KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Buffalo Wisdom

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Good morning, good morning, good morning, everybody. This is Jimmy Fantastic. And I, a better best for my creator. The buzzer, positive energy. A secret brain is no. My kids know me as daddy. And Jimmy, did you notice that I'm wearing a flower shirt currently? I do.

You look fantastic. Oh, thank you. I was going for awesome, but that's okay. I went purple today. I like that. You know, it's really interesting how many people are into grimace's birthday this time around. I know. Well, I want to get the shake.

That's what we should do. We should do grimmis shakes. We should do live. if somebody wants to bring us a grimace shake, it's currently seven. If you're listening to the podcast, it's too late. Although I would say if you are listening to the podcast at any point in time, if you want to drive out to Troy with a shake, Jimmy and I are pretty much always here. We will take it.

Yeah, we'll always take a shake. I've always wondered what grimace tastes like. Yeah, they just melted him. Because he was an ice cream pop, right? I don't know what grimace was. It's weird. Big purple thing. He was always the big purple thing.

Marketing 101. Either way. You know, it's interesting. about flowers, Jimmy. Even the heartiest of flowers is still delicate. And I was thinking about this yesterday. If a flower is left to grow out in the wild, well, go ahead. I don't know that they're that delicate. They are. Let me explain why, right? Because watch this. Even if they were to grow out in the wild, right? They do grow on the wild. Even if they were to, we call that default state, right?

They live by default state. But if they were to be under the right hand, they can bloom bigger, brighter, and beautiful, more beautiful than they ever could by themselves. And on the contrary, in the wrong hand, they can wither and die. Now, like you said, well, they're hardy in anything, but if a flower falls in the crack of cement in a driveway,

somewhere in Detroit versus in a greenhouse, you will see definitely the differences between both the flowers, even the heartiest of them. What if it goes between the cement crack and the sidewalk? And I will shake loose the chains of mediocrity, stomp out the flames of complacency, and ask every person I meet,

just like that flower. Why have good when you can have awesome? Yeah, you know what I'm noticed on? here too? What's that, Jimmy? Like, we turn it every time we turn this light on and we're in a, we're on a slightly different. It's always on me? Yeah, we're slightly, we're in a slightly different. You literally have it pointed to you. That's where you're focusing. Yeah, we have it on a slightly different angle right now. No, I'm glad it's not in my face. It's always. Yeah, it's always in mine. It's very, very bright. Yeah. That's why I can't look directly this way at all. Right. But it's funny because I, we're on a different

angle and I, we had a different angle for that. And it's still, it's just you, you attract the light, Johnny. Absolutely. So, you know, one of the things that we wanted to talk about is we are in a very unique industry right now. And the time, you know, it's as much as we keep saying that, the actions and what needs to happen still stays the same. And I was thinking about this while I was waiting to get in here. Good morning from California. is you told a beautiful story. I'd love for you to talk about. Then I'd love to analyze this. The Buffalo versus the cow. Can you talk about that, Jimmy? For sure, man.

It's, you know, I heard it a while ago, and it resonated with me really, really well. And so the difference is between a buffalo and a cow, right? Now, they're both in the same pasture. They're both in the same field. They can share the same area. but if a storm were to roll in, cows run away from the storm, right? So cows get scared of the storm

and they run away from the storm. Buffalo, on the other hand, run toward the storm. Now, the amazing part about this whole thing is the storm is going to move where it's going to move anyway. It's going to go in that, it's going to go in the direction,

it's going to go in. The cows that are running away from it are going to get caught by the storm at some point. And they're going to stay in the storm longer than the buffalo who are running toward it. Because the buffalo are going to run toward it, run through it, and it can be on the other side. The storm's going to continue rolling that one direction. It's going to eventually catch the cows anyway, and the cows are going to stay in the storm longer, where the buffalo are going to run through it and be on the clear on the other side and find the sun at some point.

I think that that's so great. And, you know, when Jimmy talked about the story during our meeting, I brought up, you know, worse than the cow or the bison or the buffalo is the animal that stands there and doesn't even know that there is a storm happening. And I think that this is what's happening in real estate. And there's so many people that got in the last couple of years. And some of you don't understand and don't really know where we're at right now. And what's happening.

But you know what's interesting? Just like the buffalo that ran to it. Now, some of us are stuck and we're allowing the storm to happen to us. And, you know, we're like the cows. We're running, running, running scared. But, you know, the thing is, is the senior buffaloes, I would say. They understand that on the other side of every storm is what, Jimmy? The sun.

Because storms don't last forever. Right. And that is something that we have to keep in mind because it's almost like, I don't know if you've heard this, But you have these agents that have started and they don't understand the full cycle of things yet. Right. And because of that, they're in this like almost depressing, nothing's ever going to happen mood. And it's absolutely killing their business right now. And the funny thing is the market, it's still such a strange market.

And that's kind of what I talked about earlier was like the lack of inventory, right? So I recently listed a house and I didn't even put a sign out. Yeah. It's sold. I put it on Thursday. We had an accepted offer by Sunday. And the sign never got delivered. So I just canceled the sign.

