KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Win by Focusing on What Doesn't Change

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Summary:This episode provides a tactical mindset shift for real estate agents by encouraging them to stop stressing over market fluctuations and focus instead on the foundational principles of the business that never change. The host emphasizes mastering core skills like lead generation, building relationships, and providing exceptional client service. The discussion offers actionable advice on how to build a resilient business by doubling down on these timeless, high-leverage activities, regardless of market conditions.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast Experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. You're ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. As we dive into today's, you know, conversation, expert mentors conversation really around, you know, what doesn't change. And I love, I can't wait for you to just kind of unpack the meaning. of that and in the conversation around it. But what Jake was talking about yesterday from a

mental side of things. And you know me, the whole agent to CEO process, right? You know, the first thing is the agent CEO mindset is the very first thing. You have to have the right mindset or none of this will matter. You can stress your way to a certain point, but you can't go beyond that. And, you know, we did an incredible job of stressing ourselves. to the levels that we did back in Lawton without the mindset. And what Jake talks about, you know, his hockey career, he had a million-dollar legs, but he didn't have a million-dollar mindset.

And that's what stopped him from reaching his full potential as an athlete. And what he was talking about is that the way our brains, you know, operate instrumental from, you know, being born to seven, eight years old, And then what happens, you know, beyond that. But what he was saying to me and, you know, I would love to, I don't want to say fact check him, but get some context around it is that he said, you know, the first 20 to 30 minutes of our day, our brain is on the same wavelength as our brains are when we're born until we're seven or eight years old. And that's when we're, you know, absorbing and learning the most.

And so he said, the biggest thing that he challenges, you know, entrepreneurs and athletes is like, you need to nail that first 20 minutes of your day. And what are you feeding? What are you putting in? And, you know, my practice has been the gratitude practice first thing in the morning. And he said, you know, but if you're, if you're diving right in and consuming social right from the jump, what is that doing to the most important part of your day for your brain? What are you, what are you feeding it what are you you know like it's like putty like what are you what are you molding it into and i just thought that was just so so powerful he talked about you know a lot of breath work he talked a lot about you know really from from that mental uh performance anxiety

being able to you know control the breathing and and slow down anxiety and moving into a different stays it was just a fantastic conversation i'm i've already i'm said you're you're helping me kick off the year as we as we move into to the new year so Man, appreciate you jumping in here. I know a lot of a lot has changed for you. A lot, you know, hasn't changed for you. But I'm super excited to kind of, you know, put a bow on the year, kind of final conversation. Nobody, you know, better fitting than you.

And especially around the expert mentors conversation. And we were chatting a little bit before we hit go. You know, we're 650 plus on the podcast. And I want to get us to a thousand. And, you know, my question to the team was, you know what does it have to look like in order for us to get to a thousand in the next 12 months and you know we incorporate a lot of different conversations expert mentors being one this is expert mentors 279 so you know a lot of consistency a lot of great conversations

expert expert mentors focus which is really geared towards real estate agents and professionals that are actually teaching something right we're going to teach something we're going to talk through something we're going to give mental frameworks or tools or short shortcuts or marketing or strategies. We also incorporate, you know, a lot of different conversations being one yesterday, one big fire with, you know, stay sick and most of the time, Kenders on. And we've been incorporating guests and just great conversations like kind of alluded to around the mindset in working with athletes and entrepreneurs. We also have our agent to CEO conversations, which are, you know, my favorite conversations of really just diving in and talking, right?

Like I could go Rogan style on a lot of them, just really being in the fun pack and just really great conversations just with great human beings. So I'm really excited, you know, kind of where the conversations are and where the conversations are going into, you know, really the last half of the decade, which is kind of fun to put into perspective. You know, we're halfway through the decade. We got a, you know, the second half coming up. So we got a good five-year run, you know, until until the end of 29. and I think kind of maybe a little segue there into, you know, the whole what doesn't change concept. I would love for you to kind of share that and unpack it because I think it's extremely valuable for a lot of us on really what's going to stay the same. What's not going to change?

Yeah. Well, I'll share kind of where that came from first. And it came from a quote from Jeff Bezos in an interview. And I first heard it less than a year ago. and it's been the single biggest shift for me and the way I think about strategy and business that's happened to me in a long time. In the interview, Bezos shares that everybody always asked him, what's going to change in the next 10 years?

And he said, what nobody ever asks is what's not going to change in the next 10 years. And he said, that's the more important question. And if you look at how Amazon's built their business, You know, thinking about what's not going to change. Well, people are still going to want low prices. People are still going to want faster and faster delivery. People are still going to want a bigger and wider selection of products. And you can see strategically for Amazon, everything they've done really has been focused on those three things that are not going to change.

