KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How New Agents Can Dominate Their First Year

Episode Date: February 15, 2026

Summary:This episode is a tactical guide for new real estate agents, offering a clear roadmap to success in their first year. The discussion, featuring guest Jeff Quintin, emphasizes the importance of a strong mindset, consistent action, and leveraging foundational activities like building a powerful network. The episode provides a step-by-step blueprint on how to secure your first deals, manage your time effectively, and establish a foundation for a long-term, profitable career.

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host Chris Craddock, I get to hang out with a friend of mine, somebody that I have a lot of respect for. He has built massive businesses. And more importantly than that, he is a stud when it comes to BMX bike racing. He will kick your butt if you challenge him.

So, which I'm looking forward to asking a little bit about that because I've just seen some social media stuff. And I definitely would like to understand what's going on there. But more than that, the fun thing for me is Jeff and I've gotten to be buds over the years. But when I first got into the business as I was listening to podcasts, and as I was listening to people talk about who has put together just a really great business, Jeff Quentin's name had come up many, many times. And I still remember I was like new in the business. And we talked. And you're just so generous with everything that you had done. So I just, and I, that's something that I've just valued over the years, just how you've just been so open with so many people.

So with that said, Jeff, tell us a little bit about yourself and definitely get into the BMX bike racing part. Yeah, yeah, no, thank you. So it's an honor and pleasure to catch up with you and and be here on your podcast as always. I appreciate that and appreciate you. Obviously as a friend and mentor and associate with the business and everything else that we do. So appreciate that. I got in the business in 1992 right out of basically high school. I worked in a short period of time in a bank. Didn't go to college. And the benefit of working at the bank was I get to see all the commission checks, right?

I was cashing the big checks. I look at my check and then look at the checks of the agents. I'm like, I got to do that. Jumped into real estate. And so I've been in real estate now over 30 years. And I started out as normal back in the 90s as a solo agent and then got an assistant and a buyer's agent and build a team from there. But primarily always have had a small team. And right now, my team is probably the smallest that's been in the long time.

So fast forward into this year. But ultimately, last 32 years or 30 years, whatever it is, which number 5,000 homes. And primarily in the business side, I've always been a listing driven agent, right? And our team's always been in the listing side. So we're about 65, 70% listing sold versus, say, 30% buyer sales. I've been that way for a long time. So I live and work in Ocean City, New Jersey, which is primarily a second home resort, vacation home market. Very small. It's on an island, seven miles long by one mile wide.

And primarily our clientele comes from the greater Philadelphia area, which is about 60 to 75 miles outside. So a lot of our business is done through over the phone and absentee owners. And that's pretty much the business side. Touch on the BMX side, I did it as a kid from about 12 to 17, got out of it. And then about three years ago, kind of during COVID, I decided to get back into it after 33 years off the bike and jump back in now basically three years later. I'm 51 now, but I'm 52 next month and racing in the 55-X per class. And it's a class of just a badass bunch of old dudes like me that did his kids in the 80s. And there's, they're all mostly, a lot of them never stopped.

A lot of them did and stopped a little bit, came back, but a ton of them were ex-pro. So it's a very highly competitive group. And in that age, you wouldn't think it would be. But it's way more competitive and more riders than like 20, 60, 30, or even 35 to 45, right? It's a very large competitive environment, which is cool. And right now, as of August 15th, I'm sitting number three in the nation. And the, which is cool, last year was 14.

And right now, but I just had a major setback. I don't know if you just saw this or not. But as of Sunday, I was pushing my jet ski off the beach into the water and I ripped my, I tore my bicep tendon. So I tore my bicep. So I'm getting surgery next Friday. So my BMX season could be done right now for the year, which sucks. So anyway.

I had number three. And I mean, that is, that's legit. That is so freaking cool. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, obviously, every time you go forward, there's something like a freaking torn bicep. So that does. Yeah, that's going to stink.

