KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Echoes of the Past, Visions of the Future Timeless Success with Greg Cirone

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Hey, everybody. I'm Kathy Burns, and I'm here with Real Estate Riches, and I have Greg, Saron, as my guest today, which I'm excited to have. Welcome, Greg. Thank you. I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about this. So you're in Chicago, right? I am. I am in Chicago, yes. Okay, great. And we were talking about you. It was by you. It's by you pretty warm. I know. How's the weather right now? We're a lot warmer than you, although it's cold here. We're like, in the 50s. It's cold.

Okay, okay, not too bad. Today, actually, we had a mild winter this year. As you see, it's nice and sunny, so we can't complain. Yeah, but there you go. So I'd love to hear the agenda of my channel is to help 40 plus year old agents. Okay. Level up their business. Okay.

And talk about tech, talk about how they're going to do this. We've got this whole NAR thing going on. There's a lot of agents freaking out. Yeah, they are quite a bit. So I qualify because of my age? I don't know. I don't know how old you are. I'm joking.

I'm 42, actually. A lot of the agents still start second careers at this age. You know? Yes. I started at 55. God bless. I heard your story a little bit. Just impressed.

This is truly impressive. I got to say hands down. Congress for all your success. It's pretty cool to start. Don't get me wrong. It's young. But, you know, it's hard. New adventure.

Don't know nobody. Yeah. Yeah. So good job. But thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, because I'll be 74 in a few months.

Wow. God bless. I'll sign up right now if I look like you at 74. Oh, thanks. I'm excited at this stage of my life. You know, when I started over at 55,

I was walking away from a large lifestyle, but I had $600 to my name, and I'm like, we got this. We'll figure it out. Strong Christian. Yeah. You got to have faith.

That's true. The reason for everything. I agree. I agree. Completely agree. Tell me your story. How you got started and how you own your own company. There's a story there. Yeah, there is a story. God bless. Again, faith, you know, but I came from Italy. I was fresh here in the country. I worked my first job. One of my first job was at the dollar store. And I'm a kind of guy. I like to talk with people, like to meet people. And somebody in banking got me over. And I went to banking right away for six months. And then I got a guy. in banking, then again, talking with people. I kind of always liked real estate. It was kind of like

in my family and grandpa used to do like little flip back in 19th century in 1900s. And so it was in my mind. So I met a bunch of realtors coming in the bank. And I got kind of like passionate about it. They were happy. They were telling me their stories. And so I started going to school. I just started doing, I got my license, started doing it on the side. And I love the not the freedom because I think real estate you work hard and you got to, you know, work for your client. And you have many bosses, but it was, yeah, but I liked not being on a desk. I liked meeting new people, going to a new house, new location, new environment, like, it was so cool for me. And, but I took my time. And so I did it like, I got licensed in 2003. It was part time. I was doing real estate and banker

for at least five, six years. And then once I saved up enough, you know, enough money because I want to be conservative. I don't want to go all in because I had a family early. I was scared. I was third of my life. So once I saved up a year of salary of all my real estate money was doing on the sides, then I went all that. And then, yeah, and then the rest is history. And now, you know, I have 25 agents. We have a little boutique, open XR here. So God bless. We're doing, we're trying to do podcasts like you do. We're trying a little bit of everything, you know. But one thing, for sure, never forget your client. The reason I'm here is because of faith, but also besides that, God introduced me to so many clients and they gave me so many referrals. And I'm,

I'm blessed, have met so many good people in my life. That's a great story, man, coming from Italy. So you just, you really started from scratch, which is great. I did. I did. I did. But again, I hear your story, right? You went in at 55, not knowing nobody.

That's kind of impressive as well. But I knew zero. I didn't know nobody. I didn't have high school friends. When I told my agent now, like, hey, first send the mailers to your sphere of influence. Can't think the people you know. Like back then, that's why I feel. like it took me longer, like I feel like for new agents now, they could have a head start.

If you know some people on the social media, you could definitely kind of get ahead of the game. Yeah. You know what I'm hearing that I love that you said is you saved your money for a year. I didn't have that luxury. But I really applaud you for doing that because a lot of agents get so hungry that they're not paying attention to the client. And that affects the industry as a whole, our reputation and that's not wise. And a lot of people do it part-time, which is also hard to do as well. It is. Because you're not available as much. So it takes a little longer to get it launched. Right. It sounds like you were very strategic. Would you say that? Yeah, I was. I was. I made sure that I was, I didn't want to give clients pressure. So my main thing was not giving pressure to clients.

and that's why I didn't want to go all full time. And then, you know, once you go full time, right, you're given that pressure to the client because you've got to make that paycheck. So I never wanted that. I want to make sure that I had a first job. I did not. Yes, I want to close the deal, but I didn't rely 100%. So the clients could take their time.