People are not going to suddenly want to pay more money. They're not going to suddenly want to have fewer options to buy. They're not going to suddenly want slower delivery, right? Those things are never going to change. So we focus all of our efforts on those. things that are not going to change, we're going to continue to have success. And so I thought it was especially good for us right now in the real estate space thinking about what's not going to change because 2024, there's been nothing but discussion about what's changing or what's going to change,

whether that's changes to how we have to do business, whether that's changes that are coming from AI or technology. I only hear discussions about what's going to change. And I think it creates a lot of uncertainty, creates a lot of fear. And I think a lot of that is unnecessary. So as we look at that second half of the decade, how we're going to run our businesses, I think it's way more important not only for our outlook, positivity, mindsets to think about what's not going to change, but for our strategies, too, where are we going to focus our efforts in our most important priorities in our business? I think you could do, uh, a great job in your business if you think about what's not going to change versus getting

fixated on what's going to change. That's where that came from. No, I love it. And so let's let's translate that into into small business in general, right? Because you're referencing Amazon. You're referencing, you know, the behemoth of low prices, more selection, faster delivery. You know, how does that carry over into, you know, mom and pop small business? Um, real estate agent professional husband and wife team family team all the way to the mark z's kurt she wells you know durbin's you know parries the you know the teams of the teams the the harps right of what they're what they're doing in their building how does this concept and how to think about this moving moving into the second half of the decade and i love this question right because sometimes it's

we ask the wrong question and i and i translate this this into goals right got a lot of people setting a lot of goals they set a lot of goals into the future 25 it's just kind of that time of the year new year's resolutions things like that and we all hear you know what what do you want to do what do you want to achieve what what are the goals that you want to have and i always love the flip side of it because that's the wrong question the question is how much pain are you willing to suffer what are you willing to sacrifice what are you willing to to to to go through and and in carry that frustration and burden and and just pain what are you willing to do and i i love that because that's a much better question and that kind

of segues into okay let's bet and let's build on a higher probability of what we know is going to stay consistent and will not change so kind of kind of lead us down into that path for the real estate space, like I said, it doesn't matter if you're a solopreneur or you're running, you know, 1,15, 100, 2,000, you know, unit per year organization. What's not going to change? Yeah. I was thinking about it from kind of buyers, sellers, and agents. I didn't spend as much time thinking bigger picture brokers, but I think a lot of the same principles are going to be the same, right? So I think one of the things that is, is not going to change is the big business is going to be relationship driven to a large degree. I don't see that changing in the

next five or 10 years, right? A lot of agents operate a lot on referrals. Building trust early on in the process is huge. It's going to be relationship driven. And that's not a strategy in and of itself, but that helps us develop our strategies. Where are we focused on building our relationships with our clients as quickly as possible? And that can be from a face-to-face context or that can be from a branding um from a branding and marketing perspective too so where you know where do we need to focus that we're that were that we're keeping relationships you know top of mind and front and center that's that's not not going to change anytime soon if ever right i love that and um i forget who i had somebody on one of the one of the rock stars in the

honey badger nation a couple years ago and it was around the conversations of okay, you know, we're going to run up to the halfway point of the decade, kind of what are we foreseeing? And then what do we foresee the second half of the decades, kind of where we're at going into this final five-year run here? What, what's, what's it going to look like? And he said, listen, I don't know, but I do know one thing that it'll always come down to a decision of trust. Real estate will always come down to a decision of trust. And, you know, you you know my my definition of trust is just is just authenticity times time right being transparent not being honest being transparent times time there's a difference in transparency and honesty

honesty is after the fact i i did x y z i'm being honest transparency is here it is this is where we're going this is who's going this is what's happening like you kind of lay it out before you get there times time and you know we hear a lot of agents they're like man you know I'm just not getting much grip or you know like they're going to other people they're not coming to me as well how long have you how long have you been adding value making deposits into this community six months 12 months 18 months I'm like you just don't have enough time and and you know I think that's just so so important so I love that I a thousand percent agree with you will always be with buyer, sellers, and agents, relationship-driven, and it will always be

a decision of trust. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Second one that came to mind right away that I think is really related for most agents is the need for local expertise is not going to change. One of the most influential, like, single sentences, I think that I ever had somebody tell me what Jay was talking about, one of our masterminds or a call sometime back in the NAA day,

but we're talking about how do you compete with Zillow, right? Everybody's flocking to Zillow. More people Google Zillow than Google real estate, right? And he said the only answer to how do you beat Zillow is being the local expert and developing the reputation and the brand around local expertise. So now we start to think about building an actual strategy for our business in the second half of the decade. How are we going to focus on relationships?