So I unfortunately, I don't know if I can get back on it by the, by, this year or not, we'll see. Well, here's the interesting thing. I just, I had to honor, a good friend of mine invited me to my first NASCAR race. And we were with the president of Joe Gibbs Racing. There was like six of us. And I mean, he was crazy. We were so close to the race.

Like we were in the pits, like rubber is flying off and hitting us in the face from the tires. It was nuts. But one of the things I was grilling Dave, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing. And I was just asking him. I'm like, so what is it that you guys look for in drivers? And they're like, winners just find a way to win. I just find people, we find people that are winners. And just because people hadn't been winning doesn't mean they can't figure out a way to win.

But he's like, you just want to be with winners. So I love the fact that you're like, in your 50s. You're like, I'm going to do this. And not only am I going to do this, but I'm going to be number freaking three in the nation. Let's go. So I love it, man. So let's get into winning in the agent business. You mind just sharing? What is your style? I mean, I know anybody that's heard you share before,

they know your style, but what is your style? What is your belief system? How do you see an agent getting into the business and absolutely blowing the barn doors off it? What would you say? Let's say I'm a new agent and I say, hey, I want to join your real estate team. What are you telling me? Yeah. So recently I just did a, I kind of revamped our 30, 60, 90 program for some new agent coming in to like a 21 day fast track program, kind of jump start your production within 21 days. And I don't have it in front of But, you know, the very first thing that comes to mind for me is understanding that this is a contact game, contact sport. And it's a language of sales. You've got to learn what to say, when to say it, learn the objections.

And but yet out of the underlying part all that is you've got to have confidence. You've got to build confidence, right? And if you're an unconfident agent, a new agent getting in the business, you're just going to be very reluctant to do anything. So the question is, how do you win in this world? How do you win to be confident? Because your confidence is here. If you have high amount of confidence and you don't have the skills, you still can win. And a high amount of enthusiasm and a great attitude and a great approach, you still can win, right?

As long as those things are all in the factor there. But the thing is gaining confidence, I think. And how do you gain confidence? Well, if you know what to do and what to say and when say things in a sales environment or presentation, that levels and brings your confidence upward. So that's the thing I like to work with our agents on is how do I build the confidence for an agent right away. And some of the things that we do to do that is just in the beginning is obviously we're going to get their center of influence together, right? A minimum of 250 people right off the bat that they know, like them, love them, and trust them.

And then we're going to make them call them. And we're going to ask them for reviews. We're going to ask them a very simple way that, hey, I'm in the real estate business. And it would mean the world to me if you would give me an online review to help me build my credibility. And most of the people that they love like them and trust them would say, yes, for sure. And they say yes for sure. That's just reaffirming the relationship. And then now they're building advocates for them.

And if they get a review and then obviously there's a review, that helps. But it's the process of just scripted to understand how do I ask for business or ask for something? And then when they say yes, which hopefully they will, builds their confidence. Oh, okay, this is good. This is good. This is easy. It's not that it's easy. It just gets them going as they're kind of their first task gives them the benefit of the

conversations, cementing the relationship, getting them as an advocate, and then obviously getting the review, which now will help them build credibility online, you know, when they may have never even sold a home before, right? So they got great, you know, if they get 50 reviews, Google, Zillow, if they can get them through Zillow, whatever, Facebook doesn't matter. Like, they get an online presence going with good reviews, five-star reviews. Now they've got to, now they can go sell something if they're on an appointment. Check out what people say about me. So that's kind of the first part, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're saying confidence is more important than, I guess, than competency.

But as you build your competency, the confidence comes. So it's like chicken or the egg kind of a thing there. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. I mean, confidence equals power. And that's the thing is new agents today or any agent getting this business today. If they have a lack of confidence, they're going to struggle because the client can feel that and see that immediately. So I heard that something like 83.3% of all people will believe anything said in confidence.