If they're finding a house and it takes them, you know, one month, two months a year, I was fine with it. So that's, yeah. So that helped a lot. And yeah, I had a plan. I'm always playing. I'm not saying you're going to know. everything 100%, but you've got to have like a tentative plan at least.

Oh, you got to have a plan. I'm with you on that. So what company did you start with in the beginning? In the beginning, I worked in another Luder Boutique company. One thing strategic I was, because I'm Italian, got Italian background. So I worked in a company where there's a lot of influence of Italian people because that was like my niche, right? I heard you're all, I investigated you too, and I know you're all about niche.

And it's true. You have to find your niche a little bit. So that was my niche. So that kind of helped me to kind of like build up. And so I work a little boutique around the corner. I end up being the manager broker there. I grew the company. I grew the real estate side.

I was in charge. But they were so old school, right? They loved their ways and they had like, you know, carpets from the 70s. And at one point, yeah. And at one point now I'm like, okay, it's time to modernize, get to podcast, video, getting into social media game. And that's why I went on my own and tried to give me. my agents a nice environment to work at. That's awesome. And so now you've got 25 agents. How did you

get those agents to come to you where they said, I want to work with you? Yeah. The agents, you know, it grew organically. I'll tell you the truth. Everything happened organically. I never really recruit. I haven't recruited so far, but of course, things would change as we grow. But as it right now, all 25 persons, 25 agents that I have, everybody grew organically kind of like they approached me. So that's why we get a lot. We're pretty a tight group and I feel like we get along a lot. I feel like as of right now, I attracted my own tribe, right? They know who I am.

And so that, but it might change in the future if we start recruiting. But yeah. And it was like just people that knew my story and want to help or want to start to grow. And I'm all about giving people chance. Yeah, of course. Because that's what you got, right? I was at an event in Cabo just a couple weeks back where I got to speak. And that was pretty exciting.

But there was a guy there, Phil. Oh, shoot, I should know his name. I think it's Stringer, Phil Stringer. And he told his story, oh, my gosh. Sometimes when we get knocked down where we have to start at such a low point, it actually, you either have a choice. You're either going to stay down. And I don't understand how you stay down.

But you can stay down or you can pick yourself up and figure it out. I agree. People who help you along the way, like your banker guy, the guy who said you'd be a realtor. Yeah. And even the firm that let you do it part-time. 100%. They all help me. Yeah.

Find this all along the way. I agree. I agree. There's little, I feel like, go ahead. I'm sorry. You're like me. I talk a lot. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

I talk a lot. But I feel like in life you have, you get opportunities, right? But then it's up to you to grab the opportunity, right? You can't just let it pass by. And I feel like, God bless, those were all little opportunities that I had. And I was able to at least grab them and make the best out of them. Yes, well, clearly you have. Yeah, but you're right.

But there's a lot of low times and there's a lot of struggle. Trust me, it happens. It happened to me many times. But you got to get upset for five minutes and then move on. Keep on going and figure something out. Life is good. So tell me what you're going to. to be doing with your team to kind of help them prepare for July as things change? Because in my

opinion, I think it's very important that you're doing social media right now where you're teaching your clientele what your value is. 100%. 100%. Because I don't think they know. 100%. 100%. I completely agree with you. Social media is really important these days. And not because you want to stay in touch even with your sphere because some people don't hear from you. They don't see you. They see you once a year in a party. So social media kind of gives you that they're connected with you in a way. And they feel comfortable to even maybe lift up the phone or text you. They see you like at least a few times a week.

But in July for my team, I told them, hey, the storm is coming. Don't get me wrong. The storm is coming. It's real. We got to be true. We got to be realistic. But if you survive the storm and you don't panic, we're going to survive and we're going to succeed and grow even more. Yes.

I am positive. I am too. I'm positive. And I'll talk about the social media. I told them number one thing now, more important than ever, even before. And I used to always say it, be relevant. Start on keep branding yourself. Start on keep branding yourself even more. Because that's what's going to make people want to call you and say, hey, you're the expert.

You're the person I should call. Forget about all the noise in the background, the pay, you know, let me talk with Greg. Let me talk with Mark. Let me talk with Adam. And because I see him all the time. He does a lot of business. He's the guy I want to talk with. That's number one.

