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All right, folks, C2 and C3 right here at your doorstep coming in hot from Las Vegas.
And today we have a special guest who is actually subbing for a special guest, Don Yocum, who fell ill.
We hope he gets better, lost his voice somewhere between here and what was it, Tucson, I guess, or something like that, C3.
But we're very blessed and very fortunate to have his partner, Justin Stoddard.
And Justin is CEO of Pro Insight, a platform designed for.
business people, just like you and me, to learn how to make referrals and explode our business.
Justin is also a best-selling author, and he has his own podcast.
You're going to want to go check out called Think Bigger Real Estate.
All right, so we're going to get to Justin in one minute, but first, here we go on Cliffsnotes.
I guarantee it.
We guarantee it today.
I'm telling you, we were just chatting with Justin before the show.
And ladies and gentlemen, you know we talk about rider-downers all the time.
I want to make sure you have a clean 8.5 by 14 legal pad with a fresh pin ready to go
because you're going to have rider-downers coming at you from every direction.
I agree.
I mean, this is going to be exciting.
I'm excited myself.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
All right.
Let's go ahead and bring Justin in without any further adjo.
Justin, are you out there he is?
Welcome to Clint's notes.
I'm here, gentlemen.
It's super fun to be with you guys.
just seeing the stars that you guys aligned with, not just on this show, but others.
It's a total honor to be here. So thank you.
Well, thank you. And it's an honor to have you.
I mean, you've got a podcast that's rated like I think Don was telling us up in the top
2% of all podcasts in the world or something like that.
Something just crazy good.
Yeah, you know, I've been at podcasting probably before podcasting was cool.
It was a way for me to expand my network and learn from really bright people like you two gentlemen.
So I started about seven and a half years ago and do a weekly episode.
And it's a, it's a passion project now.
Again, I get to be just need-to-knee with some incredible people.
Well, I'm excited to dive into it.
You know, sometimes you have a silver lining in a cloud.
Poor Don had, you know, was having problems on the phone this morning.
And he said, hey, but I've got somebody who's even better than me that I'd like to ask to come, you know, sit in for me.
and we were excited, of course, and Justin, to have you here.
Let's go ahead and just unpack and pop the hood here and talk about your, you said, a passion.
I mean, you've really got a passion for helping people and helping people grow their business.
Tell us a little bit about as CEO of Pro Insight.
What is it that you guys do?
What's this platform all about?
And how can it help people in our audience?
I appreciate it, Cliff.
I learned a lesson when I was a land developer, home builder years ago, that my sphere at the time was 25 years old, similar to me.
And they were not building million-dollar homes.
And I also realized that cold solicitation to find new clients to build million-dollar homes was not a thing, or not an effective thing anyway, and that I had to be more strategic in how it was going about growing my business.
And I realized that there were professionals in the marketplace who had all of my ideal clients.
and if I added enough value to those professionals, they would create a steady stream of edified introductions to me as many as I could handle.
That became a theme throughout my career, and it's one that I teach now and one by which we build all of our businesses,
which is identify those professionals who already have your ideal clients and allow those introductions to keep you from having to chase and sort through countless people who are not your ideal clients.
Well, that's, you know, that model just speaks to us as, you know, as part of EXP and our attraction business, you know, the third party edification calls and really what we do in order to sort of build rapport with people.
And that's really one thing that that really differentiates what your model is versus somebody who's cold calling and makes it a numbers game.
and things like that it's really about developing that relationship with the help of another trusted
source isn't it yeah it's very well said you know i think we all all understand and know that solicitation
works don likes to say solicitation is for amateurs that yes you can do it um and you end up
spending a lot of time uh receiving feedback that you don't have the right people and some people
don't have kind of the thick, you know, the skin to be able to handle that. Even those that do,
I would argue is that they're diminishing their dollar per hour by having to spend less time
with paying clients and more time trying to find those paying clients. You know, one thing that
we're really adamant about at Pro Insight is the fact that big tech is working very hard to
minimize what a real estate agent does and gets paid. And we believe that real estate agents ought
to not be moving in that direction, which is a race to the bottom. But instead,
they ought to be moving in a direction in which they're adding more value and getting paid accordingly.
