Unlock the secrets to a thriving career in any sales-driven environment as we unravel Joe Stacy's treasure chest of wisdom, gained over 36 years in the real estate industry with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Chicago. Dive into the essential human elements that forge success; from building trust and understanding client needs to the relentless pursuit transforming a job into a lifetime passion. Our conversation isn't just for real estate enthusiasts but for anyone eager to refine their professional journey with insights that spill over the boundaries of any single industry.
Get ready to reshape your long-term strategy and discover why focusing on client interests and smart goal-setting is your bedrock for a prosperous career. Listen to stories of how deep-rooted relationships, continuous value, and genuine care can yield a garden of loyal clients. I'll also peel back the layers on my life-transforming approach to personal well-being, connecting the dots between a sound mind, disciplined habits, and peak performance in the unpredictable tides of real estate sales.
Step into an episode that highlights the irreplaceable human touch in an age where automation is advancing. Reflect on the enduring value of seasoned professionals, and learn how to nurture accountability and execution in your team, ensuring they hit their targets with precision. Embrace the principles of work-life balance, learn how to be productive, not just busy, and understand the paramount importance of being present in both personal and professional life. Let these stories and strategies be your launchpad for taking decisive action toward elevating your standards and career.
Unlock the secrets to a thriving career in any sales-driven environment as we unravel Joe Stacy's treasure chest of wisdom, gained over 36 years in the real estate industry with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Chicago. Dive into the essential human elements that forge success; from building trust and understanding client needs to the relentless pursuit transforming a job into a lifetime passion. Our conversation isn't just for real estate enthusiasts but for anyone eager to refine their professional journey with insights that spill over the boundaries of any single industry.
Get ready to reshape your long-term strategy and discover why focusing on client interests and smart goal-setting is your bedrock for a prosperous career. Listen to stories of how deep-rooted relationships, continuous value, and genuine care can yield a garden of loyal clients. I'll also peel back the layers on my life-transforming approach to personal well-being, connecting the dots between a sound mind, disciplined habits, and peak performance in the unpredictable tides of real estate sales.
Step into an episode that highlights the irreplaceable human touch in an age where automation is advancing. Reflect on the enduring value of seasoned professionals, and learn how to nurture accountability and execution in your team, ensuring they hit their targets with precision. Embrace the principles of work-life balance, learn how to be productive, not just busy, and understand the paramount importance of being present in both personal and professional life. Let these stories and strategies be your launchpad for taking decisive action toward elevating your standards and career.
I get a ton of phone calls from students from universities actually that are doing papers or doing this and how to navigate the market. And not navigate the market but automated and do this and this and bedrooms this, this. And I had somebody that I just read an article about a sports figure and then I got a phone call and the person was trying to this Northwestern marketing person trying to you'll get a kick out of this, you'll tell the story. You'll tell the story. It's really cool. It just so happened to coincide with what I read and he's like I'm trying to figure this out and trying to automate, build the system. And I said, all right, let me tell you something. He goes. All right, I go in 1996,. In 1996, there was a six, six kid who was 190 pounds, with small hands, couldn't jump that well and had an okay, okay shot. That was his dynamic. There's also a six, six kid who was a consensus first team, all American, huge hands, unbelievable jump shot and could jump out of the gym. I said think of that as houses. I said, which house are you going to buy? Yeah, I said I'm going to buy the second house. I thought it was. Kerry Kittles played six years in the pros and sucks. First kid was Kobe Bryant. Yeah, really. I said the stats on Kobe Bryant sucked. He was the intangibles that made him who he was. I said it's the house's position on the block, it's the sun it gets, it's where it lays to retail, it's the schools. I said you will never be able to automate housing. I said because it's the intangibles that make the house, not the bedroom couch, it's the floor plan. I was like that's why you'll never work. Welcome to the Jason Theory. This is actually year three, which is crazy because I've never stuck to something this long. It's the first episode and I'm pleased to have the start of the year off, even though it's February, but January is a throwaway year in real estate. A month it doesn't count. It's an 11th month season.
Speaker 1:Joe Stacey, who has been a mentor of mine, a motivator a lot of the stuff that you guys hear me say a lot of times originates from his mouth. Joe, give us a little intro of yourself and then we'll get rock and roll. Thanks, first of all. I didn't realize that was that much of an influence of putting those words in your mouth. I was actually listening to your phone call and I was getting inspired again. We'll get into that. We'll get into that.
Speaker 1:My name is Joe Stacey. I'm the general growth manager for Berkshire Atthway Home Service in Chicago. This is crazy 36th year in real estate. I started right out of college at the age of 22. They have calculator's. Back then we had beepers. Yeah, it's the only business I've ever been in and it's rewarded me greatly. I'm just passionate about it because I've gone from a brand new agent to the top of the top and now an executive of a company and I've done it all really. Yeah, I mean that's the real interesting part that we really want to dive into, which I'm excited about for people that are new agents, old agents, people that want to get into sales or people that just can't sometimes get out of bed and motivate themselves.
Speaker 1:I think the lessons you teach could either help you sell real estate or, as my science teacher used to say, make a widget. Yeah, really, real estate's a widget. I mean we're selling houses, we're finding people's needs and we're finding them a solution to that. But it's no different if you were selling screws or bolts or it's sales, and the process of that sales is all the same. Yeah, I mean it's really connecting with people, building people's, getting people's trust and understanding what their needs are and just finding a solution to people's needs. That's really what we do.
Speaker 1:When you started in real estate 36 years ago, what do you think about yourself that matched well with sales in real estate that has you to where you are today? Are there certain attributes that you can be honest yourself and say this is why I did well and this is why I did good? I think that, remembering back that bar, I remember this vividly I went in with the attitude that this was going to be my career. I was in trying real estate. I decided that my parents' neighbor was a real estate agent and I'd say that Benny was maybe a $2 million agent or something like that, which was an average agent, I would say. And I thought, well, houses back then were 50 grand. Yeah, I'm not that old. So I thought, wow, if he can do that, I could do a lot better than that. And I was a real estate industry as a whole and thought, wow, there's a lot of people that are just kind of doing it as whatever and I can escalate or elevate my level of service and I can make this a career. And so I went in with a long-term attitude. Like every decision I made, I made a decision for the long-term, not for the short-term.
Speaker 1:In other words, sometimes you'd find somebody, you're working with a client yeah, we're going to stick with that. We're going to get off script and stick with what you just said because I think it's really important. So I mean, no, no, stay with. Yeah, continue. I want to relate. So someone may, maybe I've worked with somebody and then they're like you know what? They're just not really, for whatever reason, ready to buy it right now and they need to take another year. And you're like you know what? Yeah, take that year, save more money, pay down your debt, whatever it is. That's what we, at the end of the day, we represent clients and when you represent someone, you're representing their best interests, not yours, and sometimes that means you need to do what's better for them and that may not serve your interests today.
Speaker 1:But if you go in with that mentality and you treat people the way you would want to be treated and you do what's right for them and you work your butt off and you just provide great service, this business is not that hard. It isn't the crux of all. That is, that looking at the long-term solution and not the short-term fix. I mean, now that you're training and you have all these agents underneath you, you see them and you hear their stories and you're talking to them and you're at WAN meetings and you're popping them up, how hard is it to get people that are coming up now away from that short term mentality, considering that everything is short term now? Everything is like I'm texting you, I need your response in 30 seconds, I don't care what you're doing. How do you focus in on that If you're talking about being a contrarian right now in people's mentality and contrarians always make the most money, but a contrarian attitude would be like I'm here for the long haul and I know that everything takes time, versus like I need now. You're battling a completely different generation.
