KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Building a Successful Real Estate Career with Referrals

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Hey everyone. This is Real Estate Rich's podcast, and boy, is it going to be rich, full of the wealth and the tips and the tricks of all kinds of successful agents, because that's what you want to be, right? A business builder who has success in their business, well, that's what we got going on here. And I'm going to have all kinds of agents, men, women, younger, older, sharing all their stuff because there's technology, there's just, how do you build your business? There's so many questions, right? So let's learn from some of the best. Gather your wealth and build your business. That's what this channel is all about. And I'm excited to bring it to you. I'm Kathy Burns and I'll be your host and stay tuned. Let's get at it, right? Hey, welcome everybody here to

Real Estate Riches. I'm so excited to have Carrie Pierce here today because she is a solo agent who just rocketed in her career right off the bat. And it is a second career for her, much like me. So I want to bring her on, have her share her nuggets with all of you, and I'm excited to hear her story. So let's get gone. Hi. Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Great, great. We're anxious to hear your story. You want to kind of give us a feel like you were in the dental career for 28 years and then you said what? So yes, I was in the dental career for 28 years. The last eight years, I was managing offices.

And I just decided that it was time to make myself money versus, you know, someone else. So my husband, we had some land investments and stuff. And my husband said, hey, why don't you look into real estate? And I'm like, okay. So at 48 years old, I received my license. and I started off on a team with Keller Williams. And I was on that team for about a year and a half. And then I actually switched teams and went to another team in Keller Williams as well with the hassle team.

And realized that within three months, I wasn't even utilizing their leads. So I decided to go ahead and go on my own. And so I'm now an independent agent, a real estate career, sorry. I've been in real estate for eight years now. Eight years now. So, and the reason that you decided to join a team was so that you kind of get a lay of the land or what were you thinking when you wanted to do that? Correct. It was something so new to me that I had no idea what I was doing and how I was going to do it.

So the best thing that I saw and unapproved. Of course, they were friends of mine too, was to join a team and utilize what they can give you and offer you, which is a lot of experience, training. Of course, the leads were wonderful too. Yeah. I tell new agents all the time, if you're starting this career, it's so easy to get a license. Well, it's not that easy, but it's easy and it's cheap. And everyone thinks that we all make so much money.

and we've got all these schedules that we can just dive around instead of just being buried like we become, right? And you tell new agents that I think it's very important to join a team. First of all, just to get the lay of the land. You want to ideally leads. You want someone watching over your paperwork. You want someone telling you, well, how do you even do a listing appointment? How do you even go show buyers? How do you even go into showing time to figure out how to lay out all your.

apartment, you know? Exactly. And sometimes it's those things that really make a difference, don't you think? Yes, I do agree. Yeah. You know, I had no idea the computer systems, how to get leads or how to work the leads. So it was definitely having that experience behind you and somebody leading you was amazing. Yeah.

And also, usually on a team, they have someone helping you with the paperwork or You turn it in. It depends. Every team's a little bit different. Correct. Yeah. And so we had a transaction coordinator. Once we got the buyers or got a listing, then it was handed over to the transaction

coordinator. And then they kind of took over after that. Right. And now that you're a solo agent, that's all on you. And do you have an assistant or a VA? It is all on me other than I do have a transaction coordinator, which is amazing. She is a real estate. She still is a real estate agent that retired.

So she does all my paperwork. Diane Neus, she's absolutely amazing. She keeps my paperwork in order. And so I have time to go, you know, work with the clients and get more deals in. Right. Now, I know that you set some records and got some accolades for really high performance out there. what did you do different that that made you rocket so much? You know, it's hard.

I've never bought leads. I do this strictly on referral bases. I was born and raised here in Kingman. So definitely that was a factor in my ability to have so many clients. Connections. Yeah, exactly. So then there's the referrals from the referrals and so on. Yes.

And what did you do to nurture those people? How did they even know that you got into real estate? How did you nurture it? Because you mentioned to me, you know, if CRM is challenging to you, you use sticky notes. I can totally relate to this. But how did you stay connected? How did you get those referrals? Were you doing it on social media or something?

