The Jason Theory
Jason Stratton of KlopasStratton Team, a top 20 team in the nation with over 1.5 billion sold , sits down with weekly guests to talk about becoming successful, the real estate market, and crazy stories/people we run into. Visit www.klopasstratton.com to see more!
The Jason Theory
S4 E4 From Rock Bottom to Real Estate Rockstar: How Social Media Changed Everything for Tony Angelos
Tony Angelos shares his journey from finance to real estate during the pandemic, detailing how he leveraged social media to build a thriving business despite challenging circumstances. We explore how accountability is the foundation for success in self-directed companies like real estate.
• Accountability is the #1 factor in determining success—taking responsibility for both wins and failures
• Hyperlocal focus can dramatically increase business success, as demonstrated by Jason quadrupling his business after focusing on just four neighborhoods
• Social media has become an essential lead generation tool, with Tony looking to generate over $250,000 in 2025
• Print marketing is still effective when used strategically and consistently
• Understanding a client's timeline and motivation is crucial to providing value and closing deals
• School districts significantly impact property values, making knowledge of local education options a valuable asset
• Consistency in executing 5 key money-making activities is more important than constantly seeking new strategies
• Authenticity in social media presence ensures clients know exactly who they're working with before the first meeting
The number one thing on why people are successful or not successful. In a business, where you are in control, no one is accountable to themselves. No one says I'm the reason why I succeed and I'm the reason why I fail, and to me that is number one. And when you have kids, that is number one. And if you, when you have kids, hold them accountable, if your child can be held, if your child holds themselves accountable, I tell you now, may God strike me down, they'll be successful, because no one preaches accountability. What's the five P's? Do you remember it?
Speaker 2:Proper preparation prevents poor performance.
Speaker 1:There you go. It doesn't matter how much money we get, if we don't close it's no money right? So no, close is no money. I'm everything that I am because of my dad's death, and I wouldn't be as successful without his death. Welcome to the Jason Theory. This is the all Greek version, so the amount of knowledge that's going to come off of this is going to be unbelievable. Because there's two Greeks, a lot of confidence. Yes, so one Greek's a thought, two Greeks is an argument and three Greeks is a war.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that before. You've never heard that. That checks out, spot on.
Speaker 1:All right, Tony, give us a little bit about us and let's get started on a very interesting social media slash. Getting started crazy things episode.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I am glad to be here. My name is Tony Angelos. I'm with the Captivate Real Estate Group out of Lincoln Park. I'm one of the team leads there and I've been in the business for about four and a half years. I got in with the intention of being an investor. I am an investor. I have a few investment properties that I want more Greedy, but I love using social media as a tool to grow my business and it has really become my main lead pillar. And I love having the conversation with people because it's one of those things where there's enough for everybody. So duplicate what I do where there's enough for everybody. So duplicate what I do.
Speaker 1:Copy me whatever, I don't care, because my clients are probably not your clients and your, your clients are probably not mine anyways. So so you started. So this is an interesting discussion. So we had off camera before we started. You wanted to start in 2000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2020. You're in the, you're in the.
Speaker 1:You're two decades off. I know I said that again, so you wanted to start in 2020. And then this virus started. Yeah, and then talk to me how that journey got you to actually starting.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm even going to back up a little bit further. So I got into finance right out of college. I had this huge aspirations to be in asset management. I wanted to do something. I wasn't exactly sure what maybe work on Wall Street, maybe end up in banking. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:And it was literally my first week at my very first job. We had a cafeteria and I didn't know anyone in the company yet. So I went down to the cafeteria for lunch and next to me was a group of bankers who were like in their twilight years but all were like very overweight, the disheveled tie, you know. They were a table over. They were all talking about how they hated their wives and how they had to go. Mind you, this is this is like June of 2015. This is right after I graduated college. Ok, so some of their kids still had yet to graduate college. So they were complaining about how they didn't want to go to their kids' graduation and how they didn't want to go back home to their wives.
Speaker 2:And this was my first experience in corporate America and I was like it was honestly pretty startling and one of those shocking, just kind of like core pivotal moments, whatever. And I kind of knew, like right out of the gate I was not destined for this life. So fast forward. I got really into BiggerPockets if you're familiar with BiggerPockets and I was just constantly listening to their podcast, consuming all their blog articles, whatever I could to like learn about these incredible things. I was reading about people doing Like no money, buying 50 units and all sorts of crazy shit. And then I found a blog article written by a guy in Chicago who happened to flip like 20 something homes while working a full time job and I was like I need to know this guy. And that happened to be Tom Shellcross and Tom is still a good friend of mine, but I reached out to him.
Speaker 1:I was like 23 years old at the time. Okay, so you were a go-getter from the get-go.
Speaker 2:Oh, at this point I had already started and closed my first company.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unrelated to real estate, it was a marketplace for premium teas, a whole different thing. But yeah, I was always like You're an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I reached out to Tom and I was like, hey, I have nothing to offer you, but I do work in the loop and I think you might work in the loop. Why don't we grab a lunch? And I'd love to just pick your brain. I read your article. He agreed and we just kind of started to get together a little bit more frequently. And it was a couple years later that he had the idea to start the Share of Chicago Investor podcast with Mark Ainley, who later become another great person that I've known in my life, and they just assumed, because I was young, that I knew something about starting a podcast and I had no idea. But I helped them do like the show notes and arrange their first couple of guests and whatever. And I was probably on there till about episode 100 is when I when I left. But in the meantime I had this incredible opportunity.
Speaker 1:It's a gain of knowledge, a lot of knowledge. Oh my God, Just to sit there.
Speaker 2:The people that I was like, I was being exposed to these conversations, that these people who were in my eyes like titans of Chicago real estate doing everything Because you know, in the beginning I don't really listen as often as I would like anymore, but in the beginning it was very much like neighborhood specific.
Speaker 1:We brought on people who were specifically doing something. Yeah, they brought me on for Bucktown.
Speaker 2:Okay, there you go. So, um, I just like learned so many unique things about how, how different all the different parts of chicago are, like we hear this phrase block by block and like we understand what it means, but you don't really know what it means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, until you know what it means. So I got exposed to all this stuff and they knew that I wanted to start acquiring properties and Mark at some point was like, hey man, you should just think about becoming a broker yourself. You know a lot of this stuff already. I think you'd be pretty good at it. So at the time, I really did not like my job. Um, it was I had I had just left a company that I really liked working for for a basically identical job, significant pay raise, different boss, and I like hated that guy. He's, it was terrible. Um, so I was like, yeah, you know what? Why not? Like what do I have to lose? Uh, so I started studying for the test and this was around like January of 2020. And then, march of 2020, covid happened. Yeah, so I stopped and I was like, ah, I'm not going to do this anymore. You know, we were working from home. I was mostly playing video games and I was like this is, this is good life, I like this.
Speaker 2:But then, like, obviously the real estate market started to pick up again and I had a friend of the university club who he's a commercial syndicator, but he was good friends with a broker who lived down or his office was down the street from where I lived, and he was like oh dude, you should. You should go talk to this guy If you're thinking about getting back into this. Like you should talk to him. So the market started to pick up. I was in Cancun. I decided to just do a bunch of practice tests for the real estate exam while on the balcony in Cancun for a week. It's a good place to study, yeah, just smoking a cigar, just pounding out practice tests for a week straight. And then I came back, I took the test and just kind of like got off to the races At a very small, very small boutique brokerage.
Speaker 1:How was it starting at that time? Because it's crazy, real estate was nuts. You also have, you know some. There's also some barriers to entry at that point, because of you know what's going on, because of the work at home, because of the fact that, as a new broker, you know how were you being able to get business at that time? Yeah, it's like you could walk, because people weren't next to people. No, no, they were not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I had a really great advantage and that was being on that podcast. So a lot of my first clients were direct referrals from Mark Okay and obviously, like he was huge on bigger pockets and is still huge on bigger pockets and he was getting tons of inbound traffic and he was already sending a lot of like the bigger clients out to brokers that you know he had a long established relationships with, but he was sending me stuff that like they typically wouldn't want to do, like the first time house hacker or the flip or whatever. And I was pretty active on bigger pockets too. Back then it was part of my daily ritual where every morning I had a bunch of alerts set up on bigger pockets and I would go answer questions and if I didn't know the question I'd fucking look it up and then I'd answer it.
Speaker 2:Yeah and um, I was every day at least five posts I would just make. And my first, my first client, um, was a scam likely call. Yeah, I was sitting at my kitchen table doing business planning, cause that was something that I read you had to do back then and uh, it was Monday night I was.
Speaker 2:I was checking all the boxes. We had a Tom Ferry coach and I was trying to do what he was telling me to do Because the guy was like he was a legend in the Tom Ferry In Tom Ferry yeah, it wasn't Tom Ferry, it was one of his coaches. But the guy was like an old timer but had been around the block, had done a lot of really incredible things and it was. He was a good coach too. But, um, he was like you need to set time aside to work on the business and stuff like that. So I was like, okay, every Monday I'm just going to set aside an hour, sit down, think about what I could do to generate more leads and whatever.
Speaker 2:So I'm sitting there and I get a call it's a scam Likely. I pick it up and it's this guy just talking a million miles a minute. But I hear him say something about flipping and I'm like I'm sorry, hold on one second. What did you say your name was? And he's like oh, blah, blah, blah, I'm looking to flip houses with my brother. We saw you on BiggerPockets and I was like oh great, I can totally help you with that this so many times. So I didn't say that but um, we ended up meeting and um, we ended up only flipping one house but I ended up helping that brother buy like two or three more houses like over the next couple of years. But um, that was my first client. Was a scam likely call that? They just found me on bigger pockets.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think what the I, you know, I, I think what I'm grabbing here is basically you're saying I, I can do this, I'm going to do this and let's just do it. Yeah, and I think that's really tough for people that maybe want to, maybe not even get into real estate, but want to get into sales or want to be an entrepreneur or want to do something for themselves. It seems like you've always had that in you to do it. Are you not scared of failing? Are you not scared of, hey, you know, this is something you know. How do I do this? Or did you spend while you were at home playing video games? Were you doing a lot of? Now you've listened to podcasts, for you know, you probably listen to 200 podcasts of people doing it, but did you never have that fear of failure?
