KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Flight Attendant to Leading a Real Estate Team

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

back to feeling lucky. Feels good to be back. I know we had a little commercial break for the last two weeks, but I wanted to bring you guys someone phenomenal to our call today. So sorry for the delay. So without further ado, I want to go ahead and welcome Aaron Moore. Aaron is a phenomenal agent out of the Utah area, although out of Utah, but also works in Texas. So I'm going to give you a little bit of background about Erin before we dive in here. She entered real estate market as an agent with Century 21 in the middle of COVID. Anybody out there start in the middle of COVID? Yeah, wasn't that fun? But she was ambitious and honestly, she outmatched most of the other professionals. She dredged her way into the industry learning the ins and outs. And within her first

year, she actually breached the six-figure income level and became top 20 century 21 agent in Utah, which is phenomenal in your first year. Her driving to tenacity shot her to the top of the real estate industry in Utah and Texas markets throughout the past two years, which has enabled her to own, this is crazy, guys, own six companies representing herself and her colleagues in a way that has been unprecedented by other new real estate professionals. Honestly, she has a huge love and commitment to her team, her mentors, and other diverse real estate professionals in the area. And I wanted to just welcome you. I know you've expanded.

We're going to talk about this into commercial, into wholesaling, into a lot of different levels of real estate. But it didn't come easy, did it? No, it didn't come easy. It's been a lot of hard work, but it's been in adventure as well. I love it. So welcome to our call today. And we'll go ahead and dive in. So what are some other things? I'm sure I miss like a million things. What are some other things that you might want to share about, you know, where you are now in your career, just two years into you starting. Well, I think one thing that makes me interesting is I have a full-time W-2 job as well. And so with all of my success in real estate, it has sideline with being a flight attendant for Delta. And so I travel and a lot of my business at this point is built out to where I can be satellite.

So I try to find layovers that have a great swimming pool or the beach and spend. much time as I can in lovely places while I do my work. I love that. But you know what? It's one of those lifestyles. I'm not sure who out there wants to be a traveler. But Aaron, I'm sure is going to talk to us a little bit about this. It's definitely a juggle. It's not your norm. It's not your standard. But that's the cool thing about real estate. You can create whatever you want as long as you're consistent with it and you pick a path. You can't just randomly decide, I'm going to go virtual. And all of your clients are expecting you to be there. So let's take a look at this. So I'd love to kind of review first your first year in real estate. Obviously, coming in with a pandemic,

that was super fun. That was actually when we met was right around that time in Utah. So tell me a little bit about that first year. First off, why in the heck did you get into real estate? And what did that look like? So actually, I got into real estate because I am also a pilot. I got bored as a flight attendant. It's kind of a long story. But I got bored as a flight attendant and decided to become a pilot. And so now I'm a licensed pilot. And my plan was to fly for Delta, actually, as a pilot. And so I recognize that I would be making quite a bit more money than I was as a flight attendant. So I decided that I definitely wanted to get into real estate investment. And so the natural progression of that seemed to get my real estate license.

And just figure it out and know what I'm doing before I jump a bunch of money into real estate investment. So when COVID happened, Delta offered an unpaid leave. And I took that unpaid leave and just dove in headfirst into real estate. Actually, it was hard for me to even get my license because the testing centers were close for so long. I was just waiting, waiting. And then finally was able to get licensed. And my first six months, I didn't make a single dollar. So really, my six-figure income in the first year was actually in the second six months of.

So let me pause you there. I don't know if anybody just picked that up. She left her job. She was offered to get unpaid leave. I don't know if you guys like heard that. It was unpaid, right? Like you're not getting a paycheck from them. Sitting home, working to get a real estate license that was taking forever and didn't make a dime in the first six months.

Tell us a little bit about your mindset at that time because I feel like that's when a lot of people are like, okay, I'm throwing in the towel. Obviously, this isn't working. What were you doing to cultivate the business and work towards that? And what was your mindset at that time, especially because it was COVID? Right. I think that I kind of always subscribe to the philosophy that if someone else can be successful at something I can too. And so it really took a lot of analysis.

