Patrick Kilner the founder and CEO of Kilner & Kirk Real Estate describes why he chose real estate and how he started his career in the industry. Patrick talks about the freedom he’s been able to create for himself and his family by building his business in real estate. Next, Patrick talks about his book “Find Your Six: Stop Lead Generating & Start Building Influence“. Patrick and DJ discuss business development and the changes that need to be done in the industry for agents to be happier. Last Patrick discusses the importance and the role of the agent.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
You can buy Patrick’s book “Find Your Six: Stop Lead Generating & Start Building Influence” by clicking here.
Patrick Kilner can be reached at patrick@kilnerkirk.com and (240) 678-4157.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Did you know you only really need six people to build your entire real estate career? 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 Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer and author Patrick Kilner, he’s going to teach you why you only need six people in your life to build your entire real estate practice. But before we get to Patrick, the best way that you can help us continue to thrive and grow is by telling another realtor about this show, please do that. You can send them over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be streamed there, or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also if you could just take a moment and review our show on whatever podcast app you’re using. We would so much appreciate it helps us we read all those reviews and it helps us really make changes and getting better and better meeting your needs. So please do that if you have a spare second, but enough about me let’s get on to the main event my interview with Patrick Kilner.
Today on the show we have Patrick toner from toner and Kirkley in Maryland. Let me tell you about Pat. Pat killer is an 18 year veteran of the real estate industry and is also the founder and CEO of Kilner and Kirk real estate now killed her and Kirk is one of few very few teams nationally. And this is amazing to have total lifetime sales, weight pregnant pause, dramatic pause of over $2 billion $2 billion. Pat’s team has done between 70 million and 100 million in volume every year for the past 10 years. Without Pat going to a single appointment. I’m gonna say that again 70 million to 100 million in volume over the past 10 years per year without Pat ever going to an appointment. He also has a brand new book, which is called Find your six stop lead generating and start building influence, which debuted as a number one new release on Amazon, we encourage everyone to go out and purchase this book. In fact, we have a link to the Amazon page right in our show notes. So please go take a look at five or six and learn more about the book and everything related to Pat Kilner at Find your six.com. And that’s fine. Your si X spelled out find your six.com. That link is also in our show notes for the podcast episode here. So Pat, welcome to the show. DJ, it’s
Patrick Kilner 3:58
great to be here.
D.J. Paris 3:59
Pat and I were talking just before we got on and I could feel like I could talk to Pat all day. And I apologize because I was I was running a little bit late. And Pat was Pat is just such an enjoyable guy. So I’m really excited to learn more about you. So let’s let’s start at the beginning before you had all this amazing wild success. How did you get started in real estate? First of all, yeah, why real estate? And then how did you get started?
Patrick Kilner 4:24
I think like most really good things to get your real estate sort of found me. And they say like you when you get into writing books, right? They say a book finds you while real estate I think found me as well. And I I would say quite accidentally, really. I was doing the post grad school just back from grad school and trying to figure out what to do with myself and handing my resume out to everybody that I knew. My dad said you gotta go talk to this guy. He could run for the mayor of this town, right that you know, local town here. He knows everybody and so you gotta go talk to him. So I went and talked to Rory. And I said, Roy, here’s what I do. And you know, I speak Spanish. I lived in Spain for three years did my Master’s there. And and you know, and I’ve got a master’s degree in economics and you know, all this stuff. And so here’s my, my curriculum vitae, like, who can you introduce me to? And he goes, you know, why don’t you come work for me. And it turns out that Rory had his own brokerage, his own small boutique brokerage. And you had never thought about real estate, I had not to that point, I had not thought about real estate. But I, you know, my dad was was planting some seeds. And my dad had said to me, a few weeks prior to that, you know, Pat, my only recommendation to you because I have not done this. And here’s what I’ve seen in terms of success is to get into an industry that you can envision yourself being in for the next 30 plus years. Because the people who I know who have been in the same industry for extended periods of time, they’re the people who do the best by their family, financially. They’re the ones really doing super well in their 40s or 50s. And their 60s, because they’ve they’ve run that race, and they’ve they’ve developed themselves, and their their cachet, if you will, in that industry. And so if I could go back and do anything else, that’s what I would do. By the way, you should go talk to this, this person is this person and this person, and Rory was one of those. So I didn’t have a better offer on the table. I was newly married. And feeling pretty humbled by a really tough job market at the time, early 2000s. And said, What the heck, go get my real estate license. Little did I know, the market that I was getting into, it was totally insane. This was what was building up to the mortgage crisis. Sure, anybody could buy a house interest only low interest only no doc, right? Like, walk in here, if you can fog a mirror, we will give you a house, even though you can’t get into that rental down the street, right. So it was totally nuts. And of course, you don’t know anything you get into the into the business. And you’re like this, that’s most of you are businesses. So you can talk to anybody, and everybody wants to buy a house, because it seems like the thing to do. And those are the days when you know, four or five times more inventories on the market than is on today in the DC metro area. And so there’s plenty of homes, and there’s even more people want to buy homes. So that’s the that’s the market that I got into I tried my hand at some commercial because I didn’t know which way I wanted to go didn’t have a good mentor initially, either. And, and so that that’s, I got in and, and struggled really, really, I mean, it was really tough. First couple years. I remember my wife saying to me, like, hey, if this is real estate, and this is a stress level, you have to have, I think you need to find something else, you’re really well qualified for other things. So it’s not all, you know, coming up daisies right away. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 7:56