Speaker 2:I think one of the best traits that an entrepreneur could have is just be unreasonably optimistic, and at the time I didn't really know what I didn't know and I didn't have a huge sphere. I didn't come into this with a huge sphere. I have fucking dozens of cousins who are real estate agents. So I was like my family's not going to be a potential client pool, yeah, so I'm not even going to touch that subject. And I was like what other ways can I do this? So I did a little bit of everything. I was doing four open houses a weekend, I was running Facebook ads. You know I was still working my full time job. So I had disposable income too.
Speaker 1:So you're working a full time job and then your weekends are eight hours of open houses. Yeah, like that's what people need to understand, like those days were so rough.
Speaker 2:I don't really do a lot of opens anymore but like, because you're doing, you're doing an open house from like 11 to 1 and then racing to the other four you're racing, you have no time to drink water, you have no time to eat, and back then, and I guess now today too, open houses were like lines out the door and you had to like space people out. So you had to like make sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because of covid you had your freaking mask on, so it was hard to connect, space people out, so you had to like make sure people were doing stuff you had your freaking mask on, so it was hard to connect with people.
Speaker 1:I remember when he was doing open houses and they had to be digital right, so people would be, they would be on a stream, so I would have people outside and I would be all right, we're starting the open house and I would go inside and I would stream. And then people would get on the live stream from down on the ground and they would ask me questions.
Speaker 2:You know those are coming back. I'm not really a TikTok user. I love TikTok. I have 30,000 followers. Oh shit, yeah. So I've heard TikTok live. Open houses are an incredible regeneration tool. I don't exactly know how it works, but I'm going to look into that. Look into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you've got, you've got like and I love the fact that like. So what you're talking about is what I still do. So every morning I come in and I have so like it's a vert, like I didn't know I was doing it. Well, everyone has their versions, but there's a version called. There's a thing called the 12 week year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know exactly what that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've always done that, but there's I guess there's someone wrote a book on it. So, like I have tasks and I do those tasks. Like I have a goal, yeah, and then I take that goal and I'm like what tasks do I think will produce that goal? Yeah, okay, so I have like usually four goals and then I orchestrate those tasks around those goals and then I do those tasks every morning, no matter what. What are?
Speaker 2:those tasks every morning, no matter what?
Speaker 1:What are those tasks? If you don't mind me asking, no worries, I always reach out to a minimum of five people every day. Okay, period Past clients I might reach out. The software that Jameson uses brings them up. So I know like, okay, these people need to talk to Minimum. I probably end up doing like 10 a day Sometimes. I am always proponent that if you're driving down the street and you did a deal at that house, I pull over and I'm like hey, I just drove by your house, I'll take a picture, I'll send it to him. I'm just thinking of you and that's it. I never asked for business. I'm not into that. People like like I'm always. Like, I'm always, I'll always reach out to you. Yeah, and you know what I do. Yeah, if you need something or a friend needs something, I'm top of mind. Yeah, I always check cancels.
Speaker 2:Okay, always Are you cold calling.
Speaker 1:Cancels and expires I don't call, call and I'll tell you why. All my clients who get cold called hate it. Okay. I get a lot better response from individual mailers, Okay, so I make sure they're not being put back on the market. So I checked the MLS so I said you really go one by one, one by one in the but I but I don't farm all of Chicago. I will tell you a great thing We'll get the social media at some point. But I'll tell you a great thing that, um, that are one of the best, two best minds, that probably that I knew there's three great minds that I knew in real estate that like shaped me, Okay. And one was Chuck Goro. He's passed, he had cancer, but he was great.
Speaker 1:That was like one of my first managing brokers that I actually remember. My second one was Nancy Nagy and Nancy said to me and Jim were kind of like you know we're together, we were stuck at like I think about 12 to 15 million. Sophia and I were like and this has got to be like oh three, oh four, oh five right around there and and we were working Rogers park, you know, North shore, I know this, I know how this story ends all the way down to the South loop. Yeah, and Nancy said you'll never be successful doing that. Yeah, she goes. You need to become hyperlocal and she goes. The minute you go hyperlocal, you'll explode. We literally went from servicing the whole city to four neighborhoods and our business quadrupled.
Speaker 2:If you ever watch this back on camera, you're going to see the grin on my face.
Speaker 1:It's the single greatest piece of advice that anyone's given to me in my life in terms of business.
Speaker 2:That is exactly why I do not concern myself with other people getting bigger on social, because I've got my little pocket and that's the only pocket. I call it my sandbox and that's the only place that I play and I don't even concern myself with anything else. So there's another guy out and his mom and him have a team at Coldwell and I don't even like concern myself with anything else. So there's another guy out in a, his mom and him have a team at Coldwell in LaGrange or something like that, and he literally his videos are exactly like mine, but in a totally different market. He crushes out there Like he's exploded. He's crushed. Um, I mean, his mom has been in the business forever and like he's my age and like he's probably gonna, his mom has been in the business forever. He's my age, he might do more than her this year. His business has just exploded. We don't interfere, it doesn't matter, because it's a totally different market.
Speaker 1:It's a totally different area I don't go after. If an agent is established in an area, this is from my trading background too, because everyone used to say go trade this, oh the meats are hot, go downstairs and trade the meats, or go here, go here, and I'm like man, I make. I make money every day in this pit. I know it in and out. Whatever comes my way, I know what's going to happen. I said I'm not moving, I'm not moving man. I've always been like. That's been my mantra and I think I take that in real estate because I learned it in trading. I just think that the way to become uber successful is to literally become the single best expert in your area and what you do and don't worry about anything fucking else.
Speaker 2:Wait, can we back up for a second? Yeah, so you, you guys were kind of plateaued, yeah, and your managing broker says you got to get hyperlocal. What was that stuff like? Cause? For me that was a really big mental gymnastics.
Speaker 1:Well, all of a sudden, everything became. All of a sudden everything became accessible, easy, because now I don't need to farm, I don't need to send postcards. We all have a limited budget right right now. As I've gotten more successful, my budget has grown and I can do more, but I I only do more in those areas, right like I'm like I I just really started when I condensed basically to you know, I soie and I kind of don't, we kind of take different areas, but when I condensed to Roscoe, I always thought where I lived, to knowing like even the dogs on the certain streets was an edge, right. So like when I, when I condensed, I went to Wicker, ukraine, roscoe Village, bucktown and kind of West Lincoln Park and I really focused just in on that and I knew that there wasn't anyone really really like it wasn't it's saturated, but it really isn't. When you look at the top mesh line of people, it's not saturated.
Speaker 2:There's like three of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Then I could put my dollars into that. So all of a sudden, I'm using the same dollars, but I'm going into a concentrated area and my sales just exploded. Sophia and I's sales just exploded because everything went into that concentrated area. The last thing you want to do if you're sending out a postcard to an area and you don't send one out every three months, don't waste your money. Yeah, they need to see your face constantly because I can tell you right now, a year from now, someone will call me up and be like I got a postcard last year Because this has happened and it's been a magnet. It's been magnetized to my fridge because I knew I was going to sell at some point and I just grabbed it. Oh wow. So people that think that print is dead, it's not I. Actually Print is not dead at all.
Speaker 1:It is a huge return on print.
Speaker 2:I am going to send out my first postcard. It's literally at my office for me to go bundle and give to the post office later today.
Speaker 1:But you got it, you got it, you got to do it every three months.
Speaker 2:Oh actually, I guy do it every three months. Oh, actually, I'm gonna be doing it. So I, I live in a 900 unit building and, um, we actually just moved back into the building because, like, we bought a place, got it. Now we turn it into a rental, move back to the old place in lakeview and um, previously, when we lived there, I never like had any aspiration to this is this is like the stupid young tony, brand new in his career, thinking like I want to sell a million dollar homes, I'm not going to go target my building because, like, it's a low price point. Um, those people up by, they do up by. But I live in a 900 unit building and even last year, which had record low sales, there was 70 million worth of sales in that building.
Speaker 2:So one of our partners in New Jersey, he lives in a similar building and he has 55% market share in their building. You don't even need to leave the building, don't even need to leave the building. So I was like, okay, let me. His name is Josh, that's super hyperlocal. Well, I asked him. I was like dude, what do you do? And he gave me the whole thing. He was like here's what you do, and he gave me the whole thing. He was like here's what you do and I'll share it with all of you now, if you happen to live in a big building too, or in like a very connected community that has something interconnected about it.
Speaker 2:He sends I shit you not three postcards a month, three postcards a month. Not only that, he does what he calls wedge events. So these are events that he wedges himself into people's natural flow of things. So in their building they have a coffee shop. So he does three wedge events a year and one every four months-ish, four, eight, twelve, yeah. So he does three wedge events a year. One of them will be like a uh, something in the coffee shop where, like they just kind of set up, give market reports of the building out and offer to buy people coffee with the coffee shop. Another one he does coffee shop, loves it, they're selling coffee, they're selling coffee. Their faces are already very like common in the building because, like there's, they're everywhere, yeah, you know, and um.
Speaker 2:The second thing he too is they have a like a wine shop in their building, like a liquor store type of thing. So he goes to the you know the owner of it and is like, ok, do you guys have any wine vendors who have been asking to come in? And they're like, yeah, we've got a handful of them. Ok, great, we'd like to talk to them. And they kind of partnered together and did like a dual thing. Where it wasn't in your face he was partnered together and did like a dual thing. Where it wasn't in your face he was just there wedged into that event but he paid for the wine guy to come in, set up his stuff and do the wine handouts or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then the third thing would be something totally separate, a little bit off site, but like one of the postcards would be like a monthly update. One of the postcards would be to invite people to the wedge events. Then they would like sprinkle in the just listed and just sold postcards and they've got 55% market share. I think the building has around 600 or 700 units and the price points out. There are bananas. I mean. I think the average price point of his building is like $800,000 for condos and they have 55% market share. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's taking it to what I say to an extreme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so literally I was like okay, thanks, Jeff, I'm literally going to start that like today. So I printed out postcard one. I've already started sending out. We have a Facebook group. So I've already started sending out like monthly updates to our Facebook group which lead to a newsletter for my building, and I've only been doing it for two months Already, have two people that are going to be listing the condos there and like it. Just it's going to cycle. You know what a funny thing is too. I met somebody.
Speaker 1:See, and people bitch if they can't get listings. I'm just like I'm so happy for you because you're just working. I'm not even working that hard.