How are we going to focus on being the local expert, right? doing that transparently and authentically, but those two things combined, again, that's, that's always going to be, how do you beat Zillow? How do you beat whatever, right? How do you stay relevant? How do you ensure that your business succeeds? And there's, that's always going to be a piece of it is the local expertise. You'll always have an edge when, when you have the reputation for being the local expert versus anybody else, whether that's competition from other agents or competition from big platforms. So local expertise. So how do you, How do you, what are the fast track, but the right way, the foundation to becoming positioned

as the local, the local expert? Not perceived, but truly the local expert. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's easier than, than we think a lot of times. And it's for as long as I've been in real estate, which is 13 years now, just about, the amount of people who have a really good answer for the question how's the market is always it shocks me how many how few people can answer that on an intelligent and quick level for their market right so what do most people say hey john how's the market what do most people oh well oh it's crazy out there or uh man yeah interest rates are still high that's it's tough out there like but but how many people say oh man in heartland where i live in my neighborhood um you know average sale price is up 10% this year and we've got you

nine new listings on the market in the month of December or whatever the answer is, right? But having a really good answer for the question, how's the market, I think is the baseline place to start. And if you have that answer, now you can go about on conversations, but you can put that in video, on social media, on updates. So I think you need to have a good answer for what's actually happening in the market from a national level. Let's talk about interest rates. Let's talk about new home builds. Let's talk about inventory on a national level, affordability issues, things like that. Then you need to be able to zoom in all the way into the neighborhoods that you work and answer specifically what's happening. I live in a subdivision called Bark River Crossing,

and I can tell you what's happening in Bark River, in the 175 homes that make up my subdivision. I can tell you every house that's going on right now, what's been listed, what's been sold, what are the ratios. And so having that, you know, hyper-local knowledge is super important. So I think the actual market, but then I think what's happening in the community, too. So I love the development over the last 10 years of, you know, these, the well-done ones, at least these living-in, you know, YouTube channels. I think that's a great way.

We're talking about the schools. We're talking about the new subdivisions that are going up. We're talking about, you know, maybe highlighting some of the local businesses. But if you want to talk about local expertise, people go online and see you showing up at local businesses. They see you talking about the school systems, what's happening in local politics potentially. So get really involved. And if you find yourself, you know, unable to decide where do you focus, then like there's your, there's your blueprint right now is you need to get, you need to get smaller. If you say, hey, I'm going to focus in, you know, all 25 major areas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

where I live, that's never going to work, right? You need to pick where you're going to focus and be the expert there. But it's never been easier too, right, with video, with some of the great tools that are coming out with AI, you know, an agent who is truly a local expert can compete with anybody these days. I love that. And as you were talking, you know, going back into the content creation marketing side of things as you were talking about the importance of YouTube, which to me is foundational if you want to play this game for more than three years, is that you've got to have that YouTube presence. And it doesn't like, you know, there's behemots in my market.

Listen, you know, Alex Piac is the best example because there's behemots in DFW. Yet he'll make half a million off of his YouTube channel in the next 12 months. And so really being able to do that. And here's why I believe it's super important. And we're talking about things that don't change. But we're talking about, you know, that positioning. That's not going to change. But what will change just with you staying consistent with positioning yourself as the go-to authority is that you've got to create the evergreen content, which is the video that lives on YouTube.

But also creating blogs and market updates and market statistics. that you're feeding into the search engines that is also being positioned to your database. But the reason that it's important that it goes into the search engines is because, you know, I joke, right? Like, Wes, your son will never know, just Google that. He'll never know what that means. Right. Because he'll have his AI companion on whatever device that he's on that he'll just start talking to.

and you know he'll say hey we're looking for a house and xyz with this who's who's the best agent to help us find this house where's the AI pull the information and and so that's what you know had phil stringer on you know multiple times have had nick cram on multiple times and both of them said the importance of creating copying and content and into the blog format and feeding it to the search engines is absolutely critical for AI moving into the future. And so if we know that the local expertise will never change, that's where people will default to forever moving into the future, at least what we see that's not going to change, then you have to create so much dang content, social blog post, video content that's feeding

in there, that's talking on the key words that position you as the local expert. And we've, you know, I've mentioned this to quite a few people, and they're starting to jump into chat GPT and in other, other AI tools and saying, hey, who's the, who's the agent best to sell my home in X, Y, Z community? What comes up? It's like what we used to say about Google. Google yourself. Do you like what comes up? If not, what are you going to do to change it? It's the same thing with AI, right?

And so I think that's just where you have to be strategic moving into the future, that where is the technology and the human behavior going to. to go, that's one thing that's not going to change, right? When they see your name, they see your billboard, they see your marketing material, they do their homework, right? They Google you, they look you up on social, they do everything they can. How many reviews do you have, right? Testimonials reviews, I think those are absolutely critical. Just maintain influence moving into the future.