Speaker 1:I think the way coaching agents today is getting them. As you know, I'm really big on the pipeline, the 12-week year, chunking your year into 12 weeks and getting focused on lead measures that are predictive of you getting to your lag measures. Sales is a lag. It takes time to sell someone in clothes and put money in your pocket. You can't focus on that. You focus on the lead measures that are predictive of you getting to that lag.
Speaker 1:I think that pipeline system that I coach it helps people have a long-term mentality because they know if they want to do $5 million in business they need to have a $12.5, $13 million pipeline. Where is their pipeline today? They're building towards that, knowing that if they get their pipeline up to that level they're going to do $5 million in business. It just gets them more focused because I think one of the things is there's too many distractions right now. There's too many distractions in the world and social media, the news people. It's like getting away from those smoke screens and those distractions and focusing on the key things that make the biggest difference. We only have so much time in a day. It's what we do with our time, or what we prioritize with our time truly is a result of what we get out.
Speaker 1:If you can focus on those key lead measure activities that you know if you did them. Because if I wanted to lose weight, if I wanted to lose weight, I can't just step on a scale every day and hope I lost weight. That's just not a plan. If I want to lose weight, I'm going to focus on lead measures that are going to be predicted with that Calories in, calories out. For the most part, my wife will tell you. For some women there's other things that come into play, but for the most part it is calories, calories out. As I hear, tracking people don't track this watch, it tracks everything. I could tell you how many hours I sleep a day, what's my stress level, my heart rate, all that stuff. We need to track the key measures that are predictive of us getting to where we want to go. I think that's what the pipeline system gets agents focused on those key things. It helps them start to get a sense of predictability of this business.
Speaker 1:There is some short term in that too. Right, like, as you're building your pipeline, you're not cashing out, so you've got that short term fix. I put this name down, I put this name down, I put this name down, yeah. So it's kind of like, if you're not cashing out and you're having a hard time in the long term, gain all these little short term fixes. It's how I stay happy. Yeah, it's because I stay happy by writing oh, yeah, I talk to this person at conversation when great, we're going to start to look at. Oh, there's a prospect. Yeah, it's short term, so isn't that funny. So it used to be.
Speaker 1:I remember when I took over an office in the Western suburbs like six years ago, and I had a seasoned agent had been in business 25 years and I got him on this pipeline system and he finally one day he said and he was this kind of this stodgy guy, you like to complain about stuff. And he said you know what? I used to get excited when I sold houses. Now I get excited when I add someone to my pipe. Yeah, because he knows, if he adds two, two and a half people to his pipeline, that's going to equate to one sale. And see, this business is very unpredictable and that's what most agents struggle with the unpredictability of it. So when you put them into a system where, if you do these certain things, this is how you make this business predictable, and then to what level do you want to get the business to? Then you just need to have increase your activities to get your pipeline to that level, to make it more predictable. And that's really what's cool about it. It is, I mean, that's what keeps me engaged.
Speaker 1:Like, whenever I'm having a tough month, I collect my pipeline and be like, and then like, so I have the same one that you gave me, whatever three years ago. I altered a little bit, yeah, but I have all of my years on the same not the same sheet, but you know the tab. So like if I'm having a bad month or, let's say, I lost on a listing, I can see where I am in the pipeline and then I can go back to last year, 21, 20. And I can look at my pipeline then and when I close and be like it's OK, I was in the same spot and it all works out. That's right. So you're old, patent because you, I don't patent, you don't because it's predictable, yeah, and I just get more focus and I am definitely a lot more mentally stable.
Speaker 1:You can ask my wife I don't have like those crying shower moments because I'm not, the pipeline stops me from doing this, to this, to this. I'm like it's all going to work out at the end. Hey, listen, I never had that system when I was selling and I will never forget you just talked about this is your first podcast this year I used to wake up like January 1st and hyperventilate in a paper bag because I was like I just climbed a mountain and sold 60 houses this year and now I'm at zero. And so there was like this up and down, but now it's like when you finish the year and it's January 1st, you're not at zero, your pipeline's still here, your sales are at zero, but your pipeline's still there, which is really nice, like when I go into, just because the pipeline moves. So when it moves into the next year, I'm like, ok, I got $17 million already in the pipeline. If nothing else happens, I'm going to have a great year. I will tell you I will never, ever get that, but I'm like, let's just add to it. Yeah, oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget that flight home from Mexico, from best of the best trip, and you were freaked out. You and I were sitting across the aisle and you were freaked out like, oh my god, I'm dead in the water, and all that stuff, and we started talking about it. It turned into an impromptu coaching session. Yeah, it was great, I realized it, but it was like what were you going to do? You said you were going to do open houses. Now, for the newer agents that are out there, you got to do open houses and some people really crush open houses and you do well with them, but it's not your highest and best use. And so we sat there and talked about really, jason, I don't know, couldn't you just pick one or two great clients who are probably great referrers of business, or some of your developers? Go take them to lunch, go take them for a beer and spend some time with them. You'll get more business from that.
Speaker 1:Now again, newer agents maybe don't have that ability, but you have that ability. And so you're like huh, ok, the next week you called me. You're like dude. It was like I forget it was like 8.30 in the morning. You're like dude, I've been on the phone since we talked. I've picked up eight new clients and you were all jacked up, see, so you had this paranoia moment where you thought you're dead in the water. You just went back to the business and what I know now is if I still do that I've been doing it now what two years? I know that it's predictable. I know what's going to happen from it and it continues to happen from it. And I will tell you after I made that phone call with you.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I told you, but then I called my financial advisor I've been friends with since my 20s. I mean the times we've had. And I said to him the same thing and he looked at me and it was really interesting. This would be probably a snippet that we use in social media. He said to me he goes, I haven't reached out or prospected anyone in 10 years and this is one of the biggest guys ever. He's like I just call my clients and he's like once you get that client base, he's like what are you doing, jason? What a heroic environment. That's right. He's like what do you always say? They're your best, because they're the people that know you love and want to support you. They want to be successful and they want to refer their friends and family and coworkers to you.
Speaker 1:So, as an industry, we don't stay in touch with our people enough. I mean, it's called the loyalty gap. I think you can say that about a lot of sales. Yeah, that's probably true. It's called the loyalty gap. And so, listen, if the last time someone's talk to us is when we collected a $20,000 commission check, that's not good. We need to stay in touch with people and we got to check in and make sure they're doing OK.
Speaker 1:And how can we support them, not just in sales, but if they're going to remodel their kitchen. Hey, let me come by and give you some tips. I mean your podcasts and all those videos that you do on housing and all the construction and all that stuff. That's invaluable information. So we and I love doing it. I don't know, of course you do. It comes through, your passion comes through in it. But the point is, if I have a client who's going to go remodel their kitchen, I want to go give them some advice Like what's the current colors and trends, and give them some a little bit of that, like wow, that's really I didn't think of that Like that's value also. So our value to our clients is not just selling, it's helping them out in many other different aspects of their life and just being there for them when they need it.
Speaker 1:You know, it's real interesting too, because, being that I went to school in California, then I came here and I went to boarding school for high school, I don't. I mean I've got a front base here, but it's not a huge front base just because I was always transient and all these phone calls before this too, like I really started making the phone calls, but I always had phone calls. This and that I mean the amount of weddings that I've stood up or been invited to, like these people that I call, like I make more of an effort to call everyone, even people that I just don't like. You know, maybe was Sometimes you don't think people like you and then you make a call and it's like oh, you ever had that. Yeah, oh yeah, this person hates me. Our head, it gets in our head. Yeah, I go. They looked at me this way, they hate me, but I'll make them a call and it's all blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, here's a friend, but a lot of my friend base now it's literally my clients. And how great.