Speaker 2:I'm letting the people in my building know information about where we live.
Speaker 1:I'm letting the people in my building know information about where we live. It's not that hard Stuff that everybody has. Yeah, but no one else is doing it. You don't think there's another realtor in that building?
Speaker 2:Oh, so many. There's a guy who his office. So here's the thing I want to do a wedge event at our little convenience store. But directly across the hall there is a guy who has a real estate office. He's got his own team office literally across the hall from the liquor store. I don't know if he lives in the building. He does a little bit in the building but like certainly does not have like significant market share or anything like that, but his office is like directly across the liquor store. So I was like that might be a little bit too. Why I'm going to kill you. No, I would do it. That's so brutal.
Speaker 1:So what I am going to do this summer? I would do what your buddy does Rinse, wash, repeat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he gave me this idea and I love it. I'm like I'm absolutely going to do it. We have a pool deck, so in the summer our building has a social committee, so we're going to basically pay for the social committee to have a tequila tasting on our pool deck in the summer, which I'm like hell, yeah, I'm into that. Yeah, I'm sure everyone else in my building will also be into that. But like to further, to go back to your point of like I don't want to go too far, like it doesn't get any easier. Yeah, you know, and I just I just like met another person yesterday or not yesterday, this was last week because when people join my newsletter, I also send them like new listings and sold listings within the building.
Speaker 2:Um, this woman, she signed up for my newsletter and then she saw one of the listings I sent and then she emailed me and she was like hey, can I see this one? And I was like who the fuck is this? Who is this person? So I had to pull up her profile on her crm and like figure out that she came in through like the newsletter and the website through Facebook, and I was like that was easy, it works. Yeah, and you know reticular activating system. I see her all over the place. Now she's introduced me to more people in the building. She's lived there for 15 years, but it's putting together.
Speaker 1:it's putting together. Hey, this is, this is my plan, this is what I'm going to do. But how many people in your life put together plans and just don't execute?
Speaker 2:Me. I'll be the first to admit it I have a million ideas. Well, you can only do so many ideas at once. I've been getting a lot of ideas too.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying you have something. This is what people don't understand. You have five things. For me, I think more than five tasks is unattainable. Yeah, I totally agree with that. So, like, if you have five things that make you money, you just never stop doing those five things. That's how I was as a trader. These are the five things I know make me money. The minute one of those things stops making you money or there's no returns, I pull it out. What can I add? Yeah, right, so like, like, and that's kind of what. That's kind of not to, not to go into it, but that's kind of how social media was. Right, I see yourself.
Speaker 1:I see, um, the one guy that does that, does that, does the neighborhoods, his homes thing. I can't remember his name. He's got a group too, but he pretty much does lead gen from his houses. He gets so much lead gen from I don't even know who you're talking about Modern homes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, vin, or something. I saw those people a year ago and I'm like all right, what out of this thing can go bye-bye? Yeah, because I'm going to add another piece to it and I'm going to be consistent in that piece, because consistency is what you need, right? Yeah, and I'm so surprised I mean it'd be interesting to hear from you about this. It didn't become lead gen, like we started getting business around 8, around eight to 9,000 followers, like that's when I started seeing okay, this, this is, this, is something on Instagram and.
Speaker 1:TikTok on Instagram. Tiktok, I've never gotten a lead, but TikTok I have the best conversations Interesting. The conversations on TikTok are far superior than Instagram. People go to TikTok to actually converse, where Instagram it's more of like oh, that's beautiful, this, this. Now, once I got to eight or 9,000, we started getting leads. Once I got to like 13,000, it was consistent. Yeah, it was really consistent. And when I found out it's not people that actually want well, they do. They want information on the house. I see they just love the house and they're like hey, you know what? You know, we're looking to buy a house or this or this. And then the conversation just gets like the conversation.
Speaker 1:It took me like three or four DMS back to kind of hone in, all right, I said something once and never got a response. I said something once and I got an okay response. I said something once. I got the best response yeah, we like let's meet up. And I was like, oh fuck, I'm going to copy that. Yeah, I'm a creep dude. I same breakfast every morning, same, I'm just such a creature of habit. And I was like, oh fuck, I'm going to copy that. Yeah, I'm a creep Dude same breakfast every morning. Yeah, I'm just such a creature of habit. I'm like, oh shit, I got two leads off that DM. This is it.
Speaker 2:Cut and paste Save. Do you manually DM everyone or do you use my chat?
Speaker 1:No, auto. Oh, I use my chat. I I'm always nervous because people sometimes DM about different properties, so like, like I don't even do, I don't do drips, I don't do drips either. So like, when someone except for property drips.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so like, if someone contacts me off of of a certain property, I'll be like, hey, cause most of the time in this market it sells so quick by the time they reach out the time in this market it sells so quick, by the time they reach out it's sold. So then I go into hey, this is why this property here sold. Here's the market. This is where you are. If you want a two-two in Lincoln Park, the pricing's from here to here the market days are about this. You can expect four to five offers. A lot of this stuff trades on the private market. Can I get you involved in Zen list? You know, can we have a cup of coffee? Or do you want to do a zoom, this or this?
Speaker 1:I've noticed that when I'm more, I did like when I'm more specific. So when I, when I do do that, that, uh, that copy and paste, I alter, like if it needs to be altered for that specific property. But I have a base structure that I want to go with. That's been working for me, okay, and and it's been like, I mean, I've got buyers that have flown in from California. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of out of state, a lot of out of state so like. So, tell me your journey, because you have such a specific which I like. I watch your stuff all the time. You have a very specific strategy in terms of your videos. Was that trial and error? Or did you just do it once and you're like, oh shit, people reacted to this, and then you just do you ever see yourself pivoting? Have you pivoted in your style a little bit? Tell me, from like okay, I started doing IG. This is what happened and these are the things that I've done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a longer story that I think not. Honestly, I didn't talk to a lot of people about this, because it was something I kept really close to the chest for a while, but I was almost out of the industry this time last year. I was like debt broke. I had burned through all of my savings. I got dude. I was like wildly taken advantage of by a contractor. I was like I was fucked, okay, back against the wall, back against the wall. But it's all good though, because I had a really good opportunity for a sales role at Goldman Sachs and I was very confident that I was going to get it.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm about to be a rainmaker. I'm poor right now about to be a rainmaker. And, like last year, I had like I had like $4 million worth of deals fall apart like from underneath my feet. It felt like it was impossible to get a deal done. I remember I was in Greece for my best friend's wedding and my card literally got declined for the deposit for the hotel room in the summer. Oh, and the same day I had like my eighth interview for goldman sachs. Um, so I was like eight interviews, dude. I have like nine or ten interviews. I talked to so many people fuck that, and then the end was like two separate role.
Speaker 1:so anyways, um, I come back from greece, but that gives you some backing, some confidence okay no matter what I was feeling really good, I got this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was like it's bad right now, but it's going to be better, Okay, Like real estate. It just didn't pan out the way that I wanted to. I went full-time into real estate May of 2022. June of 2022, interest rates had tripled.
Speaker 1:And I like and I was rough when it got to 8%.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that June I had a listing expire and I was like really banking on that commission because, like that was going to be my runway for you know, the next three months or whatever. So, like from June 22, things just started to fall apart. And Katie, my fiance, she's self-employed too and her business was basically brand new. So I was like we're running on all the savings that I had from the previous five years in corporate America. So I come back from Greece. This gets me juiced, Dude. This was an immense point of shame in my life.
Speaker 1:Which has turned now into amazing. There's no shame.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. Me and Katie kept looking, because I consider bankruptcy a lot of times. But we Me and Katie kept looking because I consider bankruptcy a lot of times we kept looking at each other and we kept saying this is going to be the coolest comeback story of all time, or we're never going to tell anybody about it. I come back. I have my first role play with Goldman Sachs Crushed it. I host a role play every morning. I'm an excellent salesperson. I have my second role play Thought. I crushed it. Then a week later they said sorry, we went in a different direction. I never got any clarity. I had a good friend who was a managing director there who was like dude, I don't even know what to tell you. They should give feedback.
Speaker 1:They just said there was another candidate who was more qualified you know, just generic answer, but I was like you know what candidate who was more qualified.
Speaker 2:You know just generic answer. But I was like you know what? It's okay. Okay, so I have to sell my way out of it, like that's the only option. So this was around July, probably like mid July of last summer, and I kind of started thinking, defining what I would call like my principles, and the first one was like I need to find somebody who's doing this really well and I need to find a way to duplicate it into my own business, and there's a lot of examples of people who crush it with social media. Yes, so are you familiar with Suman Kim? Do you know who Suman Kim is? He's an agent down in Austin. He moved from California to Austin. His first year in the business did $63 million worth of sales. He moved from California to Austin. His first year in the business did $63 million worth of sales all from YouTube.
Speaker 1:Wow Also Austin.
Speaker 2:So I told myself that lie too, and I was like you know what Fuck that? That's a relocation market. He had the advantage of people relocating to Austin looking up your videos, but we're relocating. How much relocation do you do? I do a lot of relocation. Like half my clients are relocators.
Speaker 1:So I was like just because we don't People want to put themselves through hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. But I was like, okay, you know what Suman? He's in Austin, he crushes it. Okay, do you know who Levi Lasik is? Yes, levi Dallas, another relocation market, but he crushes it too. And then there are countless of other examples of people who crush it in various parts of the country and we can say, well, they're a relocation market, but that's not totally fair. So they're doing something, right, they're doing something.
Speaker 2:I've never hit on anybody, no. So I say, okay, I need to, I need to study these guys. So I really I watched all their videos. I looked at all their highest viewed videos, all their, you know, the ones that like had a lot of comments on them, and I just studied them for a long time, like obsessively.
Speaker 2:And Suman what was so unique about him was that all he did was post property tours, but they were low budget. Just on his cell phone he would just go walk new construction properties all around Austin and just do like he would just say, hey, this is what I like about it, this is what I don't like about it, this is how much it costs. My name's Suman Kim, your local Austin realtor. Here's my contact information blah, blah, blah. And Levi Lasik what did he do? He kept interjecting these CTAs throughout the videos and that's one of his things. He has call to actions more than anybody else and that was a big thing, for what set YouTube apart versus Vimeo way back when. Youtube is hard to get a following. It is hard to get a following, but I'll tell you this I have 400 subscribers on YouTube. I've got two leads on YouTube and two clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I do I love YouTube, but that's not even my point, though.
