Technology reshaped many industries in the last few decades, but how will the real estate industry look after the next big technological shift? Who’s at risk of losing their jobs? Will real estate remain a people-based business? How can we use the new tools to our advantage? In this episode, Gene Volpe talks about augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and how real estate agents can use them to grow their business instead of fearing them.

There is always going to be the need for that hand-to-hand combat and human connection. - Gene Volpe

Three Things We Learned

How augmented reality will change the real estate industry

Putting furniture in a home using your smartphone to see what it looks like and flyers that come with QR codes are just a couple of the perks of augmented reality. This technology will make it easier for agents to help their buyers figure out if the home they’re seeing is a good fit for them.

Technology won’t remove the need for face-to-face interactions

Home buyers won’t put their biggest purchase in the hands of an agent they’ve never seen. They might come to you because of technology, but you will still have to meet with them in person for them to see if you’re trustworthy and a good fit.

How to use beacons in real estate

Beacons are small devices that use bluetooth technology. You can use them to trigger an outcome, such as an automated message via bluetooth to someone who passes by a home that is on the market for sale, letting them know they can click to see the virtual tour.

Technology is just a tool that can make our lives easier and cut out some of the mundane tasks that take hours from our days, but it will never replace the human connection needed for both selling and buying a home. Real estate is a people business, and no buyer would put their trust in a bot to help them make the biggest purchase of their lifetime. They still want to meet with an agent and find out for themselves if the agent is trustworthy and capable of helping them out.

Guest Bio

Gene Volpe is the founder of GVI Media and has over 10 years of experience in real estate marketing. With over 200 transactions under his belt, Gene is known as an authority in his field and is often invited to speak at events. You can find more about Gene at http://www.genevolpe.com/about-gene/#.

Building relationships with your database is a far more pleasant experience for both sides than cold calling, sending emails, or trying to use any of the traditional marketing methods. But how can we genuinely touch lives and build relationships? Why isn’t social media alone enough to make this happen? And why is sending out cards such a powerful way to make people remember you? In this episode, Kody Bateman, the CEO of Send out Cards, speaks about relationship marketing and how you can transform the way you succeed through relationships.

If you act on your promptings, they will guide you on where you are supposed to go with your life. -Kody Bateman

Three Things We Learned

Social media diluted the meaning of personal messages

Most people are inundated with marketing on social media. Your audience is probably too, and they expect certain messages from the people they do business with as well. But this only dilutes the message because it’s well known those messages are impersonal and sent with a specific goal in mind: to sell.

Send-out cards work because they are tangible

After the appearance of social media, there was a huge shift. Many marketers thought they can use social media alone to keep in touch with their database. But they soon found out that social media is not enough, that people need something tangible to bond with. What social media has done is create more noise.

You can touch people’s lives

A drip campaign or a quarterly call doesn’t touch people on the same level as send-out cards do. You can put a smile on somebody’s face and make them feel appreciated when they need it the most just by making a small gesture like sending out a card.

Social media and send-out cards can work together. For example, you will need social media to find out when important events happen in your audience’s lives in order to connect with them. You can also take photos from their social media accounts to print out your cards, especially if you write a card to congratulate them on a specific life event. This type of marketing not only allows you to contact people in a way that other agents don’t, but it also helps relationships. It’s a more pleasant process for both sides than cold calls or drip campaigns.

Guest Bio

Kody Bateman is the founder and CEO of Send out Cards, an internationally recognized public speaker, and marketing and personal development specialist. He is a leading figure in relationship marketing and the author of The Power of Human Connection, a book that will be launched in August this year, but if you pre-order it now, you qualify for a free download of the digital version. You can find out more about him, his other books, and events at https://kodybateman.com/about/.

Technology has already changed the way real estate is done. But how will the rise of augmented reality impact the industry? What are the current developments, and what can be done in the present with augmented reality? What are the predictions for the future? In this episode, we talk about how you can use augmented reality on your smartphone and what other possible uses may be coming in the future.

If you can make people excited about their future reality taking place in the property they are looking at, they will become bonded to that potential opportunity. -Greg McDaniel

Three Things We Learned

Applications that add furniture in a home

Potential buyers and tenants can now see how their furniture will fit in the new place by using augmented reality. There are applications where you can see the furniture selected on your smartphone right in the new property.

The future of augmented reality

In the future, you may be able to use augmented reality to show potential scenarios in a home that isn’t just limited to furniture and home decor. As a result, buyers will be more likely to consider the property if they can already visualize it’s potential.

How to position yourself as an agent

In any given transaction, 1% to 3% of any given price is in play. That goes to whatever side has the best negotiating skills. Instead of presenting yourself as just an agent, present yourself as the one who can bring the best negotiating skills to the table.

Augmented reality has already started impacting the way we do real estate. There are apps that you can use on your smartphone that show possible buyers or tenants how their belongings will fit and look in a new place. Buyers who are open to the use of this type of technology will be more likely to buy because, without knowing it, they already formed a bond with the property by visualizing their belongings inside the property.

The resistance of leads over the phone is getting stronger and stronger while many agents give hundreds of calls per week. What causes this resistance? What are the limitations of scripts and mirroring? Why is it important to roleplay? And what’s the secret to making leads feel understood and not sold to? In this episode, Dale Archdekin speaks about how you can convert leads to active buyers with ease, while Gene Volpe shares his latest tech discovery.

This interaction is not about you, it’s about the person you are talking to. Who are they? How does their world work? What’s important to them? -Dale Archdekin

Three Things We Learned

Don’t use your sales pitch unless the prospect shows interest

Many agents jump right to the sales pitch when leads aren’t even ready to hear their value proposition. You need to put aside your desire to get the listing second and ask questions that will reveal what their key motivators are, and find out whether they are a good fit for you or not.