And we believe that one of the fastest ways to do that, to not be minimized, not have big tech stepping between you and your client,
is to not get your clients from big tech, but to get your clients from other professionals who are well paid,
who are pre-vetting these people for you and helping you to know that these people are coming to you with money,
with a real need at that moment. You see, many of the online lead aggregators out there are selling top.
of funnel leads tire kickers many of them in which you're having to nurture those
people for six months and we all know the you know the economics of that you either
hire people overseas you do it you know via technology nevertheless there's a cost associated
with that whereas when you can create alliances with key professionals they can give you bottom
of funnel high net worth clients who are ready to go now and so our whole model again is
is not only on helping them to have those leads,
but really moving away from being minimized
and towards being at the table with the state attorneys,
with financial advisors, with insurance agents, et cetera,
that when you can create alliances with those professionals,
you get your ideal clients and you don't have to chase them,
they come to you regularly.
Now, that's a sound bite right there.
Yeah, that was cracking the coconut.
Cracking the whip.
Cracking the whip.
Justin, it's, I mean, wow.
Obviously, you know what you're doing here,
But for those of you who are watching and really, if this is an epiphany for you, all I'm going to do is just salt and pepper this a little bit and just say that if you're acting like a commodity, you will become a commodity.
Think about how most highly successful service industries, not service industry, but service business people, whether it's financial, legal or whatever, the people at the top of their game typically get their business through.
relationships and they don't compete on price. Price is an issue only in the absence of value.
And if you walk through the value door into someone's life, then price really doesn't matter
because that's what you're seeking is someone who appreciates value. Justin, I know you have
some slides that you'd like to share with this. I just on your bookshelf back there,
I noticed that's the, is that the upstream model? Is that the book that's over your left shoulder
there?
It is, yeah. That's the book that I authored about three years ago in response to what I'd been applying for about 15 years.
And it's a way really teaches the higher level principles of how to create these alliances with these other professionals.
And it makes a case as to why you should, not just to get business today, but to really indemnify yourself against being in the crosshairs of big tech.
Right. Wow. I mean, it's fascinating to watch, and you described it so well. I've been in the industry about 30.
37 years and to see where it's come from and how lead generation worked then compared to now,
how, as you mentioned, you know, the big, big data, big companies have gotten into it.
And they really are trying to own that lead, you know, lead generation and lead conversion piece to make you just a door opener with very little value.
And this is, I mean, if you're, if you've never seen Justin before, I honestly haven't met him.
but I am just completely blown away with his understanding of what's going on in the industry right now.
Justin, you do have a few slides, I believe.
I just want to make sure, in deference to time here, that you get time to go through those and share.
I know you've got some great information here to share with our audience.
Yeah, let me just kind of walk through the economics of this.
We'll make a case that each one of these steps of the staircase, you can make
money. However, the higher you go, the easier the money is to earn and the more of it you can
earn. So this is really the path to 100 X your influence. By the way, our mission at Pro Insight is to
elevate your influence, elevating the influence of professionals. And so I'll start down at the
bottom. Again, there's nothing wrong. In fact, my admiration goes out to those that are willing to
pick up the phone and do 100 dials a day, make 20 contacts day after day after day, right?
Like that is, there's few things that are more noble than people that are willing to do that, even in the face of people not being very happy with you for doing it.
So this is in no way criticism.
It is, however, an invitation to consider potentially a better path.
So if you look down here, these bottom two steps, solicitors, let's start with solicitors.
Let's say that the average commission across the U.S. for a real estate agent is $10,000.
Okay, $400,000 house, two and a half percent commission, $10,000 commission.
Okay.
And on average, if someone were to make 100 dials a day, five days a week,
within two weeks or a thousand dials, they would produce one sale in their pipeline.
Okay, so two sales a month, that's a path that's been proven.
Okay.
The next step up, however, is one that you'll find is received with a little better conversion rate
because you're no longer soliciting to the unknown.
You're now soliciting to the known.
You're still selling, right?
It may sound like something, even that kind of a acute adage that we've heard say over and over,
which is, oh, by the way, I'm never too busy for your referrals, right?