I never even put a sign out. So to an agent that hasn't met in the business very long, they're super excited about that. Right. Oh my God. How cool is that? You didn't have to put a sign out. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm like, no, that kind of sucked. Yeah, yeah. Because you get it. Yeah, I couldn't advertise, right? Like I couldn't get my sign out there. Right. Right. Right.

And you understand that's so fast that. you don't have anything else replacing that in your bucket. See, and again, this is the mindset of people that have been in the business for a really long time. I'll never forget Steve Stockton saying, and it always stuck with me, he always used to say that closing day should be the worst day for a real estate agent. The worst day. And new agents have no idea why that is. Like, it's exciting. You got it closed.

You're getting a check finally. Hooray. Until you've been in the business long enough to look back and realize you just took somebody out of the, pipeline. Yeah. And if you haven't put somebody back in the pipeline, then you're, you're a cow. I don't be that's a bad way. But you're, yeah, but like, for that analogy, you're right. And it's, it's, it's how many people can I keep adding into this pipeline, right? Like, you have to wake up in this business every day. And, and I, I guess it's true in, and probably every business, right? And every sales business that you wake up unemployed every day.

Right. You know, I even think back to my time at like Foot Locker, right? Like I could sell 10 pairs of shoes today. But if I didn't go sell 10 pairs tomorrow, I was in trouble. Yep. You know, so it's like. But see, it's like take that analogy and then tomorrow the Foot Locker only has three pairs of shoes in supply.

I only have three shoes to sell, right? But you still have the same 10 customers. Yeah. Like how screwed up with that have been, Jimmy? And that's really what we're, that's where we're at. Like, think about, think about this. How mad are you when you show up to a restaurant like McDonald's and like there's shake machines down or they're out of mix for the day? Yeah. And you know all the customers are waiting to get it, right? Like, and there's nothing they can do. There's nothing you can do about it. Everybody kind of gets frustrated. Yeah. And that's like you said, that's a great point. That's what we're facing right now in real estate. That's what we're out of shake. our ice cream machine is down. The ice cream machine is down. So what is it that you have to do in order to churn some ice cream? Look, if you work at, this is, I love this analogy. If you work in a McDonald's, you're depending on a machine to do it, right?

But if somebody was smart enough to have their own restaurant, their machine goes down, customers are asking for it, right? And they've got a line of people sitting there. If you're the business owner and you're really taking the serious, you're trying to figure out where do I get the ice cream from? And if that means that you got to go churn some ice cream, you've got to go churn some ice cream, because you got people that you have to serve. You know, I'm so proud of this newer agent that I've been working with,

getting on the phone last two weeks, solid appointments yesterday, the first day on the phone with expired and nail the really good lead, right, out in, I can't remember somewhere. But the point is, is there's still business out there to be had. There's still circle prospecting. The lead that she got off of circle prospecting alone, here's people that, he's flat out said. Yeah, if I got the right price, I'd sell my home.

Here's somebody that was never on the market, right? This stuff still works. If we were to do this as an industry. And the crazy part is there's still expired. Is it? Yes. It's still expired. They're still there.

Yes. A lot of them. Yes. And the thing that I always liked about expired, they've already been through the process. Like, they've already put their home on the market. They already understand the commissioner. They already understand that the showings, you know what I mean?

Like the open house, they get it. They're just pissed off that their house didn't sell. Right, right. So how do you go find your own ice cream? Right. How do you make that? Churning ice cream is a lot harder than just having a machine do it for you. You have to put some elbow grease.

and work into it. And that's where we're, that's where we're getting to. And Jimmy and I've been talking about this for two years, that there's a shift. And the shift is happening, but it's not happening in the the housing market. It's happening in the real estate market. The shift is, you went from really, really easy to now you have to do work in order to get what you need to get for this year, right? And that is, that's where we're at. And again, the newer agents, it's interesting. Why, why? Why? Do you know the continuation of the story? Why do the Buffalo run to the storm? Because they really are trying to get to the sun?

Yeah, because they're trying to get to the other. They go to it because they know it's shorter time to be in it. And the cows, they run away from it because are they just stupid? They're just scared. Oh, they're scared. They're scared of the storm, so they're trying to run away from it. But they end up staying in the storm longer. Well, here's the other thing that happens, too.

You know what else happens? They're cows, right? Now I kind of relate to the cow, right? I bet you they get tired. Think about it. Yeah, I mean, a cow can only run for so long, right? And there's constantly in the storm because they're essentially running along with it. Yeah.

But here's the funny part. In their little cow brain, I wonder if they're thinking to themselves because they've ran, they ran, they ran, they ran, they ran. Now they're so exhausted, they can't run anymore. They're going to have to stop. And then guess what happens? The storm goes through. And I wonder if they think to themselves, see? I made it.

Yeah, probably. As they're sitting, they're exhausted and they don't have to be and they're laying on the ground and right? And then grimace comes and they turn them into Big Macs. Yes. After they milk them or shake, then they turn it into. I'm going to name you number one. Yeah, but they milk them for the shake. Right, right.

Right. Yeah, that's interesting. That's a really interesting thought. And maybe that's why they're out of ice cream. But, you know, it's the same thing that we're seeing right now, right, because of the cows. Right. It's the same thing that we're seeing right now. There's agents I'm talking to.