Speaker 1:I had this discussion with the top agent and I just looked at him and I'm not saying I felt sorry for him, but I just was like man, I would never want to do that for a living. He's just like I hate everybody, I work, I hate this, I hate this terrible. And I said man, life is true. Like you know how it came up. He had a person that he hated working with and I'm like why don't you just fire him? Yeah, he's like I won't fire anybody. He's like I need them. He goes, I want the numbers, yeah and I said but really, and this is a lot of business he doesn't need like this. And I said to him I said one of the greatest things about this job is that I work with only people that I fucking love to work with. Yeah, and it makes the job great.
Speaker 1:And I can't imagine being in a situation where I just don't like anyone that I'm working for this or that and it becomes like it's hell. It's hell, but there's, you know, I mean, I gotta tell you, for me that's like didn't get out. That's time to get out. Like in this business, if you're not passionate about helping people and you don't care about like, you care about your clients. So much right, and that's what it's really all about. You connect, that's listen. You're not just selling people's houses, you're just you're selling people, you're creating life.
Speaker 1:Like I used to do my client event. People don't believe that. People think that we really do. I know People create these amazing lives. So I did my client event every year and I'll never forget this one time. Oh, I try Sometimes I get a little emotional talking about it, because that's the emotion, like when you're connected with people that much, and it was the Muppet movie I was showing them up, I had 300 clients in the theater.
Speaker 1:It was only for my clients, right? And you know, get the movie going, say some words to them, get the movie going and then, about halfway through the movie, I come up through the tunnel to kind of see everybody and Kermit the Frog sitting on the log singing to Miss Piggy, the Rainbow Connection. It was always one of my favorite songs and it's how fitting was that? And we had just gone through a tough time. This was probably 2009, 2010. So think about that, martin. I mean I was sitting across the table when people were losing their houses and crying and that was a horrible. I mean people think these aren't good stuff. That was a tough one.
Speaker 1:And so here now we're in December, all these people, it's the holidays and I come up through there and I hear Kermit sing into Miss Piggy and I came, you know, like those big theaters. You come up and I look up and there's 300 people there with the light of the movie flashing on their faces, with little kids smiling and parents smiling, and it was like I mean I will go to my grave with this memory. It was just like, wow, ok, this is what we do we help people like some of these people like these whole houses when they weren't even married. Now they're married, they have kids in their house, that they have these life memories. That's what this job is. We're not selling houses, we're selling people a life. You know, in this life, this, their most cherished possession is their house. Really, I know it's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the best thing about so when you can connect on that level, this isn't a job, you're just serving people who have a need and then if you could do that, then this is where this job gets and then if you could do it at the level that you want to do it at and you make the money that you want. That's why I'm so passionate about it, because I've been able to do that for so many years in my life and I've seen it. And now if I could take that knowledge and wisdom and all that and instill it upon hundreds of other agents like you and others, when I'm done and I walk away, I'm like, ok, I left something, the legacy. I left a legacy not serving me, helping serving others, and I think that's the other thing. We need to pay things forward. You have to be gracious and have gratitude and when you can leave that legacy and pass it forward and then hopefully I can inspire them to do the same down the road. So when I'm done, I'm done and it's just like I did everything I can do and I'm done.
Speaker 1:The gratitude part's tough. That was my New Year's resolution. It's just like every day is somehow saving myself. What I'm grateful for and I think that's like the one thing I'm trying to press on my kids is gratitude. And I tell them I go, they come home and whenever they have a bad day, I'm like you can't have a bad day. I go, I'm going to go through 10 things right now that you have that no one else has. And I said and then you tell me if you had a bad day, I'm like you've got to be grateful. Because when you're grateful which was like a New Year's resolution, but something I started last year it's just like I'm going to continuously be grateful. When someone is a jerk to me or I'm having the worst day ever, someone poo-poo's on me, I'm just going to be grateful for everything else and all of a sudden that item just goes yeah, it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant because I'm grateful for so much other stuff and if people take a moment I think it was Tony Robbins watching on Instagram, it was like a YouTube short.
Speaker 1:It's like every day, just take a moment in the morning to be grateful for what you're truly grateful. Yeah, because if you can't be mad, have you seen the Brenda Beshard Journal? No, I think it's Brenda Beshard. I forget what the journal is called, but if you can Google it, at the very top it says if you look at it in the morning, it's going to say here's three people I want to influence today or touch today. So you start your day with intention, so you have intentionality, and then at the end of the day, ideally, you want to go back and reflect on your day. Did you touch those people? But also then there's a space there to write things down that you're grateful for. So it's like setting positive intentions for what you want to get out of your day and then spending some time reflecting back that I do all the things I wanted to do. What am I grateful for? There's so many things to be grateful for. You stay so happy all day. It's such a game changer. You're just like. You don't get emotional. You know up and down. You're just like listen.
Speaker 1:This is especially in this business where people are pounding on you. Sometimes it's like, ok, it'll all work out. I got to tell you, I mean my coaching program, that transform program that I built for the company. I mean I started it with the mindset yeah. And it's because if people are like, really, we read a book called there's a book called Eat Move Sleep. You never heard of it. Eat Move Sleep. Eat Move Sleep. It's an awesome book, it's on audio book or whatever. But it's like people are like, really, you're bringing me into a real estate coaching program and you're going to have me read a book about eating, moving and sleeping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if you eat better, if you exercise more and you sleep more most people don't sleep enough you'll have more energy. Well, when you have more energy, you could probably sell more. So I feel like if I say that out loud, people feel like we're shaming people. But I think if you don't eat right, you don't exercise, you don't sleep, you have no chance of being successful and I truly believe that. Well, listen, if you're in a fog, if your battery is at 50% capacity, you're swimming upstream. I don't think people realize how bad shitty food is for your food, but it's all of it.
Speaker 1:Sleep is critical. Yeah, I sleep like 8 and 1 half 9 hours. Yeah, that's right, I sleep at least 8 hours a day on average, and I mean there's periods where I maybe go down a little bit because I just got drained or whatever, but at the end of the day, sleep is critical. It's also like if you don't sleep, that's where illness comes in and sickness and all that stuff. So sleep is really critical. Eating and exercise is really critical and having routines like healthy routines and stuff. That's just critical. So we start the coaching program the first two weeks talking about all that. That's just all about eat, move, sleep, and many of the agents set intentions on one of those areas that they're going to improve on. And then we also talk about the pipeline, because that's critical too.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day it starts with your mindset. If you're negative, if you're stressed out, if you're just angry which there are some people that comes out as that's toxin, that's poison, and people sense that Like nonverbal communication. 90% of sales is nonverbal and it's all how you project, that's it. So if your mindset's not right, it really doesn't matter what your skills are and what your actions are. See, I think that. And actually when you were in the room coaching people, I was like, should I get on that, because I know that you're into fitness? I'm like, should we just get out of the fact that if you're not into fitness, you're not going to be successful? I might break something. I'm like, oh man, I say that I'm going to get yelled at, but I truly.