cuz I don’t mean to interrupt you, but but with your background, and you’re sort of the pedigree that you have. And you mean, I’m thinking consultant, I’m thinking, you know, middle management, finance right away, or some working at a corporation doing I mean, you’re an economics guy and finance guy. So seems like you’d fit very nicely into the corporate world and just sort of, you know, doing going that route and didn’t,
Patrick Kilner 8:20
I wish, I wish you would have talked to me back when I was 25. But I didn’t, you know, and serendipitously, I am so glad, by the way that I got into real estate. This has been an amazing career. But it’s a very odd, I remember telling my friends who I had just graduated with what I was doing there, like, really, you’re getting into residential real estate like, right, that’s what my mom did after we all, you know, like, you know, went to college and went to school. Right. So that’s, you know, this is this is 18 years ago, as well, I think the industry has changed, I think for the better in acquiring young talent into the industry earlier on. And, and that, I think, I think it’s a really, really great thing to get into, but you eat what you kill in this industry, you’ve got to go out there and make it happen. And so that was that was where a lot of the stress came from, initially, you’re perfectly qualified to go get a job that can pay this mortgage. Can we please pay the mortgage? Right? Yeah. And that’s, that’s how I think a lot of us start right then and fighting against that. And you move from, from survival to some stability. And this stability builds on stability. And what I’ve realized in this industry is that you create your own stability. And and, you know, here in DC, we’ve got all sorts of amazing fields that people get into. And I’ve seen plenty of those people who thought they were perfectly fine that their job was as solid as it could possibly come, especially in government, right jobs or government related jobs. And all of a sudden, they’re looking for a job. So we create our own stability, and I wouldn’t trade the stability that that I’ve been able to create in this industry for the world,
D.J. Paris 10:03
the freedom also that you get to, to enjoy. And I don’t mean that you don’t work hard, because of course you do and you work, arguably, not even arguably inarguably harder as a solo practitioner as your own sort of entity in real estate, and certainly, as you have a company and you have to manage, and you now have to do a lots of different things. But I would be curious, do you find that? Yes, maybe the financially, it would have been not as advantageous to stay at a, you know, do it more traditional corporate job finance or economics, or were something during that sort of that that path, but a lot of stability, probably a lot of like, you know, I go home in a certain time, I don’t, I can turn it off. But it gets retired a certain age, and maybe I get to retire at 6065. I have friends who are in the been in corporate finance, and they’re retiring in their 50s. And they don’t, I don’t think they’re in love so much with with their profession, or the company they work for, but it doesn’t seem to be as stressful. So so there is a bit of a trade off. But But I think the freedom is sort of ironic freedom, yes, you get freedom around your schedule. But just economic freedom is so much better. When you really fully commit to real estate, if you if you figure out a way to turn it into an actual business, as opposed to just a job that you’re sort of punching a clock and working with the next client just kind of starting over at the beginning of the month. So I’m curious on your thoughts about about the freedom that you’ve now enjoyed, yes, tremendous stress, but also tremendous freedom.
Patrick Kilner 11:37
Yeah, but there’s no, there’s no situation in which I’d would have had been able to write a book if I didn’t have the freedom, that, that building a business, and in particular, in real estate has allowed me to write so I because I am no longer client facing, it allows me to be far more creative. And to use a lot of the economics that I that I, you know, still have and enjoy using it and the research side of things that I enjoy deeply. So yeah, there’s, there’s tremendous freedom in that. And I think there’s, you know, there’s sort of three types of agents, there’s solo agents, there’s agents who talk about having a business, who are really running a really big practice, because you get hit by a bus, all of a sudden, the business is gone. So that to my mind, that’s not really a business, that’s a really profitable practice, oftentimes, and that’s what most people have. And then there’s very few who have a business, meaning you get hit by a bus, and the business keeps creating revenue, without you. And that’s, that’s the, so at different levels, you enjoy different levels of freedom. And so, you know, before I was I was running a business, truly, there’s no way I would have been able to read it, write a book, I could do a lot of other things. I’d say my, the freedom as a father, the freedom to be able to spend time, and to be creative about when I use my time as dad and as husband has been immense and tremendously fruitful. And but I’m really competitive. So I had to teach myself that through school of hard knocks, to prioritize family over this business journal because I, as we all know, that can it can become an obsession.
