KGCI: Real Estate on Air - #1 KW Agent in the World, 7 Times, Tom Daves

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

In the house today, we have a Titan. The Titan is Tom Dave's. I asked Tom a little bit about himself, and he described himself as a man of God, first and foremost, and I really appreciated that. A family man with a beautiful wife on his arm, three beautiful children, a man that gives back and makes a difference in people's lives. When I asked Tom as why, he said his why is simply to serve. And when you're simply to serve, then it shows, and it shows up in Tom Dave's lives. As an athlete by nature, cycling is here's year-round passion. He does the death ride every year, which is a big ride around Lake Tahoe,

entailing 12,000 plus minus feet of ascent, and just lung busting, you know, ascents and climbing. Over five mountain passes. Plus, he's a barefoot water skier, enjoys healy skiing in Canada. I mean, really? an avid golfer that enjoys any time he can get to the mountains in the ocean, Tom's the happiest. This man is a beast. 35 years of experience in the real estate world completing over 7,000 closed transactions, formerly the number one Keller-Oam's agent in the world seven separate times.

That's an amazing feat. Please help me welcome. my guest, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Tom Dave. Tom, thank you for being on the show, and I really, really appreciate having you today. Awesome. Glad to be here. It's an honor, Randy. Thank you very much.

I'm excited, excited to share with others and always excited to connect with you. You know, it's funny, Tom, because, you know, one of the first thing you say is you're a man of service, a man of God, but also you love giving back. And, you know, I see that in the people that have had Uber successful. successful careers like yourself. And I'm just really, really excited to get to the brass tax of this and talk about some of the things that have inspired you in your many years of real estate and the things that drive you, right? And so I've got a couple questions for you if you'll play along with me. And there's no right or wrong answer. It's really about you. But letting the guests and letting the people on this show today really get to know you a little bit. I know we'll have

thousands of viewers in this particular segment. And I know they're looking at you and want to know what you do and how you've become so successful, Tom. So my first question, they're kind of all over the place, designed that way to create some interaction and curiosity amongst the fans and the guests. But tell me, what are your maybe one to three books that most influence you professionally and personal? Well, one book that really, really struck a chord with me. It was called Half Time. And it's a book about a gentleman, which I thought that it was myself that wrote this book. And basically, he talks about the first half of your life is all about success. And the second half is about significance. And I felt that way, I feel that way

with myself. You know, I've achieved many, many milestones and a lot of success, a lot of awards and trophies, walking across stage, accepting those. But it's really more about significance than it is about success. So half time is a great one. And obviously the Bible, I'm a man of God. So there's just so much wisdom in the Bible that I read every day. There's just huge wisdom to gain from that, which is awesome. And then a few others, there's, oh, how about living with a seal? I don't know if you're Gagons. I just can't hurt me, man.

Best book on the planet for certain things. Absolutely. There's always more in our reserve tank than we think. Grit was another great book that I've read. and Angela Duckworth, and it just talks about, it's not all about knowledge, it's about grinding it out. And it's about being, you know, working hard. Wow. That's really wrong.

And then here's the last one, $6,000. It's kind of a fun book. The $6,000 egg. And I'm actually going through that right now with my team. And it's just, it doesn't talk about customers. service. It talks about the customer experience. I got you. A difference one by one with all of our clients and our relationships that we have and going above and beyond. So those are some of the ones that come to mind. And I just love reading.

I love to constantly read and grow. I mean, I'm a YouTube fanatic. I mean, every single morning I get up and we'll talk more about my morning ritual. I have a question about your morning ritual coming up. I knew going into this interview that I was going to have to try and not take as many notes. So luckily we're recording this for all the viewers out there. You can go back and watch this and get these nuggets because I'm already wanting to take notes from Tom Davis. So Tom, let me go on the next question I have. In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

Well, I think it goes right to, you know, Hal Elrod, you know, the morning ritual. It goes right to, you know, the acronym, savers. You know, I get up in the morning and, you know, I don't know if you've seen the Hal Elrod savers, but it's, you know, it starts with S is for silence, A is for affirmation, V is visualization, E is exercise, R reading, S is scrubbing. So every morning I get up, read the Bible, pray, journal, exercise, and then scribe. It definitely makes a huge difference in my life. I start on the right foot. I don't always feel like it.

Sometimes I'll get up in the morning and just, you know, I kind of want to just veg out or whatever. But I just force myself to do it. And it's definitely made a huge difference in my life. significantly awesome. You're impressive on a lot of levels, and I'm not just saying this because of our content today, but you shared with me your daily ritual one day, and it kind of freaked me out.

It was like you had these 20 items that you had to get done every day, and had a checkbox. It was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then I realized, you know, what does the inside look at the number one agent in the world look like? And you're it. And so I appreciate you sharing that and being willing to share that very much. You know, that's kind of a weird quirk that I have is checking off boxes.