And I just made that more said it confidently. So you probably believed it. Yes, I believe. Sure. So yeah, no, no, no, that's awesome. All right. So, and you guys are typically a listing-based business. So you guys are on the phone.

Like, what is a typical conversation? So I know a lot of people are nervous to just get on the phone and do it. And part of that is just doing it and then build your confidence to doing it. But what does it like a typical script sound like if you're just going through and making your calls? What would we hear if we're stepping in and hearing you making calls? Yeah, I mean, it depends on obviously the source and whom which we're calling, right? It's an expired listing that we're calling an expired listing to the expired script or for sale by owner or doing just a call around listings and sales, circle prospecting, just listed just solds. or if it's follow up to maybe it's

a home valuation lead or when somebody's in our database that we've created a call to action with a hand raise or whatever. I mean, there's different, there's going to be different scripts for each different way. But I mean, a very soft approach right now

as a script, let's say that we're calling through. We're using fellow right now. I'm not sure if you guys are on fellow or not, but you know, why we put a database and they communicate to it. So we're getting a lot of home valuation inquiries or cash offer people that raise their hand for that. Let me, let me like just side note.

And this is just like my curiosity. So I was a fan of fellow, but I wasn't a raving fan. And then they opened the cash offer thing. And we put in a couple of, I think it was like a couple thousand of our leads. And I mean, we blew up like getting so many handraisers from the cash offer stuff. Are you guys seeing that same? Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, 100% sure. Yeah. And we've converted a lot of those right now with that. There's also obviously like many, many leads people came on cash offer, but they have no interest in selling. They just want to see, hey, do you have something for me? With that script, basically, conversation, it's going to just be, hey, seller, it's Jeff. I'm just calling the check in to see if it still makes sense for you to consider getting an offer on your home, whether it's been on or off market.

Would you consider it? That's kind of a real basic script. And I'm just calling to see if it still makes sense if you would still consider getting an offer on your home, whether it's on or off market. Yeah. And they're going to say, sure, I'd sell it or I won't sell it or whatever. And then it leads into that, right? So, well, I'm not sure what do you think I can get for it. well, obviously we got to do a little more research.

Come out and take a look at the home, give you a better valuation. But I may ask you if you did get the right price for it, is it something you definitely would consider selling it at this time or do you want to wait for a few months? Well, maybe I'd sell it this time. Great. If you were to sell it, where are you going to go next? Now I'm going to just kind of go on their motivation, find out and dig a little deeper.

I'm going to take them down a little bit. And ultimately, the goal would be able to set the appointment, go meet them, see what the house is all about, and then see if we can bring them a cash offer based upon what they might think, or just get it on the market if they're really, considering it. It just gets in the conversation to find out if they're really, I mean, many times people, they might click on a cash off or home valuation. Then they're just inquiring, but through the scripting process, you find out they're actually ready to sell their home and get

it on the market, right? They actually want to go ahead and do that, where they're inquiring. Yeah, they're just figuring out they're in the process of what can I get for it. Yeah. And I know you're an investor as well. I'm curious, how do you look at, are you looking at everything that comes through? Should I buy this? Can I buy this? Can I buy this to your agents look at that as well or is that are you doing that a little less so i know you own some commercial stuff and also some other properties but how do you run that lens of properties when when you're talking to sellers well it's it it recently probably in the last 90 days it's maybe in 60 days yeah probably since 90 days since in the beginning of of the summer right

beginning of say may or whatever we have conscience a little bit on some of the investor clients we have and digging out and finding fix and flips for investors, all meanwhile, looking at while we're searching for ourselves as well, and I've trained my team. How do you know, how do you identify, how do you find, how do you understand and look at the numbers to identify, hey, is this a good deal or not? Because you need to have confidence. You need to have the numbers and knowledge of being a call an investor and say, hey, this is a great buy. You buy it for this is what's going to cost to renovate it. Here's what we're going to sell it for and give them to those numbers. So we are work on that a lot. So we've done probably, I'd say in the last 90 days, maybe six or seven

