KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Debate What's Better? Buyer Leads or Seller Leads for Real Estate Agents

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

Friday Focus is your weekly mini-series from KGCI Real Estate On Air—a deep dive into one theme, broken into tactical, easy-to-implement episodes. Every Friday and Saturday, we unpack the strategies, scripts, and systems agents use to win more business—without the fluff.Catch every episode in the series to get the full picture, and put these moves into play by Monday.SummaryThis episode dives into one of the most debated topics in real estate: which is more valuable, a buyer lead or a seller lead? The discussion offers a fiery, data-driven perspective on the strategic advantages of focusing on sellers, particularly in a shifting market. It's a candid conversation that challenges conventional wisdom and provides a clear business case for why leading with listings can fundamentally change your real estate career.Key TakeawaysThe Listing Is the Leverage: Understand why a listing is a central business asset. The episode argues that a single listing provides a powerful platform for generating multiple new leads, as it attracts both potential buyers and other potential sellers in the neighborhood.Working Smarter, Not Harder: Get a breakdown of the differences in time and effort required for each type of lead. While a buyer lead can lead to a single transaction, a seller lead offers a higher-impact opportunity, often leading to multiple deals and a more efficient use of your time.Control the Market: Discover the philosophy that agents who have listings "create the market." The discussion explains that by controlling the inventory, you position yourself as a market leader, giving you influence and authority that others lack.The Math of Success: The episode provides a data-backed look at the economics of each lead type. It highlights why, from a business perspective, a high percentage of your time, energy, and money should be invested in attracting sellers.Topics:Buyer vs. seller leadsReal estate lead generationReal estate listingsLead conversionSeller leadsCall-to-ActionReady to take your business to the next level? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and start generating more listings today! Ready for more? Subscribe to KGCI Real Estate On Air and grab the Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android. Inside, you’ll find our complete archive, 24/7 stream, and every Friday Focus mini-series—ready when you are.

What actually works. What's to do next? Here's the breakdown from this week's Friday focus on KGCI, real estate on air. Those are buyer activities. Okay. Those are buyer focused, buyer heavy activities. Okay. Right?

So you're going to ask them usually three or four things. What's your budget? What's your time frame? Are you working with an agent? Are you pre-approved? Well, number one, he's like, don't listen to the haters. He said, also don't listen to the people that are praising you either. Don't let that get too much to your head either way.

It's the people that are sitting back watching your comments. content quietly, not commenting, not even liking, but they love. But there's no, like you just said it, there's no right or wrong way. There's not. To run your business. It's what makes you feel authentic. Even like, we could program the AI to automatically ask that prior to actually booking you on an appointment. And they watch it.

They're like, man, this guy's good. Those are the people that you're really doing this for. You know what I mean? It's a huge opportunity. Anything changes. It's going to be a huge opportunity for people who are committed and are willing to work. When I lost everything, kind of like how we're going through now, this downturn. that taught me, okay, you know, I've got to learn how to create lifelong relationships with people.

Because you have so many expires, so many FISBOS. Just 1%? It's coming out in your tone. What is going on? My name is from calls Baranetti and welcome back to another episode of the Gold Bar podcast. This time we are going live from Las Vegas and we are switching things up. Instead of doing a one-on-one podcast, we're going to be doing this with four people at the table. So the person to the left of me, as you may or may not know him, is Ricky Carruth. Sir Ricky Carruth is one of the biggest coach in the entire industry here to deliver value. Next to Ricky.

On his left, we have Mr. John Sy, President of EXP Canada. And not only is John a top producer and a team builder, but he is a social media influencer completely dominating the landscape when it comes to the Canadian real estate game. And to the left of John, I'm not even going to try to pronounce his name. Let's just call him DK for now. DK is a top producing team leader. He pushes houses like it's his job, and he has a ton of value to provide when it comes to this episode.

So I'm extremely excited to get started. Let's get right into it. So listen, guys, the thing is, is, you know, that was a good intro, man. Good, good job. It doesn't exist. Good job. Good job.

So the thing, so we've got two agents from Canada. Yeah. And we've got two agents from Alabama. You're close enough to Alabama now. Florida, Alabama. Like the Canadian market, the real estate market, like right now, you know, we've got high interest rates. You guys have high interest rates. Yep.

Right. We have no inventory. You guys have no inventory, right? We have multiple offers in some of our areas. You guys have multiple offers. Like what is the market there compared to do you guys like you, I'm sure, know what the market's like in the U.S. Is Canada going through the same thing? We are with the real estate market?

Yeah. I mean, where we are at, we're right. now about five months supply now. Oh, that's a lot. It's caught up. So it's way up. What did it get down to? It got down to two months.

Yeah. Yeah. Beginning of the year. Yeah. And in Ottawa, we've got over 5,000 active current listings right now. But if you go back a year ago, there was 2,000 active listings. So it depends where you're talking about. I'm in the nation's capital.

So our inventory is rising dramatically. Because what happened was when COVID hit all the builders shut down, right? All the labor shut down. And then when everything opened up, all the builder recommenced their builds. But all the people that bought those builds two, three, three, years ago bought at two percent. Now that they're closing three, four years later, they can't close. So all the builders now have all this inventory. You got buyers they can't close because the rates are like seven, eight percent. And interest is high, but inventory is also rising. It's

something we've never really seen. Do you all have 30-year fixed mortgages there? You can do a 30-year amortization, but it's a five-year-term. Every five years, you've got a three five see yeah that's wild see here in the u.s you know we got 30 year fixed all the way for 30 years yeah a lot of countries are on that five year you know yeah rotating it really changes the entire game yeah big time cool so you were saying that you're greek yeah born and raised in Ottawa Canada podcasts were actually created the Greeks created podcasts what yeah for sure you guys don't know that like your great great granddaddy it was a cousin for sure but put Cotsopoulos, I think, and they shortened it to podcast.