But that's how you have to be thinking of a marketer and why you have to create so much content and how it's going to feed into the AI algorithms. moving into the future. Yeah, and that ties right into another one I wrote down, which is, you know, like Mike Reese always says, the best marketer is going to win. And that sounds like maybe that contradicts, oh, the local expert is going to win. But it has to be both. And so marketing is going to be so critical. That's not going to change. What might change is what's effective marketing, which platforms are the most important. You know, when we started in the business, we were running pay-per-click on Google AdWords and that was the best source of leads we had and

now people are doing Facebook ads that stuff might change right YouTube is huge right now I don't expect that to change soon but who knows the platforms are going to change but the ability to market your business and the importance of that is never going to change either no not at all and you know I firmly believe that as well right the best marketer always wins and that will continue that won't change. I don't ever see, you know, you're like, well, I need to be the best real estate agent I can. Hey, you're going to lose. If you just focus on being the best real estate agent, I would say what leads everything is the best marketer. Then sales is somewhere in there. Negotiation is in there. Leadership is definitely in there, right? And if you look at

leadership as just the ability to influence somebody to make a decision, the ability to influence somebody to, you know, move forward, take action, then I would say maybe, maybe the real estate agent. I think it's four or five down the rung of the ladder as far as it pertains to business, as it pertains to profitability, as it tains to creating oxygen, which is cash for your business to be able to thrive and grow. And so wholeheartedly all in on that as well, right? Just becoming the best marketer that you possibly can be in what I've learned in you as well. It's a never-ending process. To me, it has to become an obsession. And if you're not going to be obsessed about becoming the best marketer, then I don't think you ever will be.

Yeah, yeah, spot on. All right, well, I got a couple more, and then we'll kind of dive in and take it wherever you want to go. But one, this is a little more tactical, and then I'll go, a couple that I hope will just be encouraging for the audience. But one thing that's never going to change is homes need to be maintained, right? Things break. Maybe there's a future where a smart home can fix itself and, you know, fix its own plumbing. leaks or something, but we're not anywhere near that right now. So homes need to be maintained. You've seen a huge trend in entrepreneurship over the last five years, especially of home

service companies. That's the new wave of entrepreneurship that we're seeing, you know, 20 to 25 year old starting, you know, pest control businesses, power washing businesses, you know, roofing, HVAC. People are starting home service businesses at a really, at a really, you know, big clip. We're also seeing a ton of aging tradesmen contractors looking to get out of there. So the idea that homes needing to be maintained is not going to change can influence our strategy if we want it to potentially, whether that's looking to get into some of those businesses ourselves, looking to acquire or partner on businesses. Something that you and I have been talking about for a year now is that the residential real estate business,

business is a cash machine. And it's one of the best cash machines that's ever existed in the history of the world, truthfully, for how much income you can make. But we've seen even more than in the past 10 years that the value of a residential real estate business is lower than ever, unless there's some few exceptions. So you need to think about your real estate business as creating the capital and then your capital needs to be invested somewhere. And so maybe that home service is a part of your, you know, your five-year plan. Like I said, partnering or or getting into businesses or thinking of some creative things you can do there. But homes are not going to, they're not going to start fixing themselves anytime soon. No, you know how, I mean, I've been on

this soapbox for years about this. And, you know, I like to pick on Matt and DJ so much. But, you know, they, I've been on them. being in Pittsburgh like every damn home needs a plumber needs a plumber right needs has plumbing issues every dang home and so I've been on them so hard I'm like listen guys you have to own the plumbing company like you know within real estate it's customer acquisition and if you have the ability this goes back to the best marketer if you have the ability to acquire the client you have all of you have all the leverage and so you don't need to go own these companies home service companies

he's outright, you need to have a small percentage depending upon other value you're going to provide other than, you know, just say, hey, all I'm doing is probably customer acquisition. Great. What is that worth? 25, 30, 40 percent. I know when we own title, we own 40 percent of title because we control customer acquisition. And, you know, we fed, you know, closing 300 deals a year and we're closing X percent that are going through that title company.

Dang right. we're going to have, you know, upwards of 40%. You don't want to tip and get over in the 50, 60 range because then now you're going to end up on the org chart. And remember, if you end up on the org chart, that means you have a J.O.B. And you want to own these companies without being on the org chart. You just want to provide customer acquisition, strategy, you know, business ideas, things like that.