Speaker 1:But also in sales, if you don't have the discipline to be disciplined to yourself, it starts with that. You have to discipline yourself. Because when it comes to saying hey, I need to go to the gym, or just hey, I'm going to walk the dog, but I'm going to walk the dog for 45 minutes and say your dog will love that, your dog does not get tired. Sometimes people will ask me let's say, if I was recruiting, what's the one thing you're looking for in an agent? I say motivation, like self-motivation. I can't teach that. So that was my question. You can't? No, I don't believe you can. I mean you can learn it. If you could eventually learn it. You can learn it through having disciplines and going through programs and stuff like that. You can try to learn it. But where do you learn that? Is it the knee? I'm like it can be. I mean, it's a tease game with my kids. A little bit of humiliation is the wrong word, but a little bit of this and then, hey, you did good there. Hey, how about this? Yeah, how about it? Like it's a real tricky game of motivating but keeping positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think work ethic. I learned my work ethic from my parents. My dad was a police officer, so it did make a lot of money, but then my mom was a secretary and they wanted so it's example. It's growing up with an example. Yeah, growing up with an example. But they also came from when they were little. They did have money, my mom and my uncle. They were really poor and all that, and so my mom wanted to have us to have a nicer lifestyle. She wanted us to have Nike shoes and a polo shirt and all that. So she felt like that was important to her and so they worked like two or three. My dad would work like eight hours, sleep for two hours, go work. Another job he wallpapered, he painted. He worked really hard. I'll never forget just growing up watching him. He was dead tired, but he would go to work and see how to make more money and so I kind of learned that work ethic from my dad and fortunately, I chose a career path I was able to be successful in and I was able to make.
Speaker 1:You also picked a business that, whatever you put in, it's coming back at you. It's totally which is not I mean, listen a back which is not, which is not, which is not corporate. This is. I started in the fall of 88. So 89 was a recession. Interest rates were 13, 14% oh, everybody talking about higher interest rates. I started real estate with like 13% interest rates.
Speaker 1:I took every single opportunity we used to have. This was before voicemails, by the way. They would have people would call the office and then you would have someone answering the phone and taking a note and say, hey, jason, you'd come in in the morning and you had some notes in there. Hey, jason, so-and-so called you and there'd be a note there. Well, the agents could do floor time. I did floor every pop. So people were like back then our offices used to be up until 9 o'clock on Fridays, so people would six to nine floor time. No one wanted it. I took it every time because I'm like you know what, I'm trying to build a business and even if one person calls, that's one more person. I don't have today, like I think the new agent but they're just doing that. Now I don't narrow, I mean they should be Well, listen Well, that mentality. But I think but we're kind of Listen.
Speaker 1:I just came from our launch their new agent training program. We got agents door knocking, brand new agents of the business. We're coaching them Door knocking at open houses and door knocking and prospecting neighborhoods looking for inventory. Like they these are brand new agents and they're doing it. They're doing it, dude, they're picking them. They're doing open houses and they're picking up three or four clients from there and we're teaching them how to how to turn those into appointments, not just getting names and phone numbers. We're coaching them on scripts and all that stuff. They're coming away with every week picking up two new new clients, brand new to the business. It's awesome, it's so motivating, it's great. So I guess who who's doing it? The ones who are getting in front of people, who are coaching them how to do it and getting them to focus on the right things.
Speaker 1:That's what it comes down to, and everybody's different, like you know. It's just focusing on the things that you can do well and are the things that are going to predictively move you needle towards there, you know. So. Like going back to the weight analogy, I know, you know, I could eat a pizza, but then I got to run 10 miles or 15 miles, otherwise it's not going to end well when I you know so, when you're talking to these new agents and you're saying what happens if they're great at one thing but something else they're not great at, but they're both things that are critical, yeah, how do you coach them? You say, hey, listen, you really can't do this, but you're great at this. Let's just take this to 150%. Or do you say, hey, keep that at 100, but we really have to. You have to face your fear and do this, yeah, and so some of it is like it's not that a new agent will last.
Speaker 1:So, whatever that thing is, you have to kind of coach them and let them kind of self discover. Like I could cold call people but I can't knock on a door and I get in front of a door and it's like I got marbles in my mouth. But I pick up the phone and this person may want to marry me when I'm done. So here's the question is, if that's all you do, is that enough to get you to the business that you need to go to? If it's not, then that's the one thing. So that's the answer. What's the next thing?
Speaker 1:So, like I said, listen, if there was only one thing you did, if, here, jason, I said, if I told you you need to get a new buyer or a new seller, like at the end of the day, if you end the day and you don't get in front of a new client, a new client, a new buyer, a new seller or a renter, if you're working with renters, you've not grown your business. Would you agree? Yes, okay, so you have to look at. Okay, what did I do to try to get in front of a new buyer and a new seller? And is that gonna? If I keep doing it, is it gonna work? If not, then why am I doing it? It's insane, and let me find something out. And that's the swell week. So here's what I would say If I told you, jason, so you agree, like, if you're not in front of a new buyer or a new seller, you're not growing your business.
Speaker 1:So if I said to you you need to go find a new buyer or a new seller. You've got 24 hours, jason. I'm gonna be back sitting here at this table 24 hours from today. You've got to go find a new buyer or a new seller. Your life is dependent on it. Go, I'm making 500 phone calls. You're making 500 phone calls. There you go. So like that's what you gotta do. Yeah, I know, I like that. So now the thing is is, if the 500 phone calls now, let's move that to a week's time, let's just say you've got it for a week and you need to get three new clients for your level, whatever it is. So is that 500 phone calls enough? If not, then do those 500 phone calls. Then what's the second next thing? If you did that, it would give you your high and not to really dive into it. But that's the next task, that's the next task. So that's what we do, and if those two tasks are enough to grow your business, then that's all you need to go at.
Speaker 1:So there's one thing, though you did say, that I wanna talk about, there's one I don't wanna say trait, but there's one thing that is, I think, really important that you can't teach is, if you don't have that personality to connect with people. You have to be, people have to like being around you and they have to connect with you. Well, could that be? Could you learn that in the mindset? Could you like go from a squirrely person who's? Because I think people that can connect, I think they're just happy people. Yeah, I would say, and I'm not happy, but there's something like like I have an energy, like energy, yeah, I just don't care what I say, I think it's more about that, that energy that you produce, like people wanna be around energy, right, and if you have somebody that's just like drab and just not really personable and they could be the smartest person, they could be the best agent in the world, you're like I wanna sleep talking to this person, right, that's really tough. Like you need to have a personality and you need to be able to connect with people and you need people need to trust. There's. There's a, I think, with that.
Speaker 1:Like I thinking about myself, because I you know I can make friends in a jail but I'm thinking I was extremely quiet till I was a sophomore in high school and then I had certain things that happened to me as a sophomore, that I started to gain confidence, and as I gained confidence in myself. I gained confidence in my voice. Now, if you threw me in a development and I knew nothing about housing, I would find a corner, turn around and you wouldn't see my face. So I also think it's the ability to understand what you're selling that gets you confident and allows you to be who you are, because you know what you're talking about. So I like a lot of times and there are people that are drab, that are just like, oh my God, this person's like talking to paint dry, but I think confidence and mindset and gratitude and just like, hey, this is what I feel, this is what I'm gonna tell you. If you don't like me and you don't like my opinions, I'm okay with that. It's okay not to like everything For sure.