You can’t always use a script

You can’t repeat the same script over and over again. First, you need to find out what their pain points are and what they plan to do about it. Scripts can be helpful, but you need to adapt them to each prospect. Otherwise, what you’re saying won’t make sense for a large percentage of your leads.

Start a roleplay group

Practising should always be one of your priorities. You can’t get better at handling objections and dealing with unexpected turns in the conversation by memorizing scripts alone.

Many agents have a hard time listening to the their prospects during a phone call. They go through a set of questions prepared beforehand, so they aren’t actually interacting with anyone. They just tick a few boxes and deliver the sales pitch. The secret is to actually focus on the person. Forget that you even need the listing, and ask them questions that will make then open up instead of getting defensive. Don’t focus on the listing unless they show interest in working with you.

Guest Bio

Dale Archdekin is the CEO of Smart Inside Sales, an inside sales training and coaching company focused on real estate, and the former director of lead generation and realtor at PhillyLiving.com

You can find free advice on how to train your ISA’s and get better at selling over the phone at http://www.smartinsidesales.com/blog/

To access Dale’s free giveaway, 7 roleplay group sessions conducted with one of his coaches go to http://www.smartinsidesales.com/training/7-roleplay/

Big companies replicate the same well-oiled machine. They hire people and attract clients based on it. But how do you build the same systems for a real estate business? What are the best ways to attract clients without going through hundreds of calls per week? Are marketing skills applicable to any industry, and how it can be applied to yours? In this episode, Glenn Twiddle speaks how he built his own real estate machine, how he attracts clients, and how he finds talent.

Really good marketing makes sales people unnecessary. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Give now to receive later

Giving your advice, content or trainings for free builds a relationship with your prospects. Now they owe you something for helping them out, which taps into the law of reciprocity. The moment they have the opportunity to pay you back for your help, they’ll do it. You can’t attract the same amount of people with a free service as you would with a paid one. The first may pay off later, but the earnings are definitely bigger.

Build a system that takes care of every aspect of your business.

You need a system that leaves nothing to guessing; otherwise, you will be constantly disorganized, putting the wrong people in the wrong positions, and have a hard time teaching what you do to new workers. A system that takes care of every aspect of your business will save you time spent every day trying to figure it out what to do and what to delegate, and it’s going to make things easier for you to train new people.

A skilled marketer can thrive in any industry

Once you become a skilled marketer who can put systems that target the right people in place and fix their pains, you can work in any industry within your skill set.

The DISC profile enables you to figure out who is better at what. If you get to do something that you aren’t good at, you can send it over to someone who enjoys it and is qualified to do it better than you. There are very few jobs in a real estate system that everyone should do or can do at the same level. But if you have an idea of the personality types in your team and their motivations, it’s easier to figure out in what spots they will thrive.

Leads might be easy to get, but they’re harder to convert due to the fact that in the online environment everyone is bombarded with ads. What can you do to sound less salesy and stand out among other ads? How can you humanize your interactions, and what role does video marketing play in it? Why is the cost per click no longer relevant in the big picture? In this episode, James Rembert talks about how you can lethal with Facebook lead gen.

My conversation digitally has to be as if I were in front of a person. -James Rembert

Three Things We Learned

Humanize your interactions

If it sounds salesy to you, it probably sounds salesy to someone else as well. Because people in general are bombarded with so many ads and promotional content, they develop a filter and get better at telling when someone is simply trying to push a sale.

Video content can reveal who your audience is

Know who your audience is and write to them. Be authentic but speak their language. If you use video, your audience will let you know who they are, as they will be the ones who comment, share, and engage with you.

Don’t look at the cost per click

Agents should stop looking at the cost per click and start calculating the cost per conversation. Both buyers and sellers are more likely to work with the agent they last spoke with. Putting up landing pages and grabbing emails is not enough if you fail to start a conversation with them.

Facebook makes it very easy for anyone to get leads. It’s a sophisticated platform where you can be quite specific about what type of person should see you ad. However, there’s a catch: Facebook leads are often useless. Because everyone is bombarded with advertising, they develop a defense mechanism against salesy language. As a consequence you have to go a step further and get in contact with your leads, build a relationship with them, and interact with your them as you would speak to someone face-to-face. Cost per click is no longer relevant when clicks by themselves are quite far away from conversions. What becomes a better metric for agents is the cost per conversation.

Guest Bio

James Rembert is the Zillow Killer. Using Facebook, he provides marketing solutions to real estate agents who want to get high-quality leads without investing large amounts of money in platforms like Zillow. You can find out more about James and his work at http://www.jamesrembert.com/

Discount agents are a challenge since many sellers are looking to save as much money as possible, but in the end both sides lose. How can you make an offer that is even more compelling than the one of a discount agent? How can you give your prospects the option to pay only for the things they need? And most importantly, what can you do to stand out during the listing presentation? On this episode, Derrick Evens speaks about how to win listings over discount brokers and withstand market shifts.

In reality, it’s never the price that’s the issue with the consumer—it’s the value that we bring, or the perceived value. -Greg McDaniel

Three Things We Learned

How to put together a compelling offer

The reason why discount agents are so successful is because they have a better offer. A good offer has to have something of value and be easy to understand. If you don’t want to lower your commission, you have to explain what can be done with a certain amount of money and what can’t. For example, if the agent gets a smaller commission, there won’t be much money spent on advertising. In order to sell the house, the homeowner will have to lower the price to get some buyers.

Why people think your services are overpriced

Business is simple: people pay for something of value, and if they don’t wanna pay, they don’t find it valuable. Many prospects don’t find certain things you do to sell the house valuable. To get the listing, you have to offer packages tailored to the individual. When people see they have the option to choose from a basic and premium package, they are more likely to buy because they only pay for the things they find valuable.