And so many mistakes, Kayla, of just file an error of things that I was trying. And honestly, I just sat on the phone. I was the first one in the office turned on the lights. The last one out of the office turned off the lights for six months. every Saturday, every day, no matter what. I love that. So if anybody's taking notes on this, this was not easy. And for six months, there was no turnover.

There was no paycheck being paid. What it takes is you have to keep showing up over and over and over. And I think probably one of the things you probably learned was, A, you probably got really great on your scripting. B, it became such a habit that it probably felt weird if you didn't show up, right? Do you ever have those days where you're just like, I'm just not going in and just feel awkward that you weren't there? Right. Well, and I think one thing that I was able to do quite a bit of work also from home, I'm one of those people who can work from home as well.

So then I allowed myself to transition to do some days at the office and some days at home. But really the commitment to just like doing the work was what built my momentum. I love that. I love that. I have a very similar background in story. So it's really cool to hear someone else that like went through that. It wasn't like instant success, right? So tell me who were you calling. You said you were on the phones. You were in the office. Like what were you working at that time? So I then and still now call mostly FISB. They're my favorite. Really? I was always expired. So tell me, I'd love to dive in on this because it's very rare to have somebody who's figured out the FISBO. So it's. So it's tell us about FISBOS. One, why did you like calling them? Two, what was your process in calling them? Because obviously, they're usually not one hit wonders. So what did that look like?

So, you know, I was calling people every single day. Like, oh, you don't want to talk to me today, then I'm going to call you again tomorrow. And oh, you don't want to talk to me tomorrow. Then I'm calling you the next day. And like, we're going to so that you know when I call who I am. You're going to block me or you're going to work with me? Yes. But every time I talk to you, I'm going to try and bring value to you.

So even if you don't work with me, I've brought value. So, you know, 98% of for sale by owners end up listing your house. So they're either listing with you or someone else. And if you can't figure out the connection that you need to have with them to be the one to do it, then someone else will. I love that. And I'd love to review with everybody on this call. Aaron did this in 2020 and 2021, right? The excuse that I've heard from so many agents is, well, I'm not going to call

FISBOS because everything is selling. FISBOS are even selling. There's no point in trying. And here's the thing. A lot of FISBos just get worn out from getting phone calls from agents, right? Did you find that where they're just like, you know what, this is a lot of work. Like, let me just let somebody else do it. I'll pay the commission. I was going to pay half of it to one of you anyway. Let me just do that. So what were some of those objections that you face the most during that time? Most people just want to try it themselves for a few weeks. And so they don't realize that how much money is being left on the table. So I mean, kind of the philosophy that we go by on my team. I have I've got a team Beautiful Homes, Utah, and then we're also opening Beautiful

Homes, Texas. So that's really exciting. But our philosophy is we like to work at your pace. So I don't want to put any pressure on a for sale by owner. Like I will still try to set the appointment like, oh, I get it. You totally want to wait for two weeks. Let's get together so you can have some more information on what's happening in the real estate market. So if in these two weeks, you sell your house, you have all information that you need. But if you don't sell your house, then you and I have already gotten to meet each other

and develop a little bit of a relationship. If you have questions, you can call me even if I don't list your home. I love that. Write that script down. This is recorded you guys. So you can go back on watch this again. But write that down. It's about building the relationship.

relationship and a lot of people shut down, right? Like agents, oh, they didn't want to meet with me. They just wanted to try it themselves. They said two weeks. So I'm going to call back in two weeks. Versus you, you're calling back probably even if they said that every other day. Hey, I'm checking in. How's the process going? Hey, no, did you ever do open houses for a FISBO that was not listed with you? I know I've heard that that strategy before. I'm just curious. No. So I don't really do it. I don't work with a lot of buyers. So I have done open house. for my listings, but I've never done any for sale by owner. I know Jennifer Hollins does that, one of our mutual friends.

Nice, nice. So that's awesome. So your first six months, what it seems to me is you were building that pipeline, right? It almost felt like it was flatlined, but what was happening was the background you were building. You weren't seeing it yet, but it was building up and up and up. So the domino started falling and you went like this. So when they started to hit, what did that look like?

