Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Escaping The Drift: How To Reclaim Your Life & Succeed with Jeff Fargo EP 55

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

The Power Move Podcast with John Gafford Episode 55Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. Escaping The Drift: How To Reclaim Your Life & Succeed with Jeff Fargo The Power of Sales. Many people feel lost and hopeless after a few years in their job or career. They've gone off course and they don't know how to get back on track. In this video, Jeff Fargo shares his story of escaping the drift and finding success in sales. He provides helpful tips for reclaiming your life and starting a successful career.Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejohngafford/Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gafford2

From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with Jon Gafford. Back again, back again, back again. For another fantastic, fantastical, wonderful episode of The Power Move, I am your host, Jon Gafford. Colt is off today. Connell is off today. If the only reason you listen to this show is for them, you might want to just go and skip to

another episode because you're going to be a little lost today. I'm not alone in the studio today. I'm not alone. I'm sitting in the studio, blessed for all of me and for all of you guys today, is Jeff Fargo. And let me explain a little bit about who Jeff Fargo is. Jeff Fargo has become a little bit of a, call him a legend, call him a stallion, a stud, I don't know, whatever you want to say it, in the title industry of which I'm in, of which we own a business in the title industry.

And Jeff is one of those guys who has made a name for himself and built an exceptional business in that space by not just being a great salesman himself by being able to sell the products that he sells, but also by teaching others how to do that as well. So welcome to The Power Move. Thank you, sir. How are you doing, buddy? My pleasure. I'm well.

So good. So I always like to start this out, man, because anybody that's a good salesperson, and today what we're going to talk about is, of course, it's going to be sales. So if you're in sales and if you think, man, I'm not even in sales, it's not what I do. You're still going to want to listen because trust me. Oh yeah. It's Friday. I mean, it's today. I don't know what day you'll hear this, but if you're going out tonight and you're, you're a single person and you're going to walk up to somebody of the opposite sex at a bar, you're in sales. Yeah. You're in sales, buddy. So you, you might want to listen to just get some tips on this. You're in sales. You're in sales, buddy. So you might want to listen to just get some tips on this. Everybody's in sales. So take a listen. So I always like to start this

out, man, because I find that highly successful people, there's things that have happened in their life and there's similarities, if you will, as you go through it. So I'd like to start out with, when you were young, man, talk about your background, where you grew up, your family, all that stuff. Where does it start for Jeff? Where does it start? Born in Manhattan, New York City. I was there until I was six. And then upstate New York, my family controlled 80% of all the commercial lakefront property on the north shore of Canandaigua Lake, which is number two per linear foot in terms of expense behind Lake Tahoe nationwide. My grandfather did all of it, starting from nothing.

And so growing up, we owned an amusement park, 24-unit college housing complex, a 32-pad trailer park, 500-seat banquet facility. Wow. That's how I grew up. Okay, that brings my first... That's the first set of questions. That's the first set of questions.

I am a firm believer in tough times build great men's, soft times build weak men. And it's, quite frankly, it scares the living shit out of me. Every time, you know, I take my kid gets, you know, I take my kids somewhere, they get to do some of the stuff that they get to do. I'm always looking at them like, am I ruining these children? So obviously, you grew up in a pretty decent household. Oh, yeah. So my first question is, were there times in your life, because I'll be honest with you, right? Because I'm kind of the same way. I didn't grow up hard.

I mean, I grew up in a weird sort of a situation where my father was an attorney, wound up being a judge, but got divorced from my mom and I was very young and you know some things you should never do I think one of which is is play pool for money against a girl that has a dragon tattoo in her own post it that's a bad idea and I think also divorcing a southern lawyer in his own hometown in a small South southern town that's a bad move John Grissom novel yeah exactly so my mom didn't exactly get the best settlement so you know it was weird because we were like the poorest people in the nicest neighborhood if that makes sense and it was and it was a weird sort of thing but there were times based in my life because i didn't i don't have that david goggins story of grind you know what i mean and there was probably times in my life where I could say, maybe I was worthless. Maybe I didn't go so well. And to be honest, I would say that I probably started clicking on all cylinders. I mean, I had cool jobs that made a bunch of, you know, didn't make a bunch of money, but they were cool. But I would say I didn't really become what I would deem myself as successful until my mid-30s. So like, where were you with that? Like, where were you?

I was, and I'm 52 now. I literally, the light went on for me. I was 45, 46. And my wife at the time became pregnant with our third child. And she said, and she was a teacher here in Vegas, seventh grade at Del Webb. And she said, you know, our other two kids, I had to be home to, you know, raise them and be there. And I, or no, I'm sorry, I wasn't home. I was working. And so I want to be home with Jack, with our two-year-old son. And she said, can you step up financially? And I was at a local title company here.

It was my third year at that company. And I said, yeah, I'll do it. And that was it. And it was the thought of fear, really. Fear of failure. Fear of making it go. Fear is a great freaking motivator, man. Fear is awesome.

And so that's really what got me was I knew I had to make a certain amount of calls every single day to get in front of realtors. To get where it was. And there was times I'm in my driveway at my house and I couldn't go inside until I knew I had to make three or four more phone calls. And I did that. Wow. Yeah. That was the big one for me was another child coming. And then there was.

And that's my job is I feel I'm traditional that way. And, you know, she wants to stay home. Okay. Awesome. And let's do it. Let's roll. I've got this. Well, let's go back to the silver spoon.

Oh, yeah. You know, apartment owning, amusement park having. Oh, yeah. So you graduate. I was a mess. I was a mess. So I'm going to guess. I'm going to try to stereotype you here based on that information.

