KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Transitioning from Medicine to Real Estate Success

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Summary:Andrew Ricks, a former Doctor of Physical Therapy, joins Kevin Kaufmann to discuss his rapid transition into real estate. Ricks emphasizes the importance of "burning the bridge"—selling his medical practices to ensure he was fully committed to his new career. The episode provides tactical advice on moving from automated lead generation to intentional, manual relationship building. Agents will learn how to leverage past professional spheres, overcome imposter syndrome, and implement post-close systems that position the agent as a long-term "home advisor" rather than just a transactional salesperson.

Welcome to Next Level Agents, the podcast that's all about breaking barriers and building empires. I'm Kevin Kaufman and together with my crew bringing you straight up fire. Interviews with top tier agents, game changing thinkers, plus the strategies and mindset shifts to dominate in real estate. Whether it's personal growth, leadership packs, or next level tactics, we've got you covered. So tell me, what does the next level look like for you? Buckle up because we're about to take you there right now. Andrew Ricks, welcome to the Next Level Agents podcast. Well, I appreciate you having me.

Yeah, it's great to have you here. I'm really excited for this conversation today because you and you and I've known each other for a little while now. When I first met you, I don't even know that you were officially in real estate. You were kind of on the cusp of getting into real estate, maybe. And what you've created in just a couple short years is really, really remarkable. I appreciate that. Yeah, no, when we met, I had no intention of getting into real estate. your buddy Travis from Georgia had invited me to the in LA conference and I thought it'd be a good

opportunity because I know Pace Morby was speaking over there and with my background in investing, I was kind of curious to hear that and I'm not too far from this or not. But the overall, I'd say the intention coming into it wasn't necessarily that I was walking away from that conference to be a realtor. And three and a half weeks later, four weeks later, I was fully licensed and ready to go. Yeah. Well, I think, A couple things. First of all, you were open to opportunity. And I think that distinguishes you from a lot of people. All of us as human beings, it's easy to get set in our ways and easy to get comfortable in what we already know. And you had some experience in real estate as an investor. But we're working in a completely different profession at that time. So talk a little bit about that and what you were doing. Yeah. So I was a physical therapist. I've got my doctor of physical therapy. I graduated in May of 2017. My wife Morgan and I moved across the country. within a few days of graduate and get married and moving to Arizona. And luckily was set up by some mentors to run PT clinics out of the country clubs here

and did that for a few years and really enjoyed that, but had been dabbling with real estate investing on the side. And eventually that just became more of my focus. And as the medical fields changed, I saw that how that fit my life and my family and my earning potential just didn't quite align with what I had planned for the next 30, 35 years of my life. And I was looking for something different, but I don't know that I was actively seeking it out

when the opportunity smacked me in the face. And that's one of my kind of strengths is that I take chances and I just go with it. So Travis invited me to NLA and got licensed, had four or five months before my busy season ended at the PT clinics and was able to wind those down and kind of tiptoe into real estate until June of 2024. What I think is really distinctive about what you've done is you came from what would certainly be a respected career in medicine and that was making a really good income and had a great career trajectory where you were, but realized, hey, this isn't going to fulfill all the things that I want.

And you came into this looking at it like a professional. It wasn't an optional thing for you. It wasn't like a fallback career choice. this was something that you came into with intention to build a business, a legitimate business. Yeah, I had, I think when I closed the PT practices and sold those off to John, I think I still had three months until my next renewal for my PT license. And I definitely heard it from a lot of people, oh, you should just keep your license. You should keep that just in case things don't go well.

I think if you leave that bridge, if you leave that optionality, then it prevents you from going all in and I've joked a few times with people that I'm too poor not to not to do this well like I'm I'm still 35 I've got a lot of goals ahead of me and and I'm not at the end of my career just looking to dabble on the side so it was it was very much from the beginning how do we take this and really do it well how do we serve our clients well how do we build this and and I haven't really found that rhythm my wife would tell you I haven't found that rhythm that's the perfect fit for the client's family, everything yet. We're at that point two years in to where we're starting to try to figure out what systems work now that we've got a pretty steady base of the

business and how do we make that all match? But yeah, we came into full guns blazing and trying to figure it out one mistake at a time. Yeah. How was it in the beginning? A little bit slow going compared to the momentum. You've started this year with a lot of momentum and we'll talk about that. but how were the first six months of that transition? That's a great question. I would say, I mean, it was a lot slower. I had to build. I got really lucky with my first opportunity.

I closed my first deal June 27th, I believe. So only like, I don't know, maybe one month after even the clinics. But that was a lucky thing. I was running for three or four months. I thought real estate was going to be easier than it was. So for the three months prior to closing down the PT clinics, I was running a few different ad sets online. and just thought that if I paid some third-party company to work those leads for me

and occasionally also picked up the phone every once in a while around my other schedule, that I'd have five deals done by the time I left the PT practice. And that couldn't have been further from the truth. But I was fortunate that I did have one deal close in June. It took me about a week later, like five hours after my wife gave birth or a second kid. I was on the phone. Somebody had been working that same lead. from called me and said, hey, we want to use you to list the house and when can you be here.

