Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Luxury Real Estate Advisor Delroy Gill with LIV Sotheby’s International Realty

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Delroy Gill doesn’t just sell homes, he builds relationships. Born and raised in London, England he is no stranger to complex transactions and international relocation, bringing world-class service and out-of-the-box thinking to every detail of your real estate transaction. With a proven track record of multimillion-dollar sales in Denver’s top neighborhoods, nobody works harder to sell your home for the highest possible price in the least amount of time or find the next best property to perfectly suit your lifestyle.“I love the hustle, the energy, the fast pace,” says Delroy. “I’m here to eliminate confusion and create clarity. I enjoy taking the full burden of what seems to be such a huge task in the eyes of the buyer or seller and making the entire process feel easy and seamless. Educating homeowners and the joy of seeing their smiles after the transaction is what I live for.”To Delroy, luxury is an experience, not a price point. A proud Denver resident for nearly two decades, his mission is to empower clients to achieve wealth through real estate. In doing so, he has earned a reputation for keeping his clients’ best interests at heart, while drafting offers that stand out in Denver’s competitive marketplace.“Delroy not only helped us sell our house in less than 24 hours and buy a new home – successfully negotiating every single thing we asked for – he actually helped us with getting contractors to fix a few things in our old house, stagers to design the house for a fast sale, financial adviser, and much more. From the moment we first talked to Delroy, the whole process turned from a stressful mind-boggling process to a fun, amazing experience,” says, Menam Faied.Delroy’s background in real estate marketing, lead generation tools, and website sales, means he is well-versed in the latest technologies and social media to get your home sold. He takes client service to the next level by leveraging the marketing firepower and resources of the world’s leading luxury real estate brand to attract savvy buyers and investors worldwide. This includes unmatched exposure, custom-tailored marketing plans, flawless staging, professional photography, and innovative strategies that launch your property like a product on the world stage.A dedicated family man, Delroy is happily married with three children and enjoys staying active in his kids’ schools. When he is not out selling homes or participating in motivational videos and public speaking engagements, Delroy can be found working out, driving fast cars, or cooking a gourmet meal – he is the self-proclaimed jerk chicken king. Delroy is also passionate about giving back and sets personal giving goals each year.If you are looking to make a move, consider Delroy as your resource for all things Denver real estate. He executes tough negotiations with ease, makes himself available at all times, goes the extra mile to earn his client’s trust, and is ready to put his drive and determination to work for you.Learn More:https://www.instagram.com/delroygill/Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/elite-real-estate-leaders-podcastSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-luxury-real-estate-advisor-delroy-gill-with-liv-sothebys-international-realty

Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group, bringing you interviews with the best real estate and mortgage professionals, empowering you to understand the current trends in the housing market so that you make the American dream your reality. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcast. Today we have with us luxury real estate advisor Delroy Gill with Lib Sotheby's International Realty. Delroy, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me, guys. I am excited to be here.

Yes, I am as well. And I always love when people have a really distinct focus. And I want to hear all about what you do with luxury real estate and the clients you serve. But get started with first your story. What is your background? And how did you get into the real estate industry? Yeah, sweet. So I am born and raised in London, moved here many moons ago back in the early 2000. got into real estate around 2011 as a practicing agent, was an assistant first for a few years and then became a broker on a team. And at that time, it was still heavily deep in the recession, 2010, 2011, 2012. Yeah, it kept rolling on, didn't it? It kept on dragging out for a little while. So I primarily did short sales, so 100% of,

my business for the first three years were short sales and pre-foreclosures. I built up a brand called Your Hope Team back then, and we had a website where people would fill out their information, and I would do free loan modifications. So that was how I generated leads at the time. And then unfortunately, some of those people, even once we did the loan modification, still could not pay their bills. And then we helped those individuals sell their home turnaround. They came back, rebuilt their credit, and I was able to, you know, curate that database of

business and then transition into regular real estate. So going from very thick real estate files and carrying listings for one to two years through the short sale era to having a regular transaction was pretty eye-opening experience and closing a deal in 30 days. And I thought I could probably do a lot more of these if I had less paperwork and banks to call on a short sale deal versus a regular transaction. So transitioned into regular real estate and now I'm in luxury. You know, I would probably say if we wanted to go deeper on transition into regular real estate, it's all real estate. You know, what you described was like this transformation of you being a hope dealer. You know, I love that hope that word that you use. they were in a desperate situation.