No, just mostly by word of. mouth. I don't do, you know, big posts on social media. Occasionally I do. It's, but it's not like a daily thing that I do. It's a lot of just keeping in touch and contact. I think communication is key. With clients and past clients. And I just have a good rapport with my buyers or sellers. And they remember me and then they they refer so so do you like call out to them like on a right are you touching base like two or three times a year you know what what's anything special you're doing not not necessarily i definitely feel that i need to be better at that um i think that my connection with people um i'm definitely a people person um and can relate and communicate

and become close to them very quickly. And so I think that's a big part of it. And they just do, they remembered me. And they know that I was, I was that person that really took care of them. And that's a big, big thing. I definitely go above and beyond. I've gone and I've cleaned out houses for clients.

You know, I've got my husband, he'll go and fix something real quick. And so I just think that it, it's more that than anything. Is Kingman, that's in Arizona, right? Yes, it is. Yeah. Is it a small town?

It's a small town. I believe we're like about 36,000. I do do all of Mojave County. So we've got Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City, Golden Valley, and then Kingman. And so I work, but mostly I work in the Kingman. Mm-hmm. Well, what I was thinking, since you're not doing that much social media, it must be a small town feel where everybody's connected and you've made a point to be connected with people. Does that sound right?

Yeah, somewhat. I just think that my success has been being able to communicate with people and become, you know, I guess it's almost like you become friends and you have to do that very quickly. I'm just, you know, I just, I guess I have that knack maybe. But, you know, and it's genuine. Yeah. I'm just me. I'm not anything else. I'm just me.

Just a regular gal. Tell me, I had a note that you had some award to the Tom Ferry organization. Were you using coaching with them? No, no. I received in 2022, I received the Keller Williams Southwest Regional number one in units sold. So in 2022, I sold 129 properties. Get out of here.

That's incredible. And then last year, 2023, I was about 112. Wow. Even though a tough year last year, were they cash? Were they investors? What was your price point? I do a lot of land as well. Right now I have about 85 listings, land listings.

And just this month alone, I've got 19 or 19 listings, brand new listings, 23 pending and I've sold nine this month. So are you kind of known as a land agent? Is that your niche? Not necessarily. Wow. I don't know what is. I do have a couple of great investors.

that, you know, are the majority of my listings are from the investors. I do have a lot of land listing or homes as well, but mostly land. Well, it almost sounds like you dominate an area there. Do you? There's a couple of us out here in this area that kind of dominate the land. I definitely am high up in that domination. Yeah. The land. But, yeah, it's just, I don't know how, honestly,

some days I just don't know how I do it. I just do. Right. So, and do you have intentions of getting an assistant for help? I mean, that's a lot of transactions. No. Like I said, I have Diane that does it. That does a lot of, she just actually took over doing my land listing.

and paperwork. I was doing all of that myself, and she was just doing the home portion of it, but it just got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore. Well, that makes sense, because you have to leverage yourself out to a degree to have a life. Yeah, and that's honestly been probably my biggest issue. I definitely like to be in control of everything.

That's why I didn't do so good on the first team, because I had to let go and I can't let go. So, you know, it's learning. It's been a slow process of being able to let go of the paperwork so that I had more time to worry about actually getting listings or buyers and working with them. So that has helped releasing that. And that just basically happened this last month. Oh, so it's recent. Yeah.

Yeah. Let me ask you this. So how did you get on a path where you got? known for the land or even with the investors. How did that happen? I think that so I had I started off with an investor that he does have quite a few quite a bit of land out there. He had called me on a property that I had for sell probably about six years ago, no seven years ago. And then ever since then and he had used many agents in and he had been dealing with it for many, many years. And we just, I just, we just have a great rapport. Um, we, we connected. And so I've,

like I said, he's probably my biggest investor and I probably have about 50 with him. Um, wow. And I think it's that, you know, once people start seeing you on Zillow and Trillia and and seeing that I have so many listings, um, gotten just recently in the last month, I I've gotten like two more investors, small investors, but you can tell them they're, you know, they're kind of snowballing. They're really starting to get more deals and they're calling me and asking me what I think. And I'm, you know, I'll give you information, even if you're not going to use me. I do the same.

