KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Amy Minor

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

I'm interviewing my friend and business partner, Amy Minor, who is in Buda, Kyle, Texas, but we've been in business for a little while now. And you are an amazing mentor. And that's our topic for today, right? Hi. Yay. Hi. Okay.

So let's jump in. So you and I had a conversation a couple, I don't know, two, three weeks ago. And we were talking about just the work that you're doing with mentees at EXP and what's working and what's not working. And I loved the conversation that we had. So first, tell me a little bit about like, why did you decide to be a mentor? Why? So I love teaching. It's fun. It's rewarding. It's a nice extra, you know, a bit of income coming in. But my main reason is there is an energy to new agents. There's a hunger and I just love being in that learning environment that we're always learning.

I mean, even the mentee program is really set up in seven chapters that sort of repeat. They're on a cycle. So even when we're repeating chapters, I'm always learning new things and adding and changing what we're talking about and the discussions are all lively. The ones that show up, show up and it's it energizes me. And then it like, I leave those calls like, yeah, go do this thing too, whatever it was we were talking about. I love it. Well, I think in your energy, this has been my experience of you, but your energy is infectious. But tell me about that. You said when they show up, what is that?

What do you mean? I mean, showing up is, okay, I showed up to this meeting. But I don't think that's exactly what you met. First step is absolutely just showing up to the meetings, which you'd be surprised at how many mentees don't go to practice. They just show up for the game and they don't understand why they don't know the rules. And it's like you've got to be game practicing all the time, sports reference. But you know, it's a great reference.

Do you use that reference with your agents? I do, yeah. You don't get to the game and then call me and go, I don't know how to do a listing presentation. Like, what? Hey, coach, put me in. And it's like, no, you haven't been to practice. No, exactly. No, 100%.

And then, you know, beyond just showing up, I give mentees assignments every week. We have a meeting once a week. We go through our chapters. And I don't think it's part of, it's not part of the program necessarily to go and do homework. I have them run me sample CMAs. I have them write me offers. I have them do listing presentation or listing agreements, buyers, reps, send them to me via email. And then we schedule one-on-one calls to go through it and say what I've seen work.

This is what I haven't seen work. So you've got the program. You have the program at our brokerage that you're running agents through. It's like, look, here's the prescribed mentor mentee program. And I've seen that. They're good, solid kind of business fundamental classes. But you've plused it. You're like, that's great.

And we're going to keep doing that. Here's what I've added into it. Here's what we're doing. So tell me a little more about the add-ons and why? What's the importance of that? Well, you don't want a mentee. A new agent has one million things running through their brains and feelings. And, you know, their very first client is like, I want to write an offer on something.

And it's just like, what? And if they've already practiced writing offers, you know, beyond what they learn in real estate school, because obviously we learn in real estate school, you know, contracts, blah, blah, blah. Sort of. Right. But they've actually written offers and had someone look it over, give them feedback. So not only did they have like a template they can use, but they also have a little bit of confidence, a little bit of, I've done this before, I've seen this before, I can help my client.

I'm really big on walking. I specialize in working with first time buyers. And I love, again, the teaching element of walking them through, this is what this means, this is what this means. I mean, when I show up to a buyer presentation and I've had a couple mentees shadow me on buyer presentations, because I know my buyer presentation is on point. I have a contract with me that is highlighted that I go through. I'm like, I don't want you as a buyer to see an offer for the first time in an envelope of 50 other documents and we're like, I can get this in in five minutes and the lender's calling you. And I want them to also have that confidence of,

oh, I know what I'm doing. I've got this. And even just having reviewed it one time, the difference in the confidence level is astounding. And I think that goes for, definitely goes for new agents. They just, my job is to teach them how to fish, right?

I'm not, I don't fish for them. I teach them how to fish. They come to me with a question and I give them a resource. I'm like, XP has classes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day that are free Monday through Friday.

Here's your resource. Go there. Icon agents are teaching all the time. A-BOR has classes that are online and or in person. Plug in two classes a week. Minimum is what you need to be taking. Do you think, and this is, I've always kind of thought, and this isn't specific to our brokerage. I've seen this across the industry.

But I see a lot of agents who, you know, they'll go into a mentor program, M&T program. But for some reason, what they have in their head, head is that someone is literally going to take their hand and walk through all of this stuff with them, every from A to Z, from 1 to 100, all of it. I don't think most mentors don't have time to do that. That is, that's like one-on-one training and you need to pay a lot of money for that much time with someone. So I think what you're referencing is like, look, here are these 25 classes online and you need to take every single one of them. And then we're going to review them. We're going to

discuss them in our small group. We're going to process the information. We're going to take that information. We're going to do a sample contract. But you have to go through these classes. So there is a lot of self-directed self-paced learning to effectively go through a mentor program. Absolutely. And I think giving assignments helps them understand what they don't know. Right. If I'm like, hey, Julie, I need you to write me a CMA up on this property. And you're like, I don't know, write a CMA. Like, that's a problem. You must know how to write a CMA. I'm not going to do you how to do it. And guess what?

