KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Filloretta Balaj-Elezi

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

You're listening to Expansion, the podcast for EXP agents. Expand your skill. Expand your value. Here's your host, Glenn Sanford. Hey, everyone. Glenn Sanford here, and founder of EXP Realty. And today on the Expansion podcast, I'm excited to talk to Filoretta Belage. She's an icon agent out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, three-time icon.

She's been putting up some tremendous numbers. 2022 as a solo agent sold 84 properties. This year, production to date, 46 sides. So, Deloretta, thanks for jumping on and excited to kind of learn how you're doing all this. Thank you so much, Glenn, for having me. I do appreciate you taking your time and being with me today. Oh, you're welcome. So now how long you've been with EXP now?

Well, I have been in business since 2020. So I started, I got my license in December 2019. Immediately I started at EXP. So with EXP since day one in December 2019 until today. Okay, awesome. And so you're brand new to EXP. and three-time icon, so that means 20, what, 2020 or 2021? Which year did you icon first?

That's correct. In 2020, well, first of all, let me just go a little bit back. I'm the agent who failed the task 16 times. And I can probably say that those 16 times, on my 16 time, I passed my task. And it was very challenging. It was very hard since English is not. my first language. So I work so hard towards this goal to reach out my goal, where I'm at today. So in 2020, I sold 11 houses. In 2021, immediately the second year in business, I-I-I-Con,

2020-2-I-I-I-I-Con, and 23-I-I-Con. Oh, well, congratulations. Now, what was it that, led to, I mean, 11 properties, your first year in the business, and most agents would feel good if they sold three or four, maybe. And you got 11 done. And of course, you know, the number transaction you did in 2022 is off the chart. What do you attribute your success to? I do appreciate you asking that. So the difference between 2020 and 2021 was that in the 2020, I thought that all my previous clients, customers from previous jobs are going to call me, and then I'm going to be the only agent to help them. So that's, you know, very, very quickly,

I learned that that was not correct. So I, so in 2022, yes, of course, it's like the, everybody else, I start really like put in effort, put in my energy, and I'm telling myself that I can do way better than 20 in 2020. So my GCI in 2020 was only 65,000. Then from 65,000 in 2020, I jumped to 625,000 in 2021. It was a big jump. Wow. And what business did you come from before real estate?

So me and my husband own a dealer license, We buy and sell cars. So we don't have to have a dealership. So we buy them, fix them, sell them from home, as well as, so we started doing that since 2006. So also we are investor. Back in 2020, when I started in real estate, we had four properties.

When today we have 14 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and four overseas. So total of 18. And also, I worked in furniture store. I used to work for ArtVan furniture store here in Grand Rapids. In Michigan, ArtVan furniture was like number one furniture store, entire Michigan. Now they closed down. So I was in my second month working for ArtVan. I was nominated number one sales person in the middle of 150 other salespeople.

So I always have the drive. I always have the hustle. I always, no matter how much I have, I'm always hungry for more. So that's why from 20, I jumped, you know, in 2021, it's really a big jump from, you know, 65,000 GCI to 625,000 in 2021. Okay. So you would probably think of yourself maybe more as an entrepreneur. 100%. Okay.

So how do you? you think about the approaching the business as an entrepreneur versus that of a salesperson. What's the difference in approach? What is what is it you do mindset, goal planning? What is it that you're how do you make that comparison? I love helping others and I don't do it for profit. I do it as like I'm very God believer. So I remember when I came in this country back in 1999. I did not speak English and I did not know American culture. I did come from very powerful and wealthy family back home where like at six years old I started working and of course started working for my dad and coming to this country at age 17 and a half, you know, not speaking

language, not knowing the language, the culture, it was very hard for me. But my goal always word like I wanted to be proud of me, proud of my hustle, proud of my success, instead of being proud of my dad's success. So I always go to that, you know, like since now I have rental properties. I go to my clients as, you know, why are you renting when you can make yourself rich? And let me show you, if I can have 14, you can have two or three properties. So I sit down and talk to them about it. And they know that it comes from my heart and soul. immediately I'm hired. So when you put yourself as a helper versus profits, it's a big difference.

So one of your approaches is to work with renters and turn them into investors or? You're not turning into a homebuyers. Home buyers? Okay. And then one thing that I did, like going back in 2021, that's, you know, the difference, like, you know, when I jumped on sales, I did door knocking. So when I did door knocking, like, I told myself for the first, like, two weeks, I'm going to work eight hours every single day until I really, you know, like start seeing clients.

One day, I went with my daughter. I remember it was 95 degrees outside summertime. We went and we got, we knocked on this door. and they were three guys did not speak any English and of course English is never it's a language that no matter how much you know you always feel like you're annoying enough

so I give them my business card they didn't speak English they were like oh we don't speak English I'm like well so am I I speak only a little bit two days later their translator called me and they said we need to meet because what is this business card for four guys came in

I invited to my home office I have a bar, full bar, as them whatever they want to drink, eat. I give them like Albanian hospitality. My background is Albanian. And Albanians have been knowing for the one of the past hospital in the world. So I said, you know, we can sit down, we can talk. We talked about my background a little bit, a little bit about their bankrupt.

And we can, then I told them, I said, hey, I'm real estate agent and I'm here to help you. So then immediately they started asking me questions. I got connected to the lender. Then two of them got pre-approved, two of them didn't. But the same one who got pre-approved, even today, every single week he sent me four to five clients every day. So now in African community, I probably can say,

that I'm the top agent here in Grand Rapids who sells the most. Wow. Well, congratulations. So putting yourself out there and being, you know, open to however this thing of real estate comes down, you ended up landing, obviously, a great client, but also a great referral partner. That's awesome. So, I mean, that's a lot of referrals. Is that where the bulk of your business is coming from now? or is it coming from multiple sources?