They're telling me that they're completely like they're getting burned out. And it's crazy because the reason that they're getting burned out is it because they're spending their time doing the things that they need to do in order to get the business that they want to have. They're getting burned out because they're running through the storm. And running is the activity and they're getting worn out because there's nothing. producing from that. Yeah. And here's the hardest thing about business and getting agents to understand

this too. Is a lead is not a client. A lead is a lead. Right. And the more it's a numbers game, the more leads I can put in, the more business I'm going to eventually get. And I'm not going to get business from every lead that I get.

I'm going to get business from the leads that are eventually going to do something and I want to make sure that I've that I've captured a lot of them and put them in my pipeline. And but it's, it's, it's,

you're right, that mindset of, of, I have to keep just adding people to this business of mine. And I can't stop adding people to this business of mine. And yes, it is a strange market right now. And yes,

it is hard out there and it is different right now. But, it still is just the business. And you know, there are going to be agents that get out of this business. Right. Because it is hard. They're going to lay down and just wait for the farmer to come. Yeah.

Pick them up. Hit them and a head on a sledgehammer. Yeah. But they are, they're just going to, they're going to give up. They're going to get out of it. They're going to lay down, like you said. And then when that storm goes through and we get back to a market where it's easier to sell and buy, then they're going to jump back in.

Yep. And the crazy part about it all is there's going to be the space, or they don't. And they become one of those many people that we heard of that says, well, I had a real estate license once. Yeah, they'd become a FISB both 10 years from now. And they're like, I had, I'm a, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm a real estate agent. I was a real estate agent. Yeah, I have my license.

Right. You know, the thing for the agents that come back, and we see the, this happened a lot too. In fact, some of them, they don't even have, they don't even have, how do I, how do I put this kindly? I'm going to do it this way. Some of the agents that they come back, they don't realize how much business they gave up in the middle. Yes. And they never gave themselves a chance to grow. And some of them, they, they just, they'll even let their license lapse. Yeah. And then they're, and they're like, oops, this is a mistake. And then they come back, Like we see these in these trends, right?

We're just in a trend right now. And when they come back, the first thing that I always heard, and by the way, I just want to let everybody know, the line was muted, but it is open and alive now. So you can call us at 313644-4-4-2-55. That's 3136-4-4-4-all is our Free-For-Riday line. but the people that come back, like the message that they always have, and I always listen to them because in the classes, they usually have this, at least the classes I was at, they're like, who has let their license lapse and what do you want to tell the class?

And they always say, don't do it, because then you have to go through the class all over again, right? Don't let your license lapse. Keep it alive. At least put it in holding somewhere, right? Yeah. And it says, and Dave, he's got a question for us. What? I'm not selling a house to all 50 leads I have this month.

You're not? What? Yeah. Why? That's weird. Did I read that right? I'm not selling a house. I think what he's saying is he's adding 50 leads this month and he's not going to sell a house to all 50.

Ah, yes. This is true. Although you could, you could. Regular Dave, all you got to do is get some regular Joe's on the phone, right? Yeah. It really, really, I mean, you know, that would be interesting. How many, how many, if you really tried, right? Like, this goes back to the 90 and 90 thing.

If you really tried to find one buyer, one home for each buyer that you're currently working with, right? If you really tried doing that and went balls to the wall and just ran for it, how much damage could you do? Right. Right. Like I think you could really make a dent in the business, especially when you sit down. And what are some of the good old school tactics to do this? Guys, you go into realtor.com. You go into Realcom. You go into RealComp if you're on our MLS or whatever MLS system that you have, right? You search for the type of home that people are looking for in the MLS. You pull the list. You print out the public data from it, right, in PRD.

And you do a good old-fashioned mailer. You match the names and addresses. against phone numbers and then you call them. The crazy thing is we used to do this back in the day and we used to get those big, thick books. Some of you guys might remember this. You were in real estate long enough to remember the big thick phone books. You could order a city or a road and they would send you an actual book. That stuff is all online now.

You can go and do that. And is that what I just described sounds like a lot. This is the churning the ice cream for the customers. Yeah. So now you're sending a postcard out into a neighborhood where you have a client. that wants to live to all the homes that specifically match what your client wants, then you pull a phone record for them, and now you're calling them. So they're getting a card from you, a call from you.

And if you really want, you can walk the neighborhood. And you just keep doing that, right? You farm for your buyers. We farm for ourselves. Why not start farming for your buyers? Right. I mean, if you have a client, and I've heard this, how many times have you heard this? Oh, I got this really picky client.

very look they're looking for a very specific home and a very specific neighborhood and that's the only place they want to go to yes yes go find a house in that neighborhood right go door knock that neighborhood bring out uh bring out the the fire you know bring out uh a flyer right door knock that neighborhood door knock that very specific subdivision right and door knock that subdivision and say I have a client that's ready, willing, and able to buy in this neighborhood. Have you thought about selling your house? And you might find one. You know, I think I've talked about this before, but it's one of the things Jim Schaefer over in Royal Oak had talked about.