Your neighbor's going to ask you tomorrow for one. So let's go. Take a class. Yeah. So we're going to do it. One thing I like to do, and actually this isn't just for a first year agent. I think this can benefit any agent who is building. One thing that I recommend is do a CMA every single day.

You could have a map on your wall and a dart on your desk. Take that dart. Boom, fling it at the map. And that's your CMA for the day. You're doing a CMA on. that property or just that neighborhood, just a quick and simple one. And here's how I like to think of CMAs. It's just simply, huh, what's going on in that neighborhood right now? That's what a CMA is. Actually, that's the simplest form of a CMA. So when you're doing a daily CMA, you're just picking

one little neighborhood or house or subdivision in your area. You're going online. And that's that experience, gaining that experience, gaining that confidence. But so let's talk a little more about kind of the showing up. So they do, they need to show up and take those classes and you run like a series of Zoom meetings or sometimes in person depending on, you know, if they're geographically right there, you'll do that. But it's these meetings where you can work with the agents to work that material. Is there issue like with agents being really proactive with working the material or do they need some encouragement or are some like just not doing what they need to be doing? Where do people fall on that spectrum of whether they're doing the work or not?

I have 11. One graduated recently. So currently I have 10 mentees and they fall everywhere on that spectrum. From the super engaged, you don't need to remind them of anything. They're on it, on it plugged in, ready to go to the like I have to drag behind me. Come on, man. Do your work. Let's go.

So, and I mean, the ones who are successful and graduate quickly, have a fast pace. I've seen, there's something that people tell me, So I interview them in the beginning to see if we'd even be a good match. One of the things I'm looking for is who's their sponsor? Are they plugged in? Because I want them to have a dual set of encouragement and resources available to them. But one thing that people say to me is I'm doing this part time. It's just sort of, I'm just kind of interested in it.

It's like they're giving themselves an excuse to not plug in right off of that. And to me that's like, and I've seen this in in the mentees over time that that's like a main. Well, I told you, I was only doing this part-time. I told you I have a full-time job. I told, and it's like they automatically have this built-in excuse for why they can't be successful, why they can't plug in. And it's like, I think I'm going to start actually not taking mentees that say that and be like, you got to be full-time, ready to go.

Let's, let's go. And it is self-paced. And I don't, I don't want to be discouraging to someone who maybe doesn't have as much time as somebody else. There's definitely speed wins every day. I always like to say. And there are some very, very successful realtors out in our. industry who when they started in the business, they started kind of what I call dual income or they

started part-time because they had to. Financially, they had to. Maybe they were a teacher. Maybe they're working at the bar downtown and putting in 30, 40 hours a week there, right? But they understood that they were starting something new. So in that case, I don't necessarily consider that part-time. I consider that you have two jobs, right? And it's going to be a lot of work for a while, but how badly do you want it. I always like to say you can be part time in this industry, but you have to have a full-time knowledge base because we're dealing with people's lives and a lot of money and legal contracts. And you're taking on you and your broker, you're taking on liability. And so if you're not being professional and responsible for building your knowledge base and knowing what you're

doing, that's dangerous. And honestly, you shouldn't be in real estate if that's how you're going to be approaching it because I would be nervous for your clients. What do you think? So let's just kind of talk about the difference between the real successful first year agents versus middle of the road or agents who get frustrated and then they just leave. Either they either leave the industry or they leave the brokerage and who knows what happens to them. Talk to me about what are some of the difference makers, kind of the success difference makers there in your opinion. Personal personal experience, I teamed up with an accountability partner when I first started and just, just having that running buddy who was in the same position as me, we're still in business today.

We, I call her my workwife. She, we, like when I'm, and I'm struggling with something or confidence is low or I have a question, I just, I know the answer, but I don't know the answer. She's the person I call and she's like, oh, put on your big girl pants. Let's go. In fact, I just did that to her earlier today. We're having a call. Does her name start with a tea?