You gave them a ray of hope and you served them. You taught them. You showed caring and empathy. You worked through there. And some you helped. Some you had to help further with other things. And then you probably could look back on that and go, wow, I developed relationships. And yes, that can lead to where you're focusing now on luxury.

But probably all of these same traits and qualities apply to your luxury clients that you're working with right now. Yeah, absolutely. At the time when you were doing it, I was just coming from a place of compassion of like, again, I bought my first house and I probably got a pretty shoddy loan type at the time, not knowing any better as a first time home buyer. So I saw myself in them of like once you get into real estate, you know, you really understand what mortgages are, what rates are, what a five year arm is, a balloon is, a fixed rate and adjustable rate. I was basically helping those people in terms of like helping myself. Oh, if I would have known this, you know, here's how you get out of that situation now. So it was very rewarding. And, you know, it got very emotional at some, you know, these were people who tomorrow, you know, the cops could be showing up and throwing them out on the street. We was having to stop that from happening in a very aggressive manner in dealing with the banks and police stations and everything to.

to help them. So yes, very rewarding, built very, very deep connections and personal relationships with those clients. But I didn't definitely not at that time think I was building like a database or I'm doing a relationship. I was just like going through the motions and really just trying to help people. But definitely later on as I grew it into, you know, a business in quotations at that point, I started to realize like, wow, I'm servicing these people, but now how do I service them better? And now I have this database. What do I do with it? And it came later on. Yes. And if you could turn back time and go, ooh, I'm going to do all these things so that I could turn it into a database and luxury, it potentially would not have turned out this way because it would have felt contrived. It would have felt like formulaic. So I think that you came to that through the, you know, the heart. attitude of caring and serving and being empathetic. And it turned out that way. And we can look back on it in retrospect and say, oh, that worked well because I was teaching and all that. But I think that you

came at it from that genuineness authenticity. And that's why that the relationships now are strong. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I would agree. Like I have a very deep connection with my clients and relationships in the business. And yeah, I would say that that error. It kind of shaped how I run my real estate practice day today, even to this. So I know, I know you, on your website and social media, you talk about being a referral agent, so I want to go deeper on that. But I first want to kind of bridge that gap between how you built those relationships from early on into making that bridge into working with luxury real estate.

What was that transition like? Yeah. So going from, and it kind of, these things all bleed into one, right? So, but originally when we're doing the short sales and then we're helping rebuild credit and we're purchasing regular homes, the markets are now starting to increase price points are starting to go up. So wealth is being generated in the general marketplace. You know, now people are gaining big, big massive leaps in equity in their business. You know, as I said, I transferred into it not from a place of, oh, how am I generating business here?

So once I got further down the road, I started thinking, well, oh yeah, let me actually realize what I did and dissect my business. And then I realized those were, those people coming in were leads. And I was really providing some, not too many other agents were providing that, a free service, essentially like doing loan modifications. That was a very, very high value for free. It was a lot of time just those loan modifications. So the value to risk from a client perspective was low and massive reward.

So those leads were essentially easy to convert for me, right? Because I was just passionate about it. I was helping them. So it was just an ongoing thing and snowboard. Later on, once the markets became more stable, those things weren't necessary anymore. So I had to provide new values to this. new database. And I didn't want to meet brand new people again like I did before because I don't have a passion for it now. Like, what am I doing? I'm not solving a massive problem. So my thought was,

those are leads. They were brand new and it worked. But now I have these people that I have relationships with how can I get them to be walking advertisements for my business? I can just provide the best service. So my goal then was to convert from, as I said, a lead agent to a referral agent. And in doing that, that helped me transition into luxury. So it was really being conscious that now I'm not going to go off the brand new faces who I've never met and shop at their house and offer this super high value. It's I'm going to give value to the people that I already know that I've done a transaction with that I already know, like and trust me, and they feel like they can pass on my information to their friends or to their boss or to the CEO of their company and say,

no, I would trust Delroy to handle your level of real estate transaction. And that is kind of, you know, that's one piece of how I was able to transfer that real estate practice from general day-to-day real estate, you know, sales numbers and average price points into the luxury price points. Because you partnered with strategic alliances and there was trust, there was credibility. So you mentioned referral agent. What is specifically what is a referral agent? Yeah.

So I would consider anyone that has probably 50% or more of their business that is generated specifically from word of mouth. So meaning they don't pay any for any Zillow leads. They are not paying for any leads from like pay-per-click ads that are in Facebook ads, any type of online ads where you're meeting someone face-to-face and trying to have a cold call, even open houses or anything where it's a cold interaction where you have no touch or warm up prior to the connection. I would say those are lead generation agents. I don't live or operate in that space.