You know, I'll be happy to give you that information. But then that also turns into, you know, one of my investors said, hey, can I give your number to another guy that I'm that I'm dealing with that he's looking for you know to to list some properties so I think it kind of almost like snowballs yeah I was going to say I'll bet they talk you know they can be in these clubs together like investor clubs and like who are you using is she any good your communication skills must be pretty good with these guys because you know that that's an important piece I have so many agents you don't answer their phone you know and I find it, I mean, I'm attached at the hip with mine. I answer my phone. Right. I learned to put my phone on

silent from 8 p.m. till 7 a.m. because I was finding, you know, I'll, I'll answer it. You know, and you're just like, you got to, you got to cut things off, you know. Yes. So, and I'll still, yeah, and I'll still text someone if I happen to see it or email. I'll take care of it. I think that my biggest thing is I started probably about 5.30 in the morning. And I think I get more work done between 530 and 8 than all day long because I'm able to focus, you know, get what I need to do done. And then once it's 8, 39 o'clock, that phone's ringing and you're going.

So. Yeah, it doesn't stop. I know. I got a call. We were on vacation. and I was with my daughter and it was like 10 o'clock at night, I had a few drinks. And I go to answer it. She goes, what are you doing?

And said, well, it's my client. And she goes, boundaries, mom, boundaries. I thought, boy, that's really right. It really was a good lesson for me because clients call me at 1 o'clock in the morning. Now it's a do not disturb is on my phone. Exactly. Yeah. My kids say the same thing.

They're like, mom, you, you. you've got to stop. And I'm like it, but it's just like I tell, I tell you I do my best deal sitting on the beach, you know, in, in Mexico with a,

with the margarita in my hand, you know, it's just, you just, you just do. And, and I guess I've learned to multitask very well. Yeah,

yeah. How do you feel about tech in your business going forward? Is it an important piece? you see or not an important piece for you? I think that it is an important piece. I've really tried, I'm really trying, I should say, to get myself out there more on social media for my business because, like you said, I mean, there's been some people that said, oh, I didn't even know you're in real estate.

I've been there eight years, you know. So I have tried to do a little bit better with that. advertising. I definitely have learned to get my listings out there and myself. So I'm trying. I haven't used AI. You know, I see a lot of people using AI for their listing descriptions and everything. And I'm looking at it. I'm like, that's AI. That's AI. You know, it's I feel like you've got to be personable with your listings and and I and that's so I don't know if I could ever get myself to to work with that the AI so I'm really glad you shared that because there's a whole way to work with like chat GPT's AI because AI is here to stay and it is going to consume our whole world now

you can get very boring uh stiff presentations like that for a listing presentation description or you can get incredible ones. It all starts with the prompt that you have to tell AI who it is. It doesn't know who it is to you explain it. For example, I would prep my AI in that situation and I would say you are an expert writer and you know everything about the area of whatever, let's say the talent was, things been Arizona. And this is a neighborhood in that neighborhood.

I want you to go into the internet, because I instructed to go into the internet, research that neighborhood. And now here are the components of this home and write me an empowering description that's going to entice somebody to really look at this home with a call to action in it. Now, that's just the description, right?

I don't need to say that's got three bedrooms, four bedrooms. I really need to talk about the feel of it. What's this house going to feel like? That's what's empowering, right? So now, and I may get a description back and I'll say, I didn't like that. I want you to change, you know, come from a more, like sometimes it's a little too stiff.

Soften it up, be a little lighter, you know, then I'll rewrite it. I will sometimes go through that two or three times and you could say, well, I could have written one in that time frame. And that's true. But what your particular chance is, is doing is learning you. And it will get better and better. And the beauty of it is you've got these envelopes on the side. We could get chat TPT4, which pay for. It's only $20 a month. And so worth it.