Damn, dude. How can, like, how can somebody, like, say, I invented this? Like saying, like, I invented water, you know what I'm saying? No, Greeks invented water. No, anyway. He says that all the time, everywhere we go. He says Greeks invented Chinese. And you just have to be like, okay. Really? Wow. Yeah, I'm just proud. Just proud to invent shit. No, no. So, so what are you up to right now? Like, what's your thing?

My thing right now is I'm discovering that a lot of agents have a lot of problems with systems. They're going out of their way to build their entire data base. They're working their social media content game. They're going out of their way to run ads. And like every agent is so focused on strategy right now. But all the strategies lead back to one thing, them having to nurture the majority of the people that they actually stay in touch with. And no one is doing that. So like in a time right now you guys mentioned like inventory is rising and it's getting harder to close deals.

I tell everyone like if you were going out there and making 200 calls a month last year, and it was getting you X amount of results, you now have to go out there and do 400 calls to close the same amount of deals. And where I'm tackling it is like, okay, I don't think I'm going to see double the production from agents anymore.

It's not going to double their work ethic now. So what if we could help them build better nurturing and follow-up systems to go out there and do that for them? And I've been doing that with AI. We've been experimenting with me and Ricky and like it's been pretty cool. So how do you guys want to go ahead

and see this conversation? You guys want to talk production. You guys want to talk about building your massive teams. Like, where do you see yourself as far your business goes? I mean, I can just add that for me, it's all about skill. Because you can have all the AI in the world. You can have all the systems in the world.

But when you finally make that connection with that person that's looking to buy or sell, you need to have the skill level to be able to pre-qualify and assess what their needs are. And the last two, three years, I'm sorry, but the majority of it was order taking. See, a lot of people entered the market that didn't really know what they were doing.

They thought, okay, this is easy money. But really, it's not. You have to have the skill. So we're focusing on fundamentals again. Buyer consultations, seller consultations. For example, like if somebody says, how's the market? Depends. What are you looking to do? Buy or sell? Sell. Okay, it depends. What are you selling? When did you buy it? Because if you bought it three years ago, you bought at the peak. If you bought it 10 years ago, you should sell. But it also depends on what your motivation is, things like that. So I find that a lot of agents now are struggling because they lack of the skills. And that's really what it's all about. Because I don't care how many systems you've got when that phone rings. If you don't know what to say and you don't know how to help that, person they're going to move on so communication skills communication skills talking to people yeah yeah but taking care of them showing them that you care

through knowledge and and giving them the stats and giving them the facts and so they can make an informed decision what what if there was a way to train artificial intelligence to actually have those skills to qualify people for you that would be very powerful what if i told you i already did that i would say show me you want to test it out right now do it live on the podcast yeah sure take out your phone let's go all right Oh, this is going to blow your mind. I'm going to have you guys text this number right here. You guys let me know when you're ready.

Ready. 786, 882, and 9-1-90. Okay. And say anything. Hello, hey, what are you? Just texting and see what happens. But I agree, man. Like when I started in real estate, I didn't care anything about, like, building relationships, how to talk to people.

I was just like, let me close a bunch of deals. Because it was just like 2021 when I started back in 2003 and 4. But then when I lost everything, kind of like how we're going through now, this downturn that taught me, okay, you know, I've got to learn how to create lifelong relationships with people. So you're right, especially when the market goes down because a lot of these people, what do y'all do for buyer leads there? I mean, for like, you know, we have Zillow. Zillow there?

in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. There's no Zillow leads that we can actually buy. Who do y'all buy leads from? We have Wailopo, you know, your usual. So like the agents to do that, right? And dependent all their business on that,

they're probably not doing that hot this year, I would imagine. Right? The issue is I have, I think there's some value there, but everybody has the same leads for the most part. So my team- They get the same leads to everybody? Yeah. Oh, wow.

So it's kind of messed up. I mean, each and every lead will register on five, six different websites, and that's all going to different agents. So if you are not picking up the lead within five minutes, you know, it's bye-bye birdie. Right. So if you're on that and then you have AI on top of that, even if you have AI, when you have AI, you still need to follow up. It's already doing it.

Oh, yeah. I'm doing it right now. I'm having a conversation with your AI. Yeah. And it's, and so go ahead and press it. It's kind of funny. You guys text it at the same thing. I'm looking to sell.

But you can say look at a buy, so you want to buy in Canada. So you want to buy anything? So you're like, hey, how are you doing today? What got you to help you? It's very cool. Yeah. Basically, so what we found is any single time that you're doing a buyer consultation before that consultation, you're qualifying them.

Because you guys are experts. You're not going to waste your time going out to meet someone randomly. So you're going to ask them usually three or four things. What's your budget? What's your time frame? Are you working with an agent? Are you pre-approved? We could program the AI to automatically ask that prior to actually booking you on an appointment.

And then once it books you on an appointment, it goes straight to a calendar. you have to do that regardless one way or the other. The issue is majority of these leads end up not turning out. Facebook leads, Zillow leads, whatever they may be. They're just not good. So now we set up the automation so that if you don't want to go ahead and buy in the next 90 days, we will follow up with them for you for the rest of your life. So I am one of those people that do believe you could follow up on the automation

and just get that entire process like long term to be fully automated. But I am 100% agreement with you. Once they're ready to buy or sell, AI can't do that. AI can't take over and close. So I think closing is going to be remaining for the agents, and then AI will kind of take care of the rest. You know, and when you know how to present, the close is natural.

You don't have to close if you're a good presenter. Yeah. So often people say to me, I can't close. No, no, you can't present. Because when you present, you don't have to close. Correct. You know, the partners look at each other. They go, honey, what do you think?