Speaker 1:And I think staying rooted to the, to the gratitude and to being humble and being confident, there's a difference between confidence and cockiness or arrogance. Like there's a fine line there, yeah, like I'm very confident and like, if you've ever heard my listing dialogue and all that, like I'm really confident. But I don't believe I crossed the line of being cocky or arrogant. You know the arrogance is like oh, I'm the best, why would you talk to anybody else. But no, I'm really good at what I do, you know, and I'm better than everybody, but that's okay to be. So you have to be confident in yourself and that comes from experience and that comes from you know the more deals that you do. That's the reps. Yeah, we were just talking about that.
Speaker 1:We were role playing with some of the agents this morning and one of the agents had a buyer at the a first time buyer and was looking at the mortgage information and I said, okay, how did you end it? She goes well, I got their information, I'm going to send them. I go why didn't you just book an appointment with them? They were asking questions. You know they were asking you questions. Like, they're obviously interested, just pull your phone out and book an appointment with them. So obviously you're asking a lot of questions and you're interested in this market. I've got a lot of information that I think you would find helpful to make help you make a better decision. Let's just go have coffee and let's talk about it. Yeah, I'll bring stuff to show you. Yeah, so now you know that's so critical.
Speaker 1:So, like, be confident in that because you're serving people and people don't want to say that because they think they're going to turn around and be like no, I don't want to be with you. Yeah, I want to see you. Well, people agents don't want to be pushy. They don't want to be pushy, but, at the end of the day, if I have something that you don't have, if you're a consumer, I have knowledge and information and tools that you don't have. There's value in that, and so you'd be willing to give me your time for that value? Yeah, but if you don't have any value, then why would you give me your time? Yeah, so and that's the critical part, so you need to know Well, people don't think they have value. Yeah, a lot of new agents are like do I have that value? Yeah, and that's sad, and so that comes from coaching and that comes from training and tools and the companies that have cool tools and stuff like this. So it's critical, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's take a little bit of a pivot and let's talk about your centers. On this. We're not like diving too hard, we're gonna dive into it, but kind of like in a surface area. The 12 week year so give us just an overview of what the 12 week year is. So I will do that and it also. I'll just give you another book as reference. There's a book called Four Disciplines of Execution Okay, it's written by one of the Colties, it's also referred to as 4DX, okay, and there's in that book, which is the original book, that we kind of created the pipeline on. Okay, there's four disciplines in the book, four disciplines that I'm curious. The first one is setting goals.
Speaker 1:Real estate agents as a whole don't set goals. I mean, they might have a goal and they say, okay, I wanna do around 10 million. That's not a goal. How much do you wanna do Around 10 million? No, how much? No, specific, measurable goals should be smart, specific, measurable, achievable relative to where you're at, and timely.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's say, I can come around goals. So you have to have goals and the key is no more than three goals. Okay, so no more than three goals. Research shows you won't get those goals done and one goal is better than two. Two goals is better than three. Does that make sense? It's like a martini. It's like a martini, that's right. Don't fucking trick more. Three After the third martini. That's it, you're done very well, exactly. So I like to say man hands in my book. Okay, so like one man in, I'm good two man in and I'm good three. I'm like flaring my words, yeah. So that's the first discipline is setting goals, okay.
Speaker 1:The next discipline is setting focusing on lead measures and lag measures. Okay, that's really critical. The third thing is having you said lead measures and lag measures, are those your tasks to you or those? The lag measure would be the goal, okay, definitely. And the lead measure would be the tax, or the tactics, or the activities. The tactics and I'll wrap it back to the 12 week care, but these are still some basic Because I remember when I took this a couple times, I think the biggest mistake people have and I still hear it like and everything is a difference between the tasking goal, they, some of the tactics are they said a goal is really what's a tactic? Yeah, yeah. So I'll wrap it back to that. So the third thing is having a compelling scoreboard. You have to track, have a scoreboard. And the fourth thing is a cadence of accountability and that's that wham call. You heard me get with right.
Speaker 1:So now the 12 week year is very similar. It's setting goals and, again, no more than three. That's your lag measure. The difference with the 12 week year is it's rather than having an annual goal, you're setting it as a 12 week year goal and that's your 12 week year goal. So because, really honestly, do you know where the market's gonna be in September or October? I think a year long goal is ridiculous. It is Now as an agent, financially, whatever.
Speaker 1:But like how you get there and Right, I mean you might start out and say, hey, I wanna do 20 million this year. Okay, great, how much of? Because real estate's not linear. So how much of the 20 million are you gonna get chunked out in the next 12 weeks? That's how you have to look at it, and so the first thing is setting goals no more than three and then finding the tactics that are, again, the critically few. Those are important words. What are the critically few activities or tactics that, if you didn't them, they would predictively get you to your goal?
Speaker 1:So, going back to that conversation we had earlier, your goal was to get 20 new clients in the next 12 weeks. What's your first tactic? You're gonna go make calls, okay, well, how many calls? So you just, I'm gonna make calls. I'm gonna make more calls, no specific. So I'm gonna. And now here's the next thing Is it calls or conversations?
Speaker 1:Because I can make 10 phone calls and not talk to anybody and have no real estate conversations. Is that effective? No, so a better tactic is to have 10 conversations about real estate. I might need to call 20 people to have 10 conversations. Yes, and so you start to figure that.
Speaker 1:So the next thing is okay, jason, if that's your first go to. Is that enough to get you 20 new clients? No, what would be the next thing then? What would you do next? I'd send out canceled letters. Send out canceled letters because that's worked for you, right. How many canceled letters are you gonna send out? As many as I can every day. That's not a good enough. Whatever is canceled Sometimes it's one or two, but listen, can I go? Maybe, if you're staying within a certain yeah, boundary, yeah, okay. So maybe it's sending out a canceled letter to every single person each week, or whatever it is. So that's the next one. Is that enough? No, what's the third thing? Yeah, and then, at whatever point, when you get there, it's like is that enough? Yeah, if I did those things, if I got that done every single week, those three or four things, that should be enough to get me to my goal. Okay, that's what you think. That's your playbook. We just got watched the Super Bowl yesterday, right, that's your playbook. Now you gotta go execute the playbook. That's the next key.
Speaker 1:And most agents don't. Most agents know what they need to do. They don't execute what they need. How do you get them to execute when? How do you stay patient and get them to execute when you know that they're not executing? And at one point are you just like forget it.
Speaker 1:Well, that was one, that was what I want. By one being questioned, like a week ago, like at what point do you just say you know what? You're an idiot, it's not happening. Yeah. Well, I think sometimes telling somebody that this is not the job for you, yeah, if it's someone on your team baby, listen, not everything. Like you see a thousand people, I mean there's gotta be like, yeah, no personalities. Yeah, like this person's just not executed.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing in my role I'm serving agents that are with our company and if we're under other managers, like it's not my business, it's theirs, I'm giving them all the things that they need to know and if it is on them to go do it, I can't make them do it. You can't make people do it. They got to want to do it and then at the end of the day time will. So when they don't want to do, what are some tactics to get them to do it? Well, are there any more accountable? So like if you said, okay, let's just go back and embarrass them in front of their group. Let's just say, let's just go back to your tactic of making calls. So how many calls you're gonna make? You want to have 20 conversations? This, I make five calls a day, okay. So, but let's say you were struggling and you weren't getting the five calls in and I'd say so. Then we, if we sat down, so you got to have clients. Like you said before from the beginning, yeah, I have the clients.
