KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Kristen Edwards

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

So, hey friends, it's Julie Nelson with my pal, Kristen Edwards, out of Houston. And I'm really, really excited about Kristen being with us today. I heard Kristen speak a couple months ago. Well, we've met a few times, but I'm so impressed with her story. And in short, and this is what we're going to talk about. So Kristen's just, and she'll correct me on anything I screw up. She's basically in her, like in her first two years in the business, and she's already hit icon. So she's very early in her career and she's hit this pinnacle of high achievement that most agents never even touch. And so that's exactly what we're going to dig into is like, how this woman has done this amazing stuff. So introduce yourself to to the podcast world and then

we'll go from there. Thank you, Julie. You are so awesome. And excuse me for being emotional. It still makes me really emotional to talk about it. This is a dream come true. back in 2013 when I was working for corporate America, I had this calling. And I just felt like I got really big into personal development. And I had this calling of like, you need to be in real estate business. But, you know, of course, I was had this, I was working in the Met Center. I had comfy six figure figure in income. You know, I liked my life. I was going to work. And, and I, you know, I figured a way out to be successful and still kind of have my time too. But I, you know, I noticed I said I liked my life then. I love my life now. And I just, I feel so on point,

so on purpose. Like I was just need to be in this space. And I've always loved helping people. And I knew even back in the Met Center, you know, I wanted to do something bigger, something greater so that I could help people on a grander level. I loved what I did in the Med Center. Really long story short about that. I was raised by a single mom. mom. She passed away from breast cancer when I was 13 years old. And I was actually, yeah, thank you. Worst thing, obviously, I've ever been through. Biological dad, just for the record, was nowhere in the picture. And I found out years and years later that he had also passed away as well. So we, yeah, we're packed, moved, a living six hours away going to school, you know,

starting this new life with an aunt and uncle. And thank God for them, because I can't imagine had they not been there for us how that all would have transpired, right? And so anyways, I can never be so grateful for that experience. But yeah, I just, you know, I started my business two days before the country shut down. And everyone is, everyone thinks that's so wonderful now. They're like, oh, lucky you. I mean, perfect time to get into business. Okay. So we can rewind a few like months. that was not what was going through my head or anyone's head. I mean, I don't know how you start a real estate business when you're not allowed to leave the house

or talk to people. It's like everybody was weird. Like no one, you know, you go to hand of a business card and they're like, uh, no, thanks.

And I'm like, okay, you just get your contact info instead. Like, I'll touch my own phone. You know, you can, so anyways,

it was just very interesting, right? And I thought, okay, um, God's got a sense of humor. But, but,

um, if you brought me to, do this, then you got to get me through this, at least, at least this yucky part in the beginning, right? And so, yeah, so I joined the brokerage. Two days later, country shuts down. And I'm like, now what? So I really plugged hard into our training at EXP. I cannot speak highly enough about what we are doing on a brokerage level and how much that built and impacted my business. I think you said, When you were talking a couple of months ago, I think you said something like, and note, the country had shut down like two days after you got your license.

And so you had a very logical thought. You're like, okay, at least I know that I can lean into training and education initially. And then I'm going to figure things out. But that was, that was easy. You're like, okay, I'm just going to train, train, train, train, train, because that's available. Yes. Yeah, and I could do it from home, right? I mean, we weren't going anywhere anyways.

So what Elizabeth Riley kind of suggested to me, hey, why don't you just, you know, take some class? And I took that and like did it on steroids because I like to do everything big. And so I didn't take one or two classes. I took six to eight hours of class every day. And I thought, you know what? If I can hang out with these people, so I kind of had this epiphany, if I can hang out with these people that are icons, right? I already knew I wanted to be in the top 1%. I had that goal as a agent with zero experience. And it wasn't about me. It's never been about me. It's always been about

how I could be of service to other people. And I wanted to achieve this because I wanted to show people what was possible if they just didn't give up and they just didn't give in. Yeah, we went through a crazy freaking time. Everybody went through the same time together. right and in through those trainings very early on i can't remember if it was um glen sanford or jason guessing but it was on one of the friday morning trainings and he said you know what do you want your story to be when this is all over and i thought you know i can either use this as my crutch or i could use it as leverage and so and he's and one of the guys made a comment and said you know in the next 90 days your whole life could be very different and what do you want that to look like

And I thought, you know what, 90 days from now, I want to be in a very different place in the positive, not like sitting on my pity potty and, you know, crying myself to sleep every night because things weren't going the way that I wanted them to. Did they go the way I wanted them to? No. They didn't. But I instead of using it as something that I allowed to break me down, I used it as like a little chip on my shoulder and was like, this thing is not going to get the best of me. and I just had this little flame within and it wouldn't go out. And so I had this idea. If I can spend six to eight hours a day every day for four to six weeks with the top one percent, hello, there's no way I could start off at the bottom. Because I went from being a pro in my industry

in the Met Center. I had done that for a decade. I figured out how to be really good at it. I made money. I increased my income every single year for 10 years. And then now I'm a rookie, making nothing. And by the way, you know, when you're getting the real estate and you go full time, they're like, oh, you need six months of income, you need this, you need that. I had nothing. When I got into business, I needed to make money right then. And yes, I married and my husband, you know, does free, but we cannot live on his income alone. I mean, one of the first things we did, and it was actually part of the training. They were like, figure out where you can cut some fat.