D.J. Paris 13:33
Yeah, it can. And I always think to freedom comes through like discipline and structure, oddly enough, sort of counter intuitively, I noticed that yeah, like I just got back from the gym. I talk about this a lot on the show, because I oftentimes schedule interviews right after I get back from the gym, so it’s just fresh in my mind. So I apologize for our listeners for talking about giving,
Patrick Kilner 13:55
while your energy level was so good when you’re maybe four I’m
D.J. Paris 13:59
just, you know, wildly, you know, have some sort of chemical imbalance either way. Could could be that, but But either way, but yeah, thank you. But what I will say about about the gym is I struggled with going to the gym, and I just use this as a metaphor for people to maybe think about different habits that they want in their life that they find it very hard to do adopt things that we all know we should do. And we don’t do go to the gym. For me, it’s always been a struggle, I just don’t like it. It’s painful, like I just, you know, not doesn’t isn’t something that I would ever choose to do, which is funny because I’ve tried to get myself to do it for years and years. And it wasn’t until I hired a trainer, which was it’s very expensive, crazy expensive, and really kind of a bummer to write the check every month. But it gets me to the gym. And through that structure for the last two years. We just see and I just we just realized we’d been doing it for two years. I haven’t missed one one time and I’m telling you I’m 46 for up until 44 I would have been like I knew I should go to the gym and I’m kind of beating myself up but I don’t but I just wouldn’t. And so because I have that structure in place where I just have to stay pending appointment, whether three times a week, I never have to think about it again, I don’t I have to go there and do the work. And that’s the that’s that sucks. But I don’t have to think about it. I just have to go. And because I have somebody else who’s going to show up, and she’s going to charge me whether I’m there or not, I better show up. And it’s so expensive that there’s no way I’m not showing up. So, so oddly, yes, it sucks to pay for it. Because God, I can. I don’t want to I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much it costs. But, but the reality of it is, I can’t do it on my own. And so that actually is like, oh, it’s actually like weight off of my mind. I don’t think about it. So I’m only
Patrick Kilner 15:36
waste. What’s the opportunity cost to you your long term health? Of not? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 15:41
I have more energy. Yeah, no, it all logically, it all makes sense. So for sure, it’s like, but I just don’t have to struggle with the beating myself up because I didn’t go, You know what I mean? So I think what a lot of times agents think about as they struggle with structure, and of course, of course they do, there’s no structure in place for an agent, unless they have a coach or they have a great trainer or a great brokerage that really helps them or they’re just naturally good at it. Because most of us, you know, I think real estate is so up so much a personality style, sort of X extroverted for most people, I think they like hanging out with people and, and being of service. And those are all great qualities that don’t always are always the same qualities that are good for structure. And so I think, you know, if there’s one thing we’ve learned, after all these years on the show is, is creating structure has just been really helpful to actually give people more freedom, ironically,
Patrick Kilner 16:34
yeah, yeah. I mean, what’s your one of the first things I’ll ask folks as we’re looking to onboard? Is what time you wake up in the morning? Yeah, and and, you know, what, okay, what’s, what are the first few hours of your day look like? Right? Just walk me through that. Not a Saturday, like a workday? What does it look like? What are your cars, you know, somebody’s priorities by what they put earlier in the day, hopefully? Right? Is checking Facebook? Or is it? You know, are you going to the gym? Or are you, you know, is there meditation? Is there, whatever it is, right? Are you hydrating, whatever it is that you need to do in order to click into a height really high performing productivity, because nobody else is going to tell you in this business? When to be somewhere, right? And so you need to have that, that discipline yourself. And that starts literally from the time you wake up. And so you know, the next question is, okay, what time do you get to bed? Right? So, because if, if that’s you, what’s your ideal day look like? You’re waking up at six in the morning? Okay, well, what time you have to get the bed in order to do that consistently? Oh, I don’t need sleep. Okay, let’s see how long that lasts. So it’s a Yeah, the beauty of this is the freedom and the Achilles heel is the freedom. If you don’t use it, well, for sure.
D.J. Paris 17:53
Let’s talk about the book, because I am so excited about this book. And this, really, and I haven’t, unfortunately had the chance to read it yet. So I apologize to our audience. But that’s what you’re here to talk about. So I want to first and again, remind people the name of the book is called Find your sixth. And the idea behind it is to stop doing as much lead generation and start doing a little bit more influence, I guess we would say, sort of proactive marketing versus versus attraction being creating so much value that that people are just instantly or over time attracted to want to work with you. I I remember, when I was a financial adviser many a million years ago, I heard one of the top real smart financial advisors in our office who had been doing it 30 years says, if you have to ask for the sale, you’re probably doing it wrong. And if you do it, right, people go, how do I sign up? How do I give you all of my money to invest? And I thought, Well, that’s easy for you. You’ve been doing this 30 years, he’s like, No, you just have to be good. You have to know what you’re doing. And you have to actually be providing value. But let’s talk about the book. Tell us what it’s about and how how agents can start thinking differently about about influence.