All right, please do. Full follow up. I'm going to go C student in high school because you could get A's on all the tests, but you never did your homework. Agreed. Okay. That's me too. Same thing. All right.

There it is. Did they have enough juice to get you into college? Football got me into college. Football got you into college. Division III school, St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York got me in. Gotcha. Football got me into there. All right.

That's what happened. So I'm guessing also, I'm going to guess, you're playing football for them. Yeah. And this may, I'm going to go either way. Did you join a fraternity? No, no fraternity. You did not. Small school.

Small school. But partied, had a good time. Yeah. Actually stayed a fifth year, took a second major, convinced my mom to pay for it. You were Tommy boy. Yeah. You were Tommy boy. Convinced my mom to pay for a fifth year of school because there was a recession

happening, is what I said to my mother. She was like, okay, fine. She didn't care. And so, yeah, stayed a fifth year in school just to party. That was it. That was it. That was it. That was me in school.

So did you graduate? Did you finish? You did. You have a degree. I have a degree. Double major. Political science, communication, journalism. Well, let's back up.

Let's back up. I'm going to back up another step then. Please do. So, again, I like to say that success excludes. What was, as a kid, what was the, I always ask everybody this, what was the first hustle for money? I worked with my dad. My dad's always been in sales.

Was in New York City, and he sold life insurance. And so, we went to gun shows and flea markets every weekend, and we'd sell knives. And he was knife man, and I was, you guessed it, knife boy. You were knife boy. And we had showcases on eight-foot banquet tables, and people would come by, and on the back of every single knife and a little sticky note was a number.

Whatever I got above that number, I put in my pocket. I was 10 years old. So dad was letting you work on the arbitrage at 10 years old. Exactly right. I love that. One of the best salesmen I've ever been with is my dad. I love that. He's amazing.

I love that. Yeah. And to this day, I have his, at 60 years old, a Louis Vuitton men's attache case. That's a glorified laptop carrier for me. That was his first big purchase from his first big deal he did at met life in manhattan oh my god with louis vuitton and bought this bag and five years ago i went back to upstate new york he said you're a better salesperson than i ever will be take this and what what a great compliment it's amazing it's always great when the old man

kind of validation yeah validation you know my dad he passed, said something to me that I thought was great, which was, he said, I know you'll be more successful for me because you're willing to take risks that I never was. My dad was always super conservative. He always, you know, like I said, he was an attorney and a judge, but he always owned weird things like shrimp boats, like straight Forrest Gump. Yeah, I was always super conservative. He always, you know, he was, you know, like I said, he was an attorney and a judge, but he always owned like weird things. Like, you know, it's like shrimp boats, like straight for scum. Yeah.

I was going to say they had shrimp and boat. I mean, he ain't go shrimping on them, but they own shrimp and boats. Right. And just rant like tree farms. Like he would own. Yeah. Right. Just stuff like this where, where, you know, they grow pine trees and every, every winter

they would sell the pine straw that fell down to the landscapers. Yeah. And then once every 10 or 15 years, they'd cut the trees for pulpwood you know what i mean it was just you know nothing but nothing flashy that was going to get yeah it's quick but it was just always just kind of a slow grind stuff so in college did you did you play football the whole time i played my first two years and then blew my shoulders out and said i'm done that's it done that's it i'm out and then just became a social butterfly and started bartending started so okay so your bartender so your bartender bartender at the

paddams the the college bar in east rochester new york where everybody from saint sean fisher went to that's what you see because because i see a lot of similarities here and i like i always like pointing out similarities so i one of my first jobs like i was working like crappy jobs and then i bust my first table when i was probably working like crappy jobs and then I bust my first table when I was probably 15 and I was done because it had nothing to do with, you know, the, the, whatever they were paying me an hour, whatever the five, $4 an hour it was being, I was being paid. It was that tip out at the end of the night.

And then I was finished. So, you know, went from, you know, being bus boy to being waiter, to be learning how to bartend at 18. And I was actually the bar manager of a bar when I was 18, because in Florida you could do that. And then I actually owned part of a bar when I was 20. Awesome. So I spent a lot of great years in hospitality. So that kind of became my life. And it's hard. And if you're one of the people that's listening to this, man, if you are somebody that is in hospitality, all right, and I give this same advice all the time, it is very easy.

And I saw people over the years. I own nightclubs, and I went up owning restaurants, owning bars and stuff. And I saw people get stuck in that puddle, man, get stuck in that rut of go in, make your money, get off, go to whatever bar is still open after you get off, drink the night's winnings, and then get up and rinse and repeat. If you are in the bar business, or even the restaurant business, you better be in it to do one of a couple things.

Number one, start saving your money to get into management. And the only reason you get into management is to learn how to own the place. That's the only reason. And there better be a path for you to get to A to Z, because if not, a lot of people get sucked into that. Evolve.

You have to evolve. I was washing pots and pans at Caruso's Lakeshore House, my family's banquet facility, restaurant at eight years old, nine years old. I ride my bike down there because my mom ran the place, only child of divorced parents. So did it to be near her and got paid slave labor wages, but didn't care, you know, whatever. And just, and just did that and was fine with that. And, but it was, I saw the bigger picture because even though I was doing that, I saw how my mom would run it. And I saw her on Excel back in the eighties. You know, it was bananas. It was, it was, what was it called then? Lotus one, two, three Lotus,

Lotus. It was Lotus one, two, three. And she was that I was it called then? Lotus 1-2-3. Lotus. Lotus 1-2-3. It was Lotus 1-2-3. And she was, I was amazed by that, that I saw the back-end business part of it, but then also the front-end grind of what you're doing. But also completely took advantage of that and had no hustle. I went more because I'm a mama's boy, and I went to go see her. Like I said before, the switch didn't get flipped to me until I had skin in the game being a dad. Yeah.