So we sat down one day. We were looking through bills and send him like, take that $10 off. I mean, we were literally trying to figure out how to save. $10, you know? Yeah. And so anyways, yeah, I needed to make money immediately. Not so you took, so you were taking all of these classes with with the top agents in the country, six to eight hours a day and just flame within that would not go out. You're like, nope, this is what I do. I, you were just, you were in your laptop. I was all in online. You were all in. Now, I had a calendar. I wrote down every which day, the, the, classes at what time. I had notebooks, notebooks, notebooks filled with notes. And I just thought,

you know what? And I think that literally launched me. I had no idea what I was doing at the time. But I went to the friends I went to school with that I graduated with. We all graduated real estate school around the same time. You know, my friends in the business, and granted, this is no diss to anyone. You know, everyone's got different goals. Everyone's got different dreams and aspirations, but like the same people that I went to school with have completed five or six transactions in the last two years, and I've done 49. It was a very big difference. Okay, so what's the difference? What let's, let's, okay, those agents who have done five, some of them have done zero and a whole bunch of them have done four, five, six, and those agents, some of them won't

stay in the business. Correct. Some of them are fully capable of succeeding at a high level. in this business, they just haven't, that, that switch hasn't been flipped yet for them. But any of those agents, they're at risk of leaving the business, okay? Yep. So two years, 49 transactions, just phenomenal. It's awesome. And you've learned that since then. You maybe didn't realize at the time when you were cranking it out how you were achieving

it so much higher level than everybody else. I didn't. I actually thought it was normal. And I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing. which was funny because Elizabeth Riley would be laughing at me. She's like, I have no idea how you're doing this. You're doing so great. And I'm like, I am.

I mean, I still felt like I wasn't doing it. So what's, what's the difference? And especially like, let's look at if you're talking. So think of a handful of agents that you were taking the classes with. Sure. And you like, you like these people. They're good people. They're professional.

They have good personalities. You're like, I know this person can make it. What conversation are you having with them? So my first conversation is like, okay, what are things that you're struggling with? Because I'm always trying to figure out what I can do to serve. And most of these people are not with EXP, right? So I think part of it is our culture, the way we grow people to grow and to gravitate toward each other in that growth mode instead of being in competition against each other, right?

So I love EXP because we're all about collaborating. And by the way, I literally just got my license plates. And I got custom license. I bought a new car in July of last year. Really nice one. And I just got my custom plates in yesterday. And they say, love EXP. And I can.

I like love driving. I mean, I've always loved driving this car. But I really love driving the car now. I got to get my back window piece done. And I'll get that done next. I love those plates. And it's, it's all. about so I think there's several things Jules I think there's some drive and desire and that was is

within me that I knew I was supposed to be in the business I felt called to be in the business and so to me every it's just about showing up and then secondly I think that I don't have the luxury of not performing it is not a choice I cannot not make money I'm not willing to lose my house or my fancy car. And then I think part of it too is the suffering, right? Tell me more about that. What do you mean? The suffering. What is the suffering? Well, being broke, real broke. I got a permit when I was 15 years old so I could start working. I've always had enough money to pay for whatever it was that I desired in life. I'm not talking about an extravagant life. I'm not talking about going out and buying really expensive handbags and all this. I'm not

saying that. But I've never, since I was 15 years old, I've never been in a position where I was concerned that things could change for us very badly, very quickly, as I was like when I first got into business. So, and this story might make me emotional and you'll have to forgive me for that. But there was a time. This is part of the magic. I want to, I want to put, I want to put my finger on that. we started out with some emotion and it's showing up now. And I think this is part of the formula. It's part of the magic is because there is so much in your gut, in your heart. And just in your drive, because of your personal life, your personal life story, your losses along the way, how you built yourself, there's a lot there. So the fact that this emotion easily comes,

up when you're telling your story, it's part of the story. It is. And it's real and it's raw. And it's, I, um, I could probably take a few lessons in like, you know, um, not being emotional or whatever. And I'm told so many times in the past, you know, stop being so emotional about that, whatever. But I think what's interesting is I, I believe that that's part of the magnetism that draws people toward me because I am real and I'm sincere and I'm super transparent.

you know, it's authentic. And so it's who I am. I can't change it. It's a part of me that I, you know, maybe as I grow, you know, more in the business and I have more success and whatever, it won't be something that touches me so much. But as of right now, that is still very real and it's still very raw. And so, and it wasn't that long ago. And so I think, you know, the pain in that is still so close that, you know,

know, maybe a few years from now, you know, I can get on stage and tell my story and not get emotional about it. But as of right now, yeah, it's definitely still very much a piece of me. This is the most powerful version of the story when you allow yourself to be in that zone. So I wouldn't concern yourself with that at all. In fact, yeah, it may get easier to tell the story. but when you do get to a point where you're telling the story and it doesn't, it doesn't touch, really touch on the emotion, then you may be telling a different version of the story. Sure. No, it's totally true. And I think also, you know, people understand emotion and people understand pain. And especially in the last two years, you know, it doesn't matter where you were,

what country you lived in. It doesn't matter your background, your education, if you're, of male or female or whatever the situation is, we all went through this crazy COVID thing together. And so it was like we had that on top of building a business from nothing is so hard anyways. And then to do it in a time that was so weird and uncertain and nobody knew what was happening. And could we do this? And could we do that? And, you know, even so, I think about four weeks later, we became essential in Houston. So I went out and I started screwing stuff up, you know.

I wanted to turn off and set the alarm off and accidentally forget to lock the door and have to drive 30 minutes back to lock the house. You know, I wanted to do all the I got a blister on my finger when times. I was trying to get in this lockbox come to find out the listing agent gave me the wrong code to get in the lockbox. It was the swirly kind, you know, with the wheels. And I just, you know, I wanted to mess all that stuff up when I was by myself and I didn't have someone standing behind me or next to me, you know? And so anyway, so I had my first client, I don't know why I remember this day, on April 26th in 2020. So I'd been in the business for about six weeks. And what was interesting is right before that, I got a call from a company in the Med Center, you know, guaranteed six-figure income, working from home, company car, all that stuff.

And my husband, I'll never forget this as long as I live, you know, called him up. And I said, hey, baby, I got a job offer today. And he said, oh, this is great. This is wonderful. You know, let's move forward with this. And you can build your business on the side. And I'm so proud of you. And I said, I told him no.