that we've sold to investors fix and flip to investors and not just the one, but a couple other, like a couple clients we'd have. We've got three right now with different. And then now we're getting those properties that they've already bought fixed and flipped. Now we're getting them back back to sell. We're launching two by tomorrow. They're getting photographed today. So in that in that process, a lot of times what I'm doing is, because I know the knowledge of it. I'm already putting letter of intents out there or cash offers through fellow as a tool to these sellers and putting letter of intents out there that I'm creating for me that says, hey, here's what I'm willing to pay, here's my terms, here's what it is, blah, blah,

and then seeing the response. Now sometimes response will come back. Yes, I will sell. Yes, I won't sell. Here's my number. Now I know kind of where they are. Negotiated in advance. And then I can choose, hey, do I want to do it? Or do I want to bring it to the client, investor client, call the investor client, say, hey, man, I've already got this deal worked out. Here's what it is. Here's the numbers. Are you ready? Yeah, that's a good deal. Go get it. So we're kind of focused right now a lot on that for ourselves or for clients, but it's understanding a process and identifying, you know, but you've got to go shopping. You got to put offers out there, right? Like you got to go try and try and identify on market or off market properties. So we're doing

that right now a lot. Do you have like open door or any of the other big eye buyers in your market? we don't at all no yeah yeah i think one of the things that i heard like years ago like i still remember it was like my my second year in the business i got into 40 million and then the third year or maybe it was the first year i got 40 in the second year i like was working so much harder making more calls like doing everything i could because i had a goal to get to 80 million and double and that that next year i mean i worked so many hours and i got to 43 million It was like, I went up by $3 million. Like it would so much extra time, energy, and effort.

And then I had a mentor say to me, hey, look for people where you can, like one relationship equals multiple deals. And like you're talking about like you get the seller, you get the buyer, and then you get the resell. That's three deals with one transaction, essentially. And so I think as people start thinking through, okay, how can I be more efficient with my time and start doing that? And then the other piece, I don't know if you guys do this.

or not, but I, I have zero problem charging way more money. Like if we were charging, let's just say, we'll just pretend that the number was 6% for the commission. And it was a good deal. I had no problem charging the buyer 3%. By doing 6%, the buyer 3%. And then on the back end, it's a 6% where we kept 3.5%. So we're talking about a 9.9.5% listing all the way through. And what I would just say to anybody listening right now is if you're finding stuff like what Jeff is talking about and the investor is saying, oh, well, because we did that on the backside, will you list it for 2% or whatever? I'm just telling you, do not fall trap. We had agents on my team when I found out that they did that. I was furious. I'm like, you are giving them a great deal.

They're going to make 50 grand or 30 grand or whatever it is that they're making on this. Don't discount your commission. You're giving them something of value. So I just want to throw that out there to make sure. That's, I mean, that's all up front right now. My investors and clients know up front right now. Here's a deal. I'm bringing you a deal. It's a gift, right? I'm going to make you $50,500,000, $150,000, whatever it may be.

And here's the part of it. We're listing back with me. Nobody on, we get the listings back at 6%. And we're going to take three and a half and give pay out there, two and a half. That's a given. And if you don't like it, fine, I'll go to somebody else. So it's that. And by the way, I do that.

If I'm buying it myself, I do the same thing like that. I treat myself as my own investor. So if you were an agent or an agent in the marketplace brings me a deal, I'm a buyer. You're going to get paid on the end. You're going to get the out sale and you're going to get paid on the out. And I'm not going to beat you up on your commission. That's a gift for sure. We've done, like I said in the last 60 days, out of these deals probably $9, $10 million

between ins and outs of business. And in the marketplace that we're in right now, for us at least, inventory is tight, dude. It is hard, man. It's tight. And we have a very small market. It's hard to get listings, but this is a way that we are creating our own inventory right now. And then that inventory we're creating, we're making sure we take advantage of that inventory, holding open houses, marketing around it, getting another listing out of as much as we can, getting the buyers in that are coming from that.