What do you think? Yeah, let's do it. You didn't even ask. That when you get so good and you're so in flow, you don't have to close, bro. They close themselves because you're presenting so well. And the real presentation is the prequel. The strength in your prequel,

qualifying shows that seller how much you care. That's the real presentation. Whereas most people say you got to sell, okay I'll be there too. Well hold up. Hold up. Let me slow it down a second just like the question. Like the questions you're asking before you come. Yeah, why are you selling? Yeah, why are you selling? Why are you going? Go deeper deeper deeper. People don't do most new agency. Oh, I got to go. I got an appointment. Well, hold up. You got an opportunity. You don't have a real. And then the presentation is the listing presentation you say in the presentation. The presentation for me is the prequal. This is the prequalifying. That's the real presentation. So it's like when I show up tomorrow after

you've asked all the questions, if everything I say makes sense and you feel comfortable and confident that we can sell your home, are you ready to sign? Yes, no, or maybe. Do you do a full-blown listing presentation, though? Over the phone? Oh, in person? In person. Yeah, 100%. Do you have a PowerPoint? You sit down with a PowerPoint? It's just pre-mail them the package beforehand. They review it. We call them to ask if they reviewed it. So it's a pre-listing presentation, basically. It's a pre-list, so we show up at 20 minutes. Perfect, yeah. And you already asked them three times when I show up, are you ready to sign? Yes, no or maybe. Okay, no, or if it's no or maybe, no problem. I understand why they give us the objections now we know what they are going in yeah so it's power

contacts yeah that's what I call them right power contacts I want to go in knowing the intention is there it's not just a CMA you either got the listing before you even showed up to the appointment like like as long as they looked you up and they looked at your resume and they checked everything out like they already know if they want to work with you or not agreed you're just going there to kind of seal the deal that's the way I see it agreed yeah so it was so different dude I didn't have any social media yeah I barely had a website I never did pre-listing or listing presentation I did one listing presentation. I was like, this is awkward. I'm never going to do this again. And I was like, well, I thought about it. I was like, all right, what I, what I give, what, if this was my mom,

would I sit down and make her watch this PowerPoint or what I send her a pre-listing package? And it was like, no, I'm like, why am I, I should be treating everyone like they're my mom or dad. Yeah. And so I was like, I'm never going to do this ever again. And I didn't really have anywhere where people could go. I didn't have like testimonials anywhere or anywhere. Everybody could find anything. So it's like there's so many different ways you can do this thing. You know, you've got to figure out what works for you. And what makes you feel comfortable in the process and everything. So you say you're a team leader?

Yeah. How many is on your team? Just myself and three other agents and two admin. But there's no, like you just said it, there's no right or wrong way to run your business. It's what makes you feel authentic and genuine. You know, I'm like, you know, like quit trying to like set the appointment, you know, and just figure out why they want to do something and try to help them do it. You know, but the appointment thing works for a lot of people, too, you know.

There's so many different ways to do it. So what did, how many listings did you have you guys picked up this year? So far, I think it's about 80. We're on track for 110. Nice. And that's an uptick from last year. Yeah. Because inventory has rose across the whole market and everything.

So I love this market, just to be clear. This is like the perfect market. There is so much opportunity, guys. So like I started in 2009, which the market. was a buyer's to balance market, that's when the real skill comes out, because you have so many expires, so many FISBos, that was a FISBO killer, bro. So I love that because now the value shows. They're not just giving it to their cousins, friends, sisters, and who got their license as a favor. Now they need the results. So just to be clear, I love this market. What was your

for sale by owner like pitch to just get so many for sale by owner listings? You know what? My first FISB that I ever got, I was door knocking with my son in the stroller. And I knocked on their door, said, hey, when do you plan on hiring the right agent for the job of selling your home? And she turns around, she goes, is that a baby? I said, yeah, I need diapers. When do you plan on hiring the right? And she laughed just like that. She didn't sign right there, but four weeks later she did because I followed up every

week, hey, have you tried this? Have you tried this? Have you tried this? I kept giving her value, giving her value. And then I double ended it, made $35,000. I'm like, this is amazing. How long was the follow-up process before you got the listing? Four weeks.

Four weeks. Yeah. I tell everyone, it's usually between like four to eight contacts before you actually go ahead and lock it down. It's such a follow-up game. It's all. So let me ask you this. What if you automated the follow-up with AI?

Yeah, I'm all about. How were you following up? You were calling them or texting them? I was new, right? So I don't have much going on. Correct. So my whole focus was on getting that listing. Yeah.

So you were calling. You can't really use AI or to drop by or call. Yeah. We can use voicemails, gift of campaigns. I would just be like, are you doing an open house on Sunday? They were always saying, yeah, cool. And I'd drop by the open house. Yeah.

Yeah. get face-to-face, just continue building relationships, everything that way. On average, it used to be seven to eight follow-ups. That was 11 years ago. Now I find it's more. Really? Yeah. Interesting.

Okay. It's taking longer now. So what would you do? Like, create a voicemail. It's like, hey, is Ricky checking in with you? Yeah. Or whatever. We're working on a for sale by owner follow-up campaign, which is why I ask.

And basically, we can record the entire voicemail. Anything you're going to say to want for sole by own, you're probably going to say to the next, you could just customize it by changing their name. And then you just go ahead, you record this voicemail. It'll go out over eight weeks. You can send. So record a different voicemail for each one you did? You would have to do one individually, yeah.

A good one is Monday. So let's say, hey, just checking in to see how your open house went. Yeah. How many offers did you get? It's almost just as quick, just to dial their number and leave the voicemail. Well, what if you just recorded that and we sent it out to 30% by owners at once? Well, you can't. You said different names.

You have to record a different one for each person. If you want to customize it, yeah. Right. But if you want it out to the masses, like that was a very generous to your mic. Oh, cool, cool. Yeah. I would love to collaborate with you on that to give you some scripts that. We use that that are very powerful.

Interesting. Do you send mailers as well? Yes, we'll send a business card with a note card in the mail. In the mail. Okay, cool. For a Fisbole. And then emails or anything like that? Yeah.

We use CRM that does some automation until they respond. Are you still doing for sale by owners? Yeah. Now, but the last three years they were all selling. Now that the market softened, it's back. This is like for sale by owner lad. Yeah, it's cool. Shane is listed like 50 for sale by owners this year.