And he said, you what? I told him, no, I'm not doing that. And he said, are you crazy with, you know, some extra words in there? And I said, neat to me, saying yes to that meant, giving up for myself. Now, no one ever told me that. No one ever said that's what that means. Yes, they could have easily jumped back into the corporate America business and just gotten back on the hamster wheel, right? But I already knew what the result of that was going to be. The result is that I was going to be comfortable. And, you know, once I got past the warning

curve and all this. Doing this on the side, it's never convenient. And it's not convenient to build a business from scratch anyways during a crazy freaking time. And it really wasn't going to be convenient to build it while I was trying to learn another business and another product. And yes, I have the same people. I had the connections in the business. So that piece would have been easy. And he said, you know, I think you're crazy, but whatever. If this is what you're going to do, then you better make it work. And I said, okay, now was the end of our conversation. Right. So there's another layer of accountability. You're like, oh, shit. Oh, yeah, no kidding. And then I come home every day and he's like, what did you sell the day?

What did you sell the day? What did you sell the day? I'm like, dude, dude, give you. This is not like you go out and, you know, buy a bag of groceries. I mean, it was. Okay. So, so let's do this. I want to ask you, this is, I'm going to ask you rapid fire. Okay. So I want you to give me like a two word answer and we're going to do this three, four, five times. Ready? Source of your first client. Social media. second client was a referral and they happened in the same day on like 20 so like from a friend like a friend

referral it was actually my sister and my sister-in-law had a bunch of folks over and my mother-in-law was talking to a lifelong friend of theirs and she was very freaked out about COVID stuff so they're on the back patio talking and she came in and I was on the computer trying to confirm some appointments And by the way, the social media deal, I had made a post. So I highly suggest every human being on the planet do this. It doesn't matter if you're new or not into the business. But I went out and it said, I don't remember exactly what I said, but because I was really emotional when I was even telling the story then.

But, you know, I had prayed about this. I knew this is where I was supposed to be. I had this calling. I followed it. And all I was asking was for support, for people to love me through the process. So a few days later, a girl reached out to me. One of my friends went onto my website and it hit me up on my phone from KV Cor. And I said, oh my God, I know this person's name, but maybe there's a million people

named that, right? So I started typing in her phone number and boom. I'm like, it is her. And I hadn't talked to her in six years. So you just called her. Six years. She reached out to me and she said, hey, Kristen, my sister's looking to buy a house. We know you're new to the business.

We're new to buying a house, never done it before. Is there any chance you'd want to work with us? Okay. Okay. So first one, what you say? Facebook. Facebook video. Social media. Second one, family referral. Family referral. Third. Third. Third. Was that friend? Third deal. You're not going to believe this. About walking the dogs. I meet a guy on the side of the road. Walking the dog. Okay. And you have really cool dogs. So you talk to people when you are. Okay, walk in the dog. Fourth client. Fourth client. Okay. They all came very like rapid fire. Okay. Just try. Try it.

client was a friend again. One of my husband's besties. And then from their, from their open house, I met another. So I had six that closed between Thanksgiving and Christmas in that first year. So they're all kind of jumbled up together. That's fantastic. Okay. Now, another thing.

So there's a couple of questions I want to, I want to ask you. One is backing up. So initially, you were doing six to eight hours of classes a day initially, at least until real estate became essential worker status in Houston. Okay. During that time, did you probably initially, I bet you took a total kind of mishmash of classes, a little of everything. Yeah. So basically did it start to, did it find. Yeah. Did it start to fine tune a little bit? Like where did you, where did you, where did you start to lean with those classes? Just curious. Open houses. So I, so I was kind of going there because I,

know you've had. So with your 49 transactions, you've had tremendous success with open houses. Yeah. So I know you started to lean into that. Which everyone is like, that's so old fashioned. I kind of, I am an old fashioned person anyway, but, you know, it's hilarious because I hear people tell me all the time. Oh, my God, open houses. That stuff doesn't work. Those are a waste of time. It's a waste of energy. It's a waste of whatever. And I just smile because I like, wow, I can not imagine just. from one open house. So my very first listing I ever had. Actually, that might be my fourth one. Might have been my listing that I had was I made, I love to make stuff. And so I made these little sanitizers and I put a tag on the outside and it said something like, help me, let me know if I

can help lend a hand. And then I put my realtor contact information. He was on a business card, right? Put it inside or put it on the back of the card. I can't remember what I was doing at the time. But I went to my neighbors and I dropped them off on everybody's door. No knocking, no ring in the doorbell, no nothing. Just went and dropped them up. And one of the girls in our community went on my website and registered through there and said, is there any chance you'd want to get together with me? I'm thinking about selling my house.

I mean, does a bear poop in the woods? Of course. So I went, we bet at Starbucks and literally my first listing came from a sanitizer. That's awesome, right? From that one open house, I've had over 11 transactions. It's still counting because those people are still doing business and we're still doing transaction. It's like the open house that keeps giving. Now, I've heard you talk about open houses.

What do you do different? How do you get more people in? How do you get more people into your open houses than the average agent? And how do you connect with those people better than the average agent? I think the greatest thing for me, Julie, is I always remind myself that it's not about me. It's not about what I'm here to get. It's how I can give and how I can be of service. And I want people to feel that love in my presence from the second they walk in the door.

And so I'm doing things from the road that people don't even realize. I've got signs everywhere. Even the signs are warm and friendly. Like, join us or come over for hot cocoa cookies and coffee or, you know, whatever. All neighbors are welcome. And I want people to feel loved before they ever even walking the door. So I do tons and tons of signs. I do some stuff on social media, but I don't think I've never heard of a person ever coming

into an open house from a sign. I mean, excuse me, from a social media. From a social media. When I first started doing open houses, which, by the way, was Memorial Day weekend. The first weekend we could do open houses was Memorial Day weekend of 2020. And it was a disaster. It was a nightmare. I mean, nobody showed up.