He, like one of his very first clients ever, it's exactly what he did. He had a client that was looking in Pleasant Ridge, and that was the only spot they were looking in. So he printed out a flyer A Just a black and white flyer off the copy machine And doork all of Pleasant Ridge And had a ready willing and able buyer in Pleasant Ridge And he said like he was done door knock in the whole neighborhood

And he was getting ready to get back in his car and leave And there was two women walking down the street And he said well I'll give it a shot What the heck Went and talked to him said here's a fly I got somebody that's looking in the neighborhood But the woman said, oh, this is fantastic. We're moving.

My husband got relocated for work. We're moving. Can you come by the house tomorrow? Sure. So he goes by the house. Well, the buyer he had couldn't afford the house that this woman was selling. Right, right. But that was his listing.

He got the listing in Pleasant Ridge. And that was one of how he started this whole thing. This is the craziest part about this, Jimmy. This is where, like, if you haven't thought about this, and maybe you don't, didn't know about this approach. Like, this is actually a really exciting approach for where we're at today's day and time. Because back in the day when people used to do this all the time, I remember reading a magazine article and they had the owner of Remax out in a baseball cap and jeans back before that was something that you could do, right?

Because that was kind of his thing. And he was door knocking. The CEO of Remax was knocking on doors. And they did an article about how he's out there every day. day still knocking on doors. The thing was, back then you used to knock on doors, you'd get the listing, and then you'd wait six to nine months before the thing sold. Right. The work, like today, you know, like if you get on the phone, like I said, yesterday during this call session that I was doing with this agent, she got on the phone with somebody. And even though her client was looking for a three

bedroom, this didn't have as many bedrooms as the client needed. List the house. It's going, it's going to sell. It'll sell tomorrow. Yeah. Like it's, it's, you know, it's, it'll sell tomorrow. Yeah. Like it's something that we definitely, you know, need to. Again, it's the fundamental basics of churning your own ice cream and going back to why, you know, and again, I get it. Like, you know, Jimmy, we talk to agents all the time and they're not always all about the phone, but the door knocking thing is still a thing that you can do. Yeah. And here's the other thing about that neighborhood, right?

When he went out to that neighborhood, one of the things that you'll find a lot working in this business is, is that your client is going to end up in a home sometimes completely far away from where they said that they wanted to be. Right. So while you're door knocking and looking for those opportunities for them, opportunities for you to grow your business are going to show up. At the same aspect, you have the opportunity not just to do it there, but what happens if you went and dominated the next neighborhood over too and specifically targeted homes that your buyer was looking for? Yeah. And when you say dominate, Johnny, what does that mean? Like percentage-wise, what do I have?

If I'm going to dominate a neighborhood, how much percentage do I need to sell in that neighborhood? That's a great question. That's a real great. What do you, I mean, what do you think it means? I mean, like, if you're dominating, let's say if I wanted to dominate it. I can tell you right now, it's not a high percentage. It's like 8% or less. Yeah, because the average agent in any given subdivision or neighborhood, now that being said,

there's some old school neighborhoods I know of, like I said, I come from, you know, The longest standing brokerage is that was KW in Commerce. And Stockton, Steve Stockton was one of the largest agents out there. He's one of the, I think in Michigan, he's one of the largest like undercover, not undercover, but he doesn't have billboards and he doesn't have a coaching company and all that other stuff. But he makes as much money or more money than those guys. He just does real estate. And he just does real estate, right?

And so there are a few areas that if you were to walk into, like everybody says, no, no, this is Steve Stockton's area, right? However, it's very far, few and far between that you're going to find not every neighborhood's like that. And most neighborhoods, if you see three signs of the same person in there, they're dominating that neighborhood. Yeah. Right. Like, they're the person because you're seeing their signs everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.

There's three. Absolutely. And good morning, Fabian. It is not as hard as you think, but the work is still. there in order to be able to do something like that. Right. Right. And it's that's why I mean, it's so funny when you hear agents, it's good because we just make up excuses all the time too. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I can't get into that neighborhood. That neighborhood is dominated by so, so, so, so and such an agent, you know. Oh, that neighbor, that agent owns that

neighborhood. Yes. They sold three houses in that neighborhood. Right. There's a thousand. But see, that's, what's funny is what we just said is, is the, that's what we just said. Just because they sold three homes in that neighborhood doesn't mean they're the neighborhood realtor. Right. Right. Or that anybody would use them or everybody would use them, right? Breaking into a neighborhood. And, you know, again, what happens, Jimmy, and I know that you know this, and it's the one thing that we try to teach you guys a lot.

All of this stuff is fear, right? I don't want to do the thing I know I need to do. And because of that, my brain, which is very intelligent, is going to aid me and coming up with the excuse as to why I don't need. to do this. In reality, the very thing that you're using as an excuse is actually the power behind the whole thing. If you have buyers right now that are actually looking for a home and you're not prospecting for your buyer on their behalf in these neighborhoods, you're missing out on a huge advantage. Yes. How many people call FISBOS and say, I have a buyer for your home. I'd like to show up. And it's a complete lie with a capital

be. Yeah. It's a complete lie. They're reading a script that says that. Right. But when you actually have Jenny who's looking for that home, utilize that. Yeah. Call the house and actually say, hi, I'm working with Jenny. She is looking for a home a lot like yours. She's a real person. She's really looking. And say it just like that. Yes. Like, she's a real person. I do have an actual buyer. Like, I get that this sounds like a sales line because we've been, you know, into my industry some people think it. Yeah.

