Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart and my passion is helping you to think bigger, because I know that when you think bigger your life, your business, everything improves. And I do that by bringing on amazing guests and today I have another one. His name's Matt Bonelli. He is a certified ninja selling coach. And we're going to get into more of everything that he can bring to your business and to the table. excited to introduce him. First and foremost, let me say, Matt, thank you for coming on the show today.Justin, thanks so much for having me. Man. I'm looking forward to chatting with you and just talking real estate with you today.Yeah, it's gonna be awesome from one had a real estate coach slash podcaster to another, this is gonna be a fun episode. Yeah, absolutely. For those that are interested in the content that I create on a, on a regular basis, you can go to think bigger dot real estate. And there, you can actually sign up for a summary, to get this week's episodes with a couple highlights and a couple of action steps. So that you can be in the know, I know, there's a lot of content that comes from this site, this channel. So I'd love to have you go there so that you get in your ear inbox each week. And update of amazing things like we're going to hear today. So with that being said, you know, it was interesting. Several years ago, I was invited to attend and even help, kind of facilitate, facilitate, but but be present for a ninja selling class. A couple friends of mine said you'd really love this. I had been coach when I had my general contracting company, how to go about, like building a business by referral. So I said, Great, I'll go and I was absolutely blown away by ninja selling by what it is. And again, what a great solution. It is so excited to really go deep on that. Let me tell you little bit more about Matt Bonelli, and I'm going to have him describe what ninja selling is all about. So again, Matt is actually out of Charleston, South Carolina, like that just sounds dreamy, my friend.It's a beautiful place for sure.Oh, but I'm gonna visit we're gonna have lunch. I don't know when but we're going tocome on down, man.So um, he's a certified coach, begin with ninja selling ninja coast to coast podcasts encourage you to go find that. Add that to your favorites list. He's also a business owner, entrepreneur, outside of having been a very successful real estate agent. And now coaches all the everyday real estate agents around the country on these on these amazing topics, but he also owns businesses outside of this business. So anyway, the pleasure to have you on again, Matt, thank you for coming here. Let me let me jump into again, this thing bigger back here stands for more than just thinking bigger with real estate. You tell me that you're a father now have a young daughter two and a half months old. Congratulations. Thank you to help my audience is really kind of paradigm and and vantage point, extend beyond just business and realize what like why we do business why we do all of this talk to us really quickly. What's your favorite part about being a new Dad?Man? Well, thanks again, Justin, for having me on and really appreciate it. And I appreciate that question too. Because I think you're right, you know, thinking bigger win, it comes to business is more than just the business. It's all about what that allows us to do in life. And I will say the best part about being a dad is just, I mean, for the past two and a half months, holding my little girl and just watching her grow. It's so it's incredible, you know, having this little being in your world, it gives you a new sense of encouragement, you know, new things that you want to do and kind of makes you want to, you know, everybody's kind of says the cliche of, you know, you make me want to be a better person, well, she definitely want makes me want to be a better person better at so many different areas, because she's got a long life to live. And I want to be there for as, as long as I can. I mean, I'm a young guy. But when I think about what she's going to be doing, getting married, and all that other stuff, I'm going to be there for that. And I want to be at my my highest level when I'm there. So that'sgood stuff. That's, that's great. I also am a dad. And I'd have to agree with everything you've said there is that just the miracle of watching children grow and realize how impressionable they are, and how much we can we can impact their life, right their life, which then can go on to impact other lives. So very, very cool. Thanks for sharing that. All right, let's jump into give us kind of a brief synopsis about what is ninja selling for those that maybe are unfamiliar with it. And or those who maybe have been away from it help just kind of catch us up to speed. What is ninja selling?Absolutely. And I will say anybody who's interested in Ninja selling, maybe you've heard about it, go by and Larry candles book titled ninja selling, it has everything in there that you need to know about what ninja selling is. And basically ninja selling is a system. It's a philosophy to basically not sell, it's really interesting that the title of ninja selling is ninja selling. But the whole philosophy is about not selling but helping clients find solutions. So it's a relationship based approach to attracting customers. And then a solutions based approach to helping people find real estate to buy or to sell their real estate, the 10 step buyer process and the 16 step seller process are proven to work extremely well to help create clarity among customers so that they can actually get from point A to point B in the timeframe that they want to do it. You know, a lot of real estate agents, a lot of programs out there designed towards this is how you can just get more transactions. And then just selling is designed to create more relationships and help more people get to where they want to go on time. And that's kind of the foundation and the core philosophy around it.super powerful. You know, I think a friend of mine yesterday, we did an episode a lot I buyers yesterday, I had a friend post something on there talking about this, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested in real estate tech right now, the amount of tech that's been developed to, to cultivate the relationship after the transaction is is almost entirely No. That's not their focus, right? It's to simply sell, serve people during the transaction and then be done right, collect the commission be gone. And I think, to you know, to a degree agent falling into that trap, as well as like, it's very transactional. I've gotten in the habit of actually interviewing other financial professions that are advisors so that I can better help real estate agents step into that role of being advisors, I think that's where the future's at, is to be more of a consultant, more of an advisor. And it is interesting how their perspective of real estate agents is that they're transactional, they have past clients, right? They serve them for a while, and then they're done with them. And I don't mean that in any bad way, like they have any any any, you know, ill feelings toward people, or that they're, you know, are mistreating people. But the the focus, I think, is not relational always. And I think as a result, these tech companies are are thriving, because they don't have much to compete against. Whereas when you compete against someone who is is a ninja selling agent, for example, right, that is really focused on relationships. That's a whole different competition, and one that I think technology has a really hard time beating. Would you agree?I agree, 100%. And you just stats prove everything that all the tech companies need to know about doing the whole lead generation stuff, right? I mean, the nationa...

OpenDoor and Zillow Offers are no longer a 'could be' in our market. They are here and they are gaining in market share. This will be the demise of some agents' business, but it does not have to be that way for your business. I have with me today a colleague and business partner, who was once a top real estate agent in Phoenix where she competed, and won against these offers. She is here to share what you need to know.

Justin Stoddart Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart fired up about today's episode. We have an absolute superstar on the show with us today, who's going to help us navigate this question. Obviously, we know that the industry has a number of disruptors circling, we know that real estate agents have more of a need today to be on their A game serving the customer at the highest level possible. And today's guest, Jason Abrams, he's a Keller Williams agent out of Michigan, although he owns teams all over the place. He's been selling homes for 20 years, right out of high school stepped right into his real estate name badge. He's a broker-owner, a team owner, he was actually on HGTV, if some of you remember this show, it was HGTV, it was "Scoring the Deal" in which he would facilitate the purchase of beautiful homes by sports stars. Sounds like a cool show. I haven't seen it actually. But you've got me super interested to go back and findJason Abrams the only people that want my mom watched it regularly.Justin Stoddart It was with three seasons. I don't buy that, Jason.Jason Abrams Just you and $13 million. Man. That's all.Justin Stoddart the truth. There's the truth. In addition, Jason is the partner in metrics coaching and training, which we're going to talk a little bit about as well. So with that, Jason, thank you for coming on the show today. It's a total pleasure to have you here.Jason Abrams It's an honor. Thanks for having me.Justin Stoddart Yeah, this guy is a big thinker. He's actually spending a fair amount of time right now in Austin, helping to develop technology that serves the customer and agent at the highest level. So, Jason, let's get into this. We have, as we all know, a very changing, disrupting real estate landscape. What can we expect before I do that? Because we'll get into business and we won't stop. I know. Kind of that's my nature. So let's talk about stuff that matters a little bit more than business right now. I know you're a dad, I'm a dad. And that is probably the reason why we're deeply invested in the real estate industry is to provide a better life for people. Are people right that matter? Most? I mean, what's your favorite part about being a dad, Jason?Jason Abrams yes to... Everyone always asks about the technology and the real estate business off the bat, they very rarely go to What's your favorite part about being a parent? And I'll tell you, it's challenging, no question about it. But I think that it gives you this idea of this immersive experience, which I think is unique to our industry. And that residential real estate is really a contact sport. And it's an all-time game, meaning we don't start our day at nine and end our day at five and then go home and have the luxury most of us to just specifically that focused on the family. And I think what it does, we bring our customer lives into our own we bring our business lives into our personal lives, in our personal lives in your business life. This idea of immersion, I think, is one that as we move forward, you're going to see more education go to which just, I'm not just going to school from 7 am to 2:45 pm. To learn, I'm going to learn in every aspect of my life. And the most important thing to learn is how to learn, not whether I get the right answer. But what was the process that I took to get there? For me watching a six come to terms with how he's going to solve life's challenges, which to him see massive, like, how do I open this applesauce. And it's these constant reminders that the journey that we're all on... does it end? It simply changes form. And I think about that a lot.Justin Stoddart And that's powerful. It's almost as if like, we'd practice that question before. And folks, we did not tell people that I'm in a hurry. So I love what you said there. Jason reminds me of the university president where I first went to school, it was a two year school, he was a new president. He turned out to be a very influential person in the world as well as in my life. And he told a group of business students in their freshman year because like the question was asked, what should I focus on education, he said, here's the reality is that there are two things that you need to walk away from with your education. And neither one of those is a degree like that's, that's like, like second-third tier that doesn't matter as much. Here the things you need to learn is, like number one, you need to gain a passion and a love for learning. And secondly, you need to learn how to learn, he said those two things will carry you further than any degree ever will. In fact, newsflash, the stuff that you're learning here at school, a lot of it's going to be obsolete by the time you get into the workforce. So you better love to learn and you better know how to learn. Because without that, it's, you know, you're going to be behind really, really quickly. So I love what you said about that I happen to be a father as well. And I think bigger, I've got six kids, little crazy.Jason Abrams You do think big.Justin Stoddart I do, I do with all areas of life, we, I have a saint for a wife, st slash superhero. Fact, currently, she's on the road with six kids driving them all to North Dakota, and you know what it's like, up north, you're a northern guy. And so things a little quieter in my house, eerily quiet. But I love what you said about this, this passion for learning and watching kids learn that's really, really profound.Jason Abrams I just don't think they perceive it the way I think that we all sit around and try to force ourselves to do activities that we don't like, thinking that those activities are mandated stops along the path of success. I think kids are living this immersive experience differently than we are and that it's organic for them. And I'm kind of looking back at my life at different times and asking when I decided mentally to make that shift and why I did it. And trying to get back to the organic part of learning.Justin Stoddart Just that pure learning at its core, like just out of curiosity right now, because someone's telling you I have to.Jason Abrams curiosity and necessity, like a lot of us know, we need to learn new things. But we don't because the process to do it is one that we find challenging, and I and I get it we usually leave the challenging things for last or sometimes not at all. Yeah, I think the question is flawed, which is how do I force myself to do things I don't want to do whether that's going to the gym every day or read a book every we have these things? And we say, Well, how do I make that habit? I think a better question. You ask the wrong question. You always get the wrong answer. The question that I like is how do I love my life and accomplish blank. And when you start thinking in that framework, all of a sudden, you're forced to take activities you wouldn't want to do but then make it so you would enjoy it. Tell you what, if you enjoyed the things that you shouldn't be doing, you should do more of the wrong things. Find a way to enjoy the stuff that you want to bring into your life like kids, do. I tell you what, there's no wayJustin Stoddart how to get the life you want. Or sorry, how to get what you want and love it. Those are the two.Jason Abrams How do I love my life and do blank?Justin Stoddart That's awesome stuff, man. Let's parlay into business as that kind of the path that I was headed down, obviously very changing real estate landscape. ...