That's the position you want to take. But when you have customer acquisition and you're feeding all these. people and I'm so adamant about this because it's not a good business relationship. If people are taking your clients and they're not, they're not returning the favor, either giving you more clients or contributing in the growth of your business or doing things, doesn't matter in some capacity. If they're not giving back and paying for that acquisition, it is not a good business relationship. You're with a taker. And the reality is, is takers just continue to take. And so you need to find somebody that has a good business understanding and sees the value.

what you're able to do, and they want to reciprocate and be able to do the same. And it can be, it can be super simple. So for example, I like to tell the story with our home and home inspection company. So part of our value proposition during the time frame when we were in DFW, we didn't have a brand. We didn't have a name. Nobody knew us. So going in, we just had a strong value proposition. We can sell your home for up to 18% more than traditional real estate agents. Would you like for us to show you how? Great. We can get in the door. Well, if you work with us, here's our process. we, you know, we love to send in our home inspector to do just major mechanical because we want to operate from a position of strength when it comes to negotiation. We don't want to get hit

and get our knees taken out from under us when we get an offer in and then we find out there's a mechanical issue because, you know, the amount that is asked in negotiation is four to five times greater than the cost to fix it. So if we want to know about it, we want to fix it, we want to put ourselves in a position of strength. We also send in our professional stagers that are going to do a two-hour touch-up, and they're going to get your home photo ready, and then our photographer is going to come in right on top of it. We're going to take professional photos.

You get all of that when you work with us. And so, you know, we're doing, you know, 15, 20, 25 listings, you know, as we're growing in the peak, you know, seasonality. So our home inspectors are super busy. Well, they didn't want to just give us money, but you know what they were willing to do? They were willing to allow our, entire company to come together once a month at a location, restaurant, bar, environment,

experience location throughout DFW once a month. And they footed the bill. That's a good, that's a good tradeoff. That's a good, you know, they're getting a good return, but you know what? They're helping us come together and we don't have to think about the budget. We don't have to think about the food. They got it. And so that was a good relationship for us. That's, I'm just wanted to share that because it needs to prompt you, right? Like the home maintenance, home service companies, that'll never change. Like, if you have a big enough organization, you're doing over 100 deals, you've got to write who need to go own some trade and back Matt and DJ.

They finally, they're like, you know what, we're just going to own the GC company. I was like, great, own the GC company. Then you can control the trades, but at least start. And I'm so proud of them. They finally got it going. They've got jobs going. And that's going to be real money coming in for them that is just left on the table that they're just given away, right? People got your money.

You just need to go get it. And that's the thing with the home services. I agree with you. That will never change. Even with the emergence of AI, like, are they going to send in robot, you know, robot? Maybe Elon, he might have a robot plumber coming across one of these days. But for the foreseeable future, it's. The trades are very, very valuable.

It's a, I would love to see it back in the schools, right? You know, when I was in middle school and even into high school, I think shortly after they pulled it out. But, yeah, I mean, there was nothing wrong with that, right? You know, man, college ain't for me, but I'm going to go get this trade job. And, I mean, I can dang sure make a great living in trades. Yeah. Yeah, I think those are some really good points because it can,

look a lot of ways. How do you capitalize on this idea that home services isn't going to change? It could be vendor income as simple as that. Referral fees, you know, creative stuff, like you said, your inspector throw in the party every month all the way up to partnering or owning those businesses. But, but a ton of opportunity there without a doubt. Joe, let me give you. One last thing. So I know, you know, we used to have quadrack and part of the quadrack was the vendor tracking where we sent the business. Does CTE do the same thing. Did they track where you're sending in the business? Yeah. Oh, I love that. So just, just for what we're talking about, one of the biggest things, the two biggest things that I see

with real estate agents in 20 years of this and, you know, 13, 14 years of on the coaching side of things now, visibility into the metrics and the numbers and the tracking. And we used to have a tool called the quad track. It was great when it was spreadsheet. We kind of lost a lot of bit of control when we, you know, put it up into, you know, drive. on Google spreadsheets but the tool if you if you don't have anything and I know expe just you know did the alignment with Sisu I haven't looked to see what it is I know Sisu is a is a fantastic software it can get a little bit of overwhelming but from simplicity sake CTE biz to me is the tool and what I was talking about was every

deal you do you should be able to track who you send it to who gets a bite of that apple. And we've identified over 93 different companies. When a home transaction happens, somebody gets a bite of that apple or has a potential opportunity to get a bite of that apple from fencing company, lawn and landscape company, pool company, you know, snow removal company. We know the big ones of title mortgage, insurance, you know, during the process, you have appraisers, you have inspectors, you have, you know, title company, like we said. But there's so many people. that get a bite of that apple that you don't really think about what happens and how many people