And many of us think that that's very much a high level referral business.
And depending upon who you are and how you say it, it very well may be.
However, when you're showing up to get, to be a getter and to get customers, there's something about that that still is not as effective as it could be.
Being a vendor soliciting to people who know you is better than maybe soliciting to those who don't.
know you until again you run out of people or you realize that people don't always
love being solicited so there's there's there's that those first two steps are
what we call go getters right they're going out and they're getting customers
they're getting transactions every transactional and they get paid no doubt but
if you take another step up to that yellow step on the staircase here that's what's
called a connector these are people who are calling to give you'll notice above
that they're the go givers of the world right in there and because they're calling
to give people like that people there's a certain level of of of of respect and admiration people are
calling to say hey do you need to be connected to anybody a roofer plumber painter landscaper right that
there's there's there's value in that so you'll notice that the number of calls that you need to make
in order to get a transaction at solicitor was a thousand to one at a vendor was a hundred to one
okay at the connector level it's 50 to one because you're not calling to get you're calling to
give, people are more willing to take your call and listen to what you have to say.
So you're in more conversations.
At the end of the day, it is a conversation game.
And this one, you're able to get into more conversations.
And people are more willing to be in those conversations with you because you're coming from an attitude of giving.
The next step up from that is what we call an advisor.
Right now, this group is not just a liaison to value.
That's how we defined connector, somebody who connects you to all the people that you need.
And many real estate agents have made a great business around that.
Okay, but the next level up is an advisor, very similar to what you were describing C2, where you have a one-on-one conversation with a client, and they are blown away.
This is wildly more value than I expected to receive from my real estate agent.
You know your stuff.
You know our neighborhood.
You know the industry.
You know what it takes to get this home sold at top dollar, right?
That's truly an advisor.
professionals that rise to that level are able to secure a transaction in 25 calls or less.
Again, they fit into that same category as their go-givers and they get clients.
And as a result, they're well-paid.
They're not just paid, they're well-paid.
Now, most professionals, service-based professionals, real estate agents included,
assume that that is the very top, that that's as high as you can go,
is I'm a real estate wealth advisor, right?
I'm an advisor. However, at Pro Insight, we've, we've helped professionals to go to the final level,
which is they are directors. Think of like a board of directors where you're no longer working in a silo.
Okay, you are now bringing collaborative value. I'll give an example. If you are uber,
uber wealthy, you may have what's called a family office. For example, if you're worth, you know,
north of $50 million, you have your own real estate team, your own financial advisory team, your own
insurance team, you have enough assets to keep an entire team of people busy. And you get them
all to yourselves. They work collaboratively on your behalf. Now, the average consumer doesn't have
that privilege of that opportunity. What pro insight, we help to create that. And we teach professionals
how to work collaboratively. Now, I was just asked the question the other day, well, what's the
difference between a connector and a director? A connector does this. A connector says, oh, you need a professional.
Here's a card. You should call them, right? A director is asking inside that consult,
not just what what are you trying to do you know with your home or your real estate portfolio
but tell me why tell me what's next tell me tell me what comes after that they're anticipating
the professional that is going to be needed next and they're saying you know what I think it sounds
like where you guys are headed is it a really good tax advisor is going to be needed to give you
this proper advice do you have a great one like someone who's a nine or a 10 oh you don't okay
would it be okay if I introduced you to one?
Let's hop on a quick Zoom call, the three of us,
I'll update, I'll make an introduction,
I'll update this tax advisor that I recommend on your situation,
and then if you feel like it's a good fit,
I'll let you guys take it from there, right?
You can decide after that kind of 15-minute conversation,
if they're the right fit for you,
you guys can create an engagement at that point.
So that's what it looks like to be a director,
is that you're, in essence,
kind of sit on almost like a board of directors,
where you are somebody who is not just worried about making a buck in your silo or even taking care of clients at a very relational level in a silo.
But you are actively looking to identify who else is needed.
Bring them to the table, even if just briefly, make the introduction so that that client doesn't just see you for all things real estate.
They see you for all things financial.