Jeff Cohn  Hey, what's up, you guys? This is Jeff Cohn with another episode of the team building podcast where we interview top team leaders, broker-owners, success managers and ops managers from across the country across brokerage brands to help teach you how to scale your business and stop working in your business today, we have a unique episode in that we're gonna be doing two podcasts and one I have an awesome guest today, Justin Stoddart, and I'm his guests as well. So Justin, take it away. Justin Stoddart  Dude, I really appreciate the opportunity, Jeff, been following you for a while I know you're an influencer and big-time producer. So this is a total pleasure to be on your show and simultaneously on mine. So for those that are listening to the first time, I run the think bigger real estate show. Really, Jeff, as I've shared with you, my mission in my passion is to help real estate agents think bigger. We live in America for heaven's sake. And we live in a time in an era where there's endless amounts of opportunity. building that holds people back is the fact that they aren't thinking big enough. So if I can be an instigator and a catalyst and putting people like you in front of an audience, it helps them think bigger and amazing thing happens. And here's what it is their business starts to grow. And as their business starts to grow, their options in life, improve and increase, and then their impact increases. And I'm all about being a part of that. So fun to have you on the show today. For those that are meeting, Jeff for the first time. He's been in the business for 12 years. And in 2011, he started a team went from 70 to 700 sales in six years. So really scaled up quickly, and has built an incredible, not just real estate business. He's now the number one team in all of Berkshire Hathaway, Home Services just built really a monopoly. Since we're talking about real estate. Now he's also built, I was an insurance company, coaching company, virtual assistant, a company and an investment company. He's the guy, he's a leaders leader, he's the guy that the top teams and leaders in your market are seeking out Jeff to get training on how to take their business to the next level. So this is pretty fun for me to have a chance to have a few minutes here with Jeff, and thanks for being on the show today. JustJeff Cohn  Hey, Justin, my pleasure. You know, what I have already loved about you is how fast you talk. Most people can't keep up with me, I might have trouble keeping up with you. So we will warn all of our people listening, you might want to slow this down to a point five, I've been told people listen to podcasts at two x sometimes two and a half x people like me that are ADD. But I think on this one, they might be slowing it down. Also, I just want to give a heads up. We have this recorded on YouTube. So if you guys want to search this out, you can find it on my YouTube channel. If you go to elite real estate systems. com and click on podcasts. You'll see YouTube as one of the options if you want to see our beautiful faces there right here for you. Otherwise, I know I'm on Stitcher and iTunes. Where are you guys, Justin?Justin Stoddart  Yeah, perfect. Same places, you can find us on Vimeo on Facebook, just search think bigger real estate on all these YouTube as well, as I mentioned, and then again, on all the major podcast platforms including stitcher and Apple podcast, you think, search think bigger real estate. SoJeff Cohn  I love the think bigger mindset. I know, one of my war cries has always been that leaders serve their followers. And the best way to do that is to teach your followers to be just like you. And so I go on stages in front of thousands of agents. And my provocative challenge is that those agents today need to stop selling real estate, and everyone gaspsand start focusing on building a business that you can then exit that will continue to grow without you being there without you being relative to that business. And you can then focus your time and energy on the other things that you love. You can build more businesses, you can go golfing, you can lay by the pool, do whatever you want, but at least put yourself in a position where you have that freedom. Justin Stoddart  You know, it's killer, Jeff, because I think every ship needs a captain. And all too often, ships only have crew, right, and you got nobody actually steering the ship. And what I hear you saying is that you're a guy that's teaching the crew to like, step up and be a captain because the rest of the crew and the people on board of your ship actually need somebody steering the thing?Jeff Cohn  Absolutely. Everyone's looking for that. And I think leaders today are scared to make decisions I've been, I guess I won't throw anyone under the bus or ship in this analogy. But I've been in environments where the leadership lacked and people were scared to make decisions because they knew that the decision that they made was going to make somebody unhappy, and they didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Well, guess what? When people lack the ability to make decisions and the hard ones, it hurts my feelings. So when I see someone that it can't make a decision for the life of them, even if it's a bad decision on my part, I would be more happy to see that leader actually step up. And all of you that are listening know exactly what we're talking about. So be the leader steps up makes our decisions even when it's not popular.Justin Stoddart  Actually just heard a quote, I think I shared this with you prior to us going on the show here today, Jeff that imagine just for a second, that whatever you're afraid of, you're not afraid of even it's just for a sec, what would be different? What would you be doing differently? And I think a lot of people like you're saying, maybe don't step into those roles, or don't seek out training like you guys provided the lead, you know, elite levels attended, because they're fearful of what of you know, of all these mice happens, right? And I think when we start to shed that and just say for a minute, my, In fact, this is what I'm kind of a process I'm going through right now, which is what if my 10-year plans had to become six-month plans, like what how am I deal with different? And I think I probably took that from Grant Cardone. But, you know, I think anytime you can start to shed some of those limiting beliefs or at least even just pretend that you're sending them for a minute, get your reality quickly changes and you realize that like your reality is actually up here, that we're in a set of circumstances that we've created for ourselves.Jeff Cohn  And I believe our brains get programmed by social media, by TV on media in general, we set all of our own limitations. I'm totally with you on this that the Grant Cardone mindset is totally accurate. I mean, you can 10 x everything you really should strive to. And worst case scenario, you end up five x in what you thought was possible. I think you'll look at yourself as a success. I think too often we don't celebrate our successes, Justin, I think a lot of people are always had their head down and never good enough because comparing themselves to someone like for me, I did 630 sites last year and was disappointed because the year before I'd done 700 I wanted to hit 1630 sites. That's ridiculous. We need to always be grateful for what we have and strive for more greatness. Justin Stoddart  I love that.Yeah. Can like grateful but not content, right? Yep. Let's talk a little bit about, you know what, what you guys teach. Let me just start with this maybe provocative question that I'm sure a guy like you can defend easily. Do you believe that the real estate team model is good for the consumer, I think we ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate show very excited about today's episode all about video. I think if you're in real estate today, you absolutely know that video is an essential part of getting mindshare, which allows you to gain more market share. And yet so many agents are afraid of it and or are afraid they aren't doing it well. So I've got with me, an expert, Michael Dyson, first and foremost, on the show today, man Micah Dyson  0:20  Justin, thanks so much, man. Thank you Justin Stoddart  0:22  Most handsome man in real estate right here.Micah Dyson  0:23  Not evenJustin Stoddart  0:25  Brought him into teaching us some things about video. Actually, Michael works for fairway independent company by day, but he's also a video expert by night makes you sound like you like Batman or something. Wow.So ours is right.So Mike has studied film in college. And so he knows, like, for real, like how to do film. And actually, you've made that as part of your value proposition is how to help agents kind of up their game, right? Absolutely. Let's talk maybe first and foremost, why videos important? Obviously, we talked about the mindshare and market share. You know, what I see, Mike is you see these massive tech company, he's with seemingly endless amounts of money. And they're coming in and they're trying to educate consumers that their platform is this will provide the same results as a real estate agents, correct. Right. Right. Right. And so when you look at that, obviously, real estate agent, the typical real estate agent or brokerage does not have the financial backing to be able to compete and be on all the buses, billboards, Micah Dyson  1:25  benches, everything Justin Stoddart  1:26  everywhere, right, right, to be able to tell their side of the story, which is, it's not about necessarily the fee, it's about how much a client that's at the end, and then having a great real estate agent can actually determine and create a really positive ROI on those fees. Right? Micah Dyson  1:41  Absolutely. Justin Stoddart  1:41  But I think video is a critical way of doing that. Yet, so many agents are afraid of it. Let's talk maybe first, why do you think we as humans, I'll put myself in that category, Why have we been or why are people afraid of video? What are your thoughts? Right?Micah Dyson  1:53  Well, first of all, I think it's very important that we tell our story. Okay. And that's a very personal and very intimate thing. And oftentimes that can be intimidating. You know, who am I? What, what, why would anyone want to listen to me? And I think that when a professional comes along, a very large corporate professional comes along and says I can tell your story. Look at me, I'm huge, I massive, let me do it for you. I can do it. You know, the burden of having to speak in front of other people, hundreds, even 10 people hundred thousand is lifted off our shoulders and given to someone else, all we have to do is smile, give a bio and then the professional does everything else for us. What's very important about our storiesJustin Stoddart  2:41  now Now, are you talking about if you hire an outside film person, or like in the sense of like people, hiring paid actors, will willMicah Dyson  2:49  either really I mean whenever we introduce a third party to tell our story in any medium, we're, there are sometimes there's an advantage to that. But for the new, the fresh when if you will the new agent, the new loan officer, anyone that title agent, anyone getting out there? We, it's very intimidating. Justin Stoddart  3:08  To compete with that. Micah Dyson  3:09  Right, compete with that, exactly.Justin Stoddart  3:10  Hollywood actors, it's like, well, that's not me. And that's what I've got to go up against. Micah Dyson  3:13  Correct. And what we have to understand is that we are trying to grow our audience, our sphere, our market share locally, you know, let's take one step at a time. You know, let's, let's leave Hollywood to Hollywood for now. Right? So, um, absolutely. And if we think back of even when we were children, we were kids in grade school who want to get called up to the chalkboard. None of us. Justin Stoddart  3:35  Yeah, right. Micah Dyson  3:35  You know, that was a whiteboard. Sorry, I just dated myself.Justin Stoddart  3:38  You're right with the attention was not necessarily something you wanted in front of a group of people. Right. Micah Dyson  3:42  Exactly. Justin Stoddart  3:42  Embarrassing. Exactly. That's somewhat like you know, the stuff that's keeping us from doing it is like, I don't want to call attention to myself. That's a bad thing.Micah Dyson  3:50  Exactly. And what if I, What if I slip? What if I mess up? What if I stutter a huge part of my story and then I share with people is that as outgoing and as an extrovert, as I seem now, I had a massive stutter as a child. I Justin Stoddart  4:05  So did I, seriously, you don't know this about me. But there you go.Micah Dyson  4:08  Both of us. Two kids are with massive stutters I dreaded saying certain words because I knew that the second I was up in front of the classroom, I would stutter. And so that that's something that that can turn into a lifelong handicap that we have to overcome if we're going to make it in this in our industry. And so and you're probably gonna get to this but but social media with the introduction of social media, it has allowed a lot of us to enter that landscape without having to hire a film crew, hire channels, get broadcasting all of that, you know, advertising that all of that is sidestepped to a certain degree? Because of social media. Yeah.Justin Stoddart  4:53  Really interesting. So to your point of stuttering, for me, it was any word that started with an M?Yes, which created some, for me, difficulty Micah Dyson  5:03  for me, it was t, s and a T sometimes m cause we get stuck on "mmm", our mouth was like Sasha Yeah, it was crazy. It was horrible, actually.Justin Stoddart  5:12  So to this day, not many people know this about me. But to this day, I'll still in my mind, I'll go to say something. And it doesn't come out. Yes. And I've got to quickly work around it a different word for it. Do you still have that?Micah Dyson  5:22  I do. I would tell friends that I got really good at being sort of a thesaurus. Because I would think of a word and I would feel myself. stammer, yeah, I go, okay. Go around that word. Think of another word that is just like that word, but doesn't start with an M or an S T, or whatever your word is. Whatever your letters are. Justin Stoddart  5:41  Yeah, I didn't know that about you.And yeah. And yet you had the audacity to go into film school knowing that right now that's, that's a pretty bold move. Interesting. So for anybody that's out there watching this. That is saying, like, you know, I thought that I had a problem speaking- you listen to a couple of guys. That was that kid that you felt terrible for? Because he went to talk. And it sounds like this. Like, we like we've all been around people like that. And our heart goes out to them. Like, it's awkward for everybody. It just hurts, right? I just want to help them or like, say it for them. That was us. ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart. I've got Robby T back today because the reality is the fortune is in the follow-up. And that is the reason why most real estate agents have not yet found their fortune. This is an important topic that I've got Robby T. back to announce an event that he's doing tomorrow, June 18. And Robby is going to tell us all about it. Robby, first and foremost, the man the myth, the legend. Sells over 650 homes a year. And then coaches, what, 20 some teams? Dozens?Robby Trefethren  0:34  Yeah,Justin Stoddart  0:35  You on average sell between three and 400 homes a year. This guy knows to follow up because he teaches it and does it all day long at a super high level. So good to have you back. Robby. Thanks for coming on.Robby Trefethren  0:45  Absolutely, brother. It's funny because you asked me like how do I view myself and I'm just like this lead conversion nerd and I don't know if you guys can see this or not, but I'm wearing a Star Wars schematic shirt. So I'm just being authentic, man.Justin Stoddart  0:59  I love it. This is a guy you want to learn from right? This isn't a playboy. This isn't someone looking for a show, this is a guy here to do work.Robby Trefethren  1:05  Exactly. I'd be the guy hiding behind the curtain inside and really believe it and having these conversations.Justin Stoddart  1:11  You know if the guy behind the curtain can help people sell that many homes, it is not a bad life. Speaking of not a bad life, Robby and me before we came live, he asked me how my father's day went. Because those that are watching this life will know that Father's Day was yesterday. And I told him, Robby, I got a nap. It was for two hours. Nobody bugged me. I got a few people to bug me, but it was still pretty dang good. So Robby then proceeded to tell me about a little life hack, little productivity pack. Yeah, I'm going to use to have the signature question that I usually make everybody wait till the end of the episode. Today, we're going to bring it right up front. And I'm going to make you wait for the details on the lead conversion event. So So Robby, tell us quickly what you've learned about brief naps to reset the brain.Robby Trefethren  1:56  Yeah. So as I said, I'm a total nerd. And I was reading a book by Dan Pink. And Dan is one of my favorite authors. And he wrote a book called "When". And if you haven't read Dan Pink, and you work in any form of sales and business, go buy all his books to sell us human is great drive is great. And then "When" is really good. But one of the things he talks about in "When" is he talks about the ideal nap. And basically long story short, the hack is this is that the ideal nap that you can take to reset your brain is something between about 15 and 26 minutes long. And basically, the science behind it is this is if you nap for less than 15 minutes. First off, you're probably not going to nap. And it's not going to do anything for you. But I think that for longer than 26 minutes, what happened is your brain thinks it's going to sleep. And what happens is you actually come out of your nap feeling groggy, and I've done this right. And instead of feeling refreshed, like I just took a nap, why am I more tired? It's because their brain thought it was bedtime. So the 15 to 26 six minute nap is used by the military, he talks about it in "When". And it's a really great way, if you're feeling a little tired, go take 15-20 minutes. And what happens is for me, in my experience is everyone's number kind of changes, you'll come out of it feeling really fresh recharged, because your brain is feeling a little bit reset, and a little bit rested. And it's kind of like meditating for your brain except you're napping. But you're not going to come out of it groggy because you didn't sleep for longer than 26 minutes. And for some reason, it's 26 minutes I forget the exact science behind that. But military uses it and I was like if you're going to do it and those high stakes environments to refresh, refresh the brain. I want to do it in business.Justin Stoddart  3:39  You know what that reminds me of, I'm a tech genius. And here's how I all tech problems I took turn the computer off, turn it back on. Works. Obviously. You know it's interesting what you just said, makes me think that like our brains oftentimes just have they've got so much going on or this is just tiring us we need to just like whew, power down. Hundred percent power backup, and amazing life hack, man. Thank you for sharing that.Robby Trefethren  4:05  Yeah, hey, if you don't mind, I think one of the coolest things is if you're feeling exhausted, like there are so many times where I'm feeling that, and I go take that little 15-20 minute reset, and literally, the way I see the world and the way I see problems is no longer as a problem. Oftentimes, just by resetting my brain and taking a moment, I see the problem completely differently. And now's an opportunity. So if you're feeling that exhaustion, you're feeling down. I'm telling you, I'm the king of the 15-20 minute nap. I'll do it inside our office on the couch all the time is this kind of Justin Stoddart  4:37  love it, you'll get grief from anybody because they know you're a beast. They're like dude living alone.Robby Trefethren  4:43  Exactly.Justin Stoddart  4:45  So, um, Robby and I are both very proud dads, we love fatherhood. And it's interesting how I can oftentimes see that in my kids that they're like, totally irrational, right? And I'm like, you just need to go to sleep. I promise this will not be a big deal tomorrow. I don't think us as adults have a hard time realizing what you just said, which is like men, problems become mountain size when our brains aren't properly rested. And that what you've just shared right there super valuable for any of us that are high achievers that want to be Uber productive, and have a lot going on at any given time. So super valuable, and really appreciate it. Robby Trefethren  5:22  Yeah, sure. Justin Stoddart  5:23  Let's get into helping real estate agents find their fortune through follow up. Robby Trefethren  5:26  I like it Justin Stoddart  5:27  you and I both know that there's you know, there's oftentimes an abundance of opportunities that people will you know, whether it be online, or whether it be in person, people will bring something up. And oftentimes the follow through is not there due to maybe some limiting belief in their head where they actually purposely don't reach out to people and or they're disorganized. Talk to us a little bit about this event that you're doing tomorrow, and how it's going to help people solve these major problems that are keeping real estate agent from having their fortune.Robby Trefethren  5:52  Sure. So I'll first I'll talk some numbers because I know people like to know numbers. In our world, we've lived literally made hundreds of thousands of phone calls, collectively between me and my eyes says, By the way, I'm co-hosting this event with Jim who is the best I say in the country. For years straight. Now he consistently brings in 150 plus deals and even brought in 200, before he moved into a leadership role. And he's co-hosting it. So you're going to hear not just from me, but from Jim as well. And then Eric, the founder and owner g of hash realty is going to be on there as well. So we got a lot of good people. But realistically, what we're bringing to the table is this is we wanted to create an event that was low...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart, where my mission and my passion are to help you think bigger, bring people in front of you that expand your thinking. Because when that happens, a marvelous thing also follows, which is your business starts to grow. as your business grows, your life gets more options, and you are able to create a greater impact in the world. And that is my, again, mission and passion. I'm very excited today to talk about the friction factor. We live in a digital world. And it's all too often. There are lots of connections. We've got lots of friends through all kinds of social networks, but not very much, not very many deep connections. And I've got truly an expert here with me today to talk about this. Let me introduce Jim Remley first before I kind of give a full bio on you, Jim, thanks for being on the show today. Jim Remley  0:47  Hey, my pleasure. I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much. Justin Stoddart  0:50  You bet you are a big thinker. And let me validate that to all those who are hearing about Jim for the first time. So Jim actually lives in a small town in Oregon called Medford, Oregon and you'd never believeso much success that he's created would come out of a small town. He's a 30-year real estate veteran, he grew a company to 17 offices here in Oregon, sold that he now runs one of the largest brokerages in Oregon. He's got 160 agents doing about a billion dollars in volume. A pretty impressive little group of producers out of Medford, Oregon, I love it. His company is the top 500 company in America according to real trends. And he now runs a platform, a coaching platform in addition to his robust brokerage and business, erealestatecoach.com. We're going to get more into that here in a minute. But thank you again, Jim, for being on the show and a super excited about today's topic.Jim Remley  1:42  I'm excited to be here. I got a reputation down in Southern Oregon, my friend. Justin Stoddart  1:46  So hopefully it's a good one.So let's get into this, Jim. You know, I grew up in an era where the internet was introduced to my high school. And I thought to myself, that's so weird, weirdest thing ever. Like this is odd, right? Whereas we have a generation that's coming up that like does not know what life would be like without the internet. Like when I tell my kids Hey, guess what kids dad's older than the internet. And they're like, dinosaur dad. And but now it's so common all of us are really reliance upon it, aren't we like entirely our lives revolve around internet connection.Jim Remley  2:21  It's absolutely true. You know, I grew up I'm older than you. So I grew up when we had Apple to computers before the internet. You know, the lab school program on this little tiny apple. I just read an interesting article. It was by David Brian at MIT review. And he said this, that what's happening right now with technology is that we are being we're seeing less and less human interaction within all technology. So technology is being built with humans being less and less and less a part of the technology itself. Because human friction is where most systems break down. And it's very interesting when you look at it. I mean, if you look at all lot of the things that we're probably all using, I'm sure you're using and I'm using my wife and I just signed up for Blue Apron. Right. So that's a delivery service for meals. And the idea here is that we don't have to go to the restaurant with wants to talk to a waitress, we don't have to build the grocery store. It's literally just sent to us arrives on our doorstep, we go out we open it up, we make the meal, right. So yeah, like Uber and Lyft. Before you know I'm old enough to remember when you get in a cab. When you get the cab you have to tell the cab driver where you're going to have a conversation. You'd have to tip the cab driver at the end. But now you get into an Uber you literally don't have to have a conversation because the system is built to have no conversation interesting already have already put it in there you open the door get in open the door get out you don't even have to talk to the systems like that. Captain Marvel a few weeks ago at the movie theater, and they had this scene where the main characters in a blockbuster video and you like Oh, that's so cute. I remember going to Blockbuster Video. But now everything's streaming. So we don't have to go talk to people at the video store. We don't even have to go to the movies, we just remember our phones and our devices. So you're saying there are this natural and kind of insistent move towards less and less and less and less human interaction. This morning in bed my wife was doing. She was shopping, put her whole grocery cart and the instacart. And it's going to be delivered at six o'clock. We don't- it's all being delivered to us.Justin Stoddart  4:27  It's crazy, isn't it? Jim Remley  4:28  Interesting world, right? Justin Stoddart  4:29  It is an interesting world. You know, and a lot of these things are very convenient. I mean, every one of those things you just described Uber to Blue Apron to like grocery delivery. I'm all like, that's awesome. Like that sounds like right. And that's I think we're really technology can benefit what's the double it? What's the other side of that sword? Like if this is a double edged sword, right? Like, what's the problem with this?Jim Remley  4:54  People say to me, Well, that's all great. I love it, I use it but does it real estate and it absolutely applies to real estate, there are pieces of the real estate, what's called puzzle or supply chain or, or, or the way we work that are being webbed eyes, chunk by chunk we all watched as Zillow and realtor.com. And as the market now buyers can do all sorts of themselves. But now showings are starting to go that direction. in large cities systems like Tour, which is a lockbox, you can put it on the house and can be remotely accessed, so that there doesn't need to be an agent president at the showing. Think of it like when you go to do an Airbnb vacation rental, and they put a keyless entry in the virus when qualified. They hit a button, and that lets them into the house. Of course, the seller has to sign off on it. But this is us right now. So imagine now you have showings, you can go search and you can show yourself the house. Every time one of these little things is taken out of our plate and made frictionless, it takes a proposition away from us. So what happens is we become a commodity. And we become one of many I just saw a study about the number of agents in the business right now we're at another peak, we had a peak in 2005. with about a million for agents, we're back up to that number. And some people would say that's more like 2.4 because not everybody's a realtor. But transactions are showing it about 5 million transactions. So you think about 2 million realtors or 2 million agents in the country. And as 5 million transactions, the number of people Zoomer has to choose from is massive. So in any market like in Portland, I'm sure there's 10,000 agents or more, Justin Stoddart  6:32  Let's do 8500in the probably metro area, but that doesn't include Vancouver, right, which is a whole, which is kind of Portland area, and there's a whole you know,Jim Remley  6:40  so that means the consumer can just have all these massive choices. And when we get to monetize, it becomes an issue for us, we have to find a value back in the transaction. And that's my focus with agents, you know,Justin Stoddart  6:53  you're speaking my language, I see...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show I'm Justin Stoddart. Oh my goodness, I am fired up thrilled, excited. There were a lot of adjectives right there about how I'm feeling about this episode, and really what this content has done for me in my life. And I'm thrilled to have today's guest. Before I introduce him, let me just reiterate, the purpose of this show is that when we start to think bigger, we begin to act differently. And as we act differently, our businesses grow. And as our businesses grow, the options in our life and the impact that we can have in the world also grow. And that's my passion is to help inspire people that want to impact the world, in greater ways. So I'm thrilled and want to thank today's guest, Geoff woods, Vice President of the one thing for being with us today, Geoff, thank you for being here.Geoff Woods  0:47  It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.Justin Stoddart  0:49  Yes. For those that don't know, Geoff, and your story, like let me back up by just saying the book "The One Thing" if you haven't read it, your heads probably been in the sand. It's been a best seller for a long, long time, on all the major path platforms, right, New York Times, USA Today, Amazon, on and on and on. It has has been a remarkable catalyst for a lot of people to change the way they look at things. Geoff, how did you find out about the one thingGeoff Woods  1:15  I just and I was in medical device sales at the time, and I remember it was our national sales meeting, I walked into this big ballroom, we probably had 1500 people at the meeting. So lots of chairs, and on every single chair was a copy of the one thing, and I remember picking up the book and looking at and go, Oh, this is cool. And then out on stage was Jay Papasan, and who co-authored the one thing with Gary Keller, and for the next hour, he proceeded to just blow my mind. And I remember Justin, I was at this point in my life where I was ready to make a change. I, in medical device sales, had enjoyed a great living and great quality of life, but I was lacking fulfillment. And prior to this national sales meeting, two things happen that really forced me to make a change. The first was a colleague of mine had a stroke when he was 35. And I remember my wife and I had just bought a house in Orange County, we just had our first child and she made the decision to become a stay at home mom, and my colleague has a stroke. And I remember thinking, Justin, wow, if that happened to me, what happens to my family, and that really rocked me. And then A few weeks later, my company had to make a change to our commission structure to remain competitive in the marketplace. And as a result, I lost 40% of my income. And when you take those two things back to back, all of a sudden, I had a lot of pain in my life that made me realize I've actually got to take control of my future. And I heard this Jim Rome quote that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I remember looking at my five and feeling a lot of gratitude because they were great friends, but they weren't actually already where I wanted to be. And so I was hunting mentors, and here's Jay on stage blowing my mind and I'm going, Oh, I got to get into a relationship with this guy. But then all the limiting beliefs started to set in like, what could I say to him that would make him interested me Look, the give him that would make it worth his time. And when he came offstage, I just realized, now's the time, I gotta go, I got it. I got to talk to him. I basically sprinted down the side of the hall, I wanted to be the first guy to talk to him. And I basically tackled him and asked to interview him for a podcast I was hosting at the time called the mentee. And I just kept following up with him asking what he and Gary were focusing on. And every single time I asked, he had an answer, whether it was looking for more exposure for the book. He said that a bunch of times, and the third time, I followed up and asked, after having delivered each time he had a request, he said that he and Gary were looking for a CEO for a publishing company. And I remember thinking, well, I knew three people that were publishing CEOs that might be a great fit. And I offered to make an introduction, said, that'd be great. And I said, Well, before we before I do that, why don't we talk so you can tell me who you're looking for. So I make the right intro. And when we got on the phone, Justin, he really surprised me. Because the person he described was not anybody in my network. He described me through my name in the hat. And you fast forward, November 1, 2015, I moved my family from Southern California to Austin, Texas. And for the past three and a half years, I've been turning the book into a company that changes the way people do time.Justin Stoddart  4:13  Really interesting. I don't think I've ever heard that story. I've heard bits and pieces of it, but not the whole story. And a couple of things that really stand out to me, Jeff, that I would hope that the audience would maybe get from this, at least that I'm getting from it right, is that, in fact, one of my mentors teaches that you don't have to be like, super courageous all the time. But there are points in your life where you have to be like 10 seconds of absolute courage. And for you, it sounds like it was that like, I need to go talk to this man like that, what he's speaking and impact he's having on the world. That's kind of what I like. That's, that's somebody who I need to know. And it was it probably took a lot of guts didn't it to like, say, I'm going to go introduce myself, right?Geoff Woods  4:54  Absolutely, absolutely. I remember when I was going down the road to surrounding myself with people who are light years ahead of me, and all the limiting beliefs that pop up when you want to approach these people. But the truth is you gotta approach. And I remember I've asked several of my mentors. Why the heck are you even talking to me? And one guy who was on the founding team of priceline.com, I remember him saying to me because at one point in time I was in your shoes. And there was somebody who reached back, grabbed my hand and help pull me forward. And they didn't ask for money. They didn't ask me to wash their car. All they asked is one day I pay it forward. And this guy was now in a position where he was wealthier than he could ever imagine, had everything that he could possibly want. His life was now about impact. And he wanted to help the next generation of entrepreneurs. So it was in that moment that I realized that when it comes to the mentor-mentee relationship, the mentee actually has more power than the mentor. Because while the mentee thinks, Oh, I'm getting so much value from this person who's pouring into me, you're actually giving more value to them, because you're giving them a sense of purpose. Wow.Justin Stoddart  6:05  Wow, super interesting. I am. I found that when you really want something and kind of going back to another point that you made earlier, is like you recognize at one point that I'm not exactly where I want to be. And this, this path that I'm on might not get me there, right. Like I have a brother in law, actually, who's in medical device sales. So I know very firsthand, kind of vicariously through him watching what happens that world right? As soon as you make a certain amount of money, which is like, yes, this is where I want to be. They're like, No, you can't make that much.Geoff Woods  6:33  Yeah, they change your territory, they switch the comp plan up it just,you know, always Yeah. Justin Stoddart  6:40  And I think you know, the difference between, like, with, what you've done is you said, Look, ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the think bigger real estate show. thrilled to have Karin Carr back with us today. She is the foremost national expert when it comes to YouTube for Real estate agents. And I am thrilled to have her here. She brings such value. I follow her. And she's awesome. So I want to start off by just saying, Karin, thank you for coming back. We didn't scare you away the first time.Karin Carr  0:24  No, you're awesome. Thank you so much for having me. This you, I love to geek out on this stuff. And anyone who will listen to me wax poetic about YouTube, I'm happy to take that opportunity.Justin Stoddart  0:35  I love it. Let's do, I'm really quick, let me revisit kind of the mission of all of this, why we're doing this, okay, to help agents think bigger. It's amazing what happens when you start to see other people that either is having great success or are helping other people have great success, that our own possibilities start to expand, we start to believe that this can work for me. And the whole purpose of the show is to absolutely do that as expand people's possibilities. Knowing that as they do, their business grows, and then their options in life and their impact grows, which is what I'm all about. So you fit the mold perfectly. You're a big thinker, thrilled to have you back on today. Tell us a little bit, Karin, really quickly. Just your what part of the country you're in. And I'm how you stumbled across this YouTube thing for those that didn't get the privilege of watching you the first time you came on the show?Unknown Speaker  1:25  Absolutely. So I am in Savannah, Georgia. I had gotten my license in 2005 in Northern California. And I was that was during the crash. And so I was a big REO listing agent back then my parents live in Savannah. So about five years ago, we decided to relocate here. And when you move, you start over in a new market, you are literally a brand new agent all over again because you don't have any clients there and you don't have any market share. And you don't have any name recognition, you don't have any signs in the dirt. You got nothing you're starting over. So I was blogging and I started making YouTube videos. And then I started getting leads where they said, I found your YouTube channel, I've been watching all your videos, I feel like I know you already. And I thought well forget the blog, I'm just going to skip over the blog and go straight to video. And my business has completely exploded. And now instead of being a solo agent, I have a team and I get probably 70% of my clients and closings that say they found me on YouTube.Justin Stoddart  2:23  You go from hunting to being the hunted, you know I know that there are people that have great success buying leads on the internet. But I'm telling you when you show up in that space, you're a means to an end, you've got no credibility, the only thing that you do if you've got the license, and the keys to open the door for them. However, when you come when somebody has a chance to observe you and receive value from you over a period of time, something amazing happens, right, which is what you're describing about it's like, I feel like they know you and it's like they trust you already right totally changes the entire conversation.Karin Carr  3:01  It is the entire conversation. It goes it's the difference between buying a lead from Zillow, and they're interested in 123 Main Street, and you call them but for other people also got that same lead. And they're like, Oh, I already made an appointment with somebody else to see that house thanks. Or they don't answer the call at all, and they don't want to talk to you. It goes from that type of lead to me calling and saying, Hey, you know, I saw that you just downloaded my free relocation guide. Are you thinking about moving to Savannah, and they go, Oh, my God, I can't believe you're calling me your celebrity. You must be so busy. Thank you for calling me. What do I have to do to get you to take me on as a client?It's like, Am I being pumped to this? the point, he said that to me, I laughed so hard. I was like, I'm sorry, can you just wait one minute. I am not famous at all. But that's their perception. They, they think of you like you've got a show on HGTV. And after you hear that over and over and over again, you're like, I guess I kind of fake This is awesome, you know, grateful that you picked up the phone and call them.Justin Stoddart  4:05  I actually teach a class around storytelling of how to get in command HDTV like attention. Now I have to share that within the think bigger figure. At some point. It's exactly that. I mean, in the end, the example that I share is if chip and Jojo moved to a new market, let's say Savannah, Georgia, would they have any trouble getting clients? And the answer is no. Right? There probably be a lion out the door to work with those two, right? Or, or the Property Brothers or whoever. I don't know why it's because their value has been extended over time to people there's trust. There's this relationship that's built even though it's been one way they feel privileged to be in conversation with you. And they already know the value that you bring. It's no longer about. Get me to the house. It's about giving me to you, right.Karin Carr  4:51  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so it goes from just all real estate agents are the same. You're a means to an end, you're doing nothing but a door opener to like, what am I? How can I get this person to take me on as a client because I want to work with them specifically?Justin Stoddart  5:09  So cool. We've actually had a couple of comments. I want to point out here really quick. Speaking of the devil, Jesse Dau,Karin Carr  5:14  Yes, I know YouTube is your new favorite.Justin Stoddart  5:18  Jesse's a disciple of this car here. So and then, Kyle Spencer, I got to put this one up here, right? love learning, marketing and best practices for me don't matter, because I've got great people like Karin Carr in my network. So super fun stuff. Thanks for commenting, guys. Let's get into the fact that you have this, this model this system that actually helps people, right. And you have people coming to you saying, Hey, will you teach me that? Will you teach me that? Yeah. And you kind of ran into a little bit of a wall? Like I got a lot of commitments already. Right?Karin Carr  5:50  Right. Yeah. It was funny. I, probably a year ago, well, actually was more than a year ago, it was in about February of 2018, I guess. And I think I'd had the fifth conversation on the phone with an agent who was saying like, wow, does this really work? How are you doing it? How do you figure out what to talk about? And when I hung up the phone at 930, at night, my husband said, you need to be getting paid for this because you're spending all of your time teaching other people and I said well, they're all asking me for one on one coaching. But I don't have time. I have so many clients right now. I don't have time for one on one coaching. So I made a YouTube video and I said, Hey, listen, if I made a course, would anybody take it? And I had, like 150 people sign up on the interest list. So I said, I guess I'm making a course. Of course, what am I gonna do? So I started researching it. And I figured, okay, I'm going to make a digital course. So that when you sign up for it, you log in and you watch the video, you do what it says you watch the video, you do what it says. And it's basically my method from start to finish of what do I need for equipment? How do I figure out what my video is going to be about? How do I research it, how I film it? How do I edit it? How do I promote it, all ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the real estate show. So excited about today's episode, because it's someone who's a very dear friend of mine, someone who I admire and have so much respect for. She's someone like a kind of a personal hero that I hope that when I'm hearing that I've got the ambition and the drive and the vision and the business sense, and the passive income that she has. And that's going to be today's topic. For those that know me know that my passion is to help you think bigger. Because when you think bigger, your business grows, and your options and impact grow, and the world gets a better place. So let me begin before we fully introduce her just saying thank you to Linda Quinn, for joining us on today's episode.Linda Quinn  0:37  Thanks, Justin. I'm enjoying this.Justin Stoddart  0:40  Good. So for those that don't know, Linda, she's been in the real estate industry for 43 years. And around her, you would guess that she's been in for five years, not because of her experience, but just because of the energy that she has. She is fired up and raring to go. And just such an inspiration to all of us. 25 years ago, Linda, you began collecting properties, as I like to call it. And I know you've taught a number of times, wealth building through real estate actually has a group on Facebook called wealth building through real estate would encourage any and all that are interested in learning from Linda, to go find that Facebook group. You know, let's talk a little bit about why you started to do that. Linda, why it was so important for you to start to create a passive income, you know, many, many years ago. So,Linda Quinn  1:29  I had met with a financial planner in about 1990. And he began telling me that I had to save $1,000 a month, and then I could retire at 65. And my income would be 5000 a month, but that was prefaced on an 8% a year return. And I was single with four kids at home and I was thinking where the heck am I going to get 1100 dollars a month. So new real estate. And I began thinking, Okay, I've read enough books by Robert Allen and some of the other guys that were really gurus in the rental real estate. I'm going to do this. And that's how I got started.Justin Stoddart  2:14  So you realize that as many real estate agents have recognized there's no pension, there's no 401k there's no built in retirement plan. And I joked as I was opening this, the posts that I put out there is that most agents don't want to be marketing properties when they're, you know when they're past a certain age, right? the thing for someone like you who like you could stop you absolutely could stop today and live a wonderful life. But you keep going tell us a little bit about that, that you choose to this because you have to be in the business because you choose to.Linda Quinn  2:47  Yeah, I really get up every morning excited about what I do. And find out where the challenges are. I'm really excited about where it's going to go. I think for me, it's an opportunity to see how much can I achieve. And I feel like it's limitless. As far as passive income comes, I've got three streams of income coming in right now. And I, I want to see where it could go. I don't know what I would do. If I didn't do real estate. I said, My bond bonds, it just makes sense. You know,Justin Stoddart  3:22  I think real estate and really any business is a great place to be when you are there because you want to be there. I think nothing is good if you're there because you have to be there. Right?Linda Quinn  3:33  Right. Right. And, you know,Justin Stoddart  3:35  the nice thing about your situation is you can say, hey, team, I'm done today, I'm going to go tour the world. For you. As you said, your passion is more about like, how much more can I get done? How many are more lives going to impact? How many more streams of wealth can I create, which is so inspiring, because there's a whole group of people that benefit because we choose to do that, right? Maybe there's some, you know, some beach vendors that would benefit by having Linda Quinn there with a, you know, my tie in her hand and purchasing some polka shells. But I think, you know, your talents and abilities are probably better served by driving this industry forward. And, and teaching and training your decades of wisdom. So I commend you for your commitment to the industry and to just thinking bigger, right? You're the classic, big thinker of like, I don't want to stop like that. How boring would that be?Linda Quinn  4:25  Well, Warren Buffett didn't stop, you know. So we're both in the same boat. I feel like I would like to contribute to other agents to be able to give them the same benefits. I'm doing a little bit of mentoring and training right now, which is great. And it leads you into different things that you can get excited about.Justin Stoddart  4:53  So fun. Now let's talk about these three income streams. What I would imagine is your real estate business to which you still have top producer back, we spoke yesterday folks in and she was like, Hey, I'm just doing my prospecting calls. Like, How fun is that? That? So so. So that's one again, you and your amazing daughter, and Stewart are top producers validated through and through you guys are legitimate. Big producers have a great team operationally as well as sales wise, just doing some great things and really doing well by the customer. Again, I've got the good fortune of you to know, is connected to you in business, and you guys really do some great work for the customer. So that's one correct,Linda Quinn  5:33  right, right. Okay, yeah. And the second one is my income stream from rental income, real estate. And I own? Well, my husband and I totally, we own about 25 properties, I do the property management because I want to. And I do everything from turnover and remodeling, and whatever you can think about when you think run real estate, and that brings in a significant amount of money. I don't take any income off that because I am currently paying off my mortgages, and I have very few lefts. So I could retire just off rental real estate.Justin Stoddart  6:13  So you've got 25 properties. And at some point in the near future, those of those will be free and clear. You'll just be collecting complete rent checks from that, like a great situation. Let's talk about that income stream before we move on to the third. What advice would you have a real estate agent who maybe is like, I know, I need to do that. But I haven't gotten there yet. Or I've only got one I know I need to get more like what's either the mindset shift, or the budgetary shift at home where they can start affording these is there's some point at which is clicked for you, and or what you've helped other people to be like, Okay, I got to make this a priority like?Linda Quinn  6:50  Well, if you just look at what you need for retirement, Justin, I've done the math on this. When we teach classes, I asked the audience, you know, how much do you want to retire with per per year, and almost invariably, they say $100,000 a year, but the future value of $1 in 20 years, if that's the time that it takes to get to retirement is $180 $80,000, they need every single year to live 20 more years, not counting the 3% inflation rate that would probably exist. And so at $180,000 a year, for 20 years, you need $2.67 million in the bank, to be able to produce that kind of income to sustain $100,000 a year of what we're living right now. So I would think that that should drive a little bit of anxiety, in most real estate agents, guts. And to try this. It isn't that difficult to do. Back in the days, I'...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, as you know, my mission and my passion are to help you think bigger. When you think bigger, great things start to happen, your business grows, and the options and impact you can have in this world also grow. So I'm thrilled today to bring you somebody who's going to solve this problem. Do I keep my feet close to my chest? Or do I share them? I want to introduce to you Tony Ray Baker, he's out of Tucson, Arizona, and a top agent there. He's in his 25th year. And Tony Ray has been working by referral all that time. And the cool thing that I want to highlight about Tony RAM, sure, there are tons of things. But the thing I want to talk about is that he does a lot of teaching and instructing. And I think you and I are kindred spirits in that regard, Tony because I love giving away knowledge via teaching. It's one of my favorite things that's hence the birth of the think bigger real estate show is how can I find people that help me and others be able to share knowledge with the world? So first and foremost, before we get into specifically what due to teaching, I want to thank you for taking some time to pour into the thing for your real estate audience.Tony Ray Baker  1:04  Yeah, man, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.Justin Stoddart  1:06  Yeah, total pleasure, a total pleasure. Tony Ray and I have crossed paths and had a conversation, it's been probably what, 30 days or so ago, maybe a little less. And his energy is just fantastic. Just the kind of guy that I could see in front of a group of people that would just really excite them. So Tony, Ray, let's get into talking about what you do to teach. Obviously, you're a high producing real estate agent, you do that by referral. But in addition to that, you teach a marketing advertising to real estate agents, which is interest to referral partners, other business owners, and then of course, even, you're always teaching to your sphere as well. Talk to us a little bit about the class that you host, on a monthly basis. What does that look like? How many people come etc.Tony Ray Baker  1:51  So we do two different classes. Actually, once a month, I do a trolley tour of Tucson, and we take out 40 agents, and we show them the and we show the city and development and what's going on. And then I do a class for usually about 90 to 100 agents show up at the Association of Realtors in Tucson and that class is dirty down like marketing, anything we can do to give them guerrilla marketing that is low cost, but really effective. To help them understand how to get more clients and how to do more business. That's a three-hour class.Justin Stoddart  2:27  So and that happens every month as well.Tony Ray Baker  2:29  No, so that I rotate, I alternate those. So I do probably one month and then I do the big class the next month. And then I, of course, inform both how to get to the classes to keep them on track.Justin Stoddart  2:40  Tell us Tony Ray, how many? How many? How big of a city is Tucson? I know it's grown a lot. It's growing really rapidly. Yeah, tell us like how big of maybe how many real estate agents so we kind of get our arms around what you're doing here.Tony Ray Baker  2:53  I don't know how many agents we have currently. I know at my office alone, which is the largest local office, we have probably about 900 agents. At our office, there are about a million people with Tucson in our little suburbs. Okay. And so there's probably a My guess is if they did account now there's probably about 600,000 and city proper. Okay, then two sons, one of the fastest growing cities, as usual, it always has been. And there are an estimated 200,000 people moving here in the next four or five years coming.Justin Stoddart  3:28  So you're very similar in size to Portland, Oregon, where the show is based out of which is really, really interesting. So here, to put it in perspective, we have about 8500 agents. So my guess is your numbers are probably similar. So and 90 to 100 agents a month, you're instructing them and essentially giving away best practices that are working for you and your business.Tony Ray Baker  3:52  Yes. Yep, absolutely.Justin Stoddart  3:55  Has there ever been a time where you thought to yourself, I can't give my secrets? This is my competition. I can't teach them exactly what I'm doing. Or they'll beat me at it. My market share will go down as a result. Did those thoughts go through your head? And how did you overcome them? Or how have you overcome?Tony Ray Baker  4:13  No, they don't go through my head, I have never believed in scarcity. But I've always believed that there's plenty for everybody. And I also truly know that if-if you and I go head to head for the same listing, and you get the listing, I didn't lose that they were just to connect for you. And it shouldn't have been a Connect for me, I truly believe that we're supposed to have the right connections, and I don't work with clients that we can't help and that we don't have a certain level with. So for me, teaching others to do what I do, it just means that maybe one of the people that come to my class might get a listing that I didn't, but they deserve that listing, they were the ones that connected with the client. So I don't have that I never have thought that way. I just believe we all the payoff for me is not altruistic, trust me it is very ego with when I get to teach the agents right when I get to be with them, my transactions are much nicer, we have a level of respect when they call and we're going through the process, we know each other, they have a level of respect for me, there's appreciation, it makes my life beautiful, much better than if I was disconnected from the agents.Justin Stoddart  5:21  So the euro. So this isn't just like you being Mother Teresa like this is a very strategic business move on your part. And you've simply found that your business is actually bigger, better and stronger. By having that abundance, having that abundance mentality,Tony Ray Baker  5:39  right, I get to be one closer to the other agents. But also stuff comes from that as well. by teaching I learned, and it's a beautiful thing for me in the room, watching people's eyes light up when I'm teaching a subject. And I feed off of that. And then I have more communication around that in my class. And then I learned from them as well. So we all learn together. And I don't ever have a script for what I'm going to teach. I know like my class this week is going to be on video and social media. But I have no idea where that's going to go. I have no laid out script for that I will teach for three straight hours on everything I know. And I don't know exactly what will happen by the end of that thing.Justin Stoddart  6:20  It's incredible, man. You are a big thinker. Again, the purpose behind this show doesn't just have people build big empires, right? Although that tends to happen when people are big thinkers. But it's also to have like to teach people how to have an abundant life and I so much love. What you're doing here is that just the overall job satisfaction, right career satisfaction of having like 90 to 100 people that walk out of your class saying thank you like I'm a better agent as a result of that. It's just got to be deeply gratifying.Tony Ray Baker  6:50  It that is awesome. I totally agree. It's a beautiful part of it. And understand to that we have that level of respect from those agents also allows me to work Monday through Friday, from seven eight in the morning till about five or six at n...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very, very excited about today's episode, somebody who I respect and admire, and he is just a wise man. And I'm learning more about him. And he's somebody who is being featured on some pretty big places around the country for the work that he's doing. He's a 25-year industry veteran out of the Dallas Fort Worth area recently featured on WaterCooler Is that right? Jay?Jay Marks  0:27  Yeah, WaterCooler, right,Justin Stoddart  0:28  With Chris Smith, and Jimmy Mackin. And Jay and I've met a couple of times, and been following each other on social media for the past while and just has a lot of really great things to share. And I thought, if I can convince this guy to come on the Think Bigger Real Estate Show, it's going to be great for everybody who listens. So, Jay, thank you good for your time for being here. On a post-Memorial Day episode of the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.Jay Marks  0:52  I'm glad to be here. And you forgot to mention also that you and I are good buddies, so help a friend.Justin Stoddart  0:58  Thank you. And that's true Jay, Jay's a man of faith, good man all the way through. And he and he has a great perspective on the real estate industry. And so let's dive into this, Jay, kind of the topic of today is Oh, my goodness, the sky is falling. Yet at the same time, everything's gonna be just fine.Jay Marks  1:20  Everything's gonna be just fine. That's right.Justin Stoddart  1:22  Let's talk about that. I think that's it, that's great, because there is a bit of a reality check is that like, for some real estate agents, I believe they're, they're at the brink of extinction. Now I say some real estate agents, because some, in my opinion, are not doing what's good for the consumer. And we're living in an era more and more where the consumer is going to win. So for those agents, I think there will actually be applause that like, thank you, right, that those agents aren't with us anymore. Now, will there always be a bad apple infiltrating into every industry, of course, but I do think that those agents that are not innovating, they're not truly adding real value that the consumer will be replaced by a robot. And yet, there are people like Jay marks who are doing some incredible things with their clients, with the community and adding real value to where there's nothing to fear. So Jay talks a little bit about more kind of your perspective on that, why you say, the sky is falling, yet at the same time, everything's gonna be just fine.Jay Marks  2:23  Right? You know, first of all, it's been a statistic for years, that 87% of all real estate agents don't seem to get past the, to your first two years of their career. You know, as I walk into a room, I'm 25 years in the business, I can count on one hand, how many people been there, as long as me or between 17 and 25 years, there's not a lot of us up in the corner talking about the old days. But I will tell you this, that it doesn't really matter who takes over what and who buys who and what new technology if you are being authentic and being you, and most of all, staying in contact with your customers in your sphere of influence. You know, just this morning, we had our Monday morning meeting, and a part of our Monday morning meeting is to look at every closing. And at the end of every closing, we look at how the transaction goes how the client experience ago and is this person, someone that we would like to put in as a VIP, or someone that we want to make sure that? Yeah, let's include them in future marketing at a higher level. And someone really wants to in touch with you get referrals and things like that. And, you know, some closings are smoother than others. But we are we want to make sure we're adding value prior during and after the closing, we want to be the resource ever. Sorry, long answer.Justin Stoddart  3:40  Well, I think it's interesting what you just said there, Jay, if you're actually asking your team, is this somebody that we want to add into our VIP list because I think there tends to be a bit of a feel of like, if the person is has a heartbeat, then, of course, we want their business. But there are people out there that recognize the value and those that don't. And all they want to do is Jeremy on price when they don't have eyes to see the fact that there's a value that you're offering. And so the fact that you guys are making a decision, is this somebody that we want to invest our time in, right? Is this somebody that we want to invest time and resources into, to add superior value because they're going to get it and they're going to receive it and they're going to want to continue to reciprocate in the form of future business as well as referrals.Jay Marks  4:26  Right? You know, just recently Justin we had, we just put it under contract, we're going to close here in a couple of weeks. But I had a wonderful opportunity to put a house on the market of a friend of mine. And the friend of mine was very clear on the phone, we were talking he goes just so you know, I'm interviewing XYZ company and XYZ discount company. And he made it perfectly clear Matter of fact, when I wrote for my ride for my appointment, a road, that's a new word. When I arrived at the appointment, he'd already interviewed Company A and it was me then it was company see afterward, who was touting the I can do all of that for a really, really low price, like 1,500 dollars, something like that. And I was successful in convincing him of my value, and what we had to offer. And when we were putting the house under contract, I brought him here to my office and feel it behind me I've got a big TV on the screen there with the table, and I put all the offers on a spreadsheet on the screen. And that's what started going through him. He actually commented his wife, that company could not have done this. Because it was so no frills. And yes, there is a time and place for a discount and a quick transaction. Yeah, like whenever you're buying a book on Amazon. But whenever you're buying a house or selling a house, there's so much more to it. And it was neat to watch him realize the value without me having to say anything.Justin Stoddart  5:51  You know, a friend of mine mentioned to me that he doesn't believe that, that robots will ever entirely replace real estate agents because real estate is such a large wealth determiner. And I thought about that. And I thought, if and I'll add this in, if a real estate agent is actually in the business of helping people determine wealth, or increase wealth through real estate, I totally agree with him. There's some that don't write that actually, the only thing they do is help somebody buy and sell as opposed to teaching them how to buy, how to sell, like, where to buy, where to sell, when to buy, when it's like the things that you described you put up on the screen was data and insight that actually allows people to make decisions that will increase their wealth to where your fee becomes irrelevant, right. Whereas people aren't offering that then I'm concerned about them. And they ought to be, as I mentioned before, replaced by a robot and or they just need to up their game, right. Jay Marks  6:54  So I thinkthe thing that the most current thing you just said there is people need to up their game. You know, whenever you show up for a if you're going out on a date, you're you've got nice clothes, a clean car, you know, you have an evening planned, you're ready to go. The same thing when you go on an appointment, you know, you want to be ready, you want to be on time and have all your facts and data...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart thrilled about the topic today. It's one that I'm passionate about. And I was so fortunate to be introduced to really an influencer in this space, somebody who helps with a personal brand, helping people find the greatness within them and share that with the world. So please help me welcome, Jennifer Powers. Jennifer is a master certified coach, top 3% of coaches worldwide. Pretty impressive. She's the best selling author of the book "Oh, Shift". In addition to that, she has actually been a keynote over 250,000 people. So needless to say, I feel humbled to have a big thinker. How appropriate for this show a big thinker isn't today to help us solve the problem of how do we help unlock people's potential and help the world know about these people so that they can make the impact that they're supposed to make? So Jennifer, thank you for coming on the show today. It's such a privilege such an honor to have you.Jennifer Powers  0:58  I'm giddy, I'm giddy be here, thanks.Justin Stoddart  1:02  We're gonna have a blast. I know that we've had conversations before. And I'm just thrilled that you agreed to come on the show today. And I'm thrilled that my audience, the think that your real estate audience gets a chance to know who you are, and getting some access to the resources. In fact, I'm going to ask a favor. At the end of this show, I know you have this best selling book, if there's even a part of it, that you could share maybe a digital portion that we could put in the Think Bigger Real Estate Group. So people can kind of get a taste for that. So can I put you on the spot and say, will you?Jennifer Powers  1:34  Whatever, you need Justin, you've got it,Justin Stoddart  1:36  you are the best. Okay, so here's something that I've noticed. And I'm really going to kind of present this as a challenge that all of us are facing in today's day and age. And then I want to really tap into your expertise to help us solve this. And the problem that I'm seeing is that because of information overload, because there are so many ways in which people are gaining information, that we are all happy to make split decision on the brands that we support the people the products, the services, we don't have a lot of time to evaluate. And so as a result, people who are not clear on their brand people who maybe aren't outspoken, and letting the world know who they are, are going to get passed up. Would you agree? Jennifer Powers  2:20  Yeah, definitely. And I think it's becoming more and more so because the competition is becoming more and more. So it really is important to get really clear on that. Yeah.Justin Stoddart  2:31  So so I'm excited to kind of dig into that with you. But I think that there's a lot of people, again, my this audience is probably very heavily saturated real estate agents and mortgage loan officers. And at a time when their competition isn't just the real estate agent down the street, right, or the mortgage loan officer down the hall, like their competition, is now Wall Street and venture-backed tech companies that are spending massive amounts of dollars to not only create technology platforms that minimize what a real estate agent doesn't get paid. But they're also spending billions of dollars to change the consumer mindset, that maybe the traditional path of hiring a real estate agent isn't as important or isn't necessary like it once was. And for any of us that have been on the backside of a real estate transaction to see kind of below the tip of the iceberg. Everything that a real estate agent does and the value that the good ones really bring that thought is not well grounded, right. And so real estate agents have to more than ever be good at speaking up and sharing who they are. In fact, I was teaching a video class yesterday. And one of the big challenges that that agents are facing is the courage to speak up. And I know you absolutely specialize in helping people step into that role. So So please take the mic for me and teach us what you do what you teach people what your book teaches people, how would you help us solve this problem?Jennifer Powers  4:01  So here's the thing, I want to start by saying, yes, that is an incredible problem that is facing, I think, more than just the real estate, mortgage agents. But overall, there is a move toward, or I should say, away from the human interaction toward something that's their main storyline. But here's the thing. And we got to remember these humans, no matter how much AI can take over humans are always going to be humans and humans have a very special need. And that is a connection. So I think in order to stand out among all of those, we need to use what we bring each individual as humans. And that is the power, the richness, the intimacy, the service, the person ability of connection. And I know that sounds like so doll, right? But now more than ever, you're no longer competing with just someone else, you can also now you're competing with something that's going to just streamline the whole process and kick you out, right? So I think we all need to tap into that unique aspect of ourselves that people connect with. So maybe you need to take a poll and ask people that you know, or that know, love and trust you. What is it about me that makes it easy to connect with me, some people it might be a smile, some people might be their conversation skills, some people it might be that they always have a compliment, or, you know, positive words to say, some people might just be like, you are so intelligent and educated on your experience that just draws me in. So like find that one unique element that you bring and then exploit it, exploit it, exploit it. And I think that's where a lot of folks are missing Justin is they're trying to do all things and be all things all people and they're getting lost in the noise, right that everyone else is trying to do all things that all people are expecting. So I think we need to sort of rising to the occasion to bring our, the greatest asset of ourselves to the table fearlessly. without apology. You know what I mean, by that?Justin Stoddart  6:16  How do you when somebody is searching for that? And I think probably most of us know the things that bring us energy, right? They know the things where it's like, man, if I could do that all day, like number one, my energy level goes up. And number two, like I light up other people like I'm really good at that. And maybe it's the paperwork side of the business. Maybe it's speaking maybe it's, it's been an in, you know, negotiations? Is there some other way that you found people to really identify what is their sweet spot?Jennifer Powers  6:45  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easy. You have to stop doing the things that you don't like doing and that you're not good at it's simple. spend the majority of your energy on the things that you excel at and enjoy joy, right? That doesn't necessarily mean the things you have experience? Because just because you have experienced something doesn't mean you should be doing it right. Do you like it? Because that's when you're going to shine. You know, that's when you are in your brightest, greatest state of being is when you're doing things that you are really enjoying. And I don't mean just the job. I mean, the things that you're more the way your marketing like so for example, people have said to me for years old, Jen, you should really do a blog, you should you know, you should write a blog. I'm like, you know what, I don't want to write a blog. I hate right here. Whatyou should be on Facebook is you know what, I don't like Facebook, no offense, Facebook, we'r...