Speaker 2:Like, one of the things that I took away from YouTube was that, like when YouTube and Vimeo were brand new platforms and I think Tom Ferry talks about this, but a lot of marketing people talk about this is the difference was that YouTube gave you seven opportunities to share it or refer it or subscribe, or something like that, where Vimeo only had like marketing people talk about this is the difference was that youtube gave you seven opportunities to share it or refer it or subscribe, or something like that, where then you only had like one option okay, so like the, the number of times, and then like. The third thing that I took away from these guys, as I was like studying them, was just like the sheer output of videos. Like, do you know ken posek is in orlando? No, so ken is like mr orlando? I probably do. I probably see all these guys kind of kind of really just on youtube, but, um, I would and I know this because I just looked at ken is that the guy?
Speaker 1:that does all the stats. Does ken do like a lot of stats in his videos, like long format videos?
Speaker 2:it's all long format.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know this guy's on youtube. On youtube, yes, he does long format videos he does.
Speaker 2:He has a podcast similar to like larsy, where it's like orlando specific and he'll bring on like the mayor of orlando and like developers and like talk about like things that people would care about. Like I don't care about it because I don't live there so I don't watch it, but like he's got 60 000 subscribers on youtube but he has almost 800 youtube videos yeah, that's fucking nuts. Yeah, that's nuts, you know, but like that's the level of output that is required to generate the kind of business. So I was like, okay, what do I need to do? I need a I need to start duplicating what these guys are doing. B I need to put out a lot of content that's valuable.
Speaker 2:And then C, the thing that I knew that I needed, because I look at people like Matt Larsi or Carrie McCormick or Emily Sex Wong and they have a strong brand. Yes, so I'm like, okay, I need to get a strong brand. How do you get a strong brand? And I kind of just decided that and this wasn't my decision I'm a huge Alex Ramosi guy. Huge, alex Ramosi guy, huge Alex.
Speaker 1:Ramosi guy.
Speaker 2:Okay, I know who that is, and Alex Ramosi always says brand is just an association between two things. Yep, so I'm going to put my face in front of properties that I want to sell in areas that I want to sell and I'm just going to do that over and over and over again. Yep, and that was kind of the genesis of it. Okay, I got more specific over time with the types of properties I posted, the price points I posted at. I've raised my price point over time. I've been more specific with my messaging. Overall, I've just gotten better at handling those leads.
Speaker 1:Do you video everything yourself? Yeah, then you cut it yourself yeah, and then you cut it yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have been experimenting a little bit because do you know the concept more better, new? Have you heard that before?
Speaker 1:I've heard it a thousand times yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the concept is this If you are like a starting business, chances are the thing you need to do is what you're doing just more of it, okay. Chances are the thing you need to do is what you're doing just more of it, okay. And then once you get to a certain level and you kind of plateau, then you got to figure out how to do it better, yeah, and then once you have totally tapped that out or it no longer works, only then do you look at new things. Okay, so, um, that's so um.
Speaker 2:I have kind of like defined my style, which is me waving, say hey Chicago, and I pointed at the place and said this is what you could buy for X and X area, and then it's like just a voiceover in like whatever. Yeah, you like the voiceover. I love the voiceovers cause I could get into a property, I could film it and I could literally edit it and put it out within 10 minutes. Gotcha and um. People like the voiceovers too because I am funny in them. I'm, I'm like I tell people what I think about places. I called one place a panty dropper, you know, and uh, but people like respond well to that and they see the tony that they going to get when they work with me. And the first time I ever met somebody.
Speaker 1:That's the key. You have to. Oh yeah and I think this is where a lot of people make a mistake your Instagram has to be authentic to the person that they're going to meet For sure. Because if you're not, it doesn't work right, because you're not going to get referrals. They're like, well, this is not who you were when I, when I saw you, like, who am I getting now? But it takes so much of the pressure off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's, you know they know who you are by the time they meet you are. They've already decided to work with you yeah, it's really and that's my favorite video resume it's. It is a video resume, but my favorite part about it is that, like they've already decided to work with you, you kind of you get to decide if you want to work with them.
Speaker 1:Now I, you know someone someone asked me that someone, uh, that I'm really good friends with and they're just starting to do video now and they're like you know, because the amount of leads I've gotten over the last four months has been nuts, yeah and they're like what's your conversion rate? And I'm like a hundred mine's not on. And they're like how's's your conversion rate? And I'm like a hundred Mine's not a hundred. And they're like how's it a hundred? I go, because they've already watched five hours of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so every person you DM, you turn into a client. No, every person I meet.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Every person I meet like cause there'll be. There'll be people I DM that I never hear back from, even though they reach out to me. I don't hear back for them. But every single person that Sophia and I have gotten a DM and have had either a cup of coffee with a phone call or a zoom has all turned into clients.
Speaker 2:I have. I've lost a few clients at this point for like one reason or another.
Speaker 2:Um, but there were your clients at some point well, like one showing or like we'll do a zoom, like one person I could think of off the top of my head. We just had a zoom, like two or three weeks ago. Um, she came in, filled out my client intake form and I was like, oh nice, 800 000 budget, like looking to move in a month. I was like slam dunk, you know. But uh, and we had a great conversation and they ultimately ended up working with somebody who was like a referral from one of their close friends because they were moving back to chicago. Okay, I asked them.
Speaker 2:Every time I lose a client, I always say, hey, I totally understand, I respect your decision. Just for my own feedback and to provide a better experience for clients going forward, what could I have done differently? What went wrong? Just no hard feelings, just want to know. And for them in particular, they said absolutely nothing wrong. I'd love to even meet you in person, but we just wanted to work with somebody who our friends had vouched for and worked close to yeah, there was a.
Speaker 1:I was like that's fine. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:And then I met another guy who, right off the bat, I had kind of like a bad feeling about him. I was like this guy he's kind of a weird guy Like our energy didn't really mesh, but we were already there at the showing and like I had never like shown him anything else, and a month later he emailed me, was like I'd like to cancel my, my listing agreement or my my showing agreement, whatever. Whatever it's called the buyer's agency. Yeah, I decided to work with someone else who another friend had referred him to, and I genuinely did not care. I was like, yeah, no, no problem, like, but I still asked him the same thing. I was like you know, why did you decide to go with somebody else? Or what was it? And his response honestly kind of shocked me. He said he said nothing wrong.
Speaker 2:Uh, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. You're an Instagram agent that showed me a property. You found an Instagram, you were great at it and I was like an Instagram agent. What does that mean? You were great at it and I was like an Instagram agent. What does that mean? But like, that's how he viewed me, you know, but we had, we had weird energies the whole time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if it doesn't match it doesn't match, but no, but I should have seen that red flag right from the get go. The nice thing is, though, is that you are true to your energy and you didn't change who you were. No, so like you could have gone another fourth Like I always say that to people when I'm talking to people, they're like you know, like like, how do you get clients, or this or that? I'm like listen, you have to be authentic, because if you're not, the relationship at some point is going to crumble For sure. It's like.
Speaker 1:It's like being married to somebody and that person not really knowing your true you, yeah, you're like like, oh, you have a terrible drug addiction. You didn't tell me like this, I'm gonna surprise. I need to move on from this. Yeah, so that, so that. Have you had any like since you've started your style? Have you stuck to that? Have you pivoted at all? Like? Are you gonna like? Are you at that? What stage are you at right now? Are you at that better stage, or are you at just get that content out?
Speaker 2:I think I'm at a better stage okay, so I have tried to do a few new things.
Speaker 2:So, like, um, I have brought people from our team to videotape me to try out like that style and so far, like, I have not experienced better results with it. Um, so I'm still trying to see, like I'm all. First of all, let me just clarify this I'm always testing, I'm always testing new messages, I'm always testing new follow-up cadences, I'm always testing new video styles and, um, recently we had a, a uh, a two-bedroom condo in wicker park coming, so I filmed the same place, two separate styles. Okay, I should have done three separate styles, but, honestly, like, I went out of town for the week, I didn't know place sold and I was like, well, I'm not gonna post this now, yeah, but I, I saw what I did not post was my original style, so I didn't have, I didn't, I didn't have the base okay, tested again the wave yeah.
Speaker 2:So the first one was um, a video where I say, um, I say right behind me is the best two-bedroom condo in waker park, that's not even on the market yet, or something like that. And then every clip was, um, me talking directly to the camera about the place with some b-roll over it and like that took a little bit more time to film, took a little bit more time to like think about how I wanted to frame the shots, um, and I want to see like, will that make a difference? That video I got no clients from. Okay, um, but it did all right, it does like matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the video did okay, like 10 000 views, um, but I really thought like I'm, like I'm gonna get, like I literally said I'm to get three clients from this video. I know it. I thought it was going to crush. I was like this video looks amazing, but it had a lower view rate than my typical videos. It had lower views in total, fewer comments and fewer shares. So I was wrong. But then I posted the same video with just just aesthetic shots like nice, slow moving b-roll, to highlight, like the nice parts of the unit, um, and again, it was a really cool unit any voiceover.
Speaker 2:Voiceover too, okay. Um, so the same voiceover, essentially just different shots. Yep, that video tanked, okay, tanked, had like 3 000 views. My videos get like 20 to 50 000 okay. So you know, like, if it's a 10 000 view video, I'm like that's a flop. 3 000 views, I was like no one watched it. Yeah, son of a bitch. Yeah, this is not it. Yeah, that is not better, that is worse. Because when you change something, you know the only thing that you're really guaranteeing is that it's gonna have a different result do you post those videos then on TikTok and YouTube?
Speaker 1:Do you do different? Because YouTube you really want to do a camera format you don't want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they have YouTube shorts. I do the shorts too, so I have been trying to get better at like repurposing the Instagram videos onto YouTube. Tiktok is totally different. The Instagram videos onto YouTube TikTok is totally different. Honestly, I've decided that I want to use TikTok more as like a realtor education platform, and I'll tell you why, and this probably is going to explain why you've never gotten a lead from TikTok, but had great conversations. There was a study done on household earnings per platform and the percentage of households that earn over $100,000 that are on TikTok is like 10%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can believe that, conversely, instagram is the second highest and it's like 50% or 60% of households that make over $100,000 are on Instagram daily. And then YouTube is the highest, at like 90%. So it makes sense that the lead quality from a platform like YouTube, though lower, would be really high on YouTube. Yeah, and it would make sense that people who are rental heavy like I know a couple of guys who are like apartment locators that just print leads on TikTok because TikTok is a very, you know, young demographic. Yeah, so, like that probably makes sense when you're posting these beautiful million dollar homes, I don't know the viewers can afford it. Yeah, like that's why they're not leads. Yeah, you know, um, but like on instagram, I could see it crushing because that's where the audience is.