It does start with a tea. And I was like, you put on your big girl pants and you handle this right now. And she's like, thanks. You know, and that's just, it's a great relationship. And I highly recommend that to anybody and anywhere in their career that you got to have your accountability buddy, your best friend, your whoever that you can run stuff by that's always going to be your biggest fan and also encourager and sometimes a little slap in the face when you need it. Yeah, they'll call you on your on your BS, right? Like, okay. I think time management is great. You know, and we actually, I think the last, the call before the last was about time management. and I had my mentees break down their week and give me one hour every day for five days where they're just making phone calls, just working on real estate. Because it's easy again. When you're first starting, it's like suddenly, if you came from a nine to five job, suddenly you don't have a

boss. There's nobody telling you you're doing a bad job and there's nobody telling you you're doing a good job. It's so much to comprehensively to learn about how to be in business for yourself. And time management is so important to be able to plug in and have a schedule. In fact, I was just working with my coach today on let me see your calendar. Why isn't there any work time in here? And I was like, ugh, she's like, work time. Let's go hour and a half, hour and half, scheduling it in. So that's really important to always have that and to have somebody reminding you. You don't go grocery shopping during your lead generation time. No, absolutely not. Script practice is really important. Again, when you have that accountability partner,

it's so important to keep up on scripts. There's scripts everywhere. And again, we practice for the game, and then we go to the game. You don't pull a script out for the first time as you're walking into a house. And I'm an actress. I can memorize scripts really easily. And I still work on scripts all the time and constantly encouraging mentees like, let's go. What's your script for that? What's your script for that? There's EXP in particular has so much going on. There's happy hours. There's classes you can take.

There's the aha club. There's our win group. There's literally daily. You could call almost anyone in our group and be like, hey, meet me in a coffee shop. Let's do some work. And pretty much everyone would be like, oh, what a great idea. Show up. And plug in because there's so many of us that have knowledge in so many different areas.

So someone will be like, oh, I want to learn more about KV Core. And I'm like, ah, our group has like four people that that's their thing. It's not my thing. However, it is this person's thing and you should know this person. And that's great. So let's connect you. Yeah. What was your first year in the business like?

Oh, man, I had so much hustle. I can't even believe the person I was. I would go to H.E.B. I'm surprised I never got kicked out. HEB. And I would stand there with my business card and some candy and I would walk up to total strangers and be like, hi, my coach has me introducing myself to 100 people today. I'm in real estate. Do you have any real estate needs this year? Are you thinking about investing,

buying or selling? I close 10 transactions from people I met at Walmart. What? And you didn't get kicked out either. Oh, I didn't get kicked out and I closed 10 transactions from my first year. Just so you took all the training that was made available to you and then you went back and you did it again and you did it again. And in those trainings, they gave some really, really tall challenges. And you didn't have to do that challenge, but I think you're probably a little competitive and you've got some hustle and you're like, I'm going to do it. And so you just, you just jumped in. I'm sure there was some fear and some discomfort. Oh, I was horrible. Terrified. But I was like, I don't have a plan B. I need to make

this work. I want to, I want, I had really strong goals in front of me. I was like, I want to buy a house. You were a good mentee getting started. Yeah. Yeah. And I was a licensed assistant to a top agent. So I wasn't afraid of that helps. That's good experience. I wasn't afraid of falling on my face because I knew I had, I would bring in the business. I'd be like, hey, Julie, you should work with me. Also, I'm, I'm the assistant to this top agent. So she'll actually be handling the transaction and I'm shadowing. So you get two agents for one.

You get my hustle and her expertise. Come on now. You can't go wrong. And like, they didn't. It was a great experience. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have, and sometimes like with mentees, let's talk about energy because we're talking about

the hustle, right? And you've got that. Now, I've seen some very successful realtors out there who are not high energy. They are steady eddy, right? You don't have to be. No, not at all. You don't have to be that. But how does that play in like with your mentees, just kind of their energy level?

That's a good question. When I think about the people who are being successful in the mentor program, they all have high energy. At least when we're talking, there's an excitement, like a desire to learn and to do more. and what do I do next? What do I do next? Well, the more they do the homework assignments, the easier it's going to be for you to help them. For sure. For sure. Yeah. If you were to start your first year all over again, and not that any of us want to do that, what would you do differently? Oh my gosh. 100%. I would get a CRM in the beginning. I had handwritten notes and weird. I had like a folder just full of nonsense notes that made no sense. Like if I could go back,

I would from day one have a CRM where I can type in notes and how long I've communicated with them and plug them into drip campaigns, open house campaigns, anything along those lines. Because I feel like I lost a ton of business in my first, especially two years. Because I just didn't know when someone said, hey, I'm interested in buying a house. Not quite there yet. What do I need to do now? We'd have a conversation. And then that was it.