But yes, Jenny's looking for a home. Yeah. And Jenny, I got your number. Jenny, who was thinking of that? But yeah, I mean, like, I've done that, you know, I've done deals with FISB, right? Where I got my buyer into a FISBO. Well, not even just FISB, but again, going back to. I mean, because this is, this is part of.

of they're not on the market. Correct. I have to now find something that's off market and a FISBO is off market. Right. You know, or an expired is off market. Like I can find these things if I have the client that's looking in a very specific area. Now here's the other thing. And this is why it's very, very important to understand that there is today business,

but there's also tomorrow business to bank on. Because, yes, you can find that off market property today to list today. But don't throw away the person that says, we're probably not going to do anything for the next one or two years. Because if you start to compile those, in the next one to two years, you become the supplier for the entire market. Right. And there are these agents out there that have figured this out that are having their best year ever this year

because they have so many people last year that told them they were going to wait until this year. They wanted to see how this thing went and when Trump finally got arrested and whatever, whatever happened in the market. And, you know, when Grimmis came out with those shake. And we build a railroad from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Right. They want to wait.

And so we have enough of these people. And now you'll see these agents are thriving this year because they finally have enough of them where some of them are breaking. Yeah. And then there's a whole other pool that's going to wait until next year because of X, Y, Z reason, right? And they really do have that reason. And there's nothing that you can do to nudge them or push them off the fence, although you can try. That's okay. Now you've got this giant database of people that are going to do something, 9 to 16,

months down the road and you become a supplier all of a sudden. Yeah. And the other thing is too, it's funny. I had a client a couple years ago. That is funny. Tell me like, I want to find, I want to buy a house. They were they were downsizing. Yeah. And, you know, she literally said, but I'm not going to get into this bidding war stuff. I'm not going to do this. We're not in that much of a hurry. I just want to downsize. Yep. Yep. Okay, cool. So we sent him a couple things. went out to look at a couple condos, found one she really liked, and we didn't get her offer,

except her offer got beat out. She immediately came back after that and said, that's it, I'm doing this, I want to raise my price, I'm going to do a appraisal guarantee. I'm going to, and I said,

whoa, whoa, what happened to not getting into this bidding war thing? Right, right, right. She's like, that's what happens when I lost out on the first one. and it became like the thing of she then became very super competitive and then we ended up getting her into everything she wanted but um but it started out as I'm not going to do this bidding or a thing I'll wait I'll have patience I'm not going to do anything right away but all the sudden

all of a sudden oh we're going above this we're going above that we're going to do this we're going do that and i was like hold on and i almost talked her out of like rushing into this thing but then i didn't talk her that much out of it because you know i wanted the sale right you know and that's this is again one of the reasons why you know here on our team huh that's funny on our team on our team yeah uh for those of the i don't know yeah well commercial coming out soon's yeah too actually uh jumping into the afterburner i'm gonna i'm going to try i'm trying to get set up right now show a sneak preview of something. So if you're listening to the podcast after the fact of it being live, again, at the end

of every show, we do an afterburner. About 15 to 30 minutes of just randomness that happens live every Friday. So if you join us live, you get the advantage of that. And we're starting to show videos snippets and stuff like that in between two. So you get a chance to see some other things. But, you know, it's one of the reasons why I teach the hot nurture watch because you don't know when that client's going to flip. And one of the things that I pulled together that I show during presentations now is the difference in how the market today, somebody will say they want to

wait. So they jump into this waiting game. And now you think you have a client that's going to just, they're just kicking tires. But all of a sudden, just like you said, they get activated one day and like, all right, it's today is the day. And it has to be today's the day. If you're not actively following up with them and continuing to follow that process, you are going to lose that client. you have to continue to communicate with them because if you don't have the best rapport with them, they're going to just go to somebody else as soon as they see that, right? Right.

And for those of you that are listening to the podcast and or you're watching live right now, if you have not seen Hot Nurture, watch, if you've never seen that program before, feel free to reach out and get a hold of us. And I can absolutely send you the slides or show you what that process looks like. It's a system to make sure that you never lose a lead again.

in and that you have every opportunity to convert them. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's, that's the, that's the whole goal, right?

We talk about top 50 lists and, and, um, you know, adding people to your pipeline every day. And if you're not adding people to your pipeline every day, you're missing out. And that goes back to Johnny,

what Johnny's talking about with the hot nurture watch. Is I, I need to keep adding people to my pipeline every day, right? If, and I, like, my number wise, if I add,

you know, four people a week. It's, you know, 16 a month. And if I add 16 people a month, over time, they're going to start closing and they're going to start buying and they're going to start selling. So, but if I'm not adding every, you know, one person a day, then I'm missing out. And I, I say four because you should be adding one person per day to your pipeline. And, and, and Wednesdays might not be good days for you or a Thursday, may, you. Or a Thursday, may, just suck. Or you had, you were actually busy and you were actually closing some other things and you didn't

get a chance to add somebody in at that, on that day. But that means you should be adding four people into your pipeline per week, 16 a month, will lead you to, you know, five closings a month. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it is, it's all about continuing to add that stuff up. And, you know, again, this is this is that whole thing about running, running towards the storm, getting through it and being on the other side.