Justin Stoddart  0:01  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show, I am your host Justin Stoddart and absolutely thrilled today to bring to you someone who is a friend of mine and an absolute icon in the industry in the real estate industry. She acts as the Senior Vice President, national marketing manager for Old Republic title. And I get opportunities to learn from her. And I thought today how appropriate it would be to share some of that and allow those that that tune into this show, get a chance to meet Michelle, and hear her sharing some really awesome stuff that she's learned in how many years in the industry, Michelle? Michelle Lenahan  0:36  Oh, my gosh, I think I'm 23 now, can you believe it?Justin Stoddart  0:38  cool, coming up on a quarter century in this wonderful industry? And so first and foremost, thank you so much for taking the time and making the effort. I know, like many of my guests, video is not something that you love to do.Michelle Lenahan  0:54  So my kryptonite, it's my kryptonite.Justin Stoddart  0:57  You're, you're awesome at it. So I think everybody's gonna probably private message you in fact, if you have like, find value in what Michelle says today, will you please let her know do more video. Awesome. Let's dive into this. As as you know, Michelle is you've probably heard me say before, is it my mission and passion is really to help people think bigger and to help them as a result of that grow themselves so that their business can grow. You know, you and I both know that businesses don't grow, at least they don't grow sustainably unless there's the personal growth behind it. And I know for that reason alone, you've risen to the heights that you have. And the ability that you have the impact in a large degree because you're deeply committed to like developing yourself and constantly learning. And I love that about you that you like, every time I talk with you, you've got like, stories from your previous positions, stories that you're learning now. Like, there's always just something top of mine, that you're identifying a lesson, and then you're sharing it with other people? Did you have to grow into that and kind of learn that ability to, to identify, to start really picking out the lessons in life? Or have you kind of always been just a curious student like that, you know,Michelle Lenahan  2:09  what it's, it's absolutely at a time totally curious about everything. And I have to tell you, really, my passion is people, I love to learn and grow. And if there's one thing that I say, every single day, please let me learn from others. So I don't have to fall into the same pits that they fall into. If I can avoid one pit by learning from someone else, then that to me, is worth a million dollars. And so studying people and learning from them and seeing what's working and what's not. And just being super curious, I think, you know, people, people are so amazing, at every level, and there's so much to learn. And I love it when I talk to someone, and they sort of hit me upside the head and make me think differently. And that those are the moments that I'm that I pull from to say, how does this affect my personal life today?Justin Stoddart  3:00  I love that, you know, my, the signature question that I asked at the end of nearly every episode is, what do you do to intentionally think bigger? Like what like, how do you position yourself to where your possibilities are always expanding? And I think you might have already answered that question is, is it you're just a very curious student of what other people are doing?Michelle Lenahan  3:20  Absolutely. That, you know, I had a professor in college who said, Never make up a story. Because what people will tell you, it's not possible for you to dream up. We were actually doing a project where, to go out and interview people. And she said, Don't try to skip over this interview part. Because I guarantee you, if you try to write this paper without having done the work, I'll know it because you are not you can't possibly dream up what people are really going to tell you.Justin Stoddart  3:52  Isn't that interesting? And is that true in life to in business, that, you know, kind of fake and it only gets you so far, like you actually have to do the work. Now some people get lucky. And they, you know, lat like land a couple of big deals. But if you aren't doing the work behind the scenes, eventually it shows up in the business doesn't last like and you know, I don't even add to that if you're not growing into the person that can sustain that success. Pretty soon the tide goes out, and you're left without your shorts. Michelle Lenahan  4:19  Absolutely. And I think Justin it's so important for you to learn it here. But you've got to learn it here. Because if you just learn it here, it won't translate when you learn it here in your heart. That's where the magic happens.Justin Stoddart  4:33  What have you found on that note? Before we get into the kind of the content of today, I'm fascinated by this topic, what have you found Michelle to take it from head to heart? is there some have you identified, like, what lessons go from here to here and how you get it to do that, any thoughts on that? Michelle Lenahan  4:50  You know,you really have to apply things to your own personal life. And the most important piece to get it to translate from your head to your heart is his judgment. And don't pass judgment, because I guarantee you when you're learning things here in your head, and you're trying to translate them if you're passing judgment, because we all learn and it there are many different teachers out there, and you read books. And if you're passing judgment on the things that people are doing, you're never going to internalize it, the moment you stop to say, this person is smarter than me or wealthier than me or the converse is, they're not as smart as I am, or they don't have as much as I do. And you pass judgment, that's when you stop learning. Because when you look at all of these people, is there something to learn at every stage, that's when your heart is open to be able to internalize that so that you really can get the messageJustin Stoddart  5:44  that's cool, almost opening your heart to the people that you're learning the lessons from absolutely helps with that process. A lot of great stuff. And and and also, as you said, where you have to do it, right, like wisdom comes as you apply knowledge. And like you said, I think there's a there's a really practical component of everything that you learn unless you apply it, it's going to stay in your head and eventually go. But if you start to live it, then you as your soul starts to really buy into that, that this is my new identity this, right?Michelle Lenahan  6:14  Absolutely. And it's like, it's kind of like riding a bike, people can watch videos about riding bikes, they can hang out with Lance Armstrong, they can, you know, have a bike and dust it off and read all about it and watch every YouTube video out there. But at some point, you got to get on the bike, and you got to pedal because you've got to translate that from your head to the physicality of it. And you're probably going to fall and you're going to be off balance. And but don't delay riding the bike thinking you're going to study it and become a student. And then, you know, before you ever get on the bike.Justin Stoddart  6:49  Great points. I love it. And what a great segue into us having some really cool things kind of some cool conversations to talk about. So let's talk about for those that are going away for the ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Think Bigger Real Estate Show, I'm your host Justin Stoddart thrilled about today's episode, I think it's going to give a lot of real estate agents a solution to a problem that they've always wanted to have solved, which is how do I get more time in my life? You know, there's endless coaching programs, endless ideas, even here on the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. We're constantly giving you ideas of how to improve your business and how to improve your life. And the reality is, none of those are any good if you don't have any time or capacity to implement them. So I want to welcome today's guest, Bob Lachance. Let me give you a quick rundown on him. And then I'll let him talk a little bit because he's the guy that actually you know, I listen to, he spent eight years playing hockey at some of the highest levels. And he both here and in other countries, got into the industry in 2004. He's founded multiple real estate coaching businesses. And he now does a lot of investment properties. He's done over 1,000 In fact, investment properties, over 700 short sales. And I'm one thing that he's really excited about that we're going to talk more about today is the company he founded called Reva Global, which is a company that helps real estate agents outsource things that they should not be doing so that they can focus on doing things they should be doing. So Bob, apologize for the long intro, but man, it's your fault. You've got too many accomplishments. So thank you for being on the show, man. Super excited to have you here.Robert Lachance  1:17  Absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate you having me, you've had an incredible list of individuals on your show and I'm a huge fan so I really appreciate you having me.Justin Stoddart  1:26  Yeah, man. I appreciate that. That's super fun to hear. Let me start by this so so for those of you that are just tuning in Bob and I found that we have something else that we're passionate about beyond just the real estate industry which is that of being dad's you should have heard Bob light up his he started telling there are we start telling stories about kids growing up and having them experience kind of athletics. So, Bob, you played sports at the highest level. We're going to get to that here in a second. Let's talk first and foremost about what is your favorite part about being a father?Robert Lachance  2:01  I think it's probably teaching them and seeing them grow up. I know you have six kids, which is absolutely insane to me, I have three kids my oldest is 15. But I think it's teaching them the little things in lives and in their lives and also coaching them so I coach ice hockey for them all the youth sports grown up so it's really a pleasure to see them grow and teach them the little life lessons that you know I'm sure that you've you're teaching your kids as well. Yeah,Justin Stoddart  2:28  yeah, that's awesome man. I'm part of the mission of this show, is to not just help people have better lives are better businesses as a result of what we talked about, but better lives. And I think you know, one of the greatest impacts that people can have is within the confines of their own home and the impact they can have on the next generation so super love the fact that you are a committed dad I think that that says a lot about you so super. Thanks so much for sharing that. Let's talk about your hockey career again. We're going to start with all the good stuff. Everybody gets into real estate stuff at the end but you played all the way up to NHL level right?Robert Lachance  3:06  Yes, I got drafted by the St. Louis Blues who happens to now be in the Stanley Cup Finals against the Boston Bruins which is pretty cool. So it is my team I played in the-so the equivalent of the triple-A in baseball, I played triple-A and hockey for four years here I played one exhibition NHL game, proud to say point a game so that's pretty good. One is this one. And then I took that over to Europe. I played in Italy, Milan, Italy, Hamburg, Germany, Switzerland, core Geneva, Lugano, Switzerland, for the remainder of my career, and then I happened to jump in a real estate right after that. Justin Stoddart  3:49  How does hockey compare over there in Europe to here is it more popular as popular that's popular? Robert Lachance  3:57  It's in different countries. So I played on and obviously soccer as they call football over there and not our football but soccer is extremely, extremely popular. So hockey, not so much Germany a lot more. Switzerland, very, very popular.Justin Stoddart  4:13  Very cool. Now, tell me what's the biggest lesson that you learned from hockey that's benefited your real estate career.Robert Lachance  4:20  You know what I think the most important thing in any business is actually the work ethic, you have to have to be successful in anything. It's, you know, you put in hours an hour, it's kind of like, you know, if you're a Top Producing real estate agent, you just don't fall out of bed and be a Top Producing real estate agent. It takes the years of practice the years of creating systems, falling through those systems consistently and implementing those just like anything, right? You have all the training, but you also have to take the action and implement all of that training to be successful. So I think that is probably the biggest thing for me.Justin Stoddart  4:54  And I just saw that you say that the ratio of practice time versus playtime was pretty one-sided right? You practice and you like you said, you follow systems and processes in order to get better not to say that you should spend all of your time planning and prep right we learned that on our previous episode Justin Okay, that that's a bad idea.Robert Lachance  5:16  What a great episode too.Justin Stoddart  5:19  But this this concept of, of actually having a process and I'm sure that to become a hockey player at the highest level, you had to be organized, you had to have, like, just put in massive amounts of time to get to that level, which is what you're saying is very similar to get to the point to where now you've done over 1000 investment properties, those same principles carry through.Robert Lachance  5:42  Yeah, and here's one of the things I do want to say it takes patience to, you know, if you set a goal to sell, I don't know $10 million of real estate as an example, it's not going to happen in the first month. It's not going to happen the second month unless you live in I don't know San Diego or LA or something and you get that one deal that is lucky but to do it on a consistent basis. That is important for everyone to know that it takes the time it takes building and as you go along you have to build your team you build your partnerships, you know a lot of those the past episodes that I listened to from like Lars Hedenborg, I believe that's a say and Jim- yeah Hedenborg. So he talked a lot about for he's from the real estate B school, he talked about setting up systems in getting help in reference to implementing those systems and doing it consistently. I think that's, that was a really big takeaway took away from that. And he's 1,000%. Correct.Justin Stoddart  6:37  Let's talk a little bit about your passion for helping agents outsource and which is kind of down the path, you know that you're headed right now. Interesting. mentor of mine, Chris Suarez mentioned how NAR did a study that identified that real estate agents 80% of their time is spent on functionary activities. So 14 out of 15 hours right now spent doing activities that aren't fiduciary activities that don't necessarily require you...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart.My passion and my mission are to help you think bigger so that you can have a life of more possibilities and more impact. And today I have with me, somebody who is going to personify and redefine for you what it means to think bigger. His name is Joseph McCabe. He's out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the owner of REMAX experts Philadelphia. He also owns home first mortgage owns a title company and an insurance company. In addition to that, in the past five years, he's picked up 112 investor- excuse me, units as an investor, and is raising money to do to pick up about 400 more. Needless to say, these past five years have been a pretty fruitful five years for Joseph McCabe and I don't see any signs of him slowing down. So let me first begin by saying thank you, Joseph, for being on the figure real estate show today.Joseph McCabe  0:50  Yeah, no problem. Thanks for inviting me. excited to see what I can do to help everybody out.Justin Stoddart  0:54  I love it, man. So again, 26 didn't finish college and I understand you correctly? Joseph McCabe  1:01  No, I finished I just did it. Pretty accelerated way. Okay. See, I Justin Stoddart  1:06  kind of seems like your style. Joseph McCabe  1:08  Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, they actually they were like, yeah, you need to talk to a counselor, you're going to take 24 credits. That's part of taking action everyone is so they think everybody's like a snowflake kind of week. And you know, they can't handle it. We better talk to them. So no, I did two years of Penn State. Then I enlisted in the Army, went to school became an MP. Military Police with the army, got out, started training people at GNC or started training people to LA Fitness, working at GNC while getting my real estate license while going to Cabrini. So for two semesters, I took I needed like 50 or 60 credits. So I took 24 credits each semester and graduated a year early. And while I was training people, I think in that first semester, maybe over the summer, when I got out of the army, this guy was like driving in a nice Mercedes, I found out that later, you know, I didn't know anything. So it wasn't the nicest Mercedes. So he could have done better. But I used to make fun of it. And he told me he was in real estate. And so I got my license, and I jumped at I started working out long and foster pull off you startJustin Stoddart  2:15  and an end. And that's where it all began.Joseph McCabe  2:17  That's where it all began.Yeah. So then, uh, you know, because as I do it, my first two weeks, I had two deals right off the bat. And nobody there would help me. I was just kind of brought in and left to myself. So thank God for Google. I just went out there and started Googling what to do, ended up going to an independent and then eventually Keller Williams, open up my title company, Keller Williams, and then realized I didn't like the culture, I wanted to do something, start my own Colts or start my own company. And that's when I decided to buy a REMAX franchise. Although, when I did that I still wasn't sold on I'm going to be in real estate for the rest of my life. So I was still in the process to be a Philadelphia cop.Justin Stoddart  3:01  So you're buying a franchise and you're still deciding as to whether or not it'sJoseph McCabe  3:07  I think my mind was made up but I couldn't tell myself that, you know,made up butbut ya know, it was a good experience and my initial partner in REMAX was a Philadelphia cop. My whole family's filled up with police officers, my brother's a cop, and I was a cop in the army. So something that for some reason, I wouldn't let go out right away. But, you know, thankfully, now I did because the income potential was much better.Justin Stoddart  3:32  Yeah, to say the least. Um, it's funny recently, I was listening to Tony Robbins talks about how we live in North America, where there are endless amounts of opportunity, yet most people don't make the kind of money that they want, they are the shape that they cut that that they want to be in. They don't have the relationships that they want to have. And he said the biggest reason for that is because they don't take enough action. And I want to get into that with you. Because I feel like that's the great Golden Nugget, I'm sure there's a ton of golden nuggets that we can extract for you today. But I feel like you pouring into this audience, what it means to take a step when you don't know what the outcome is going to look like. or even if that's even the right step. Talk to us there when you are present an opportunity to buy you know, purchase a title company or insurance company or a real estate company and you don't know how it's going to turn out you do it anyway and decide later. Talk to us through mine.Joseph McCabe  4:29  Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, you know, people, people spend all day spreadsheets, and paralysis analysis on every single, every single real estate deal every single, you know, an opportunity that comes up to them, how are they going to get started being a realtor? How are they going to get into the mortgage industry, if you're going to be a loan officer? And it's like, dude, just, it's pretty freaking simple. You need to get out there and talk to people and get applications where the real estate business you need to get out there, talk to people get them to go look at houses, you know, it's not even that it's complex. You're overthinking. And maybe really, in your head, you're like, I don't know if I want to actually take that type of action. And I wish there was a magic bullet. And I think or Yeah, I guess a magic bullet. But when I first got into real estate, I, at some point found Grant Cardone. So you know, I don't agree with everything he says. But a lot of what he says it's true. It's like, you know, no one really cares where you came from, what happened to you, you know, why you're holding yourself back, but you need to get out there and take action because no, no one's going to do anything else for you. So whenever I heard him, say, you know, commit, first do the rest of the, you know, figure the rest out later, that's when I started. Just going out there finding awkward to opportunities would find me, to be honest. You know, whether it was jumping on Toby Salgado show or Pat Hiban show. And now your show, you know, if you put yourself out there enough, you take enough action, you can always take more action, you can create 24-hour action, you have a CRM talking to people three in the morning, and while you're asleep, I would encourage that. But the more action you can take, the more money you're gonna make. It's, it's a simple formula for success. That's it.Justin Stoddart  6:07  So your take is rather than learn, learn, learn so that I can apply you say Do do do so that I will learn. Joseph McCabe  6:13  Yeah, four years learned in college, and I use none of that. So I didn't learn that way. I learned a lot in the army, but the army is a lot of, you know, trial and error, get out there and figure it out. And it's a lot more aggressive in the army, but then it isn't college. Justin Stoddart  6:31  So So obviously, that the reality of going out and getting an application for a loan, or getting a listing is probably far less scary, right? And busting through a door like a police officer, right? You know, on the front lines in the army. I would imagine some of that military training some of that cop training you to like be like guys, we should not be fearful o...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the think bigger real estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart and I am really excited today to be here with a good friend of mine with James Adair, of Sierra Pacific mortgage to talk about this, how to differentiate in a crowded marketplace. James and I've had this conversation before that so many agents do what every other agent does. They show up the same way. They say the same things, and they all lead to generating the same way. And that today, I'm going to have James share with us some absolutely brilliant ideas that he helps, that he really mentors and has a process and a system to help real estate agents really stand out. And in again, accredit marketplace. So first and foremost, James, thanks for being on the show today. James Adair  0:36  Sure, can we get some confirmation from anybody that's on online? Did they give up? So? Justin Stoddart  0:44  Yeah, if you're watching this live, if you would type live, if by chance you're watching this, as a replay, please put replay once you see this that kind of help us know who's watching the show. So anyway, we'll kind of keep an eye on that. So, James, let's get this.James Adair  1:00  Let's get into it here. Right,Justin Stoddart  1:02  Yeah. Right, let's, let's bust this out. So how common is it for you to hear real estate agents say that all their businesses coming from cold market prospecting, open houses, online leads?expired for sale by owners? Like, how common is that?James Adair  1:19  Well, I know it's common in town for and I think it's more common for newer agents who are trying to build their book, you know, it's like, All right, let's call some expired. Let's call some fizz bows, let's do some open houses, let's just get in the mix. And fight it out for opportunities. Right. So and I, I don't think that's a bad idea. I think that's a, it's got to be a part of every new agent's business. But I do see a lot of teams that really just prospect focus, prospecting focused, and this is they just crank and crank and crank. And I think it can be exhausting. It can be demoralizing. And it's hard to get the right kind of momentum. If you don't, if you aren't connecting. And you aren't getting some easy wins every so often, right? And so when I say an easy win, I guess what I'm talking about is a referral. So someone saying, oh, man, you gotta call Justin he'll sell your house, he's the best. And then someone calls you like, hey, James told me to call you, I need to sell my house and then use get right to work. You don't have you're not. So there's a difference with prospecting. And there's a difference in selling. And we need to do both. But we really need to be focused on selling, selling is where the money is made. Right. And if you get a referral, you can really compress that timeline. The more referrals you get, the more often you're just selling and educating your clients on how this works, and how you can help them not trying to convince them to choose you and then go into selling, you know, yeah. So I wanted to do a little call back to an episode you did a while ago when you talked about the book Blue Ocean Strategy, which is such a cool concept. It's actually kind of a, it's kind of a classic now, right? I mean, it was that that came out in Oh, six, I think it's an older book. But it's basically about trying to find ways to make it operate in parts of the market, that not everyone else is operating in, operate in a place or in a way that you're not competing with as many people if you call it for sale by owner, it's like that person's just getting you to know, 20 phone calls a day until they list with an agent. And then in this just make it's like part of the value proposition of that for sale by owner is make my phone stopped ringing with other agents, please. But what we're going to talk about at our this Wednesday, we're sharing the stage again, on the third command performance of the exponential referrals workshop, you've got a great piece of content, Nick Crowder, has got a great piece of content about leveraging referrals from retiring agents, such a huge idea that he's got a great system built around. But I'm going to be talking about what I call the homebuyers playbook strategy, which is about leveraging your existing business relationships and turning those into referrals. There's, there's plenty of businesses that everyone uses every day for their own selves, their own families. And well, first of all, most of them, not most of them, but maybe more than you'd like to say, don't even know that your real estate agent. Don't even know that your lender. So make sure everyone knows what you do that if it's a business that you're frequenting, make sure that they know what you do.And then you want to get into a conversation around. How does your business work? Right, you want to ask them that I'm getting into now this is sort of the, this is the formula for getting your existing business relationships to start referring business to you. Like if you go into a dry cleaner, or if you go into your I have a great story. But my optometrist, I'm not wearing my glasses right now. But I have them. I don't need them all the time. But I do wear glasses sometimes. And I have an optometrist up the street. And I got into this conversation with her, I was strapped into the machine. And I asked her how does this business work, she's actually kind of new. So she had just bought the practice a year before. And it was only the second time I'd seen her. And I'd seen her predecessor in months before. So I was asking her like how the transition was going and just ask her some business questions. And how he asked her how, how do you build your business? And is it a, you know, is it something that's automatic? Or do you something is that something you struggle with, and she just really, really lit up and said, It is something we struggle with, it is something I wish we could devote more energy to, you know, we have a good client list, we have a good location and a parking lot and all the things are in place. But there's definitely room to improve. And we just really started getting into that kind of conversation. And she's, I mean, she's a medical professional, and a highly, you know, specialized kind of service provider. But she's running a business, and it's a retail business. And you know, there's ups and downs, and she has to manage that part. And probably no one's taught her how to do that. And you know, you and I've talked about that all of these highly trained professional services are just winging it, you know, and as a lender, as a real estate agent, we've been able to probably get more training around marketing around client conversion, client retention, around scripts, you know, we can really bring a lot of value to these people. And so just asking, how do you build your business? And, you know, hey, would it be? Would it be okay? I mean, I really enjoy coming here, I have a book that I hand all my clients, it's just a home buyers playbook. And I feature all of my preferred business partners in town, and I'd say, you know, keep this book, it'll show you how to buy the house, and you know how to maintain the house, but in the back end has all kinds of pre-screened vetted local professionals for all kinds of services, not just Home Services. And would it be okay, if I featured this business in my book, I'm going to give out at least 100 of these books this year, maybe more? And she just stopped in her tracks and was like, that would be amazing. In fact, my husband, I am thinking about buying a house right now, it was like a $1.1 million purchase that she and her husband were looking to do. And I uncovered that. And then more referrals just by offering to be curious, having a system in place that I ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddartpartnerships. Are they a good idea, are they not? Today we're going to talk about how partnerships can leverage can be a powerful source of leverage to allow you to take your business to the next level. I want to, first of all, thank James Becker, owner and founder of fusion growth partners for being on the show today. James has spoken at Inman before. He's built Fusion Growth Partners and is a business incubator for emerging mega agents. You probably have not heard that before. So we're going to talk all about what partnership could look like. James, first and foremost, thank you for being on the show today.James Becker  0:38  Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it.Justin Stoddart  0:40  Yeah, good stuff. So, James, we were talking here before, and I kind of wish we would have started the broadcast a few minutes ago because so the stuff that he was sharing was absolutely fantastic. So I'm hoping to be able to pull that out of him again.But here's what I think of James, when I think of a partnership, or how most real estate agents think of a partnership is they think, boy, I'm getting busy. Susie over there in the office doesn't look as busy. Hey, Susie, why don't we team up and let's go list. I go on vacation, you can cover my stuff, you go on vacation off cover your stuff. That's about as complex of a partnership that you typically see in real estate. And really what you guys are doing is coming in creating partnerships, almost investing in real estate agent businesses to take them to the next level, like less of a mom and pop shop, and more into a really established business that offers big value to the clients. So I'm interested really interested in having you share kind of your story. How did Fusion Growth Partners come about?James Becker  1:40  Well, I started selling real estate back in 1989, we had a great market in 1989. And then we had Desert Shield when we had the first Iraqi war. We had boots on the ground, the market literally went to a stop. I was newly married, I have a pregnant wife, and I needed to pay some bills. And so I sat down and I cold called until my fingers bled. And I did very well doing kind of the mike ferry process. Yeah. And. And back in 1990. Before there are mega-agents, my best year I did about 65 transactions with one TC. And those do all the prospecting myself, I was in 1% of the agents across the country as far as volume was concerned. And, and then after that last year, then 1997 year I was just completely burned out. And I hadn't leveraged it, everything in a wasthe amount of business that I did was strictly correlated to the amount of energy that I had every day that I could put into prospecting, burnout being and so I started thinking about, okay, need to do something different. And I opened up another business, that business was kind of Fusion 1.0 was not successful. And I ran into a guy running a mortgage company who became a mentor of mine, I shut down my business went to work for him, learn some corporate structure and some additional business stuff for five to six years and then opened up future.Justin Stoddart  3:27  So talk to us a little bit about what Fusion offers. Again, it's very different than just offering an agent or even offering an assistant, but when I went through the presentation really can understand your model, I was super impressed when I thought all the stuff that I try and recommend to real estate agents that they should do to grow their business. I mean, it was you know, it could be a menu of like, dozens of things to really get their business showing up in the right places, with the right touch with the right look. And like I think about every good idea that I had heard or ever promoted, you're saying, we do that, with companies invest in companies to help them on day one, be able to turn the switch and have this stuff rolling. Right?James Becker  4:07  Right. Well, not day one, it takes 60 to 90 days to build out a factory. And that's one of the things that keeps agents from doing and there's a huge commitment to building up all the systems and the processes so that they can run on a regular basis and have consistency. We believe the number one reason why people don't have long term growing sustainable businesses is the lack of consistency in just the fundamentals, and the basic business development stuff. Because the works, they produce some business, they get busy, they stopped doing that. And so they're in business, and they're out of business, they're in business, and they're out of business. And so for us, we want to build up this particular factory. So it's not particularly day one. But when people ask us what we do, it's impossible to explain in five minutes, but the best way to explain it is most of these people have been to a family reunion or mega agent or Tom Ferry seminar. And they come out of those seminars just like if I set this system up, and this system up and this system up, man, I'm going to kill it because I see these other agents that have done that. And then what they find out is six months later, they're signing up for maybe the same seminar, or very similar seminar and they haven't executed anything on a consistent basis. That is the problem that we solve. We look around and I cannot see or find one business, it's one person that does everything themselves. That's a healthy long term business. And so but that's what we do, as agents, we tried to hoard all of the money ourselves, and we're going to do all the work ourselves, keep everything ourselves. And what ends up happening is you have a very unstable, unsustainable business model, that, you know, someone gets sick, or they're hired, or they're burned out the businessesJustin Stoddart  6:05  that you know, grow. So, you know, I couldn't agree with you more again, I get the good privilege of day in and day out spending needed spending my days,my days sitting next to agents helping them become more consistent with systems in place, and by night thinking about how I can help them improve that. And what I mentioned that I think is really interesting, is it that agents unwillingness, or at least lack of education on what it takes to actually scale a business that is sustainable, that it's, you can't look at the commission check as income, right, or as your paycheck rather.Like its revenue.James Becker  6:44  Revenue. It's not a paycheck. That's such a good, such a good way of looking at, I'm gonna have to borrow that from you. Please, paycheck, its revenue, you're absolutely correct.Justin Stoddart  6:57  But yeah, they see it. And I think that's why many agents go right on kind of the further end of the spectrum, like forget about taxes, there's, they're used to coming out of a job where when someone gives you a check that you put it in the bank, and that's what you get to spend. But there's this education of what about the taxes. And then what you're saying is there's this other component, that if you were actually business savvy, or like any scalable business, you would take a percentage of that and gladly invest it back in the business and people systems tools in order to get you to where that service you just offered number one doesn't burn you out personally, and continues to allow for a consistent lead generation effort as well as customer service effort moving forward.James Becker  7:37  Right. Now, I agree with that. So I did some research a few years ago, and I went into US government list of percentages, and you look at the margins that most businesses have the very top, the highest margin by industry was the banks, the banks...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. So excited to be here today about a topic that is, I think so important to the industry, which is how do successful, loving, caring, thoughtful moms stay that way while still succeeding big in real estate? And I have with me today, Stephanie Peck. Stephanie Peck  0:17  Yeah. Hi. Justin Stoddart  0:18  Thank you so much for being here, Stephanie. Yeah, this is such a treat. Because, you know, guys consider around and pontificate and talk all day long about what we think the solution is for moms. But it really doesn't do it justice. What really needs to happen is for us to bring someone to the plate, who's for the past 10 years, is that right?Stephanie Peck  0:36  Yeah. 12 years, actually,Justin Stoddart  0:38  12 years in real estate, has managed and grown a very successful real estate practice and yet been a fantastic mom. So now I know that conversation kind of weighs heavy on a lot of moms, I was in a top agent mastermind I can reference this yesterday. And some producers, some of which sell 100 homes a year. And the kind of constant feeling of like, Am I doing enough? At home? Am I doing enough for my clients? Like, is that a real feeling? Do you feel that?Stephanie Peck  1:05  Yeah, all the time, I'm always thinking, how am I going to be the best at everything, and also trying to remember that it's okay to not be the best at everything. Yeah, that's always my balance. Justin Stoddart  1:17  You know,it's been really interesting. I was raised in an entrepreneurial family, my mom was a very successful business owner. And I cannot think of something that she could have done better, in fact, because of what she did outside of the home and inspired me to similarly want to, you know, build a business. And so I'm grateful for the fact that not all moms are built a like some, like our dedicate like my wife, for example. She works one day a week as a nurse, and she thrives in that environment. Like my mom would have driven me and my siblings crazy. Had she been home? Right? Yeah, she's just wired to be like, very different. And so I don't know if you feel that way as well, like some moms like are better moms by both, like having some participation in the large participation, the workforce.Stephanie Peck  2:04  Yeah, I definitely feel that way. Personally, I,I went back and forth a lot about whether I wanted to be a stay at home mom or a working mom or part-time, I'm always trying to figure out where my place was in that. And I know for me when my kids were younger, and I was able to spend a lot of time at home with them. I'm so grateful for that time. And I love that I was able to do that. But now I personally am so much happier, doing what I'm doing and still being able to be the mom that I want it to be. Justin Stoddart  2:41  Now that's some moms probably have that. That guilt, right, that feeling of like,I'm giving up kids, let's talk a little bit about motherhood. For those that know me, some of you don't know me as well, others do know that at the core of who I am, I'm a family guy. And family is the most important thing to me. So and I honestly believe that there's no greater work than one will do than within the walls of their own home. Right? That's a quote that stuck with me ever since I was young. And I believe that, that a lot of realtor moms feel that same way to have even though they build a great business build a great empire, they realize that all shrinks in comparison to the work that they're doing. And raising up the next generation talk a little bit about kind of your feelings about motherhood and home just so that those things like, well, she doesn't like she doesn't get me because of she obviously family's kind of the second tier to her. And I know that's not true, right? Talk a little bit about like, your feelings towards motherhood and being a mom and all that.Stephanie Peck  3:33  Yeah. So for me, I, I got into real estate because I wanted to do it for my family. And because I wanted to be the mom that I wanted to be knowing that I still wanted to be a working mom. But I didn't want to be a drop off at daycare, 10 hour a day kind of a mom. That was just my personal choice. And that's how I wanted to have my family structured. So that's when I got started in real estate was with that goal in mind. So for me, I'm always trying to think about why did I do this? Why did I decide to get into this business? And who am I serving because of it? So I focus on what I want to do for my family because of real estate and not the otherway around is Justin Stoddart  4:21  interesting that we've talked about before. You've mentioned before about how important it is to to have a clear why right? Because I know that in real estate you get in any training, and it's like more and more and more bigger, bigger, bigger. Yeah. sell, sell, sell. Yeah. And unless you're reaching the highest small percentile in the industry, sometimes you feel like a loser, right? It's like, Oh, I didn't make the top 10%. Top 1%. I should strive for more. But what you mentioned is having a really clear why to know like, when enough is enough, right? How you kind of came to that conclusion, because I'm sure that is talented as you are, you could have a bigger business if you chose to. But you've probably chosen at times to throttle back to say no to this, this and this. So that you can still be the mom you want to be.Stephanie Peck  5:01  Right. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. And that's kind of that inner battle that I'm always fighting to because I'm I'm a driven person. I'm a think bigger kind of a person Justin Stoddart  5:11  why she's here.Yeah. Fellow big thinker.Stephanie Peck  5:14  Yeah. So you know, I'm always thinking about what could I be doing next? What should I be doing more of? But always going back to that, why? Why did I want to be here in the first place? It's because I wanted to be the kind of mom that was able to go on the field trips, I wanted to be the kind of mom that is dropping my kids off at school and picking them up from school as much as possible. So I scheduled my time, but you know, at 230 usually is cut off time for a little while. And I spend time with my kids after school and then go back to it, you know, once the husband gets home, and I head out for evening showings. And so for me, I've always thought, who am I doing this for? And why am I doing it? And that means that I'm not going to be that, you know, big giant producer right now. And being okay with that, because I'm working for my family, and I'm working to give them a better life and give them more than I ever thought would be possible.Justin Stoddart  6:16  Yeah. I think that, as you said, it's important to be able to say no, and have a Be confident by saying like, No, I don't want to go there yet. Maybe I don't want to build a big team, right? Or maybe I do need some team members, right? Yes, I do need some support. Because as you and I both know, not all activities in real estate are paid the same. Right? There are certain things that are of high value to the customer. There are other things that need to happen. But doesn't this still need to happen by you? Right? Have you found kind of getting into into the more tactical now, some tactical tips on things that you've decided like, okay, that needs to happen, but if I start doing that, it's either that or picking my kids up at school? And so, therefore, I'm going to, I'm going to hire or create a better system or tool for that. What are those things? Yea...