I made the biggest mistake, probably the biggest mistake I made, was not building out my systems until I needed them, which was off of the advice of someone else. And I, you know, they're basically the way that they put it is, well, you're not making money so you don't need systems if you're not making money. I was like, I can see both sides of that. But yeah, you kind of get caught in a trap. And you're like, I don't have anybody to call. Who's going to do photos? Who's going to do signs? I don't have any marketing.

And so then I like. got so busy all of a sudden and I didn't have the appropriate systems to build out that busyness. And so then I spent a lot of time trying to figure things out and get everything sorted out. So it's really stressful. So if you're new, I would encourage you to have a plan. So a lot of people overdo their plan though. So let me ask you this.

When that hit, obviously systems can be a way of following up. So you had that, right? You had probably a dialer. You were you using Mojo probably? No, I actually hand dials still. What? I don't love dialers at all. What?

It's Mojo dialer. I've used vortex dialer. I've used several dialers. I do everything by hand. I do all of my scheduling by hand on a paper calendar. I do all of my follow-ups in a paper calendar. So I write in my paper calendar who I need to be calling that day. I love it.

Calling you day after tomorrow, your name is. written down. And it's kind of old school, but it works for me. You know what? I do want to point this out, though, it's what works. I get asked all the time, you know, I've been in the business a while, like, well, what's the best dialer? What's the best CRM? And it's the answer is the one that you use, right? My first year, my CRM was a little plastic box with frigate, I'm not even kidding you, with cards in it, no cards. Like I had my list of people that, you know, I get keep calling it. If they'd never picked up the phone. I didn't write a note card for them because I just hit the top of the list and roll down the list every single day. So it didn't matter. I knew I was going to call them again

tomorrow. But the ones I did talk to, they got a note card. And I had little tabs that have the months and then the days. And I would go in. I'd pull the stack out for that day. And whoever was in that stack got a call. And then I moved them out to the next day. Yeah. So it's whatever works. I mean, that was super old school. But it worked. It got me to 120k in my first year. So I'd say it worked. Yeah. Now, go ahead.

One thing that's interesting about that is like it's easy to not open your CRM. But if you're seeing a physical representation of the work you're either doing or not doing, then it's a reflection and it's part of your day. And it's sitting there no matter whether you pay attention to it or not. It's very much. So for me, I mean, I still don't depend heavily on a CRM. Mm-hmm. Well, in a way, you have a CRM.

All that is a client management system. That's literally what it stands for. If that's on a piece of paper and a spreadsheet and that works, it works. Like it doesn't have to be fancy. I think where a lot of people get caught up is they get the really fancy CRM that everybody says it's the best, but they don't learn how to use it or it's too complicated and overwhelms them, right? Like I had KV Corps for the longest time at EXP. It's a phenomenal system.

but there's a lot going on right it's hard for someone to focus on here's my one thing here's my one thing i need to do today with these people so sometimes just having like here's your filter you're going to call everybody that hasn't been called in three days you know if you're trying to be successful not buying everything that people tell you you need to pay for yes um i've never paid for leads i was going to say so what was your cost your first year? What was your cost would you say for, I'm going to say marketing, right?

Because you got to get the FISBO names somewhere, right? Unless you were trakes and through Zillow. What was your actual cost that year? So I made the mistake of just kind of spending too much money on frivolous things that I didn't need in efforts to like build out a brand. And- the logo. Right.

Just some of those things. but so probably my I would have to go back in and look I was probably spending like maybe $300, $400 a month, which was a lot when you're not making any money for the six months for six months. Yes. But now all of my, all of my businesses combined, which I like to run things as skinny as I can without compromising quality or anything like that. So our overhead is about $2,000 a month.