Every single person that I connect with is either reaching out to me because they've been told so by a friend or a relative or another real estate agent or a past client or someone I have a relationship with in the marketplace has given me their information and said, hey, my friend was looking for somebody. I told them that you'd be reaching out to them. So that is 90% of my business. And then the other 10% of it comes from agents across the country. Yeah.

Or again, there's still referral agents, but they're not direct like in town. Yeah, you've paid your dues, put in the hard work. Now you're reaping the benefit of doing, of having done the right thing for so many years. Because people, you know, word gets around. If you were not of good character, people. people wouldn't be saying call Delroy. So, you know, having 90% of your business coming in by referral only is huge. And it kind of makes me think about that other R word you said, not referral, but relationship. You know, you don't really go to mortgage and loan and real estate closings. You open a relationship. So talk a little bit about how you take that relationship and a build on it each and every transaction. Yeah. Great, great question. I take relationships very seriously and you're right.

You said a key thing, which is like you will get exposed in this business if you're not doing the right thing. And I don't think there's any successful real estate agent that has a referral business that does bad business. Because once you start doing bad business, the same people that are telling their friends how good you are will be the same people telling how bad you are. So you have to make sure you're always. ways put in the client's needs first. And just to give an example of this and talking about relationships, I got called and referred to a listing in Greenwood Village. The home was $4 million. I walked the property with the homeowner. This was just a few days ago. And after doing it and hearing the story and their situation of what they wanted to do, whether they were going to buy or

whether they should renovate the house and everything. I push them and urge them to keep the property. I said if you go out and buy a house today, they wanted to downsize was the reason they wanted to sell. But they were going to downsize and have pretty much the same budget because of where interest rates are today. So I said, do you want to have a smaller house with the same overhead, lessen your lifestyle, or keep your house,

have the same overhead and enjoy your lifestyle where you have right now. And she said, you know what? You're probably right. And I was like, great. I know probably everyone's coming here. They knew they could get you whatever amount for your house. But like this is more of the real thing. If I was in your situation, how I would act and what I would tell a family member or somebody in your scenario.

So it's great. I could get a deal out of it. But like that is the right thing. and the right advice to give to that person. So I'd rather do that. And then hopefully they know that we made the right decisions. And hey, they may send me a deal one day. But I don't want to sell people.

It's like you said, Mike, I don't, I'm not here to sell you. And you try and force you to sell a house to get a transaction. I'm just here to build relationships. And the benefits will come down the road. But like I literally convinced a seller to not sell a $4 million house. Well, and from, that I would guarantee that person is going to refer you some business just because you were so great and ethical with them. Yes, that, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

we can hope for is that you do, you do right. And, and then people recognize that and they tell their friends about it. And I can advise other people in the right way. Sometimes it is, hey, you should sell. You need to free up the cash, whatever it may be. But just let's all go in with the right intention and the good commerce should come back around. Right. And you do such a great job of explaining things. So I really love that about you, by the way. But I want to ask you an off-the-cuff question because I think that you will answer it really great. And I think that the platform would really benefit from it. So you talked about, you know, how you started as a lead agent going into a referral agent. And then we kind of talked about your social media strategy. Well, if you were starting

today. If you were a new agent starting today, what would be your strategy? Would you still start as a lead agent? Great question. I would, no. The answer is no, because the game has changed. Real estate evolves, market evolves, marking strategies evolved. I would say that I would start as a branding agent is what, like branding is the new lead. generation, branding is the new sales tactics and branding is the new market in. So that is the type of agent that I would be. So you'd have to become very, very clear, very, very quickly who you are in the marketplace and push that message out to the marketplace. And that will generate leads and referrals. And then you need to decide what type of agent you want to be from referrals

or leads. And you can kind of tweak the knobs from that. And just to give people, some real world practice of what that looks like is like if you're a new agent, probably your best talk track would be, you know, either first time homebuyers. If you got big cohenas and you want to go into luxury, try it. It would be difficult. I would say start with the investors. Hey, I'm an investor or new or first time home buyer and really just hone in, push that message, know as much information as you can and offer the highest level of service and values. to the marketplace in that segment of the market. And you can brand yourself on social media doing that,

doing short-form content. You brand your website in that way. You create an email blast that way. You send flyers to your friends and family who you do have at the moment and send that message because people want to know I'm calling you for a specific reason. Like they call me for luxury today, but I climbed into that. If you say I am the first time home buyer, you can pick up market share very, very quickly. I love that you just shared that. Thank you. I think that is powerful information for our listeners and just clients in general. So I really appreciate that. I know it was a little off the cuffs. Thank you. Oh, you're good. And, you know, Delroy Gill is such a social media name. If no one's heard of you, they've probably seen you on social media because you are so active. So I just real quick, I know we don't have a whole lot longer, but what is your social media strategy? How does that best?