Focus on their needs by writing everything down

Your listing presentation shouldn’t last longer than 30 seconds. Let the prospects do the talking. One of the most common complaints is that the agent isn’t a good listener. Grab a piece of paper and make them write down what’s important to them and ask them what they want to achieve at the end of the transaction. Then sign it, while promising you will do everything in your power to help them accomplish their goals.

When we try to sell our services, we usually tell the potential client what we do and what we charge for. But what happens when the potential client doesn’t find some of the things on your list valuable? Most likely, you will make someone feel like they are overpaying for services they don’t even need. This is why you should offer a few different packages to target different needs without making them feel like they are overpaying for a service they don’t need anyway.

Guest Bio

Derrick Evens has over 17 years of experience in radio and 14 years of experience in real estate. He is the host of List it Live, Digs and the owner of Smarter San Diego Productions. You can connect and find more about Derrick at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrcredit/

Agents often hate the idea of using AI in their sales processes, but real estate will always remain a people-to-people business. Artificial intelligence just takes some of the time-consuming tasks off your plate. But how can you use AI without making a compromise in customer experience, and when is it the right time to do so? What kind of interactions can be taken care of by a bot? Could bots save agents time and money, and how? In this episode, Tod Holland talks about how you can both generate and weed the good leads from the bad ones by using AI and bots.

There is a way to organically promote your business without coming off as a real estate robot. -Tod Holland

Three Things We Learned

How to use AI without making a compromise in customer experience

The secret is to keep the human element but automate everything that can be automated without making a compromise in consumer experience. You have to know at which point in the interactions you should put AI aside and bring in the person.

How agents should use AI to save time and weed out the bad

Bots should be programmed with consideration for your potential client. You don’t have to outright specify that your bot is a bot and not a human, but you have to build in a series of interactions that make sense and save time for the agent. Before the leads even get to the real estate agent, there are some questions that should be asked in order to weed out the the bad.

How you can use AI to narrow your focus and save time

Using AI helps you narrow your focus. You hand off everything that can be done by robots to the robots, and the relationship building, the processes that involves human interaction, will remain your job. Bots can help you save time by eliminating some of the time-consuming, mindless tasks.

Facebook is one of the best platforms for pushing content because everyone is on it. There is no other platform that has both the people and the tools needed to segment and test what kind of content works and what doesn’t. Also, Facebook rewards high engagement rates by making you even more visible the next time you post on their website.

Guest Bio

Tod Holland started his real estate journey when he was 18. In the present, his company was recently sold, but he is still active as a consultant on the board and he helps real estate agents and loan officers integrate AI into their sales processes.

Agents face many obstacles in the process, from having their emails ignored to dealing with buyers who can’t make a decision. But what can you do when your clients don't reply to text or email? Should you give them a call? How do you deal with buyers who can’t make up their mind or want to see all the listings in the area? In this episode, we speak about buyers, means of communication, and Gene shares one of his latest tech discoveries.

The more you clarify your thinking, the more you can communicate thoughts in fewer words. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

What you can do when buyers want to see all the houses in the area

As a real estate agent, you don’t have the time to show your buyers all the houses in the area. Plus, they probably already have their dream home in mind.

Ask them what boxes their perfect home should tick, and then you can go further and propose to see only the houses that fit those criteria instead of seeing homes they won’t like anyway.

Always make sure to follow-up via the phone

Emails and texts are often ignored, but few clients of yours will not pick the phone when they get a call. On top of this, a conversation over the phone is more humane, and it’s easier to be more persuasive and transmit more emotion during a phone call.

Shorter calls

Agents often end up spending too much time on the phone without saying much. Writing can help you clarify your thinking and help you become more brief in your communication without sacrificing any information. Shorter calls will give you more free time, and your clients will be happy with it as well.

The best way to save time when dealing with buyers that have second thoughts on homes is to create a checklist. When a property doesn’t meet their expectations, or it’s impossible to modify it to meet their expectations, it all gets written down on the checklist and the piece of paper will be thrown away.  In many cases, buyers have second thoughts even about homes that don’t meet their expectations, which only slows down the process. But if you destroy the sheet with houses that don’t fit the criteria, you remove the home from their minds as well.

Guest Bio

Gene Volpe is the founder of GVI Media and has over 10 years of experience in real estate marketing. With over 200 transactions under his belt, Gene is known as an authority in his field and is often invited to speak at events. You can find more about Gene at http://www.genevolpe.com/about-gene/#.

Being informed about what makes a business successful, how large your database should be, and how to sharpen your selling skills is the difference between the agent in survival mode and the one who’s thriving. What’s the best way to connect with online leads, phone or video? Do referrals and repeat business signal how healthy your business is? And how important is empathy in real estate? On this episode, we talk about tips from sales books and phone consultations, and we reply to some of your questions.

Every business that is healthy will generate referrals and repeat business. - Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

The ideal size of your database

The size of your database is determined by the type of agent you want to be. For example, if you want to be a referral agent, 1000 people is enough. But a prospecting agent needs a lot more because their conversion rate will be smaller.

Have empathy towards your clients’ lack of knowledge

People often make bad decisions because in the moment their current knowledge seems like a good idea. Not everyone has the time or the resources to research the market and think like a real estate agent. And as an agent, you shouldn’t look down on the decisions of your clients. Instead, you should treat them with empathy and serve as a reliable resource for them.

Use video to get in contact with your leads

Do your best to convince your leads to have a video call with you. If they feel uncomfortable about that, you can send them a video message. Whatever it is, make sure you use video so they can attach a face to the voice. This way, it will be harder for them to forget about you.