And you're able to either work with their A plus players or even you're able to bring an A plus.
player that they're missing from their team. Now here's where this really gets interesting is because
it's not just about being well paid. Now you get to experience scale. And the definition of scale
is that work is happening without you being present. So as you begin to create these alliances with
these other professionals, they're now doing the same thing for you. So they're sitting in their
client meetings and they're not just saying what can I do within my silo of tax advisory work,
but they're saying, tell me what next year looks like.
You see, most tax advisors will ask the question,
did you buy or sell any properties in the past year?
We teach them to say,
do you anticipate buying or selling any properties in the upcoming year?
Now that tax preparer just turned into a tax advisor.
They get paid more.
Their works more stimulating.
And it just opened the door for them to bring you to the table
in the same way that you brought them to the table.
So now all professionals are elevated.
you're operating in a stratosphere that big tech can operate.
And the high net worth clients that we all want that are willing to pay for us and wait for us,
as C2 you identified,
there begins to grow a line of those people who want to work with us
because our value proposition is so unique.
Let me just share one more slide here that will put this into context for everybody.
Again, that group gets scale.
They become leaders, and they create your ambassador.
So if you were to go back now and look at the value of a call, right, a solicitor makes a thousand calls.
Again, 100 dials a day for two weeks.
Each call becomes worth $10.
Okay.
So $10,000 commission divided by a thousand calls, $10.
The vendor level, right, which was a step up, they're soliciting the people that they know.
They're only having to make 100 calls to get that same $10,000 commission.
So each phone call is worth $100.
Next level up, the connector.
level, they're only needed to make 50 calls because now they're leading with value, not there to get,
there to give. So same $10,000 commission and 50 calls is $200 per dial. Okay, the advisor role.
Again, this is more kind of requisite with what or more similar to what, you know, an attorney would
get paid, right? Now you're at that level where you make 25 calls to get that $10,000 commission.
In other words, you're getting paid $400 per dial. Now, this final level that we're introducing,
to your audience today is the director level where you make 10 calls and you have such a unique
value proposition and by the way these other professionals are making calls and as a result you're
bringing each other to the table all of the finding all the lead generation gets put into this
into this bucket which is is i'm simply brought to the table because i'm in such high demand because
my value proposition is so unique you now have you you're still making calls let me mind you this is
not a way to like a magic bullet where you don't have to make calls anymore, but your calls are
way more valuable. They're way better received. And because you only need 10 calls to get to that
10,000 commission, each dial is worth $1,000. Wow. Stop there for a sec. Do you guys have
yeah? No, I just it reminds me, you know, Gary Keller back in the day when I think,
oh, it must have been 20 years ago, something like that. I remember him saying, you need to
to act your wage, right, and do those high-level activities that are going to provide you the most.
And when we go through and we coach agents on our team, we'll have them fill out a calendar and
then put a dollar amount by the value of that activity.
And this really, that slide you had just explained it so well that being busy in this industry
does not mean that you're making money.
everybody has to work hard, but working smart and realizing that there is different value in the way that you apply yourself is huge.
So I hope people in the audience are really resonating with this and seeing the value of just having the discernment between those different levels and why it's important that you get to that point where you become a trusted advisor where
people seek your knowledge and again you said lead with contribution you know that is is
ultra-alter key in closing these days it's not to you know Glenn Gary Glenn Ross is you know
that's what a lot of people are going down that rabbit hole with you know the internet leads and
all that kind of thing but the leads don't suck yeah they use right but you know the reality is is that
if you look at your business like an ecosystem, like an aquarium that you have to feed and
you have to nurture and take care of, you know, you'll find that there are, you know,
definitely different levels that you can service your, you know, your clients and to be in that
esteemed position and the edification calls, all those things that you mentioned here,
Justin, are just pure gold. And I just don't, I mean, this fills a huge gap in terms of
the way most brokerages educate their agents,
especially the ones coming out of real estate school right now.
And I think I agree with you.
And, you know, one of the reasons why people don't do it is because it's actually,
if you don't do it correctly, it's hard.
Right.
Right, to go sit down with an attorney and try and explain to them,
hey, let's create an alliance here.