And every time we get a deal, every time we hear a seller right now that says, yes, I'll sell, but I don't want to list it. How many time we hear that all day long, right? I don't want to sell it. I'll sell it, but I don't want to list it with you. I don't want to on the market. Good. I'm going to give you an offer then as an off market deal. Right.

Now, the deal is because you're not willing to get on the market and get exposed out there and get multiple offers, we're going to give you an offer and it's going to be discounted because you're not willing to do what it needs to be done. So I'm going to give you a number. Here's a number. You can take it or leave it, but this is the offer. And believe it or not, you go out there enough times

with different sellers that are motivated. Some of them are just stubborn, right? They just think by me not listing it on the market that they could do better. And we've done that several times this year in these deals to sellers and say here's the number. And we just did one recently that I started out at 202, I think it was the offer. I made it. And I ended up getting it for a seller wanted at the time like a 235 net. We ended up getting the seller 215 net.

She took the 215 and then the buyer paid us the commission on the buyer did on top. So they ended up paying like 230 or whatever it was. We got the commission and then got her the 215 net. But she had to do this to that property, she would have got 240 net, like all day, way more money. We're doing another deal right now for a million bucks. The guy wants, he wanted a million one net. Now I got an amount of a million 50.

I just gave an offer for a million bucks net, closing 60 days. And he could, if you listed on the market, he could put it out there, a million two, a million two, $2,000 like that. So, but hey, if you're not wanting to list it, but you want to sell it, I'm giving you an off market discount number because you're not willing to. But that's the way I'm thinking right now. But we're creating and sellers are out there. They're willing to do it.

So here's three things that I just took from what you're saying. One, understand this. Jeff says if somebody else in the market has a deal, even though he's an agent, he will be your buyer, let them get the commission and let them list it for him if he is the buyer. So just know that. Don't beat people up. Don't be greedy. What is it?

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughter. Don't be an idiot. And just think, oh, I mean, and I've had that. happened before. I had that where I brought an agent who was looking for something and they said they were going to list it themselves. And I was like, all right, cool. I'm going to call the next investor. And I did. And they lost the deal. So that that's huge. The next thing is understanding that people, some people like legit, they just do not want to go on the market. And they're probably they don't want to pay commission. So they're willing to like take way less for it. They're probably

the people that cut their own hair. So that's fine. But just think about it. Like people go to CarMax. people trade in cars, people do all that where they know they'll make more money on Craigslist, but they want convenience, they want certainty, and they just don't want to hassle of it. So understand, like what Jeff is saying is there are people out there. So think about it like that and just know that there are people that are willing to take a massive discount if you can give them certainty, convenience, and just ease. Yeah, no nonsense. Hey, that's how Google offers and open door and relish us.

These companies have made money, and some haven't made money, But now the reality is that the consumer looks and goes, oh, I can go there, get an offer. And then they get an offer. And yet you still get the fees they have to pay. And they end up netting way less than if they were listed with us. But they just one click of the button, filled it out, and then they got an offer. So anyway. But right now in the market we're in, it's a way to create inventory.

You've got to create inventory. We've got to create our own inventory right now. And this is just built-in inventory. It's we're going to, we're going to these three today, there's three units. one single and two units come tomorrow. And then we've got on final, that there's four or five. They're being renovated right now over the next 68 or so that are all going to be great listings. You're making your own inventory.

I love it. I love it. Yeah. And that's the whole thing. You're not a victim to the market. You make your market, right? Like there is no market. Even 2008, there are agents that made so much money when everybody else was starving.