Speaker 1:So I push all like on stories. When you can have links, I push everything to YouTube. So, like our YouTube.
Speaker 2:So do you guys have like long format for all of your properties?
Speaker 1:We do. We do so. Every property gets three reels. Okay, those are like the things that we're talking about. And then I do long format. So I'm doing that today for the first time. I always do that, and then the long format has so, so, like on MLS, like when I, when I do showings, nine out of 10 times someone walks in and goes oh, you're the guy in the video, so they've already walked, like they already walked everyone.
Speaker 1:Because, like, my first line is hey, go to the virtual tour button and there's a full walkthrough video. Oh, so I do duels. So drone hub does everything for me. That's everything. So everything's produced. Yeah, so, like, your video quality is exceptional, so everything's produced.
Speaker 1:So, like, and then erica upstairs, she's a, a video editor and she's our marketing person, so like, just popped up. And then I have I do series on Instagram, on YouTube. So one of my series is we're renovating. I'm renovating a hundred year old home. So one of the series is is a hundred year home to multimillion dollar house? And I go, I go every week and I just point out things that arise and shit that happens when you're rehabbing a house that's 100 years old and really cool stuff that no one would ever know. Yeah, and I just do every week. So I do, like six-month long series on YouTube and their stories.
Speaker 1:How big is your YouTube following? Close to 4,000. That's pretty healthy. Yeah, well, I want like that. So my whole goal in life is YouTube. No, but cause that I think like, like, like producing that brand. Yeah, it's like hey, man, here's a guy that can build a house from top to bottom. Yeah, so not only are you getting an agent, but you're getting someone that knows every single thing about a home. Very good point. So if you're buying a car, you're buying the car from the person that knows how to make the car. Yeah, so when I go in and I'm talking to like when I go, when people hire me, they know that they're getting someone. That's that, that's my, my niche, right?
Speaker 2:People have different niches.
Speaker 1:You know, some people may know every single wealthy person in Chicago. Those are those people, right, they're on boards, they do this, they do this. My niche is the house you're buying. I could fucking build that's a good niche, though, so I can tell you literally everything about your house. Yeah, and I'm an investor. So like, like, like you, right, not only do I sell homes, but I have my money in houses, and I know the trends, the demographics, rent rolls. I know how you can make money, like I have videos like where I'm like all right, I'm taking this house. My client gave me 30 grand.
Speaker 2:Watch me turn this 50, I'm sorry, this $500,000 condo, I'm going to go to floor decor with you. We're going to spend 30 grand. And then I turned around and I sold the condo for 650. Damn so like.
Speaker 1:I video.
Speaker 2:Put that on video all the time.
Speaker 1:That's bad-ass, so like I video everything. Yeah, this is how we tear down a house. These are the issues. This wall may fall on the street. How are we going to fix this?
Speaker 2:like, but people find me and then they rip through my youtube yeah and then they hire me yeah, that makes perfect sense, but I push everybody to youtube, so do you know how many people have come to you from youtube versus from instagram? Then, on youtube, do you? Do you have any way of tracking.
Speaker 1:I don't have any way of tracking it. I just know that when I start talking to people that I've never met they met me on social media I'll be like we'll be at a place. I'm like, oh, like, oh, no, no, I watched those videos. Yeah, I watched this. Or I watched this or I watched this. Like five things, like I'll do a youtube video or if you don't have these three things in your house, it's going to cost you 250 grand. What are those three things? You gotta have a heart of the home, switch back stairs. You got to have laundry upstairs. Like I'll go over. Like what's the difference between a million dollar home and a million two house? You know it could be as easy as these two things. Yeah, good point. Like, like, so, like just pitfalls. Hey, you know what side of Bucktown should you live in and what's the difference between Burr school and the difference in Pulaski school?
Speaker 2:What does that difference cost you? Oh, you, just, you gave me a good question, just now.
Speaker 1:So like my, I go into like, like I, but I love that. Like I find that so fat, like I find the, I find that fascinating. Like Burr has different earnings than Pulaski, bell has different earnings than Blaine.
Speaker 2:So have you ever been approached by other realtors threatening fair housing violations? No, I have. How About what? Just stupid shit. But the best part was it's only happened a couple of times. One of the times, though I'll never say this school is.
Speaker 1:I won't say you got to be very specific in your language no, no, I don't say this school is better than this school. I say what's the difference in property values being in here? So so, pulaski, that's the way to do it, though. Like, like diversity, think about diversity. Yeah, diversity here. Diversity in Damon yeah, the south Damon is Prescott.
Speaker 2:Okay, the.
Speaker 1:North side is Yon.
Speaker 2:Okay, the two same houses are 25 to 30% difference in price yeah, just off of school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can think what you want about why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these are the hard facts. So I don't have kids yet, but I'm getting to the point in my career now where I have clients that are like in that price point and I never weird for a realtor to say but I never realized how much school districts make an impact, because I hear people all the time say I need to be in this school district and to me I'm like they're all the same.
Speaker 1:No, I'm going to tell you when you get to like I'm 51. Yeah, my clients are. I have younger clients too. Thank God to Instagram has happened a lot of them and they're, they're refreshing young clients, like by the first house man. Oh, it's like you're starting again, right, um, as a realtor. It's great, but like when you get into mid thirties and forties, if you don't know CPS.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to learn you're going to have a hard time getting into that. Like 2 million, 3 million bracket, million and a half bracket to get luxury. And you got to know all the private schools. You got to know all of them because you need to know if someone says to you, hey, my kid goes to FXW, down in the loop, or they go to the British school, or they go here, we have a, or they go to, they go here, we have a British school.
Speaker 2:That's my point.
Speaker 1:You know, like so out of touch with it, but that, but you're going to. Oh, you go to FXW. You don't want to be over here because that commute is 40 minutes. Yeah, I could put you over here. There's a ton of community people. There's a ton of people that go to FXW, that live in Ukrainian village because they take Chicago straight to the school. Chicago and state is fourth through eighth grade. Okay, so like that is something like your that's that's.
Speaker 2:That's like specialized knowledge, though.
Speaker 1:So that's your next level to me, that's.
Speaker 2:that's going to be your next level up. It's got, it's going to have to be me and Katie. Plan on raising kids in the city Like that's long term.
Speaker 1:You'll need to know it then too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's one of those things that like, eventually I'm going to have to learn.
Speaker 1:I mean you live in the city, right? Yeah, so I have a very unique perspective because two of my kids went to private school. Okay, I pulled them out of private school and I'll leave my reasons to be on that, but I'll tell you off camera, okay, and then my kids, two of my kids, one of my kids from sixth grade, went straight to Pritzker but went to the options program, that's, the elevated program, the testing. Okay, the testing. This is your gambling kid.
Speaker 1:No no, my gambling kid went to Burley and then got into an advanced school at Bell, okay, and my youngest goes to Burley. So I have three kids that have been to five CPS schools, okay, and have been to private schools. So I know everything. What a unique perspective. And the testing perspective, yeah. And the testing perspective, yeah. And the fact that people are like I really like this school but I love this area and I'm like, well, you can go to that school and you can be in this area. There's a way to get there. You just have to know how to play the game. And if you understand, listen, cps, I have no problem with CPS. Ctu is a whole different discussion.
Speaker 1:That's what ctu, that's the union yeah um, if you know how to play the system and you know the computers and how to get online and do this and do this and do this, man, it's an unbelievable system. The problem is is a lot of people don't want to dedicate that time to their kids. I know that sounds terrible. There's not a lot of great parents and I'm not saying I'm a great parent. I'm just saying if you know how to dedicate your time and you're willing to dedicate your time to figuring out the CPS system and how to get your kids into certain schools, there's no better system available In the state and that is factual by by test scores, because the top five high schools in Illinois are city schools.
Speaker 2:So are you saying that you could live anywhere in Chicago and go to any school? It's got to know how to do it Bing.
Speaker 1:What's the secret? It's the it's. It's just getting on the CPS portal and knowing how to work the portal and how it's never even looked at the portal.
Speaker 2:It's a nightmare. It looks like they don't make it easy for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but once you figure it out, I figured out my older kid. I mean I never had a kid. I lived in Bucktown with all my kids. I've never had a kid go to a Bucktown school. I had my kids get into every single other school around the city Skinner, west Loop, skinner North, bell Burley.
Speaker 2:Blaine, so let me let me throw something at you, then, because I've had this conversation now so many times. This is a podcast in itself, okay, well, let's get, let's get the cliff notes on it. You could talk to me more about it offline. I have a number of people who are like I want to be in this, like this specific example has happened a lot of times. Yeah, I like this home in this area, but I need to be in this school district, okay all right.
Speaker 1:So you first off you need to find out the capacity of the school. Like, for instance, coonley right now is over capacitated, they're over. You cannot get into coonley, which is just north of Irving Park, good school, it's the school right above Bell. You can't get into Coonley right now. They have no vacancies. They literally eat lunch in the hallways.
Speaker 2:Even if you live in. If you live, you're fine.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're fine. But you used to be able to get, when my they eat in the hallways, they're got capacity. You used to be able to get as people tear down a single family home that's an R4 and build three units. You now have six kids where you only would have had two, and no one's moving. If you're in Cooley, if you're in Bell, if you're in Burley, these people don't move Lincoln and no one's moving. Yeah, you know, if you're in Cooley, if you're in Bell, if you're in Burley, these people don't move. Lincoln, these people don't move. They're like I don't need to move, I have a top grade school, right, I don't have to go to the Burbs, I'll do this, right. So you got to make sure the school you want has the ability to take people on.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if you're in a at capacity or even over capacity school district, you really can't move out of that district, yeah, and you can't get into it.
Speaker 1:You can't get into it from outside the district.
Speaker 2:So let's say the situation is switched and you want to get into a school that has capacity.