There's a disconnect because, and I don't mean this any disrespect to it,
to our industry or any others, but those professionals don't see themselves as
being equal to us. They see themselves as being professionally superior. I don't mean that from an
ego standpoint, but they believe that there's a fundamental difference in the way that they operate.
And I'll sum it this way is when I was authoring my book, I interviewed dozens of financial advisors.
And I asked the question, I said, how many opportunities do you have to refer a real estate agent every
year? The answer came back about 18, 18 softball opportunities. And yet almost none of them were actually
referred to an agent. They said, yeah, I don't really do that. I don't see the value.
but I do see the risk.
And I said, talk to me more about that.
And they said, well, we have clients and real estate agents have past clients.
In other words, you serve your clients as real estate agents for three months.
And we serve our clients for their entire lifetime.
Therefore, I don't really see how you have enough influence to bring them back our way or to keep them on plan.
Beyond the real estate transaction, I don't see how you could really benefit us or our clients much.
so it just seems like a risky maneuver for us to recommend a real estate agent, therefore we don't.
And so we have this like fundamental systemic difference in the way that they see themselves
versus us. And we all know that there are real estate agents out there that absolutely belong
at the same table. In fact, I would argue that good ones all over the country belong at that same
table. Not only do we manage oftentimes the biggest emotional asset that people own, but oftentimes
it's the biggest asset period that they own. Like why would we not belong at a table where they're
talking about, you know, the finances of a family. Like, why would a real estate agent not belong
at that table? Well, again, it's because that they, there's enough lack of professionalism in
our industry that they don't see themselves as being equal to that. So at Pro Insight,
we actually do something that becomes a paradigm shifting event. And it's called an expert panel
event. In fact, I'll share my screen here more time. This one event gives these professionals
the ability to see that they should have a real estate agent at the table with them.
So we host these events in every community across the country.
We're looking for a top agent like Stephanie Peck, for example.
She just moved to EXP Realty.
Stephanie was featured on a panel that Pro Insight hosted, promoted, professionally moderated.
So she came in as a star.
She simply pointed to some other professionals
in her community in front of who,
and she wanted to be featured in front of their database, right?
These are professionals that she wanted to collaborate with.
And so they agreed to be on the panel as well.
They shared in the cost of that panel.
And we were able to come in as a neutral,
independent third party and feature and highlight all of them
talking about this one topic, preparing for retirement
and uncertain times.
And the amazing thing is, is even before the event
started, Stephanie had four solid pieces of business that came from that, three listings and one,
$1.5 million buyer. She's like, these people were in my database, but they weren't responding to my
common communication of it's time to clean out your gutters or it's pie day, right? Nothing against
those. I think all of those fit in some place of keeping top of mind. But when you start to market
to your database as being equal to these other professionals,
all of a sudden, there's an echelon of people in your database
that start to see you differently.
Now, in addition to that, of just simply mining your database
through unique marketing for those kind of ideal clients,
these professionals, while they might have looked down at Stephanie
previously because she's in a less professional industry,
they were all looking at minimum looking at her as a peer, if not even as a mentor.
Because frankly, real estate agents are better marketers, right?
They're better promoting.
They're better speakers.
Like these professionals need real estate agents in their lives,
and their clients need them at the table co-collaborating with these other professionals.
These professionals just don't know it yet.
And so the way that we help cause that paradigm shift to happen is that, again,
we host this expert panel event. It's a virtual event. It's professionally moderated,
professionally promoted, not just organically, but actually we spend money to get the community there.
It's on a private Zoom call. And now you're featured in front of not only your database,
but the databases of these other professionals. They get to see you in action consulting their
clients and your clients. And all of a sudden, something shifts in their head. They're like,
dang this person is actually like me and my clients would be really well served if i could bring her
to the table every time there's anything real estate related in fact i'm going to start asking about
real estate related stuff because i kind of want this level of consultation happening in my
business so yeah uh justin this is yeah this is uh this is a strawberry jam on my bagel right now
uh i mean it really is fascinating um
I'll tell you what, you know, just again, in deference to time, we had a little bit of a late start today.
We've got about five minutes left.
I want you to just load it up and give us the full nine yards here, what you can do in five minutes.