Speaker 1:So, with the 12 week here, once you set that playbook, now you put your first week plan in place, okay, and so now you're gonna say I'm gonna have 20 conversations, I'm gonna send 50 for sale by owner letters out, whatever it is, and then you're gonna track your results when you come back. How did you do you? How many tactics did you have? How many did you complete? If you do 85% of your tactics, generally, that should be. You don't have to be a hundred percent. Perfect. If you did a bit 85% of your tactics, it should be enough to get to your goal. Now, at the end of the day, if, let's say, you executed 85 or 90% of your plan and you did move the needle towards your goal, you didn't pick up any new clients.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, it's not an execution problem, it's maybe a plan, but it's a plan your tactics. So maybe not, maybe it's not the right tactics, or maybe do you need to increase the number of those tactics? And people don't change their tactics. You see, that's it. So it'd be like, jason, if you, if you go back to the football analogy, let's go back to week one and we have one plan and we go and we lose 42 to nothing. Why be an idiot to go back with the same plan next week? I'd have to change the plan. Yeah, so like that's the key. So you have 12 weeks to figure it out. So you go, execute your plan week one and the key is executed.
Speaker 1:Because if you don't execute your plan let's say you do 60% of your tactic you don't know if it would work. How do you know if it's a good plan? You didn't execute it. Yeah, so that's the first critical thing. If you didn't execute it, then I'm gonna have a conversation. Why not? Why did you not folk? Why did you not get the critically few things you said? If you did them, they would predictively get you to your goal? Why did you do them? Well, I was busy. My mother-in-law came in the town, I was.
Speaker 1:Those are excuses in my little, my world. Those are stories. Those are excuses. Those are people who are interested, not committed. That's when you're that's my favorite line when you're committed, those things still come up. You get around it because you said I'm going to get 20 sales in the next 12 weeks. So let me just. This is like my favorite Joe Stacey line Everybody's fucking interested. I'm interested in a Lamborghini, I'm interested in a six pack. Yeah, I'm interested in dunking a basketball. Again, put in my commit to those things. Yeah, people, you, it does up such a difference. It is going. I just thought I do.
Speaker 1:You're interested in your community and you got to be honest yourself. Yeah, look, no one honest with themselves. Look at America. So, when it, when it, when it. So when I'm, when I'm coaching an agent and I say, okay, how'd you do this week? I got 60% of my tactics done. Okay, well, you know, you know who has the answer to that problem. Look in the mirror, it's you. You didn't execute your plan. No one wants to blame themselves, no one's favorite job, so, but the accountable wants me like listen, you can learn that from that, though.
Speaker 1:So now, if you truly are committed, I work with you to say okay, jason, so your number one tactic was to get 20 calls. So you didn't get those done. Okay, so let's do this. How many calls do you think you can make a day? Five, okay, great. When are you gonna make the cause? Let's use the principle of time blocking and put a time in your calendar to make those calls. I want you to tell me. Send me a text message, jason, and tell me Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday what blocks of time are you gonna make those phone calls? Yeah, now you tell me nine to ten on Monday. Now, as a coach, I could then schedule at 10 30 to ping you to say hey, jason, Did you get your calls in from nine to ten and it's so. How did it go?
Speaker 1:That's accountability, that's a coach trying to hold you accountable, but at the end of day, you got to do it. You got to do it and then like, if you're paying me to do that, well, I'll just keep getting paid and you can keep underperforming. But otherwise, like if I'm giving you my time and you're not listening and you're not doing that, I might have a conversation. You know, Jason, I don't think I can help you. I gotta give my time to somebody who can appreciate it. Yeah, you can't help yourself. Yeah, I'm trying, you see that. Yeah, so like, you have to execute the plan. If you execute the plan and it's not working, then you work with them to say, okay, well then let's try something different. What's one more thing you could do? Or what one thing are you doing that's not getting any traction? Let's drop that off and let's add something else. So it's that cadence of accountability, of Executing your plan. Did it work if it did keep doing it like that was this?
Speaker 1:I was on a call with the 12 mortgage consoles from our company, prosperity. They're nailing it. Mike Scott, I'm so laser focused on the tactics and they are all, almost every one of them, they're. They just finished their fifth week of their 12 week. Your plan, which is 41.7% of the way towards their plan. Follow that. Yeah, many of them were over 42% towards their goal. They want to get 20 new customers. Many of them were at. They had 10 or 12 customers. They're ahead of their goal. You don't want to be chasing your goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, what seems to me too is that like and this may just be my personality it just seems like all these tasks it's like you know you have to do them. Yeah, but writing them down and a book and scratching them off, or keeping yourself or having your, your pipeline, your spreadsheets, it just keeps you accountable to yourself with versus being like, oh, I just want to, I'll do it this time or this time or this time. Yeah, like I, I know exactly. I know my three tasks. They haven't changed in two years because they're working. Yeah, I write Like an idiot.
Speaker 1:I write down the three tap every morning when I come in here at 830. I write down the date, I know what the date is, and I write down the same three things Every morning for the last 700 days. I love it, even though I know what to do. And then, when I'm doing it, if they're not written down, I break them down while I'm doing it. Yeah, just so I can scratch it off. Yeah, and if they're not down on that piece of paper. I'm like I freak out. Yeah, cuz I'm down to a point now where it's like drinking water breathing. Yeah, there's what I love, that, by the way. It's one more thing that I think you know, this line that I love to say, and I say it often.
Speaker 1:So the interest in versus committed. I say that a lot. But busy versus productive yeah, that's another big one. So we can fool ourselves and be busy with things that aren't really productive. Do you ever tell people the busy, productive thing that they need to get to the office? Like I'll be busy at my house? Yep, I'm productive. Yeah, exactly, well, that's a.
Speaker 1:So I don't work from home? Yeah, that's like everyone's like you don't from the house? Yeah, I know me. Yeah, no, it depends. Like I am busy, I'm productive at home. It's always, sophia, I can't, but my kids are out of the house. Mine are out of the house too. I just wonder it's your ADHD. When I'm here, I know what I'm supposed to do. Yeah, like I'm not gonna go to the gym and read a book, right, exactly, when I get to the gym, I'm your brains already. I've gone somewhere where I need to be. Your muscles are twitching. Yeah, I'm like I'm I'm cracked. Yeah, no, it's. It just depends. Everybody's different, everybody's different.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, we can fool ourselves to think that we're being productive when we're just really busy, and so we're doing things that keep us busy, but they're the easier things and not the hard things. Typically, the things that are the harder things, or things that are Make us uncomfortable, are the ones that make us productive, and so we fill our time with the easier things to feel like we're doing the right things. And at the end of day that's what I love about the 12 week year there's no gray area. Yeah, do the work, you're gonna have your goal, your plans either working or not working. You're either executing or you're not executing. There's no gray area. And then when you look at that and you see you've only done 60, 50, 40 percent of what you're supposed to do, the only person you could be mad at it's not the markets ball. No, it's not Joe Stacy's ball, it's not your clients ball, it's yours because you didn't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, another favorite saying of mine is control what you can control. Yeah, I tell it to my kids all the time. Yeah, so you can't control their interest rates and the market, all that stuff, but you can control your actions. Yeah, as an act, as an athletic side, that's like 100%. Yeah, so, but so and I again, so the what I, what you heard me telling them, was, first of all, they're all nail and their plans and they're on pace. But what I, what I cautioned them, was that some of the results they're seeing came from, maybe week To week, one, two or three activities. Right, because there's a lag in that. Yeah, you know, it first meets somebody. It takes a little time. It's that's why sales, sales is a lag. So, but, keep doing the things, but once.
Speaker 1:But here's the key the markets now getting busier, there's more business going on, more conversations. They have to have more applications. They're taking you get the point. Well, what they can't do is stop doing what got them busy while they're busy. That's well, that's that's why you got it for me, I have to do everything before nine. Yeah, that's right, because it gets to 10 am. Yeah, yeah, I'm so.