Then it was like, you have another human being. But you got a lot of life here. A lot. Oh, I have stories. Oh, I have stories. So let's not get to that. So you graduate from school. Yeah.

And then you go into what I call the drift. This is your drifting. Yeah. You go into a period of drift. And I think a lot of people that even listen to stuff or watching this come down social media or whatever they're doing, I mean, a lot of you are probably at a place where you feel like you're not where you're supposed to be. Correct. You're just kind of existing.

You're drifting. Yeah. And so tell me about your period of drift. My drift was I moved from upstate New York to Manhattan, lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and sold copiers for Canon, for Canon copiers for two years, door to door in the garment district. And I was knocking on doors. They thought I was immigration. Cause I'm going to have a briefcase with a suit and it's these sweatshops. Right. And it's, it's real male, like the steel door would open. They'd look at me and slam the door. I'm like, I just want to

sell you a fax machine, man. I don't know what you got going on in there. So let's talk about a tough sale. You first step one, run off half of their workforce accidentally. And now I'm going to hear this all. Yeah. I just want it. I just want to say a copier. I don't know. I've seasoned tickets to the Yankees. You want to come to the Yankee game with me? Let's go. And, and so I did that for about two years. And so going back to my mom took over from my uncle and grandfather, everything. And, um, and I started with college housing. She put me in the Brentwood apartments is where I started at 22, um, 24 unit college housing complex. And she said, you're managing this. Yeah. And she's great. She put me in the Brentwood Apartments is where I started at 22. Yep. 24 unit college housing complex. And she said- You're managing this. Yeah. And she's great. She goes, it's yours. We'll go over P&Ls monthly. The only advice I'm

going to tell you is don't diddle the tenants. That's it. And so that went out the window in about 30 seconds. Actually, no. Didn't? Didn't. Good for you. I was good. I was good. I have ridiculous willpower. I don't know how.

Were you married at this point or were you just single? Single and I was 22 years old and 23 and running a, you know, and it was 50% occupied after my first year, 100% occupied, cash cow rolling. See, I had a friend of mine whose dad owned a place in Orlando called Collegiate Village Inn. It was exactly the same thing. He did not take that advice. Yeah, that's the thing is that with college housing, it's lucrative.

But yeah, you can't cross that line. Well, he got what I like to call the Peter Pan syndrome. Oh, yeah. Where he was like 20. He was like Matthew McConaughey in Days of Confusion. Like, yeah, this is a crop of freshman chicks. All right, all right, all right. Exactly.

That's the route he went. So how long did you do that? How long did you stay there? 13 years. So 13 years. Yeah. So what point? So now you're mid-30s, early 30s.

Early 30s, yeah. What point did you meet your wife? So I'm guessing that was part of a public thing. So then I was dating a girl at that time in Canandaigua, New York, who I knew I'd never marry. She was awesome. And she said, one day, I'm moving to St. George, Utah. I said, where the hell is St. George, Utah? And she said, two hours outside of Vegas. I go, I love Vegas and ADHD. I'm like, let's go take a look. I'm bored. I was at a point

in my life where my phone calls got returned. I had a big Rolodex. I had people in Albany and the minority leader of the assembly was one of my best friends. So I knew people, and I was bored. A massive fish in a small pond, and so went to- How much were you making financially at this point? Maybe $150 a year. Okay. So not chicken feed? No, not bad.

And this is 2004, this is 2005 money. Okay. Yeah, pretty good. So not bad pretty good was happy um was content but didn't know the world that much because i was always in either a little bit of new york city mostly just western new york i went to buffalo bills games in the middle of winter yeah seeing people play flag football their shirts off in december yeah like what the hell's going on it's so funny it's so funny, man. Those mafia. At one point, you know, I worked for a corporation

I had moved around a lot and one of the places, I spent a lot of time in the Midwest and I realized what a hard place that is to kind of move or even escape

because like, most people live in those parts of the world. Like, you grow up, you know, you buy a house seven blocks away

from mom and dad. Yeah. You marry the girl you went to high school with. You're still hanging out with the same people. That's your groove, man. Yeah. It's rinse and repeat, man.

It just never changes. So getting out of that. Draft beer, primary buffets. Yeah. That's what you're doing. You're going to join the Moose Lodge when you're 35. Yeah, Elks Club. Elks.

I was in Elks because they had great spaghetti. Their spaghetti dinners that are great. And yeah, so I was just like, okay, let's go check out St. George. Went there, interviewed with Caldwell Banker Commercial. And they, like on the spot, were like, get over here. We think you're great. Went back and talked to my mom. Helped her.

We sold off. I think it was probably $5 to $6 million. Ended up selling off. Gave 9% of the money, went to her. Take it. And then went from there. I like that because you say it's like it was so easy and people are probably listening to us right now like okay let me get this straight this dude cast 150 000 dollar job into the wind on a whim to go see what else was out there and i think that in itself

man takes a certain kind of of mox. And again, it's about risk. It's about risk analysis and risk reward. So when you're making that decision, I think that decision is very interesting. Let's, I mean, take me back to like, walk me through making that decision. It can't be as easy as you said. Well, to me, it was more about,

is the squeeze worth the juice? And I was just at a point where i love canada new york i go back and was every year and bring and bring some of my kids with me um because i found my dad's still there i have friends there forever who i love and adore but i i was bored there yeah and so i really thought about is this where i'm going to spend the rest of my life and for me the economics of it was I could move to St. George. This is back before the bubble burst. This is 05.