get fed when a real estate transaction happens when a home is bought or sold. And so being able to build that out is just a tremendous thing. But you got to track it. You got to see how much business you're sending them because you have leverage. So like if I'm sending, you know, if you own a carpet cleaning company and I'm sending you 10 deals, 10 deals a month, hey, we need some help over here. and and I think when you know like low ticket for example like carpet cleaning company because we because that was part of the value proposition with us on our high package in lawton is that hey we're going to send professional carpet cleaning in to get your home cleaned up your carpets clean before you know you guys move out and they were only charging like 100 bucks well there's not

much skin to be able to give on those low those low deals so you know we got creative right just like what we talked about. It's like, hey, if you guys will, you know, we have jobs that we need, either our house personally, we got some remodels or some flips. If we call you, can we do, can we swap it out? We'll keep feeding you guys part of our package. But we may need, you know, a couple dozen, you know, cleanings ourselves a year. Are you guys good with that? Like, heck yeah, as long as you keep sending us five, six deals on average a month, we got you whenever you need us. So that, I just, I keep coming back to it because it's one of the biggest missed opportunities in the real estate space and real estate business space

is letting people take advantage of you without being able to reciprocate something in return. Yeah, love it. We're going to get two more. One I picked because you can control it and one I picked because you don't need to control it. So next one that's not going to change. And this is business in general, not just real estate,

but your business growth is always going to be limited by your personal growth. And so what you can control in this business and this industry is your development as a leader, as a business person, as a marketer, like we talked about. So if you find yourself dealing with the uncertainty or fear that comes out of being an entrepreneur, the best thing that I've always done is go learn something, is get into a podcast or read another book, go to an event, get coaching, get in a mastermind or mentorship program. So focus, focus on your growth because your business is always going to be limited by your personal growth and especially by your leadership growth. I love it, 100% right? You know my belief.

I just don't believe you can coach and lead another human and take and coach you lead yourself first. And, you know, the size of your business is in direct proportion to the size of your leadership capabilities. And when you get that, then you're like, shit, I got to grow from my business to grow. And that's where you'll see the biggest jump. And that won't ever change. That will never change.

And I love that you pointed that out. That's really, really important. And then last one here that I hope is just encouraging for people. So we've been thinking about hearing about talking about everything that's changing. Interest rates up, affordability issues. We've got fake financial gurus and real estate investor groups. all over social media, say, and don't buy a house and these stats about, you know, millennials or new generations not wanting homes, the data just doesn't support that people don't

want to own homes anymore. So we've got somewhere in the ballpark of 60% of households who own their homes. And in the most recent study I saw, it's 47, so almost 50% of renters wanted to own a home. So that, if we put that together, what is that 80 plus percent of, 80 plus percent of people want to own a home. Now, yeah, the number of people who think they might not be able to ever get a home, that number is going up a lot. And we're going to have to deal with that as a country, as an economy, as an industry. But the idea that people don't want to own homes anymore, there's just no data to support that. There's just some loud people on social media saying you should always rent your primary residence, which I think is nonsense. So, you know, if we're worried

about our industry or your, you know, your business over the next five years here, I don't think you need to be. I think we're going to figure it out. Interest rates, sure, they're going to go up and down, you know, affordability is a problem that we're going to have to solve as a country, for sure. Inventory is a problem we're going to have to solve. But the people want homes, and I don't think that's, I don't think that's going to change ever. I agree. 100%. No, I mean, that's fantastic. I love that list. So, you know, what we're saying, just kind of recap that you look at real estate moving into

the future. We're focused on building our strategy, our game plan around, the things that we know won't change. We know that real estate will always come down to a decision of trust, even agents coming in. Do I trust you to help me accomplish what I'm wanting to accomplish, accomplish my goals? If not, if I don't believe that you can, if I don't trust that you can, then I'm not going to move forward and do business with you. The local expertise, I love that. I mean, we touched on, you know, even to the next one, the best marketer always wins. And I think they go hand in hand.

One, you've got to have the knowledge and the data to be able to support it and being able to tell the story emotionally tied back with logic. And I think part of that best marketer wins is also the ability to tell story. I think from a marketing perspective, I think the direction. And here's one thing that we know to be true. Story has existed forever. And like everything is told in through a story format, being able to tell a great story. That'll never change in kind of the marketing things, but being able to tell a great story with the local expertise.