Speaker 1:You could just you just so, when you go on the CPS website, do you have your neighborhood school? So for me it was Pulaski, so that's McLean and Leavitt, right, and then underneath there you rank where you want to go. So then you rank all the schools. People just don't go in and rank the schools. That's literally all you have to do.
Speaker 2:So if you ranked another school, so, I ranked Burley.
Speaker 1:And your kid had space at Burley, and there was space at burley. And then, once one kid gets in, it's what about the buses? Though, there's no buses does chicago have?
Speaker 2:buses, no buses. I I honestly have no idea. No buses, no, that's a great question there's nobody there used to be.
Speaker 1:Okay, there are 500 million dollars in the hole the bus left. How do kids get to school? Then you have to take your kids. Yeah, but dude, I live in bucktown, it's not a far community. No, Where's the farthest you're going to go. You know what I mean. Listen.
Speaker 2:If your kid gets into Edison Gifted, which is the number one grammar school in Illinois, you drive your kid there, Fair enough, Because he's going to go to Peyton and then he's going to go to to Payton and he lived in I think they lived in like Logan Square area, but he took the train as a kid, yeah so now my son drives to Payton.
Speaker 1:I have a kid at Payton, but before he drove to Payton he took the Damon bus to Division.
Speaker 2:He took the.
Speaker 1:Division bus right to Payton. It's the city, these kids, they take the L. I grew up in the suburbs. Yeah, no, it's the city. These kids they take the l. I grew up in the suburbs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like yeah, it's really it's no. I'm saying, though, it's yeah, this is learning experience for me.
Speaker 1:So, like when I just resets expectations when I said my, when I drive my kid to bell yeah, which is next to lane, he's going to lane next year. He got into lane. When we pull up to lane there's like 7 000 kids that get off the buses. They're all lined up and they're coming from God knows where, yeah, from all walks of life. Man, it's really, really. It's an education in itself. Yeah, I bet it's great. It's the city. That's why these kids have a head on their shoulder. That's why these kids are like you know, that's why my kid crushes parlays. He grew up on the streets. He grew up on the streets. Man, he's throwing dice. That's what I'm. No, but like I mean the schools are huge, and like I don't talk about how good the schools are because that's what I don't want to get into, but I always will always say hey. I always say hey.
Speaker 1:Listen, this is I'm selling 2654 Greenview, two blocks from Prescott Prescott, one a blue ribbon school. It view, two blocks from Prescott Prescott, won a blue ribbon school. It's in Lincoln Park. It's a great little school, right off of the parks, right there, right off Ashland. It's a great school. I mean they, they, I'm not saying anything, they won. It's a blue ribbon school, audubon, blue ribbon school, all these Bell, blue ribbon school, burley, and they all have differences and they all. The crazy thing too is all these schools get different grants for the government for different things. Oh okay, so I say to somebody, somebody said to me what's the difference between? My sister, sophia doesn't have kids, so whenever she gets questions from her clients about schools she just called my brother, knows everything about schools. So then they call me up. They're like we can go here here, here here. I'm like, okay, well, this school is this. This school is this. This school is this, cause every school actually has a little bit something different about it. Like it at bird you got to take, you got to take Japanese or Japanese culture.
Speaker 1:Burr also does differentiation. Burr gets money from the government to differentiate people. So what that means is that's the old school, you're a little bit behind. You're in this group. You're right where you need to be. You're in this group A, you're way ahead. I'm going to take all these way ahead kids and put them there. They don't teach to the lowest common denominator, which some schools do right now, and that's why I pulled my kid out of those schools they teach to. They're all different and a lot of these schools have advanced programs within the school. So my kid went to Pritzker. He didn't go to the regular Pritzker school, he went to the advanced placement Pritzker school which, out of like 28 kids, 15 went to Peyton.
Speaker 1:Okay, these schools are like you're taking the elite of the elite minds and you put them together and you're like run, you're making me excited about school. I do. If now listen, I will tell you if academia and academics are just not your thing and you don't want this, you don't want this. That's when I see people more often and I think everybody, so don't generalize and don't yell at me suburb people. That's when I more see people move to the suburbs, people that just don't want to deal with that rat race it's so and they don't want to pay for education, Because once you go private it's a little bit, it's not a rat race.
Speaker 1:You're in there, yeah, and the private schools feed into certain private high schools. So you want to go to be even crazier, you want to go to Ignatius. I can tell you five grammar schools that you want to go, that feed into Ignatius. And let me tell you something those five schools get precedent over all the other schools, I don't care what anyone says, because they are in that Catholic community and they want to promote. Hey, I know that this school will do better because they promote that we send more people to Ignatius. And Ignatius is like all right, we're simpif, we're simpatico right, we're, we're, we're, we're some some piff.
Speaker 2:You know we're simpatico. That's interesting because I hear that so often from my friends who don't have kids yet that, like when they have kids, they're going to want to move to the suburbs for the schools.
Speaker 1:No, that's not. That's. That's a, that's a fallacy. It's just something easy to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's all it is. That's all.
Speaker 2:That's what I always felt, though, because like people say stuff because it's.
Speaker 1:It's the thing you say right, I'm gonna move the summers. No, I mean, it's not something we ever said no, but I'm just saying but that is a thing no 100 that people say and don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:There are people who are like I want more space and I can't buy a four million dollar house. It's like a hundred percent a hundred percent fair point.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're not gonna get.
Speaker 2:But I hear it. For the schools that's like the default line no, we want a yard.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something. I have a 17 year old, I have a 14 year old and I'm an eight year old. They're never going to be home. I always tell my clients. I always tell my clients. They're like we want a yard. I'm like no, does your husband want a yard, does your wife want a yard? Or does your partner want a yard? Because your kids, when they get to 11, will never be home. They're in basketball, they're in baseball, they're in art, they're in gymnastics, they're in taekwondo. You're going to be in a car the whole time. So you're not buying your kids don't need that yard. First off, you don't want your kids sitting in the yard by themselves. Fair point they're probably smoking weed.
Speaker 2:you don't want your kids sitting in the yard by themselves.
Speaker 1:Fair point, they're probably smoking weed. Yeah, I mean, it's like my kids, we, you know, we went to the park and they're like we don't want to play with I go. There's five kids over there. Go over there and tell me your name's, lee. Hi, I'm Lee. Within five minutes he's got five new friends Exactly Everybody's friends at seven or eight and nine. I know Right. And then listen all these people, because you're so tight and so together. Let me tell you something. They see these kids their whole life. They may not be in school with them because the school's all changed because of how it is in Chicago, but, man, it's really interesting to see kids that my kids played baseball with seven years ago or eight years ago at Hamlin Park, and they're all juniors and seniors now and they all still know each other and they all still talk. That's cool, though.
Speaker 1:It's in the suburbs.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen If you go to a different school suburbs. It's worlds away.
Speaker 1:It's not like that here. Yeah, it's so cool, man, it's so cool. Oh, this guy doesn't play baseball, my son baseball with. I'm like he's not playing ball anymore. Like no, no, he moved to lacrosse. He's like here and I'll pull up his Instagram Like he had a game here against the Paul. This, this, this. They're all you know. They all Snapchat each other.
Speaker 2:They're always you know wait, I have a question for you. I don't know how they got on this topic, but it's a cool topic. It is a cool topic, but um and we'll talk about this another follow you on social media, Almost all of them Does that make your kids feel cool or embarrassed.
Speaker 1:I don't know. They all think I'm a conspiracy theorist. What? Why? Because some of them see my podcast.
Speaker 1:No because some of them are on my personal page, my personal page. I start going a little bit off here and there, but they'll like it. I mean, everyone knows their families, they know I sell real estate this or this. Start going a little bit off in here and there, but uh, they'll like it. Like well, they'll, I mean, everyone knows, like their, their families, they know I sell real estate this or this, like um, when they get to my 14 year old's age, they start asking economic questions and I think they ask me questions. That's interesting more than they ask their. And then when they get to my oldest, 17, I have long discussions when they're over at the house.
Speaker 1:With the 17-year-old kids. Yeah, that's interesting. On politics, on economics, on law discussion a couple days ago on the tariffs and what's this mean for interest rates and what could this mean for this and this. But they're also paying kids.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. Wow, I didn't give them enough credit, I just assumed they were going to think you were like a celebrity or no.
Speaker 1:No, no more. More more about economics. Wow, you know that's amazing yeah, we, we discussed. I will tell you, the biggest discussion in my house are constantly our economics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jordan versus lebron it oh, big basketball house. Yeah, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1:Jordan versus LeBron and economics are honestly, 85% of what's said in my house, until the point where my wife's like you know, I just can't take it anymore. Yeah, fair enough, you know. And there are two like yesterday I had a screening match in the basement I was working out. My fortual came over and he had a couple of his travel basketball players there and I hear Will say my dad had the worst take today. He said he said birds, five best years are better than LeBron's five best years. I heard him say this. I literally it's like drop the weights, go upstairs.
Speaker 2:I literally set him straight.
Speaker 1:This. I literally it's like Drop the weights, go upstairs. I literally Set them straight. I went outside, they're in the basement, we're all together.
Speaker 1:And I said, first and foremost, I said you're 14. You were four at LeBron's prime. I said LeBron has not played defense in the last six years. I go, so you're four years away from LeBron prime. I said and you never watched Bird play? And I said and I did. I said so I have the distinct ability to watch Burns prime, jordan's prime, kobe's prime and LeBron is prime.
Speaker 1:I said so, when it comes to discussions, I'm the authority. I don't want back in and finish my lifting. That's so funny. Oh my God, those are the discussions. Wow, I like that, that's good. But economics more than anything, like housing, where it's going like they all, like discussions a couple of days ago, where the tariffs and housing costs and stuff like this and they're like you know, you know what do you think this? I'm like listen, whatever, whatever, whatever price increases you get from the tariffs you're going to get you're going to get, it's going to be offset by deflationary pricing. Yeah, I go. So it's going to be potato, potato, I said. And then you have massive drops in the 10 year and they all understand this.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good, so like you know there's a lot of realtors that don't understand this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm like, so I get that. So, like I do a lot of economics on my reels, not on my I'm sorry on my stories, Okay, because I'm not, I can't touch my reels, cause when you touch your reels and messes, so I do all stories but my stories are all economics.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to have to watch your stories. So my stories. Are you talking to your personal story or like your team?