Yeah. And knowledge too, of course. I told him, if you didn't know a lot of a real estate or you were just kind of like swinging in it, start learning more. Listen to a podcast. Especially now in these days I was saying, we have these devices. This is amazing. We get everything from here. Like, learn.

And we use chat GPT like a maniac on there. Yeah. Yeah. I heard one of your clients. I was hearing one of your clients. your podcast. Sorry, it was being noisy, but I was trying to. And it was amazing. You told me, you were saying a story about a client you had and there was something about new construction and you used that to be tea and got an answer for your client. I'm like, that is super cool.

You know, I love it. What's even fun of her about that is I'm in a B&I organization, which is a networking thing. She's saying, she tells everybody, Kathy's got this magic phone. I had a problem. We're talking and she just goes on her magic phone and gets me my answers. And Like that's right. That is so funny. But yeah, you have to embrace change. You have to adapt and you have to embrace the tool. These are tools.

So don't fight it. And I'll tell you by personal experience. When I was a teenager and I grew up in Italy, there was a lot of teachers good and bad, but there was people that kept me like in the box, right? And I want to fight the system. I thought the system was wrong. As soon I got, I grew and I figure out where, hey, I want to join the system. Let me adapt.

Let me embrace. Let me figure stuff out. and start thinking in a positive mindset, it changed the complete. Everything changed. Yeah, everything. Well, I also think when they're out there, they've got to switch their mindset about this being negotiable. For me, it's not going to be negotiable. I just did a video on that.

Is it negotiable to a degree? But I want to level up our agents so that they have a confidence about who they are, what they do, that this is my fee. Here's how I back it up. Here's all the things that we do for you. Yeah. And here's why it's important. Do you want to try and do these things on your own? Correct.

And get the results that I can get you. But you just want to pay a professional. But I need to be that professional, right? Correct. I need to be skilled. I need to be attitude. I agree with you. Yes.

All that, right? Yes. You got to show them that you're the expert, right? And that's why the social media or the knowledge and learning is going to show that you're the expert and you know what you're talking about. If you go then, you really expect to just open the door, yeah, they're just going to have somebody else open the door and not pay you. Absolutely.

That's going to happen. That's right. So that's where our changes and this is an opportunity, man. This is an opportunity. Let's see every sucker punch has got a gift in it. Yeah, it's true. It's true. You know?

It's true. If nothing else, I learned to lodge a little better. Exactly. You avoid that. And then also whatever happened, you're going to think about this business. It's not for the short term. If you want to make a quick buck and get out, then maybe go sell cards, right? This is a relationship.

This is long, long term play. So even if you make it maybe in the beginning a little bit less trust me, you're going to gain more clients. You're going to, your day, your pipeline is going to grow, and then you're going to multiply later. So this happened. I was in, I don't know, okay. I don't know if you were in the foreclosure time, 09 to 2013.

Okay. I gained everybody left. Everybody were bent out of shape. All the ages, oh my gosh, short self-reclosure. I don't want to go in pretty bad good system and write and spend all this time. Yes, I had as many transactions now and I made half of the money. But you know what? I grew my business.

And then eventually, because I always think about long term, it doubled because all those buyers became sellers and they gave me referrals. So it all worked out. That's the gold. You just said gold right there. You see, you just, you pivoted. You figured out. Me too. I did lots of short sales.

I did lots of expires. And actually, I did better then. I grew my business like crazy during that time frame. Because so many did, they left. Now, and then they came back once that whole lot of... I think something similar might happen. You know, we don't know yet because there's nothing approved yet. It's completely 100%.

So it's kind of like vague. We settled, but we don't know yet. But if it really goes true, something similar could happen. A lot of people might leave. And then the ones that survive are going to grow more. And then they'll come back. Because then they'll be taught when they come in. Here's what you do.

It's the people that don't want to study it right now and learn what you need to do. Change. I mean, we went through COVID. Are you kidding me? We can go through this. Yeah, exactly. COVID was interesting. But it's all good.

Yeah. We did it, right? We did it. Exactly. I agree. Well, anyway, I appreciate you being on here so much. This was great. And I appreciate all the insights that you've given us.

It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's amazing. You're doing amazing. Love your YouTube show. Love it all. Love your social media. I'm super impressed.

If I could have, if I could look like you and have your energy at your age, I will sign right now because hands on, for real. Thank you. Very much. I love it. All right, buddy. Is there anything else you wanted to share with it? anybody? No, that's all. That's pretty much it. Yeah, it was great. And chow everybody and talk to you

soon. Bye, everybody. We'll get together soon. Bye-bye.