Patrick Kilner 19:07
Yeah, when this is very much a real estate book. I mean, this is through the blood, sweat and tears of, of really figuring out how to get through the crash of 2008 2009. And that’s sort of where I start with the book. So let’s back up for a second, I became very interested in what made really high performers, excellent at their careers. And so I began interviewing people who had been going at their careers well into their 60s, sort of, you know, in the twilight of their careers. For the most part, I found that 60 most successful people I could possibly find all very high performance across different industries. And I interviewed him. And I said, you know, I’m curious, I want to understand, who have been the people who have been fundamental to your success over the course of your career. Let’s talk about that story arc of your career and And we talked as long as it took him. And I took copious notes, and I recorded the interviews. And at the end of those 60 interviews, what I realized is that the average number of wildly influential relationships to them that had made their careers what they were, were just six. It wasn’t 600. It wasn’t 6000. It wasn’t a million, right. It wasn’t like, how many Facebook followers did you have? Right, that didn’t matter. What mattered was a handful of really amazing vision aligned relationships, that in many ways, they almost felt like this is just total serendipity. How did I happen across them? And so that hence the six that’s that’s, that’s why find your six is oftentimes why people ask, you know, one of the first things I’ll say is why why find your six? And when I first got in the business, the first thing was told to me is that no leads, no business, right. And we all do work in leisure, I have a column still in my chart of accounts, that is lead generation spending right on it, like I wrote a book, basically condemning the concept of lead generation. But but but we That’s how ubiquitous it is. What’s really interesting is that we’ve only begun speaking about lead generation, we that that word, we’ve only started using that since 1976. We didn’t actually talk about acquisition of new relationships, as leads, write those incredible relationships that we have the honor in real estate to work with. As leads, we started, we shifted, and all the sudden, and most industries did by the way, financial industry, right. Glengarry Glen Ross, right? That’s 1980s, all these things, you know, Wolf of Wall Street, 1980s 1980s, right. All of this comes out of a lead generation mindset, which is basically people’s, that the relationship between us and the consumer is a commodity. And we just need as many of those as possible to do as much business as possible. Go Outdoors, it’s a numbers, game, knock doors, pound phones, whatever it is. And I did all of that as a new agent. And I was getting awards, my broker’s, like, Hey, this is great young guy, my gosh, those people I wish they’d been, they’ve been in this business for 2030 years, I wish they could produce as much as you. And I’m like, wow, I hate this. This is this is soul stripping work. I, if I have to knock on another door, I think I’ll just change careers. And it wasn’t that I just didn’t like it. It’s just that I wasn’t having the type of relationships with those types of folks that I was having when people would refer me, people who trusted me implicitly would refer me
D.J. Paris 22:46
totally. And not just because it’s easier to get the referral clients. I want to make that point clear, because of course, it’s, of course, it’s easier in a sense. But it’s a better culture fit for you, because those are people who are probably very similar to the even if they didn’t automatically know you from a friend of theirs, which of course, is great. You’re not, there’s some sort of inherent sort of similarity of sorts with that previous client, that is likely to be a fit personality wise.
Patrick Kilner 23:21
Well, I think there’s, there’s a question of longevity in this business. Like, if you’re gonna do this for 2030 years, as my dad, you know, said I should do? Or more. What kind of what kind of business development Do you really want to do?
D.J. Paris 23:34
Right? Do you want to go on tours? Right?
Patrick Kilner 23:37
So I remember asking you, I was teaching a class, some of my own agents, some other business owners, and I remember saying, Okay, we’re halfway through the year, let’s talk about your business plan. You know, what was your goal at the beginning of the year, you’re here, you know, six months in, what’s the gap between where you are where you want to be? And they all wrote that down? And then I said, Okay, what lead generation tactic do you have in your back pocket that you’re going to use for the next six months to bridge that gap? And they all wrote that down? And then I said, you know, this, this is where it sort of struck me. I was just curious, because I was starting to research the book I said, Now, those of you wrote that down all of you. How many of you would be deeply excited to do that, that tactic every day, two hours a day, five days a week, for the next three years? Or five years? Not a hand 40 By not a hand,
D.J. Paris 24:31
we know that it can work because people have done it. And we’re not going to debate whether it works or not. We’re just gonna say do let’s assume it works. And are you going to be a happy person doing this?