And I didn't follow up with them. I didn't have a system for that. I feel like that would be one of the. the things I would definitely do differently. I'd get my finances in order right away, like have a separate business account for, you know, business and have that figured out and how it's hard with a spouse when you suddenly go from a from a steady paycheck to commission base. There's a lot that goes on there and transitioning. And then maybe in the beginning you don't make great money, right? And figuring out how to manage all of that. So I don't know that I would do anything differently. I don't

that I could have other than mentally prepared for it because there was a lot of, you know, life. If there's someone out there who's considering becoming a mentor, what do you think are some important qualities for a good mentor? I think being a mentor is so cool in so many ways because oftentimes in order to answer a question, I have to learn something new. So I'm constantly, again, in that learning environment and it's awesome and I highly recommend everyone. I think structure, being able to give mentees structure is really important. And actually, when we were in Vegas at the EXP event, I specifically sought out other mentors to talk to them about what do they do for structure.

And I got some really great feedback on how they handle interview questions right up front and weekly check-ins and how they handle this and that. And it was amazing to hear, we do have structure within the mentor program, and we also have the freedom to kind of be ourselves and teach what we feel is important is definitely number one. They need to know what they're learning. They need to know if they miss a class, what they need to go back and focus on.

They need to know that it is comprehensive and they're getting everything. We need to set clear expectations on how do you get through the mentor program? If you don't show up for the Texas State broker meeting every week, you're not going to get through the mentor program. It's a requirement. You have your self-paced classes that they give you, you have to take. So that's really important.

Obviously, you have great communication. I set with them boundaries of like, hey, if you text me on a Sunday, I'm probably not going to respond. Sunday's kind of my slow or Tuesday is my day with my mom. Those are my days that I'm not going to respond as quickly unless you say urgent. Then I'm going to stop what I'm doing. I will put my fork, pull it out of my mouth and set it down and go and make a phone call. So don't put urgent if it's not urgent. First of all, second of all, know that I will make myself very available to you if it is urgent and you're in the middle of writing an offer on the side of the street with your laptop up like we do. You need some help. I'll be there. Right now you have 10 mentees in your program.

And most people don't have that that many. So kudos to you. How much time would you say you're spending like on a weekly basis? It's actually not that time consuming. We do our Monday calls, which lasts an hour. I encourage them to plug in. We had that awesome open house training that you hosted yesterday and my job was following up with them and hey, you're going to be on the call, right? Here's a link. You know, making sure on the Texas broker calls. call on Tuesdays and then being available for questions. And I schedule one-on-ones. One of the things I really like to set up with them, again, not in the mentor program,

is their templates. I think templates are a life support. And when you're a new agent, you got to have that stuff pre-plugged in. You don't want to be at a kid's birthday party writing an offer in the bathroom. We've all done it. And you don't have the brokers information and you're like, oh, crap. Like pre-plug it all in, have it in an envelope. So it's ready to call and they can just plug it all in.

So I like to do when they first sign on, I'll do a one-on-one call and go through their templates with them and make sure that they're all set up. Yeah. I could probably time save that and do like some sort of a recorded video. But it's a good time for me to get to know them. And it's such an important piece. So I think I think that makes a lot of sense. What do you like best about what EXP has done with the mentor program that I know it's grown and developed over the years? What do you like best about where the program's at today?

No, one of the things that really stood out to me was, again, we were at the, event in Vegas and there was a lounge that was dedicated to icon. Also for mentors though and I just felt very like I'm seen. I'm really appreciated that I do this. I make money doing it. It's not like I'm doing it for free or whatever, but it was just this really nice acknowledgement from the company that you get special snacks and coffee friend because you do this thing.

And I was like, yeah, that's cool. Well, you're a leader. You're a leader in the company recognizes. I just thought that was really cool. It was unexpected and it was really nice. What was the question again? What you like about the program, what you appreciate about the program. I love the new Go Mentor program that they have set up with the structure and the eight chapters.

I think that's, it's really great. And it references back to the chapters that they're supposed to be working on. So it's like, oh, hey, this was chapter 201. Hopefully you guys have done that. If you haven't, make sure you're caught up this level. I love the work that you're doing. You know that. I think you're a great mentor.

The agents that you're working with, I think they're lucky. to have you as a mentor. And there's still, there are going to be some agents that just really get it and they understand what it's going to take to, you know, get that bus moving on down the road. And some agents that they just don't get it or they're just not ready in their lives or in their mindset to plug in and really make the business happen. It's interesting. I think the success of a mentor, mentee program relies heavily on the mindset of the mentee showing up. Because it's a good, it's a good program. In that agent, and every agent. They need to build their village. So who are the agents you're masterminding with,

hanging with, building relationships with, that you feel like you could pick up the phone and call because you're going to need help on that fifth transaction and that 10th transaction and that 20th transaction. I still need help. You know, you still need help. So you have to build that. In this industry, it really is lifelong learning. Isn't it? It totally is. It's part of the fun, I think. I mean, I wouldn't want to be in an industry where I was like, well, I know everything. I'm done. You know, like where do you go from there? You don't know right. No, because things are changing all, things are changing all the time.