Every good business, when healthy, will generate referrals and repeat business. If you don’t invest in client retention programs, the percentage of clients that come from referrals will be smaller, but you will still have some recommendations. This occurs because a good service or product will be appreciated anyway, especially if your competitors don’t deliver the same value or the same price. If you don’t have any recommendations or repeat clients, you should consider tweaking your business, because your clients aren’t satisfied.

Changing your daily habits and replacing the systems you already have in place to function can be very challenging. But what happens when what we are currently doing doesn’t serve our goals? What kind of goals and expectations should we set for ourselves to make sustainable changes both in business and in our personal lives? And what is the secret to making ourselves motivated enough to step outside of our comfort zone? In this episode, Monica Weakley shares how to reach massive success.

If we only get motivated when we go through pain, the motivation stops when we go above the pain threshold. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Stop making promises you won’t keep

We all know when our expectations and promises are unrealistic, especially when we are just starting to tweak our action plan. Don’t create schedules that only robots can keep. Treat yourself as you would your best friend. What are the things that you are willing to do that also happen to be beneficial? Don’t promise yourself that you will increase your revenue overnight when you know it’s not possible to do so at the moment.

Don’t try to change in one day what was built in a decades

Our work tactics, and our mindset is the result of decades of conditioning and habit.

We work the way we work because we have some unconscious system put in place, the smaller the changes, the smaller the resistance. But if you jump into making a huge change in your life, you will encounter a bigger resistance. Start slow to avoid change fatigue.

Your why isn’t big enough

Pain and discomfort pushes people towards action. But what happens when that comfort kicks in? In order to keep yourself motivated, you need to ask yourself about your end goal, and keep your eyes on the prize. When you don’t know your why, there is nothing to fight for, and nothing to keep you motivated along the way.

Our life is a collection of systems that produce certain results. These systems took years to create and refine, and when change appears, you will face resistance. You may get pumped after watching a motivational video or a book and want to change the whole system, but the truth is, you can’t change what you built in decades by Monday morning. There are a few people who can push themselves to make major changes in their system and sustain those changes, but those are the outliers.

Guest Bio

Monica Weakley is an experienced real estate agent with over 5 years in a position of leadership at Keller Williams Advisors and a coach at My coach, Monica. Her approach to real estate is focused on building relationships and creating repeat clients and referrals.

The way we see ourselves and the world around us either serves our purposes or prevents us from taking action and reaching our true potential. What are the things you do on a daily basis to keep your energy levels up and focus on the things that matter to both your business and personal life? Do you enjoy your victories? How does an abundance or scarcity mindset impact the probability of getting the listing? In this episode, Jeff Latham and Gene Volpe speak about how to level up your mindset to set yourself up for big wins.

It’s the last mountain, and the enjoyment of coming down from that mountain, that’s the fuel for the next one. -Matt Johnson

Plan ahead in the morning for the whole day

Every morning spend at 30 minutes meditating on what can make your business and day better. What is the one thing that needs to be accomplished for you to grow your business and have a better day? By doing so, you cut down your to-do list by eliminating the things that aren’t urgent, and this allows you to focus on what needs to be done right now.

Pause and enjoy your victories

No matter how big or small your victories are, they need to be celebrated. If you are just ticking a box on your checklist, you’ll never be motivated enough for your next goal. Why? Simply because attaining your previous one wasn’t all that fulfilling. Give yourself credit and take some time to feel good about yourself and your accomplishments.

Have an abundance mindset

Many agents fail to get the listing because they have a scarcity mindset. In the back of their heads, they are desperate for the listing and the commision that comes with it. As a result, they are too focused on themselves and what they want instead of being focused on the seller.

But if you are detached from the commission, you can truly help a seller because you are more focused on what they want and what they need, and by doing so, you increase your chances of getting the listing.

Practice selective ignorance daily. We all have negative thoughts, but what we choose to do with them is what becomes visible in our mood and results. Living in the past and dealing with insecurities daily not only slows us down and makes us unfocussed, but it also causes us to be unhappy no matter how much money we make.

Instead of focusing on the bad, why not pick a beautiful moment in our lives that we can always come back to? Think about a moment of pure joy and fulfillment that will give you enough energy and positive vibes for the entire day, instead of wrestling with negative thoughts.

Guest Bio

Jeff Latham is the founder of Latham Realty Unlimited, Latham Coaching Unlimited, and The Freedom Evolution. Jeff has an unique approach to real estate that makes him almost unbeatable in his area. He buys and repairs homes, and he promises to sell a property within 25 or his team will do all the work for free.

You can find free content on real estate and mindset created by Jeff at http://jefflathamrealestate.blogspot.com/

Gene Volpe is the founder of GVI Media and has over 10 years of experience in real estate marketing. With over 200 transactions under his belt, Gene is known as an authority in his field and is often invited to speak at events. You can find more about Gene at http://www.genevolpe.com/about-gene/#.

Many top agents make money but struggle with long work hours and have little time for themselves and their families. What can you do as an agent to save time without making a financial compromise? What’s the most valuable hire for a busy agent? And how can you make money just by networking with other agents? In this episode, Amy Broghamer shares how she achieved freedom without losing money.

The more value you add, the more valuable you become. -Amy Broghamer

Three Things We Learned

Build a network of skilled agents

Don’t be afraid to carve out a niche for yourself and work with only people who are a good fit for you. At the same time, you can make money even if someone isn’t a good fit. Network with highly skilled agents from different niches and send over clients who aren’t a good fit for you. This way, you still make some money without taking over more work.

The best first hire is a transaction coordinator

The best part about a transaction coordinator is not only that you can send them some of the things you don’t have time to do, but you also pay them a flat fee per each transaction. This will both save you money and time spent replying to emails and managing paperwork.