It's coming from multiple sources. One of them is Zillow too. I can really say I'm one of those agents that I do buy Zillow. And I'm okay with that because if I can convert like four or five clients every month to, you know, to buy a house right away. I'm okay with that. And also I do have like lots of referral from African community that. they feed me every day. Per week

I get like four or five. Not everyone gets qualified, of course. Some of them do now. Some of them do later. Like this year, my numbers are a little bit down, as I really was not even planning to do half that I did. I lost my

hero. I lost my dad last January 8 and he's one who really pushed me to be where I'm at today. And it was very hard for me to lose my dad. And I was like, my first three months were very down. Then I took three weeks vacation overseas, you know,

managing those four properties that I have over there. And but still, I'm still, as today, I'm number four in state of Michigan as individual age and for EXP, as far as my numbers and production goes. Well, it sounds like even when you're not putting up the numbers, you're obviously putting up the numbers. So now what was it that when you were looking at real estate brokerages back in 2019, were you, did somebody like attract you to EXP as a brokerage or were you thinking getting your real estate license? You mentioned taking the license exam 16 times.

What was it that led you to EXP? Well, I can really say that, you know, and I did that a lot from my social media, my friends, family, that I'm very unique. And I can really say that I am because I really, like, I'm very hustler. And I come from family that from $1,000, we jump to 10, from 10, from 10, we jump to 1,000, from 1,000, we jump to more and more and more. So when I was looking for brokerage back then, first I was. really struggling to pass the task. And I called anybody and everybody asking for help. Not too many people were really helping.

Besides, like, buy my coaching program, buy this, by that. I'm like, I'm buying anything and everything, but I'm failing eight times I failed that by one questions. I'm like, I'm always by one. I'm missing. So all I need is one more correct question and I'm good to go. And I start following, which is now, I really should, I can probably.

say like a brother to me, mentor, coach Al-Abdala. And if he sees that, if he says this, God bless his heart and soul because he helped me a lot in my career. I start following him in social media and he was posted like so much production, like listed, like, listed, pendant, sold. So when I started interviewing local brokers here in Grand Rapids, I interviewed 16 and I was told, from 50-50 split all the way to 3070. And when I called Al, which is he's not in Grand Rapids, he's in Dearborn, Michigan, which is like two hours and a half far away from me, he said 80-20 split.

That's what attracted me because I knew that I had knowledge. I knew that I have the hustle. I knew that I have the money to invest on me, that within a year, Grand Rapids is going to see my signs. So every interview I went, I asked how much were my splits. And the first thing I got, why do you care? If you don't sell, the split doesn't matter. Well, to me, it was matter because I'm like, I know myself.

I'm going to be one of the top agent. And of course, all these brokers were telling me, do you know that only 5% or 10% of realtors make it? And I looked at them, a couple of them. I said, if you made it, I can. make it too. So that's why I chose the XB. Awesome. Well, that's great. Now, how do you, I mean, obviously, you're getting a lot of referrals. You've got your Zillow leads, you've got your multiple lead sources. How do you, how do you manage all the leads? Do you use a CRM? Is it all in your phone?

Yes, I do use KVCorps. And I love KVCorp. Core. I was told, you know, a couple other different, you know, CRMs, but I'm very happy with KV Core. I learned that from the beginning. And I'm like an old fashioned. If I know something, I'm less like, like it's a problem. I don't like to jump to something else. So I'm more like, because now I'm investor. I have no time so much to put on that. I do have a transaction coordinator who does all my paperwork from the minute that I passed it to her she completes everything so kv core has been a blessing to me and i really i never tried anything else besides kb cord and i'm very happy well it's um you know having done a bunch of the expansion podcast now

with a number of icon agents i'm actually pleasantly surprised that the the number of people that kb core is the core of their business even though there's lots of different CRMs out there, but it feels like there's, if people will take the time to learn it, or any CRM, but if they take the time to learn it, it does what it's supposed to do, and agents can either generate or organize their business around it. I agree with you 100%. Because like I said, I'm all fashion. I don't want to go back and learn everything from scratch and wasting my time.

I'm thinking if I can put the time somewhere else, like on my clients, on my investments, or like I'm doing three flips at the same time right now. What if I can, you know, my time I want it to be really worth it. Right. Yeah, for sure. So obviously you've got a unique perspective in the business of real estate. But if there was one piece of advice you could give to an EXP agent, what would that be? Don't give up and be you. I hear a lot of agents saying, fake it, till you make it.

I don't agree with that. I want to be real and I want to be me. So from the day one, I always been me. And that's why my success is on the sky. I can probably say that like last year in 2022, my GCI was 743. When I talked to brokers who have been in this business for a long time, they never even made that.

So sometimes it's, does matter like how much you how much you like it doesn't matter how much you make it matters what you do you do with that so i really should say overall be you and then don't don't give up if they were so many times that i wanted to give up in my first year and i'm glad i didn't because now i'm an icon for the last three years and have been a blessing well awesome well Philaretta, this has been great, you know, chatting with you today. And now, how would people sort of follow you or maybe even connect with you? Maybe they've got a referral.

Maybe they just want to just bounce something off of you. What's the best way for somebody to reach out to you? Well, I'm in Instagram as well as on Facebook under Lata's Real Estate, the P-X-E-Railative, which is L-E-T-A. Or you can follow up with me on Facebook or Instagram, my personal, Philoretta, Belage, and L.A.Z. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I'm excited to hear feedback from agents on what they take out of this.

And I'm sure we could have went way further in our conversation today, but you have a lot going on. We all got a lot going on. So thanks again for being on here. And with that, thanks everyone for listening in on this expansion podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. God bless.

You've been listening to Expansion. Tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. Thanks for being the best part of EXP.