I had my signs out there like five minutes before the open house started, right? And I had a cute, I mean, the house that was really cute. Of course, I was soaked in sweat, right? Because it's hotter than the 80s and Houston at Memorial Day, of course. And so, you know, I was ready to go, but I didn't like, so I kind of been fine-tuning

the process all the way through, right? And so, you know, people, most of the time, time when you tell me, oh, open houses don't work. I'm like, well, I'm just curious, how are you working at them? Because there might be some stuff that I could help, you know, give some suggestions for it. Now, maybe that only works for me. So you take open house trainings from other people, and it's the opposite of everything that I say, which is why I love this business so much, because there's not a one-way fits all, you know? If you don't like my style of doing open houses, who cares, you know, do it the way you want to do it. And, and, and, you know, whatever.

whatever you'll see. Well, let's pause there a second. Let's pause there a second because you said early on that you had an epiphany and that was you figured that if you were hanging with the icons, if you were hanging with the top 1% agents and really leaning into that, that there's no way that you could fail. Okay. So let's, so when talking about open houses and someone will say, oh, that doesn't work or that works for you, but it's like, no, hold on. Let's apply that same principle because the same

principle is like, look, if you hang out with Kristen or if you do open houses like Kristen, you won't fail. You can't fail. I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to keep doing it. You can't judge your whole business by one open house. No, your first one, your first one was a flop. Yeah, I did too in the first day. And they were both whole. horrible. One, my first open house had one couple come and I was so nervous, Julie. I was shaking the whole time they were in there. You know, because I was, you know, I didn't know what to say. I didn't know. I mean, I didn't know anything about the business. I was like, please don't ask me a question. I was walking around. I had the paper in my hand because I wanted to make sure they asked me. So you're just nervous nervous. Yeah, just a nervous wreck. And now like when I come in, oh my, I practically got my feet on the counter. I'm kidding. I don't. But you know what I mean? I love when I'm, I'm, I love when I'm, I'm, these people come in, there's an art and a science to it. And I learned how to do these killer open houses from EXP agents in our company. And I couldn't even go out and do an open house when I was learning about it.

But you better believe I was right. And the stuff just imprinted on my brain. You took every class you possibly could. And then you went back around and you took it again. And you took it again. I was like, I just got to learn all this stuff. Because I wanted to go from sounding like a rookie to something like an expert in a very small period of time. And the only way I could do that is to hang to me was to hang around. And plus, let's say,

someone's been in the business for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and you can spend an hour in their presence. I mean, how much money would you have to pay? Some of these people live all the way across the world. And how much money would you have to pay to be in their presence? Some of these people are coaches. And they charge people hundreds of dollars an hour to hear them speak. And I can go and just be a fly on the wall. Oh, it's gold. It's gold. It's gold. gold. It's gold. It's gold. And I, I just, I knew how much further ahead would I be? You know, and it wasn't a competition like that, but how much further ahead is someone who's spending six to the eight hours in the presence of greatness than the person who's doing nothing sitting on the pity potty

or listening to that yucky mic, M-I-C, my inner critic? You know, that's sounding your head that just never freaking leaves you alone, wakes you up in the middle of the night. You know what I I mean, I could have hung out six, eight hours a day with that guy or girl. I don't know if the guy or girl. You know what I mean? I'm just saying like, if that was what I was always listening to, that's probably what I was going to put out. Well, that roommate in your head is, is always there.

Okay. And it doesn't go away. And sometimes she's our advocate and sometimes she sabotages our awesomeness. Totally. But if you're hanging out in these classes, even if the bad roommate is showing up that day, you're exposing yourself to someone else's awesomeness for an hour, for another hour, for another hour. So you're mitigating that freaking annoying roommate in her head because she's going to show up. And maybe there's a he version of it too.

It just got smaller. She got quieter. Yep. It just got quieter. Yeah. You want the roommate who's your champion, not the roommate who's your critic. Yeah, she got quieter. She did.

She got quieter. And the more open houses I did and the more I interacted with people and the more I got my, you know, that stuff was so uncomfortable in the beginning. It was awful, you know? And I thought to myself, I mean, you probably couldn't have done it any differently. It's like, oh, I wouldn't have done it any different. And you know what? That was bad.

With an agent, a couple, probably a little over a week ago, a week and a half ago. And he said, if I took, I thought this was so cool. He said, if I took you out of Houston and I dropped you in. Chicago and in the city in Chicago. You don't have any contacts. You don't know any human beings. You've got to start your business all over again. What are you doing as soon as you get there? I said, it better be on a Friday. I'm doing an open house. So it just, you know what I mean? I feel like I will always be successful in the business because I always know how to be successful in the business for me. Now, maybe it doesn't work for other people. Maybe they don't

want to spend the time. It is a lot of time. It takes time. You've got to put in the research in the beginning. You got to make sure, like I was saying, there's an art and a science to it, right? So you've got to make sure that you're doing an open house at the right opportunity. I mean, so much of it is about, you know, where you're doing it, the location, how many houses are for sale in the neighborhood, how long the house has been on the market? Is it somewhere that you feel safe? And is it somewhere that you like to work in? Is it somewhere you could go back to over and over and over again. What does the house look like? Is it in, is it gorgeous? Is it completely renovated? Is it something that needs a ton of work? You know, because you got to think about the type of clientele you're going to be

attracting too. And when in the beginning, I was very intuitive. I would love to ask people, I was just curious, how did they find out about the open house today? And almost in the very beginning, about 80% of my traffic in the open houses was coming from science. Okay. Which I thought was nuts. I thought, wow, this is incredible. And it was just me asking, like, different things. And then people have told me that I've met at open houses. So the transaction I just closed earlier this morning was a couple that I met at an open house. And it was my listing.

And they were looking for a lakehouse. And this was hilarious. They were moving here from Rockport. Sorry, they already moved from Colorado. Moving here from Rockport. And they brought a list of. So this is the. other thing that you never know about open helmets. You never know who's coming in and how much help

they're going to want or need. And you're not, the goal of the open house for me always is to get, I'm looking for one person I can help buy and one person I can help sell. So this is why I want all the neighbors to show up, which by the way, at that same lakehouse listing that I had, the first open house I did was on Memorial Day weekend last year. And I thought, Please, Lord, let this be way more awesome than what happened last time, right? And joke was on me because, like, 30 neighbors showed up. We're all having impulses. And it was like the redneck yacht club in the front yard.

You know, all the golf carts were in a golf cart. Sorry, not go cards. All the golf carts were parked in the yard. You know, and I'm like, I wasn't having. I was like, this is so much fun. You know, this is wonderful. And so because it's not just about getting buyers. I want people in the neighborhood to come see what I'm doing for these properties.