Speaker 1:So take the most critical things, get them done first. You get them done, you'll find the rest of it. You'll find time to get the rest. Yeah, and I think those are. And so, really, jake, these are not that complex of Principles. They're not that complex, and principles they're. They're really not that complicated. You just have to find the things that matter most, that move the needle the most. Get those things done. You'll find time to get everything else done.
Speaker 1:Have a positive attitude, feed your mind, feed your body, sleep, recharge your battery, get, find time to get away and like listen, I work my butt off during the day, but my, I don't live to work, I Work to live. So, man, as soon as my work's done, I'm out of here and I'm gonna be with my wife or my kids or my buddies or I. Just, you know, I've got tons of stuff. I love to laugh and watch stupid movies and all that stuff like. So, finding that balance of working hard and getting away from it, recharge the battery, it's critical.
Speaker 1:I think that that also what you just said about friends and laughing and your wife and your kids. I think that's the long-term approach too. Right, like is that that's why you're in the business for 36 years, that's why I've been in the business for 22 years. I think if you take the other approach, you're just gonna hate your life and you'd be like I want to do something else.
Speaker 1:Well, I learned that early on. I mean, when I was for, like I said, I was already at 80, 90 hours and I first got married, I almost burnt myself out of a marriage. You know, it was not. I was not happy, I was angry, I was stressed out, I was tired, and I learned the hard way, you know. So then, and then once you have kids, like you can't do that, like you got to be there for your kids, you know, and and like that was one thing that I'm most proud of. Like when I was at the height of my sales, I I did her with my kids every night. I was at their sporting events but I then I'd go back to work at nine. They just knew that was the deal, right, yeah, but like I didn't sell myself to my business and at this price of my family or my friends.
Speaker 1:So like, as as as much as a purpose, on purpose, I am with what I do at work. I'm on, it's the same with me, like we count. Like we were at the Hawks game the other night, which we love, going with the kids and Chet the retire and shallows dirt Jersey, I think on the 25th, and I got tickets for the game. As I'm like, hey, boys, you want to go? Yeah, boom in the calendar, lunch before the game. Going to the game, yeah, I'm calendar with my family and my friends.
Speaker 1:Some people like, well, that's pretty messed up, you have to calendar your family time. It's what I got to do, man, it's okay, there's no show in there. If you don't, someone's gonna schedule over. Yeah, that's it, there's no, I have all my games, practices, bulls game. Like, yeah, of course you have to you, I don't know how you can manage if you don't.
Speaker 1:And I live off my calendar and it's awesome. People call me like 10 o'clock but I'm driving in the AM and they're like, well, how about this, this, this? I'm like listen, I'm an imbecile without my calendar. I like, let me get to my, I go, I may have, I would like I may have a wedding tomorrow. I don't even know about, like, I'm like, I like, and I don't know anything if it's not like number, if it's not on, like if, if it doesn't have like what's happening in the next two times? Yeah, two hours, I don't, I don't know tonight, but it's in my calendar. Yeah, I love it. That's awesome one thing.
Speaker 1:You, you see the industry will end on this, because I honestly go, I have like five other things. I go on tangents for another five hours. I'll go back another time. Yeah, we'll do it. Have another one, one thing that you see us going to like the industry going to, and that is either positive or negative, and I'm gonna Interject just on one before you go.
Speaker 1:Not my thing is everyone talking about and not everybody talks about it, but the need for agents. Um, I thought about this in my sleep last night. Don't ask me why the need for you gotta get a life, by the way the need for agents, and Well, because I read something too was amazing the need for agents. You know, redfin, not redfin, zillow and automating of this, this, this, and it's very interesting and I'll tell you why. Because when I was looking for a car Ah, carvada, this sounds easy. Yeah, online, this online, that online, that it was a disaster.
Speaker 1:I went to the car dealership. I talked to somebody, knew what they were doing. I felt confident there. I got the car wanted. Yeah, god knows what I fucking would have got from Carvada, yeah, and I was like and I thought in my head I'm like you know, if everything was going automated. Yeah, cars are apples to apples, yeah, but Volkswagen here is the same as there. So it's not even like a house where every house is different and you still have to go to dealership and they're still opening up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the thing is there's too much. But even cars, unless you had one specific car you wanted, is too many variables, there's too many options, there's too many, too much information, there's too many things to consider. So, like you get confused and paralyzed, and so really I, to answer your question, jason, I don't think it's gonna change ever. No, I don't, because, listen, this is not what they do, it's what we do every single day. There's just too many variables.
Speaker 1:Listen, there's a thing called WebMD. I didn't know if you know that, but like you could type into my elbow hurts and like, am I gonna listen to that? I'm going to a doctor. I don't know my wife, my wife's miss Anna, well, but she's just crazy. But then, like, then go to the doctor. I don't want to go to the doctor who's got nothing. He's got all availability. I want to go to the doctor that's got. I got a wait for it, like the month and a half to get into him because he's busy. I mean, I mean, I mean like I want the doctor, like and also I want the doctor.
Speaker 1:So I talk about that, like go it's I. I look at that as a like when you're going on a listing appointment, like I want to go in, I want, I gonna go to a doctor if I had a problem yeah, something that and I got to go to the doctor. I want to go to the doctor that sits down, asks me questions I Understands me take some tests, looks at the tests. That's a consultation, by the way. Yeah, which is what we need to do with buyers and sellers says not gonna change, and then I want him to a him or her to assess what my situation is. And then I want them to say this here's your situation. I Do this a hundred times a month or, you know, a hundred times a year. I'll go in there, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. If this happens, we'll go around there, but I'll get this thing, I'll knock it out of you. You'll be up and running in three or four weeks. You're my doctor. Yeah, by the way, I didn't ask you how much you charge. Yeah, I don't give a shit what you charge, you're my doctor. Yeah, I don't want the doctor that goes in and says, I don't know me, I that. Just, I've not seen anything like that before. I think I can go in there and get that, I'm out of there. Yeah, I don't care what that doctor charges, that's not my doctor. Yeah, I want the doctor who's confident, who's done it a bunch of times.
Speaker 1:I was watching your little video that you did with Sophia about People you know they need to work with an agent who's got experience. I mean, like, experience is critical in this market. I want to fly on an airplane with a pilot who's rested, yeah, and has experience, and it was been trained to Navigate any situation that's gonna possibly happen with that airplane. That's the plane I want to fly in. Yeah, I don't want to go to a tired pilot who's got no training. It is, you know, an experience. Now again, agents that For agents who are new to the business, that is what it is. They got to learn fast, they got to be students of the market so that when they're in front of a consumer, they're, they're educated and you know. But. But anyways, I Don't know where I was going off. No, I guess I just think that it's just interesting that everyone thinks that it's.
Speaker 1:I get a ton of phone Calls from students, from universities actually, that are doing papers or doing this and how to, how to navigate the market and and and like not navigate market but automated and do this and this and bedrooms this, this. And I had somebody that I just read an article About a sports figure and then I got a phone call and the person was trying to north-western Marketing person trying to you get a kick out this, you'll tell the story, you'll tell this story and it's really cool. So he he's like it just so happened to coincided with what I read and he's like I'm trying to figure this out and trying to automate, build the system. I said I said I let me tell you something. He goes, all right, I go in 1996, 1996, there was a 6-6 kid who was 190 pounds, with small hands, couldn't jump that well and had an okay, okay shot.