Build systems

Documenting everything and knowing the steps and how to speed up the process not only makes things easier for you and your staff. You just have to build the system once, and after you are done, you can just replicate it and save time on each transaction.

In your branding efforts, make sure you don’t use your picture too much. It’s safer to attach your name to the brand, but not your face. If you do use your face, all of your clients will have an expectation to work with you directly, which is not possible in most cases. This will also sabotage your efforts of recommending other agents and receiving a referral fee.

Guest Bio

Amy Broghamer is a team leader at Amy B in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a real estate coach at Amy B. Experience Success Speaking and Coaching. Her goal is to help agents build systems to increase their passive income via referrals and make money without sacrificing their time with family and friends.

Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.

The hiring process can be brutal. Often times, you’re flooded by resumes, and only a small percentage have both the soft and the hard skills you’re looking for in your ideal candidate. But how can you weed out the good from the bad? What should be your expectations when it comes to the hard skills of your next hire? Are top agents looking to join teams? And most of all, what’s the magical word that you can put into your ad that will scare the candidates that don’t understand what real estate is all about? In this episode, Wizehire founder, Jay Niblick shares the 3 things you should know before you make the hire.

Bringing someone on your team is like getting married. You are going to be around these people almost as much as you are going to be around your spouse. -Greg McDaniel.

Three Things We Learned

Put everyone on a probationary period

There are traits that can’t be measured by personality tests, and character is one of them. This is why it’s good to set an expectation from the beginning that new hires will go through a probationary period. You will spend a lot of hours every day near your hires, so why would you keep someone who doesn’t meet your standards?

Top agents don’t need teams to share their commission with

Many team leaders make the mistake of expecting agents that can jump into their business and crush it right out of the gate. But the truth is that teams are not mini brokerages. And a top agent doesn’t need the help of a team, so why would he or she split their commission with you? Instead, you need to search for talented and capable people and coach them into becoming top agents.

Mention “sales” in your ad

Many people become agents for the wrong reasons. Some like homes and interior design, and others enjoy the idea of doing open houses. But at the core, being a real estate agent is being a salesperson. For this reason, you should mention the word “sales” in your add. You might scare off the candidates who look for a comfortable job office and attract those who are comfortable working on a commission.

Bringing someone on your team is like getting married. You will spend a lot of time around them, probably as much as you spend with your family. The wrong people make you lose money and time, as you’ll have to search again to replace the bad hire. By using personality assessments and clearly stating in the ad that this is a sales position, you can weed out some of the bad hires. But in the end, what matters the most is that you use a probationary period. There are still variables that can’t be measured, and stating from the beginning that they will go through a probationary period makes your life easier.

Guest Bio

Jay Niblick is the founder of Wize Hire, a real estate recruiting software with a data-driven approach to the hiring process. You can take the personality test mentioned on this episode at https://wizehire.com/#disc-ebook-signup

Agents often have a hard time benefiting from new softwares and technology, even though most agents use at least a CRM. How can technology bring the “wow” factor and help you get the listing? What is the biggest money waster in real estate? How can you integrate every software you have and simplify your processes? In this episode, Chace Oldmixon, Gene Volpe, and Karri Flatla talk about technology, selling homes in neighborhoods with new constructions, and making your listing stand out.

Tech can help, but you actually need a system for how you want things done. - Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Drone photography brings the element of novelty to the table

Novelty is a powerful tool. Call your videographer to the listing presentation and whether you give us the listing or not, this drone footage will be yours. While drones are not a new technology, they’re still underused, and it’s often exciting for the homeowner to see how much you invest into the presentation of their home.

Technology can often be overwhelming

There are many CRM’s that do the same things but are marketed to different markets. Agents often end up paying more for software that overcomplicates things, or for technology that they never use because they don’t know how to use it. You don’t need a sophisticated software if it doesn’t make your life easier and isn’t integrated into your current systems.

Faulty lead systems are the biggest money wasters in real estate

One of the biggest time and money wasters in real estate is not nurturing the leads you’ve paid for. Building an online presence, funnels, and paying for advertising are useless if you don’t have the resources to follow-up on each lead within minutes.

Technology is supposed to make your life simpler and integrate perfectly into your systems. But in many cases, software makes an agent’s life more complicated because it requires a learning curve. Also, when you work with many types of software, things tend to get complicated because you need to transfer the data needs between them. Before you purchase any piece of software, make sure that you have an integration system or you work with someone who can help you pick the software you need and know how to use.

Guest Bio

Chace Oldmixon is the founder of Chace Oldmixon consulting and the consumer evangelist at Real Sync. He has a background in sales and now helps brokerages and team leaders figure out how they can integrate technology into their systems and make their lives easier in the process.

Karri Flatla is an experienced realtor and team leader with a background in marketing. She worked as a copywriter and web marketing consultant. Today, she is the team leader at Karri Flatla & Associates in Lethbridge, Canada.

Gene Volpe is the founder of GVI Media and has over 10 years of experience in real estate marketing. With over 200 transactions under his belt, Gene is known as an authority in his field and is often invited to speak at events. You can find more about Gene at http://www.genevolpe.com/about-gene/#.

Agents are often times confused about the many options they have when it comes to growing their new business. Should you partner up with a mortgage loan office, and how can they help you get more leads? Is cold calling still a viable option? What’s the best way to contact someone and ask for information from them? In this episode, Robert Wilson Ring shares how you can grow a new business and talks about what a mortgage loan office can do for you.

An add won’t hold much power in the future unless it’s strategically done. -Greg McDaniel

Three Things We Learned

What you should expect from a mortgage loan officer

As a real estate agent, you need to find a mortgage loan officer that does more than just help your buyers find a mortgage so you can close the sale. This could translate to helping you with your advertising efforts or working your sphere. But you also have to keep in mind that a mortgage loan officer earns only one-third from the commission you make, so it’s not realistic to ask from them for 50% of the advertising expenses.