Patrick Kilner 24:43
Yeah. And not a hint. I mean, some very accomplished people, right? And I was like, wow, there’s something wrong with the way we think about business development. It’s, it’s like, it’s drudgery. What if What if you could come up with a way that you could do business development For the next 20 years and be excited to do it every single day, what would you what would that do to your business? Well, that due to just how you show up to your family, that’s that’s the essence of fine your sex. And to me, if you can do business in a way that that allows you to really have great joy at this game, well, then, you know, you’re living a much, much fuller life. As far as I know, we only get one shot at this. What’s also really interesting is, well, who does real who does lead generation better than anybody? Right, who produces more leads? Or maybe a better question is who do you pay for your leads? Right? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 25:41
as you say, Zillow. upcity. Redfin, exactly these these are lead corporate, these are lead companies, and that’s not a pejorative term. It’s not negative. It’s just the truth. I, I came from a background prior to this, where we generated we were in the health insurance, lead space, essentially, and we were generating 15,000 health insurance leads a day people who needed to buy health insurance realtors, often times are in that that group. And and so I was in the lead gen business and and that’s what Zillow and and again, that’s a good thing, that that’s what they do.
Patrick Kilner 26:14
It’s an amazing mousetrap. It’s better than anything you could possibly build on your own. They got the and you’re not you’re not going to compete. I got into the business, oddly enough, the same year that Zillow got into the business. This is before the brokers had IDX agreements, right? Sure. So, so not all of the MLS data was shared across everybody. Everybody’s, you know, websites, sites. Yeah. So. So your world has changed significantly in the last 18 years. But I mean, how many travel agents you know,
D.J. Paris 26:52
I think there’s still a few because I once in a while I’ll drive by, you know, a storefront that says it I’m like, Hey, look at that. I’ve never met one and I don’t know if there’s anyone in that in that building. But yeah, it’s it’s that’s pretty much
Patrick Kilner 27:05
that used to be a thing, right? Like people with travel agent, you know, it was it was it was multiple hundreds of 1000s of people in the travel agency business making making good livings, fantastic livings gone, relatively gone. The only people who are left are people who have niche relationships that you can’t get by going on to Travelocity, right. And that’s why I use them. If we are as agents, not figuring out how to disruption proof, our business development, Zillow is going to eat your lunch,
D.J. Paris 27:38
of course. Absolutely. And by the way, that makes sense. Because what they provide, and I know people have very strong feelings, positive and negative about Zillow. And I’m not here to take any side at all. But there is a sense of they’re taking something from me and my thought has always been probably not. If you’re if you’re an agent that provides exceptional value. That’s not what they do. They provide value for looking at homes and connecting you with an agent who wants to get your business. They’re good at that. They’re excellent, or they’re the best at it. But are they good at walking somebody all the way through the process of homeownership or selling a property? No, that’s not what they do. They’re a lead company. So that’s not their forte. And thank goodness, thank God, they haven’t cracked that code. Because it means that the realtor is still front and center and absolutely important for every step of the transaction.
Patrick Kilner 28:35
100%. And but if you find yourself in your, in your your drive home, from showing that house, wondering how you can compete with Zillow, you’re probably doing the wrong type of business development. And lead generation is just a blip on the radar screen historically, in the history of how people have generated business, right. So what I really wanted to know when I wrote this book was I wanted to talk to people who had weathered their own disruptions in their own industries, and pretty much every service industry we know of, and every goods industry, we know has been disrupted in the last four years. So I figured let’s go talk to those people in different industries, and figure out who are the people that have made them disruption proof because that’s really what when you find the right people who refer you business who can only think of you as their agent, you don’t need a ton of them. I’ve built a pretty darn good based business with just a handful of amazing relationships, but we are not practiced at finding those relationships. So I the the thought process here, and what I realized about sort of my own journey was that I was fortunate enough to find my Sikhs in a very short period of time, which is why I was able to survive 2008 2009 And, and as I talk to these folks, what I realized is they were all Talking about the same characteristics of the talent that they were looking for, to affiliate themselves with. So you’re no longer in a in a lead generation business, you’re in a talent business. And if you can find the right talent to align yourself with it’s game over. And Zillow is not in that business.
D.J. Paris 30:17
Right? And nor are they interested in that business. They’re interested in capturing people who are searching online and they become the search engine and they capture that person’s information and sell it. And that’s, that’s, that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t really it doesn’t compete with a realtor who it provides tremendous value. It’s just a totally different world, probably a different client as well.
Patrick Kilner 30:41
Amen. Couldn’t agree more. And you know, gosh, NAR numbers have only gone up since the inception of Zillow. So, you know, there’s plenty of agents getting into this business simultaneous with the growth of, of lead generation, you know, outfits like like Zillow.