Yeah. Sometimes the storm is going to be a lot longer. And, you know, this goes back to how do you weather the storm when it's a lot longer as well? You know, one of the things that agents don't realize that you can do, and believe me, you can do this, is you ride on this wave of continually, you know, you've got income, you don't have income, you've got income, you've got income. you don't have income and the market's doing this and you're constantly doing this wave. Do you guys know that you don't have to do that? Right. You don't have to ride the wave.

No. You can absolutely open up an LLC, figure out exactly what it is that you typically make per year. And then this is the hardest part that agents have doing right here. If you're used to, you know, if you average your entire income out and you realize that you could pay yourself, we'll say a $8,000, you know, base. Pay yourself a six. Okay. Don't forget about your taxes. And live off of that until you can pay yourself.

Taxes? Yeah. I'm 1099. I don't have to pay taxes. 1099 is the only taxes I have to pay. The only tax I pay is to my accountant. Yeah. For them to fix it so I don't have to pay any taxes.

But there is a way and a system that you can put into place to make sure that you don't have to ride that wave. Now, in order to be able to do that and have the confidence, to be able to do that again, it goes back to continually creating business for yourself while you're in this business. And I know that this is a lot and a deep topic for some people that are just getting started or for new people or even maybe for somebody that has been on a team before and they've never had to think about all this stuff. But these are the types of things that take you from being an agent to a business professional who owns a business. And that's what we all are. Yeah. 100% man. You know what we need?

I need more coffee. Okay. We'll get right on that. If anybody is watching and you happen to be in the office. If anybody's close to Troy. Yeah. So let me ask you this, Jimmy. So aside from going door knocking, calling around,

what is the, and this is a trick, I have the answer to this, like a good attorney. What is what is the one? source that you think realtors are not currently tapping into to create their own environment. I'm sorry, their own business? Yes. Beside those two things? Yeah, besides actually going out there and prospecting strangers, what do you think the one thing is

that they're not prospecting right now? I know what the answer is too. Yeah. It's the biggest swing and miss that realtors have is their fear. What? What? No, don't go there, Jimmy. Because there's secret agents. Isn't that crazy?

Still. Still, still, secret agents. So, you know, this is the- I don't want to bother my family, though, Johnny, and I don't want to bother my friends. They're at my bother. I don't want to bother them. Yes.

That's exactly what everybody says. But everybody says that, and then it's, you know, it's interesting because I was on a coach, go ahead. Everybody says that, because everybody says that, and then they go, well, my friends don't even use it. me. Well, did you ask them? Isn't that funny? Yeah.

Because it's easier to shift that blame onto somebody else than it is just to say, hey, you know, friends' family. I'm a real estate agent. But then we'll complain about our friends and family that don't use us because they use another realtor because they didn't know

we're a real estate agent, but then we didn't tell them we're a real estate agent because we were afraid to tell them because we didn't want to ask them for the business. But when they don't give us the business, we're mad because we didn't ask the business. So I was just talking to an agent about this the other day. The two places where agents focus the most are the two places that aren't going to build your business for you. And it sounds different. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's the truth. They focus on hot leads

today that are dropping and falling in their lap because they need a check today. And I understand that. And then they focus on the D leads. The leads that are never going to use them no matter what. The leads are never going to move. And so you hear a combination. of, hey, great, I have a closing today, or they focus on, well, I don't know why they wouldn't use me. They blah, blah, blah, blah, and they get all upset and or the, you know, the person pulled the contract away from them and now they're searching the MLS every day to see if that person's actually selling their home.

And they get infatuated with the people that aren't using them and they get hyper-focused on the people that are going to do business today while forgetting the biggest pot in your business are the people that are going to do something nine to 16 months down the road. And guess where those people can come from? your database. Yeah. That's where they can come from. And if you're confused and new to the business and don't know where your database is

and anything like that, it's right here. So how many... It's right here. It's in your hand. How many people have you... You know, it's funny. The amount of times that I've asked an agent, how many people do you have in your database? And they'll tell me, oh, I've got like 20.

All right. How many people do you have in your phone? Oh, 3,000? Like, they instantly cringe. I have, you know, there's a couple agents. Yeah, but Johnny, do I call them? I don't, it's weird. Yeah, what do I say? I don't want to bother my friends for business.

Yeah. And this is a mindset thing. You know, if you're not a high D, now I know high D's right out there will just be like, we'll just do it anyway. I don't care. Like, bother them. But it's also a mindset thing.

