Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Adam Pippin, Managing Broker with American Home Agents

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

I take great pride in motivating and leading teams. It’s always been my passion. I was fortunate to be a director and key player of Cardinal Health and the US Air Force Academy 10th Medical Center before joining American Home Agents — one of Colorado’s locally owned brokerages.It was the right move for me, as I love improving the real estate experience for our clients, realtors, and the company. We’re fortunate to live in a beautiful state with a healthy market and the potential for home investments to quickly grow.Outside of work, I’m a loyal fan of all things Colorado (Go Avalanche) and am a proud graduate of the Metropolitan State University of Denver. I’m also a long-time resident of Colorado, so it’s no surprise my wife, children, and I enjoy the incredible Colorado seasons as much as possible.Learn more:https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-pippin-564893b2/https://www.americanhomeagents.com/agents/1302006/Adam+PippinColorado Real Estate Leaders https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/colorado-real-estate-leaders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-adam-pippin-managing-broker-with-american-home-agents

Welcome to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group, bringing you interviews with Colorado's best real estate and mortgage professionals, empowering you to understand the current trends in the housing market so you can make the American dream your reality. Enjoy today's episode. Well, it's a great day in Colorado, and welcome to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders podcast. Today we have with this Adam Pippin, who's the managing broker with American Home. home agents. Adam, welcome to the program. Hey, thank you so much. Really appreciate you. You're welcome. Hey, get us started off with. We want to learn all about what you do, how you do it and why you

do it, but start off with your story. What's your background and how did you get into the real estate industry? Yeah, absolutely. Well, it started about five years ago. And it all started when I bought my first home. And really, we had been renting for nine years and we had just been sick of it. and we just said, you know what, now is better than ever. So let's just try and get into it. It was very hot market. I had been running a OBGYN and family practice and had been working, you know, some weeks, you know, 20 hours a day, seven days a week without exaggeration.

And buddy of mine said, you know, you'll work less and you'll make more. And, you know, all the doctors that I worked with, they said, you think you're going to work less. I said, well, that's what they tell me. And I wouldn't say that. And it was necessarily the fact or the truth of it. But it sounds appealing at the start. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely hook line and sinker for sure. And, you know, throughout the years, American home agents, who's the affiliate to American financing, they had kind of seen what I had been doing. And they knew my background as far as running a startup. And, you know, throughout the years they called me. And they said, hey, do you want to? be the sales manager. And I said, sure, I'll give it a shot. And now I'm the managing broker as you previously mentioned. So that's kind of my journey. So that's interesting. And not many people have that as a background. And also most people don't in fourth grade going, you know, hey, career day, I want to be a real estate agent. So there's always something that leads into that. But what did you take out of the hustle and grind of 20 hour a day, six, seven days a week,

to say, okay, that was too much. So I need to scale back. a little bit, but also you need to have that level of hustle and grind or else you're just going to be, you know, floating away there and having the big month, the down month and all the way around. So what are some of those principles that you learned from your previous business life and now you're carrying over into what you're doing and how you're training your other team members? Yeah, absolutely. I think right off the bat, it would be you got to be willing to push the brom. And so what I learned throughout my time is that you've got to be willing to wear many different hats and with real estate, you very much wear multiple hats. Sometimes you're the psychologist

helping people walk through and deal with all the emotions, the highs and lows. And then, you know, you also have the fiduciary responsibility, which when you're dealing with a startup, and thank God at a great team at the previous company I was with, but at a startup, you do have investors and you're dealing with people's monies. And so when I'm dealing with a client who, whether they're selling a house and looking to make the most money or whether they're looking to buy a house and make sure that this is a sound financial investment. Thankfully, I've had those conversations with investors and CEOs of big businesses and board members. And so being able to wear those different hats and at the same time, the grind, real estate is not for everyone and it's not

easy. I always tell my clients, congratulations, you just got a full-time job, right, whenever we go shopping for a home because there's a lot that goes into it. And so when it comes to switching into real estate, it's just been a beautiful, I wouldn't say seamless process, but boy, it was, it was pretty seamless because the grind of starting up a medical practice to now jumping into a whole new industry. Yeah, it's not going to be easy for the first few years. So, yeah, overall, it's been, it's been beautiful. But taking a step back, I don't, I don't. know if it was necessarily a step back as far as working hours, but I will say that it's very real important. Have you found that you've been able to tamp that down a bit now that you're in