I mean, I feel so good at the end of the day when I have a list of things to do and I check those boxes off. I mean, I'll even have a checklist when I'm, you know, on the weekend if I have four to do, you know, if I have five or six things to do. And then, you know, let's say, for example, I forgot to write down going to the cleaners. I'll still write that down. I can check it off. You're an animal. Well, I think you have to do that to complete 7,000 transactions in your life. I mean, you have to have systems in place, right?

And it's funny because you're tying right into my next questions as we progress. So I love that. So let me ask you, kind of off the cuff a little bit. What's the craziest thing or experience you've witnessed in real estate? Oh, well, I've seen so many different real estate transactions, clients, buyer-sellers. So I would probably just go back to the peanut butter open house. And it was my very first open house.

I started real estate when I was like 12. I was very young. And I didn't really have the best training. But my broker said, you need to hold an open house. So I said, okay. So I went out first thing that Sunday morning and I just had a cup of coffee. and then I knocked on doors. I put out flyers.

I put my signs up. I got everything dialed in. And then I got to the open house at 1 o'clock. And the sellers were there. The place was immaculate. They left. I said, thank you very much. Sat down on the chair, turned on the football.

No one came. And I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. I was starving. So young and naive, I thought, okay, what can I do? What can I eat where they won't know? So I actually grabbed some peanut butter and a half a piece of white wonder bread, I think, and I had an open-faced piece of peanut butter, took a huge bite, and the owners came back in. No face was beet red.

They were like, oh, are you hungry? I'm like, no. Anyway, I don't know anything. But the peanut butter open. house. Crazy thing. And I've had, you know, anything from that, of course, the REO days for closures, REOs, you know, I've had SWAT team, you know, guns, you know, at gunpoint.

Oh, West. Just, oh, yeah, you name it. I could write a book, right? Right, you should write a book on this. You can go from the height of exaltation to the depths of the beat within the same 60 seconds. That's fun. I love that.

I love it. Great, great story. Thank you. So you mentioned a little bit about this earlier, but the next question is, what is an unusual habit or an absurd thing you love? You know, I am just, I'm probably checking my phone way too much. I think I've checked it five times since we've been sitting here. Or, you know, just making sure that I, that I have my phone or my keys, patting my pocket. And your boxes? I constantly, I don't know why, but after I send a text or I craft an email, I'll constantly go back and read it again and again. Just a couple of weird, quirky habits that I have that are, you know.

You have anything that's like a ritual, superstition, something in the morning, anything that stands out? Well, the only thing that I can think of is, You know, and ever since I've been a kid, you know, my brothers and sisters and I, don't jinx it, you know. Like if we're on a road trip, don't say, oh, this is nice. There's no traffic because you're going to drink it. Or if you're on a chairlift, oh, this chairlift hasn't stopped all day long. Don't say. Yeah.

So I just don't. Yeah. So I just don't, don't ever want to quote anything. It might jinx it, right? I like it. Good idea. Keep the inspiration. positive. So next question, and I have a series of about 10 questions, and so we're moving

through them pretty well, and I really appreciate your, you know, being here and also contributing to people that are watching the show. I think there's a lot of nuggets that are going to come from this. So question, what are bad recommendations or bad advice you hear most in the real estate business? Well, I think one of them that comes to mind is, I think, There's a saying, fake it until you make it. And I think that it's so important for people to get knowledge and be a student of the industry and have a mentor and gain as much information as you can from other people. So you can master this. So you don't have to fake it.

And I think a lot of times people will, they're just not going to be honest. Let's say, for example, if a client asks them a question, they'll just make up an answer and they're afraid to say, you know what? I don't know. I'm not sure, but I'm going to find out and I'll let you know right away. So that's one of them. Fake it until you make it. I think that's the top one comes. I would agree with you.

And, you know, I witnessed you at an event talking with a client. And, of course, you know, you're trying to listen to the great Tom Dave's and get nuggets of what you can. and just the language and stuff. But I remember you saying, you know, I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to have to look into that. I just don't know the answer. And I was like, man, that's really, it seems simplistic. But at the highest level, if you believe that, then obviously you're giving them just what you know

and not trying to fake your way around it. Absolutely. Because people can see right through that anyway. So I think being vulnerable and being transparent and just totally being honest with people, It's really simple. Our business, any business is simple. Show up on time. Do what you say you're going to do and tell the truth.

You know, if you can follow those three things, you're going to beat the competition 90% of the time, right? Absolutely. Are you always on time, Tom? You know, I'm not. I am not always on time. One of my... It seemed very punctual. That's why I was asking.