Cold calling is no longer as effective as it used to be

Both buyers and sellers are flooded by sales calls. As a consequence, they grow immune to it. New cold calling involves going through a list of people you already know and are in contact with.

The best way to attract someone's attention is to show them how you can bring value

If you call someone and lay the process out on how you can help them convert more or what your lead generation system is, you will receive some call backs. But if you don’t go in-depth with how you can help, you won’t be able to stand out.

Both for real estate agents and for mortgage loan officers, there is a shift towards the direction of branding, building relationships, and trust. Because both buyers and sellers are bombarded with calls and emails, the marketing message gets diluted. As a result, the best way to grow your business and get a competitive advantage is to nurture the people who already trust you and keep in touch with them on a personal level. This can be done via send-out cards with their photo and a personal message or email.

Guest Bio

Robert Wilson Ring is a branch manager and a mortgage advisor at People Home Equity, Inc.

He is also the founder of Robert Ring Team and part of a humanitarian program that helps orphans in Africa. His specialty is helping first home buyers and sellers get the best interest rates and mortgage packages.

Productivity in a fast-paced world is a struggle, especially when there always new things appearing on our plates. But what does it mean to be productive as a real estate agent? How can you shake off the feeling of not being productive enough? And how do you fix the lack of drive? In this episode, we speak about how to become more productive by narrowing your focus.

What’s the one thing I can do that makes everything easier or unnecessary? -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

How to shake off the guilt of not feeling productive enough

Sometimes we may appear to be productive to the outside world, but if we don’t do the things we think we should to, we still feel lazy and unproductive. Sometimes we avoid doing hard and uncomfortable tasks, but it could also be that we might set unrealistic expectations for ourselves.

You can have fun and work at the same time

Social media platforms are often labeled as time wasters. But if you’re spending time on Facebook, you could also contact people. Post useful content and stay in touch with previous clients and prospects. Many people are willing to work with a real estate agent but never do because some agents aren’t keeping in touch.

Ask yourself what lifestyle you want and what you are willing to sacrifice for it

We often fail to get started or lack motivation due to the fact that our why is not big enough. If we aren’t willing to make the sacrifices needed to reach our goals, then we might be running in the wrong race or seeking to accomplish something we may think we should rather than something that will make us happy.

The biggest reason why we get overwhelmed is because we don’t eliminate all the tasks that aren’t as important to our goal. As a consequence, we set unrealistic expectations, and when we fail to reach those, we feel miserable. Focus on picking one thing, the one thing that makes everything else unnecessary or easier to do, and include it in your daily schedule.

The rise of internet has brought more lead sources, but few of those leads convert. What are your options when it comes to attracting leads that are more likely to convert? Why is Facebook a better lead generation platform, and what kind of content should you use? What kind of content should you post on groups? In this episode, James Rembert shares the strategies he uses to help his clients ditch Zillow and get more sales from Facebook.

Video is essential, and as much as we want to take that as an option, video is not an option for us as agents. -James Rembert

Three Things We Learned

Home evaluations no longer work

When everyone offers the same thing, the message gets diluted. Paid advertising is all about unexpected, high-quality content that your audience isn’t seeing every day. The easiest route to creating interesting content is to write home lists or guides about the neighborhood where the property is found, or anything lifestyle driven.

Leverage Facebook groups

Find Facebook groups with people that you have something in common with, or with people that you know need your help. If you are an agent who is into fitness, join a fitness group. You never know when someone on there will be interested in watching a video about a park in your neighborhood and the houses listed on there.

Leads are a byproduct of building relationships

Facebook is great for getting your message out there, but it won’t generate leads. The relationships you build are your lead generators. Social media platforms help you get more eyes on your content. The challenge is to create content that is of interest to your audience, and build a relationship with them.

The strongest relationship builder is video. People love stories, and the most attention grabbing way to tell a story and share all the details is using video. The secret to successful videos is focusing on the quality of the information you provide without even mentioning that you are a real estate agent. If they are interested in finding out more, they will click on your page and find out what you do for a living anyway.

Guest Bio

James Rembert is the Zillow Killer. Using Facebook, he provides marketing solutions to real estate agents who want to get high-quality leads without investing large amounts of money in platforms like Zillow. You can find out more about James and his work at http://www.jamesrembert.com/ and for coaching you can find more information at www.JamesRembert.com/hld

We all have time consuming tasks we don’t want to do, but when is the right time to hire an assistant, and how much should we pay them? Should we look for assistants who have a similar personality to ours? What traits make an assistant great, and how can expensive is the turnover? In this episode, Kathleen Metcalf speaks about how picking the right assistant can make your life less stressful and help you earn more.

Most of the tasks you need a real estate agent to do, do not require a real estate license. -Kathleen Metcalf

Three Things We Learned

The perfect assistant is good at doing the things you hate

The secret to success is not constantly pushing yourself to do the things that make you miserable but finding people who are willing to do it for you and enjoy the process.

When you hire, make sure you don’t select a candidate who wants to be in sales or one that has your personality. You need someone who is all about systems and details. If you hire your clone, who is going to do the tasks you hate doing?

The formula for compensation

In the employment realm, compensation has to make sense in the context of the market, the value brought to the table and how much you are willing to pay. You should aim at earning at least 4-5 times more than you pay your assistant and move up to 9-10 times. But in order to move up on the scale, you need to make the hire in the first place.

Turnover is expensive

When you find someone that makes your life easier, make sure you have at least 3 months on your payroll in case you are experiencing a dip in business. Excellent assistants are hard to find and training someone takes both time and money. In the long-term, you are saving money if you work on keeping your turnover rate low.