And that would include anybody who's interested in contacting you to get more information and perhaps, you know, look into working with Pro Insight to put one of these networking events together.
let's just open the goody bag up and let them have it.
Cool. I love it, Cliff. Thank you for the opportunity.
You know, I think we all have a decision to make right now, which is what's the path that we're
going to follow? And really, there's really two clear paths. One is to play the game of big tech
in being and acting like you said as a commodity. And that is to continue to be marginalized
by these big platforms that, by the way, are able to own a screen better than we can.
simply by the sheer valuation and money that they can put behind it.
And as these younger generations come up and have more attachment to getting professionals
from a screen, this is only going to accelerate.
And we can move towards being a functionary of a big tech platform.
We already see it happening.
Some might argue we're already there by paying 35% to big tech firms to get our own
leads back.
We can continue to go down that path and continue to extend ourselves
and hire all kinds of support around the world in order to,
to help us to maintain top of mind.
And that's one path to do it.
And I think that there is, for those that do it at the highest level,
there's a business model there.
The other path that we believe in much, much more is to not play that game,
not get marginalized by big tech.
Now, we're not anti-technology.
We embrace technology.
In fact, we harness it.
We believe that we should ride, we should actually ride technology, not get overridden by it.
And so we leverage those tools, right?
One thing that we have within Pro Insight is the ability for clients to give us their database,
and we give them back all of the real estate assets owned by their clients to where now they have a number similar to a financial advisor who knows their assets under management.
Well, we can give our clients back their real estate assets under management to where now they are truly not just in kind of token title of a real estate advisor,
but they really are.
They really can look at that database.
For example, Stephanie, who you saw on this panel,
we did this asset tracking experience with her.
She had 800 people in her database.
She has just under a billion dollars
in real estate assets under management.
You realize what the financial advisor,
how he looked at her,
when he realized that she had
almost a billion dollars of real estate assets under management,
some of which is in the hands of people
who probably don't,
want to be holding much like much real estate assets anymore and many of that could be sold and
transferred into a kind of a passive account under their management like all of a sudden real estate
agents became the esteemed professional that everybody wants to be in business with instead of
maybe how they're seen now so our our invitation everybody is don't follow the path that
everybody else is following right the commoditized path come follow this path that will help you to
to have your influence elevated to where you can actually sit
and belong and be invited and welcomed
and encouraged to be at the table with the highest paid
professionals in our society, because that's where you belong.
And the first path to go along with that
is just set up a conversation.
Like let's talk about who you are, where you're at,
where your goals are.
Grateful for this.
And as you can tell, I'm super passionate about this,
that we see families all over the country
who are going on less and less and less.
They're being squeezed and they're having to work harder
and harder and harder.
In other words, instead of in order to put dinner, like food on their dinner table,
they're having to be away from their dinner table.
As a father of six children, that hits home to me because I know the most important work
that we'll ever do is within the walls of our own home.
And when we're out chasing less and less dollars with more and more time, that means
that we can't be in those environments where we're needed the most.
And so again, this is much bigger than business.
This is a mission for us to help professionals to rise above and be paid,
what they ought to be paid by adding the value that they ought to be adding.
You know, I love that.
We've created this own image ourselves and because low barriers to entry and just,
you see everybody's pulling out of NAR now and just a lot of turmoil in the area.
But still, it doesn't change how you can direct yourself and become a trusted advisor
just alongside the attorneys, the financial planners, anybody else out there.
Doctors, you know, this is a very honorable profession that we're in, and frankly, a lot of us make
more money than doctors do.
So there's no reason why you should consider, you know, being the commodity that some of these
other nameless companies like Zillow and others are trying to do.
Okay, Justin, I want to thank you, man, for being on the show today.
Blew me away, C3.
what do you think? Yeah, no, Pro Insight is something I'm definitely going to check out and see,
see what that's about. Yeah, definitely. So it's Justin at Proinside.com or you can always reach out
to us. We'll put some notes in YouTube is the best place to get. Cliffs channel, our channel.
It's CliffsNotes.com. TV. Watch us there and, hey, we're going to be back next week. So stay tuned,
same bat time, same bad channel. Next week. We'll see you on Cliffs Notes.
So tune in every Thursday. We're with you.
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