You're so spot on because we always tell younger agents, if you don't have that authority or credibility yet, then you better be able to answer the question like you said. Oh, you're in real estate. Hey, hey, how's the market? right that's just a general oh let me be let's kind of just get a conversation i mean i don't really care but let's let me let me ask you where you can get me is being able to tell the story of the market like you said you know home prices are here year over date compared to this time last year inventory days on market average sales price is up list list take to you know list sole

price we're seeing and starting to falter a little bit we're starting to see pending ratio go a little bit this way people are going to be like okay all right kid you you you you you know what you're talking about you know um and so the local expertise i think is great mirrored partnered with the best marketer and then you know home service companies home maintenance will always be an issue um our personal development personal growth and then um you know really not losing sight that people actually do want to own a home really good really really good there's probably a bunch more right that i haven't thought of quick so you know put i would challenge people as you're thinking about your business and strategy put some thought into that and maybe

there might be things in your market specifically that are unlikely to change um that can be big opportunities for you too um you know specifically we've got a lot of different types of markets in our country so a lot of different types of opportunities too yeah and i think that's going back to the local expertise knowing your market no one knowing what they want i think the biggest thing to um most buyers and sellers i think right now are the have-toes um the real motivation has to be there at this point and so i you know i come back to you know are you a vitamin company or are you a painkiller company and vitamins vitamins are essential we know how how important they are.

But one thing I know to be true with vitamins is that if you ain't got no money, you ain't buying no vitamins. And if things are tight and things are in a struggle, you ain't buying vitamins. And if you're not disciplined enough and you make it easy to where they're always in front of you, you're not buying vitamins. So if we know that to be true, one thing that we know won't change is that people will run through red lights and brick walls to remove pain. You're better off being a pain killer.

So how can you solve people's pain? And this goes back to the marketer and this will never change is people only buy results. Think about that. Like you go get a pack of gum for a reason. You're looking for a result. You're trying to solve something with that pack of gum. You have a pain in where you're trying to live. or trying not to live, trying to remove a financial burden.

I think that's another thing that we know will never change is that people have pains and they're trying to remove it. And can you solve it? Can you remove that pain for them? You know, Tony Robbins talks about it all the time, right? People are more likely to move, you know, away from pain than towards pleasure. And so as you're building your business and your strategy, I think you're better off building a business plan and a strategy around solving people's pain points.

Yeah. Love it. Yeah, massive. No, brother. I mean, so good. And in such a great concept. And definitely for some, you know, folks to be thinking about with their business planning, their life planning. I think that's another important aspect that, you know, don't just create.

a game plan and a strategy for your business but also be thinking about you know a game plan and a strategy for your life i like to keep it simple you know health wealth and relationships you know wealth business business development using real estate like you said to provide you know the cash flow necessary to go invest into these other opportunities to help build wealth but what is what is the game plan moving into 25 for your relationships and moving into 25 for your health, you know, relationships with others, but relationships with yourself. And that one thing we know will never change is personal development. What are you doing to become the best version of you? Who do you have to become to be able to build the business

that you're wanting to build? And on the health side of things, right? Not only the physical, but also the mental health side of things. And a lot of the things that was kind of mentioning with Jacob Newton is his name and, you know, just putting a lot of, a lot of work. And that's what he said, you know, man, it wasn't until I knew I needed a million-dollar mindset did my life change. And that's so true for all of us and really making that development. You know, Jim Rohn, you know, Darren Hardy, right? They talk about it.

You know, Tony Robbins, all from that same school. You know, what is the budget allocation for your personal development for 25? You know, Jim Roan's 10%, right? That was his rule of thumb. If you want to make a million dollars, then you better be investing 100K into your personal development in order for that million in revenue to be true. And so that has to be a line item. I think in your budget and your financials going into the future, because it's what you said.

That's one thing that won't change is your personal development. what are you excited about so we talked about some things that won't change but what what are we excited about moving into this this last half of the decade I'll give a I'll give a couple so zoom in all the way in I'm really excited about EXP this is the best place to be in the industry I don't sell real estate actively I don't recruit very much right now I still have my license at EXP, but if you look at the way EXP is navigated, 24, head and shoulders above the rest of the industry from a thought leadership, but then from putting practical tools in the hands of our agents. So if you're at EXP, I'd be excited that you're at EXP.

And if you're thinking about what agent attraction looks like over the next five years, you're going to have a lot of things to point to for why people need to come join us at EXP. So I'd be excited about that, and I am excited about it. You know, what Gwen's done, what Leo's done this year is spectacular. And that's not going to stop. We talk about a lot of the copycat brokerages don't understand why decisions are made at a deep enough level. And that's why they can't really copy. They can copy the business model.