Oh, right. You're like, the market's screaming. Market's rolling right now. I'm going to freaking kill it. Everybody's going to be a millionaire. These guys are already saying, hey, we have plazas that we oversee. You could do tenant rep deals and done. We'll give you a book of business because of your hustle and who you are.

Yeah. Which we can get into that in a second, how I did okay doing that. I cold called all of downtown, all of St. George proper, every single business there as a commercial broker. Just went and knocked on doors to introduce myself. No one had done that before. I got business from it. But we'll get to that in a second.

So for me, it was more about, okay, I could make the same, even more money with half the taxes. And it doesn't snow that much in St. George because in upstate New York, it's brutal. I've told all my friends, even my dad, if you die in the winter, I will send Kentucky Derby style roses to your funeral, but I'm not coming. I'm not coming back. Love you. Not coming back. When I left Detroit, I told, was it Detroit? I think it was Detroit. I told people when I left Detroit, because when I was in corporate restaurants, I would be in a place for a certain amount of time, and I'd say, when I'd leave, I'd be like,

oh, I'll see you guys later. I'll see you. I'll come visit. You'll see me. When I left Detroit, I'm like, you guys will never see me again. Gone. Deuces. I won't book a flight that flies over this place.

I am out, and you'll never see me again. That's Detroit. If you live in Detroit now, I'm sorry if I offended you. If you live in Detroit, I didn't mean to, but there you go. But yeah, but. But yeah, that was it, really. It's just, it was. But it wasn't, okay, so.

But you didn't, there wasn't really a burn the bridges type moment. Like, you could have always gone back. Not at all. Mom would have welcomed you back and found something. Yeah, and I had built such a great, and luckily earned it, a name for myself in my little town of Canandaigua. It was front page news when I left. The Daily Messenger interviewed me,

and my picture was there on his front page news that Jeff Fargo is leaving Canandaigua, New York. Oh, boy. Yeah, it was crazy. Well, just my grandfather. Is there a Jeff Fargo day? Noandaigua, New York. Oh, boy. Yeah, it was crazy. Well, just my grandfather. Is there a Jeff Fargo day? No. No.

Nor should there be. No. Nor should there be. But my grandfather, Lester Boyce, he started from nothing. And, I mean, had an amusement park that there were generations of kids that grew up there. Yeah. Roseland Park. See, that's the guy I want to talk to.

I don't want to talk to you. No, I'm just kidding. No, no, please. Him and my dad have been my biggest mentors and my grandfather passed away. I was 28. Yeah. Um, but there's so much I learned from him that I carry through today.

Like trusting people doing deals on a handshake. I still do that. I still take people for their word and trust them. I get burned, but okay. That's somebody else's. That's how they want to do it. And God bless you.

Yeah. Um, so I learned a lot that way. If I told, if I said right now, the amount of money that I have out on a handshake on a deal right now, I don't think anybody would ever listen to this again because it's one of the deals I have out on a handshake is a lot. But I trust the guy. And you know what?

Go with your gut. That's it. And that's something, if you're listening right now, I don't care if you are 19 years old or 99 years old, go with your gut. Always. Your instincts are good. Don't overthink it. Surround yourself with good people to advise you, but your gut's always going to, almost every single time, be great. You're fine. Always. So that's what happened. That's what got me to St. George. So now you're working at Coa Banker now. Coa Banker Commercial. So this is interesting. So you started out as a commercial real estate agent. Yep. Did a you're working at Coa Banker now. Coa Banker Commercial. So this is interesting. So you start out in

you started as a commercial real estate agent. A couple resi deals but 90% was doing commercial deals. All commercial. Did okay, not great because I was still being subsidized by my mom was sending me money to cover my nut. Makes it easier. Makes it a lot easier. So no fire, no drive.

Broke up with a girl that I moved out with six months later after moving out there because I found that coming to Vegas with some guys that weren't members of the LDS culture. Was more fun. One of the guys had an Amex black card. So we're at the Wind Tower Suites going to Trist, getting the grotto over on the side. I loved Trist. Getting the grotto place over on the left hand side on the

water i know what you're talking about and doing that and a boy from canada new york and doing that all of a sudden you're like whoa bright lights big city buddy what's going on with this and next thing you know a 510 leggy blonde takes me to dance on the dance floor and we're doing shots of cuervo on the dance floor and i thought it was a king and then she says you want to go up to my room i go yeah she goes okay She goes, okay, it'll be $2,000. And I thought- Welcome to Vegas, folks. I'm like, wow, you're going to pay me $2,000 to go upstairs with you?

She's like, no. I'm like, oh, okay. So that was like- Wait, you're like, I see what's going on here. Wait a second. I was like, okay. So that woke me up to Vegas really quick. Yeah.

I see what's happening here. Yeah. I see what's happening here. Yeah. Had about a year of that and got bored of that and then ended up actually converting, and I was Mormon. They got me. Whoa. Yeah. Really?

I went to one of the guys in my office, and I said, how come you guys are happy all the time? What is it? And they said, oh, let's talk. I go, listen, don't give me the Book of Mormon. I have ADHD. There's not enough pictures in there. Hit me with the highlights.

They got me with Mormonism for Dummies. It's a book. There's a book called Mormonism for Dummies? Yep. Got me. So you get, yeah. So are you still in the LDS church? No.

No. I left 2020. 2020. Yeah. I bounced January of 2020 when COVID was just rolling out. Yeah. And so became a member of the church. Then met my wife online on an LDS

website, my now ex-wife, but that's how we met. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. And she's great. And we have, she, I have a bonus daughter. She had a daughter from before. She's a widow and had a daughter from before who was six years old. And Izzy's now 19 and goes to UNLV and is awesome. We go for petties. That's her currency. That's her current thing. We go for pedicures. And then we had Alexandria. Alex is going to be 13 in July.