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Okay. So if anybody's out there listening to this, it doesn't cost much to do it. And you don't have to buy Zillow. You don't have to buy crazy leads. My first year is expired Fisbos and a call dialer. So I think by the end of the year, I spent like $35, maybe $4,000 total, but made $120. So it's like figure out what your tradeoffs are. And if you notice what you're using isn't making sense. And what I say by making sense, if it's not making you money after a couple months, cut it. Like there's no need to hold on to. it just because it worked for somebody else doesn't mean it works for you there's things that a lot of other agents do and I'm like nah that's not my bag I don't I don't need to spend money on that so that's awesome so tell me so you you touched on systems right like you hadn't built out your systems I feel like the phrase system scares people like you have to come up with your processes and all they picture is corporate America this giant book of different steps right and it's like that's a lot what do you mean by

systems and what systems would you recommend someone have set up and ready to go if they're putting in this effort to build up that pipeline. Well, I think it's important to be able to convey your plan to yourself, to your clients, to your mentors, to people who are curious about your business. And so one thing that I did is I built out a bunch of flow charts, which allowed me to see the holes of where like, oh, I need to, you know, I go to an appointment. But first, what's happening? I'm taking a pre-list information from them.

And am I sending them a pre-list packet? I send a pre-lust packet and just kind of my steps, which I didn't have all that stuff built out. And so it was really difficult once things started rolling. Like, now what? Okay, I need to get all this together. I need to have folders ready to go for my appointments and just. Yes.

So to answer your question, I think the best way for me to build out systems was just to take the time to figure out kind of through a flow chart of what needed to do and how I needed to do it. So I would say probably for for you or for anyone, sometimes it takes being in it because I think where a lot of people stop there like, well, I don't know what I don't know. And if I don't know what I'm going to need, how do I build it out? It's okay to trip a little bit in the beginning. Like I'm giving anybody watching this permission. You're going to trip a little bit and it's okay. But when you trip, I think you and I both do this even today is as we trip, we see. where we've got a gap. And it's like, oh, we've got a gap there. Let's fill the gap.

Like, I've been doing this for seven, almost eight years. Oh, there's a gap. Let's fill the gap. And it's as you build things out, you're like, oh, we can get better at this. We can tweak this a little bit. We can, you know, move it, but not completely rearrange the whole setup. Right. I agree with you. And I think, you know, just having a little bit of a plan and knowing what to do next, even if you don't have the business going yet and you're not making the or six figures yet to have an idea. I always, some of the people that I coach within my team, I remind them that if you don't know how to run a business making no money, you certainly won't know how to run a business

making a ton of money. So you have to really be able to practice and build out those things in order to be ready for when the time comes. 100%. 100%. Now, for you, obviously, things kind of exploded quickly. what was your next step? Like you had those six months of like, hey, nothing's happening.

There was like, boom, here's, you know, 20 deals or whatever the number was. What did that growth look like? And what kind of leverage did you start adding into your business to help take that burden off? Because, I mean, at this point, that's quite a lot. So basically, as soon as things exploded, I hired a virtual assistant. And he has helped me considerably. he left for a while. He had some family stuff and then he actually came back and is working for me again full time. Yeah. And so he has been such a huge help to help me just leverage a ton of the work

out. You know, my business is big enough that I had to build a team. I was losing money from not having more people to help me. Um, and so. Right. When you see these leads that aren't being followed up with because you legitimately don't have the time. Have time. Yeah. Um, And so you're right. Things did just take off all of a sudden. And it was kind of crazy and really stressful, but exciting as well. And I just continued to grow and learn and put in the work. I think one thing that's easy for people to do is as soon as you start making money,

you feel like you can take your foot off the gas. And I did not take my foot off the gas. And so I really just had just a crazy business. It's so exciting and fun and I was able to help people. I really did a lot of marketing before I was making money. And like real estate tips, real estate facts, anything I could think of to be posting on social media so that my people, the people that know me and know that I'm in real estate. Consistently know your real estate.