Speaker 1:That was his dynamic. There was also a 6-6 kid who was a consensus first team, all-american, huge hands, unbelievable jump shot and could jump out of the gym. I Said think of that as houses. I said which house are you gonna buy? Yeah, so I'm gonna buy the second house. Those carry kiddles played six years in the pros and sucks.
Speaker 1:First kid was Colby Bryant. Yeah, really, I said the stats on Colby Bryant sucked. It was the intangibles that made him we was. I said it's the house's position on the block, it's the son it gets. Yeah, it's where it lays to retail. It's the schools. I said you will never be able to automate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, housing, I said because it's the intangibles that make the house, not the bedroom, count. Yeah, it's the floor plan. And I was like that's why you'll never work. Yeah, and also this market negotiating contracts and stuff. Like there's so many different things to trigger. You know things you could pull the levers you can pull.
Speaker 1:But I will tell you, listen, here's another stat. I mean I again I was in the business before the internet. Yeah, so here's the one set. So there's no internet. People thought the internet was gonna wipe out real estate agents, automated valuations, all this stuff. It has it right.
Speaker 1:But here's a stat that's, even to today, in this market with low inventory, we have less than two months supply of imagery in most markets the net, the average for sale by owners, the percentage of for sale by owners, representative of the total sales is 8%. It has always been and it always will it just so. In other words, people can go south in this market. They could go sell their house by themselves, and even easier in this market, but yet 8% of them only do that's crazy. So you tell me, if that, why wouldn't that be a bigger number? If the things were gonna change, they could go at it on their own. That would be the number one thing they'll change. It would number one. They could change it. They could have changed it for all these years. So this change is not gonna be any different.
Speaker 1:Here to tell me a buyer knows the market better than we do, hell, no, no, they don't know all these things that we could do, like appraisal, addendums and gap. You know get. I had. I had a response from a person on tiktok and I roasted and I did a video on it. I said I will always outperform you. When I put his tag. I said, yeah, I go. Whenever you want to step up, man, I go. I will buy something 10% cheaper you and I'll sell it 10% more, a hundred percent, yeah, cuz you just can't beat me. No, and that's not. That's not cocking this an arrogance. That's just. That's just, that's confidence. It's fat. What's fat? It's fat cuz you do it by 2000, seriously, like you turn people inside out, yeah, cuz it's what you do. Yeah, so it's like see, that's that's it so like, and that only comes from experience. That could you have a lot of experience and you could. And that's at the end.
Speaker 1:Today, I honestly think there'll be some minor changes to the industry. I think it all. Listen, agents haven't been signing by a representation agreements. They should be doing that. I should. By the way, agents aren't doing thorough consultations with buyers. I think that's a disservice to the buyers. So actually, this is not a bad thing if we raise the level of our service to the buyers, like we have to our sellers. You would never go list the house without doing a, an analysis and in a presentation someone called me without an agent, I want to see a place and I made them sign all this paper. Yeah, I'm like, just so you know I Represent the seller. Yeah, that's good, and he's they're like well, I'm like, listen, I said all I know is that all these pieces of paper come to fruition Because someone didn't know that and that's why it's yeah, but we need to raise the level of the game, really honestly, for the buyers.
Speaker 1:We, you know we need to do buyer consultations, especially in this market. It's so difficult for buyers. They need to know the war they're walking into and all the things that you know they're gonna have to consider, like In order to have success in this market. And that doesn't come from just a casual conversation. You need to sit down. I have an hour and a half one on why. For sure, that's a, that's awesome. So I think the point is the answer your question.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's changing. I mean there'll be some minor changes, but I just honestly, I never say never, we as never. Forever is a long time, but I think it'll just get better, but it just can't because the product is in homogeneous. But here's one more thing like the number of agents getting out of our business is it's, it's rapid, I mean it which is, which is actually we need it, we need it's. No, it's happening. And so any hour just came out, you know it's gonna be one of their lowest enrollments.
Speaker 1:And In agents are retiring, they're like, hey, listen, I'm not gonna do this anymore because there's, there is some cost to this business, yeah, and so that's happening too. So, listen, even if the pie is a little smaller now, you're gonna be able to take a bigger piece of the pie. It's one thing I always remember. So Fia has always told me in markets like this, when there's less business, the businesses down, agents are bumping into walls. They don't know what to do. A good agent's gonna go and take a bigger. Biggest jump was a way to Talk yeah, that's right, you get a bigger piece of the pie because you're really good at what you do. Yeah, yeah, awesome, I'm ready. I really did my tasks, so I go do it. Maybe I'll do them again. See, the difference is I'm gonna go home and have a drink. You're gonna go out, make some phone calls. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate.
Speaker 1:I think this is just the the right way to start the year with this podcast. I'm super excited to have you as our first guest for the year. Joe, if someone wants to get a hold of you, I mean, do they? Do you want them to get a hold of you First? Listen, we've got agents outside our company that shouldn't probably be at our company, so we have them reach out to me. My so, berkshire, hathaway, home Services, chicago this is the everything. If what you, if what you heard, inspires you, this is what you hear, this is, this is the guy that will be doing it and it's awesome, it's very inspiring it. It refocuses myself.
Speaker 1:I always think about conversations that we had whenever I feel a little bit this and that and and just holding myself, you know, accountable to what I. I know we all know what we need to do. Yeah, we just do. I always say that to my kids. I go you know what you need to do, just fucking do. Yeah, like you know that in the 12 week here there, they tired. They're talking about Michael Phelps.
Speaker 1:There were days when Michael Phelps probably didn't want to get in the water. It was old, he was tired, he was sit, you know whatever, but he got in the water because it's what he had to do to execute his plan to get to the Olympics and win the gold medal man. So like we have to have that kind of mentality in Michael Phelps at what he in that quote yeah, talking, and I actually said it to my, my kids. Yeah, and he says it's the days that I didn't want to go into the water. Yeah, that made me a champ. Yeah, that's right. He's like not the good days yeah, there's a. Good days are easy. Yeah, it's the days that I just was like I don't want to get in the water. That's reset. He was in. Those are the days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to find you. Yeah, it's an executing your plan. You gotta execute those. Most people don't, like I said people, people don't lack the knowledge, they lack the execution of the knowledge, and that's that's the key. So it's finding. That's the frustrating part. It is so it's.
Speaker 1:So what? What are you gonna do to hold yourself accountable? Or can you have a coach? Or can you find someone to be, anyway, accountability? Like you and I could be accountability partners and we could hold each other accountable, and we have ages that do that too, so it doesn't have to be hiring a coach. It could be have finding someone else who's driven and hold each other accountable. But when you hold people accountable, hold people accountable. Yeah, how bullshit. It's like a trading partner. Yeah, I was in college. You had your best list when your body was with you, yelling in your face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hold people accountable, like, if that's accountability and if they, if they're making up excuses, excuses, our stories, that's bullshit. No, bullshit. You said you're right, I should have done it. Yeah, great, get in, do it now. Call me of the semiotech when you've done your 20 phone calls. It's like. It's like leg day, that's right. Yeah, if you can't do legs, you can't do sales. I love it. All right, thanks so much. I appreciate it, man. It was great. I love it. Thank you so much. We'll see you soon. You can get the podcast. Well, we're actually opening up a new Insta Instagram account for the podcast because there's so much stuff that we want to start broadcasting definitely Apple, spotify, all that. And Thanks so much. And and have a great 24 and hold yourself accountable. Yeah, love it, cheers.