So they're like, oh my God, when I freaking get ready to sell this thing and I hear this all the time. As soon as I'm ready to sell this, I'm calling you. And why? So why, why, why is that? What do you do? Because they see how much effort I put into everything that I do. And they're like, you make people. So I just was, I was going to say the closing I had earlier today.

They just said this again today. We'll never forget the day we met you at Open House. else. And you, it was, it was everything that I had done. I have music playing. As soon as people come in, they get a warm, friendly greeting. Even if I'm in conversation with it, I'll stop, I'll say, excuse me, for just one second. And I'll literally stop my conversation with someone else, just so I can say hi to someone else. Because I want everyone who walks into that door to feel warm, to feel welcome in, in my, in this property and in the presence. I mean, think about it. It's kind of, Well, this is how you live your, this is how you live your life, though, too.

I live my life. Absolutely. And you're leading with your heart. This isn't something that I learned. That's in the soul, right? That warm, friendly, that's just who I am. It's in my being that was there before the real estate license. And I think the real estate license just allowed, afforded me the opportunity to do it on a bigger

level with more people. It just gave me a different stage to speak from. It gave you a different, a different platform and a platform where you're, you're in control. When you worked in the medical field and you worked for somebody else, you know, you had to play by someone else's rules and yeah, you're in charge now. Your way, right? Yeah. You have products, right?

And I can talk about that. And none of my bosses ever lived in, even in Texas. So I had a lot of freedom and flexibility to do things the way that I did there. But a lot of what I do today, I actually started doing back then. So I would never go see a customer without bringing something to give them. I love to give. I am big, big, big into giving. You can ask Elizabeth Riley every time I see her, she's like, oh, please don't tell me you have a present for me.

And I'm like, I have to because she gave me the greatest gift in the world by, you know, introducing me to EXP. and I feel like I will forever be indebted to her just for this incredible opportunity, right? And she continues to just bless my life in ways I could have never imagined. I mean, there's nothing that could ever give her physically that would ever be a repayment for everything that she's done for me. And even just through the other- You're repaying her with your success because that fills her heart. I know it's from buckets. Yes. Yeah. So what, like, what, what advice? What's your advice for agents? And this might be a first year agent, a second year agent. It could be a fifth year agent who's not making the money that they need or want to be making. Or maybe somebody's hit a slump or for some reason their real estate train has stalled. What, what's your advice? What's your advice for agents? Okay. I'm going to do a shameless plug for you.

because the very first gift I ever received in the real estate business was your book, Success Faster. And that was given to me by Elizabeth Raleigh. And each time I start to mentor people or somebody joins my business, that's the first book that I give to them. I think people, so my first word of advice would be you're 90 days away from having a total life change. and if you believe that and you work toward that, I know that you will be successful with that. The first thing that you've got to do is just get, first of all, I think a lot of people get stuck in their,

they get stuck in the muck, right? They get stuck in that yucky thought process, in that yucky, every doubt and fear and insecurity and, you know, that you've ever had about yourself starts to come out in your life. and it just makes you feel really yucky. So the first thing is a radical mind shift. And the way that I do that,

so please do not think that I have got this all figured out that I am some kind of a guru on this. I go in and out of being stuck in the muck all the time. And so, but the way that I do it personally is I get right back into our training. We have the most unbelievable resource right at our fingertips all the time. And I love people and I love being around people who are successful. I've always heard if you want to be really successful, hit your wagon to a star.

And I mean, Elizabeth Riley is one of the greatest stars on the planet. But literally, I knew that just by being in Elizabeth Riley's presence, that I had to be successful. Because you can't be that close to someone who's so successful and did not rub off on you. Like I just, her energy, her love, the way she treats people, the way she talks to people, the way she cares about people is so infectious. And I want that for every human being that I come into contact with as well. I mean, all the people that I'm mentoring, they always see the same thing about me. Your energy is so infectious.

I got to hang out with you every week. You get, you know, you make me feel alive. And so I think just how you got to be around. Get away from all those people that are telling you that this isn't going to work. Stop listening to that crap. Bring off the news. Take the crap of your phone. Just be in control of what comes in.

Because the more good and clean and pure and positive that comes in, that's what comes out of your mouth too. You know, Julie, when we're listening to this junk from CNN or from whatever news station and all the fear and gloom and doom and all the scarcity and mentality, forget all of that. Who cares if the market shifts? It will shift. Things are going to be very different one day. I don't know if that's going to be. Today, tomorrow, a year from now, 10 years from now, 100 years from now. I don't know. I'm not God, right? But make a commitment that you're going to be successful no matter what. I don't care if the market shifts. You know what? If the market shifts, I'll shift with it. And I'll immediately start doing something else. So in between all those trainings, I listen to a ton of books because I don't do very well like sitting in reading because I got to keep going. So when I sit and read, I fall asleep.

And then I'm like stuck reading the same pages over and over again. So actually, I like to read on the treadmill. I know that sounds like that. But on the bike. No, that makes a lot of sense. So you listen. Yep. So I become a very auditory learner.

And then I turned my car into a university on wheels. So when I got really big into personal development, Brian Tracy, I read his book, No Excuses, Phenomenal. And he says, use your net time. N-E-T, no extra time. It doesn't take any extra time for you to listen to something beautiful, incredible, wonderful, something that will help you grow, something that will help you develop, something that will help you become a better version of yourself while you're walking

the dog or doing laundry or cleaning the, doing the dishes, or driving down the road. And so he said in his book that the average sales rep, so this is, and I don't know if you you call sales reps or whatever, but the average sales reps spend hundreds of hours a year in the car. Yeah. And what if you took, and it was an equivalent of a PhD? And he said, yeah, you can get a PhD every. So I'm like, you know what? Every year.

I'm going to get a PhD in results. I don't want a PhD from some doctor or whatever. I want a PhD in results. Like I know how to get results. When I need something to be different, I know how to change that immediately and grow my business in ways that I could have never imagined, right? So I've got some huge, huge mentors. I've got a bunch of them in our business. I've got people that I've never met. Some of them are dead. Like Jim Rohn, love Jim Rohn, spent tons and tons of time listening to his books.