Speaker 1:I am going to have to watch it. My team stories are all pretty much economics tariffs, rates, supply, demand, all that stuff, cause that's like I'm really passionate about that. So I that's my story stuff. So, like, like the guys that I'm friends with, or like my close friends, even people I really don't know, I will get calls all the time and ask me for my takes on certain things, like people that I have acquaintances with but know that my background is economics and they'll be hey, what about this, this and this like, what do you Like? When they were cutting rates and rates were going up, I got a phone call probably from like 15 different agents. Well, jason, what's your outlook?
Speaker 2:from other agents, always from other agents. That's a great I mean that's a great vote of confidence from them.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many people like follow economics Like I do. In our industry there's only a couple of us.
Speaker 2:I studied economics. I don't pay it any attention, honestly. The reason I don't pay it any attention, though, is because whatever happens will happen, and it doesn't change the fact that I still have to sell houses to pay my bills.
Speaker 1:But my clients always ask me. I don't get that many questions about economics, but I have a ton of finance clients.
Speaker 2:Actually, I have a fair amount of clients who are traders and they don't ask what you think. No, sometimes we'll talk about it. It'll come up in conversation if we just start talking about it, but as far as I could tell, it doesn't seem to sway their decision on whether or not they're going to transact. That's good. Let me preface this. It shouldn't be. If they're going to buy, they're going to buy. That's what I'm trying to get at.
Speaker 2:People move because they have a need to. There's some change in their life that's causing a change in housing, and that change in housing requirement will have nothing to do with mortgage rates or tariffs or anything. When the price of lumber tripledpled, people still had to use lumber, like you know. So it's like. I'll give you an example. We sent out a mailer like a month ago and, um, I, I'm gonna. I live in a sales household.
Speaker 2:Katie and I, 90 of our conversations are about sales. So, like, this is, this is all we talk about. So my, my partner has really nice. Yeah, I mean I, I learned sales because when I was working from home during COVID, she was on a daily role play and, um, I was just, we live in a one bedroom apartment. So I just, you know osmosis, just get a nice sound, non, non, non-stop objection handling and and back and forth and like all this stuff. So, anyways, this was even before I was in real estate, so like we just talk about sales. So anyways, uh, my business partner he's got a buyer looking for something very specific, so he just sends out a blanket mailer across lincoln park. Which two thousand dollars worth of mail we got. We're gonna get four listings out of it, which is crazy. We looked at each other like dude, we need to do more mailers. Print is not dead. Print is not dead.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get that. I got a lot of tattoos, that's my next tattoo. That should be your next tattoo. Print is not dead.
Speaker 2:Print is not dead. So I asked him. So the first person calls him and he goes over there and takes a look at the house and he comes back and he tells me he's like hey, look up this address, what do you think? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like my first question is it's? It's first.
Speaker 2:You got to figure out like anyone's motivation, like why, why did they call you? He's like I think because of the price. Like they didn't call you because of like I got no idea. Second person calls and I'm like, why they call he's? Like I think is the price? Like I've told you this before, it's never because of the price. Why do they call you? What is their motivation?
Speaker 2:So finally, the third person calls and, um, we finally figure out and it's just because like she's old and she wants to retire and downsize and rent an apartment in park ridge and like she wants to get out of the city. It's like that's a real motivation. That's a real motivation. It's not because of the price. She obviously wants a high price, but that's and this is how this is how I was able to like explain it the first time to him. On our initial letter we said the buyer's pre-approved up to $950,000. And the guy calls and he's like I want a million. It's like he called knowing our buyer was not approved for the amount of money that he wanted, but he still called and you're going to tell me the motivation is the price, knowing that our buyer cannot afford it.
Speaker 1:He wants a seller.
Speaker 2:So we got to figure out what is his motivation. Yeah, he wants to sell. This is the conversation me and Katie have all the time. Timeline and motivation. If you know someone's timeline and motivation, you can know how to talk to them and be an extremely valuable resource for them. Talk about whatever, but you're going to talk to someone who is going to be foreclosed on in a week differently than someone who is planning on having a baby three years from now and maybe then move to the suburbs or schools.
Speaker 1:They're two totally different conversations. It's so funny when you get a phone call, we're not. I always say this like I'll, I'll be talking to somebody, and it could be a client that I've been working with or this, or, like you say, like the first time you're trying to find out their motivation and well, we don't really need to sell or we don't really need to buy. And I said listen. I said I'm gonna tell you something about real estate. You can't be half pregnant, you just can't. You're either a seller or you're a buyer, because if you're not, everything's going to pass you by. Yeah, I would agree with that, everything's going to pass you by which is totally fine, you can sit back and get on.
Speaker 1:You know, I can set you up on a search. You can do some real estate porn and kind of look at it and have fun with it. I said, but when you're ready we have to be focused. Yeah, because if you're not in this market it's going to pass you by.
Speaker 2:You would agree, though, that there are people with low motivation, people who, if they got the right price, if they found the right place, they'd be a buyer. You know, like I, there are people like that.
Speaker 1:For me, the people that are waiting for the right price. When they get the price, they think they paid too much. I agree with you. And then it's like that's the Greek right, like your Greek uncle. That's like I'm looking for a deal, this, this, this. They're always looking for a deal yeah.
Speaker 1:And then when you get it to them, they're like, well, it's not a deal, yeah. And then when you get it to them, they're like, well, it's not a deal. And I'm like I got them from a million to nine and a quarter. You said you wanted a deal and nine and a quarter was a deal. Once you get it there, they're like you know, because it's because they're not really buyers yeah. And then if you get another 25 Like to them, to the people that's been my like in my experience from and this is coming from somebody that's been doing this a long time and you know I do 130 transactions a year. So like for me, if you're not motivated. I'm not trying to mean I just don't have the capacity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I completely agree.
Speaker 1:Because for me to spend for and I've done, we've had guests here. We talk about bad clients and and someone that's not moving is not a bad client. No, don't take it that way, but I'm gonna put them in the same bucket because those people are time sucks.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean. You talk to them differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their time sucks yeah, and it's like I. It's not that I don't want to help you, but I also have a business. I'm not trying to be mean. Right, we have bills to pay. We have schools to pay, for food to pay. Listen, I'm feeding five mouths. You know what that is right now.
Speaker 2:After the last four years it's expensive, but like it's.
Speaker 1:It's like I can't dedicate that time to you If you're not dedicated to my journey, to me. Right, we got to be on the same age, like the person that was the investor we talked about before I was coming here, and I told him that story. He's like we're not there yet. We're about a year away, and I said that's totally fine. I said I know you're in my head, I'm in your head, we know each other. We did a deal before I sold your house. You want to buy a multi-unit. I go, just let me know when you're really ready, because for me to sit here and first off, I don't want to annoy you. Yeah, right, you know I'm good at what I do. You'll reach out, yeah, and they totally will. Yeah, and if you don't, I have my confidence. Thing is this If you don't use me, that's your problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I want to ask you a question because you've been in the business a lot longer than I have and like I've got deep admiration for, like your business, you guys had a killer Q1.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was good yeah.
Speaker 2:Why social media? Like it seems like everything else is working so well, Like why have you decided to invest so much time and effort?
Speaker 1:We were supposed to go into this and we didn't, I think, and that was actually the. We've had a great conversation, which is what you really want to have in these things, but my initial thing to talk to you was, I think social media and the handheld in less than two years is going to be everything, and I think if you're not establishing your brand and who you are and your insights and what you can do, and getting it out not through your brokerage nothing against I love Jameson, I'm sure you love your brokerage but if you don't get it directly to the consumer, what you can do, I think in two years you're a dinosaur.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So have you divested resources away from other? Yes, so what have you divested away from? I?
Speaker 1:don't do as much print.
Speaker 2:Come on, after all of this, I'm going to get a tantoo.
Speaker 1:I still do it. I still do it every month. But like I was obnoxious, when I say obnoxious, give me an example, $150,000 a year on print Postcards or direct letters or everything Now I do, now we do maybe $75,000. So you cut it in half and now I'm 80,000 into social.
Speaker 2:Wow, like I'm full bore of putting it together 80,000 into social yes.
Speaker 1:I'm like Production management, everything I mean, that's serious operation. I mean listen, I mean because you're asking you's serious operation. I mean that's, I mean that's.
Speaker 2:I mean listen, I mean you know off. You know because you're asking you're talking about.
Speaker 1:You're talking about. You're talking about this quarter alone. Yeah, $250,000 of book business. That's huge. From just Instagram, that's freaking huge 250.
Speaker 2:That is, we haven't closed it all, we haven't closed it all yet, but there's 250.
Speaker 1:That's pending agreements, signed, buyers going out listing. It'll pretty much close in. That'll all close in the second quarter and now I'm working on. But how many listings do I get when I go to a person and say this video got a million 20 views?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually just added that into our listing presentation, a whole sheet. Oh dude, it's front and center on mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it gets us business Last year.
Speaker 2:I told you last year was a really brutal year for me. I did about $79,000 or $82,000 in commissions and this year, similarly, just not all closed, but over half closed like 70% closed and the rest will probably close in the next month or two. $125,000-ish, $100% from social media You're going to Forex from last year. Well, actually my goal this year is $30 million. I don't know if I'm going to hit $30 million, although I do have some whale clients.
Speaker 1:That's a big number for a single person, what $30 million? Yeah, yeah, it would be huge. That's a big number.
Speaker 2:That's great. Yeah, that's a big number. That would be a huge number it would. So my, my partner, our team is we're the number two team at eXp. We're going to do probably over a billion dollars in sales this year. Um, my partner is the largest, is the uh, like what would you call it Top top salesperson. I guess he has the most value. He does about $30 million a year. So if, if, I was able to achieve $30 million and, more specifically, my goal was I want $31 million clients Okay, that was my more specific goal I to grow business.
Speaker 1:you want to grow price point, not transactions. Well, yeah. So that was one of the that. Well, yeah, so that was one of those. That's, that's, that's like that. But people ask me, like when I do speaking engagements, like I'm doing one nationally next thursday, that's what I always say. People always ask me I'm like, I'm like, dude, do you want to do? Do you want to do 500 transactions at 300,000 or 100 transactions at a million or a million?
