
Debbi Dimaggio 42:53
so I have five platforms that I coach on, and we’ve touched upon them right now. So the important thing is we want to educate, communicate and inspire. That’s why that’s what we have to do as a realtor. You know, people want to see design. So you might post design and all this different stuff. So the five marketing platforms, social media, get out in front of your audience, email, sphere of influence, eblast, you want to connect with people, newsletters, note cards, postcards, so touch points, you want to touch a minute, you know, more personal way websites, blogs, editorial contributions, so we can educate and inspire. So let me just give you a little example about that. People are like, Well, how do I do that? You know, what do I do? So you want to write a see write a blog, you can post the blog across all social media, then you can put it on your website, and then it’s a place so we just did one where my son was working with some first time homebuyers and the people that the buyers were got so overwhelmed about the process. So I broke it down. And I put it on my website. So now when we have a first time homebuyer, we can go to the link and share the link. So it’s a holding place for all that information that we give time and time again to buyer’s or seller’s well for us sellers, we’re always working with sellers to bring their house to market so I have the from lived in to stage to to sell, and I have just everything we do to get that house ready for market. I even have YouTube videos on that. And then the last one people podcast partnerships, and collaboration. So I’ve done in the past a lot of panel discussions where I bring in maybe five different people maybe a financial planner, a 1031, specialist of Fung Shui expert, and then myself, and then maybe a contractor and then we do like a q&a. And you’re getting in front of people you’re adding value, you’re giving them information, and they get to see you doing what you do best you’re giving back to them and educating them. So those are the five different principles. And I always say, Don’t get overwhelmed, I’ll teach you how to go through all of them.
D.J. Paris 45:06
And if you are interested in signing up for foundations for success, Debbie’s got an entire coaching program for you, as she just outlined, you can visit Debbie dimaggio.org link to that in the show notes and learn more about that. Yeah, I You said so much there. And I was thinking about this idea of doing these, these panel discussions. And so, you know, I think most of us have heard of first time homebuyer seminars. But what you said was, was really cool, because you could bring in all these experts from different fields, like a financial adviser, maybe, you know, an accountant, maybe, and you know, various tangentially related sort of services, a loan officer, of course, and, you know, appraiser attorney, whatever, and you all share the stage and you invite your clients, they invite their clients, and you sort of cross pollinate a little bit.
Debbi Dimaggio 45:59
Yeah, so you’re working working with professionals is really wonderful. And that’s another thing that we started called workshop Wednesday, where we have different professionals come in and speak to our agents can come, the community can come, we market it to everyone just to bring people into a room. And it’s a benefit for everyone. And it’s called workshop Wednesday. And that’s one of the ways we started in 2009. By bringing people into the office by offering lunch, and a speaker.
D.J. Paris 46:26
I love that that is such a great idea. Now, for those of you that don’t work in an office, you can take this idea to accompany. So if you know people that work at a company, bring something like this to them and say, Hey, I have this program I do for businesses, where I bring in experts, all different types of fields, where I can start to do some educational stuff for anyone who wants to sit in maybe you can, you know, let me use the conference room once a month for an hour. These are things you know, if you have an office, you could do them in house, or you can go places and do them. And I think that is a heck of a good idea.
Debbi Dimaggio 46:59
Yeah, it’s fine. We have one tomorrow.
D.J. Paris 47:03
Exciting. Well, Debbie, this has been awesome. I want everybody to do a couple of things, I want you to visit Debbie dimaggio.org. And that’s D BBI. And then DiMaggio di m a ggio.org. You can learn about all things, Debbie, her coaching her books, please go to Amazon, we have links to that in the show notes and check out her books, and her various programs and coaching. And if you are an agent in the LA or San Francisco Bay Area, and you’re like, Oh, I’m not really getting the attention I deserve or I need at my firm reach out to Debbie, her team is growing and expanding. And as she said at the very beginning, oh, by the way, you know, maybe she can help you with some of your some of your activity. So reach out to her, go to her website and do that. And also, if you are somebody who has clients that move in and out of LA or the San Francisco Bay Area, reach out to Debbie as well, she would love to partner with you. And you guys could trade clients back and forth. So, Debbie, thank you so so much for being on the show. You’re a fantastic guest I had we learned so much. And really everything you said in this interview was was actionable. So I really applaud you for that. Thank you. And on behalf of Debbie and myself, we want to thank our audience for sticking around to the very end and supporting our show, please tell a friend, tell one other agent about the show, we would really appreciate it everyone listening that will help us get in front of more people. And on behalf of myself and the audience. We want to thank Debbie for all of her time today. She is amazing. She doesn’t have time to do things like this, but she showed up anyway. And we applaud her for that. So please stay in touch with Debbie you can follow her on social media as well. Debbie DiMaggio will have that for all of her social channel stuff in the show notes. Debbie. Thanks again and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Debbie. Thank
Debbi Dimaggio 48:55
you so much. Thank you
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