and established and you have some boundaries created for yourself? Yeah, absolutely. To some degree, yes. And the reason why I say to some degree is because every 30 days, you potentially have a new boss, meaning that you have a new customer, your new client. Yeah. Because you close them and then you get somebody else. You go from hero to zero. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that's, you nailed it. That is absolutely right. And so it's scaling back, I think time management is probably the biggest difficulty for realtors in general. And I know this because we've had seminars with agents who have told us this. And that being said, I do tell my clients, I set the expectations from the beginning, you got me six days a week. And one day, which is Sunday,

that belongs to my wife. So she gets that. one day. But it is tough. It is tough to put a stop to it because you're either prospecting or you're helping a client, you know, maybe they just got off of work at seven o'clock at night. And now they're able to look at those disclosures. So you've got to be available for them. And it's, it is challenging. But I think that through our initial meetings and conversations, you're really able to set good parameters, set expectations. And also, hey, when are we going to see houses? When are we going to have these discussions? Are there? Are they going to be in person?

They're going to be able to the phone. They're going to be a Zoom meeting. So a lot of flexibility. Thanks to COVID, people have really adjusted how they do business. Yeah, they've really opened up to that digital experience. So what type of clients are you working with? Do you have any niches or any specialties? Yeah, great question.

You know, originally when I first started, it was buyers. I think that's pretty normal. You get a lot of buyers. Obviously, being a managing broker, I've really scaled back a lot of my production. to help my team. And ironically, through scaling back, I've actually focused more on a couple different tools and resources to help me break into other areas of the market, whether it'll be helping investors. Right now we're starting to break into helping multifamily investors as well as commercial

real estate and again, a lot more listings. So I'd say as far as where I'm at right now, I've seen an uptick in luxury transactions, right? I've got a listing for $1.6 million coming up down at Larkspur. Looks like I've got a commercial building coming up for $1.8 million. And so on the buyer side very heavily. But now we're seeing a big transition towards luxury. So I've got a nice of luxury listing down at Larkspur coming up. I've got a commercial building that's also coming up.

And so what we're seeing is just this shift in my business after four years to now we're getting luxury listings. we're getting multifamily investors and even commercial as well. You know, luxury is, I would say, a unique client because they already know many times, most of the time, what they need, what they want. They've done a few transactions, and it could become easier and it could become more difficult. So I think you need to adjust your service deliverables to those luxury affluent buyers and sellers and things like that because all of a sudden now it's different than the pure newbie first-time homebuyer. So talk a little bit about how you found that you adjust your

services and your deliverables based on what they're needing. Yeah, absolutely. You know, right away, we always wanted to provide a very high level of service. Doesn't matter the price point. But what we have recognized is that luxury homes, they expect high-end services, meaning when you meet with them, they want to know, what am I going to get for that money? If I'm going to pay you 6%, what am I going to get? And it's not just, oh, well, I'll give you these flyers and these printouts and this open house and everything else, but there's an experience that goes along with that.

And so when we go into our listing presentation, we bring our stagers and our interior designers. We bring them with us and they walk that property with us and they're giving tips and ideas and suggestions. And the beauty is it's not coming from me. With the luxury market, we have a team. We have a team of designers. We have a team of stagers. We have a team of photographers and all of that, that wonderful stuff that goes in there as well as marketing, very targeted marketing, not just in Colorado. Because as we all know, a lot of people from California, New York, Washington State, Texas.

They're moving to Colorado, and they also tend to have a little bit more money to spend. And so we do have specific targeted marketing that we talk to these clients about. Dare I say, we're a little bit crazy when I go into these meetings. I do tell them we're a little bit crazy, meaning that we're willing to go the extra mile, spend the extra money to get your house sold at the top dollar. So it is more than just put a sign in the yard and then throw out flyers. We have targeted marketing. We have very specific areas of California that we target.

in order to grab more attention, whether it be a realtor in California who has a potential buyer, or maybe they know somebody in Colorado that this would suit them as well. So what are some of those extras? Like, you know, you think about some people, I'm sure, would say, well, shoot, all you do is list my property in MLS and throw up a yard sign and maybe hold one open house. But what are some of those extra things that you're finding that you do to bring that extra value to your luxury clients? Yeah. One of the things that we do, I call it ring boost. And what this ring boost is all about is it is myself and my team. We call local listings. So let's say you had a listing in Cherry Hills for $12 million. And I've got a property out in Larkspur for $6 million. You're $12 million buyer or I mean seller. What are they looking to accomplish? They might be looking to downsides. They might be looking to get out of the city and go. to, you know, a little bit more land property, whatever it might be, a little quieter place. That might be Larkspur. So we are, we target these our listings in Colorado. And we have these

conversations with listing agents to see maybe what their listing party is trying to accomplish, because they might be looking downsized on the flip side. They may also be looking to upgrade and get something a little bit bigger, a little bit nicer. So if somebody's in the 800,000 and they're selling. So we do it. That's a very intentional phone calls with these listing agents. And the cool thing is, is these listing agents also have a very good network in these price points as well. So they might not have a specific seller who's looking to sell, but they might have a buyer as well. I think that's very unique to what we do. Yeah, that's a really good point.