And this is how I try to position. agents. Who do you think that they actually want? Let's say that they are going to do something in real estate. And you didn't know, you never asked, right? But let's say that they actually are going to do something in real estate. Who would you rather have handled them? Joe Schmoe that doesn't know. Whoa. Yeah. Wiki wiki. And isn't going to, and he's going to do the overlisting it for the wrong price. And like, you know, 80% of the agents out there. or more. They actually suck. They're not good agents. It's true. And you know what the sad thing is? is there's so many agents out there today, especially in our area. The viewers of the show are not those of,

no, they are though. You know how I can tell you that? Let me tell you how I can tell you that. Because 87% of people say that they'd work with their agent again. If their agent never freaking got a hold of them, they didn't. They suck. The number one complaint about real estate agents. My real estate agent never got a hold of me. You suck. Yeah. I don't know what to tell you. It's amazing, right? 80% of all agents out there suck at what they do. Yeah. Now, you don't have to suck. And if you're one of those people, I'm sorry, you suck. Stop sucking. You don't have to. That's a choice. Pick up your phone and call your freaking client. Or answer your phone. Or answer your phone. Yesterday I was talking to Alexis Carrera, and she has somebody for this house.

And what a disservice you're doing to a seller to just never. answer a phone with somebody when you've got contracts in and everybody's waiting to see what's happening and you know the seller and then that seller doesn't hear from the selling agent either right like man sorry we got off on a candid there but listen do you want that person that's going to call your client one time then put a sign in the front yard and think that they're going to do that or do you want or do you know that if man if i had that listing this is my piece i need to take care of them i'm going to ask all the time like if i don't know the answer I'm getting the answer because this is my family, my friend.

This is somebody I'm actually going to take care of. And there's nobody better to take care of your friends and family and care for them than you, unless you don't like your friends and family, in which case you're one of those agents I was just talking about. But listen, when you reframe it and you think about that, like why let your friends and family get in the hands of somebody who just cares about their paycheck instead of personally cares about them? And, you know, there's those agents and that are good agents, but they don't ever have repeat business because they're so, because they're jerks.

Let's just be honest, right? But they get deals done, right? You're in good hands with them. They just have terrible bedside manner. Right. Right. They're not, but they're going to get that deal done and they're going to get you the best deal ever. And they're going to do that for sure, right?

But, oh, my mom hands out my cards all the time. Yeah, yeah. Yep, there you go. Jimmy's number one referral sources, mom. It is. Yeah. But it's, it's so, so they don't have a lot of referral business or repeat business or referral business, but they still are, you know, $20 million producer. Well, yes.

Because they, every day they grind, right? what you'll find is if you do this every day and you cultivate and you farm and you do this every day, you just start getting business. And the statistics say it's year three to five. If you prospect every day and treat your people right and you're a good agent, that year three to five, that three to fifth year, that you don't have to prospect anymore. You know, I can tell you what, what, we have seen is we always heard that, right?

It's going to take three to five years. You used to take 10. If you do this and you set your business up right, we're not saying, I mean, it really is by year three. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And what's crazy about this is people have started to, this is starting to get even shorter for the people that have figured this out. I was talking to another agent the other day and she's done 20 closings so far. So how many referrals have you gotten out of those 20 closings?

zero. Well, there's an issue there. Yeah, big problem. She isn't, she isn't, an aggressive agent. Her personality type is nice. So the problem there is not asking for that business. Yep. Right. Your database, the people, if you guys have never seen the accounts pyramid, it's something else that we can send you. Maybe Jimmy and I will do a separate training one of these days and throw it up on free for all Friday. But the accounts pyramid, the bottom of the pyramid is going to be, that's going to be what feeds the rest of your period. pyramid, all of your top 50 VIPs, all of your closings, even your whales, right? Some of your CPAs, think about this. One of the things that, like, you know, we have Fabian talks about this all the time to agents. You know, when we went out to Grand Rapids and when we were in front of teams, you know, who are the CPAs and the attorneys and the this and that that you can get a hold of, right? The big whales. Who are the people that could hook you up with 10 transactions

a year or more, right? Yeah. Well, you absolutely can and should farm those people, right? You absolutely can and should call them randomly. But if you've built a database big enough on the bottom of your pyramid to where one of those people happens to be in that career, how much easier is it going to be to convert that person to somebody that's going to work with you because they already know you like you and trust you. Therefore, building that bottom base, I think, well, I know because it's how it's your foundation. It is the most important thing that you absolutely can do. Go out there, meet a bunch of people. Every person, you have in your phone. Everybody should be in that bottom base. And it goes back to

your friend there, the NFL guy, right? Yeah. We're all just two people away from knowing every person in the world. Yeah. And asking your database. What's Kevin Bacon? Kevin Bacon. I forgot about that game. The six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. From Kevin Bacon. Yes. Oh, okay, guys, here it is. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. You just brought this up. If you're listening on the podcast, if you're listening later, it counts for you too. Six degrees to Kevin Bacon. How can you get from Grimmist, Kevin Bacon and six people or less? Oh.

Email us. Email us at Free For All Friday. Join us on the webpage or send it to us. We'll cook you up with some Free For All Friday swag. In fact, new Free For All Friday swag is coming out shortly. The Jimmy and Johnny Free for All Friday special swimsuits, which people have been asking for. I will be releasing by, oh, it's already Friday. It is Friday.

By at least next weekend. Free for all Friday. This was brought up about. like we had someone ask us that the other day. Well, you know, when the underwear came out, which is a real thing, people back, way back then, I had people saying, hey, I'm heading to Florida. If you can figure out how to turn this to a baiting suit, I totally order it. Yeah.