I mean, I can go on and on. I love Tony Robbins. Your books are incredible. I read both success faster and on fire hot. I loved your training too. You're negotiation class is one of the first trainings I ever took in the world. And I just, I loved it. Chris Voss, never split the difference. Incredible book. I think it's a little challenging to do in real estate because we kind of do the difference a lot. What are you working on this year? Like, what's next? Where are we going? Okay. So my goal was to, so my first year in the business, it took me all 12 months to cap. And then my second year in the business, it took me six months to cap. So this year my goal is to cap in three. This is actually my slow time of the year. So last year I only did

one so my new year started on April 1. So last year I did one transaction in April. I did no transactions in May and June. And then I had three in July. You're not going to know until years three, four and five what your slow and busy months are. It's going to change and change and change. It hasn't your, your real estate activity cycle has not matured yet. Totally. Well, and I'm just coming off a huge, I closed six in March, right? So I'm coming up a huge closing. I've got a couple people who kind of have the willies about interest rates or whatever. So they're kind of like, you know, on ghost islands. Um, you know, um, and so I've got some folks that are like, you know, they don't want to invest in this market and I'm like, okay, well, when is the next market coming?

I mean, I don't know what do you think is a better time than now to make a good decision on this because you're wasting money or you could be investing money in yourself and your future. So anyway, so, you know, there's some stuff like that. And then, but yeah, and then, and so I'm just, but then I had 17 closings in between July and October last year, right? So that was incredible. I made over 100 grand in that timeframe. And my whole life changed from that moment forward, right?

So, you know, rewind the October before, you know, my husband and I had the least amount. We had $100 in our checking account, which, by the way, that has never happened in my life. Even as a child, I had more money than that. We still, we didn't have to break 401s and do all that stuff. We had pockets of money, you know, here and there if we really needed it. But you want to talk about being uncomfortable? I think that's how you get successful in this business. you've got to be uncomfortable.

And so, you know, fast forward. One year later, you know, we had 500 times more money in our account. I got to buy one of the coolest cars on the planet, you know, that I get compliments on like crazy. By the way, I think that leveraged my business because people respected me differently. I know it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, in real estate, you're showing up it's reality, right? perception is reality. And when you, when you have a really nice car sitting in the driveway, what is the perception? You're successful. It's successful. And you can be really successful in a not nice car, but nobody thinks that, right?

Nobody believes that. And I had two situations that I thought were kind of interesting. I had a client show up in a Ferrari to when I opened out this one time. And I was like, whoa, I can't wait. I was like, interrupted my conversation with these people. I'm like, whoa, I got to talk. They wouldn't even speak. to me. I thought that was interesting. And then I went on my first million dollar listing appointment. And they said, we're not going to sell the house at this time. But I saw them like looking at, they had a bunch of questions about my production. How long even in the business? How much, you know, what is your production? Like how many houses have you sold? Do you have references? So, and I knew it was

because they were looking at me. They were listening to me. And they're like, one of these things is not like the odd rate. It's like, well, if she was really a successful, she's saying, why is she still driving that, you know? And my car, it wasn't a, I was a 2012 Nissan Road, but like, and no offense, once again, to anyone who, but I've never seen anyone driving a Nissan Road and thought, holy crap, those people are, that person's very successful in life, whatever it is that you're doing. Now, I know Warren Buffett drives a Toyota Camry for the life of me. I can't figure out why. If I had Warren I don't even know what I probably just fly around in a general over the place. But you know what I mean?

But I'm not Warren Buffett yet. So, you know. Well, and it does matter. No, you didn't. You bought the car when you could afford it. So. 100%. So you have to walk,

you walk that balance. But I agree how it's like, are you coming across as professional as possible? What are your signs look like? How are you dressing? what's what's the car you're driving and is it is it clean is it you know is it is it is it nice and shiny now occasionally that's a problem but you know yeah especially during the pollen season oh yeah it's like a bubble your car is green it's so it's reality but but yeah that the perception

does matter um oh my god we could do so many podcasts it's like there's let's do it let's do it so much fun i can do the whole podcast on the car i mean the way people people acted when I went to the next appointment with them and I showed up in my bins. They were like, whoa, like you didn't tell me you were having this kind of year. And now it doesn't matter who I'm speaking with at what price level. No one has asked me about production. No one has asked me for references. No one.

I mean, it literally changed my business. So literally that car is actually a marketing tool. And by the way, I just got some sweet plates. They say love EXP on them. because it's my two favorite things in life, E-XP and love. And so I said, why not? I love E-X-P.

You know, so kind of how you show up in the car and just how you're dressed, how you're presenting yourself. I had just a quick story. This was many years ago. My gosh, it was maybe 15 years ago, but I got this listing in this awesome neighborhood. And it was a high price, and I was really excited about having my sign in that yard.

And I remember, so no, I've dramatically improved since then, but I remember the seller was disappointed in what my sign looked like. It didn't say luxury. Yes. It was a little mix mash. I had a couple things attached to it. And that really struck me. One, it really, I'm like, oh, my God, it was really hard feedback to get, but it was really important feedback to get. And since then, but my sign, your signs are important, what they look like.

Yes. Are they professional? Do they look good? How will they look in the ground in a million dollar listing? It's completely different than it's when it's in a $250,000. It is. And we have to, we have to look at that. Most of my base, so that you can talk about icon.