Yeah. Probably one of the things that I'm working at. on is I'm working on space. That's one of the things on my checklist. Good friend my Don Yockems pointed it out to me. I try and crampt too much into the to the day. I book appointments one hour from each other, like on a listing appointments. I'll book four appointments back to back to back to back, you know, one at two, one at three, one at four. One at four. The whole day has screws up the whole day. Right. And it's for some reason, I guess, a rush by doing that, but it's not really doing myself or my clients or my colleagues

any. So I'm working on being on time. I got you. I got you. Cool. I appreciate you being vulnerable about that. Because listen, there's a lot of people watching that are like, okay, he's a madman. How does he do all this?

And to know that you're real and you're just doing the best you can. And what's amazing to me is the identification that you still. are always working on bettering yourself and bettering your business and bettering the service you can provide clients. We have to. And, you know, the plane that flies from San Francisco to New York, it's actually on course only 10% of the time. It's correcting, correcting, correcting.

And that's how I view my life is to constantly correct and improve to be the best itself that I can be. I love that, Tom. Thank you, man. This is great. I really appreciate it. So this next one may be a little deep, but when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused or have lost focus temporarily, what do you do? Well, that's a great question.

And I do lose focus. I am off track from time to time. And as you know, I've been through several economic cycles. One of my favorite saying is Wayne Gretzky, you have to skate to where the puck is going to be. Not where it is now, but where it's going to be. and I've done traditional real estate, REO, bank own, foreclosure, team, huge private equity, Blackstone Private Equity.

And I've had the ability to catch those economic cycles before they hit. But there's always a little bit of a downturn in between each of those. So to answer your question, I just focus. on massive activity. There's a saying that activity cures anxiety. And I've gone through anxiety through some of those downturns and some of the shifts in the market. So I just have massive activity. And I throw it, you know, whether it's just putting on the headset, getting on Mojo and just

dialing for dollars for hours and hours. I mean, I'll tell you what, if that doesn't cure anxiety, I mean, I don't know what will because it's the most dollar productive activity that you could do. It's just pick up the phone and start talking to people and stuff will happen. I love that. My coach told me outproduce your problems. Whatever your problems are, develop a production plan around it and outproduce your problems. Kind of what you're paying.

I love that. Oh, that's great. And that, you know, that transitions really into my next question was you've positioned yourself in front of many of these trends. Are you, personal buys, emerging companies. and Blackstone you mentioned, come others. What do you attribute your ability to, like, position yourself in front of these powerful trends? And a second part of that, as you mentioned, maybe a gap between it being an idea that it's going to happen and then it actually happening.

How do you have the wherewithal or the knowledge and just grit to just wait for that when you believe in it? How do you have that innate ability to do that? Well, that's a great question. So it goes back to the three fundamental things that will guarantee your success. Number one is your mindset. You have to have a positive mindset and think big mindset. Number two is how you spend your time. You have to be extremely disciplined with your time.

And then number three is who you spend your time with. Jim Rohn says we're the sum total of the five average people that we hang out with. So we have to be with people that are going to push us, people that are going to share information with us. And that's one of the things that I've done is I've constantly been in masterminds and I've collaborated with agents and brokers and business, extremely successful business people at the highest level that I can to gain knowledge, gain information, be a student of the market. When I was selling REOs, I would travel the country and go to these masterminds with, you know, with banks, you know, Atlanta, New York, Colorado, Denver, L.A., you know, wherever, Dallas to meet and connect with high-level professionals. And even, and right now with EXP, I've never been in a company where there's been so much amazing sharing and collaboration with unified gold. that is, and that, I mean, is one of the things that has taken me and taken so many others to the next level. So I hope that answered your question.

It did. Masterfully, you know, and you were obviously with Kellogg-Wiams many years, now with EXP, and you've just had this really, to me, it's a little bit of like a Jedi trick. How you can see what's coming up in the market and be positioned for it to happen when it has. happens. And I think that's really an amazing takeaway from this, watching what you do and how you have that ability to see those things. Is it, is it you're reading? Is it you're studying? Is it, is it just the collaboration with all these people that allow you to have that, that energy that understands what's coming? I think it's all of the above. It's the, my reading, study in the

market. You have to be a student of the market, student of the industry. And then also, meeting with other professionals and mastermining. And a lot of it's trial and error, you know, fail forward, right? Try something. I need to, and I think I'm pretty good at failing, but I'll fail fast and move on to the next thing. Right. Totally. You know, I love that fail forward because you can't be as big as you are without having failures along the way and just learning from them and failing forward.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's ready, then there's aim, and then there's fire. You know, I think I'm more on the third, fire, fire, fire. Your energy is unbelievable. Okay, so next question, I've been dying to ask you. Morning routine, you're a beast. I can tell you workout. You sent me a video one day.