10 this month. Like, listen. And he says? Shane, Knoblin. in North Carolina. Yeah. He's a beast. These people need our help.

Yeah. So we got to do that. Did he use AI? No. No. It was just straight up following up. Yeah. He calls like he's a master dude. He's just like, I was drawing by your house and I saw your roof.

Like, and it'll say something about the roof. It's nuts what he does. He customizes every little contact. He'll find them online on Facebook or like when he calls agents or when he calls anybody, he looks them up and he finds something specific about. about them and then he'll call them about that oh yeah like he spends the time to figure out one little thing he can call about you know smart and he crushes it he calls less people because he has to do more research but they're way higher quality so he's going deep with people he's going

deep yeah and he keeps going deep he just goes deeper and deeper and deeper what do you think about that like transactional these days versus relational what do you mean like you know we're taught to go wide, you know, talk to a lot more people. You need to double up on your actions. But, you know, these days it's almost like you said. You have to go deep with people, less contacts, but go deep with people, like you said. I think you can do both. Yeah?

Yeah. Because, I mean, like, as you're, as you're making your calls or making your contacts or whatever, you know, like throughout like a, what, how many, how long are you going to get any calls for? Let's say four to five hours a day. I mean, dude, even if you're going deep on a conversation. conversation that's going to last, say, 30 minutes tops, you know, and then get a bunch of like three minute conversations in, then another 30, like, you know what I'm saying? You've got plenty of time to do to go deep and wide. And like going deep and wide means working on your short term business and long term business at the same time. If you have a system in place that nurtures everybody

forever that you ever talk to. Right. And most people are either, they're either working the short game, like just close the deal now. If you're not ready now, then I'm going to forget about you when really the people that they're saying forget about you too those are the clients that buy later if you would accumulate all those would like triple your business in three years yeah you know as they come back around to you when they do decide to do something most people are just working one or the other i see as like you have the database in itself which you should be nurturing yeah as much as you can as frequently as possible as automated as possible you don't really invest money into it and then the second that someone refers to business or becomes a client

themselves, then you start investing into the relationship, messaging them on birthdays, buying them gifts, client anniversary, stuff like that. So you have your VIP list and then you have your database. And I tell everyone nurture your database as passively as possible with email, text, and voice, doesn't cost you a single dollar. It runs automatic. And then once they go ahead and they transact with you or they refer you business, start investing into them the same way you invest in Zillow or another like online real estate platform. I think the key is, yeah, I love what you said. The whole transactional thing, right? When I was younger, like when I just got started, I wanted to get to 100 deals.

Like, I was obsessed. I got to crush that 100 deal. And then I got to it. And then I realized, shit, you can succeed in making a transaction to fail in making a client. Yeah. And that was me. I was doing a lot of transactions, but I don't know if I was succeeding in making

clients. Correct. Yeah. Because I'm like, why are some of these people not calling me back after? So when I switch my mentality to, like John said, like making it more about, not about the transaction, make it about the person. Correct. Like I used to have team goals.

For example, okay, we do 100 deals. We're all going to Vegas on my dime. Yeah. Whereas now it's completely, we don't even talk, how many deals can we do? It's like how many Google reviews can you get this week? Yeah. Because that speaks more volumes than anything else. Correct.

So what were you saying like transactional versus relational? Where were you going with that? Well, I think we need to be relational. Okay. Everything's built on relationships these days. It's relationship marketing instead of, you know, just get a lead, call them, call them, call them, until they're ready to transact. I call them one time.

if they don't answer, what am I going to do? Chase somebody, chase a ghost? See, here's the thing. When you call somebody over and over again that just continues not to answer, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, each dial is so crucial. Okay?

Because of the ripple effect, like the long-term snowball of that, right? So, like, that dial was just wasted on someone who probably is not going to answer because they haven't answered the last two or three calls. That why people ghost because you just not providing value? No, they ghost because something through a red flag in the communication, right? For example, I'm not really ready. You being what should be a professional isn't picking up on the clues that I'm not ready, right?

Because I'm a nice person. I'm basically kind of saying it's kind of like you don't, you know, like somebody wants you to come to dinner. They invite you to dinner. And, you know, you probably can't go. Chances are you're probably just not going, but you're like, I'm on charge. try. Right? And then the person's like, well, you know, they hit you back.

They're like, what do you think? You're going to make it or not? And the back of your mind, you're thinking, no, I'm not. Then you're like, oh, yeah, I'm blah, blah, blah. You know, it's the same thing with clients. They kind of like will kind of lead us down this road. And then we don't really pick up on that with our lack of experience. And then now we're trying to set the appointment.

Right. You know, and they're like, wait a minute, I'm not ready to do anything. Now this person is trying to get in here and make everything move real fast. and go to a contract and let's set up a consultation, and I'm not even ready for any of this stuff. I'm just not going to answer the phone because this guy's weird. He's not even picking up on what I'm saying. He's not listening.

That's one thing. Another thing is just like along the same lines, just not connecting with the person. You know what I'm saying? That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking. Right. And it's just like they just feel like this cold.

They don't, they feel like it's just, they can feel that it's transactional for you, even though you feel like you're articulating how much you care about them, you don't realize that that 2% transactional you're trying to make it really was like stuck out like a sore thumb in the whole situation. And the prospect's like, I can go find an agent.

I feel 100% comfortable with. Like really has my back because there's so many agents. That's the thing. Like they feel like they can ghost an agent because there's 10 more, you know, right here trying to talk to me too. So why, you know, why am we going to give this a chance when? I want to hear that again. You said the 2% you think you're 98% relational, but the 2% that you're transactional gets magnified. It's the same thing with confidence. Like if you're not 110% confident, then they see it.