Right. And they understand that I know what I'm doing even though I'm new. Now for some of the people out there, and I again, I hear this a lot, it's like, oh, what are you doing for estate. How are you prospecting? They're like, oh, I'm putting a bunch of stuff on on Facebook. Now, coming from someone who has done the business and has done both sides of that, both posting and being active and also reaching out to people with their hands up, what is your view on posting to social media? Have you gotten a ton of business for it? Or has it been more of a reminder to others for future referrals? Like, was it instantaneous that you started getting just random leads off

Facebook? Or was it more of friends and families started calling a few months in being like, oh, hey, yeah, this reminded me or my friend was looking. Well, I was, I call my SOI. And then for me to be posting things on social media, almost builds a rapport with them. They're not like, oh, Aaron got a real estate license. I haven't seen anything. She must not be doing well. Yeah.

I post. Right? It's always perception on social media. And so I posted enough that people started to realize. that I was doing, you know, actively doing real estate. I did know what I was talking about. And then I always paid attention that if anyone said anything about houses on social media, that I chipped in on the conversation or if I didn't know the answer,

I found the answer and then participated in the conversation so that people started to realize no matter what the question, they can come to me. Which is so smart because then it's like I am the person bringing the knowledge. So I'd like to point out to everybody, it wasn't Aaron. is going out there going, I'm in real estate, I'm in real estate, I'm in real estate, I'm in real estate or my my least favorite post. Hey, does anyone want to buy or sell a home? I just sold one. I'd like to sell another one. I hate those posts, right? What is that? That's, that's me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, take take. What Aaron's doing

and what a lot of successful people in social media and that spectrum are doing, which is a support, by the way, like you see, Aaron was going out making the phone calls to the people that raise their hand and then building that rapport with her friend's family sphere, people that knew her as well. But she wasn't saying, gimme, gimme, gimme. What you're saying was, let me bring you value, value, value. There's a great book, Gary Vee, jab, jab, jab, right hook. And that's exactly what it is. Value, value, value, ask for business. And that's the idea is I'm going to bring you so much value that when I do talk about my business and ask you, you're not going to be upset about it because I've given you so much that you're not offended by the fact that I'm calling you

or texting or messaging you wanted to know if you know anybody. Like, is that something that you felt too? Yeah. And I just felt like if I can put enough, poor enough value into others that I want it to be a no brainer that they want to come and work with me. Yeah. Like, oh, you have a real estate need. I'm the first person that comes to your mind.

Yeah. So what would you say your next biggest challenge or I'm going to say setback that you had while building all of these businesses out? My mom died. Yeah. That was my biggest setback to figure out what life needed to look like without my best friend. And so I had days that I couldn't get out of bed. I had. I had to. to keep, you know, I had clients and keep things going and you can be have to be professional, even though your heart is shattered. And I lost my mom really tragically and really fast. And so that was hard. I at that point moved to Texas and lived in Texas part time to help take care of my dad. And I helped get him over the hump, which was me commuting back and forth from Texas to Utah because I was back flying at that point. Yeah. And just going back and forth. with life and commuting and just a little bit in over my head, to be honest with you.

I poured into my work probably more than I should have as a coping mechanism. And I basically hit the wall. And I was flying. I was working all day at real estate, flying all nighters and go like when I got back in the morning from flying, going to my office, taking a power nap and working all day. So like 36 hours straight. And I was doing that twice a week and just being crazy. Well, and part of it's almost like a numbing, right?

Like you want to be numb. So if you sit still too long, it allows you to think about things and you don't want to think about things. So you dive into it. You know, with that happening, no one wishes that upon anyone nor would anybody want to go through it. what do you feel got you through the most with that, but also keeping your business running? Obviously, you're working 36 hours a day, so that definitely helps. But what would you recommend to others that perhaps are in a similar situation of a life-altering event that, you know, what do you do? And how do you keep it going?

Right. I think it's kind of twofold. I think the first and most critical situation is to plan for that life-changing event. because no matter what, it's going to happen. And so having a way to have your business running, even if you aren't there, if you have to. For me, my assistant, it's not ideal, but he can run my entire business on his own. Yeah. And that's, it's incredible.