Have you doing 20 pushups on, what's that board called? The endo board. The endo board. I was like, this guy, you know, not only is he doing 20 pushups because we have a little side bet, but he's doing on the endo board, making me step up my game. So tell me about your morning routine, kind of, you know, let people know what your average morning routine looks like and what that, you know, does for you. Sure, absolutely.

Well, I get up really early. That's another kind of quirky thing about me. I usually get up. I'm always up by four. Sometimes it's 3.30, 4 o'clock. So I'm up 4 o'clock. I grab, you know, I have some lemon water, some berries, and then get my coffee going. And then I go and sit down and read the Bible, pray journal.

And it's so nice. The house is quiet. No one's bugging me. And I'm just really spending some time, quiet time, praying. And sometimes I'll go outside in my backyard. We have a beautiful backyard. and we back have a view. So just really, you know, look at the stars, watch the sunrise.

And then from there, I'll either work out at the gym or I'll get on my bike, go for a bike ride. I do a spin class three days a week. Twice a week, I have a personal trainer that takes me through some pretty rigorous training. He has, you know, end of boards, slack line, you know, climbing wall. just all types of different. I mean, I'm just tired of going to the gym and using machines and weights over and over my whole life. So I need to really mix it up. And I also, I do better when someone tells me what to do.

When I'm in my spin class and the trainer is saying, okay, now we're going to push it hard. We're going to sprint. Same way when I have a personal trainer. So from there, then I go back home. It's usually 630. spend some time with my wife and my daughter, and then, you know, I have a little breakfast and then take my daughter to school, and then I'm usually to the office at about 8 o'clock. And then the first thing I do is delegate.

You know, that's a great thing. In fact, Tom Bellew gave me that idea previously. First thing I do is delegate to my staff. What can I get off of my plate? and then from there, handle a few emails, calls, texts, and then I do, you know, the most dollar productive activity. Do my lead generation. I love it. Activity breeds, activity cures anxiety, right? So that's, I love that answer. In the morning and then clean it up in the afternoon.

I know not to work out with you, and I certainly know not to bike ride with you. That's never going to happen, so don't ask. Just a couple quick questions. We're going to wrap this up today, really about you and appreciate your time and I'm sure people are loving it as well. I get this a lot. What advice would you give a brand new agent of entering the real estate business and what advice should they ignore? Okay. So obviously I would recommend that they get training and they get as much knowledge as they can so they can, you know, really fill their mind with the right thing to do, find a mentor and then do some shadowing and then make sure that you have a great schedule where

like I mentioned you know first thing in the morning you have your routine and then when you get to the office have role play and scripts and then lead generation and lead follow up for the first two or three hours every single day we're not in the real estate business we're in the lead generation business, and it's the Pareto principle. There's 20% of our activities that'll give us 80% of the results. So spend your time in those dollar productive activities and establish a database, a client referral, sphere of influence database. That's one of the mistakes that I made early on and did not really make that a primary goal. So I would recommend that every new agent focuses on, first of all, their database, sphere of influence. Second of all, open houses.

Open house is one of the best ways to get business, get listings. And then third is just share out prospecting. So those are my recommendations. And that's my story. I think I could use you on some of my coaching calls, Tom, because you held that one. And then what about the other piece of it? What advice should they ignore? What's one thing that you hear over and over to ignore? We talked a little bit about it earlier, you know, being fake it to you and make it. But is there anything that stands out to you, something that a brand new agent should ignore that they may hear in the industry? Well, a lot of people will say focus on your weaknesses, but don't focus on your weakness. I would focus on your strengths. Focus on something that you have gained some

immediate success with. Once you find something that you're successful at, that you like, that you do well, that you're good at, then I would just do it over and over and over and over and then rinse and repeat. So focus on your advice. That's great advice. You are a pro, man. I really, really have enjoyed this. My last question of the day, what career accomplishments make you the most proud? You've had a long, beautiful career still got a lot of years ahead of you. The amount of transactions and trophies and awards and first and major companies, you know, it's probably hard to put your finger on it, but what would you say it would be your most proud accomplishment? I would say my proudest accomplishment

was being the top agent in Keller Williams seven years in a row, not in a row, I mean seven years. It was just really rewarding for me and with a team to have a team effort for all others to help and support to achieve that. It's just really rewarding. So I just love this business. It's a great business. I love serving and giving back. And I'm just going to continue on, continue to serve and get back and support others. And we have a great foundation to do that, right? I totally. I love that. And, you know, I saw a picture of your party. You're having at your office and your sombrero and running around with music and games. And, you know, I do see you bringing the fun into real estate. And I think that is very attractive for people. Thank you so much, Randy. Great spending time with everyone. Good to see you again. Have a great day. And thank you very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a great day. Thanks you for being here.

Thank you.