benefit your clients in the luxury space. Yeah, great, great question. You guys have great questions. But it's a twofold method, right? One part of it is a, we call them levers. We control price. We control market in exposure. And we control the time. So in real estate of like those are the things that are a part of a real estate transaction. So it helps the client from those perspectives, and I'll kind of get into a little bit of those. And then the other part is the brand, what we just spoke about, right? So it's meaning it's building a trust. Let's talk about the strategy of brand of Del Rey Gill at Livestotheby's International Realty. That is, like, we know we're referrals. So I'm not going to get anyone cold just messaging me. They, you know, they just flew from

LA to Denver and they just searched and got on Instagram and like, oh, I'm going to hire this guy. But what happens is they did call someone if they're moving to Denver and say, who would you use? And they're like, oh, this is my agent or I've heard of this guy. Here's his Instagram page. And I want that person who was called prior to them calling me, have 20% idea of who they're going to be contacting.

before they contact. So they already know some of my interest. They already know some of my energy. They already know some of my vibe. They know the types of homes that I sell. They have like a warm up from Instagram. So it breaks down a level of trust that would be there if I just walked up to someone in a coffee shop and said, hey, I'm Delray.

Are you selling your house today? Because I'm a real estate agent. Like, do you want to look at some houses? Like, that would be very awkward. Whereas, like, do you know how many? times in a coffee shop, somebody comes up to me and says, hey, you're there all right. Like, I saw your Instagram page. Are you going? You went to that place, right? And I was like, yeah, he's like, I've been there too. And then now I'm literally speaking to a stranger in the coffee

shop because of social media. People feel like we know one of those. Sometimes I'm like completely lost as to who this person is. But I'll go along with it because I want to get to know. I'll be like, yeah, yeah, who are you again? But we build up a rapport. So it just breaks down barriers. very, very quickly from having that presence online and sharing parts of my life on there that I think people can relate or learn from. And then on the other side of it is now we have the homes that we're selling. And those houses need exposure. So the more eyeballs I have on my social media page is the more exposure I can bring to my clients. And that That has helped tremendously from like sales, actual record happening, but then also on the back end,

it helps me generate business because when we actually look at the numbers and I go to a listing appointment and I'm presenting to a home seller and I say, hey, these are five homes that are in your area or these are five homes we've recently sold. Here's all of the views online of each of these properties. Here's mine and here's all the competition. Here's mine and here's what your prior agent has done. So I can show those visual statistics to a home seller. And we get probably, we're calculating this to like a fine-tuned amount across all platforms.

But when we researched it the other day, we were about 70% more exposure on our listings compared to any other agent in the market. So when you've got compelling stats like that to share with a seller who is getting no showings, and then we tell them, well, this is a case study where their house also got no showings. It was on the market for 90 days. We took the listing over. We had it on the market for two days. And we got 70% more exposure online. We got 16 showings in two days and got it under contract with two offers in hand.

like these stories are very compelling to a seller who is in a need to get a job done. We're here to solve problems and we just are trying to solve them as rapidly as possible and make the transition as smooth as possible for every single client that we're working with. So those are the two strategies that apply to my social. It's home exposure and real world statistics and then brand recognition and trust being built in the marketplace. That was such a great wrap-up. Thank you. You provided invaluable information. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing that with us. Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, Delroy, what's the best way people can reach out and connect with you? Yeah, the best place, you know, we just wrapped up with social.

I think that's the easiest place. As I said, you can get to kind of know what things I like and what I'm into from there. So Instagram is probably my most used platform. And it's, It's just Instagram.com forward slash if you're online, but everyone's on their mobile. So just search my name, Delroy Gill. That's D-E-L-R-O-Y. And then my last name, Gil, G-I-L. I'm the guy with a funny accent. You probably can find me pretty easily.

Sounds awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate the time. Thank you for listening to the Elite 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,

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