And then Jack is six. Nice. Yeah. Well, question. Did you ever do exceptionally well as a realtor or as an agent? I always did okay. I was doing stuff as a realtor. I did stuff in Canandaigua.

I did stuff in St. George. It was out of the box. Yeah. But I was way ahead of everybody else in terms of knocking on doors and farming and consistently staying in front of people. That's something that if the systems were in place, like there weren't CRMs back then. There was nothing. You're talking about 05, like there weren't CRMs back then. There was nothing, you know. You're talking about 05, 06 that time. Oh, yeah.

I remember coming to Vegas. I moved to Vegas. I already had a real estate license. And I had gotten a license after I was on The Apprentice. And then we sold out of my tech firm. And then I was basically sitting at home. And the girl that won my season, The Apprentice, was like, oh, get a real estate license. It'll be fun.

That's all I got in the business. And we were doing condo conversions for SunVest all over the place, if you remember them. And of course, moved here and met a girl. But anyway, when I first moved out here, coming out of the tech world that I was in into Vegas here, I built a website just out of flash. It was a recruiting website. There you go. It was a recruiting flash, i was like the first person to know how to use email spiders and stuff and i just i crawled the what was then the glvr

because they didn't realize that if you put everybody's email address there you could just crawl and grab them all yeah grabbed them grabbed them all down had an email server and i was the first person like hammering everybody so i moved out here uh started a team. And just because I was good at that stuff, I hired like 25 people in like two days. And I had no lead source. I had nothing. I didn't matter. And it just figured it out. And I'm proud to say that that business is still alive today and it's still here. So what's funny, but yeah, that's funny that we did that. But yeah, having those advantages of doing those things. So at what point did you find title insurance as being the niche, man? I ended up getting auto real estate when the bubble burst.

So 08, 09. What'd you do during that time? I went back into food and beverage. And my wife and I at the time opened up Fargo's Drive-Thru in Santa Clara, Utah, right next door to St. George. And I think it was 2010, I won like eight awards for St. George Magazine, you know, like Best of Las Vegas kind of thing.

And so I was Best Chef. I have no culinary training. It's all marketing. It's all semantics. Yeah. It's all just, I mean, I put a ballot on every single tray or every order that went out and highlighted every single category that we qualified for.

Right. Best milkshake, best lunch, best French fries. Just to make sure you vote them all. And then I did it and won. and highlighted every single category that we qualified for. Right. Best milkshake, best lunch. Just to make sure you vote them all. And then I did it in one. Just one. And it was asking for the votes. It was hysterical.

And the thing with the restaurant business is it becomes your mistress for anyone that's been in it. Oh yeah. No. And so it's also, so you're there all the time. Yep. You never see your family. Nope.

And it's feast or famine every single day. The widow maker. Yep. And so it became great, then not so great. But also, I have a background in digital strategy and digital marketing. I was doing stuff on America Online back when we owned the college housing complex. And I had tenants of mine doing testimonials on their America Online pages saying, hey, I stay at the Brentwood Apartments.

If you're going to Phoenix Community College, call Jeff Fargo. Here's his phone number. I was getting business that way. Yeah, it was before anybody even thought to do that. They knew it. And so I did that and grew a sizable Facebook business page. This was before you could do Facebook ads, before anybody organically could.

Smaller people. I wasn't Ford Motor Company. Yeah, you could actually compete. So they wouldn't talk to me. But I could, if we were having a slow day, push something out and go, print this out, bring it in and get a free small milkshake with any purchase. Next thing you know, 20 people walk in the door. I was like, holy crap. Works for me. Pretty cool. And so I've always been in that space and always been, and that's evergreen. And I went from that to doing stuff on MySpace to Facebook. And now I'm,

you know, YouTube and a massive on Google. Um, I do Google reviews and over 8.5 million views, um, on my reviews on Google. Um, I play very well in the Google ecosystem. And so that's really what now that's the water I'm currently playing in. So is that, but how that was, I'm sorry. So, right. So God, so was, so was, was the restaurant business. We were like, we can't do this anymore. The company that I hired to do our website, Innovation Simple, Gavin Levitt, the guy that owns it, said, hey,

I need a business development guy. You're really good. Like, I see what you're doing at Fargo's. Why don't you come work for me? Went to work for him for about two years. Did some stuff in St. George. But then about a year in, he said, hey, why don't you go check out Vegas? Trying to drive some sales down there.

Vegas is booming. Why don't you go look? So I ended up, I became Cato Kaelin for about a year. I lived in a casita in Roma Hills. That's right. See, look at that. That's where I live. There you go.

I was a casita in Roma Hills. What street? What street are you talking about? I was there for, I don't remember anymore. I don't. I don't. I'd have to look it up because I was there for a year and I'd stay here for the week and then go back to St. George on the weekends to be with my family.

And I worked for, I worked, and I was, this is back when the Chamber of Commerce here was above the Apple store in Town Square. And I became the guy that I'd sit in their like common area on my laptop. Whenever they bring in new members, Oh, this is Jeff Fargo. He can help you with your Facebook page, your website, SEO, and all that. And it was like shooting fish in a barrel and did very well at that. Um, and then got poached by green spun media group. Uh, they brought me in to do ad sales for them. And I was account exec for them. And that's when I got that job. We moved here. That was a little over 10 years ago. Then moved the family here,

was at Greenspun for about three and a half years. Was great with the digital sales, the online web-based stuff, but print, I was terrible. I was terrible at print ad sales and found out very quickly. Is it because you didn't believe in it? I just, yeah, I'm just not a fan of it. It just antiquated. For me, the ROI wasn't there. It was a hard sell. I was there with some great people. My boss was amazing.