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome to Think Bigger Real Estate show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very excited today to have with me two very close friends, guys, they look to as mentors, leaders, and bosses. These guys are fantastic.Steve Yeager  0:13  I like the laugh.Justin Stoddart  0:14  They are the leaders of Old Republic Title here in Oregon. And they have built an amazing company culture. And if you're a real estate agent and desire to scale your business, at some point, you're gonna add somebody, and you're gonna add somebody else, potentially add somebody else, and it's going to be requisite for you. If you want to keep good talent and attract good talent, then you're going to need to build the company culture, place where people want to work a place where people don't just get everything they want, but they get what they need. So we just had a great branch meeting, and I thought it'd be appropriate to have a lively conversation with you guys that make me laugh and inspire me about how to have a great company culture. So, Ryan, you mentioned something in the meeting, that gives people perspective, that it's not that their perspective isn't always right, would you share what that is?Ryan Wood  0:58  Well, it's actually a line that you've used, so we'll steal it from him. But I basically, it's, when you're, and I can say this because I step up on my soapbox a lot, I get passionate about things. And I start, you know, putting my point of view out there and telling everybody, you know, what I feel is right. And, you know, Steve, made a really great point in the meeting, basically talking about the fact that all of us need to when we're in that position, also sit there and say, according to me, so basically do a little little bit of self reflection, which can go a long ways. And, you know, say, okay, am I right? Or am I doing the right thing? It's not all just about making you right, it's about making sure you're doing the right thing.Justin Stoddart  1:41  Great stuff, Steve, any thoughts on that?Steve Yeager  1:44  you know, Ryan, I have teased quite a bit, we have a mission statement on the wall, but taking the mission statement down and just putting the word communication, you know, seems like anything in life, whether we're going out or meeting with clients were handling internal issues when you're trying to grow anything, communications, the deal, right? People want to have to transparency and they want to have people that there's a level of respect that goes along with communicating with people. But I think it's, you know, if you take that a step further in it, it really is, you know, I might have this really strong opinion on something, but it's according to me, it's according to, you know, what my background is, what my thoughts are, what my reality is, what my perception is, it doesn't necessarily mean the people I'm talking with disagree with what I'm saying. But they've had an entire life where they have, they have been trained to think a different way doesn't mean the wrong way, just a different way. And being able to step back and actually think about that, when you're having a conversation with someone, it goes a long way with respecting them. And it goes back to another thing we're talking about today with ego. Right? I think, you know, sometimes as guys, we struggle a little bit because we like to lead with ego, you know that the puffed out chest. And I think it's super important, you know when we're having those conversations when we are trying to either coach train, teach, or just have a conversation with somebody that we are really listening, and we're really hearing it from their point of view.Justin Stoddart  2:58  Great stuff. Iscrewed up a little bit, guys. And maybe the audio won't be as good.Steve Yeager  3:01  A little concerned that I'm not standing on books next to Ryan, I'm concerned about that.Justin Stoddart  3:05   And one thing that I actually had a thought this morning, that oftentimes building great company culture isn't always about just encouraging people. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's about telling them, Hey, I believe in you, you can do more. You've got untapped potential. You're amazing. I support you. Sometimes just having a fierce conversation with people, right? Sometimes it's telling them like, hey, what you did there was not the right thing to do for the group for the company for the whole? How have you guys come? Because you get to have both conversations, right? You get to see I believe in you, you're amazing doing a great job. And at times, it's like, Hey, don't do that, again, how have you kind of come to grips with being able to have those fierce conversations, without people taking it personally or without it being super heavy on you.Ryan Wood  3:47  It's not easy. There's, there's no easy way about it, you're dealing with people, you're not interested in smashing people's opinions or, or making them feel bad about themselves. At the same time, you do have to think of the whole and you have to think and the whole doesn't just include your self that includes everybody else's in that environment. And I, you know, oftentimes will think of ego as everybody goes overboard. So you sit there and go, Oh, well, you know, everything about me is really what matters. And I think that it's hard not to it's I think there's a certain part of it. That's human nature. But I think that on the flip side of that it's really important to, again, do what's right, not necessarily be right. And so it's having that conversation to say this isn't about what you think of me or what I think of you. This isn't about, you know, what, you know, someone else might be involved with you, but it's more about what you're doing. Is it right, or is it wrong? And making that choice? Justin Stoddart  4:43  Steve, any additional thoughts on that of how you have those tough conversations when they're not always fun? Right?Steve Yeager  4:47  Yeah, you know, I think as a leader, a lot of times we ask questions that we already know the answer to or we think we know the answer to, we're looking to see how somebody responds. And I think it's going into each one of those conversations where it's a good conversation, a bad conversation, and we can be the good side to ham offering you a promotion, and here's, you know, your new your new salary to, hey, if we can't, you know, fix what this what's going on here. We might have to say goodbye to each other. You need to go in there with an outcome in mind or a goal in mind for the conversation. You know, a leader has thought more about it. They're not leaders aren't reactive, right? leaders are proactive, and leaders are, have already thought, hey, if I have this conversation that goes this direction, this may happen. If I have this conversation, it goes this direction. This may happen before and it helps you guide because you really are trying to help shape an outcome, whether it's a fierce conversation or not, you know,Justin Stoddart  5:36  you obviously lead real estate offices for the better part of 10 years. So you saw real estate agents hire people, right? And they probably times struggled because they didn't, weren't willing to have to communicate well, with somebody, they just said, Hey, I'm gonna hire you. Your job is to be my assistant. Yeah. Follow me around and pick up this, like, pick up the details. Fix me, right. Yeah. What advice would you give to a real estate agent that's hiring somebody when it comes to communicating a lot of principles you've already talked about? But is there something else that you saw work really well with people that hired and kept and retained great talent to th...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome back to The think bigger real estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, today's episode is going to be a really unique and valuable one, I hope you stay tuned for the entire thing. It's really helping real estate agents move from being salespeople to being advisors, which is where I think the industry needs to go in order to maintain the value to the customer that the customers happy to pay for your services. So excited to have with me a guy who does that naturally. He's always done that. And his name's Nick Krautter. And Nick, thanks for being on the show to them. Nick Krautter  0:26  Yeah thanks for having me. This is great. Justin Stoddart  0:27  Yeah, super fun. Nick, and I go back almost five years. And his kind of claim to fame nationally, is he wrote the book, The Golden handoff, which is how to help real estate agents buy and sell their business. And so in addition to that, maybe what he's less well known for, at least nationally, is he really has an economist type brain. And he really goes deep on helping people understand the numbers where they've been and where he believes they're heading, which gives consumers the ability to kind of have a little bit of a crystal ball to some degree, right? To be able to understand what will actually help them build their wealth, which I think is uncommon. And I'm excited to kind of delve into this topic. But before I do, Megan, I am going to be actually speaking at an event together with our friend James Adair called exponential referrals, if you're in the Portland market,it is I should have had the date, I'm going to put the date in the comments below, you can be able to hear this guy go in depth on the golden handoff and really house the strategy, not just exit the business, but also to grow the business. And probably one of the things we hadn't mentioned, Nick is you're now under the umbrella of your own brokerage city and state.Nick Krautter  1:35  Yeah, that's a big, that's the big change for us here. The Celtics team decided to start our own real estate brokerage. So we've had the team together for 13 years, we decided to go out and start our own brokerage. It's called the city and state real estate. And we are working in Oregon and Washington right now and looking to expand into new markets. And we can talk about some of why I decided to do that. And a big part of that was exactly what we're talking about today. Which is there's a difference between being a good real estate broker who executes a plan, helping someone better sell something, but are you asking your clients great questions? Are you understanding what they want? And why they're Why are they selling? Why are they buying? Yeah, I often find that people will be buying or selling real estate because they have a goal or a plan. And maybe that process that they're going through is really not the best way to do it. Or maybe they have a different asset, or there's a different way to go about doing it that in the big picture for them would be much better for their family or their future. And it is sometimes that costs us to sail right then as a broker. But I I believe that building those relationships and building trust is is significantly more valuable in the long run, and it's just doing the right thing. And so our brokerage is really set up for our clients to be working with agents who are there to advise them. And then for the brokers that are there to really understand who are their clients and have a plan of action to staying in touch with them. That's very tangible. And then is your business structured correctly as an agent, you know, are you are you saving taxes are you investing do having retirement plan, and then at the at the kind of the top level for our brokers, it's really about looking at investment property and understanding that because there's a lot of great real estate brokers who don't understand real estate investing. They're very good things. And that's fine. But we have great brokers on our company that understand the investment, and I do to inside out, and so we can basically help build folio to build wealth for those agents because we don't get retirement plans. You know, there's no pension in real estate. So it's all about what can you do for yourself and your family. And we're city and state is built specifically to help people know their clients build their business and build their future. ButJustin Stoddart  3:55  you know, what's interesting, that you said, Nick, is, you know, the tech companies, they're looking to really create algorithms that help people buy and sell, and or empower the customer to buy and sell themselves. What is not really accounted for is how will you know a client, right? It even better than the client knows themselves, right? And even start asking questions where the client is learning something about their future plans, because no one's ever asked him that question. Now you can custom tailor a real estate experience that fits really where they want to be. Right, right, which is maybe not even where they thought they could go. But because you understand real estate, you understand real estate investing, you can be guiding them advising them down a path that they didn't know was even there possible for them. I think that's where, again, kind of the low barriers to entry of real estate and all these tech companies even coming and trying to replace agents, all that becomes irrelevant when you offered that level of service.Nick Krautter  4:49  Yeah, I believe that technology, we use a lot of technology. And I've always been focused on, you know, having the best tools and resources for my brokers and for our clients. I think that, to me, technology is there to supplement and make the relationship part of the business easier and better. Not to replace relationships totally agree. And there are people there's going to, there are always people that want to do things on their own, or who will want to use a new tool, people that are early adopters. The thing is like real estate is a very, very big asset for most people is their biggest asset. And even for people that are buying and selling all the time. It's interesting because they use brokers. And really smart real estate brokers will hire other brokers. So one of the things to me that's kind of one of our badges of honor is how many seasoned real estate professionals hire our team to think for their personal deals, because they know that we're going to be there to be kind of a sounding board and to to double check their plans and their logic. And so it's one of those things. It's crazy. But a lot of times people think, Oh, well that's properties on by a realtor, so they don't need an agent. Well, we work with a lot of those people because they understand that now they might have a blind spot, or they might not be able to negotiate as well for themselves or they might overprice it or underprice it and so to have someone else that you trust, to me, that's like the biggest sign of respect and appreciation. And I think that technology will continue to get better and better. But the problem is real estate is it's not so much about just the value. It's about how you negotiate. And to try to replace human negotiation, I think is exponentially more difficult and figuring out what is the right value for a home. I think technology will continue to help get us to that point where that's better and better. As there's more and more information because every time a home sells now there's more information out there about it, right. So anything that sold in the last 10 years, there's great data available to any of those companies and to us as realtors.But if someone's you know, we work with a lot of the states, someone has owned a home. Right now we're working on a deal whe...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, you know, oftentimes when I'm sitting down and meeting up with agents, I say the word system and they start to light up. And I think because real estate agents tend to be very excited about growth, very entrepreneurial consistency tends to be a weak spot of theirs. And so I'm more than excited today to have on a guest who is truly an expert, helping agents be consistent, put the systems in place to help them be able to have the life and business that they want. So I'm excited to welcome today, Lars Hedenborg. Lars first and foremost, before I give kind of a full bio on you, I appreciate you being on the show today.Lars Hedenborg  0:37  Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. This is the one thing you know, I almost see sometimes the opposite effect. When I mentioned systems to real estate agents, they, they feel a feeling of overwhelming almost like what's a system like I'm not a systems person, you know, like enlighten me as to what a system is. So I'm looking forward to the conversation today.Justin Stoddart  0:56  Yeah, very good. So for those that don't know, Lars, let me just give a little background him large section in your first year of business, close 71 homes, yet that came to come at a price it came being away from his family realizing like I can't do this forever, I can hustle for a year and prove the fact that I can sell a lot of real estates. But at the end of the day, you were short on time. And you wanted the ability to have both right to have success and significance a great work life and great home life. Continuing on large scale his business to where now his team produces over 100 million dollars a year consistently. And he's found some tricks some systems, to say the least, that have propelled him and his business to the next level. As a result, he's actually developed a whole school around this real estate B school BB and just the single letter B. I'm going to put that up here on the screen now. So any that are curious about that. I'm gonna put that up here real estate B school. We'll talk a little bit more about that. But Lars, I want to thank you, again for being on the show today is on the think bigger real estate, is a big thinker yourself. And helping those of us in the audience think bigger. So thank you again, for coming on.Lars Hedenborg  2:02  Yeah, for sure. And you, you nailed it in the intro in terms of 2002, 2007, 2008, you know,I was married in October 2006. We had our first child in November 2007. And I realized early on that every part of a real estate agents job like 90% of it could be done via a system and a lower level person, not in an ugly kind of way lower level. But let's scale right? Yeah, systems were out of the gate, I was just like, well, if I want to make my number was $250 an hour, if I want to make $250 an hour, for a full 2000 hours a year, right, I wanted to make at least a half a million to me and the government, there was 90% of it, I had to build out a system and have someone else run it. And systems are everything in the business, like anything that you do more than once a month is a system. And a lot of times, agents don't like this, I think it's that simple. You know, if you're doing something personally, and you're the real estate agent, and you're doing it more than, you know, let's say let's start with the weekly stuff, you're doing it more than 234 times a week, you need to put that into a document and make it so someone else can do it. And that really, for me, that's been like 99% of everything we do. And I just have a consultant role in the business now.Justin Stoddart  3:22  Interesting. There is definitely a lack of consistency. You know, and I think again, when you as I mentioned before when you work with entrepreneurial people, entrepreneurial people, I believe move the world has the ability to change the world. The downside is that they tend to be very easily distractible, and their high performers and can produce very significant results for short bursts of time and oftentimes lack the organizational skills to be able to do that consistently, which causes them to not have the long term impact that they want. Let's talk a little bit about the systems that you think real estate agents need to start with, or one of the few of the big missed systems that you feel like real estate agents could really implement and have the most amount of impact.Lars Hedenborg  4:11  Yeah, so I'm going to give like a, probably more than 10 seconds, but real big the business is our ability to attract buyers and sellers convert those into face to face and clients deliver a differentiated service. And then there are a few things in scaling the business. You know, creating your future, knowing your numbers and growing your team. So it's a little bit more complicated in scale. But when it comes to attracting buyers and sellers, what got us here isn't going to get us there. So you know, you better make sure you have your database locked down, and you're actually doing something of value on a regular basis where, you know, we'll do 3.6 million this year and 1.4 1.5from a database of about 1800 people will come from that part of it and we spend, you know, we'll probably only spend about $30,000 to generate that amount of GCI this year, and a phenomenaland it's all because we just preloaded what we do for in terms of social in terms of content in terms of events and giveaways. And it's run by someone who makes about 20 bucks an hour. And it's only part of that person's job for the entire year. And so but it's all pre-loaded. So every little we have 93 social things that happen in a given year, we have 57 sorts of content pieces that go out, we do an E-newsletter, and she just pings me when she needs a video or a market update or a funny video for my family. She kind of gets some some some leeway in that. But that's a system that runs and then we feed the database. You know, we as team leaders, especially we forget that our databases are really valuable. You know, that's a million dollar year over year pillar in your business. And are you adding Do you have a system to add two new contacts a day to your inner circle database? super simple, but nobody actually does it. I've yet to meet a team leader that actually focuses on the database on a regular basis.Justin Stoddart  6:12  I love how you simplified that Lars. And I think again, the brightest minds in the business have the ability to take the complex and turn it into something super simple. And what you said is attract the business, follow up with the business service, the business, right, those are three. And the fourth was just the kind of ancillary systems, you need to actually scale a business. As I mentioned, it was second to the fourth.Lars Hedenborg  6:33  Yeah, so I mean, so when we start working with the new, a new, a new client in the coaching business, it is really making sure they have the attract, convert, deliver rock solid, but in a way where they're not in it. So we need to attract folks to the business, convert them, and then deliver an amazing service in a way where there's probably 12 to 18 core systems and just those three pillars. And once we do that, then the team leader can focus on scaling. And scaling is making sure you have a solid three-year plan, making sure you know your numbers, and making sure you know how to grow your team, the culture stuff, the attracting new talent and those sorts of things. A lot of folks want to scale their business, but the attract, convert deliver is a complete shit show. And it relies 100% on them to have that a CD, you know, AC DC, attract, convert, deliver, you know, and then get it to get a commission check...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Real Estate photography today matters more than ever. My wife and I, for example, toured about 1000 homes virtually, toured one physically, that was the home we bought. So Case in point, real estate photography matters if you want to be a great listing agent, and I'm really excited today to have on the show gentleman by the name of Darryl Glade. Darryl is the founder and CEO of stilio.com, which is a marketplace to connect real estate agents, and great photographers, they do a full vetting process and training program to make sure that the photographers that they bring to the table, understand some very key principles of which we're going to be discussing today. So I want to, first of all, thank Darryl for being on the show today, Darryl, welcome.Darryl Glade  0:43  Thanks for having me, Justin looking forward to it.Justin Stoddart  0:45  Yeah, based on what you've built, you're, you're a big thinker, which I'm excited to have someone like you, who not only has been a top agent, right? for 10 years, you're a top agent in New Orleans, found your passion within kind of this niche of real estate. And now you're pouring into the industry in a different way. So very cool, excited to have you here to extend really my mission of my passion, which is to help agents think bigger. I know that when that happens, they themselves grow. And their business follows suit, which opens up options and impact that they've always wanted. So thank you again, for being here. Let's dive into this there'll, you know, one thought that I've had actually taught a class this week, as I was mentioning to you previously, called becoming a powerful marketer through storytelling. And I believe this that the great marketers, and great agents out there, don't just say, hey, let me show you a house. Right? They say, let me tell you about what your story what your life would look like living in this house, there's a much deeper emotional connection. And people really start to see their story transform and having that home be a part of it. How do you feel like photography plays a part in helping people see the story, their story being in that home,Darryl Glade  1:57  it's got to be the easiest way to do it. You know, there's a great stat that says 90% of buyers say that the most important part of any real estate listing is the photos. And so it's not the flowery language. And if you're trying to tell a story and trying to get a certain message across, the easiest way to do it is by photos. And it's really the cheapest way to do it as well. I mean, it's not a very big investment. And the listing agent and homeowner can work with a photographer to really set the stage to tell that story to get your point across. So exactly like you were talking about in your presentation, the photos are a key part to accomplishing that goal.Justin Stoddart  2:39  You know, so many people, again, I think maybe an indicator of where we're going as a society, right, Facebook was the big deal for a long, long time, they were wise enough for a small investment of a billion dollars, they bought Instagram, but what's Instagram, Instagram is image heavy, and text light right there. So Case in point of what you're saying here is that you can have great copy, and you need to have great copy. But if you don't have good photography, no one's ever going to get to your copy.Darryl Glade  3:07  Now you're exactly right. And, you know, to expand that further, the Instagram generation and in Facebook still, all anybody cares about is content, all these agents are trying to create content to get their own personal brand across and to get that listing information across its photos. So if you commit to getting great photos, and all your listings, you've got all that content built in right there ready for you, ready for you to extend your brand and to get that listing messaging across. And it's just so easy. All you gotta do is get your listing photographed. And then right there, you got 20 or 30 pieces of content ready for you to post to extend your brand online.Justin Stoddart  3:48  Well, how important it is, you're right, because you're not just listing at home, you're listing your business, if you will, right. You're demonstrating what kind of marketer you are. And I believe that when people evaluate a real estate agent, it used to be just on like, who have your friends us and who do you trust. And I believe that now people have more of a discerning eye. Yes, they want to know that. But they're also vetting you to see if you're also a professional marketer, not just a good real estate agent. But are you a professional marketer? Are you showing up in the video? Or do your images look like they were taken on your phone? Or do they actually look like it's amazing, Darryl, that how many agents and I say, well, you go through our MLS, and you can identify a much higher percentage than you would expect, are still doing photos on their own, oftentimes on a mobile device, right?Darryl Glade  4:28  I always say our biggest competitor is not necessarily another professional photography company. It's the agent with their own cell phones. And yeah, technology is expanding every single day, and the cameras on the phones are just that much better. They're outstanding. But the fact is, you need to know the angles you need, which features you need to know the camera height. And then not only that a huge part of getting really good professional photography for real estate is the post-processing. It's the editing afterwords. And that's where still to other professional photographers really get the job done.Justin Stoddart  5:05  Well, you say, I know you guys do, again, pretty, pretty deep vetting process when it comes to the photographers that are part of your kind of ecosystem, right? What are some key things that you look for when you're choosing photographers in an agent should be saying, you know, that's some criteria that I need to look at now, obviously, going through studio com, they're going to get this, but talk to us about kind of what criteria you look for.Darryl Glade  5:28  Yeah. So, you know, it's important that we vet all the photographers that get access to our marketplace, and, you know, still is a lot different than the other professional photography companies out there we are the marketplace, we are not the photography company. So that means agents are going to go and find their local photographers. And then those photographers are the ones that are creating and giving the service to the agent. So if we want to make sure that that marketplace is only full of vetted important, really good photographers are all the agent will never come back again. Right? So when the photographers submit their application, they have to submit photos, so we have to see their existing work, they also have to create a profile. So if for example, the profile says, you know why hire me I because I love photography, something like that, well, they're not professionals, they need to have a professional profile, they need to submit their camera equipment. So if they don't have professional grade equipment, they're not in. And then not only that, they have to take a test, if they can't pass this professional, it's a test for real estate photography, not just general, professional photography, if they can't pass the test, they're not live. So these are some of the things that we want to make sure that of the 6000 applications that we got the last six months all around the country, we are a nationwide marketplace, that only those that are the best can get to the real estate agent. So that we're really taking our time making sure that the top photographers...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart. And as you know my mission and my passion are to help you think bigger, so that you can have the business that you want, which produces the options and the impact that you want. Super excited today to have kind of a real estate industry icon, possibly even celebrity depending upon what standpoint you're looking at it fromnationally known, at least His name's Kevin Kauffman. Let me start off by saying a big thank you to Kevin for being willing to come on to think bigger real estate show. Kevin Kauffman  0:28  Yeah, my pleasure. I love to do it. You know, I think you and I connected over the fact that we both love to give back to the real estate community. And so I'm literally my pleasure to do this. Justin Stoddart  0:38  That's awesome. Good stuff. Let me tell the audience here a little bit about Kevin Kauffman, again, he's a wants to be known as a realtor. I think that's pretty cool. Out of Tempe, Arizona, from another perspective, he looks at Real Estate a little bit differently. He goes about a different we're going to talk about what that's what that looks like for him. He has an expansion team and if you're familiar with expansion teams, where you have one huband one location, and you add other agents in different parts of the country, he's done. He's got five different locations about 50 agents, what he calls a small expansion group. Some might beg to differ that that's that small. He's also co-founder of the group next level agents, and the podcast, Kevin and Fred's Next Level podcast. And in talking with you, Kevin, prior to this, I love kind of your passion behind that, which is, you've been fortunate to be surrounded by some really great people. And why not give back? Why not record those conversations and let more people have access to them? Kevin Kauffman  1:35  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, you know, I, I realized a couple of years ago that something I've done naturally my whole life is to seek out mentorship. And sometimes it's a mentor for a season. Sometimes it's for like, one individual little thing, one topic, and sometimes it's for life, right and,and so I love learning about the genius inside of people and being able to want toMy reasons for having the Facebook group I mean, the day I started that and then told Cody and Fred: "Hey guys, we now have a Facebook group, surprise!" And the reason I started the podcast was that I wanted to be able to do that on a bigger level as you can only teach live to so many people so often without being on an airplane 300 days a year, which I'm not willing to do. And so it's kind of like my ability to kind of deliver on that stuff that really lights me up. Justin Stoddart  2:27  You know, I feel the same way. A very similar motive for the bigger real estate show is I'm I guess, gutsy enough and passionate enough advocate for the industry, that I want to get the brightest minds in real estate. Like I want to be around them, and I want to be learning from them. And why not offer that to a bigger audience? Why not? Like, let's like with technology these days, there's no reason why we can't be broadcasting great conversations all the time. So thank you again for being a part of that. Yeah. Let's get into kind of your definition, Kevin of what it means to be a next level agent.You've obviously carried that through your kind of your branding, both in the Facebook group as well as the podcast, obviously, in your mind, you have some concept of what it means to be a next level agent help define that. For the rest of us. Kevin Kauffman  3:14  You know, it's funny, Justin, that's a great question. No one's ever asked it to me that way.But you just forced me to think about it differently. And one of the things I love is the fact that there's not this one size fits all recipe for success in real estate business. And so for me, when I think of like, what, like I say this to people who want to be coached, and I'm, I'm like, we go through an interview process to see if I'm gonna, if I'm going to coach them if I could be a good fit for them, but they'd be a good fit for me is, I don't care if you sold 10 houses this year, and your goal is to go to 25. Or if you sold 500 houses and your goal is to go to 1000 I really don't. But what I want to know is the desire to hit your personal next level there and Will you follow through on the actions that are requiredSo when you ask the question that way, you just reminded me, number one, it's about whatever that next level is for you. And number two, it's also about it doesn't not like you don't have to go the expansion team route. You don't have to go the team route. You could go the luxury route, you could go the investor, right, like there are so many ways to be massively successful in real estate. And so I guess at the end of the day, that's how I would answer it is like, it's the person who thinks like, what is my personal next level? What's the next level for my business? And for myself as a person in my personal development?Justin Stoddart  4:35  That's a super, super compelling answer, I think, based on what you said earlier, which is about this concept of growing yourself right of growth. I found for me that that happiness includes growth. And I think, by design, we as human beings aren't happy unless we are growing like there's, there's this deeper underlying purpose as to why we're here which is just to grow and progress and become more and impact moreAnd I think probably guys like you and I get a little bit addicted to growth, like if we're not experiencing it, or if the people around us aren't experiencing it, like we get uncomfortable, like what? And I can sense that from you. And really super cool to hear that the purpose of this branding is that you want to be around people that are like that, that are like hungry to get to some next level, whatever that means for them. Right. Kevin Kauffman  5:21  Yeah, you know, I would argue that true happiness isn't possible without growth like you have to be growing somewhere in your life. You know, one of the things I've learned from many of my mentors over the years is like, your business can never outgrow you as your personal development. It just can't, it's not allowed you. Now, some people will choose to let their personal development outgrow their business. And that's definitely possible, but it can't be the other way around. So you've got to have some growth somewhere, I believe to truly be happy and fulfilled, and to be a happy person. I mean, I'm just one of those airy-fairy believers, that as I believe as humans were like we are hard-wired.To connect, and that if we're going to connect with people, we're going to have to grow in order to be able to truly be connected. Justin Stoddart  6:07  Yeah. powerful stuff. And I agree, I think it's in our DNA, that growth is part of who we are. And when we negate that or when we avoid that it causes people to be really dissatisfied I do you see people interesting story. I had an economics, no, accounting teacher in college, and he hit it big had a big acquisition for a company he was a part of was like, like, done like did not need to work anymore. And his wife goes home to his wife. He's like my job's kind of done here. I'm going to, I'm going to get a golf club membership. And, like, your job's not quite done yet. kids haven't raised I he was joking about this, right. He wasn't actually that chauvinistic. But he said I golf for the next couple of years. He said I've never been so miserable in my entire life. So so they actually went back to the university th...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very excited about today's episode before I introduce the topic, let me just restate my mission, which is to help you think bigger. And when you think bigger, you end up growing as a person. And as you grow as a person is so good. So grows your business, which opens up all kinds of opportunities, more options, as well as more impact. So I'm excited to have my good friend Josh Hackenjos with me here today. Let me just begin before I fully introduce you, Josh, thanks for being on the episode today. Josh Hackenjos  0:30  Yeah. Good morning, Justin. It's an honor to be here. I really appreciate you letting me come on here to chat. Justin Stoddart  0:35  Yeah, man, I appreciate you let me twist your arm to have you come in for value into this audience. I know. Every time you and I have conversations, I walk away a little bit smarter. And so I knew that you do that for this audience as well. So for those of you that don't know Josh, he got his start in the real estate industry back in '05. He was a guy that would show up at the front yards of homes were getting to be sold he would dig the hole and the sign in the yard. So little humble beginnings. But he was a talented guy. So he moved from that to actually being a team owner, kind of ran his own real estate team, then was promoted, and I should say, recruited into a role in which he was, had a very big leadership role within a very big Keller Williams office here in the Portland metro area. He's now a solo agent. He owns Hackenjos Property Group, as well as has built a coaching company called Community Empire, and which he helps agents with many of the things we're going to talk about today. So with all that being said, Josh, you and I both have a background in the construction industry. I had a contracting company, you've built homes yourself. And there are some common threads that you and I started to talk about, that that industry is well known for its craftsmanship, but not well known for its professionalism. Would you agree?Josh Hackenjos  1:49  Yeah, absolutely.Justin Stoddart  1:52  You know, for me, I didn't aspire to be in the, in the construction world, I really grew up in a very business oriented family. And in the early 2000s, that was just a great business opportunity. And so I hopped on as, as did many, and was able to benefit greatly from the construction industry. Until it will kind of wasn't a more but in that timeframe. It was interesting. As the construction market started to crash, I had asked myself, I was asking mentors around me, I was like, What do you think this is going to mean for the industry? And their comment was, you know, I think five years it'll be back. And for me, it had I really loved building homes. And I really loved working with contractors day in and day out, I probably would have said, I'll wait for it right, I'll do kitchen and bathroom models because I love this work. For me. I realized my passion was not building homes. It was building people and building businesses. And so the construction world actually at times was quite aggravating. Because of subcontractors again, they were they kind of fall into this typical concept of the E-Myth. Right? If anyone's read the book, E-Myth, I know, Josh, you have that people are very good craftsmen, very good technicians. So they assume that they're going to be good business owners, they just kind of like Well, I'm good at doing finished carpentry. So I'm going to be good at building a finished carpentry business. And that wasn't always the case. Josh, I would imagine you had some similar experiences in a Ha's and your time in the contracting world.Josh Hackenjos  3:12  Yeah, absolutely. And it's and it's funny, as we've been riffing on this, you know, the similarities, real estate are going to start popping up as-as we talk through this, because, right, you've got these, I came out of the new construction, world framing and then doing finished carpentry and in the remodeling world. And you've got these guys who are amazing at their work, you know, as a tile setter, as a Finish Carpenter as an electrician. And while they are masterful in what they do there, they never went through the courses on how to run a business, how to hire, how to retain talent, how to run QuickBooks, and get billing out how to just show up as a business owner. Is this starting sound a lot like realtors, right? low barrier to entry, high level of skill and talent up here, and maybe not the business background to run it.And this is something you know, we were talking about this in terms of these, these general contractors who are out there who are so good at what they do. And yet the customer experience the customer service and communication expectation setting is where things fall apart. Right? How often have you been in the middle of a remodel? And it turns out, well, that sink is out six weeks. And so because this thing's not here, then the guy can't do the counter. And because the counter is not here, the plumber can't come in, right? And then we say, Oh, my contractors had our place torn apart for six months. The frustration is due to a failure of setting expectations. Yeah, and all of this right, let's draw parallels right out the gate. You know, I wrote an offer. And then I never heard back whether we got it accepted, or we have no idea we were going to have to do these repairs as the seller, right? In the real estate world. There are all these correlations, in terms of a failure to set expectations leads to frustration with the experience, is it I mean, I think I'm drawing a parallel, it feels it feels right. Justin Stoddart  4:57  Well, it's, it's interesting, because the people that again, come into the construction world, typically we're raised by a very craftsman, you know, artisans, in the woodworking space, or in the concrete space or whatever. without really a business background. And in real estate agents, they don't necessarily the industry doesn't necessarily attract. To start people who have kind of deep business backgrounds is typically people that are great salespeople, they're great customer service people. So very similar to a contractor, like you're saying that they've got a certain skill set that that lends itself very well to serving clients to getting a certain product complete a certain finished product. But the business and you know, to not pick on real estate, not pick on construction. The same thing happens in the dentist, you know, in the dental industry, and even doctors, right, they're fabulous doctors, but a lot of times they're not great business people. They're fabulous dentist, but they're not great at running a business. It's two separate hats. It's two separate businesses. And I know what Josh, what you and I have discussed, we believe that the future for well paid real estate agents now I believe that there will be a place for a lot of real estate agents, I think I buyers will take a chunk of the pie, I really do think that there will also be a place for low paid real estate agents, ones that are more like Uber drivers that are in a certain neighborhood and someone needs them to come to open up a door. And they'll get a little ding on their phone. Hey, you need to open a door over here. They'll get paid. Not well, but they'll get paid for that service. Right with, a functionary role?Justin Stoddart  6:26  Yes.Josh Hackenjos  6:28  Right. Yeah,Justin Stoddart  6:29  exactly. And then there will be a group that you and I are really trying to cater to, and really help as many as we'll listen. Say, Hey, guys, there's a green pasture over here, right? There's, there's ...