He's incredible. And so, but we've worked really, really hard to get him to a place that he, you know, he also started without a real estate back. ground and now he's an absolute real estate expert. You know, speaks with our clients daily, knows everyone on a first name basis, has a rapport with them. If they hear from him or from me, you know, it's kind of one and the same. And so I think that's a critical component of just making sure that your business can,

has a backup plan if you, for whatever reason, can't be there for a little while. that being said if you're currently in it um i think just make a habit of taking care of yourself yeah that at the end of the day if you have to take a step back from your job or in real estate or my mom always said that like life changing events or this opportunity to pick what you want to do from that point on, you don't have to live anywhere, you can go anywhere, you can do anything, you can be whoever you want to be, and like just allowing yourself to recognize that and make a choice of like, okay, this is where we are. We can't change.

Now let's figure out what we want to do. Which is so true. It's one of those things that brings everything into focus and perspective. I think it comes down to perspective. Things you thought were really important become very unimportant. when you're going through something like that. You know, I had my life changer last year. I didn't lose anybody, although it was close.

And that was a complete perspective change for me on, I don't need to be doing this. Or I was stressed out about making sure that I was the one doing this item in my business. And I'm not needed. You know, when you step out for like three weeks solid of not touching anything, A, I panicked. But B, it was, wow, these are the things I need to focus on. These are all the things that were distracting me.

I can either eliminate it or assign it. So to your point, having someone in your world, especially as you're building your business up, having an assistant adding that in can be a life changer because you can step away. You can take a real vacation even. Let's say not even life changing. You got to rest your brain. You and I were coaching a friend of ours on this just a few weeks ago. Like you've got to take a break.

It's okay. It's going to be there when you come back. Missing on one or two leads should not. stop your world. Like it's going to be fine. Right. So with that, where did you find your assistant? And when did you hire them? So I, my assistant, I hired through Start Virtual. Then he took a long leave from and is not with Start Virtual anymore. And so then he, after months back to me and wanted to work for me. And then I now have another virtual assistant as well. We have so many. We have so many. people in our team. They're so wonderful. I just, I, like, I feel like I talk about one and I can't

help. That's like, we better talk about the next one. And, you know, like all the things. I was so grateful for this team that has rallied around me and, you know, bought into my dreams and bought into my visions and stands next to me and we're doing it together. And it's just the coolest thing. I recently was able to hire my best friend, who's my business partner on the investment side, to manage my team as well. So she now manages Beautiful Home to Utah and will manage Beautiful Homes, Texas, with the intent to come on full time with me, hopefully, in the next couple of months. That's exciting.

That's so exciting. I will say my husband's got, which I say we have a team of virtual assistance as well in our other business. And if you want someone, I'll say, again, perspective of gratitude when you're going around the room asking for what you're grateful for, what was your wins? from the week and they're like, I got to buy groceries or, you know, we got to get the family together. It's, it really humbles you, but they are so excited to be employed, to be a part of the team. Like, they don't want to go anywhere. I say they as in virtual assistants, not necessarily

in general, but the ones that we've been hiring, we go through start virtual as well. It's been incredible. It's been an incredible experience. And once you get those people that are really rolling, we do have our physical team. So we have, I have a physical assistant and a physical TC. But as we expand, it'll become something where our physical TC manages some VAs who are working that system for us. This is what we can expand. So leverage doesn't have to be expensive, but it is necessary for you to grow. It is necessary. And it's, it's, there's no reason for real estate to be a lonely job. If you help others, then you make enough money for you to make great money and other people to make great money with you. Exactly. Oh, I love that.

I love that. That's fantastic. I love that way to look at that. So if you had one suggestion or one key point to leave with everybody today, what would it be? To recognize that if someone else is successful, it's something you want to be doing, you can do. I love it. I love it. Thank you for being here. This has been fantastic. I got a lot of stuff out of this, even just for FISBOs. So I know my team will be going to watch the rerun of this if they weren't on live today. And thank you for being here. Can we see you again in person? And just be awesome. Keep being awesome. So for everybody watching, this has been feeling lucky. Definitely catch the replay, which will be coming up once we go offline. And be sure to tune in next week as well. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day.

Hi, y'all. Have a good one. For more information and to follow along, be sure to follow at Kayla Lindsay Realtor on all social media platforms.