And I have the app on my phone. I use this of a machine with it. I teach on it because it's so powerful. That's just one little baby thing that you can do within your business. It's about being organized. And there's so many shortcuts to being a more efficient agent. And I do have another YouTube channel. Tech savvy realty solutions. And you can go over there and learn all kinds of tools that are to capture clients. Like Instagram, I don't use Instagram. I use Facebook.

That's where my target market is. There's a particular tool that I just did an interview on. And it was all about with Instagram. Well, I went to try and use it. It didn't work for me. I got to find a different one. So with this younger generation, I'm going to say 30 on down, even mid-30s, they're brilliant with tech.

And so I'm having them, I invite them on to that podcast to teach us all how to do this because there's a whole group of us, you and me, the second career kind of situation, we need to know it. And the time that it takes for us to figure. it out. Yeah. It's wasted time. Just teach me. I'm a quick study, right? I know. I know everybody's talking about it and I'm just like, oh, just give me my piece of paper. I'll write it down. I know. I know. I definitely, you know, I'm hoping, like I said,

I'm really trying because I know I've lost a ton of business just because I have, I haven't gotten that tech savvy and CRMs and everything. So and, you know, people do say, hey, you know, can imagine what you could do if you were more organized. Right, right. And there's CRMs now, like a lot of them out there where you can create a landing page that you drive your traffic to and now you're capturing new people in your social media. And it just comes right through a filter. You can just set it up for automated emails and you can utilize all that with AI.

The time efficiency. But if you don't have someone teach you, you know, know, and I'm like you. I'm hands on. So I got to understand it before I hand it off. I don't want to just give it to a company that could charge me X amount of dollars and I don't even know if it's going to work, right? You need to understand it first, right? Yes, I agree. I agree. Any other wise words you've got for us? I would just say that communication and follow up is key, definitely, and that's huge. answering your phone is huge. I did get to the point, I think, where I was getting so burned out that I was like,

I'd see my phone ringing and it was almost like, gosh, my phone's ringing. And so I've, I've definitely switched gears this year. And when that phone rings, I'm answering it unless it says spam across it. And, and you know, I've gotten some really good deals this last couple of weeks because I did answer my phone. Yeah. And, you know, and you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to be there for your clients. And that's, and that's, and that's, I agree. So, and also maybe a tip for someone who's starting a second career. Did you have any fear about it? Did you feel comfortable? When you were diving into this, what were your thoughts is like starting a second career? Uh, you know, at, at 48, at 50, uh, you know, it's huge because you feel like that's where you should be,

you know, like peaking and then, oh, hey, it's time to get ready for retirement. Yeah. And so it was, it was a little tough. I mean, thank God. I had a wonderful husband that had a great, has a great career himself. So the money wasn't an object as much as it was the, you know, the fear of being at my age trying to do another career. Yeah.

So I think I got into it just as, hey, you know, this is going to be fun. we're going to and not that oh my gosh i've got it where's my first deal where's my first deal so i think that was the difference for me um i wasn't having to worry about it so just became natural like i said i got on a number one team and we just skyrocketed um from the beginning so yeah it's well that was great because not everybody does that but i think you have a work ethic that is strong too. Would you say that? I do. I do. I've always been very strong in my beliefs of if you're going to do it, you're going to do it good and you're going to do it great and you're not going to slack. And if you can help others on the way, do it. I've never been one to just

stay in a straight and narrow and worry about myself. So I just want to thank you so much, Carrie for being here on Get Rich's podcast. And it's been so invaluable to learn your story, hear how you're doing it, because everybody's different. And somebody got a nugget out of this. I just know, at least one, maybe more. And that's our goal. So thanks again for being here with us. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it. Great. Thanks so much. Thanks. So thanks for joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches. Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two. I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below, share it with everybody, make some comments.

We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's schedule a business strategy call. I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't mastermind together and see if we can empower each other. That would be great. So until next time, signing off. Hope to see you on the next one.