3 years ago, Tazz Weatherly wasn't even a real estate agent. Year one, she and her team sold $12M, year 2, $20M and this year, her 3rd year, she and her team are projected to sell over $30M in volume. How did she go from 0 to hero so fast?! Tune in to hear her secrets that include the oft-overlooked social platform of LinkedIn.

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Justin Stoddart excited today to bring you a topic that I'm passionate about from someone who I don't know if I could seek out and find somebody more qualified to talk about how to get a lot of stuff done and be a high achiever in multiple areas. And we're going to talk about a morning routine, and maybe having a bit of a paradigm shift for you, and the number of things that you can be accomplishing by nailing the morning routine, and by hearing and being inspired by this gentleman's story. So first of all, I want to before I fully introduce him, I want to thank Eric, thanks for being on the show today, man. Eric Post  0:30  You're welcome, brother. You know, I, here we are. So let's rock and roll this thing. I'm excited.Justin Stoddart  0:34  I love it. For those that don't know, Eric. Some may know him is he was at one point, an equity partner in five Better Homes and Gardens offices. He's now sitting on the board of that organization, continues to be a real estate investor has projects all over the place owns a restaurant. Here are some cool things in addition to being actually a veteran served our country, the Marines. Thank you for that. Eric. He also is a father of two kids. And he's currently in the top 10% of the world for his age group for Iron Man triathlons. In addition to that, you've done all kinds of really cool races. Talk to us a little bit. Eric, before we get into kind of the morning routine, and even some of the business stuff. Talk to us a little bit about your, like, some of these races and stuff that that that you've done.Eric Post  1:23  Sure, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I, I'm not a self-proclaimed like an adrenaline junkie or anything like that. But I do believe that that comfort is the enemy of progress. So I'm always looking for ways I can push myself out of my general comfort zone. And I mean, come on, we live in a great country, we live in a great place, you know, have a great home a great life. And so, you know, that can evoke complacency. And the best way I found to like get myself out of that financially or relationship or any other way business wise is to push my body and if I'm uncomfortable and kind of get familiar with pain and little stuff doesn't really matter. So yeah, I find crazy, the minimal amount back races or climb mountains are these triathlons, that kind of stuff just to literally push myself and remind myself that it's okay to be in pain. It's okay to suffer. And the gratitude and the feeling and the sense of pride you have afterward is irreplaceable. SoJustin Stoddart  2:12  that's why I do those. I love it, man. Good stuff talks about some of like you've done in addition to the triathlons. What else have you done? I know there's 100 hundred mile mountain bike ride. What else? Yeah.Eric Post  2:24  Cascade, Lakeside, 100, you know, down in Central Oregon. It's amazing, right. But it is grueling. You know, it's one of those where you climb like 10,000 feet in a day. And it's 90 degrees. And it's pretty technical trails. You know, and so it's just one of those of you, I push me and there's a whole long story with that, but that one pushed me for sure. I've done some, you know, different adventure races and trail running races and, like, went to Africa and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and, and things like that. So it's just, it's just, I just kind of like, find what inspires me and, and when I wake up in the morning, and my eyes light up, and I want to have something done going towards. So that's why pics on those things.Justin Stoddart  2:59  So cool. I'm so inspired by what you've done. So sometimes when people see people that are for example of triathletes that hike these mountains, I know, one common thing that people say as well, you know, I've, I've got a job, I've got a business, I can't do that stuff full time, I can't be in the gym full time. And that definitely hasn't been your situation. As I mentioned before, the number of things that you've accomplished from a business standpoint, I would imagine a lot of this stuff that you do, you've got to fit it in, in and around a very busy schedule. You've got to fit it in maybe first thing in the morning. Is that true?Eric Post  3:31  Yes. Well, I did this morning. It does. It does vary based on my schedule because it needs to be a fluid schedule, I've kids, I gotta get up and all that kind of stuff. So you don't have to school sometimes. And so it's one of those things where we just we have time for everything that we make a priority for. So if it's a priority for me, magically, you find the time I mean, that's just how it works. And, and time literally is the only equalizer in the world. You know, opportunities in life are generally completely unfair with the exception of the distribution of time. And so that's true, then just have we spend our time as a result of what our life is like. And so yeah, I find the time I make I make the opportunity and make the time. And for me, there's a couple just nonnegotiable and health and fitness is one of them. Because if you don't have that, you don't have anything you know, and and if you're one of those guys that have the world and the private jets and the yachts and all that kind of stuff, and and you finally get cancer, you would change all of that literally for a clean bill of health. And so, you know, I try and I try and keep my mind and my body like like that is the most important thing because that is the foundation for every other positive thing in my life is how you look and feel.Justin Stoddart  4:31  Yeah, that's interesting. I've heard a quote by Jim Rowan, where he said if you don't take care of your body where you're going to live?Eric Post  4:37  Yeah, I mean, I love that man and so many things. So many little sound bites came from him that I integrate in my daily life for sure. I love it. Oh, good. Well,Justin Stoddart  4:45  Let's talk about kind of going down kind of in more depth on the topic of a morning routine, like you said, if it's a priority, it fits in. Yeah, I know. For me, I've got a fact I just wrote a blog post, I'll have to put a link to that in the comments here. There really outlines like step by step, minute by minute what I do for my morning routine. So I won't spend a ton of time on I really want to delve into yours. But what is on a typical day outside of the days where you've got to be fluid because you know, your wife's out of town, or you've got some kind of unique situation. But what does it typically look like for you? What time does the alarm go off for you? Or doesn't even go off at all?Eric Post  5:19  Yeah, not anymore. I actually kind of structure things. So generally, I know sleep is obviously hypercritical. I'm not the best sleeper because it was just a variety of reasons. But I focus on I try. But I generally wake up when I wake up. And you know, I like on a sensitive seasonal here, I leave the blinds up in the morning. So I wake up with the sun generally are trying to you know, hit it before. But the idea of waking up to alarm kind of buzzing and beeping isn't awesome. That happens at times. But you know, generally, wake up when I wake up and it's earlier than I need generally. And it's sort of perfect. But I go directly to the water. Like when I wake up, I literally go directly to my water and my vitamins because I gotta hydrate for the day. And that's how I start my day, then I go right from there, I listened to read or try and find a quote or something that inspires me or education or something like right away before I get the shower before I check my email before I say hi to anybody, like I'm trying to like find this water for my day. And this inspiration for the day that ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the think bigger real estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart where my mission and passion are to help you think bigger so that you can have the business that you want in the life that you want. And you know, I am more than excited today to introduce a good friend of mine, Josh Friberg, who is fabulous at helping people have it all. Can you have it all, right? That's kind of the big question we're going to solve today. I believe that you can be in a dedicated family man and a dedicated professional. Today's topic is very near and dear to my heart. So let me give an intro for those of you that don't know Josh Friberg. First of all, let me say, Josh, thanks for being on the show, man.Josh Friberg  0:34  Yeah, my pleasure. Really happy to be here with you.Justin Stoddart  0:39  Good stuff. So for those that don't know, Josh, his background, he has actually was just recently on the executive team of an organization. Five doors that we want Inc 5000 top fastest growing privately held companies number 113. On that played a very critical role in helping them grow to the level that they did Justin has been a real estate agent and is now the abundant agent, somebody who's helping agents again, have it all. So excited to delve into this topic. As I said, that's very near and dear to my heart of how do you not neglect your family and still build a great business? So Josh, thank you, my friend. Appreciate you being on here talking about this incredibly important topic.Josh Friberg  1:18  Absolutely. Yeah. You know Justin it's so interesting. Like, as I travel around the country teaching in brokerages and, and at associations, like over and over again, I find that real estate agents got into this business to take care of their families. And then now that their businesses are doing great now that their businesses are growing, they find out that their families are suffering, right, they look back over at the family and go, Oh, something's broken. And what many people don't understand is it actually only takes about getting takes getting three things, right. And if you can nail those, you can have amazing results. It's really about figuring out like, where your biggest contribution is really mapping your priorities, and then having an execution plan that works and, and the results are, you know, it's honestly just amazing. You know, we've walked agents through like doubling and tripling their businesses and reporting back, oh, I have more time with my spouse, I have more time with my kids and better relationships than I've ever had. So that's really what we're doing with the abundant agent is helping people really tap into that part of their real estate, businesses, and lives.Justin Stoddart  2:23  You know, at the core of who I am, I'm a family guy. And, but I don't necessarily want to have a lousy career because I have a big family because family is important to me. It's It's interesting. I meet with agents all the time. A lot of times, it's moms, they kind of raise their hand and they say, I'm torn inside. I don't know how to do this. Because some days I wake up in fact, this is a quote from a client. She said, You know, I wake up some days and I just want to kill it. And I'm just so excited, fired up to go build my business. She said other days, I just want to be a mom, I want to foreclose, I just want to. And so there's this like kind of schizo Franek, like, Who do I want to be. And, you know, me myself self was raised in a family, where I had a mom who was a very successful entrepreneur, and yet, she was the best mom I could have ever imagined. And I think she came to grips with the fact that she could be where she needed to be when she needed to be there by owning her own business. Right, actually gave her the freedom to kill it during certain work hours, and then step out and be at all of our games, travel around the state to watch our football games, etc. And so I think that you can't have it all. I've seen it I was raised in an environment of, of entrepreneurs and family members who pursued both and and and were great parents at the same time. So let's start with Josh, what advice would you give, whether it be a busy mother? And or a maybe even a busy father, but like, what are some of the tactics that you see some strategies that you teach, to help people to, you know, not neglect the family while still building their business?Josh Friberg  3:56  Right? Well, first of all, I want to put huge Asterix on this, this is where talking if we are talking to moms, right like that, we don't know that you and I do not understand their world, right, and the responsibilities that are on them. And so anything that I say I say with like great caution, and great like, just, hey, apply this as you can. And I know that I don't fully understand your world. The first place, you know, you mentioned and I thought this was really good is to be where you are, is to actually like, it's really interesting. I was in a class in a yoga class actually once and they said, you know, your body can only be in the present, right. And we would all agree with that, like I can't have my body be in the past in my body can't be in the future, it can only be in the present, yet our minds can be in the past, our minds can be in the present, or our minds can be in the future. And so this person said it was really just an interesting thing is they said, just let your mind be where your body is right now.And so, you know, even now, like you and I have the ability, while we're having this conversation to be thinking about what we're having for lunch today to think about that weird thing we said Yes, today, right? Like, there's all these things, but to just be present where you are. The other thing is, there's, there's this old, there's this old saying in comedy, which is leaving wanting more, right. And I started applying this in my business, because I'm like, your friend, your client that said, you know, some days, I just want to go into work, and I just want to kill it. For achievers, there's actually something really gratifying about the 14 hour work day not as a lifestyle, right. But as a like a day where man, you're just hitting on all cylinders, and you're able to give it your all, you're able to pull an all-nighter. And really like at the end of the day, say I did something.And you can do that for a day or a week or maybe even a month. But that's not a lifestyle, right? One of the things that I do when I'm coaching achievers is put a limit on it. And it's like, on those days when everything's going right. Like, put in the three hours that you have in your schedule, do it are the five or whatever it is. And when you come to the end of it stop.Because that energy will have you ramped up, I had the experience of that this weekend where I could not wait for Monday to start because I was so pumped about the activities I was going to do for work. And I committed to honoring my time with family on Sunday and helping my son with his science project, right. So like, set limits on when you're going to work and stick to those. Now there's another piece to that. Because then there are days when Hey, I just want to stay home, I just want to it's sunny out, I want to take the kids to the zoo, or Boy, you know, families having a rough day I will I didn't really need to do. Maybe Today's a day I need to call in sick and stay at home. And I literally just got a text this morning from one of my coaching clients that said that exact same thing. Hey, I didn't make my commitments that were because we really needed a family day.And it might be okay once but boy, that becomes a habit that's really dangerous for your business. So what I say is, create a schedule and do it whether you feel like it or not. An...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, fired up excited to be with you here today. As you know, my my passion and my mission is to help you think bigger, so that you can build the kind of business that will produce the kind of life that you want, giving you the options and the impact that you really want. I'm very excited to have returning guests with me today, someone who's locally famous and probably becoming nationally famous at this point. But the topic today is contribution. And so I have just the right person who spends his life contributing to the real estate industry, helping agents get better. So I want to thank first and foremost, Mr. Joe Fustolo, for being on the show today. Thanks, Joe.Joe Fustolo  0:36  Thank you so much. I have to start every compliment with a compliment back from the place of contribution Justin you're doing an amazing job given great media, great content to people. It's a selfless act. And we all appreciate these videos and the knowledge and the people you interview. So thank you, the spirit of contribution. You're up there with a lot of people.Justin Stoddart  1:02  Well, thank you. That's very kind of you, Joe, I appreciate that coming from a guy who, again gives so much so let's delve into some of these topics. And let me kind of build some like him a frame of reference for those who maybe need a little more background on on Joe. So Joe is the owner of Soldera Property Group, which I understand just turned 11 on St. Patrick's Day Happy Birthday to Soldera properties.Joe Fustolo  1:24  Yes. Soldera turned 11 years old on St. Patrick's Day. And I own it with my business partner, Patrick Kraus. And we're having so much fun is just a ball. Justin Stoddart  1:37  You know, it's funny, because today actually is my son's 11th birthday today. So after this, I've got a birthday date. With my 11 year old so 11 years ago was a very special year apparently. And it was fun, actually, I got a chance to see Patrick and Joe in action at their big Easter event. And it was a blast. And that's maybe kind of a lead in a fight. Let me get to that here in a second. Let me finish my bio on Joe. So for those that don't know, Joe, been in the business for 28 years, just been a great producer, and a great, great contributor. In addition to his his success within his own business and his own brokerage. He's served on about every board you can imagine. And that is the founder of the well known Real Estate Group called Masters in Real Estate. So if you by chance are an agent, whether you're inside the Portland metro area, or in the state of Oregon, or even nationally, I would really encourage you to search Masters in Real Estate. I'll put it up here on the screen here a little bit later in the episode. But search this out, Joe does such an amazing job of just helping real estate agents get very, very good at the business of real estate of being great real estate agents. So huge thanks to Joe. I know so many people are so appreciative of the work and sacrifice that you make to make that happen. Joe, it's just great stuff.Joe Fustolo  2:50  Thank you. Justin Stoddart  2:52  So let's talk a little about this great community event that you held. You know, I've been invited as you can imagine to a number of events. I'll tell you what, my wife and I and our little kids were amazed, we rounded the corner at the Soldera Properties Easter egg hunt, like there were oceans of people and I thought yeah, goodness, and you guys were prepared like you're like totally handling it with with cool calm. I think I'd be like choking like oh my goodness, what are they going to stop the Stoddarts are coming, they had six kids just in love themselves. And you guys handled it handled it so well. And the cool part that ties back into our theme today is this topic of contribution. Talk to us a little bit, Joe about the cause that you guys were supporting and kind of what came of from that event to this cause that you care deeply about?Joe Fustolo  3:39  Well, so what a fun day, that was the mother nature shown down on us. We had room for about 600 people, we had about 1200 RSVP. So as comfortable and collected as we looked, there was a little freak out earlier in the day, but we're pretty passionate about contribution and giving back and this year was Embrace Oregon, which helps foster kids and foster families. And I can't think of anything better than you know, foster kids and their families out there. We did an Easter egg hunt. We had face painting, we had a guy doing balloons, we had, you know, temporary tattoos. People were playing cornhole, the adults were wine tasting. And then this massive Easter egg hunt where out of the 5000 easter eggs, there were a good couple hundred golden eggs that had extra special treats in there and we had two different photo booths and the Easter Bunny, and it was an absolute ball. everybody was appreciative and and we just filled up with, you know, they say when you give, you get back tenfold. And it was really great to see people having a good time. And I sent it out to friends and family and past clients and it was just a great day talking with people that I haven't seen in a long time. And I don't know the actual numbers, but we raised a heck of a lot of money for Embrace Oregon, and let me tell you a little bit about them. So it's for foster kids and foster parents. And they usually are pretty heavy on financial contributions. And then clothes, boots, school supplies, you name it. It's normally around Thanksgiving, Christmas, right? When everyone feels like giving. They're pretty heavy on donation. But come January through October, they're a little lean. And so we specifically wanted to make sure that they have all their needs met, if you get called. And you have to pick up foster kids overnight and bring him back. It's nice to have, you know, toiletries and clothes. And so that's what we did. It was a it was a huge success. So we plan on doing it again next year, I don't know if we're, if it's the same place or same charity, but we plan on doing for a quarter, or for a year, every quarter quarter.Justin Stoddart  6:25  You know, it's interesting, Joe actually met a new agent yesterday. And she came out of the foster care program. And she said from a young age, she found herself grabbing like the free home magazines, in grocery stores. And she said for her it was a way to like fill that void that she didn't quite have the home that she wanted. And so later in life now here, she is a real estate agent, she said it brings me great joy to know they'll be able to help people have what I always wanted as a kid, and I thought was pretty touching. And so I think there's definitely this tie to those of us that have been blessed by the real estate industry to give back those who maybe don't have the ideal home setting.Joe Fustolo  7:03  Absolutely, you know, it's interesting, it's like, the more you work in, the more money you you make, it allows you to do more things for other people and put on events and and donate. And you know, if you look at the balance of life, you know, your, what you have, socially, your family and inside your four walls, you know, spiritually, physically, charitably, all these other things. The stuff you do for others is one of those things that just sort of feeds you and keeps you going. So it's a you know, I'm not selflessly given to other people I'm getting a lot in return my cup is full, let me tell you. Justin Stoddart  7:43  I think you know, that's how I feel is as selfless as some of this contribution may look, there's so much value that comes when you just give and I think that's, ...