Good company. Brian Greenspan's great, but it was like, I just can't do this. And so I got out and that was it. See, okay, well, that's a good, that's a great lesson for those of you listening at home right now. If you do not 100% believe in what you're selling,

you are never going to be good at selling it,. If you are like, for example, I think this is a problem that a lot of realtors are having right now is because they're having this crisis of confidence because they don't understand how to present the current market conditions to people is a good time to buy a house. And I think the answer, the answer to that question is, and I'm going to answer that question, which is, it's not always a good time to buy a house. And it's the truth. What you have to do is you have to find out your client's wants and needs. You have to understand that if they're going to hold the house for longer than seven years, if they're like, I need a house for two years, it might not be the best idea. But if they're going to be there for seven, interest rates come,

interest rates go. They're buying the house. If you rent, you're still buying a house. You're just buying the landlord's house, if you say that. And it may make sense, but it's a case-by-case informational basis. But I think too many people, in whatever they do, get this blanket opinion and don't look for individual situations. So I love that you said that you couldn't sell the print because you didn't believe in it. I couldn't do it. It's the same with anything. You're never going to be sell the print because you didn't believe in it. It's the same with anything.

You're never going to be good at selling shit you don't believe in. They fired me. Best thing that ever happened to me was being fired from Greenspun. And they should have. And so got out of that. I worked for about three months for a commercial real estate software company. They were still scaling up. And so that didn't work.

And then I was on unemployment for about four months, ended up watching all of Sons of Anarchy, and got addicted to the Ellen DeGeneres show. I got a question. What was the, because I've never done this, and I'm curious. What was the psyche like? What did it do to your self-esteem? What did it do to your psyche? What did it do to you as a person? It was a psyche like? What did it do to your self-esteem? What did it do to your psyche?

What did it do to you as a person? It was a gut punch. To do that. It really realigned my ego. Being in sales, we all have that bravado. Sure. We all have that presence. We walk into a room with the smartest guy in the room.

Of course. That always happens. And when that happens to you where you're not the smartest guy in the room, because we're firing you, it's very humbling. And you tend to take a step back and audit what you bring to the world. What is it that you do? And you kind of do a SWOT analysis to say, all right, what strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, what is it that I'm bringing to the world that I can help make money off of what I can do. And, but also what can't I do? What, it's okay to say no. Any of my clients here, I tell all of them, the most powerful word you have in your lexicon is no. You know, just because you live in Las Vegas, prostitution is not legal. Don't say yes to

everybody because they're going to pay you. You just don't do that. Don't do that. You don't want to be that person, regardless of if you're in real estate or not. You're in sales, you don't do that. Don't do that. You don't want to be that person, regardless of if you're in real estate or not. If you're in sales, you don't want to do that. And so that was a big one for me. Started taking indoor cycling classes. Did it put you in like a depression? Did you go into quicksand? Yeah, I mean, a little bit.

But what I did was is one day went with my wife at the time, took our daughter to the Henderson Multigenerational Center to do a pottery class right next door was a guy doing indoor cycling. I was at the time, and then I was 75 pounds heavier than I am now. Started taking classes there. And he was the sales manager for one of the biggest title companies in the country and was here in town. And after about three months, four months, he said, hey, why don't you come be a rep for me and do title and escrow? And I said,

I know nothing about title and escrow. And he said, neither did I 13 years ago. And now here I am. We'll train you. You know, marketing, you know, real estate. And I like you as a person. So he brought me in and that's kind of that's how it started. And they gave me a long leash to run on. I started doing Periscope videos and this was seven years ago. So I was going into some of the biggest agents here in town. Kids are like, what the hell is a Periscope? Oh yeah. They have no idea.

Owned by Twitter. Shelf life of 24 hours. Come and go. Yeah. But it's the original Facebook live. Yeah. Let's just say that. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. And I, and I ended up getting into, I met with Florence Shapiro and Ivan Shira and I said, hey, I know that you already have escrow and title relationships, but I have a marketing tool that you're not using and you guys are really good at what you do. Can I just come to some open houses

and just start doing some Periscope videos? They're like, yes, absolutely. Next thing you know, it ramps up and they start seeing what I'm doing. Other agents are seeing what I'm doing. So that's an interesting thing you just said. So if, you know, again, there's always, I look for the little lessons in the stories, man.

I look for the little lessons. And I think that that's a great lesson, which was, for those of you that don't live in Las Vegas, he threw some names out, which was Florence Shapiro and Ivan Sher. And Florence has passed away since. Ivan is now the sole master of that craft or of that business. But you're talking about Ivan is the biggest luxury agent in Vegas. I mean,

he's a monster business. Monster business. And Ivan's a wonderful human. He's one of my friends. And you're a brand new guy in the business. And if you're in sales, take that story to heart, because what he did was he, he had enough belief in what he could offer this person that he didn't, it didn't matter. This was the number, these were the number one people. It didn't matter. He had enough belief in what he had to go right to the top. Because here you are going from nobody knows who the hell you are to now you're in these videos with the top two people in our industry at that time in Vegas. And how much easier was it to climb down than it was to climb up? Infinitely easier.

Infinitely easier. I always try to go to the top decision makers. I'm a confident guy. Yeah. And I'm not going to waste anybody's time. I'm very tactical with my time. I tell everyone, defend your calendar.

Always defend your calendar. It's okay to not take a meeting with somebody. Yeah. Vegas is the biggest waste of time ever. With events and everything else that goes on here. Pick and choose. I normally don't take meetings unless there's an agenda. Right.