The right assistant is detail and system oriented and doesn’t have any ambitions for the sales department. You have to make sure you don’t hire a wannabe agent but someone who enjoys administrative tasks. High-quality assistants are hard to find, and this is why when you find one, even if your business takes a dip due to a market shift, it’s wiser to keep your assistant instead hunting for a new one and training them.

Guest Bio

Kathleen Metcalf helps business owners find solutions to their problems and improve their communication with their team. She served as a bridge between entrepreneurs and assistants for over 6 years, and she was herself an assistant to top producing real estate agents. You can find her free guides to hiring, training and coaching at https://www.kathleenmetcalf.com/

Building a real estate business that spans over decades and market shifts takes more than hard work. What is the philosophy of the real estate business owners that manage to build a legacy? What’s the importance of building a reputation and how can you avoid staining it? And most of all, how do you build a safety net when you have slow months? In this episode, we are so excited to have the Grandmaster himself Terry McDaniel, on the show. He shares how his journey started 42 years ago and how he build a business from scratch.

A lead from the internet in my opinion is not a lead, it’s a response.- Terry McDaniel

Three Things We Learned

Don’t rely on coming up with the right answers on the spot

Potential clients have sometimes tough questions for you, you can’t come up on the spot with the right answer for everything. Some conclusions your prospects have are illogical from the beginning and you can’t fight that. But for the ones who are looking for solutions, you should have a script otherwise your answers won’t be satisfying.

Keep a clean reputation

Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want to see in the newspaper. A reputation is hard to clean. Your job is to serve people and sometimes the best decision is not selling right now. You might lose some quick money but you win the respect of a prospect for life.These people will contact you when they are in need and refer you to others as well.

Have a safety net

Sometimes the clients you think you have in your hands will walk out and do business with someone else. You have to have a safety net, leads that you constantly nurture and communicate with. You never know when you touch someone on a personal level, even with a simple gesture such as a box of chocolate.

The real estate business is a people business, you won’t last in this industry for long unless you look at your job as a server of others. The best way to attract both sellers and buyers is to maintain a clean reputation. To do so, you have to work in the your client’s interest, even if it’s against yours. Sometimes the home shouldn’t be sold right now because the demand is low. This kind of attitude will get you remembered by your prospects and when the time is right for them to sell, you will be their agent.

Guest Bio

Terry McDaniel started his real estate business from scratch 42 years ago. He was long enough in the real estate industry to see how the technological advancements changed the game what it takes to build a long-lasting, successful business. Terry graduated with top honors from the the University of Wisconsin graduate business school and he is an active member in the Community Presbyterian Church.

Many real estate agents fall into the trap of doing what everyone is doing when it comes to branding, from advertising themselves as jack of all trades to using cliches in their tagline. But what message do you send to your prospects when you put “honesty”, “integrity,” and “trust” in your business description? Does it say something useful about what you do? Should you advertise yourself as a jack of all trades or go niche? In this episode, Tonya Eberhart, Michael Carr, and Gene Volpe talk about the power of narrowing your focus and avoiding cliches.

People don’t do business with a logo. They do it with a person. -Tonya Eberhart

Three Things We Learned

Marketing is all about standing out in the crowd

We sometimes end up doing the same thing as everyone else. When you start building your own brand, don’t just look at your skills and knowledge, but also at your personal traits and interests. What can you do to humanize your image?

Go niche

All of your marketing efforts should speak to your ideal customer. This not will only set you apart but it will also help you build a reputation in your segment. Many agents fear going niche. But by doing so, you aren’t excluding everyone else; you’re just narrowing your focus.

Avoid describing your business using cliches

Values such as high-quality service, trust, integrity, and honesty are plastered everywhere, yet they say nothing because everyone is using them. Worse, nobody believes agents that describes themselves like this. When you describe your business, you need to use something specific about your service that nobody else can offer in your area.

Many real estate agents believe that they should be experts in all areas of real estate, and this is what you were probably told after you got your license. But the truth is that you can’t do it all and maintain the same quality in all areas. Going niche is one of the shortest paths to getting recognized as an expert, especially if you focus on your buyer persona instead of hunting everything that moves. If someone needs help with finding a luxury home near a river, and you advertise yourself as the expert in that area, you will probably win the listing over someone who says he or she is a jack of all trades, simply because being an expert in all areas is less believable.

Guest Bios

Tonya Eberhart is a speaker, author of three books, and the founder of Brand Face. She helps real estate professionals, business owners, and improvement professionals build their brand and land more clients. One of the books she wrote, BrandFace for Real Estate Professionals, is written in collaboration with Michael Carr, a top selling real estate auctioneer.

Michael Carr is a top real estate auctioneer. He started his journey as an auctioneer in 1991, and in 1994 he got licensed as a real estate agent and made a shift towards selling homes. During his 24 years of experience, he has been involved in over 68,000 home sales across the country. Currently, he is the CEO of Michael Carr & Associates.

Gene Volpe is the founder of GVI Media and has over 10 years of experience in real estate marketing. With over 200 transactions under his belt, Gene is known as an authority in his field and is often invited to speak at events. You can find more about Gene at http://www.genevolpe.com/about-gene/#.

Both sellers and buyers work with the agents they know well, not the agents they’ve never heard about. How do you make sure more people know about you? Should you post content on social media? Should you market yourself as a jack of all trades or as an expert in one niche? In this episode, we talk about the importance of being top-of-mind and narrowing down your focus.

This is a game of eyeballs and ears. If we can capture the eyeballs and we capture the ears, we can get the business. -Greg Mcdaniel

Three Things We Learned

Find a category where you can be king

If you are new to the area and surrounded by older agents, it’s harder for you to be on top when your competition has been around for 10 or more years. But you don’t have to be the top Realtor. You can be the listing expert, or whatever suits your skills and talents. You don’t have to market yourself as a jack of all trades.