Justin Stoddart  0:00  Hey, welcome back to the think bigger real estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart. And so excited to be here today with a friend of mine, someone who I admire and I think everyone in the Portland area, real estate industry admires this lady. And for those of you that are outside the industry, let me give a little background on Debi Laue and the treat that we have today. For me, first of all to have her here in studio. Thanks for being here, Debi. I know video is your favorite thing in the world. So this is this is really exciting for her to be able to impart her knowledge. And anyway, so background on her, been in the business Debi for 42 years, really that 42 years. And her team is still one of the very highest producers in the entire city. Just phenomenal, phenomenal amount of production that they do. And I think even more impressive than that isn't the numbers, but the people the way you guys go about doing business. Debi Laue  0:47  Is that can I clarify, it's not my team anymore? Justin Stoddart  0:49  Yes. Yes, please, please. Debi Laue  0:52  Misunderstood proposition. Rick and Kiesha Brainard bought out on our team January 1, 2017. So what they've built from that point on is what we're doing now.Justin Stoddart  1:00  Very cool, great distinction. So Debbie laid the groundwork for what Rick and Kiesha are now building, which is something phenomenal. And anyway, I'm excited to spend the time here with Debi and really try to extract from her, how she built what she built, it was really set the stage for what the team is doing now, which is really exciting. Super cool. So let's see any other bio points on Debi, I'm sure if anybody pops in here and wants to ask any questions that Debi, feel free to bring that up. But I know I've we've kind of pre-discussed a couple of different topics. So one of the things that I'd love to hear, Debi is if you were right now able to go back and talk to Debi Laue, it was just getting into the business. Now. Were you married to Bob at the time that you guys got in the business? Debi Laue  1:43  No. Justin Stoddart  1:43  Okay, so this was pre even pre-marriage you've been? You've been married to real estate long have you been married?Debi Laue  1:50  That is true.Justin Stoddart  1:53  if you were to go back and give advice to that person that's maybe a year in the business, like maybe they kind of give, What real estate is, but they haven't obviously built the career that you have. What advice would you give to yourself? So my first managing broker was lead Davies mother, Dorothy Davies mother, okay days.Debi Laue  2:13  The best advice she gave me, she gave me a lot of advice. But the best advice was to surround yourself by positive people. And I understood very quickly why she told me that because in that era and continuing on, there's always office drama. And if you just avoid that, then you'll have a lot of time to spend with your family and your clients, which is what you should concentrate on. And going forward from that consistency has been the number one thing I would share with people. There's a quote out there by some entrepreneurial book writing Speaker I can't remember his name Darren Hardy, I think but he says because consistency is the one thing that achieves and continues the momentum. So in this is if you're not continuing the momentum, then you're stopped dead. It's called filling your pipeline, whatever you want to call it. consistencies, the number one target to achieve. And some of the ways almost that I'm hearing you say that people aren't consistent as they get caught up and stuff that doesn't matter. Right, right. You've got your clients to get the growth of your business, then you've got as you said, this office drama, stuff that's maybe not other stuff or other stuff, right Life Life drama, you can't avoid life. But if you can focus on the things that are productive, that that will help you be successful. So that consistency, I know that that is a big challenge for any of us that are entrepreneurial, right? We see shiny new ideas all the time.Justin Stoddart  3:38  At what is that what is considered the consistency? How have you found to be most consistent? Is it certain by just having a calendar having a planning session? I mean, what's it look like for you or do you just have the discipline to be able to do it? Well, so this is this goes back to Bob. So Bob was a corporate guy, you know, he came out of the corporate world which most realtors didn't back in the day.Debi Laue  4:00  He put systems together that kept us consistent. In other words, we had a CRM since 1983.Justin Stoddart  4:08   Wow, that was pre-sales free CRM, wasn't it? Debi Laue  4:11  I bought my first computer, which was this big and cost $5,000. But I had no idea how to use it until Bob came along. And he figured out a mail merge system where he put all of his clients into the system. And we started sending out these anniversary letters. Congratulations. This is the seventh year since you bought or sold a home with us, we hope you're doing well, etc. And always asking for business, of course, but that was our first attempt at being consistent. And then you move forward with client events. Yeah. And just staying in touch with pop buys, which our team now does because we have this lovely person named Melissa Nichols who said,No, listen. So she's made it really easy for us to achieve that consistency on a whole new level. Justin Stoddart  4:54  Like it's funny. I saw Melissa and Justin Nichols in the team picture and I was like, What did they do? Now I know the role very cool, good quality people, you guys have just done such a good job like everybody that joins the last one like, Oh my god, it's just another amazing person, you know? Well, that's you can have that direct indication they have built the business in the last two years. And I'm a very special way. So we have four producing agents, okay, and for support people, okay, which is a pretty, pretty amazing sort of ratio of support to producing brokers, you don't typically see that right? You see, very few support people or fewer support people and lots of agents. So what does that allow you guys to do by having almost like a one to one support to producing agent and allows you to do the stuff you're talking about? It allows us to spend our time with our clients, which is exactly where we need to be.Wow, lots of profound wisdom there is whether it looks like people or what it looks like and or systems or tools. But whatever you can do to reinvest time back in your clients, right? is key, right. So we have gentlemen in our place.Debi Laue  6:00  We go office that I don't know if he has a CRM now. But for years it didn't except he had his phone, which was his brand new form of Rolodex. And he said he would, you know, we had 10 minutes before a meeting, he would just go through and look at people's names, and you'd call somebody, it was that simple. Who Have I not talked to recently pick up the phone column. So in this era, when people are a phone at first, maybe go back to something as simple as picking up the phone and calling somebody you haven't talked to in a couple of weeks or a month or a year. But I do think that technologies take an interesting turn. And a lot of people use technology to be the contact with people. Right? It almost takes the place of contact with people. What I hear you saying is that that that technology should empower people, or it should empower us to spend more time with people, not less time with people, rig...

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart, and man, I'm excited about today's episode. Before I get into introducing today's guest, let me talk about my mission, which is to help you grow so that your business can follow suit. I know that when your business grows an amazing thing happens you life gets more and better options and you have a greater impact in the lives of other people. So, today's topic is something that the sports world and really the world in general is still buzzing about, which is Damian Lillards last second, I should say his entire game, but his shot from 37 feet away to win the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, um, has again, blazer fans is still in absolute pandemonium and it has those of us that are students of high performance, trying to learn from that and be like Damien. So today I have with me, um, um, a good friend of mine, someone who I admire look up to and I really respect what he's doing. Um, Jesse Dow and today we're going to talk about how we can be like Damien in our businesses. So Jesse, thanks for being on the show man.Yeah, absolutely. I'm a an honor to be on the show. I'll obviously, I always talk to you and admire what you're doing, so thank you. So for having me on.Yeah, for sure. It had, for those that don't know, Jesse, you're going to love this story. Jessie's a top producer here in the Portland market and that probably many people think because he's becoming so well known, he's been in business for a long time. He's, he's coming up on two years in the business to use in the business and he's absolutely killing it. And for those of you who, who kind of want to get a little taste of what Jesse's up to, what he's working on it go look at a couple places. Number one, his his youtube channel, which is real agent now by Jackson Wilkie and Jesse Dow real agent. Now you're going to see some crazy quality and quantity of videos that are just creating a standard for agents in this area. And around the country. Um, well done man. And then also your Facebook group, um, digital mayor now, uh, which is a really cool term coined by, uh, the only, uh, or the, the fantastic Gary Vaynerchuk. So, um, anyway, Jesse, again, thanks for you on the show. Let's get into this topic of really a book that you and I, uh, read together. I guess we read separately and, and, and then I read again, uh, by Tim Grover. It's called relentless. It's going from good to great to unstoppable. And uh, let's talk a little bit about the game the other night cause it will tie in. What did you see in Damian Lillard that had you, uh, recognizing him as being unstoppable?Yeah, I think the thing that I recognize and I think everyone else recognizes, you know, he, he had an ultimate goal and that goal is to obviously win and you stay focused on that. And it didn't matter what it took, he was set out to accomplish that goal and then he made it happen.I was, uh, I was impressed, uh, at, at halftime I tweeted out, like, Dane's got 32 points. I like, I was amazing. Oftentimes when people have that kind of first half, the second half is lack luster, right? Like to put in the work, they just squeeze a lot of points into one half. But you're exactly right. Like his aim was not to have a big first half. He was not going to stop until he won. You know, I'd been a Jordan fan my entire life and it was actually after the game that I said, I think Damian Lillard just became my all time favorite basketball player because I've never seen somebody close a game out. Like that was such audacity and, uh, it, it, um, it was impressive nonetheless for sports fans as well as for guys like you and I who, um, who get after it in the, in the, in the business space as well.Yeah. And I think, you know, he, uh, you know, he even talked about it and some of the, uh, of the game one, two and three in is basically, you know, I don't celebrate or I don't get excited until like we've won the series. It isn't about the single games. It's about my ultimate common goal and that's to keep moving forward in the progression of the playoffs. Ultimately with the championship.You know, the uh, this book that you and I read called relentless, it's authored by Devin. They have Tim Grover and a heats. He, for those that aren't familiar with the book, Jesse and I are going to go into it a little bit today, but the concept behind it is there. This Guy Tim Grover was the coach or trainer, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, to name a few, like some of the all time best players and, and toughest, like those were the toughest mindset. Absolutely. Ice In their veins, assassins when it came to closing at a game. Like they're just unbelievable. And they all sought out this trainer to help give them, not just a physical edge, but I was, I was impressed as I reviewed the book again, how much emphasis he puts on the mindset that anybody can have great, uh, great physical set. But that's not what separates people, right?There's a lot of people that could hit a 37 foot step away, three pointer, but it was dames mindset to be able to do it with time running out when he could have very easily probably penetrated in the lane and scored, you know, an easy to or a quick jumper. He chose to do it in a pretty, pretty audacious manner. And it, to me, he became absolutely relentless as of course, have the, the people like again, Jordan and Colby and Charles Barth and some of the other, um, what Tim Grover refers to as closer. So Jesse, we've helped define the difference as Tim Grover the author lays out, there's three different categories of performers. You remember what those are?Yeah. So there's the cooler that someone that's just supposedly like fun, exciting, executes at a high level but would probably stab you in the back. Uh, given the opportunity. Then there's the closure that someone that's very respected always shows up in those clinch game time decisions. Someone I would probably relate to as like Lebron James and I never knew the differences until I really read this book. Um, and then there's the cleaner if someone that's uh, you know, feared and respected for doing what they say there is going to set out to do, you know, and then they don't really talk about it that much. They just keep moving forward with that same mindset to the very end. Someone that I can relate to as like Jordan Coby, a Dame, uh, in the list, Dwayne Wade and these people were like sometimes aren't even like the all stars that you see that they are, but what they can do is elevate the whole team.Yeah. Yeah. There's a different mindset. It's interesting you say that, cause again, Lebron is probably known as probably number one or number two best basketball players of all time. But I read his mindset is not one of a cleaner, right? The cleaner is who's feared and goes into a totally separate zone when like when the game's on the line. And I think Dane put himself in that category of being a cleaner, more so than Lebron ever has. Absolutely. Yeah. What, let me, let me talk about this Jesse. When you, when you look for people to do business with, right? You chose, um, obviously somebody like you who's got the same hunger, um, how important it is it, you know, whether that person via via closer or not, how, how important is it to surround yourself with other, other people that are, um, that inspired you to do great things?To me it's a 100% about alignment. I know I've talked to you about this, like my ultimate vision is to create a business model where I just, how the agents working around me that are all basically cleaners, right? We walk out of those rural players involved when the business gets so big that week and need those specific roles, right? But to surround myself with people now, it's extremely important. I have a business coach, um, that's real estate related. He's out of the Arizona, a fant...

Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. My name is Justin Stoddart. I'm your host and my goal, and my mission really, is to help you think bigger and grow yourself so that your business can follow suit. I know that when that happens, you're going to have more options, including the ability to have a greater impact, which is I think fundamental for any of us that want to have a great life. I'm excited today to have a fellow big thinker, with me today from Nashville, Tennessee. Let me tell you about him here just a second, but the topic we're going to cover is house warming parties and what a gold mine they can be if done right. So, I'm excited to have Josh Anderson of Josh Anderson Real Estate Group with me today. Josh actually started his business in 2006, which is, probably, what some would see as an inopportune time to get into the real estate industry. But he's thrived. He did 86 million in volume last year between four agents. They did about 215 transactions and his business is 75% referral/past clients. So, he obviously does some things very, very right and well. Josh, I'm excited to have you here pouring value into the Think Bigger Real Estate audience. Thank you for your time today.Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity.Yeah. I know Josh came highly recommended from a friend of mine and Josh has, let me just kind of lead with this: Josh has a great business that services a lot of referrals from agents, both gives and receives. So if you ever have business in Nashville and you need a great agent, Josh is your guy. So we'll get that out of the way. So Josh, you, aside from being a dad of two young boys, which I'm sure it keeps you on your toes at home, I'm sure, have a very robust real estate team. Tell me, how do you keep balance between the two? That's a passion of mine is home life, being a great leader in the home and outside of the home. So tell us how you find balance among the two.Yeah. You know, I don't know that I believe in balance, but I think that there's a lot of counter balance that goes on. It's one of those things that you just work around. I work our schedule, very rarely do I work after hours. I don't do a whole lot of weekends. One of it's just doing it and there's times when we have to be in really good communication with husband and wife in so far as who's grabbing the kids.I love it. That helps It sounds like you've got a great partner in crime.We're going back and forth and we've got the NFL draft is in town this week and we've got lots going on in Nashville and lots going on in the family part of it. So, it's really just kind of counterbalancing. There's times when the kids come up to the office with me if it's on a weekend or after hours and it helps that my office in my house are 300 yards apart.It does.Well, yeah, it's just a lot of counterbalancing and making it work.Great. Awesome stuff, man. I think great leaders like you are going to create the next generation of great leaders. So thank you for sharing that. Let's get into this concept of house warming parties. I'm enamored, enamored with what you're doing. I hear too few agents doing this and I really think there's a gold mine. Walk us through this concept of a housewarming party. Do you do it for all of your clients or just those that ask for it or those that agree to it? What does this look like?Yeah, so we offer it to all of our clients. There's a pretty decent amount that don't take us up on it. You know, for whatever reason they're like, "We're too busy... kids... whatever." We've done them for a long time, and we go in and out of doing them at very high levels, or doing big volumes of them versus not. We just did one this past weekend. So it's really great timing on talking about it. It's one of those things that, because so much of our business, is past client and some type of referral, it's the perfect piece for us to finish the transaction, thank them for allowing us the opportunity to work with them and also getting to meet all their friends or their family or whoever's at that housewarming party suits, you know, we really kind of take it and run with it the whole way and do everything for them.So paint this picture. You've got a past client or an existing client, I should say. I'm actually trying to eliminate the word past client because you want to service them in the future. But this client, right, who's now happy with your service, they're in their home... how many people, for example, this one you had this past weekend, how many of their friends and family were at the event?So that was the one this past weekend. They had 44 people that RSVPd and I think 100% of them showed up. So it was really awesome. You know, most of them are somewhere... We've always kind of said, we've looked at it and said it's about $250 or $300 that we spend and about 20 to 25 people usually show up. This one was a little bit different. He's one of our top, top referral sources and clients. And so we spent a little bit more with this particular housewarming party. So, we had more people, more food, more drinks, more everything. We usually do real invitations. We also do a paperless post or an e-vite, but our goal is we're capturing all of their contact information because that's who we want to work with and we do all of it to make it really simple.If it becomes a big chore for the client, they're not going to do it. The whole idea is that we're selling, and we sell it throughout the transaction, we tell them, "Hey, you know..." halfway through the transaction, that it's going to be so great once you guys get settled in and we're going to do the housewarming party for you guys. You aren't going to have to do a thing. So we kind of talk throughout from start to finish and after. So, this particular housewarming party was probably two to two and a half months post-close. So it gave them plenty of time. They did a couple of things after closing and so it gave him time to do that and get really get settled in and the house really where they wanted it to be to entertain and have people over. So, we do invitations, we do the email invite, we call them, we text them. We just want to make sure that everybody shows up that is supposed to be showing up. So it's a good turnout and it's a win for everybody.So you get from them a client list or guest list. Then, you guys reach out and say, "Hey, on behalf of our client, we're hosting a housewarming party for them. They've requested that you be there. We'd love to have you." Then follow up with of course phone calls and emails, just to remind them, I'm assuming that's kind of what that looks like, the logistics?Yeah. And it's nothing about real estate. It's literally just reminding them and making sure it's on their calendar and you know, there were three of us that were there from the team. That's partly key also is somebody from the team has to be there. Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily have to be me. I happened to be at that one because it was a friend and you know it was during the day on a Saturday. It was from 12 to 4, and it was just awesome. We had it catered, we had Chewy's, it was great. When we first started out people were throwing out all kinds of crazy ideas. So we do themed party. So, it's Mexican, BBQ or pizza just to make it really cool. From there, that creates the whole theme of the party. So Mexican food, Mexican Beer margaritas, all of those things.Compare that Josh, with four hours that people spend at an open house where you're hoping to get a few people to come in and potentially have some buyer leads. But again, these are cold leads. I'm not downing the open house strategy. I think it's a good one, but now, there's proof of concept all around you. You're standing inside what you did for this client and you're with them. Typically when people come in to an open house, they...

I'm excited today about today's topic because I think it's essential to what's happening in the real estate market in order for real estate agents to continue to thrive and offer the value to consumers that they'll respect and appreciate enough to allow you to have a business with the margins that you want to have. We're going to go into a topic about how to become the CEO of your business and I have with me today somebody who's brilliant at this topic. Those of you who know him probably admire him first as a loving husband and father, which is something that is very dear to me. Those that work along with him, despite the accomplishments I'm about ready to read, all those that know him best say he's a very humble man to which I would attest to that as well. So, Chris Suarez, he's a real estate agent here in Portland. He's sold himself over a thousand transactions and over $250 million in volume. He actually didn't ask me to say that, so he's probably a little bit embarrassed that I did say that, but nevertheless someone with great accomplishments. He's somebody who has ownership as a broker owner in five different offices for Keller Williams up and down the I-5 corridor, he has an expansion team, meaning other brokers around the country of which he's the CEO. In addition to that, he still goes on buyer and seller appointments and balances that out with his other responsibilities of being a CEO and a big thinker. So Chris Suarez, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a great pleasure of mine to get to spend some time with you and share your genius with the think bigger real estate audience.Awesome. Well, I appreciate being here. I appreciate the opportunity to connect. We talk a lot face to face, but now we're talking screen to screen and happy to share anything I can. But also I'm really thankful for what you continue to do for the community and our industry as well. It's a love for the real estate industry. I think that drives us both. So I'm happy to be here.Yeah, no, it's true. I've been asked before "Justin, have you ever thought about getting your real estate license?" And that comes up often and I think my passion isn't necessarily to be with buyers and sellers, it's to be with real estate agents. So all day every day, in my role, I get the opportunity to be knee to knee talking strategy and finding ways to add value to agents. So, I appreciate that, Chris, that means a lot coming from you. Let's get into a little bit here about this topic of becoming a CEO. I've studied your teachings on this and others where there's a real difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO. Would you just share for the audience, what are some tactical differences in mindset in their activities, and just how they show up and be, that really differentiates somebody from being an entrepreneur. Which a lot of people embrace and love, but maybe they're hitting a ceiling and they're tired of hitting a hitting a ceiling and they want to do more in their business and/or just have a better quality of life. Let's talk about the how embracing the role of a CEO will help them.Yeah. Justin, I think one of the interesting things about our industry is everybody starts as an entrepreneur. Like if that wasn't, if that wasn't our core, we wouldn't be in real estate. And so typically you look at a founder of any, any company, real estate or non real estate, and they have incredible drive. They have natural ability, right? They have intuition. They have enthusiasm. And depending on your level of any one of those things, that's sort of the level of your natural ceiling of achievement or the size of the business that we're going to create that makes a phenomenal entrepreneur. And then as we're really, really good at that, and as we care about people, our business is going to grow naturally. And at a certain point in time, I think our industry has told us, "Well then, you'll naturally be the owner of the business."And so since you own it, we start putting three letters on our business card and it just says, you know, Chris Suarez, CEO and by nature, the fact that we call ourselves that, we just think that we'll just continue doing what we've always done. And now we're just the CEO of a business because we hired someone or we added people or we've grown. Interestingly enough, I think that was me, early on, right? I sold real estate and I sold more real estate and then more real estate. And I thought, well, "Gosh, I'm going to have people now because I need them to deliver service." And so now I was just automatically a CEO and as I started researching founders of different companies outside of our industry and the founders that, that stayed CEOs of their business versus the founders that hired CEOs of their business--and there are incredible companies that went either way--the founders that stayed as a CEO had to change dramatically what they did, what their skill set was, what they focused on. In fact, they had to go from like dry, natural ability, intuition, enthusiasm. And then all of a sudden their skillset flipped to focus, strategic options, systems, models, accountability. And that's not natural. And one of the things I came across in my research was this statement that the number one reason why tech, I was researching tech, which we might as well just call that real estate now anyway, but I was researching tech and it said, "The number one reason why tech companies failed was because the founder stayed a founder." They didn't become a CEO. And so I thought, "Gosh, well how do we become a CEO?" And the four things that showed up was the CEO is responsible for creating.And you think, well, so is a founder. A CEO is responsible for truly planning. And you think, well "Yeah, so is a founder," but the next two was implementing and integrating. And that's where I think most real estate agents, right, entrepreneurs fall down. We are great at creating. We love creating. In fact, we create too much and we love planning. And so we all have goals, but it's the implementation and integration that falls on the shoulders of a CEO that ultimately takes a lot of time and we just don't typically put enough time into becoming that CEO or being the CEO for a business. So I know that's a lot, but that, that really sort of reframed my thinking of who do I want to be for my business or any business that I'm involved in. Am I the founder? Like am I the entrepreneur? Like I love being that. But if I'm going to put a CEO title or those letters on any organization that I run, I have to be something different for the business and for the people that I've invited into the business.It's powerful that you say that, Chris. You're right, there's this concept that an entrepreneur is a noble role, to, which I agree. I think it is. I think many of the problems that are solved in the world come about because of entrepreneurs and business owners who are willing to take a risk in order to create a solution for the market; however, you've pointed out something interesting here, which is that one can't stay in that mode forever or their impact will be limited if they simply get to a certain place where now they've got to become something else and they refuse. And so it's easier to jump to a new venture, which you see oftentimes, which is an entrepreneur jumping from thing to thing to thing without necessarily either bringing in somebody else or becoming somebody else to take that business and impact to the next level. And so what you're saying is you've studied that in big businesses. But you're seeing that even on a micro level within the real estate community, that real estate agents themselves need to become something different than what maybe got them started in the business.Yeah. I think just going back one second and you said, "Well, we see people that jump from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing." Those are called serial entrepre...

Let me give a little background on the topic that you and I want to solve today and then I'll give some background on you to speak to some credibility of your story as to why you're the right person for them to listen to on this topic. So, I see agents, as I have a chance to be knee to knee with them all day every day, I see them spending a lot of time and a lot of effort walking past people that already know them, like them and trust them to spend resources, time and money to convince other people to know them, like them and trust them. And I really feel like they're, they're headed out into the diamond mine going down, risking everything, to go down to find these diamonds when they're walking past fields of diamonds right in front of them. Do you ever feel that way Jennie?Oh, preach! That is, I mean that is so true. And that's been honestly my mission over the past years when I discovered that I truly love to empower agents. That is why, is because we already have all these people that know us, like us and trust us, and we're just not pouring into them more or squeezing them with more love to get referrals and recommendations out of them. So I'm with you on that.Perfect. Well, we're going to dive into that topic and how agents, some real tactical strategies that you've employed to master this database topic in your business. So some background on Jennie. Jennie and her and her team last year had the privilege of serving 135 families. And that's exactly how she stated it to me, which again tells me a lot about how she feels about her people. She didn't say 'sell homes or houses.' She 'served families.' Okay. So there's probably a, a built in lesson within that. She's been in business for 18 years, but you actually got to a point, Jennie, where you felt almost a little burnt out, like this business is making me not like people. And you said that that's a problem. So talk to us about how with you being so relational, how even you said at times like, "I'm kind of burned out." What, what happened there?Well, thank you for leading me up to that because I think that's an important part of the story because now people can see where I am or where we are as a team and they can make assumptions that we've just always been this awesome, right? That's not the case. We've had so many fail forwards during the process and like I shared with you in 2010 and 11 is when I took my first BOLD and got to a coach and my production doubled and I was a single agent still. And so what happens when your production doubles? Things start breaking, you start losing your mind and getting pretty stressed out. So I sloppily started building a team, not following any of the proper processes that are lined out for us. And by hodgepodging a team together, I was still, yes, I had some leverage and relief, which was awesome and at the same time, maybe I didn't hold them accountable correctly. I was still learning how to be a leader myself and so then I'm still hanging on to way too many things, not properly leveraged. What does that cause? Frustration and and really just getting to a point of like I shared: hating people, I hated people. I say it out loud in the classroom and people always laugh out loud and I know it is because they have been there and we cannot hate people in this relationship business that we're in. And so that's where I had to take a step back and reevaluate why in the world am I really doing this business? What do I love and how can I apply doing what I love to helping families buy and sell homes.Let's talk a little bit about the root of this, of this hate and I'm not going to try and be a psychiatrist, but I would imagine, I know you're the loving mother of a beautiful little girl and I would imagine you had people that were imposing upon that time with her and they were demanding. And because you felt like, now this is pre team and I know some teams get a bad rap and that's probably accurate. Other teams don't deserve that bad rap that actually serve clients at a really high level. And I know based on what I've heard about you from Patrick and others and that you teach this business by referral at a high level, that's not you, right? But with these people, while you were just a solo agent you had on 15 hats at a time and the hat that you wanted to wear the most, which is that of being a mom was always on the sideline. Is that what caused the root of that hate?How did you know all of that?I am a dad. I get it. Right?!That it, that is so true. And so many and dads are awesome as well. I can speak to the working moms because I am one. That is our struggle. You know, there's a book on it. It's called the ONE Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. And by using that book as a tool, it really helps so much along with the Six Personal Perspectives, like we mentioned early on, the whole value of time blocking and knowing your calendar and family is on your calendar. So every day for the past four years, "Pick up Mia" is on my calendar and "Family time" at four o'clock. And so that was real easy for me to say, I'm sorry I've got an appointment at that time. Instead would noon tomorrow or you know, you pick the time that, that works for you. And I think that's it. That's the number one thing is taking control of your calendar. And that allows people to not stress you out. And so if you don't have a calendar, you will allow people in at all times that you get frustrated and you start feeling burnout. So that's key.Yeah. Let's talk about this. You showed be a little something that you have on your desk that says E to P. Will you pull it out for the audience.Yeah. My friend Missy Webb from Norman, Oklahoma, she sent this to me. I think it was after I taught a Six Personal Perspectives class and I said that one's my favorite. I love them all. I love all of the perspectives. The E to P though, every bit of our lives, personal lives, business, lives can be plussed and be better and we can have more focus and purpose with them.Let's talk about what that is. There's probably a group of the audience that knows what that is, right? You and I do. In fact I was teaching it to a group yesterday, but going from like an entrepreneurial style to a purposeful style, and I want to parlay that into what you described, how you had this pivot. I would imagine before, when you were starting to dislike people, it was because you were working more entrepreneurially, right? Where it was like, "Yeah, like bring it on and I got this, I got everything." And there wasn't like a purpose behind it. You weren't being purposeful of like, "Okay, what matters most to my business?" Okay, this is on my calendar, this is what matters. Most of my relationships picking Mia at four o'clock, this is going on my calendar. That was that kind of where you started to to really embrace and implement this concept of E to P?Yeah, I think so. And even the term counterbalance when that has been shared and if you really think about it as sometimes you do go extreme in your work life and you just have to know that it will come back together. You know, there's a straight line and you get extreme and work sometimes you may go extreme family and that's okay. So the goal is to really keep yourself balancing, counter balancing between the two. And that's where like Mr. Gary Keller says, as you start your year by planning out your calendar, starting with your family time, your vacation time first, and then all the rest gets filled in. And so I think that's key for keeping your head straight in this business.Let's talk a little, I love that, and I couldn't agree more. I mentioned to you earlier, for those that don't know, I'm a father of six kids. Uh, that wasn't by accident. Yes, we've been asked by every elderly person we know if we know how that works and we actually started off wanting to have six. My wife comes from a fami...

One of Justin's mentors taught him that the faster you are not the only WHO in your business, the faster and greater will be your success. Brock Worthen, a managing partner of multiple KW franchises in Pasadena, CA, discusses here the key leadership principles for attracting and retaining great talent for your business AND... bonus material on how to be a great leader in the home.

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart and this topic today is very meaningful to me. Even having this guest on today is an exciting thing for me. I'll introduce her here in just a second. But here's the problem that I want this episode to help you solve, which is: There's endless amounts of tactics and strategies and ideas for real estate agents to grow their business. And the opportunity is most of them will work if you grow into being the right person. The challenge is if you don't grow as a person, none of them will work. So I have with me today, Sarita Dua. Let me first of all say Sarita thank you for coming on the show today.Thanks so much Justin, for having me.I'm excited to have you here. For those of you that don't know Sarita, let me give a little background on her and I know many of you do. Over the past two years, her team, a very small team, has produced over $130 million in real estate volume. Pretty impressive for a small team. In addition to that, she has entered into the executive MBA program at MIT. For those of you who are familiar with MIT, it's a very prestigious university and to be accepted in means a lot. She loves teaching and training. It's really a passion of hers. Maybe some of you have seen her on some of the biggest stages including Keller Williams big annual event, Inman Connect, the big event that they have multiple times a year. And all over the place on podcasts and other places. So I'm, again, fortunate to have you here today, Sarita, pouring into the Think Bigger Real Estate audience. Thank you for again for your attention and your time.Of course. I appreciate it.So let's, let's dive into how are we going to solve this now. I know Sarita, you have developed and followed a growth plan and you say that that is an essential component of helping you to produce at the level that you have and I want to talk through some of the things for you that are a part of this growth plan? And, uh, maybe let's start with something that you put into the growth plan first, which is your fascination with travel. Talk to us about that because most people think that has nothing to do with real estate. That's what you do when you're not doing real estate. But for you, that's been an essential component of helping you produce at the highest level. True?Yeah, absolutely. And if somebody asked me like what are the three things that mean the most to me and I can't put individual people in my family, then it would be honestly my family, education and travel. And one of the things I love about travel is that it's a perfect intersection between family and education because anytime we go anywhere, we're learning and we're together. And so it isn't this, you know, a quest to fill my passport, although I do love that part of it. What I found is as my kids were young and active and I was working quite a few nights and weekends, we realized that when we connect, the few times we have, let's say we had an hour here or like 30 minutes between appointments, I would try to connect with my family and guess what, they were busy. They'd have soccer games or lacrosse or birthday parties or whatever.So if it was a good time for me, it may not have been a good time for them. And what we realized is anytime we went anywhere, the four of us, and we reconnected, whether it was a long weekend or for a week, we would just come back synchronized and recharged. And then, my husband especially, he's a bit of a nerd and he loves like these educational field trips. So anytime we go on a trip, he's going to make us go see the largest ball of twine or how cashews are made. And we always, you know, the kids, especially "Daddy," and they roll their eyes. But the funny thing is we started playing this game called Trivia. We were at a restaurant, we were waiting for a two hour wait and I was trying to keep them awake. They were jet lagged. So I was like, "Hey guys, we visited Google today. What were the colors of their logo?" I didn't even know most of the answers. I was asking questions and I didn't even know the answers. Or, "What gate were we at?" Or, "What seats were we in?" Or, "Who was our flight attendant?" And it was so funny because my son was like maybe six or seven, "Momma ask me another question." And since we started doing that too, we've become very observant when we travel. And you're always learning when you're just looking around and your present. Right? So it really did bring our family together. So, one of the best coaches I've had in my career said, "Hey, you don't always have to have a goal of how many houses and what's your production. It could be [for me] how many days, how can you maintain your production and how many days out can you take?" So every year I start with what are all the days I'm going to take out and then I cram all my real estate in in those days that I'm not out of the office.Which typically is not how it works. If I have time this year we'll go on a vacation. What you're saying is "This is a big rock. Put the big rocks in first and then business will happen around it."Absolutely.And the cool thing is is that you have enviable production, Sarita. You would think that someone that started with that, "Let's go play first," they wouldn't have produced. What you're telling us is that actually helps fuel your ability to produce at a high level.Yeah. I mean I don't know if you guys remember when you were in school or when you have a deadline, the more you have to do, like if you have something due every night, you're going to have to time block and get it done. If you have a month to do it, like let's say taxes, right? There's a lot of us that are going to, probably on the 14th, "Shoot, I got to get these done." But if you don't have time and you have to slot a bunch of other things and you just get it done, right?! So I did find that it actually made me more efficient and more productive.I love it. An enticing deadline is what you've created. Let's talk about your speaking and teaching. This is part of your growth plan. Obviously you've agreed to come on today to really benefit this audience. You are on stages. You've been a MAPS coach in the past and that's really become a part of your passion in your life. Talk to us about why that's an essential part of agents becoming the person, growing into being the person, that can then grow a business to the level that they want it to.Okay, sure. I mean, everyone has a different reason. I'm not going to sit here and say, "Golly shucks." You know, I, you know, at the end of the day, like we all have reasons for doing things. Some people want the visibility, some people want referrals. For me, I'm focusing on getting comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable, right? So the more uncomfortable you can be and start being okay with it, then you always learn. So for me, teaching and coaching has just, you know, there's that phrase, the teacher becomes the student. You actually get way more than you give. Even when I coach a client one on one who might be a newer agent and I'm talking to them about systems and models. I mean, who do you think is learning that? Like for me, it's very difficult to talk about how you should make your contacts and work your database and then I hang up and I don't do that? Then I would feel like a fraud. So for me, it's just another way to sharpen the pencil. I'm not the greatest public speaker. In fact, I do quite a few educational videos to my clients. And I used to really get nervous about, "Well, does my hair look okay?" and "I just flubbed this up," and I should retake it 10 times so that I sound like, you know, like an anchor woman or like the weather person" or whatever. And you know the more authentic, like when you actually screw up and you say, wait, I like lost my train of thought, let me rephrase and you're actual...

Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart. I'm very excited about today. A very good friend of mine a very experienced mortgage loan officer who has been in the business for 17 years. He has been wowing people with value for a long, long time, Mr. Tony Gillard. Tony, thanks for being on the show today.Happy to be here.Let's set this up properly. You know, Tony, you run your business like a business and the topic of today is, is really one way in which agents can do that. And I think this term of lead generation is synonymous with real estate agents. More leads, more leads, more leads always seems to be the answer, but maybe it's not the answer. Maybe it's not about more leads, more leads, more leads. Maybe just maybe it's about better converting on the leads you have. We're going to talk some specific strategies around that. Tony, what are your thoughts on this concept of more leads, more leads, more leads?Well, it's certainly a topic of discussion with every agent. I sit down, every agent, uh, they want more leads and when we start to peel back some of the layers of their business, we find that it's not necessarily more leads that they need, but more conversion on the activities and opportunities that they're already generating. And so, you know, especially when we start talking about like work life balance--can you do more with less? Can you do more things with fewer interactions or really is it a matter of just an equation of pouring in more leads? I don't think that it is based on the conversations that I'm having and specifically I'm just sitting down with the agents and finding out what their track record is and starting to, to ask the questions that are more business related. I know that a lot of agents are in the business because they're really good people.People's personalities--they're outgoing. They have a servant's heart. And sometimes what is maybe lacking is just the lens, the business lens, looking at their operations and finding out the efficiencies that they could maybe tweak a little bit. And that to me all comes down to what's your longterm client plan because statistically we call this the other 98 because statistically 2% of your database or 2% of the people that you interact with are going to be ready to conduct business right now. And so we always ask, what about the other 98, what kind of client plan do you have in place to incubate these people over time? Just create a relationship of value so that you're the obvious choice when they come back around. And that's in a world of Zillow leads the lead part is really the weakest component of that funnel because the value proposition is being built by Zillow.You know, they, they come into Zillow's funnel and that funnel provides them a really pretty platform with search tools, a lot of like information and recon, so to speak, for the buyer. And so all the value is being provided by Zillow. And by the time that that buyer wants to make a buying decision, the agent in that equation is the commodity. And so if you're not cheaper, better, faster, if you're not willing to open a door during dinner on a Sunday night, it just gets moved to the next one. And I feel like because of the activities that agents engage in on a really, really regular basis, there's so much opportunity in just those engagements that they're already conducting.Whether agents are getting their business primarily via referral or via some online lead source, if they're actively growing their business, they're actively in real estate related conversations on a very regular basis, on a daily basis. What would you say Tony, would be the average as you've interviewed agents? What's the average number of real estate related conversations that an agent is in on on maybe an annual basis?So I have my notes from the last interview that I just did and I'm referring to these because it's fairly common. This is a very kind of common breakdown that I'm coming across in these agent interviews. So this agent I recently sat down with, I asked how many families they helped last year. They said they had closed on 30 transactions last year you know, a mixture of listings and buy side and you know, so it's a decently medium producing type of agent. They were a single operator and I said, how many real estate related conversations of people that are looking to buy or sell do you think you had in order to help those 30 families? And as we started to dig deeper, you know, talking about open houses and barbecues and past client referrals, the networking activities that they engage in, we really kind of identified that they're speaking to about one person a day on a real estate related type of conversation.Okay. So we're talking about five conversations a week, you know and I'll always kind of lead them down the path of like, well, do you take a couple of weeks off for vacation and so forth. And so in this particular case they had determined that they spoke to about 250 people over the course of that last year to have to help 30 families. Okay.So about 10%, a little bit higher than that.But if you look at it, the way that I often like to look at it is there were 220 people that either didn't do anything or did something with somebody else. Right. And so for me, that's where the opportunities are. There's 220 people that showed some level of interest in real estate. These are 220 opportunities that the agent spent time doing and what's in place? What system?I actually, it was funny because I've watched your podcast and there's a reference that you've made a number of times and I think you and I were both at the same event where, Mr Lou Raja, the keynote speaker at that event said that "Systems beat intentions all day long." And I would take it even a step further where I think you could be the most well-intended human being, but without a system, I think it's just setting up for failure. And so the question for me then becomes what type of system do you have in place to help incubate those 220? For us in our model to help agents with their business is is just looking at the lost opportunity because if we could only, let's say based upon having a system in place, that agent can convert simply 10% of those lost leads, right? So 220 10% that's 22 additional transactions over the course of that 12 month period of time.That's a massive impact on a medium producer's business.And so like 10% that's not, that's not some unreasonable number, right? That's not unbelievable to think that somebody could do that and could convert 10% more of those conversations.Well this was where it became interesting for me in preparation for today. I, this was last night, I just jotted down based on the notes that I'd taken and then I actually went into my own metrics. So we track our metrics. Our branch initiative is to track our daily activities and find out exactly what our conversions are. We've been doing this since October of last year, so this is a little bit of a transparent moment because I'm really hoping that through the efforts of our branch and the things that we're doing on our path to elite is to increase some of these conversion numbers.But I just wanted to play these out based on this one agent that I spoke with, which seems to be a fairly common among agents I've spoken with, but when you take a look at those 22 deals with an average commission of about $7,000 that's on a, I think a $350,000 house. So average commission would probably be higher for most agents. I just wanted to be conservative. Twenty-two deals would represent about $154,000 in additional income or gross commission earned. And so I took my conversion metrics to apply to that simply as a funnel. Right? So in other words, if those people simply came into my funnel, how would that look? And so I did 20 conversations...

Alright everybody. Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate show. Boy, I feel honored today to have two people with me here today who are making quite the stir in the real estate industry and the kind of a stir that I think the real estate industry needs. I want to welcome today here on the show, Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr. You may have heard of these names. They're bestselling authors of the book Brandface. We'll be talking a little bit more about that. A little more on their background here in just a second. Before I go into that, I want to talk about the problem that we're going to solve so, and you're going to want to know who these people are. So the problem that I see so often is, real estate agents chasing, hunting and the consumer feeling hunted, feeling chased, which is not necessarily a good position to be in. Whereas what Tonya and Michael teach is a way to brand yourself to where people chase you where people are anxious to try and find time to get on your schedule. I want to thank both of you for coming on today to discuss this very important topic.Hey, thank you Justin. We are honored to be here. Thanks for having us.Thank you so much.Yeah. So, let's get a little bit more into your background and, and they've got such a comprehensive bio that I won't be able to cover it all. Let me start with you Tonya. You really have become synonymous with building brands in the real estate industry and really helping people stand out in this "sea of sameness." I love how you said that. That's so true here. You know, in the market where I work directly, there's over 8,000 real estate agents just in our city and very few of them really stand out. So many of them say the same things, market the same way, have the same tag lines, have the same posts. I mean, it just looks so much the same. I know that you really specialize in helping people stand out.Yes, yes we do. So, you know, one of the things that I thought I'd start with Justin is kind of what's going on in today's real estate industry. And that is, it's no surprise to anybody listening today that there are tons of new agents coming into the industry. They're entering or reentering the industry. And then you also have lots and lots of new marketing platforms and tools out there that didn't even exist 10-15 years ago. So there's so many ways to market yourself, but the real problem comes when you mix those two together. You've got all these agents using all of these marketing tools and systems exactly the same way, right? To your point, everybody kind of then starts to look the same and that's why we refer to it as the sea of sameness. And that's not really coming from us. It's coming from all the agents we've been dealing with these last several years. They're saying, oh my gosh, everybody around here is marketing exactly the same. And when that happens they tend to kind of blame the marketing platform. Oh, Facebook ads doesn't work. Um, newspaper doesn't work. Radio doesn't work. Google ads don't work. Zillow doesn't work. Right?! And so that really is not always the truth, right? There are some platforms that are better than others, but most of the time if your ideal customers on the other end of that platform, it should work for you. Most of the time what hasn't happened is they haven't set themselves apart. They haven't differentiated themselves in such a way that they stand out from everybody else. And you've got to do that before you can expect to be treated differently.You know, I'm a big fan of the book Blue Ocean Strategy and what you're talking about sounds sounds similar to that. You know, what they teach there and I'm sure your book, which I'm so excited to read by the way really takes a concept of standing out and really deeply applies it to the real estate industry. Like, how important is that?Right? It does. And you know what I'm going to hand this one off to Michael because he's actually the first real estate professional that I worked with with the Brandface concepts and that's actually why he's a partner in the company today. So I'm going to hand that one off to Michael.Hey Michael, before you get started, let me just share with the audience who you are. They're like, who is this Sean Connery looking figure in the middle of the screen. So, some context here. Michael is actually America's top selling real estate auctioneer and the 'Abundant Life Broker.' During your 26 years experience, you've been actively involved in over 74,000 transactions. Like that's phenomenal; And licensed in as many as 27 states in the Continental US. Now let's talk a little bit about how you guys met. You kind of alluded to it, Tonya, that you actually implemented these ideas in Michael's business. True?It's absolutely true.Yeah. The way that all worked out is I was an auctioneer by trade. I still am. And the guy that taught me the industry said, get your real estate license because you might want to call a sale, a farm sale or something like that in rural Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama. So I did. So, then I opened up a brokerage in 2000, but mainly I did it to buy my own stuff and help family members. I really wasn't pushing the idea of an arms length transaction brokerage. And then in 2006, I partnered with a company out of Irvine, California, and we brokered a deal in Georgia and it turned into the Bear Stearns residential portfolio when they went under and we thought they would end up being about three years worth of work. It turned out to be six or seven over the course of that time. And so that's where a lot of those licenses came from. I had an office in Atlanta, had an office in Irvine, California, and an office in Seattle, Washington. And we were just trying to liquidate these properties at the time and praying at the same time that our regular arms length transaction businesses would all come back because I was an investor first and a real estate agent/broker second. I was hoping for the recovery just as much as everybody else was but when that happened and we began to see that that was going to happen, I knew that I needed marketing. And so I went about it on my own and I said, okay, I need to stand out. I need to be different. I need people to notice who I am and why.But I didn't have all those concepts actually pulled down into one concept of differentiation. I had an agent that helped me start the brokerage. She kept saying, you need to talk to my niece. She's in marketing, she's a genius. She's great, she's awesome. And by that time I was so passed it, I was like, I'd already had heard all the stories. I've heard about this is the path for us and none of them are going to work. Like I was too busy building systems and too busy doing this. And so at the same time she was going to Tonya saying, "Michael is expecting your call. Michael is expecting your call." Or, "You got to help Michael. He's waiting on you to help him." And so we laugh about it now because she's still with us but she sort of tricked me and Tonya in to coming together and then the rest is pretty much magic.When she came into my life, told me what I needed to do I saw right quick, she knew what she was talking about and I'm like, "Okay, this is a person that can conceptualize all of the different platforms and media that you're using to try to get people to come to you and pull them into one message." She had already been doing that through Brandface for other professionals and businesses and she wanted to apply that to me in the real estate business and it continues to work. We still every day practice all of the Brandface principles in this brokerage and it continues to grow.You know, I appreciate what you shared Michael because I think there's a lot of real estate agents that maybe fall into a similar category as you, which is they're really, really good at the business of real estate. They really...

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart and I am so excited today to introduce to you somebody who was recently introduced to me who has just created a magnificent legacy in real estate. She's the kind of person that is giving back to the community and I'm privileged and honored to have her here sharing with the Think Bigger Real Estate audience today. So I want to start by welcoming Kendra Cooke to the show. Kendra, welcome. Thank you for coming on today.Thank you so much Justin. I'm very excited to be here.Thank you. So, a little background on Kendra. Kendra has been serving annually over a hundred families on a consistent basis while working, this is the kicker, while working less than 40 hours. I'm so excited to dig into that because that's not what most people experience or think is a reality if you're serving that many families. In addition to that Kendra also serves as senior leadership within The Core Training for real estate agents. So again, not only is she producing at a very high level, but she's giving back and serving and coaching and training at a very high level. So again, thank you for being here Kendra. I know some of the questions that are probably in the minds of people is, number one, where do your leads come from? To serve over a hundred families a year, there's got to be some sort of online lead generation mechanism. True or false?False.False?No generated leads from the Internet, 100% percent referral based business.Wow, and over a hundred families and that's coming by referral.That's right. And so what you should really try to achieve in your career is to build a relationship based business. So building relationships with people and casting a deeper net versus a wider net. So what I figured out is if I would work with people who knew, liked, and trusted me from the get-go, then they respected my boundaries, they respected my family time, they respected me. And so there wasn't that disconnect. And you shouldn't show me houses 24-7 and you shouldn't always be on call. I got to work with people who, when they were referred to me, were like "Hey, so and so said you are the best I should work with you." So it goes from a relationship of selling them to a relationship of building deeper relationships which warrants continued referrals.I love what you said Kendra. I want to go into this a little bit more and expound upon your analogy here of "instead of a wider net, a deeper net." Now, I'm not a deep sea fisherman, but I know well enough that these big fish fishing boats in Alaska, they don't just have nets on the surface, but they have nets that go down very deep because that's where the better fish are at.That's right. We want to chase the bigger fish, right? So you want to have business partner relationships, you want to have VIP relationships and then you will have your database relationships. And so when we talk about going deeper, it's not a surface relationship. So the people that are in my business referral network, or in my VIP group, I know their families, their children, their hobbies, their charities. I want to be in the flow with them if you will. So, you know, if we're going to a charity event and I know somebody is very passionate about that charity event and they are a business partner, referral partner or whatever, I want to bring them with us. So now we connect on a deeper level. Real estate has become such a transactional business for the most part because leads come in from the Internet. We don't really have a relationship. We have a transaction, we get the money and we run to the bank and it's over. And it was always really shocking to me that we tell everyone we want to be your Realtor for life, yet when the transaction is over, we're done. And so I just found that is a really crazy concept. So I feel like if I stayed in relationship with these people and we connected on a common bond, whether it was community involvement or I'm a runner. You might see the medals back there. I love to run, I love to meet people in the community that run. I love to run for charity. So if I can bond on a connection with the charity or a hobby or a community involvement, that relationship is just really consummated on a relationship versus a transaction, if you will.I love that. So valuable to the real estate community to hear what you're sharing right now. You segmented your database into three different parts. Would you go over that again?Yes. So the general database is about 400 people in our general database. These are people who have bought and sold with us. Maybe my kids' families or their friends and family. So, their contacts, if you will. I'm one relationship with them, but maybe not deep relationships. Those people may refer you once every three to five years. Okay. So if you have 400 people, let's say you get 15-20% of those that refer every single year. We didn't generate some leads for you but not a plethora of leads. And then we go to the business partnerships that we have and those are people who can refer you a couple times a year. They have the opportunity, whether they're a financial planner or a banker or private banker or something like that.And then my VIPs are really people that I'm really, really, really in the flow with, meaning that they might refer me four to eight times a year. So that could be a builder or that could be a developer. That could be somebody that you really connect with on all levels of life and they're continuously filling you with referrals. So I think you really have three buckets, if you will. I know when I first got in real estate, my bucket was just to chase everybody and there's only so many hours in the day. I want better relationships and deeper relationships versus just throwing myself out there for everybody. So those are my three buckets if you will, my VIPs who are really in the trenches with us and are very heavy on helping us lead gen, the business referral partners who have three to five per person per year. Then your database is going to turn over some general leads for you every single year.Those three groups right there are responsible for helping you serve over a hundred families a year.That's it. That's it. I don't buy any leads from anyone. I won't say I've never tried it. We tried it with a partnership with a lender one time. They're like, we're going to generate all these leads and it was the most miserable 30 days of my life for me and my team. And I just at that point said, that's not my business model.Let's talk about that a little bit. It's probably a perfect segue into the next topic we wanted to cover, which is creating boundaries. I would imagine that those 30 days were miserable because those boundaries that you had set up so well started to disappear. True?Yes, and that usually happens when you come from fear or a scarcity mindset, if you will. Where's my next deal going to come from? Where's my next lead going to come from? So, every time the phone rang, you jump. Or every time somebody wants to see a house, even into 7:30 at night, when you're in the middle of dinner with a family member or friends, you have to jump and go. And those boundaries go out out the window. And when you get referral business referred into you, it's usually, "Hey, you saw my neighbor's house, took great care of them, you're involved in the community, etc." When I sit down and do my listing presentation I say "These are our work hours, 8:30 to 5 and we work by appointment only on Saturday. We're closed on Sunday." People accept that. Just set the expectation and tell them what it looks like and then just adhere to it. But what happens is maybe business slows down a little bit and we start letting our guard down. And somebody texted you at seven o'clock at night and you text them back. You just gave them pe...

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart and I am thrilled today, I'm absolutely thrilled today, to have with me a legendary real estate trainer, coach, leader, Mr. Don Hobbs. Anybody who's been in the industry for any period of time will know Don's name. In fact, prior to real estate he was, in fact, we were just talking about his personal relationship with Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins, which are some of the biggest minds in personal development. So before we get into the topic, I just want to thank you, Don for taking some time to be here in porn into the audience today.Hey Justin, I'm so happy to be here. I love your energy. I love who you are and what you're doing and I'm thrilled. It's always a fun thing to get a chance to talk to a group like this.It's awesome. Well, I know they're going to be thrilled to hear what you have to share with them today. So let's dive in. The way I've set up today's conversation is that there are agents in the country that Don knows, that Don's coached, that are not lowering their commissions amidst industry disruption, they're raising their commissions. They're going 7%, 8%, 9%, even 10%. Is that feasible? It almost seems like that could not be possible in a world where you've got 1% listing offerings everywhere you go on all the billboards and buses that drive by, right?Or Redfin or whoever, right?Whoever. Yeah. How are people doing this Don? Is this real. You're telling me that, you know people that are doing this and they're having success with it, not just once on an unassuming buyer or seller. Like they're doing it, they demand that.Yeah, in fact it was just funny you went for that right away because that's such an interesting thing. There's so much pressure and there's so much sameness amongst Realtors and Justin, that's the challenge, right? We're just a giant commodity group. You know, if you think about any commodity, I don't care if it's, you know, I can buy Lexus here, a Lexus there, but here it's $1,000 cheaper. I mean, if things are the same, then price is the only thing that matters. When things are not the same, we don't mind paying more for more. We don't mind. We don't mind paying more for it--a brand we trust a name we know. But we do mind paying more for the same. And that's the challenge. And Realtors have made themselves that way. So I think the biggest thing I would say is it's really about branding and, and really about building something that people can identify with and hold on to is "She's the expert." Or, he knows my market. He is the guy, or she is the gal, you know that makes it work and we're not afraid to pay for that. I had somebody the other day where I walked in and he said, his listing contract is already filled out at 7%, and he was concerned about the commission and he thought it was going to be a pressure down. And they said, "We thought you'd be more." I just laughed my butt off when I heard that. I was like, how cool is that to think that the expectation of value was so high, they were shocked and surprised pleasantly at 7%. It's really cool, but that has to do with the brand. And you can't do that by just being a Realtor. You can't do that by being one of the multitude. You can't do that by doing what most Realtors do. You can't. It's not going to happen, right?I love that. You and I have studied some of the same sources and there's this concept about becoming an expert. And I know that's one thing that you, when you coach and teach and train, it's how do people, as you identified, separate themselves from the masses and truly become an expert. Let's talk about this concept of gaining expertise so that one can be moving in the direction that these agents you're talking about are moving, which is we're not lowering our prices. And if in fact we may be doubling down on our value, therefore we're more valuable and can charge more.Yeah, absolutely. I know you and I talked about a book that we both like and, and have in our libraries called Expert Secrets. So let's start with a recommendation. Let's give our man Russell Brunson a good plug right there and sell some books. But you know, Russell Brunson has got this concept of being the attractive character, the interesting character. You know, that person, and I think that agents don't see themselves that way, which you realize today if you look around, if you're at all observant, you see that there are people with less talent in almost any industry that have made themselves somebody by raising their profile and becoming the expert. One thing I want to make sure, and again, I'm certainly going to promote that the agent needs to get to be good. I mean, they need to be an expert. They need to find out, you know, what that niche is and then everything about that group and that style o property or whatever it is. But the biggest thing is remember that we don't find out if you're good or not good until after we've called you. So the reality is that only leads to the legend of more. By the way, thanks for the word legend. It makes me feel, when you said that was, I think that means I'm old, but I'm alive. I'm living legend, so it's okay. It makes them the legend that this is who we need to call. So it's more the, how we get people, the perception of expertise. That makes me feel like they're the answer to my problem--the solution to my real estate needs. Right, and it comes down to how do we become somebody's Realtor, Justin, before they actually need one. And most Realtors don't think that way. They're like, how do I get to them just as they need one how do I get to be one of the three or four or five being interviewed and I'm saying, how do we just eliminate the competition and get them to call and say, Justin, come list me. Right. That's, that's the end all be all. Yeah, there's Nirvana.Yeah, where you have somebody calling saying "Don, do you have time to come list my house? I know you're really busy. I know you are highly sought after." Yeah.And when they do that, what happens, and this is what's so perfect about this scenario is, I call you and say "Come list me." When you come, you're not having to justify your price. You're not having to tell me all the things you're going to do. There's no over promising because it's almost like whenever you do that sells everything we see around here, do that for us. That's what happens when you reach that level of brand and recognition.And we talked a little bit about that first step in Expert Secrets, right? It's becoming an attractive character. And we're not talking about your physique and how good your hair looks, it's really about taking on a persona and taking on this level of expertise, this leader role, right to where people know that you can get them from where they are to where they want to be and you've positioned yourself over time repeatedly to where people recognize that if I'm here and I want to be there, then Don is the one to get me there. That this agent is the one to get me there. And you become this attractive character to them that you're the missing link in the story that I want to create.Yeah. That's awesome. Looking at the comments, Chris. I don't know who Chris is but...Yeah, Chris Angel. Chris Angel. Hey, Chris is validating the way I introduced you and Chris is the real deal. So there you go, Don.Yes, I think you're right on with Justin. It's really how we get people to see the things, and by the way today, where it used to be that you had to be an expert and then it would take a long time for that expertise to be known, today it's video, it's social media. There are so many ways of demonstrating and it's not bragging, it's personal branding, personal marketing. Any of this that we're talking about becoming that expert is not about bragging and boasting. It's really about demonstrating value. It's about demonstrating ...

Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. You're going to notice again that my voice is kind of sexy today. I won't to ask for forgiveness because I know some of you will probably enjoy it. This time of year, we're coming up on the end of the first quarter, and we're at a point where we're checking in to see how we're doing. Hopefully if you're like me, you have a business plan and that business plan had specific goals as to what you wanted to achieve for the year. You probably then broke that business plan down into quarterly and even monthly milestones, or checkpoints. And we can see the end of March. It's just over a week away. And, in that timeframe we have Spring Break. So some of you may be taking off and want to be cognizant of maybe lesser activities during that time.So right now might be a good time for you to evaluate to see how your first quarter went. And if you're like me, maybe you ran into some things that you didn't expect. I've been out for the past number of days. Maybe that's why you haven't heard from me and why I'm even broadcasting from home today, because I didn't want to get anybody sick. So thank you, or you're welcome that I canceled some appointments with some of you... and kept it with some of you other people. I'm sorry for those of you with whom I didn't cancel. But it was actually per your request that you thought you could handle it. So, I want to go through four points really quickly, as to what you can do, what we can do, if we find ourselves behind on our goals.So, the first thing that you should not do is, say, "Well, I guess this is going to be a lesser year, so I'm going to adjust my plan down or I'm going to adjust my goals down to meet reality because this is, this is the reality, right?" Because that's what happens a lot of times as we get into this mindset of, "Well, I had these plans but then I got sick," or then the market did this..." So, we start backpedaling on what we committed... To the life that we actually wanted, the business that we actually wanted. And a commitment to you of being a part of Think Bigger Real Estate is to help you get beyond those silly excuses and realize that, "No, you made a commitment to yourself and your family to have a certain business, have a certain life and I'm gonna hold you to it." And I'm going to hold myself to it. We're going to hold ourselves to it. How about that?So the first thing we need to do is stop with that stinking thinking; To stop telling ourselves, you know, it's circumstantial. It's a result of the circumstances and it's just something that I need to accept. You can accept it or you can choose not to. So step number one is to change your thinking and stop telling yourself, or stop talking about the excuses. Every time you talk about, "Well, the market has done this..." or "I was a little bit sick..." as I cough. See how powerful the mind is. When I say sick, I start coughing. Stop talking about those things. Stop talking about the reasons why you haven't and start filling that void with the reasons why you can and the things you need to do.So that's step number one, change your thinking. Number two is you're going to need to change your plan. You actually need to readjust the fact that now you've got three quarters left and you maybe have more than three quarters of the work yet to do. So adjust your plan. It doesn't mean you do need to do it all in the second quarter, but it might be a good idea to adjust your plan to where you've now leveled out the rest of the year to equate for maybe where you're behind. Number one change your thinking. Number two, change your plan. Number three is you're going to need to change your activity level. We are going to need to change our activity level. So, what I mean by that is you're going to actually have to work harder. Which really means you're going to have to say no to some things that are pretty comfortable right now and that might be going home early and that might be not showing up late. You're going to have, we are going to have to get rid of some of those things and we're actually going to have to work harder in order to achieve those same goals in less time.That's point number three. Point number four is is working smarter. You're gonna have to change how well you convert. This means you're probably going to need to be taking appointments with people that can get you there faster. You might need to prescreen your people a little bit better as far as who you're meeting with. I know I am. You probably also, when you're in those appointments, going to need to need to be more effective. Like a two hour sit down meeting is probably going to be too much. You may need to start cutting those appointment times in half and doing more appointment in less time, if that makes sense. So again, that's the fourth point is start working smarter.My guess is if you had some reason that you really, absolutely had to find success in the way that you set out to at the end of last year, you'd figure it out. For example, let's say one of your children or grandchildren gets cancer. And the only way to get the treatment that they need is by you having a certain amount of money to qualify for the program. My guess is you would figure this stuff out. You'd start thinking differently, your plan would quickly be different, you would probably start working a lot harder and you'd probably start working a lot smarter because you would figure this out. So that may not be your circumstance. But the second that we give ourselves leniency and we stop treating things as if they are serious and pretty soon our life becomes lukewarm and pretty mediocre. So again, my commitment to you is to help you think bigger, have a better business so you can have a better life and greater impact. So, hopefully this has been helpful. If it has, please comment, share, and I look forward to communicating with you in the next video. Have a great day everybody.

Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm here with some of my favorite people and they kind of look like me a little bit, don't they? What's up kids? So these beautiful children just got home from school. We're missing one. He must be with his mom. We're missing a few others too. They must also be with mom. I was sitting and listening to a mentor of mine yesterday and he was talking about his legacy and what he wanted to have on his tombstone and how that should correlate with what he shares on social media. And he said, I don't have pictures of my kids on social media because that's not what I want to have on my headstone. I want to have my headstone be sales and marketing guru. And I was like, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."At the end of the day, if your biggest legacy is something other than your family? I'm sorry, but I think you're screwing up life, period. You're screwing up life. Like you're missing the big boat. Like, what matters are, is your family. So I'm going introduce you to some people. a little bit six and working mom today I have these beautiful children with me. So, my point is, is that our businesses should simply fund our perfect life. They shouldn't be our perfect life. That at the end of the day, what I want on my headstone, that's where I was going. What I want on my headstone is that I was an amazing husband and father, like too much else doesn't really matter. ButI also want to be known as someone who has stepped out and served a lot of people. And that's where this Think Bigger Real Estate community comes in. And the way that I hope that I can serve you is by helping you achieve a really great business so that you can be a really great parent because that's what matters.Kids. Do you think it would matter at my funeral if none of us had a relationship, but if you came and heard about all the cool stuff I did with the real estate industry. Would you care?If I came and heard like a bunch of different things that everyone says that you've done that we don't know because we never were with you. That would actually be sad.I love it. Corbin, when you think of that, like if you, and I really didn't know each other or didn't get to hang out much, but you came to my funeral and other people said nice things about me...I would just feel like I didn't have a good connection with you and I'd be sad because I've like spent practically my whole life with you so far. And I just really enjoy having you in the family and I love you Dad.Oh, thanks Corbin. That wasn't planned. Okay Aretta, what do you think? Do you care more about me spending time with you or me about spending time with other people, helping them with their business? Would you prefer to have me hanging out with you or would you prefer me hanging out with other people? Anyway, she's pretty sweet.Think about that, like who's getting the best of you and what is your legacy? Do you care about how many homes you sold or do you care more about your family? It, your business, should be a vehicle to help you get a better life, which is impacting more greatly the people that matter the most to you. So enjoy! Kids, thanks for being my impromptu guests and peace--out!