If there's 1% of you that doesn't believe, like, that you can sell this house or, you know, that you're confident in whatever, just 1% it's coming. out in your tone. It's coming out. You don't realize it. You go back home to the office and you're like, what happened there? What did I do wrong? They went with another agent or they ghosted you and you're like, what happened? You know, but you don't even realize it. You don't even realize it, but from their perspective, you're just this desperate, unconfident, transactional person, but you perceived it as this professional, relational, trying to help somebody. You're doing everything, your coach and broker told you to do you know what i mean so so that so that's that's that's where like

the line is between like people failing and not failing in this business it's that 1% 2% lack of confidence or you know being transactional um i don't know how would you advise them to slow it down and really listen then because most people don't it's it's from it's from volume of conversations You know, and like people have like hundreds of conversations and they're not quite there and things aren't clicking on all cylinders. And they're like, it's not happening for me yet. It's like keep going. Get to a couple thousand and you know what I mean? Like you just need a little more experience in front of people.

I would suggest I think everybody as a real estate agent, as they're getting into real estate, like a good like full-time job while you're trying to become an agent is to serve tables. I love that you said that. To go and serve tables. Because you're walking up to people, you have to walk over there to this table, people you don't know, and greet them and basically get this conversation that's back and forth going

about what they want to drink, how they're doing. It's like a perfect exercise for like a future real estate age. I think everybody should roof houses too for about a year of their life. But I'm not going to go to that hardcore with it. But yeah.

Yeah, that and reading some books on communication. So I love what you said because I'm Greek, come from the restaurant background, right? But I did retail. When you do retail or in the restaurant business, what do you have to do? Talk to people.

People want to deal with people that are like them and people want to deal with people that they like. Knowing that, you got to work on your versatility. Because when you, otherwise, you're only going to get 25% of the people who are like you. But the problem is there's 75 of the people are nothing like you. So the chances are, number one,

let's just, you can't motivate anybody who's not motivated. So if they're ghosting you, it could be there's not motivated. and they see that you are going to get the job done. So maybe they're like, shit, this guy's going to actually get my home sold. That's exactly what I'm saying. Or they basically are saying, I don't want to sell. You're not picking up on the cues.

And they're like, this guy's moving too fast. I'm just going to block him. Or call the cops. You're not treating them the way they want to be treated. So like the engineer doesn't want to be treated the same way as the, you know, actor does. The engineer wants facts and figures. Whereas the driver's like, let's go, let's go. Like how much is the house?

How much you charge in me? when you start learning the versatility on the different personality styles my income at least went from 300,000 to a million in one year because I learned that I was treating everybody the same the way I want to be treated but not everybody wants that.

Where did you like do a book or coach? Like where did you actually like get the training for that? Well I started to assess why is my closing ratio so low right? And I realized the people that I wasn't closing were similar and not similar to me because I'm very expressive. I talk a lot as you can see

but not everyone's like that. So I was like, why am I not being able to convince the amiable or the specifically drivers and analyticals? Like I was repelling them with my talking. So then I learned, okay, they want facts and figures, the analyticals, like the engineer, the accountant, give them what they want. And then I can show them, hey, he's like me. He likes facts and figures.

So it was books, a lot of books. And hanging out with a lot of people like, you know, like John and I have known each other for years. And John and I have very different personalities. But we were also on the same trajectory, which shows you that people with different personalities can be successful in real estate with completely different personalities, but we were getting the same results. So when you hang out with people that are different, you work on your versatility. Dude, it's like the energy. I love coming to Vegas because like as soon as I land, bro,

it's like, I know there's some ballers around here, number one. And then I hear music and stuff, and I'm like, this whole, this place like energizes me. Yeah. I'm like, let me, and like just being around ballers, people like hard workers that have done things. it just rubs off on you. Now, if somebody, dude, if somebody calls, if I go somebody and they keep calling me, I'm calling the cops. Straight up. Like, dude, I am like stage five clinger.

Like, I don't want to do anything with you, bro. You know what I'm saying? So, like, when they ghost me, I call, I mean, I call them like once and I send a text, and if they don't answer, that's it. They're on my weekly email. You know how many buyers ghosted me after I showed them property? like for a week straight, goes to me, never heard from them. Three years later, they call me.

And I see their name on the caller ID. And I'm thinking, okay, here he is, right. Here he is. Because I remember who it is. And I'll answer and they say, hey, Ricky, you know, remember me? And I'm like, yeah, I remember you. I sure do. And like, sometimes they'll just act like nothing happened.

And they're like, okay, we saw this property over here, want to buy this property. And they'll go buy a property. and then sometimes they'll be like, hey, I just want to, you know, say, you know, if you don't want to work with me, that's fine. You know, I'm sorry for whatever. Yeah, some of them have said that.

And I'm like, no, it's no big deal at all. And I feel like I'm in the driver's seat now, you know. And I'm like, well, but I'm like, oh, no, I'll work with and everything. Just, just know that I know what's up. I know what the possibility is that you're going to ghost me, never talk to me ever again. So as long as we're on understanding that you're not going to do that ever again, we're good.

How do you feel about putting them on the contract to have a buyer-exclusive agreement with you? Do what? Do a buyer-exclusive prior to work with that. I don't do buyer-exclusive. I've never signed a buyer-exclusive. I've never been a listing, presentation, any of that stuff. But you don't think that would help with it? No, because they can walk away from that too.

Yeah. They can walk away from that any time they want to. So all that's going to do is put a wedge in between the possible relationship saying, hey, we're friends because you're signing this piece of paper. Hey, I'm going to help you because you're going to sign this piece of paper. you have to sign that piece of paper for me to want to help you. You know what I'm saying? If you want to walk away from doing business with me,

then that's the risk that I'm taking as a real estate agent helping somebody. You can still walk away even if you sign this. So why am I even going to have you sign this? You know what I'm saying? No. And everyone's trying to get them to sign that paper. Right? Not me.

And I tell people, I'm like, why? It's just, it's like the amount of clients you'll lose. Let's say you lose 10, 15% of the buyers that you put that in front of because you did that. You know how many millions of dollars that is over the course of like five, ten, 15 years in your business that you lost because of that motion

where if you wouldn't offer that and just helped everybody do everything, the ones they're going to go use somebody else, you're going to go use somebody else no matter if there's a piece of paper sign. It's not going to stop anybody. So in Canada, they're changing the law in a couple of months

where if you don't have a buyer contract with a buyer, you can't show them another agent's home. I think there's some states here that are like that. It's like mandatory. It's new. Aren't there states here? year to do that? Not that I'm aware of, no.