I just want to. You need to be strategic with what you're doing. And so that's, that was my approach. And when I'm going to all these top producing agents and brokers in town to say, Hey, I have the full faith and backing of a $8 billion company is what I'm working for, but I'm not going to walk in with bagels and, you know, and a lunch and learn. And here's some, you know, here's sandwiches and a desktop calendar. Here's our app, you know. No, I'm just not going to do that. We have all that stuff. It's great, but no, I'm going to do something that's ground and pound right now. I'm going to help you with your business. I'm going to listen to you also. I mean, sales 101 is find the pain, sell the pain. That's it. So what struggle are you dealing with? I always say a challenge. I don't say problems.

Problems are insurmountable. Challenges can be overcome. What challenges are you facing right now in your business? And I listened. And if I can help, I will help. And I will even maintain a relationship with you weekly, monthly, whatever, to be your accountability partner to help you become better and evolve at your business. That's what I do. And I'll never judge you. I'll never lie to you.

And also, whatever we talk about stays in complete confidence. I tell everyone I'm from New York. I have a big trunk and a shovel and all the freaking bodies are buried, man. I know. But when you work with me, I don't share with anybody else. I don't have to. So essentially, it's funny. You, for the agency, I mean, we're kind of going fast forward a little bit, but that's

okay. So for you, for those of you who aren't in the industry, aren't in the real estate industry, you don't know what we're talking about. So title insurance and escrow is a part of the process and it is a very lucrative part of the process. And in title companies, hire reps to go out and solicit business from really the realtors because trying to go consumer direct, it's a product that doesn't make sense to market consumer direct because it's purchased so infrequently. It's just every time you buy a house, which is what, every, on average, seven years for people. So it just doesn't make sense. Like if you go to

somebody right now and ask them, what was the name of the title company? They probably don't remember, right? So you market to the source of the deal, which in most cases is the agent, right? So rather than, you know, you know, an amateur would walk in and try to expound all of the brilliance of, of their product, of what it does. Now, for example, I'll give you a better example. I just went to it right before I met with you, somebody from my neighborhood. I, I, I don't list property anymore unless it's in my neighborhood. It's the only place I list, I list homes personally, just because I want to protect the value of my house by not having some numb nuts that doesn't know what they're doing.

Exactly. Give a house away to my neighbor. Exactly right. So I got a call right before I came here, and I stopped into a house and walked around and looked at the house. It's a total flip, gut redo, and it's good. And the guy wants a lot for foot with it. I mean, he wants to crush a record in there per foot. At the end of it, I said, you you know i can come back later i just want to

see the house today i said i can come back at some point and do a whole dog and pony show but we all do the same shit amen i said amen i'm not gonna show you everybody's gonna say the same thing yeah right and he was like nope and i appreciate you valuing my time i'm good i got everything i need to see just from talking to you. So that's the idea. But the idea was rather than pitch the bullshit, it's let me cut to the chase of how I can really help you. Exactly right. And I like to say, you know, nobody wants to see the sausage get made. They just want it on their plate.

That's all they care about. Yeah. So you kind of made a name for yourself by doing that, by assisting other, by going right to them and saying, look, I'm going to facilitate myself as, as a coach. Yeah. Not even as forget I'm a title rep. Yeah. I care. That's how you pay me. Yeah. I'm more interested in helping you make money. Exactly. Right. And I think again, you know, the problem isn't people need title insurance. The problem is they need more business. Yeah. And if you can help them do for themselves, because obviously with RESPA, we're, we're with Respo, all of our title companies are very Respo compliant. Absolutely.

We don't do that in my business. But if you can help them help themselves, I think it's a better move. Yeah. And luckily what I did worked. Facebook ran their algorithms and saw what I was doing on Periscope. And I was the first one in the real estate vertical to get Facebook Live. And so what I did was took the entire realtor roster from here, Galvar roster, dumped it into a target audience, all the email addresses, and did a video campaign of me saying, hi, I'm Jeff Fargo with Blah Blah Title. And if you're seeing this, I can help you get in front of the exact people that need to work with you.

Click below for more information. How much do you miss the targeted audience in Facebook? I could do lines of credit. People had opened. I could get someone that went to work with you click below for more information how much do you miss the targeted audience in facebook i could do lines of credit people had opened i could get someone that like oh my to stamford for their masters owned a parrot drove a buick like oh that that when they pulled good old days pulled that down oh that was the hardest part of me died part of me died a little part of me died when that happened and even and that's you know i try to combat it a little bit with geofencing yeah yeah yeah yeah like you know but those are the true good old days of facebook ads and people didn't get it so there was scarcity so i was the only one doing it well don't okay don't kid yourself it's still happening just the average joe just doesn't have the money to make that happen and they don't know to do like do retargeting campaigns and all that.

Yeah. You know, but that, that you and I, even, even being good at this, we don't have that, but it's, that's still happening. And so that was, to me, that was huge. It was, it was good enough for me that I was recognized my third year, a DPK award at, at first American title recognized top 1% in the nation. Um, from from what I did because my year over year increase in revenue was like 108% or 110% increase in revenue. And it was all digital strategy. And I was the only guy in town beating that drum. And I still, that's my jam. But it's much more than Facebook now. It's almost everything. At 52 52 years old I'm on TikTok doing dance videos with my 12 year old daughter you know which are freaking hysterical and I love it

yeah um but it's putting yourself out there um now it's all video like you know everything with everything now is video is evergreen content and people are so afraid of judgment especially realtors that they won't do videos and I tell all which of them. Which I find crazy. It's bananas. I find that to be crazy. I mean, obviously we're sitting in a studio in my real estate company, which is open for all of our agents to use, which is, we, but we build it for that reason. You know, we're, we're, we're very much on that same. You have to be putting out videos literally every day, everything from YouTube to short tail stuff on Instagram, Tik TOK, snap, Facebook everything. You need to be omnipresent in front of your audience and always building your audience.