I'm excited about having Laura Gillott here with me today. Laura, thank you for joining me.Thank you for inviting me.Yes, I'll start by saying I've got a more sultry voice, than normal. So, if the audience is wondering like, this is really enjoyable, don't worry, I'm not going to charge you for this episode. This one will also be free despite how much you might enjoy my relaxing voice.So with that being the case, let's dive into the topic, Laura. Let's share some of your statistics, your with the Gillott Home Team out of Lebanon, Oregon.Yup. Small town.How many people live in Lebanon?16,800 people.16,800 people. Last year from Salem to Eugene, you guys serve 523 families.526 families.526 families were served by your team. So one would have to think if you serve that many families, you must have a massive Zillow budget. You must have a massive cold market marketing machine. True or false?False. Very false.Okay.Yeah. We buy no Zillow leads. We are a premier agent on our listings. [engine roaring in the background]. Sorry. We have someone trying to drag race in front of our building.It is Lebanon!Right? Yes, good old Lebanon. Our budget is small there with Zillow where we're just a Premier agent with our, with our own leads there. About 80% of all of our business last year was just based off relationships.Wow. So let's do the math. Let's say 80% of 523. Now, I made a commitment once to never do math in public, but that's gotta be somewhere around 450? I'm assuming somewhere in that range.Yep, yep. Either past clients or referrals you guys closed. Meaning that's how much business you closed by referral from your sphere.Yes. We include sphere in that or people who have referred themselves from our reputation and things that. For example if they just came in and said, "Hey, I want to list my home with you." "I'd like you to help us find property." And part of that is because we meet a lot of people through our events and we offer classes to help the community in buying homes. And then that helps us get those people walking in wanting help.So I think one of the big myths, again, that real estate face is "Do I go quality (sphere) or do I go quantity (cold leads)? Some would believe, "I could never possibly know enough people to generate a mass amount of business by sphere." Right? So let's talk about, it's not just your sphere, right? You have a a great team.We do. We do. When we get their sphere involved in this too and we market to that sphere. We give them the newsletter each month. We invite them to the events. Of course all of our past clients we offer items of value. We do the pies twice a year our client database. Anybody that gets the newsletter is invited to the rest of the events. We pair up with the Chamber and do National Night Out. Next month we have Biz Expo. We'll invite the whole database to the Biz Expo, let them know if they visit the booth, that we have something special for them. You're just trying to get as much face to face time with their clients as possible.I love it. That's the goal, right? Face to face time with your clients in an era filled with bits and bytes where there's so much convenience in doing things electronically, that's been your secret sauce is getting face to face with people.Yes. Getting face to face and then you know, it's for us, we don't do any cold calling, but what we do is lead with items of value or leave with contribution. So we'll call and say, "Hey, we've got an investor class coming up on Saturday. Do you have any interest in coming? Or do you know anybody that does?" And so that way we're just not calling saying, "Hey, give me your business, give me your business, give me your business."I love it. So again, the way that I see you solving these two problems, or busting these myths, BTW--this episode's gonna be Mythbusters. The first one is that a combined sphere, you've got a good size team and all those people contribute who they know. The second myth that people hold is, "Even if I have that many people, how can I possibly take care of them? How can I possibly get face to face with that many people?" And what I hear you saying is a key to your success has been events, both ones that you're putting on, right? Like client appreciation events and then also events that you're not even hosting. Like the Biz Expo. It's not your event. You've got to space there and you're using it as an opportunity to reach out and invite everybody to come participate at that event.Yeah, the Boys and Girls Club did a Brewfest and they shut down Main Street. We asked have a booth there and then we gave away a growler and then we invited people to come down to visit us at the event, helped market the event for the Boys and Girls Club and helped them raise money. When they signed up for the growler, we had over 500 people sign up for the growler. A handful of them said, "Yes, I would like a market analysis," or I would like a list of properties and I would like to be on your newsletter."And now once they say they would like to be on our newsletter, we can continue telling them about the other events that are going to be happening in the area where we're going to be at. So we can continue that connection with folks. You do it on a mass level without spending that much many.Right! What does a booth at the Biz Expo cost you?A couple hundred dollars.A couple hundred dollars turns into probably thousands of invitations and contacts.Yes.Hundreds of face to face contacts with a couple hundred dollars and some people staffing an event. Right?Right, and the agents go and we just take turns, rotating in and out of there. We try to make the most of every event. So even at that event, because there's going to be 150 other booths there, we like to get protein packs, a water bottle and we go around and visit the other booths, give them an option to get something out of our cooler and thank them for coming. We learn a little bit about their business, ask them if they have any clients with real estate needs and let them know that we'd like to be their connection. We connect with them, they connect with us. It's a way to go around and talk to people without just saying, "Hey, we're a real estate team. We'd love for you to give us your business." If instead you go with contribution and give them the protein packs and a water, and of course we have them labeled with our team on there, it's a way to break the ice and to come from contribution.The intentionality is strong with what you guys do, right? You don't just show up at an expo. We've all probably been a part of some sort of expo where we're like, "This thing is kind of a bust. Nobody's here!" But you're looking another layer below that to say no, there are people here just sitting in the booths like us thinking "This thing is maybe not as strong." And I'm not saying this about their expo. That's a mentality of "What if we go to this expo and there's nobody there?" Well, there's actually going to be somebody there. It is going to be other vendors at minimum, right? Go create some new contacts, offer value to them right now. You brought them into the fold, into the family.Yup--so there's definitely people there. When we're there we're not looking at our phones, our heads are up and we're engaging. We're asking people to sign up for our drawing. We're offering them a free piece of cake. It is just the little things that we can do just to get the buzz going. And then again, you have to invite your database to come to the event because then people want to stop at your booth because people want to come by.You know, if I were putting on a big expo, your team would be the first one I would call. I would say, "Get the Gillott Home Te...

I have with me someone who's going to help solve this problem: How do millennials really want to be treated? What is their ideal process? I think there's some myths in the marketplace and I happen to have a true expert with me today, Kristin Messerli. She founded the organization called Cultural Outreach. So first of all, let me start by saying, Kristen, thank you for being on the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.Thank you so much for having me, Justin. Great to be here.Great to have you. So I actually met Kristin a couple of weeks ago. She spoke here in Portland at the Oregon Mortgage Broker's Association and I was super impressed. I thought, this is knowledge that more people need to know about. The room was packed, but I'm excited to get this content, and her mission really, out to more people. So let's talk about this a little bit, Kristen. I think that you have spoken on the biggest stages, including Gary V's, big event. I know you're touring around the country sharing this knowledge. Let's dig into a little bit about maybe some of the myths that are utilized to characterize how millennials want to be treated. Is it true that they actually don't want to talk to anybody? They don't want to meet with anybody? They just want to text and use Facebook messenger?Definitely not. I think that this is something I'm so passionate about because I think people assume that because Millennials are using social media, are texting, want convenient and have access to things, that we don't want the human touch. And we really want to have someone that is going to guide us through this process. I mean, buying a home for the first time, making the biggest financial decision of our lives, we want someone that is going to to help guide us through that process. And I think that texting and convenient communication, Facebook Messenger, all those kinds of things are important to get the communication going and for quick communication, but technology should always be about enhancing the relationship and increasing that kind of connection with your buyer, particularly someone who's a first time buyer and for Millennials, we're seeing that trend even more so with Gen Z where they want that individual relationship with a person or brand. They want to feel like they can trust that person. I think that we miss that a lot of times when we think about our generation.I love it. So, two big potential risks here is number one, Millennials are underserved, right? That they aren't getting the level of service that they want because of these stereotypes. And number two, that real estate agents are missing a huge opportunity because they're assuming that they want to be treated a certain way and we're giving them something else. So I really appreciate you clarifying that. There are some forms of quick and convenient communication, but it shouldn't stop with that. Is what I'm hearing you say?Yeah, exactly. I do think it is shocking how much Millennials, well-off Millennials--successful Millennials--don't know anything about buying a home where, or who to talk to about it. And I think there's just this huge gap between them feeling like they know someone who is an expert in that, who is a real estate agent for instance, that they feel comfortable enough to reach out to and not be immediately sold to, not feel like they are stupid for not knowing these things, you know? So I think that element of being underserved, it really is a big deal when we talk about our generation. I think that it doesn't stop with a quick text or with more social media in any respect. It's using that as a way to build your network and provide convenient access to you and then going from there to a person-to-person or video kind of communication that really improves that trust and relationship.I love it. Let's talk about this now: I know you've been a buyer, in addition to being the founder of Cultural Outreach, I know you're also the editor of Mortgage Women Magazine. So again, you're involved in a lot of places really influencing. Let's talk about even your personal scenario. I know you've been a buyer and a seller before and you described to me how some people tried to earn your business and it didn't work very well. Talk to us about that.Yeah, so it was interesting because when I bought my home, this is about six years ago or so, maybe seven years now, I remember going through that process and how my real estate agent and I had a sit down at the beginning and I honestly didn't even really vibe with him that much. I thought this guy is like a typical salesman, whatever. But when we started going through the process a little bit, I realized, man, he really knows his stuff. He is educating me on all these things that I feel like I could reach out to him about anything about buying a home. I mean, if he didn't know, he was going to know someone who knew. And so that was super valuable to me. And then also when we were going through looking at homes, he would point out stuff by saying: I know your goals are X and Y, so I don't know if this home is a good fit for you.So he had my goals in mind and I felt like he had my back. So from that point on, I was totally sold on him. But when I was selling my home I posted something about it and I had already started the business. I wanted to know how real estate agents would reach out to me and, and that kind of thing. And I put my home up on Zillow and I got a million phone calls and I was so annoyed by all of that. And a couple people texted me and said, "Hey, are you available, or can you jump on a call to talk about this?" And then I would respond to the text messages. And one in particular stood out where she sent me a first-time home buyer guide, or rather, it was a seller's guide. And, she texted that over and then said, "Hey, here's a resource for you. Let's chat when you have a second." And I thought, okay, this is the right way where t's convenient for me to schedule something. I don't drop everything to pick up a call and get sold to. And then I'm more prepared, you know. So I think that that was a good example of using technology to get to the relationship.I'm going to dissect this a little bit. So I think this is super fascinating and it's a perfect case study, right? So you went to buy a home and you found that person. Were they referred to you? How did you find that first Realtor who was your buyer's agent?Yeah, so my Realtor, the first time was referred to me and I think I approached that a little bit differently than most people my age are in my age range. At the time my dad worked for a mortgage company in the area and so I was taking a referral based on one of his contacts. I do think most people get referrals from someone they know but usually it seems like people are getting multiple referrals and then looking those people up and deciding who they want to contact. The other one was just me posting on Zillow and seeing what happened.I'm curious the first, agent was not a Millennial, I'm assuming?No, he was in his forties or something. One thing that he could have improved on was being more authentic. He had his sales pitch ready to go and was in a suit and that's fine wear a suit if you're comfortable in it. But it felt very much like I was getting sold to, As soon as I realized he had my back and was educating me then I didn't care anything about that. And we're still close today.This is a question you haven't been asked before, rather than going back to that agent, you went about finding a Realtor differently the second time. Why was that?He moved out of my market. I would have absolutely sent him my business and not even questioned it. I sent him a lot of business after closing as well because he stayed in touch with me. That was a really cool thing that I know a lot of people do this, but he would like text me, call me every couple mo...

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Today's topic is going to be on building community. Is it simply a publicity stunt or does good actually come of it? I have with me today a good friend of mine and a Senior Escrow, sorry, not Senior Escrow Officer. I'm used to saying that from my role, Senior Loan Officer, branch manager of Advantage Mortgage, who is making some waves in our marketplace. Kahren, thank you so much for being on the show today.Hi Justin. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. This is awesome.Yes. For those of you who don't know Kahren, she recently is a part of a newly launched, I should say, mortgage company here in town and I have to share something before we get into today's topic. I saw something that Derek Hill had posted online that was comparing Quicken Loans to the prices that you guys have. And I think consumers need to know that, just because it has flashy advertising, it's not necessarily the best deal. Even though they may say that it's the best deal and that it's super fast, it may not actually be the best deal. And then I think the phrase was that was quoted that I loved is that "Whenever a big brand has fancy TV commercials, somebody's paying for that and that somebody is the clients." So, before we get going on the topic, talk just a little bit about that--what you're excited about with Advantage Mortgage. And I know you guys have a huge heart. That's what really we're going to talk about today, but you're also doing some pretty cool stuff on the pricing side too.Absolutely. You know, I think that a lot is changing in the mortgage space and our goal is to provide education and transparency around that. Everybody has choices with their mortgage and with their financing and it's true glitzy commercials or expensive trips or you know, those things cost money and they come from somewhere, and really we want to educate the consumer and let them know that they're paying for that. And so really that's our goal is providing that transparency and giving the consumer the power in this negotiation and really understanding--how interest rates are comprised, how fees are set up and really enabling them to understand really where that comes from. Your large retail lenders in this large space, they're not always going to provide the best value for the consumer. So, we really just want to educate our consumers and talk to people through that and provide as much transparency as we can in that space.Awesome. So rather than paying for Super Bowl ads and other forms of fancy advertising on TV, you've taken a different approach, which is to get out and build the community. Talk to me a little, talk to the audience a little bit, about how you came to the conclusion that you wanted to build your business this particular way.I think Derek and I both love people. We love interacting with people. Both our customers our referral partners our people that work for us and work with us and out in the community really getting that excitement and involvement because we love people. So, I think really that's where it all started is just knowing that my super power is working with individuals and I love talking to people. I'm definitely an extrovert in that way. I get my energy from talking to people and from sharing what I'm passionate about. So really that's where it started is really just wanting to connect with other individuals abd connecting in that way that was meaningful for us.And you believed at your core that you could go contribute to the community and build the community instead of just focusing on building business that you could build community and it would come back around like that. People would appreciate that and value that more than a glitzy commercial on TV.Yeah. It's, it's kind of more of a service over self mentality and really knowing that giving back so much more comes back to you. As an aside, I became a big sister about 12 years ago at a time where I really felt like I needed to give back. I knew that children were unfortunately not going to be in my future and I love kids and I wanted to spend that time. And so I thought, well, Gosh, I'll go invest my time and improve the life of a child. And I connected with Lindsey who is now in college and we've maintained this connection over almost 12 years now. She gave so much more to me than I gave to her that I really realized years ago that when you give, you receive so much more in return. And that's just a small example of really what giving has done in my life. Derek is very much the same way and it just allows us to really, truly, authentically give and so much more comes as a result. And it feels great. I think she gave me more than I than I ever gave her.I think that's the beautiful thing when we set out to only pursue our own success, we find that we don't really end up with a whole lot, but when we seek the success through other people or for other people--or rather seek significance--I agree, something magical happens. We change, our hearts change, our priorities change and naturally we begin to attract the people that are like us, people that would like to have that kind of impact in the community as well. I think it's a beautiful way to build business and community. I would hope that those that are listening to this, that may not be in the mortgage or real estate industry at all, may start to choose who you work with differently because of what Kahren is teaching us today. It's not just about who shows up in front of you via fancy marketing, but get to know the people at the core. First of all, the pricing may not be as advertised. You may actually have a better price by going to somebody who does business this way. And in doing so, you're contributing to the community in a much bigger way.Absolutely. Well, and like attracts like, so it feels great. We're very hyper focused on who we're giving to and why. We choose organizations and we make connections that are very, very local. We're very passionate about certain organizations within the organizations that we live and work. A lot of these organizations--Sparks of Hope, the Canby Center--these places don't have a ton of paid positions on staff. It's really, really important that we're connecting with organizations to where it goes back to the community. It's not paying for all this infrastructure. Just in the same way that we don't want to have this big organization that has all this infrastructure and expensive ads paying for leads and, you know, that's just not in our wheelhouse. It's not in our hearts. We want it to go to the consumer just like we want it to go to the community when we're doing these things. And it really comes back in such big amounts. It's insane. And when it's authentic, and when that's really coming from your heart and that's how you feel it's even more impactful.Let's say that there some real estate agents out there right now that are hearing this message and it's resonating with them. "I also love to connect people. I also want to actually make a difference, not just in my own business but in my community and actually seek out organizations that help." What would you say would be a key step for someone, a first step to take to get involved and to start to build the kind of business that you guys have built?You know, I think there's a bunch of different facets that go into that. I started by just really feeling and figuring out what I love to do and what makes me happy. I had a business coach one time, asked me if you could design the perfect world, the perfect day, what would that look like? What would you want to spend your time doing? And you know it was a simplistic viewpoint, but I really said I want to drink wine and pet my dog. That sounds so funny, but you know, I love animals and I love community with people and sharing with people. And that was really the essence of what it wa...

Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Realtor safety--is it a real thing? Is it something that you need to be concerned about? That's today's topic. I'm passionate about this topic because I happen to have a lot of real estate agents that are very good friends and I don't know that the world that we live in is getting to be any safer. And so for today's topic I brought on an individual who has a very storied background in self defense. He's a former marine, a former police officer, a current private investigator and a security consultant. I'm excited to have him on the show. I met him a few weeks ago, and I was very impressed with him as I actually heard his presentation on Realtor self-defense that you're going to be hearing more about and are actually going to be receiving an invitation to attend. But in the meantime, I want you to be safe until you have a chance to attend that. So I want to welcome to today's episode, John Jayne. John, thanks for being on the show.Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.Yeah, so let's get into this. John is this hype? Are people blowing out of proportion the threats that real estate agents are facing?Absolutely not. No way. It's a, it's very real. It's very current and it's growing.Okay. Tell me some evidence behind this. What makes you say that? Is this your gut feel or is there some data to back that up?No, there's a lot of data out there. It's sometimes hard to access, but what I've found is the National Association of Realtors puts out a report every year on safety and statistics on attacks. A big surge lately, which isn't really my forte has been electronic data security. There's been a lot of identity theft, which has increased over the years. Forgeries, fraud, stuff like that whereas my expertise is in the physical security and those numbers are growing as well. When I first got into this topic, I started going through it.Let's talk about what some of those numbers are. I know there's 1.2 million real estate agents in the nation today. Is that number right?Correct. Roughly.Okay. Talk to me about how many of those on a percentage basis or actual number basis have felt some sort of threat.So, of those polled, 38% reported being threatened or had felt unsafe during a showing of a home or an open house,Thirty-eight percent!! So over one in three real estate agents at some point have felt a potential real threat.Correct. And that could range anything from just the hair on the back of their neck standing up, to an actual attack happening.Now I know we've heard of situations, actual homicides, terrible tragic stories--a handful of those we've heard about. I know that as you start digging into this to see if this really was a real area of need you uncovered, and not that I want to go into necessarily the gory details, but you found more than what you expected to find, didn't you?Way more than I expected to find. What really got me started in this area was I was hired to do some consulting for an apartment complex. They had one of their leasing agents attacked showing an apartment. So I kind of started delving into the statistics and some case studies. And then obviously, I know a lot of Realtors as well, and I started looking into this aspect of it. And the number of stories, the new stories, just if you Google real attack on Realtors, it's unbelievable how often this happens and how extreme the attacks are.Jeez. Okay--so it's real. I know having stayed close to a forum here that's a pretty popular one, Masters in Real Estate that it's not just in other parts of the country, right? There's stuff happening right here in Portland, Oregon. I know my audience extends beyond that and I'm sure that people outside of Portland can validate that as well, that it's happening all around us. I would say in part because of the rise of access to pornography and other things as I'm sure things other than just that it's increasing the number of predators out there. Would you agree with that?Absolutely. One case that I became familiar with while putting this presentation together, it really unfolded as if it were some sort of a kind of a pornographic fantasy where a real estate agent was showing a home, they made it up to the master bedroom and he attempted to seduce her from the bed as if he had watched this maybe in a video of some sort. And luckily that case didn't turn out to be the case that I used as an example of success. She had been trained, she had practiced and thought through tactics and mindset stuff to where she knew exactly what to do in that situation and made it out safely. But it could've been, it could've been much worse.So that we don't end on the downside, right, we're here to talk about how to prevent this. So let's give them two points, John. Let's, give them two key points. And obviously you have an entire training that they're going to be invited to in the very near future that will give them a much more kind of robust set of tools to defend themselves, but what are two things? If you had to choose two things to help people really feel safe or safer, what would they be?Well, it's hard to pick two out of so many that could be helpful. But the first thing that I would tell people is if it doesn't feel right, it's probably not right. Trust your instincts. Trust that little spot in your stomach. That something isn't right here and back out of the appointment, reschedule it. Safety first. And if it turns out that we've overshot the mark and it wasn't a big deal, we can always reschedule and everything will be fine, but you know, we've been given instincts for a reason and we just need to trust that instinct.If you feel that something is not right--don't ignore it. You're saying don't ignore that. Okay, good.Yeah. I think the most common thing that can happen is, "Oh, you know what? I'm probably just being paranoid." The moment we tell ourselves that, we're setting ourselves up to be a potential victim.As you dug into some of these more horrific stories where stuff unfolded, was there a pretty complete consensus of those where bad stuff did happen that they thought ahead of time, "This maybe isn't such a good situation" where instincts were warning them and they didn't listen to them?Well, unfortunately the most extreme cases of what I looked into where with somebody being deceased. We weren't able to get their feedback, but of the ones where it might've just been an assault where it ended up in a stolen purse or maybe a sexual assault, largely there was the feeling of "Something doesn't feel right."Yeah, pay attention to those. I love it. Great tip, John. Alright, what would be the second point? Let's say that they find themselves in a bad situation. Either they didn't get the instincts or they didn't listen to them and they find themselves in a predicament, in a precarious situation. What do they do?Yeah--Get out of the house!! Inside that house once you enter the home with the person that you're showing the house to or the client or whatever, or the bad guy, that door closes and it's like in the ultimate fighting championship when the octagon door closes. I mean it's a free for all in there. If something happens to go sideways, head out into the street and get out in public view and make a scene, yell, scream, get somebody's attention. The longer we're in that house, the more vulnerable we are to an attack.Throw a chair through the window or, I mean extreme, right?. Getting out of the house, cause a scene. Okay.Cause a scene. Get out of the house is the most important thing. To follow up on that, it could be hours before the next Realtor comes along or the homeowner returns. I mean, you could be captive in there for hours.Yeah, yeah--sobering tips John, but necessary ones to protect th...

Welcome Back to the Think Bigger Real Estate show today you're getting yours truly, just me. If you've not yet read this book, High performance Habits. I highly recommend it. Point number one that he makes is about CLARITY--that every high performer out there creates clarity both in their own life as well as for the people that they serve, that they lead. I'm going through the process right now of having a website built and it's interesting how much I could say. Probably those of us in sales, to my real estate agent audience, there's no shortage of things you could be saying. We talk for a living. That's what we do. And the challenge with that is we tend to overstate everything as opposed to saying what is the one thing that people need to know that would help them to take the next step, or to take action and how few words can I say that in?And that's typically not how most of us think. I want you to look at your website. I think websites, traditional websites are really in trouble and why is that? It's it's a maze. When you go to anybody's website, there's all these options, there's all these words, there's all these videos, there's all these blog posts and it's kind of a mess.I think one of the greatest innovations in real estate websites recently has been, you show up to the website and there's a box, enter the zip code where you want to search for homes now, and it's clarity. I'm here because I want to shop for a home and you're giving me that option to shop for a home.I think beyond just shopping for a home, you need to take a look at your website and say, what else might I want people to do and how can I use that same simple format. Make it so easy that it's not about how much can I say here? How much can I provide? It's "What's the one thing that people need to know now so that they'll take the next step?"In our noisy, cluttered world, there are so many information avenues coming at people that they're inundated. And if someone shows up to your website and in five seconds can't identify what you do or they can't get clarity on your message before they have to scroll, they're gone. They're gone.So I would encourage you to go look at your website today. This is the call to action for everybody listening. Go look at your website. Try to the best of your ability to pretend like this is the first time you're going there in five seconds try and identify what it is that you do and what makes you different from every other real estate agent out there. And my guess is that for some of you, you're going to have a hard time because you've been so excited to create this big flowery site with so many options that people cannot come to that conclusion in five seconds and they have to scroll to really figure out what makes you different and/or your website looks like so many other websites that it's just noise. You're a commodity. And so again, clarity is everything.What, what I'm reminding myself through this process is what is the one thing that people need to know that hooks them, that makes them want to learn more? Think of your website as a resume. When you create a resume, for example. Let's say you're searching for a new job and you create a resume. The purpose of that resume is not to get you the job. The purpose of that resume is to get you the interview and then the interview gets you the job. And so my question to you is, is your website trying to be the interview or is your website trying to be what it's meant to be? Which is the resume. It's supposed to be this thing that gets you in connection with your ideal people. Don't try and turn your website into the one on one conversation with people. Keep your website what it's designed for, which is to help people take one more step that gets them in communication with you, that gets them to accept one more offering from you. Maybe it encourages them to get on a Webinar or to reach out to you or give you their contact info. But again, keep it super simple. That's what people want today. They want simplicity. Yes, they want content, but they want it delivered in a very simple format. So anyway, thoughts, ramblings from me about clarity in this noisy world--the less we can say and the more clear the message can be, the better. Have a great day.

Welcome to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm excited to be broadcasting this week from Kona, Hawaii. That's how committed I am to this audience and really, this passion project for me of delivering value to real estate agents. So, I apologize for any poor a bandwidth issues out here from this rock in the middle of the sea. The topic I want to talk about is this: YouTube advertising, number one, "Why would you do it?" And number two, "How hard is it?" So, I have with me today, Jackson Wilkey with NextHome Realty Group. Jackson is a great real estate agent and really forward thinking when it comes to the digital space. He and Jesse Dau, if you're in the Portland area, you've probably seen them for sure. They've developed a FB group called Digital Mayor Now, which I'm going to really encourage you to go check out. I'm learning things from it every day. They're fantastic guys. And so today, Jackson, thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, man.Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here.So let's talk about this YouTube. And I'm gonna come at you a little bit. I want you to defend this because, I'm a guy that does business by referral. I'm very relational and, you're telling me that I should take some of the money that I may be spending on my sphere, or maybe not, maybe you're saying you should come up with new money to advertise on Youtube. So first of all, let's talk about why would somebody do this? What is the point of advertising on Youtube?Well, YouTube is obviously owned by Google now, as everybody knows. And if you don't, Google owns YouTube. So whenever you're searching anything on Google, they're really trying to push videos upfront, which I actually saw the other day, they were actually putting some Facebook videos up there too. It's crazy, but interesting. I think living in the youtube space that video never goes anywhere. It's there forever. And if you can start really pinpointing with SEO and keyword optimization, things people are searching, your stuff is going to really start rising to the top. Because competing with blogs these days is impossible. There's billions of blogs. So, you know, having that video available is going to help bring you to the first page. And Google and YouTube are super cheap right now. I mean it's super, super cheap because I think it's a really tough thing to learn, but once once you get it, um, and, and in our group, I teach exactly how to do it. You can really start getting in front of a lot of people.Okay. So let's, let's go back to this. Let's say that I'm a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon or Sacramento, California or Los Angeles. And let's say again that I, I want to do business by referral. Does that still make sense or does this really just work for someone who is buying leads and is doing business more via cold market prospecting?It's funny because you're going to get a guy who cold calls and feels that's the only way you should do business. And you get a guy who, you know, door knock. So, I'm a video guy. I'm doing videos every day. To me I feel it's so important. We are competing not against other real estate agents in this community. We're we're competing against these huge names, the Redfins, the Opendoors. I mean they're not going away. And I see that as my, my competitor, not these local real estate agents. So I've got to get out there ahead of everybody else. And there's 5 billion videos being watched on Google or on YouTube a day. And so people are living in that space and Google is ranking those videos. I feel if you're not in those spaces, you could get washed away because even your closest friends are starting to see these, Redfin's every day and the Opendoors. My whole premise behind it is just I get out to the masses like really quick, really cheap and I'm getting better at the call to action for these people to start clicking on these ads.Okay. So I get your point of what you said. Yes. Redfin, Opendoor these companies are starting to infiltrate even our databases. That makes sense to me. Let's say that I've got $30 and I've got someone who's given me 10 referrals over the past three years. Does it make sense to take that $30 that I could go buy a book that is very centered towards what that person cares about and they've given me referrals and instead put it in YouTube to just get in front of a bunch of strangers?! Defend that a little bit.Okay. And I should have answered that at the start. Here's the thing. I don't know how many people really delve into doing videos. What I would say to that is take that $30 and brand yourself, like you build your brand, take your phone and do a very personal video to that person. I'm starting, I've done that to you know, open house clients or past clients and you will not believe the response you get. It's better than going and giving them a book. They can't believe that you actually shot them a video. It's a very emotional thing that you've done for them. So I would say them a really personal video or say, "I'm sending you this $5 gift card to your favorite spot to go get coffee. But I just wanted to tell you how important you are to me." And then take the other $25 and put into branding. Because again, what's interesting is we're living in a space where branding is going to be huge. I'm sure everybody listening here has listened to Gary V, but we're in that space where your personal brand means so much and keeping those sphere client's happy can be as simple as sending them a very simple thank you video. People love them.So, what you're telling me is if I had $30, spend $5 on the past client and couple that with a free video that I can send them. Then take the other $25 and put it into branding.I mean, look, you're going to get people who do bat an eye at that. That's fine because we all have different beliefs. And I think if you're already this ginormous influencer in this town who has worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, I haven't yet. Yeah, those personal relationships, the Buffini model really works for them. I'm just saying, and I'm an up and comer. I'm coming up. So I've got to get out to the absolute masses. And then I take care of the clients, personally by doing really heartfelt videos and they eat them up. They love them.So one thing that I want to say that's going to support what you're saying, because part of me disagrees. So I'll, be frank. I think there's people around you who if you delve deeper into those relationships, the ROI on that would be far better than just having views. However, in defense of your stance here, we're entering into an entire new realm of buying, of how people choose who they're buying from and working with. And one thing that I heard you say is that YouTube videos are going to last forever, right? And obviously the more you do, the better you do them. You start to become, for lack of a better term, a 'Digital Mayor,' and you're not just betting on today's business, you're building this catalog of business for the future. Right? If things are trending that way, they're not going to go backwards. People are not going to stop looking at video in order to choose providers. That's only going to increase, is my belief. And so what I hear you saying is that now while YouTube is cheap, it's actually a really good time for you to get in and build this audience. Then, you'll be able to monetize in the future. Is that, is that what I hear you say?Yeah, totally. Totally. And I'll, I'll take it back a second too, because I'm not like totally saying go away from your, your sphere. Like, absolutely not. You know, advertising. It just makes sense to build your personal brand because you wouldn't believe how many of your sphere watches what you do and is interested in what you do. And you can take a little bit of ad spend and get in front of your entire sphere in one day with a really cool video. So, I'm not j...