Speaker 2:two so when, when I said, like I started internalizing some principles, that was, that was principle number three, that's the most powerful, that's the most powerful lever on business you could. Either you could increase your prices, because there's only three ways to grow a business, right. You could increase your prices. You could increase, like, the average order value, which would be like for us raising our commission, which, like you, can only raise that so high. Or you could increase the amount of transactions you do, and I'm trying to do less transactions at a higher price point.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's like doing less of Chicago, yeah, and doing more business, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I got dude, oh my God, I remember like my first year in the business I would go anywhere. I was going out to Waukegan. I took a $40,000 listing in Rockford one time To be fair, it was for a client who I sold a building in Link Park for, so like it wasn't out of the blue. He was like, hey, I got this house in Rockford. He wasn't even from Chicago. How the fuck did you get a house in Rockford?
Speaker 1:Dude, I had a client that called me up like a new Instagram and they're like yeah, we want to be in North Berk or Northfield. I'm like I know those areas really well so we started looking there. I'm like you know, we really opened up to Naperville and I looked at them. Now I know my billable hours. My financial advisor told me like 10 years ago, that's awesome, find out your billable hours. And he goes and never do a task that's below your billable hour.
Speaker 2:That can be hired out oh, I'm gonna have to internalize that one too, it's another reason why our production doubled.
Speaker 1:Like there's certain times like you, you, you figure it out, you're like, all right, I'm gonna outlay this money and all of a sudden you're like that, that one, right, there's huge. That's why there's assistants upstairs. Yeah, don't do work, that's it. That that's below your billable hour, so you refer them up. No, so I said to him I go listen, I could refer him because he was. He was a referral from a really good source. Okay, um that he got to my instagram and came to me because a lot of my clients wait. So someone referred him to your instagram. Yes, a lot of my clients send my instagram page like if they're.
Speaker 2:Oh, my favorite is my mom sent me your Instagram. I get the moms, I get the moms all the time.
Speaker 1:So it came that way and I said, okay, you want to go to Naperville? I said I will only show Naperville Saturdays and Sundays between the hours of nine and 1030. That's it, fair enough. I said if you want someone else, because the hour to come and go, the amount of other stuff that I could be doing, it just doesn't offset the commission from a million-dollar home. It doesn't no.
Speaker 2:So what ended up happening? Or is it still in process? They?
Speaker 1:did Northbrook, okay, but I went to Naperville twice On Saturdays. Saturdays, I look at the photos If they're empty. It's eight, 30 in the morning. I'm in my car at like seven, 20.
Speaker 2:I'm home at 10 and then I'm done so about a year ago, when I was like started to, we have to wrap up on this one. Okay, I'll just say this no, no, no, please go. About a year ago. Initially I was like I'm gonna do youtube, but then I pivoted to instagram. But that's a whole different story and you know the amount of search volume. Going to naperville was like 5x going to linkin park yeah. So I was like I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do naperville was like 5x. Going to Lincoln Park yeah. So I was like I'm going to do Naperville. And then I fucking drove out to Naperville one time, did a video and I was like I'm never going to do that again. It's far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to boarding school out there, but it used to be like 35 minutes to get there, yeah, and now it's like an hour minutes to get there, yeah, and now it's like an hour.
Speaker 2:To be fair, though, if I was an agent, if you're an agent in the Western suburbs, like go all in on social media, cause a lot of search volume out there, yeah, and I don't think anyone does that. No, there are a few like do you know Brandon Blankenship? If not, you need Brandon. You need to be on this podcast. Guy's a monster on social media.
Speaker 1:I'll send him to you after this.
Speaker 2:Okay, he has the Instagram page Moving to Chicago Suburbs 90,000 followers. He's like one of the top Keller Williams agents. He's like my age Solo agent Probably going to sell about 100 homes this year Like serious, serious, I mean it just Brandon is excellent. You should have him on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will. I'll reach out to him for sure. Yeah, all right. Any closing remarks I just like, as a wrap up, back against the wall, started during COVID tapped out your savings, put a business plan together, put tasks together, actually went ahead and took action on those tasks and you're going to 4X hopefully more in one year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, but I want to just clarify, I'm not special in any particular way.
Speaker 1:No, but you found a niche.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say though and your message is getting out. Yeah, but more specifically, I would say, though, and your message is getting out yeah, but more specifically I would say that what do you think causes most agents to not find success? What do you think causes most agents not the agents who never get a transaction, but the agents that are like the one to two transactions a year what do you think keeps them at that? They're in the wrong business, okay let's.
Speaker 1:I mean no, no, they don't. You could slice us in half and there's the same dna in us. Yeah, and I'm not just saying that because we're both greek I, I think they, they don't have some tzatziki right there?
Speaker 1:yeah, I can tell you, because I I've had big groups. Our group has gone to 10 sometimes. Now we're only three. I people don't want to put in the work. Number one, the big, actually that's not number one. The number one thing on why people are successful or not successful in in a business, where you are in control, no one is accountable to themselves. No one says I'm the reason why I succeed and I'm the reason why I fail. And to me that is number one. And if you, when you have kids, hold them accountable, if your child can be held, if your child holds themselves accountable, I tell you now, may God strike me down they'll be successful. Because no one preaches accountability. Yeah, in any facet, no one preaches accountability. And once you're accountable, everything else falls into place. But no, but you have to be so accountable in real estate.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because there's no one telling you what to do.
Speaker 2:I noticed that you have an office that has people in it. We also have an office that has people in it because we like, preach that as like if you're going to be on. We just went through a round of cleansing on our team and we've got a woman on our team who drives in from Naperville. Our office is in Lincoln Park and she drives in from Naperville. Our office is in Lincoln Park and she drives in from Naperville four days a week because she has to, otherwise she's never going to get her first transaction. But this is someone brand new in the industry. She cold calls. She comes from Naperville to Lincoln Park to cold call Naperville Because when she's in there she's focused. She's been in the industry now for three-ish months. Maybe, I don't know she's focused. She's been in the industry now for three-ish months. Maybe, I don't know, she's about to get her first listing. I think it's like a $1.1 million listing or something. She'll be successful. She's going to be successful, that's it.
Speaker 1:But it's because she started coming in and asking the people around her to hold her accountable, because it's really hard to hold yourself accountable. We have a new team member and she did $8 million last year and I said, if you come into the office and you hold yourself accountable and you just when I say, do this, do this, do this, and you do it, I said you will do 20 million. Yeah, I said if you're. I said you just have to hold yourself accountable and whatever you say you're going to do, god damn it, do it. That's it. Everybody has these dreams.
Speaker 1:Do it and the dreams have to be realistic. They have to be. You want to have these dreams out there. But the way to get to those dreams, those tasks because people always mess up tasks and goals those tasks have to be realistic and then those goals will be attained. But everybody can do it. I just finished. I'm a big books on tape guy. Would not take but now audible.
Speaker 1:That dates me and I just finished, relentless by Tim Grover. Okay, and that's Colby's trainer, Michael Jordan's trainer, and I just find I find successful people fascinating, but I'm listening to this thing and I'll leave you on this, and he says no one is born. No successful people fascinating. But I'm listening to this thing and I'll leave you on this, and he says no one is born and doesn't think that they can do something. Other words, whatever you haven't tried, how do you know you can't do it? The reason people think that they can't do something is because somebody that doesn't know them says you can't.
Speaker 1:That's interesting and they don't know you, yeah, so this outside bullshit is what's constricting you. He's like colby and jordan didn't give two shits about what anyone thought, because it had no bearing on what they could achieve do you want to know something? It's the fucking best thing I've ever heard. So I tell that to my kids all the time katie, katie will, will second this.
Speaker 2:But, um, one thing about me is I never ask anybody's opinion and I get mad when people ask me about my opinion. Like I don't get mad, but like I say, say what do you think you know? Because, like I, genuinely not that I don't care, but I can posit that it's probably different than my opinion and I don't need.
Speaker 1:I don't need a different opinion, my dad told me when I was like eight years old, my I was raised on isms. Okay, let's see, I love isms. I love isms. My dad told me when I was about eight that's about as far back as I can remember when they started just telling me things. My mom, my dad, was like people ask for opinions from people that they know will tell them what they want to hear. Oh, for sure, for sure. So they'll search out, like, if someone that doesn't want to work wants an opinion, they don't ask me, yeah, because they don't want to hear what I have to say. That's what I'm saying. I'm agreeing with you. Yeah, I know, that's how my dad said that, dude of the same cloth.
Speaker 1:Yep, my dad said that, my dad said that. And then my dad said and my other thing, my pillar, is live your life that when you die, if someone says something bad about you at your funeral, no one believes it.
Speaker 2:I like that. That was the number one thing. I've never heard that one before, but I like that yeah, number one thing.
Speaker 1:No one will believe it. Just live your life like that, that no one believes anything negative about you. I like that one a lot. Yeah, it was good. Those are the two ones, and then my dad. Always. You know opinions like assholes, everyone has them, they all stink.
Speaker 2:That's an old, that's an oldie, goodie yeah.
Speaker 1:But the. But the funeral one I I really liked, you know, and the one from Grover was really interesting. And then I was going, friend of mine sent me a plaque that you put on your desk. And the plaque said what would you accomplish? Well, no, it's still on my desk. What would you try to accomplish if you knew you would never fail? I like that and that's kind of that Grover thing. The outside yeah, don't listen to the outside. And everybody knows what they need to do to be successful. Yeah, don't want to do it. Everybody knows there's no secret sauce. I could not agree more. They just don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a phrase that you've probably heard before. But anyone telling you there's a secret just wants to sell you something. Yeah, yeah, but it's true, it's true.
Speaker 1:All right, we tapped a lot of cock. Longest one, it was good. That was an hour and 30. Dude, I told you it was going to be a long one. It was good. I'm glad you blocked off three hours. Yeah, thanks so much for spending time with us. Tony, give us your details and if you want to follow Tony on IG, I love his account. It is funny, but it's also good. It's kind of mesmerizing.
Speaker 2:I watch. You can follow me on Instagram it's at Tony Angelos, and if you're ever in Lincoln Park and want to grab a cup of coffee, just shoot me a DM and thanks for watching. If you're still here, yep.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much. We'll see you. Hopefully we'll have some decent weather soon. This drops in a couple weeks, so let's see this will be end of April, so it'll probably still be snowing. Be good, make sure you follow us. Check out our YouTube at Clopas Stratton, our IG, clopas Stratton, and, and be good and thanks for spending time with us.