So that's happening. But yes, if you happen, if you can get grimace to Kevin Bacon, six people or less, send us an email, shoot it to us on Facebook, drop us a DM. You can find my page, by the way, now, too, at have awesome is on Facebook or at these Johnny Awesome on Insta and everywhere else. Help me build that page out too because so far... Jimmy Nelson or Jimmy Nelson real estate. Yeah, you're two different things. It's difficult to find you.

But the point is... No, I'm everywhere. Yes, you are. Yeah, it's true. I'm not difficult. So am I. You know, it's funny. We're going to save that for the afterburn.

There is only one Johnny Awesome, though, right? Yes, there is. Yes, Grimmis from McDonald's. That is correct. Dave, what Dave doesn't realize is it, it's grimace's birthday month. Right. That's the whole point of this month. And it was the whole reason for me wearing purple today.

Hey, Ellen gave away Ellen underwear. Okay, good. I was going to say, did your mom just get it? No, she didn't. Good. Yes. So it is grimace's birthday. So if you can figure that, great.

But going back to building the bottom of your database, fill that bottom pyramid. it up with a whole bunch of strangers that you convert to friends. Yeah. And start with your friends instead of pushing them into strangers. And then from there, guys, listen, the thing that you're missing in, and it's a pride thing sometimes, right? You have the opportunity. You have people that know you like you and trust you right now, right now.

If you were to open up your phone, there is somebody in there that if you called and said, hey, I need a couple more deals coming up than the next couple of months. I really am trying to, I'm trying to be a buffalo instead of a cow. They'll laugh, right? It's grimace month. I really want that milkshake this year or this month because my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. If you were to call up your database and say that, because you can because it's your database, they know you. Somebody in there is going to want to help you.

They love, people love doing favors us. I was talking to an agent about this the other day. You know, do I want to share this story? I got four minutes, maybe. Yeah, I'm going to share this story. It's a personal story. For those of you that know, you know, if you've listened to the podcast of my story, you heard about two years of us doing the show, you know, a traumatic divorce, something I didn't want to happen,

church taking my kids away. It was a whole bunch of crazy stuff that happened. If you don't know about that, there's a podcast episode out there. I think it's called Johnny's Story. You can relisten to that. Yeah. But it's something. the, you know, the, there's a lot of weird and wacky things that happen now.

And, you know, one of the things that happened was my kids were really excited to go and hang out at this water park. We had been talking about it. I hadn't seen them in a while. They, you know, we were all missing each other. I try to get as much time with my boys as I absolutely can. And, uh, uh, I got a message the day before that stated that they were not going to to be allowed to bring their baiting suits. Right.

And I'm like, what sense does that make? Like, they're excited to go. It's their baiting suits. They get sent to my house with clothes. It's not like they don't get sent naked. It's just one of those things that you get to deal with. When you have somebody that's, when it's something that I,

it's a part of my life that I have to deal with often. Yeah. That's a good one. Yes. You know, well, you know, it's, it goes back to, you know, morals and ethics and always staying in the higher ground. And it just, it's, it's one of those things. So, hey, look, no issue. We're, we'll go pick up, you know, brand new baiting suits. We can do that, right? Well, there's an agent here that, that we work with that we both work with. And she absolutely

loves the boys. And she slipped a $50 bill into my pocket to go get the boys' baiting suits, right? Now, I could have said, and I almost did, because I, I don't need that. It's not a charity situation, y'all. So instantly I wanted to refrain, but I forgot this one key important thing, guys. And this is important when you're talking to your people. Give people the opportunity to be a blessing to you. Don't let your pride get in the way of letting somebody else feel special because they were able to help you out. You know, Brittany wanted to be able to participate in that. and when the boys called her and they were excited

and they all got their own baiting suits and they were able to hang out at the park that filled her with joy because she was able to she provided that she did that right and that if I wouldn't have accepted that I would have stopped her from being a blessing there are so many of you out there that are listening to this right now

that are preventing the people that know you like you trust you and love you from being a blessing in your life because you think that you're going to bother them when you call and ask them, hey, could you do me a favor? I'm trying to finish this year out strong. I'm halfway through. And I'm just looking for a couple more deals. Do you know anybody that's looking to buy, seller invest in real estate? Yeah, and that's the favor script, right?

Like that's one of the biggest ones that I think we miss out on. Like, hey, you know, can I ask you a favor? Sure, yeah, what do you need? It's, I'm looking to help. Yeah. You know, X amount of families move in or out of a home this year. And that's, you know, I've set those goals. And, you know, we miss out on that.

And we're afraid to ask for that business. And yet people are wanting to help. And then taking it a step further. Like I said, there's so many people will go straight to the phone book to the person that we don't know when we're looking for CPAs. Instead of going into our current database, hey, everybody, I'm currently looking for a CPA that I might be able to do business with. there's an alarm going off here at the office I'm currently oh that's that's why

I'm currently looking for a CPA that I need to do business with who do you know yeah and you know what sometimes because you don't manage your database well enough somebody's going to go well I'm one of those right what do you need oh guys be the Buffalo

don't be the cow right run through the storm not away from it and definitely don't just Sit there.