That's a whole lot of transactions when you're like your average price. point is like 250. So anyways, I, I'm with you. And actually I, so part of what are you asking about where I want to go this year? One, consistency. I, you know, you have a blowout gigantic month where you make, you know, 50 grand and then you make nothing. And then you make 20 grand. So some of that consistency. I have hired a company called Agent Hub 360 that is going to help with a lot of that follow-up in the business center. It's the only, I think I talked about this before, too, was when we were together at the Austin Board of Realtors, but it's the only solo agent growth system that's out there. And so I'm still new into that. And of course,

anybody here can reach out to me if they want more information about that. But I'm still in the onboarding process, but I can tell just these people have the same heart that I do. And I'm so grateful to be a part of that. And follow-up is my biggest struggle. And it's so funny because people are like, wait a second, how can you be so successful with open houses if you suck at follow-up? And I guess it's a blessing. I don't know. I'll say one thing that is magical about EXP is KV Core. So we have this open- That really helps you with follow-up. Oh my gosh. It's amazing. So where I really stink at the follow, and I kind of don't want my clients to hear this podcast. No, I'm joking.

because where I think at the follow-up, KVCorp is sending them a message every week on new listings that are coming out in their area. And that is so helpful. Well, and this is important for our clients to hear is that a sophisticated agent has tools in place that help us that help us leverage, that help us stay in communication. Even if you take, please take a day off, but during that time, there's a tool in place. that's working for our clients. So it makes sense. It's okay. Yes.

No. Yeah. And I get that. And follow up. I think NAR says that's something like 70 to 80 percent of the transactions are because of follow up. And most agents give up after two follow ups. Yes.

But the majority of people actually make a decision or decide to move forward with something after five followups. I heard that. too and I was like actually you know what I think I have that statistic I just did I know part of my training yeah 90% of this is literally on here right now 90% of sales happen between the fourth and the 12th contact um so have so have so have some tools once much less 12 times no right so have tools in place that that that that does the majority of that follow up for you sure or it pings you

whenever they're, yeah, it's a text, it's a phone call, it's a, it's an email, it's a, it's something on social media. It's all of that. It's a letter in the mail. It's a thank you note. It's, it's all the things. It's an event. And I want to grow in all of that too. There's so much more than I can do. I really stink at social media. I'm working hard to do more stuff with social media. Um, you know, I've got huge financial goals this year. Um, I want to, my goal is to icon by the end of um by the end of the year by uh December 31st when I made Icon for in my second year I had 45 minutes to spare you made it on the last day that was a little painful um so yeah I don't want to do that again um just because you know stuff can happen oh my gosh it can be very stressful so

well it was funny because those trans I mean everything was good to go with those days in advance and then of course, you know. And with a delay. What's Murphy's law or whatever? If it can happen, it will. So anyways, yeah. So, so, and I just really, I want to, I want to grow my business, but I also, I just want to love people. You know, that's what I feel like I want this planet to do. And, and whether it's to help them buy something or grow their own business, I mean, I really, I love helping my, my mentees. I have one mentee. Her first closing was, I'm laughing. 1.65 million.

Hey, and don't tell her that that's any different. Amazing. Don't even tell her, don't even tell her that that's special. It's like, oh, yeah. Totally normal.

Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. I know. I was like, a what? Yeah, at first I thought I missed her. It's so super,

super excited for her. But yeah, I love helping people grow their business. And, and you, and dial, so this is going to be a good way, to end the podcast way in the beginning of your career,

one of the very first things that you did, and you said this, and I think it was a video on Facebook, but you asked for people's help, and it was a very heartfelt message. Please support me in this new journey. Yeah. I said, I know it's a really tough time,

but I hope that you can support me and just be excited for me. I wasn't asking for anyone. And that's not salesy. It's not salesy at all. It was a personal ask. Even when I found out that I was five transactions away from ICON, by the way, Julie, I had no idea that I was so close to that.

You didn't even know. I was like, I'm just going to go and I'm going to work, you know, I'm just going to help as many people as I can. And of course, I had that idea in my head, but I wasn't, I had no idea. So one night, one of my girlfriends in the business, Amy called me up. and it was late at night and I kind of didn't want to talk on the phone, but I answered anyways. And this just happened to come up in conversation. And I kind of think I'm close to I come, but I don't know.

And she's, I don't know how to find out. And she said, oh, here, I'll tell you right now. And so I literally, it was the second to last week of February. And I had and she's, and so she was telling me. And so I was looking at the spreadsheet and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm five transactions away. And she said, what? You are? She's like, are you sure? See me your spreadsheet. Let me see if you're doing it right. And I'm like, oh, I said seven weeks to get five transactions. And you know how this business goes. Most people

don't like, I have seven weeks to get five transactions. I'm like, holy crap, how do I do that? I have an agent right now in my group. She's amazing. And she's really driving towards Icon. and she is 12 away. And so you know what she's doing. She does all sorts of real estate. She does luxury. She does all price points all over the place. And I've been coaching her with this.

I'm like, what is your fastest route to 12? Yep. And she said, well, Julie, my fastest route is to crank out 12 leases that are above, I think above $1,500. I think it's $25.

Yeah, $2,500. Because it's, they take 20% of the, Yeah. Yeah. I said, what's what's your fast? I said, wait a minute. Say that again. Let me ask you the question. What is your fastest route to those 12? Yep. She said, well, my fastest route is leases. She said, I don't, I don't like leases as much as I like working with buyers and sellers, but that's my fastest route. I said, okay, how badly do you want this icon? She's like, oh, no, this is all I'm doing.

I said, okay, what do you need to do then? She said, I'm going to stop everything else that I'm doing, and that's all I'm going to do. I said, yeah, there it is. It's right there. Right. there in front of you. Wouldn't you like to know? I was in, I was stuck in the buck in that timeframe. And I found that out. It was like 11 o'clock at night.

I think it was like on the Thursday night, the second to last week of February. And I was like, oh, my mind just went nuts. I'm like, how do I do this? And so I actually immediately plugged it. What was the first thing I did? The next day, I got into training on EXP and I was taking ICON, everything with icons.

Everything. Everything. Everything. relevant, but I wanted to talk to icons and see what is their suggestion. And most of them laughed at me, said, oh, five in seven weeks, good luck. I mean, I don't, how do you do five and seven weeks? Nobody knows how to do that. Most agents don't work like that. It's not like you've got this time. It's not like when you're in sales for another company and you're selling a product and you're like, you got to go out and sell, you know, um, you know,

five like pieces of equipment or whatever. You just go to every single client, you know, and you ask them, okay, do you need this? Do you need this? You know what I mean? And you're just getting sales in that way. It doesn't work like that in the housing market because the cycle is really long, you know, and typically.