You know, for people out of market, I always use the analogy about Glenn Lerner is the big personal injury attorney here. Because you even know his jingle. Everyone knows his freaking jingle. And I tell everybody, you need to be the Glenn Lerner of your SOI in your neighborhood. That when they wake up in the morning and they go to bed at night,

they are seeing you, hearing you. They get a voicemail drop from you, a mailer, an ad somewhere, an email, a text, something. Every day they're getting that from you. Because even though you're going to buy or sell a house once every five to seven years, you're going to know someone that wants to move here. Or someone in your neighborhood wants to move, you go, you know what, I want to talk to to talk call john gafford i don't know him that well we bought a house from a couple years ago but this son of a is sending me something every day yeah well don't no don't kid yourself all the clients that we work with know who we are five years old we are but that's but that's a lot of agents that's the challenge they have they don't they don't

do it what is that what's the figure the figure? It's something egregious. Like 85% of people don't use the same agent twice. Yeah. It's bananas. Which is 100% not based on the job that you did. It's on the job that you stopped doing. Correct. Going forward.

If you want to keep your clients, you can't stop recruiting them after the sale. You've got to continue to do that. That's when it begins. You've earned the right. Yes. You them after the sale. You've got to continue to do that. That's when it begins. You've earned the right. Yes. You've earned the right. It's so much cheaper to keep a previous client than it is to get a new one.

Yeah. And yet people don't do that. Yeah. They don't do that. Yeah. All right, so if you had to give any bit of advice to somebody, getting, if they're, let's say, I mean, you've done a lot,

you took a lot of chance, you did this, but let's talk about if you had to give one solid piece of advice to anybody, with, because there's going to be some job change, man. There's going to be some, the people are going to get laid off. And I'm telling you right now, if you have a job that is, if you have a job that is a line item on a P&L somewhere, and as the market changes, there is somebody. Let's just put, I mean, we'll make this as ominous as we can. There's somebody in a dark room.

And they've got a red pen. Oh, yeah. And they're looking down the P&L, and they see, hmm, what is this number? Yep. What does this person do? And then they're going to strike it. And there's a lot of people that are going to get redlined off of P&Ls. Yeah.

And a great place for you to land if you're moving out is in the sales industry. Because, again, if you're in the sales industry, you can pay for yourself. You can justify your own existence. So if I'm somebody that's thinking about getting in the sales industry, give me a couple things that I have got to know if I'm thinking about making that jump. Don't sell me. Don't expect to sell me.

Earn that right. You want me to talk about me. That's the best thing I could talk about is me. So have zero expectations to close anybody, especially in the beginning. Form the relationship. Pour a solid foundation where you're helping them. Help them out. There's people to this day, if I see on Facebook, they're sick, I'll send them chicken noodle soup, Amazon Prime, done, two hours, it's there with zero expectations. You know, help people, but not just, if you're selling widgets, they might not need your widget at that point in time. Right. But they're super cool. And you have other things like you're both parents or you both like certain things. You'll play golf together,

build that foundation and be a good person. Just karma, karma, karma, karma. Um, the way things are now, people can see someone, if you're coming sideways at them, especially here in Vegas, everyone's selling you something. Everybody's selling you something here in Vegas. So you've got the shield is already up. So you're not going to stop beating your head against stuff like that. Be a good person and come from a position of empathy. Listen to them, put your phone down, talk to them and see how you can help them. Yep. With zero expectations of benefiting, benefiting yourself from that. Your benefit is help them.

Acts of service is my biggest love language. Well, people, well, people can, people can smell, smell it on you. Oh, you get commission breath. They can smell it on you. Yeah, you get commission breath and they're out. I'm out with anybody. And so that's the biggest one to me. I tell everybody is give.

Just give. And you always have something. Your time, your talent, money, whatever. But give. Well, you know, it's one of my favorite new quotes. And I wish I could remember which one of my friends said it because it was one of them. They said that giving with expectation is not giving. It's trading.

Exactly right. Exactly right. So just we all have something., it's trading. Exactly right. Exactly right. So just, we all have something, and it could be just your attention, because we're all fighting battles and wars on a daily basis. We're all waging those. And for you to come into someone's life,

could be for just a few minutes of positivity, and you're listening to them, give them a hug, you could turn them around. Leave them better than you found them. Exactly right. That's how you do it. So that's, to me, that's it. All right, well, if they want to find more of you, Jeff, where do they find you on social?

Where can they connect with you? Jeff.Fargo, Instagram, TikTok. I'm all, yeah, just Jeff.Fargo, and you can't miss this, you know. See, that's another good tip. Beautiful giant head. Everything should be consistent across all your social platforms.

Jeff.Fargo. That's it. That's it. I love that. All right, well, if you're listening to us on one of the, what it is, one of the podcast apps, either Apple or Spotify, make sure you give us a five-star review because the more reviews I get, then the more people we can get in here to help you guys. And if you're watching us on the YouTube, make sure you give us a high

review, like comment, subscribe and do all those things. But anyway, Jeff, thanks for so much for stopping by, man. I love, I love, I love the nuggets of wisdom. I and do all those things. Anyway, Jeff, thanks so much for stopping by, man. My pleasure. I love the nuggets of wisdom. I love all of those things. And remember, guys, if you're going to move, keep moving forward. We'll see you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us

live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.