I was, or you know how agents are. I'll say, don't do buyer agents. They're like, our state makes us do it when probably don't even make them do it, you know, just because they want to get me. But, you know, it may or may not. But dude, if it's a law, that's a whole different thing. It's like, hey, I'm sorry, but you got to sign this for me to be able to show. That's different than it's my option, you know.

Yeah. So what do you think about this? You know, they're probably going to switch it around where the buyers have to pay the buyer's agents now. I don't think they're going to switch it around. I think that I think that that's very out there if that were to happen. I think that the lawsuit is, is this happening in Canada too or just here? Well, I don't know what's happening in Canada. Okay. But here, there's a lawsuit where basically a group of owners, you know, are suing these, you know, huge corporations. It's like there's a bunch of mom Paul's out there, brokerages that are doing the same thing. Why are you not suing them as well?

Well, because they're not huge billion-dollar corporations that they know they can get to settle for $55 million, right? It's all just a money grab. Like, they did the deal. They were happy with the deal. They hired a listing agent to sell the property for 5%. What the listing agent does with the money that you... That's like saying, okay, Mr. Roofer,

you want to roof my house for $13, go for it. They do it. A crew shows up. you pay the guy 13,000. What he did, if he paid the crew 9,000 out of the 13, because he subcontracted it, it doesn't matter to you. Right. You sign a contract or whatever, a quote to get the job done for a certain amount.

So it's crazy that this is even happening. But now, anywhere, offered to settle out for $83.5 million. Remax offered, these aren't final, right? Remax offered to settle out for $55 million. It's like, wow. Like, the whole thing is crazy. and then these companies are now offering, like it's up to like $130 million,

140 million that two companies so far. And NAR are still in the lawsuit. A couple other ones are still in the lawsuit. And now everybody's like, well, if this lawsuit goes through, then buyers are going to have to pay their own commissions and all this and all that. I don't believe that.

I think what's going to happen is there may be a few extra disclosures that has to be signed so that it protects everybody and business will go on, like normal. If worst case scenario happens and buyers do have to pay the buyer agent fee, who cares? I mean, okay, you got to pay me now, right? Like in Australia, they operate like this. In the buyer agent, what happens is the listing agent gets the listing, and normally the buyers come straight to the listing agent, right? And there's really no representation for the buyer, you know, that's what's going to suck out of all this if something, worst case scenario happens. But the

buyer, down there, the buyer agents, what they do is they take a retainer, you know, $2,000, $5,000, whatever it is up front, and then the remaining, if they get the deal done, but they take an upfront fee, right? They take an upfront fee like a lawyer, what a retainer. And then they go out there and get to work for the buyer. They've paid them some money. You know, now I'm going to get to work for you. So, I mean, if you're a buyer's agent, heck, you may be getting paid up front. Yeah. You know what I mean? job done getting you the home. The fact of the matter is though, like people are still going to buy or sell. People are still going to want to be represented and the industry will find a way.

I was even saying that mortgages may create a product that figures in the buyer agent fee. People are commenting on my video like, oh, that's crazy. That'll never happen. It's like, well, did you think 40-year loans would happen? Yeah. Did you think 1% down loans? Like, don't do anything. Like, something happens. Like, The government and mortgage companies, they'll figure out a way to make this whole thing work. But it's just a non-issue, bro. Are you worried about it? No.

You know, things do change all the time. We just are resistant to change. We don't want to change, right? But when it comes and then you get used to it. You got a flow like water, bro. You got to flow like water. You water, my friend. If something happens, you mean, okay, what is the industry like?

What's the process now? Oh, okay. I'm going to crush that. Yeah. I mean, show me how this is going to be done from here on out. You got to learn to control the controllables. So if I don't have control over what's taking place, if it's something above my pay grade and the government's imposing this,

why am I stressing over it? I can't control it. What I can't control is what I do and how I react to what happens. I can't control what will happen if it's outside of my universe, right? If the government's imposing it, I can't do shit. all I can do is control how I react to it. I'll figure it out. So while everyone else is freaking out for six months,

I'm figuring I'm going to pivot and just keep going. You can't freak out. It's kind of like if agents go way completely, you know, kind of like travel agencies. Yeah, right? The brick and mortar, the travel agents. My cousin's actually a travel agent. Like he makes good money, actually.

They're still travel agents. Yeah. Like it's all online, and he gets all of his customers that way, and he organizes and books. their trips and he makes good money. Yeah. But there's a lot less of them, right?

And it's a completely different industry. Yeah. And this, that and the other. But there should be less of them. If you're not good at it, get out. So I'm Greek. Born and raised in Canada, but I'm Greek. We've made that super...

Hold up. I got a point. I got a point. My point is, I went to Greece for a month. I hired a travel agent. Why? Because I'm too busy. I don't know every island in Greece.

I don't know all that stuff. So I even hired a travel agent because I'm too busy. And he's there. He's local. And he figured it all out. We paid him a fee and we were happy to. I think that right there, the fact that travel agents still exist on a smaller scale, of course, but you have to understand the ease of booking a trip online.

It's not the same process as buying a house. I don't see that. But if it did, where did all the travel agents go that got out of the business? They got out the real estate. That was an easy one. You did that off. I don't think so. They might have.

But the point is, is they went off and did something else productive, especially the ballers, the hustlers, the ones that, you know. You think the ones that are in the business right now are making more money than the ones that were killing it before? Like, of like the few remaining one. I do. I do because you got digital marketing. Yeah, you go way more market share.

Yeah. Right. Digital marketing, way more market share. You know what? It's probably a growing industry. Like, I bet, I bet, I bet you. travel agents, like the number of travel agents is actually like it went away and now it settled out. And I bet you the number of travel agents are actually growing now. I bet you.