And I think that, you know, affluent luxury clients want to feel like they're being treated special and different. So that's awesome. It sounds to me like you also bring the team aspect into things. talk a little bit about that helpful aspect. Yeah, I think it's very egotistical for somebody to stand up there and say, oh, I accomplished everything myself, right? And so we are humble enough to put a team around us. And they're not all hired on by our staff.

Some of them are contracted in. Maybe it's our photography that they're not hired directly by me. They might be contracted in. And then we also have from our painters to our staff. stagers and everything else like that. So it really is. It's incredible. So when we go out there for the photography, a lot of agents who I've recognized, even in the luxury world, they're not there for the photography. They just send their photographer there. No, we're actually there. We're on site. We're moving stuff so that the photography can get in there and take the perfect shot.

You know, we're moving bath rugs. We're removing toiletries. We're walking the property and, you know, shoveling snow up necessary and things of that nature. And so again, when it comes to the team, And we also want to make sure that our clients are part of that team as well. A lot of times you have agents who come in there and they're, for lack of a better terms, they're very type A. And no, this is how it's going to be. This is how it's going to go. They're pushy and they're, you know, they don't involve the client.

And that is a big thing for us. We have six pillars that we operate out of the first pillars, educate and advocate, then when. And then there's always three things we want to avoid in every transaction, wasted time, wasted money, and surprises. And so every process that we bring is built. around those six pillars. That's huge. I love that educate, advocate, win. Because when you become an educator and an advocate for the best interest of your

client, they feel it. And they feel like you're not some pushy salesperson trying to get them into whatever product or service. So, boy, when you're a teacher and you educate and then they feel that you're doing it for their best interest, it's a strategic alliance, a warm, you know, a relationship that you're building there, not some salesperson that's trying to get someone to close the deal. So talk a little bit about what that actually looks like. Even from like the first conversation, what are you explaining so that they get that feeling? Yeah, great, great questions.

We obviously have a very systematic approach from the questions that we ask, once we step in the door, if it's a listing presentation or even if we're welcoming somebody into the buyer's presentation, we do ask them, well, we first thank them and then we go through our order of the day, exactly what's going to take place. And then the questions that we ask are designed around giving them control, giving them control the situation, the conversation. We do put a time limit on our meetings. We do try and get it within 45 minutes to an hour.

However, we do let the customer know in our first opening statement that this meeting will last longer depending upon your questions and the interest you may show, meaning that they have control of the situation, right? So again, when it comes back to the educating piece, the very next thing after we've done the walking of the property is we do set those expectations. We want to know exactly all the expectations that they have because as we go through the conversation, we're then able to, quote, reset those expectations or just clarify those expectations. For example, what do you expect your house to be worth? Oh, I expect to be worth $2 million. dollars. Okay. I'm not going to necessarily sell or change it at that time of like, hey, your house

is actually worth $2.2 million or your house is worth $1.5 million. The reason being is because after our expectations, we talk about the market. So we bring it up. And so it's a very organic way of hearing exactly what it is that they expect, but then also for us to show them what is taking place in the market. And that as we're showing them the market, we're able to ask them questions. and then there's an education piece. And then the beauty is, is once you've educated them, then you're able to help advocate for them. Yeah, it's a two-way street.

You're educating and teaching with communication and input from them. So it's not just you speaking at them. It's you involving them in the conversation. So that if there was that gap of expectation and of value, for instance, in that example, they're understanding like, oh, you know what? I guess that number was just in my mind. but now that you explain it that way, I see that. So it's a really great way to articulate how you serve your clients.

Yes, absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, it's been really awesome chatting with you, Adam. If someone is interested in learning more and then also reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way they can do that? Yeah, absolutely. They can reach me at our American Homeagents.com. If they go to our agents, they'll see my name and information there. they can always call me or text me at 720-979-1-246, or they can connect with me on LinkedIn.

I just got to search Adam Pippin, and I should be there. I'm not really on any other social media platforms, but LinkedIn and then my email address, Adam.com. Atmigpippin at American Homeagents.com. Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you today. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group. To learn more about the topics mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.com.