So just to understand, you make your own market. And that's a decision you make. And that goes back to the Joe Gibbs racing, right? Winners find a way to win. And if you were just saying, oh, the market sucks, I'm a victim, you're never going to win. You got to be the person that makes the market happen. And obviously, that's what Jeff has done. All right.

So we're kind of coming at the end of this year, Jeff, what's a question I should have asked you that I didn't ask you? I think that we're covering some good points right now. I mean, I think that the question is what are the best things to have? What do we need to do right now in the next fourth quarter? Like between now and the end of the year? where we need to be focused? What's the now go-to business? Where can we focus on that makes sense? Maybe that's just a question we could talk about it for a minute. I think that to help answer that, we got to look and see where your numbers are, right? To know, okay, where I'm at so far the year,

where do we really think I'm going to end up? And what I need to do to close the gap? And then what action steps I need to put in place. Right now, I think that for the for the agent today, they've got to do air, air, land, and see. Like, it's, it's got to be. complete all in on everything. Like it's got to be a lot of outbound prospecting. Phone call, emails, texting, voice broadcasting, direct messaging on Facebook through messenger, door knocking, absentee owners going find them wherever they are. Like you got to be very, very, very aggressive more than ever, very active, I think. But you got to do it in all different angles. You just can't rely on just one way of communication. You know what I mean?

So that's what we're doing. We're getting a lot of hand raisers because we're putting it out there with different messaging, as much as we can be aggressive with that. So we're just focused on fourth quarter. Who can we convert? We have right now, what I call is our seven-day leads, like our zero to seven days, which I work with a folder. In fact, you're like this.

Boom. It's my lead follow-up system, okay? So a seven-day lead folder or a 30-day lead folder, just getting clarity between when somebody is going to do something and making sure you're staying on top of it through lead follow-up more than ever. Because I look at agents, including mine, we've found, especially through fellow, right, you get the notification of real sellers that have listed in your database, but not with you. And that's a real kick in the rigger, right? All day long. We've got over probably 100 million in our database, not with us

right now. So it's finding and figuring out between now and the year. who's going to do something and make sure you're all on top of them through multiple communication. So nothing falls through the cracks. We were losing more business many times that we're gaining. And it's filling that gap. Yeah, I was with Ryan, Ryan Young, who the founder fellow, we were in a mastermind together and we just ended up sitting at the same table. And he was like, hey, have you seen the new thing that we added where we script the MLS and show you how many people listed? We've done this for the last 90 days. And we don't even have all of our sellers in there. We just have the 20,000 in the database in there.

I was like, pull it up. Let me see. And literally we had, it averaged out to the last three months. It was 98 sell like listings a month went on the market. About a hundred listings a month that we, that were in our database that listed with somebody else. And I, I literally felt like I got punched in the throat. It was the worst. Every freaking day, it comes up. And what I do is, I mean, we get the real sellers notification. I have my staff then sent it out to the team after 12 and show them like the missing opportunities and every day there's three or four that come up like every freaking day. And I'm like, guys, this is, we know that there's opportunity here. How well integrated are you into converting them? And so that's a big push right now. Part of that script, right?

We talked about earlier just are you still in the market or considering or doesn't make sense, right? Or would you be open to an offer whether on or off market? That's all. You know, so powerful. So, Jeff, if somebody wants to send you a referral or wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that? I think it was email me, Jeff at the Quinton Group.com. You can find me on social media too, anywhere at Jeff Quinton, Q-U-I-N-T-I-N. But that's easiest way. Bing, that's awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Until next time, this was your uncommon real estate podcast. please, if you would give us an honest review, just would really mean a lot to us. If you would review the podcast,

post in the comment section, just what meant something to you? And I can just tell you this. Jeff is the real deal. If you reach out to him, he is super generous and helpful with anything he can help you. So feel free to do that. And until next time,

go kill it. Remember, you make your own market. Go kill it. Boom. Thank you for doing it. this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff, and other uncommon real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review. And to fast track your real estate career, go to chriscratic.com.