So then I was like, no, I'm serious. Like what would you tell someone who's trying to achieve this? And so they said, I said, should I buy leads? Should I do this? Should I do that? Because I was willing to do anything. Anything. I mean, my 16 grand was on the line.

So as long as it cost me less than 16 grand, I was willing to do it. Because to me, it was worth it, right? Yeah. So I, they said, okay, and this was a bunch of different, a bunch of different folks. They were like, okay, well, my number one thing, and here's the same thing I heard over and over and over again.

People said, don't go by lead. That's not going to work. No. They said, call everyone you know and tell them that you've got this big, huge goal, and you're so close to it. And do they know anyone who's looking to buyers? sell real estate in the next four weeks. No, in the next now.

Right now. Now. Like tomorrow. And then some other folks said, why don't you, Kristen, all everybody you know and don't say anything about real estate, just ask them how work is going. And I said, okay, that's not because calling everybody and saying, who do you know, and these suppliers? I don't like that.

I don't want to be like that. And I didn't want my, here was my problem, Julie. I am all about love and calling people and asking them in the, do stuff for me so that I could achieve this number, that didn't feel good to me. And I felt really uncomfortable with that. And I just, because I never wanted anyone to believe that they were a means to an end or that they were just a part of this number or that they were just a part of like this thing because it was all about me. Because business is not about me. It's about how I can give and who I can serve. Even on the back of my business card, it says, please let me know how I can be of

service to you or anyone you love because it's it is about me and serving and um and not about what I'm getting from people you know I'll have like you know the months that I have five six closings whatever my husband always gets really excited he's like oh you know how much you're going to make I'm like I have no idea it doesn't matter you had never think about anything like that I don't care you know I just I was I was just on the phone with a past client a few minutes ago And she's like, well, our budget might be too small for you. And I'm like, there's no such thing as that. There's no such thing.

I don't. So let me ask you this. So let me ask you this. So you needed, you were five away. Where did, so do it real quick. We're running out of time. Where did those five come from? Okay.

So I closed the computer. I prayed over it and I said, God, I know you're going to do this. So show me where they're at. So I'm not joking the next day. A past client called me up and said, hey, I'm sick of living in this apartment. you got to get me in a house. We went out. We looked at two, three houses. Boom. It was number one. Number two. Client is a past client also. She was looking for her first investment property. We went out. We looked at a few properties. We put an offer in. Boom. We got it. Okay. By the way,

a competition against 11. Competition against 14. Still one. Next one was against 16. This was a client that kind of funny story. I met a guy. This is when I feel like you know, you're really doing a good job at open houses. When people that you met at the open house, they didn't end up doing business with you because the timing wasn't right or they, you know, whatever, but they refer you to other people that did do business with you. So this was a, so this guy, Tim, referred me to a friend of his who referred me to her boyfriend. And that was, so that was number three. And they were going to live in this place together. and then she bought an investment property that was a condo.

So that was actually two transactions for them. And then the one in the middle was also a past client. So three were past clients. And he said, you know, he just called me up one day and he said, I'm looking for a place. My daughter's about to move her from Costa Rica. And we're going to start a business up in Lake Conroe. And she's going to run that location.

And so we're looking for a place. And we went out and looked. And literally we looked for one day when we put an offer in, against, we won against 23. So those last five came very, by the way, there was more than five on the books. So I had one client who was going to buy and sell who just ended up flying away. I'll leave that alone. Yeah. And then there was another girl who was going to help me out. So she's also an agent. She's in the process of selling her investment property. She said, Kristen, I said, it was my idea. I said, why don't let me do all the paperwork for you.

give you all the commission. I'm not interested in making money from you. I just need this to be on the books. I'll give you all the commission back, you know, because it was her place. I just needed that closed transaction. Yeah. And then that ended up falling apart. I mean, it was just, it was wild. So I had a lot more. So when you know you need five, just do real estate math and realize that you probably need seven or nine. I had nine. I had nine on the books. Yep. Wow. So one fell out of contract we went we um the girl was looking for the investment property the last one fell out of contract and then um we you know ended up going under contract on not one more property another two more property so here's my observation with you is your success is it's your energy and your heart and how

you show up in the world and functionally open houses as a really big avenue for you those two things combined or your formula. There's more to it than that. But because people want to know, what's her, how did you do it? What's your formula? Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to get my agents. I'm going to get my agents. Anyone who I'm going to get my agents. I'm like, look, you need to listen to this podcast four, five, six times. And you need to get your butt into icon classes. Yes. Online. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's no excuse. There's there's no excuse at the bare, bare minimum. You should be logging at least minimum of if you're not making enough money,

be logging at least a minimum of three, four hours a week in those classes. Totally. Week after week after week. When I get, when I get is, you know, stuck, I love that stuck in the muck. When I get stuck in that yucky. You always, you said, you always go back to the training. I always go back to the training. And I'm doing a couple hours a day.

because you're listening to them and they're on it. You know, I've never been in an icons class who I left feeling like, God, how do they even have a business? Like, they're so boring or whatever. You know what I mean? They're all full of life and love and energy. And when they come, they show up and they're there to serve. And it just you, that, it just energizes you. And you might get a little nugget.

Something like, ooh, I haven't tried that. Ooh, that's a good idea. And by the way, I have hundreds of ideas really that I've never been able to try. So part of me, working with Agent Hub is like literally they documented all the ideas and I'm still coming up with them right like writing them down on my phone or whatever of all these things that I want to do. I mean, I'm not I'm just getting started. This is not this is not because you know, people people have said, you know, we'll don't let this be the end for you. Right. So like, you know,

you go to the Olympics and then you're depressed because, you know, like that was a pinnacle of like what you wanted to. I'm definitely nowhere near that. I've got huge goals and dreams. I want to serve on an even bigger level. I haven't even done a client event yet. You know what I mean? I haven't. There's so much stuff I want to do.

And so because you are. And you are. And we're going to, we're going to do. There's more pod. There's more podcasts here. So we're going to, you and I are going to put a list together of like of two or three other podcasts that we want to do.