But they'll never be out front because they don't really understand why. because people like Glenn and Leo are making decisions on their own, they're not copying anybody. So we're going to keep leading because of that. So I'm really excited about being at EXP and what EXP is going to do over the next five years. And then I'm really excited about, I'm really excited about working with you on our boardroom project, which is really cool, kind of a combined coaching effort that we're doing. And then, you know, I've been at Sphere Rocket for the last couple years and just, just last month opened up my own business growth-centric, which is a fractional executive

company for million-dollar real estate team. So I'm excited about getting more directly back into real estate, working with successful teams on putting the right pieces in place to really scale up. Yeah. I am too. I'm so excited, you know, just timing of things. And, you know, our project, you know, together with board room and board members and, and, um, you know, the fractional, you know, coaching to be able to go a little bit, you know, layers deeper that, you know, typical coaching subscriptions don't allow for. And it's the real, you know, struggle that I even have on, on the coaching side of things. And it's just the execution and just the way coaching models work, you just don't have time

to go as deep as you would genuinely, you know, hope or like to do. So being able to create, you know, just a different, a different, you know, offer, different model, a different structure to be able to do that. And, you know, to your point with EXP, you know, I agree 100% with you. I'm also grateful for real. And the reason I say that is, you know, Coke needs Pepsi and Pepsi needs Coke. You've got to have, you know, the people that are pushing you to continue to evolve. If there was no real, if there was no, you know, LPT, no other, whatever, what is there, a couple dozen, you know, similar, you know, models out there, if they weren't there, it doesn't push you to continue to evolve and stay agile and really keep growing. You know, you fall into a complacency when you don't have that pushing you, and, you know, you still have the legacy brands.

And I think the legacy brands will still be legacy until they're not. I think they'll sunset, meaning I think they'll just kind of fade out over time. I think there might be some acquisition of assets inside of their database, systems, processes, tools, technologies. but definitely the direction. I mean, EXP's definitely out at the forefront. But I'm also grateful for these other companies because if not, they're not going to push Glenn.

They're not going to push the Leo's, the leadership of this company. We need the competition, right? We need healthy competition to be able to, you know, continued for us to becoming and involving the best versions of ourselves. And so that's what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for, you know, the industry and the direction, but the companies and the talent and the

leadership that's pushing each other to be the best that we possibly can be. And, you know, we've talked about, you know, book recommendations and choose your enemies wisely. And it's, it, it's that critical component, right? You got to have a worthy enemy that's going to keep your fire lit. But you also got to have healthy competition to balance yourself and mirror yourself against, right? Like, if we were saying, well, our competition is the legacy brands, how complacent do you think we'll become, right? But we've had these other companies that are continuing for us to look at our rev share models, to look at our stock options, to look at the technology, to look at the tools,

to look at the things that we provide in the value proposition. It just doesn't happen if you just don't have healthy competition. And so I'm really grateful for that because if not, who knows where this company would would have become stagnant too. So it's really cool to see. And yeah, I don't think this model is going to change going into the future. I think it is, I think it is the model of the future. And you go back to, you know, the book, you know, the future is faster than you think.

I don't know if you remember, you know, Diamantus and Coulter and one other, that was a part of that trio of books, right? abundance was one of them but the future is faster than your think was the was the trilogy that came out and most people if you remember the book the book came out at the end of 19 and um what happened in 2020 and what happened was you look at kind of the you know the far-fetching stories that they tell right you know the flying cars and things and how close we were and where they were modeling things out and obviously big government's going to squash some of that stuff. But they talked about real estate and they talked about only one company in that book. And this was released in 19, right at the end of 19.

They talked about one real estate company and they talked about EXP. And, you know, you look at what's happened over the last five years and, you know, the pandemic really just collapsed time. That's the only thing I think it did. It unlocked the global workforce and collapse time. in a collapse time with technology and you really look at it's worth going back and listening to that little section of that book where they talk about you know the the evolution and change in the direction and what they talked about in real estate it's expe so it was really cool to see to see that and see what's played out um you know over you know first half of this decade really pretty

pretty amazing pretty cool brother i appreciate you so much uh what a way to to kind of wrap up, you know, 2024 from, you know, the podcast episodes and especially here at expert mentors. And, you know, we're not slowing down, 279 episodes of expert mentors. Credible conversations, you know, over the last time frame, you know, for that run, for this run to be possible. And, you know, we've already got January lined up. Obviously, we'll be kicking the year off as we always do in January with Go-Go. Gosh, it kind of gives us the state of, you know, things going into the new year.

So this will be our fourth or fifth year kicking the new year off with expert mentors with her. We've got, you know, the one and only Tina Call in January. We've got a lot of other, you know, great, true, you know, mentors and expert mentors. And really what this whole expert mentor series has been all about. It's just about people that want to jump in and give, you know, just like yourself today. And so I appreciate your brother jumping in. really having us focusing on the things

that we know won't change into the second half of the decade. Yeah, love it. Anytime. I love being here with you. Awesome, brother. Appreciate you. Guys, appreciate you.

You know, run through the finish. You know, finish like a champion. Don't take your foot off the gas and really build that positive momentum heading into the new year. And we'll see you guys soon. Thanks, brother. That's a wrap for today.

I hope you got something valuable from this episode. If you did, hit follow and visit john kitchens.coach for more ways we can work together. See you on the next episode.