Well, listen, traveling to me is a nightmare. Like if I have my assistant do it or I have geo try to set it off, like just the time, it takes like an hour, hotel, flight, car and everything, like organizing the entire thing. If there is a way where they could actually save you money, which in essence your time is money, right? Why wouldn't you hire one? Like, hey, we're making a pretty good, what do you call it, argument for the travel agent, you know? Yeah. I don't think agents are ever going away. Yeah. I think there's always going to be people that need good agents.

But if they do, bring it on. You know what I mean? Like, I'm ready for agents. That's like the market. You know, I'm like, prices aren't going to go down. Price is going to keep going up. And, you know, buy houses. And people are like, oh, yeah, this is going to age real well.

Well, I'm going to save this video forever. And I'm going to show you when the market crashes and stuff like that. I'm like, you don't get it, bro. Like, if prices go down, you know how much money I'm going to make? Like, I'm not saying, prices are going to stay or go up because that's what I want to happen because that's going to make me more money. No, if prices go down, you know how much money I'm going to make?

I welcome the prices. If you go through a 2008, you're not scared of nothing when it comes to the real estate market, number one. But like, how many buyers do you have right now that are waiting on prices to come down? Countless. It's the same buyers that didn't get in because they didn't want to compete. Pete. And now they're waiting. Now they're waiting because they're waiting for prices to go down. Exactly. Exactly. But think about how many people are sitting there waiting on prices to go down.

Yeah. Okay. Now, now all these people saying, crash is going to happen. They've been saying it for two or three years. Right. Everything keeps doing phenomenal, except for the amount of transactions and the monthly mortgage payments and stuff like that. But just think of how crazy it would be if prices come down, like how crazy your business would be. It would be. It would be insane, dude. You know? So like these people are talking or act like, you know, I'm trying to pump the market up. And that's all I want. It's like, no, you don't even, you don't even get it. Like this is what I see when I open up my phone every day. Ooh!

The OO gets longer and longer. Yeah, it does. The Oos gets longer and longer. What's the longest ooh you've ever done? I was going to do one where it was just that the whole time. Yeah, one real should just be the OU. Wait, can you do it right now? I want to hear that's what I should do you prep for it do like like an inhalate like you ever hold your breath under water you kind of do like yeah do you like prep for that is like a we need to wait we need to film it like film me doing it we can all do it right now you got three cameras on yeah we got the woo yeah I'll lead us out in a woo yeah yeah we're in the podcast on a ooh

that was a bit let me see yeah it's it's funny I was in bed it was like 930 at night I'm scroll I'm like next to my girlfriend and like literally the entire like thing it's just pitch quiet all years oh what are you watching something sticks so fast what are you watching oh my goodness let's see if there's any good articles out I haven't done one in a minute is that hello kitty on your phone yeah yeah actually my daughter put this on it at church like three weeks ago it must be they must have like some crazy glue they put on that stuff. Anyway, yeah.

I'm going to find... So, John, what do you tell a buyer agent that's on your team that's closing 50 transactions a year, 100% buyer-based? What do you tell them if it does go in that route and if they collect their own commission? If it would. If they have to actually collect their own commission,

if it goes that route. If it goes that route, yeah, then we just have to up our value at the end of the day. And I would say the same thing. Like, you know, a lot of buyers' agents at that time will probably drop out of the business oh it's over yeah right and that's exactly when we should kick it up a notch

because right now I'll tell you my team doubled okay in the past two months yeah because the market's changing transactions are being squeezed so they all need help yes right so it's a huge opportunity anything changes it's gonna be a huge opportunity for people who are committed and are willing to work so I think I would tell that buyers agent just say hey just keep your head down keep moving and you know you're gonna see people quiet quitting or quitting all together, and that's your opportunity to take market share. Yeah.

And then, D.K., do you feel like you should be targeting sellers or targeting buyers? Because I tell everyone, like, they're all the same. They're all humans. Like, you don't know when they're going to be buying or selling. Like, what's your strategy there? Anybody that needs help. You know, we'll flow, like you said, water. Like, real estate is not fixed.

It's fluid. Yeah. So sometimes we're working with buyers. Sometimes we're working with sellers. But the thing that, the way I look at this, if the buyer's got to cover the cost, at the end of the day, I'll say to the buyer, listen, we'll just negotiate out of the price. Yeah. So like if you got to pay me 25K in the house is a million bucks,

we'll just negotiate the seller down in the amount that my fee is. Is that fair? Done. You know what I mean? It's an easy thing to overcome. But I'll help anybody that needs help. And I don't care if it's $200,000 or $2 million. Everybody gets the same treatment.

Are you asking from a perspective of lead prospecting for? For buyers or sellers? Why are you asking this buyer or seller question? Because everyone's always like, so I have a ton of buyer rates where I'm going to start focusing on sellers and I was like, what were we focusing on before? Like, weren't you just focusing on everyone? But no, they're probably like doing the buyer leads, Zillow leads or making YouTube videos about their city, trying to attract people that are moving there. Those are buyer activities.