D.J. Paris 30:58
It is funny to when when Zillow had its its, they, you know, they’ve had some some poor press in the last year with their home, their their eye buyer program and all of that. And, and what’s interesting is when you go to and I love labcoat agents as a community, I think it’s excellent. I love those guys. They’ve been on our show. It’s really nothing but love for labcoat agents, and what they felt is like, beyond amazing, everybody should go subscribe to that Facebook group. They got 150,000 agents in it anyway. But when that news happened, it was depressing to me because I saw nothing but Glee and joy from people saying hi, Zillow, screw you. You’ve been screwing me over for years. And it’s like really like that’s it. These are probably some really successful agents. And it was just flooded with 1000s of comments. And I was like, huh, I actually feel bad for Zillow, because I don’t think of them. I actually know a lot of people who work there. I feel bad. Like, are you okay, as you know, and it’s interesting, I never thought of them as competition. Well,
Patrick Kilner 31:59
I mean, and you talked about talking about disruption, right? Zillow is just a disrupter set. And, and, and thank God, we live in an era where there can be disruption to industries, that’s how business gets better. Like from an economic standpoint, the way that we actually get better is to have competition and people coming in don’t really, is that really why we’re, what your value is, like, if your value is finding the house? I mean, come on. No, you’re you’re a negotiation expert, you’re a marketing guru. You are, you’re much more than just somebody who, who had a bunch of houses back here that I’m not going to show you unless you signed my paperwork, well, that’s a silly proposition. And the consumer should see that as completely absurd. Versus I am a fiduciary, who’s going to guide your decision making, such that, once we’re done with this, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t believe how fortunate you were that I was in your corner. And you’ll think to yourself, and you’ll refer me by saying, you know, the cost of not having DJ in that deal was not just monetary, because it was, he’s worth much more than I would have ever paid, I could have ever paid for him. But it was also a place where our family lives now, in a place where we create memories. And that’s where we sit as agents. And if we confuse that with what we’re actually supposed to be doing, then then I think we’re in for a world of hurt. But I think that’s why people get into this business, they really deeply want to want to be sit in that in that chair with that family, and which is a place of real honor, and tremendous dignity for both the person giving that type of service and the person receiving it. That’s something that tech can’t do, and won’t ever be able to do. So the question is, and this is what I was most curious about is I want I want to be referred that way every single time. Oh, that look like well that feel like how much how much less can I spend on lead generation and more on client service, and more on a few really important relationships. And so that’s where that’s where I take things in the book. And the book is really just, here’s, here’s how to understand the talent you’re looking for. And then here’s systematically how to go find them as well. And that’s the last part of the book.
D.J. Paris 34:34
And when we’re talking about talent, we’re talking about finding your six finding your your those few will say shallow but deep water, right so what we’re wanting is we’re wanting a very specific type of relationship, which is which there’s a process to finding those people your case you interviewed people you sort of went the Napoleon Hill route from The old thinking Grow Rich from a million years ago, 100 years ago, which was about he did the same thing. He went out and interviewed, like the 100 most successful people in the world at that time, or the country and, and learned a lot and then realized, oh, there’s this, there’s a series of principles here that seem to apply to everybody. And let’s write a book about it. And it’s become probably the best selling self help book of all time, as a result, so even if even if all you did was go out and interview all the successful people that you admire, did you find that your six were among the 50 that you interviewed? Or were they different relationships? Because I know that you’ve got the idea of all of these really successful people have six relationships, or seemingly have the six important cornerstone, Cornerstone relationships? Did any of those people end up becoming part of your sex?
Patrick Kilner 35:46
It’s a great question. So yes, a few. And I kind of go through the math of it. So look, I’m running a business, simultaneous to reading a book, I need, I need a lot of this too. I can’t just do the book, right, I’ve yet to have your business. And books, by the way, don’t make you any money. So. So yeah, so I mean, it was part partially that you’re really investing into relationships, you know, and, frankly, you know, if you did that, once a day, you had one great meeting with somebody who could be a candidate for your top of the, you know, I have a paradigm in here called the, the, the influencer pyramid. And so most of the people that you know, are not going to be wildly influential for your business. The problem is a lead generation mindset will tell us, everybody, you know, go and put him in your database and like, and you’re just gonna, you’re gonna hit him once a month with this and that. And the other thing? Well, the reality is, they don’t want to hear from you that much. And most of those people are not going to be influential enough. So once you understand the talent that you’re looking for, you’re not going to go spend time with people at the bottom of the pyramid. Or that much time with people in the middle of the pyramid, you’re only going to focus on people who are candidates for the top of the pyramid, the top of the pyramid is where your six reside. And so, you know, who did I find? Let’s, let’s sort of take the gloves off for a real estate audience how to talk to audiences who are not in real estate, Bailey, who should we be looking for? Yeah, who are the people? You know, for us in the DC metro area. Some of my biggest sort of people who rose to the top of my, my influence or pyramid have been, I had a great relationship early on. And I was just so amazed that this one great tax attorney, and, and he did business law and tax, and he was a connector. And so he connected me to all sorts of other great people. He, he came to me and we did events together, and he’d bring his his best people, and I bring my best people. And we network everybody together. And he sent me, gosh, she’d send me 810 deals a year. And that’s huge. Yeah. So if you think about if you had six people will send you 10 deals a year? I mean, you know, that’s most agents would like lose their mind. You’re a top 1% Producer at that. Absolutely. So that’s the type of relationship I’m looking for. We found this in some build relationships. Sure, right. Makes sense. There’s a lot to think about the top people in almost any market, they have some really great build relationships, whether it’s infill builders, or people on Raw, fresh dirt, you know, and they’re talking to you the NA R’s of the world. That was that was a game changer for us. And so we went specifically looking for the type of talent that we’re looking for. In that sphere, I oftentimes talk to talk to agents and like, so I’ve got this guy, and I’ve been working on him for years. And it’s just, I, he could be so huge for my business. Well, if you’ve been working for years, and there’s not enough vision, alignment with where you want to go, and you’re not providing a value for that person, to see you as a consummate professional, that they will refer over the other 20 Real estate agents that they know, then move on. But unless you’re in the game of talent, I mean, you guys, you are in the game of talent in your brokerage, right? Every single day, you’re having conversations, you’re looking for the right people the right fit, there’s got to be a vision alignment. There’s got to be people who are who who value what you value. And and once you know that there’s that cultural fit, they’ll tell their friends about you. They’ll be excited about it. And so there’s a natural build that happens. That’s what happens and you find your sex as well.