The 80-20 rule for content creation

Many agents either create too much content that has nothing to do with real estate or content that is only about real estate. You have to find a sweet spot between being someone who is just a realtor and posting content for fun. You need to humanize your brand, but at the same time you have speak about what you do for a living. If you can do 80% fun and 20% business, you are not going to fail.

Narrow down your focus

You may get mentally bored and try to focus on three things at the same time. But marketing is all about focus, not about going wide. Instead of building two businesses at the same time or trying to break into two niches, focus on only one. Unfortunately, most of these ventures fail because you can only spread yourself so much.

Your audience won’t remember you if you don’t find a way to stand out. In a competitive market, the riches are in niches and uniqueness. Everyone says they are the best agent in the area, but that doesn’t really say anything about them. You have to be more specific about what you do and why they should work with you. The best way to get other people to remember you is to be more than the realtor who pushes listings on social media. At least 80% of your content should fall under the “fun” umbrella, the type of content that shows your human side. You don’t need more than 20% to be focused on your business. If they like you and they know what you do, they will come to you.

Technological advancements scare us. What if we will be replaced? Should we look at new tools as helpers or enemies? Will administrative work be mostly replaced by AI? How will technology impact the way people socialize? In this episode, Gene Volpe shares his insights on how agents will be forced to embrace the technology or get left behind.

I don’t think we are really that far off that day of Alexa taking care of initial stages of buyer consultations. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Google assistant might replace some of the admin work

Some assistant and admin work might disappear because Google is working on an assistant that will speak to service providers, clients, etc. Alexa is also not far behind from dealing with the initial stages of buyer consultations.

Adobe Capture CC takes photos of designs and saves the font and colors

If you’ve ever had someone design a brochure, you know how hard it is to recreate it. First you have to look for a similar font and then you need to pinpoint the right color. Adobe Capture CC helps you find both the font and the color just by taking a photo of a design you like.

Social media will be a shield against direct contact

Nobody answers to phone numbers they don’t know anymore, but everyone reads their texts. Social media will work as a shield between aggressive salespeople who want to push their services and prospects. You will no longer give a phone call unless the prospect gives you their contact information and is ready to move to the next stage.

Technological changes will force real estate agents to go full-time and learn more about technology and how people want to be contacted. Some people may lose their jobs, but those who learn how to use technology as tools to sell more and make their lives easier will thrive.

Tools such as Google Assistant and Alexa will only get better in time, but they won’t be able to replace human contact.

Converting leads over the phone is getting harder and harder. But why does this happen? Do people no longer want to be contacted over the phone? What is the best platform to be on right now as a real estate agent or team leader? On this episode, we discuss the death of phone prospecting in the near future and the rise of social media.

Now we are starting to use the phone as an insular so we don’t have to talk with the people we don’t know. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Prospect on the right platform

Newer platforms make people more open and willing to look at content published by strangers. Facebook has already become a place where it’s harder to go viral and create business accounts that thrive. The reason behind this is that it’s users are more interested in the posts of their friends and family as opposed to content pushed by businesses. Instagram is now the platform where you should be promoting your business. It’s both new and popular enough to expose your content to a large audience.

Calling prospects will disappear in the near future

Calling prospects will either become illegal or it will no longer be culturally accepted. Most people don’t pick up the phone if they don’t know who is calling. Social media, on the other hand, is a safer way to interact. Platforms like Instagram attract through their novelty, and they don’t make people uncomfortable either.

Don’t ask people to buy from you

Nobody wants to be sold to. As a result, messages where you ask people to contact you if they need your services rarely work. Focus on building rapport first. You can’t ask for somebody’s trust and hard earned money if they don’t know who you are and what you do.

People are attracted to novelty. In the past, we were more open to picking up the phone and interacting with strangers. Today, we are no longer comfortable speaking with people we don’t know. Social media platforms are the same. In the beginning, we are attracted by its novelty and are more open to connecting with strangers. As time passes, we are less likely to connect with people outside our family, friends, and business contacts. Platforms like Instagram, where there is still novelty, are the places to go and push content to promote yourself.

Negotiating skills are something that you can’t survive without in this industry. But who are the people you shouldn’t try to negotiate with? Is there a subtle way to market yourself to home sellers? How do you kick start negotiations with expired listings? In this episode, we answer questions on how to become a better negotiator.

We can say pretty firmly that 1 to 2% of the purchase price is at stake during the negotiation phase. -Matt Johnson.

Three Things We Learned

Don’t waste your time with sellers who overestimate the value of their home

There are some sellers out there that can’t be convinced that their home is worth less than their estimate, no matter how many market reports you show them.

Many agents hope that after the demand is increased and the price of the home will go up, the home will be easier to sell. Unfortunately, these type of sellers keep an eye on the market again and if the prices go up, they will overestimate their home once again.

Share your marketing plan

Give them a peek into what you do to sell homes. If you are a good writer, make a brochure with some surprising or little-known ways you can sell a house. This way, you don’t push your services but you give them a taste of what the whole process looks like.

How to approach expired listings and for sale by owner

The best way to approach expired listings and FSBOs is to go to their house and bringing information of value. It could be a report about the current state of the market, an estimate regarding the repairs that can be done, etc. The idea behind this to show that you are there to help them out, not necessarily to take the listing.

A poor negotiator can’t survive in the real estate world, where everything is based on interactions between sellers and buyers. The agent is in between it all and has to make sure both sides don’t compromise too much, so much so that they would lose interest in the deal. Even a slowed down process can cause the loss of large amounts of money. As an agent you have to be persuasive enough to convince buyer to make the move now. Otherwise, the homeowner may have another mortgage payment to make next week.