Those are buyer focus, buyer heavy activities. Okay. Right. So for me, I'm like, all right, well, everybody's going to make money at six, seven o'clock at night in real estate. Everybody. It's your choice whether you're at home, chilling, eating dinner with the family. relaxing, not a care in the world, while eight of your 21 listings are being shown by agents who make YouTube videos and do Zillow leads, right? Because they're buyer-heavy focus,

so they've got buyers running around all hours of the night while I'm property owner-focused, not for listings per se, but those are the highest-quality prospects. They buy and sell. They're the highest-quality buyers, and when they give me a listing, that's the highest form of leverage for a real estate agent. So it's like everybody's choice. Like this girl the other day, they're like, she's like, should I send this letter to renters? I'm like, why? And she's like, well, buyers. I'm like, but you could spend the same effort talking to a property owner that already owns the property versus a renter who may, may not ever buy. And if they do, you have to educate them on the first time home buyer education. And they're going to run you all around.

downtown all hours and day you can do that but is it the most efficient no focus on property owners you know what I mean yeah because I'm going to be at home at night chilling with a family while superhero on YouTube is going to show all my listings yeah what are your thoughts on people going big on YouTube I mean you know you got to leave if they do it if they do it for the purpose of trying to get listings yeah and trying to attract property owners, right? So, for example, if you take your YouTube and you make great videos that get great engagement, number one, around your listings to try to attract a buyer for your specific listing, and B, to use the data and analytics on the back end to impress the seller

on your next listing. How many hits I got. Yeah, like, I'm getting, you know, I'm getting 20,000 views a month on my YouTube and I'm hitting, you know, 5,000 profiles a month on Instagram, and I'm going to be pushing your property on my platform. Any agent can put your property on MLS, but I have my own platform here of people that are circulating my content in the local market. That's my value proposition that I have differently than the next agent that's going to walk through here. So if you're utilizing social media to do two things. Try to drive buyers to your listings, A, and B, put out consistent content just for the sake of trying to get as many views and engagement as you can per month to impress the next seller at the next listing appointment,

then I think it's great. But if you're using it just to try to attract buyers to you, I'm not a fan of that. Is that the future of real estate prospecting, though? Do you think YouTube? It's not saturated yet. No. People are getting on it.

You don't think it's the future of prospecting? No, I don't think it's the future. I think it's already here. I think people are utilizing it to the, them. I think people are, well, I don't know that it will ever be saturated because people are scared to make videos. You know, it's the same thing with, it's the same thing with cold calling, right? Like, it's wide open because nobody's calling. Yeah. Right. I think engagement is underrated. Like everyone's so focused on being content heavy, which drives tons of

inbound leads, but no one is sending out 100, 200 DMs a day. Nobody. If you send out 200 DMs to every single person on Facebook, how often are they going to go ahead and say, like, oh, I actually do need to buy herself. You know what I think is most underrated is impressions. Views. Yeah. Well, not saying even views.

What's the difference in an impression and a view? Like, we're still trying to figure that out. Like an impression is somebody just saw the content, right? Versus a view is someone who, I think on Instagram, it's like three seconds they viewed it. And then,

and then on YouTube, it's like a minute, I think, right? Or it's 30 seconds or a view is like, it's longer on YouTube. for a long form on YouTube, but on Instagram it's like whatever, like three seconds or something like that. So like whether,

if you're just scrolling through and I saw your video and I continued, that was an impression. I saw it, kept going. A view is, oh, I saw it, oh, you got my attention on what, I watched it for more than three seconds. That's a view.

Got it. Okay, okay. And then like pictures is not a video. And then Instagram pays attention to how long somebody sees your picture, but that you don't see that analytics on your head. But if they just scroll through and see it, if Instagram showed it to somebody in their fee,

whether they stopped, liked it, whatever, that's an impression. If somebody saw it with their eyes. Those are impressions are just eyeballs. So you're saying they're underrated because the more someone could like subconsciously see your face, the more realistically you're building up in their mind. This is what I mean.

An impression, it's the same thing with emails. Okay, the email goes to the inbox. They see it in their inbox. Don't open it. That's an impression. So the fact that they saw it in their inbox meant something. They saw your name. They saw the subject.

They saw that it hits every Wednesday. They never opened it, but they're like, damn, that Ricky's consistent. Right? So they're like, oh, I'm going to call that guy. I'm going to start opening his emails two years when I decided to do something. And I'm going to call him on that fifth week I opened it. With social media, you post your open house. Okay.

And you got, you know, a hundred likes. And you're like, ah, you know, or no, I'm sorry, that's actually a lot. you got 15 likes you're like man this social media stuff don't work well you look and you got like 500 impressions which means it got 500 people saw you working right they saw that you're at that open house

it's like who's gonna like an open house post right nobody but they saw it and it meant something it's like Gary V was talking about the haters right people that hate on your content and everything and he was like you know you know people are hating and People are going to hate. And by the way, when you hit 100,000 on YouTube, the freaks come out.

Bro, I mean, it's just like non. Stop, dude. But anyway, what he was saying, and that's why nobody posts content, honestly, because they'll see a celebrity and they'll see all the hate. Or they'll see like an influencer and they'll see all the hate message. You're like, I don't want nothing to do with that. I'm not even going to create content. But what he said was, you know, well, number one,

he's like, don't listen to the haters. He said, also don't listen to the people that are praising you either. Don't let that get too much to your head either way. But then he was like, it's the people that are sitting back watching your content quietly, not commenting, not even liking, but they love you. And they love your content, but they don't say anything. They don't like. They're just like, they see it and they watch it.

And they're like, man, this guy's good. Those are the people that you're really doing this for. You know what I mean? So I was at the gym last week. and a guy came up to me never he's like hey just want to let you know I love what you're putting out all your content's very positive I appreciate you just keep it I go on I said I said I oh thanks for I'm trying he goes no no you're accomplishing your goal just want to let you know wow that's exactly what you're talking that's the that's

made me feel good you had no yeah we works at the gym and he goes I thought you're the DK guy yeah he goes yeah just want to let you know like you're making a difference thank you that is wow that's awesome and it is it's really cool the only danger is and I am really bad at it is listening to the people saying how awesome you are because when you when you really listen to people say how awesome you are it makes you really listen to the people who are saying you're you're a piece of shit right you know because if you're really listening to this then you also take this to heart as well and you're and and it can it can mess with you know what I mean so you got to get desensitized both ways now you have to be you have

to try to do it's the way you have to be because in this world there's so many keyboard warriors dude that are just that just just type stuff for like why why would you even like say something it's crazy you know what I mean but there's so many people like this but that's the same thing in real estate people make a big sale they think they're the shit then they lose a client they get depressed yeah same thing don't celebrate for too long don't beat yourself up for too long stay neutral keep The motions between the lines. It's exactly what you're saying to do with social, which I love.