D.J. Paris 39:43
Well, I you know, I know we’re we’re closing in on the end here, and I wish we weren’t because I would like to continue talking about this, but it’s a great sort of place to remind everybody. This is why he wrote a book. So go get this book. And honestly, this is such a unique idea. It’s not something that I look, I’ve been doing the show we’ve done 350 Something episodes. I have yet to really have this particular conversation around. Yes, we talk about marketing and branding. And really what we’re talking about is branding to our sphere of influence our database. And generally speaking, the the way that that most agents, even top 1% agents do it is yes. And of course, they value all their relationships. I mean, again, I’m no way criticizing this. But what they’ll do is they have a system, there’s, there’s maybe there’s mailers that go out, there’s there’s emails, maybe a text, there’s some social media postings, there’s a lot of that, but it’s kind of blanketed across, you know, possibly hundreds of people. And again, it works. To a degree it works, you do get referrals that way. But it is time intensive, it’s energy intensive, it’s not as personalized. And it doesn’t, it’s not really an attraction model, it’s more of a fishing model, I’m going to cast my net. And there’s nothing wrong with doing that. It’s, of course, a perfectly fine strategy. And it absolutely works. But this idea of of a track, I’ll tell I want to give you this, because I want to hear Patrick’s take on this. This is something I heard of it blew my mind. 21 years ago, I was a financial advisor. And I heard we they had hired this, these guys from Merrill Lynch to come over and tell us this, they had written a book, and they said, here’s what you need to do. And I know you’re gonna love this. And it was the scariest idea to me at the time, I was a young kid, they said, Go find the client, you know, whatever clients you have in your business. And and the ones you really like the ones that you think are just really cool, great people, somewhat influential, but whatever. They’re just good, good human beings, and they like you. So we take them out for coffee and say, Hey, I am trying to work on my marketing for this next year, I want to work with people just like you. However, I’m not totally sure how to get in front of more people like you. Do you have any advice about what you might do? If you were me? And it’s like, well, that’s just so brilliant. And, and you know, you’ll do that. And some people will say, I don’t know, you know, I can’t and then okay, fine. But some people will be like, oh, man, you need to come hang out with me at such and such place. All my buddies are going to be there. And you’re awesome. And we’d love to, you know, and you’re not asking people for referrals, you’re not asking them for business, you’re just saying, Can you help me? And I’m curious to get your take on that. Because it sounds like that is very synergistic with what you’re talking about.
Patrick Kilner 42:35
It’s foundational. And yeah, there’s when you ask for advice the right way. You almost never get rejected.
D.J. Paris 42:43
It’s the most flattering thing you can ask him right?
Patrick Kilner 42:46
When was the last time somebody said DJ, never can I you know, you don’t you don’t get offended. You say, Wow, I’d love to you might be really busy. You might have to kick it back. The busier people will be okay, that meetings gonna be in a month. But that’s fine. Let’s put it on the calendar. Right? Oh, they missed because they were too busy. Scheduled again. Now they feel like though they owe you one. Great, go do that. So I I’m I’m a huge fan of that idea. I speak to that chapter, chapter four of my book talks about how to make the ask to get in front of people, because we’re actually unpracticed at this, your total and we spent a lot of time behind screens. And we’re really good at concocting just the right thing to put on that screen. We’re really bad at getting people just to meet with us face to face, especially post COVID. Right. Face to face, person, a person and connecting deeply with people authentically with people and not sounding like you’re pitching. And actually never pitching. And so yes, I love that. And, and, you know, one of the things that I that I talked about in the book is yes, this, this really is a high leverage activity. But you’re going to spend about as much time on this as you would on your other lead generation strategies. You’re just gonna enjoy it a whole lot more. So it’s gonna do that much. Why because we’re human beings and we enjoy more personal communication and connection with people. But your job is not actually to go and make the sale your job is to figure out on a daily basis who can I meet with? Who did I meet with and what’s the result of that what’s what’s the next step? And what great people imagine you’re doing this every day one on one a day you’re doing this every day you’re gonna have an amazing you know, old school, we’re Rolodex of people that you are you’re in the mix with and so what great people can you connect every day, when you become a connector of other great people. You’re actually what you’re doing is distributing wisdom. What to You know, it’s like what what to get the guy who has everything the most successful people, you know, what do they trade in, they trade in wisdom, they don’t trade in, like knowledge to stuff that you can google or wisdom and relationships, all of that. Absolutely. And the best way to transfer wisdom is through great minds. If you’re the connector of great minds, in your industry, and you’re doing that authentically, and you’re really looking out for people, guess who they’re gonna think, think about when they think about real estate, they’ll say to you, and this is, I always, as I started to get good at this, what I realized is, what I wanted people to say, when they walked away from me, is, wow, I spent a lot of time with real estate agents. I’ve never had a real estate agent who thinks like that. And everybody can do that, because nobody thinks like you. Right. But if you’re in the game of business, and you’re having deep relationships with people that’s unique in and of itself. Now, if you’re talking to them about things that matter to them, and you’re helping them solve those problems, you’re gonna build a really big business, you know, that it’s, it’s, it is that simple. But you have to be in that in that game. And that’s, that’s a numbers game, right? So one a day, after a number of weeks or a number of months, you have 200 meetings a year. So there in some ways, there’s a numbers game of those 200, you’ll find six, no problem, do this for six months to a year, you will utterly change the trajectory of your business over the next 12 months.
D.J. Paris 46:32
I couldn’t agree more. And it’s a good reminder, for me, as you’re talking, my wheels are spinning. Because we are I’m in the hunting mode of attracting realtors to our firm. So how do we do that we cold call, we send email, we will we don’t send unsolicited email or text. But but we were we’re constantly fishing, hey, we’re throwing our line out there, we want you to join us, which is typically how recruiting works in this industry. And I am like I’ve been doing it for 12 years, and we have 800 agents here and I’m exhausted as a number by the way, that’s a thank you. Well, it’s fun. And I’m in no way complaining. However, it is time for me to find my six. And so if I 12 years in need to do that. And by the way, I need to do it for this podcast, too. It’s not just in my real estate business. So I’m going to employ these tactics, I want everyone to go out and purchase this book guys. At the very least you’re out what 10 bucks and and you’ve done something for your personal development. And at best, you’ve completely changed your whole idea of branding, marketing and relationship building. So the book is called Find your six moving away from from, you know, traditional lead generation tactics to more influencer attraction model. And of course, it’s all through value. Patrick is clearly a very authentic solid guy who has a lot to share. And again, he didn’t write this book to get rich, because you can’t do that he is doing it to give back to the industry. So let’s support him. Let’s go out and get the book, visit his website, find your six.com. And we’ll have a link, of course to the to the Amazon page right on our on our show notes as well. But go to find your six subscribe to his mailing list and get updated with everything because he really has a lot of thoughts and opinions about. And by the way, his his company has sold over 2 billion in real estate. It’s not not that long of a time period where they’re averaging, you know, 100 million plus per year or so. So this, this is a guy you want to listen to and you want to subscribe to, and he’s a good guy. So let’s let’s, let’s make Patrick part of our six for now. And let’s let’s go subscribe and get his book. So find your six.com is the place to go. I’d love to have Patrick back on our show in the future because he’s got a lot of a lot of ideas that I think our audience needs to hear. So please let us know if you want to keep hearing Patrick’s voice. Although I already know the answer is yes. But we’ll we’ll keep reminding Patrick to come back on. But before we before we log off real quickly, if everyone could do just one quick thing for us, which is to tell a friend think of one other realtor that you know that could benefit that needs to hear who’s struggling with their marketing struggling with maybe right now the season is slowing a little bit. This is a good time to you know reach out and tell them about our show and send them a link to this episode. So send them over to keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is there that we just we have 350 Something episodes, go through the archives tell a friend it would really help us out and also leave us a review. Wherever you’re listening to this on iTunes, Google Play Stitcher, Spotify wherever. Just let us know what you think of the show leave us a whatever star review and it helps us improve and also get in front of more people. But on behalf of Patrick and myself we thank everyone for being on for listening and or watching and on behalf of the audience and myself. Boy, we really think Patrick he doesn’t have this kind of time to come on a show. He’s he’s managing a huge team, a huge company we didn’t even talk about his business. But everyone go out to find your six.com. And that’s si X not the number six. So find your six.com and buy the book and then report back on how it’s working. And we’ll have Patrick back on the show very soon. Patrick, thank you very much.
Patrick Kilner 50:14
Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. And thank you for what you’re doing for our industry as well.
D.J. Paris 50:19
Thank you. See everyone on the next episode.
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