So I'm over there trying to be a new dad and enjoy that moment, but also going, hey, I can't pass up this opportunity. Like, I've got a, I've got a second kid right after leaving the only source of income for our family. And I've got to jump at it. So it was starting off one deal a month, then no no closings for two months, then two deals, then one, then two. So I pieced up, but what I've really struggled with early on is understanding how much you have to put into the marketing, how much the client retention and client acquisition matters in this business. So I really wasn't pursuing that as much as I am now. That's the biggest difference from my business now versus two years ago. So you realized early on you couldn't out.

outsource lead generation, that that's a contact squirt. For sure. And you had to be plugged into that. What's shifted for you in the way that you run your business now? You know what? I still run the same ads, but I took out a lot of the automations or the third-party services. You know, we make great money do what we do. And our clients now have access to a lot of the resources that used to be,

something that was a proprietary bit of information for realtors. Right. So the focus for me is how do we provide that service? And that starts from Lejeon. Like, what we're calling, I'm not automating that away. I'm not trying to remove myself from that process yet. Maybe one day that my philosophy on that changes. But what I've seen as far as the success goes is really being a lot more engaged,

a lot more intentional with those that are giving us the opportunity to serve, and then making sure that it's part of my daily rhythm. It doesn't matter what else is going on. We're going to get on the phone from 9 to 10, 10 to 11. If I miss that hour, I'm going to hop on the phone from 2 to 3 and make sure that I'm following up and being intentional about that part of the business. So you're very on purpose in making those calls,

nurturing relationships, prospecting for new business, consistently every single workday. I'd love to say every single workday. I would definitely say I'm probably 90, 95%. But yeah, that's a big focus. And I can feel the, because I went through the swings last year, I sold seven or eight homes in the first two months and was off to a pretty hot start. And then all of a sudden, mid-March came and I realized I had nothing in the pipeline for April and May.

And that intentionality of even though business is going well, making sure you have that outlook of how do we, how do we prevent that turn? And so it's one of those that if I'm missing those calls, if I'm missing those dials, the anxiety serves to build, even if everything's going right and the numbers look great for closings,

because we're a hundred-day cycle. That was one of the first things I learned to get into business, is any work I do today is going to, best case scenario is it's going to lead to closings in three months. So you can't rest on your world with the activity and the performance from today. because all that work that got you to today has already been done. Yeah, that's so true.

Yeah. I'm glad that you're really intentional about that, though, because I think the way that you frame that is very true. The sweat equity from today is actually producing your results down the road and finding a way to fit that in even when you get busy. And it does get difficult because you're trying to serve your clients at a high level. And I've been in this business for a little while, having kids at home, and you're trying to balance being a good dad and a good husband and a good family man

and do all those things at the same time. Is that your number one priority in your business day other than maybe responding to an active client need? It's one A and one B. So I have just as much focus and intentionality on providing excellent service. And that always is going to probably prioritize. So when I say I don't hit my dials,

it's because I have some client service issues that I need to put more priority in. So I would definitely say I lean more of that round, but I understand that I'm doing that with that being also a client investment. I'm fortunate now less than two full years into the business where I've had, I don't know, six or seven the referrals, we just closed one yesterday. And so that level of service, I look at that as an investment in two new clients as well, because when I'm buying leads online, I'm paying close to five, six hundred bucks per

transaction right now with my lead costs. So if I were to spend that extra time and that's what equity with clients and then that leads to more business, then I look at that as the client acquisition as well. Yeah. What do you see as the cornerstones of excellent service for an agent that's maybe looking at their business now and saying I need to elevate the level of service. I'm providing my clients. What does that look like for you? Ooh, that's a great question. I think in a recent transaction really made me think about this little different. differently, but the number one service that we can provide today is safety. How do we make them feel safe about Air Phoenix?

A decent size, a decent home in a good area is going to cost you half a million bucks. Right. Which is kind of crazy to say these days that that's an entry level home in a lot of spots. Yeah, a lot of first-time buyers are shopping in that price range. Yeah. Oh, God, I've had two more. No, so I've had two first-time home buyers buy 800 or a lot this year. Yeah.

It's pretty wild. So how do we make them feel safe? we make their money go further and how do we protect them during that decision? So that's number one. Number two is exceeding their expectations. So when we see an issue during inspections or something that can't get covered, I've got my handyman. I've got my contractors that it's really easy for me to call them and say, hey, I want you to take care of this at close and we're going to bang off four or five of these items that were potential issues that can avoid a leak to. down the road or some other issue,

and how do we sneak that in so that they are kind of surprised by the levels of attention that we're putting in. Lastly, stay in touch. Don't go through the transaction and feel like, well, I haven't talked to them forever. Right. I was talking to another professional today, and I said, working through, I'm going through a few acquisitions and refinances myself right now, and going through these different processes,

but this point in the process, it's been four or five days and I have no update. Yeah. And as somebody in the business, it's reflected to me that those times that I didn't call, I didn't give a check in, I didn't say, hey, nothing's happening right now,

but I want you to know that that's on purpose, or this is what we're waiting on, or this is what we're expecting, staying in touch so that there's never that fear of what am I missing? Yeah. Huge different. Because there is a lot of anxiety in the process for the consumer.

And to your point, just checking in, how are you feeling about things? Is there anything you have questions about right now? Even if you don't have any updates to report, just the proactive communication, making them feel like a priority, making them feel acknowledged and that you're aware of what they might be experiencing is critically important. For sure. And one of the biggest things that we can do is we can predict and we can forecast what's coming next. And so automatic check-ins when we get inspections done, sending off that email that says, congrats, here's what you can expect next.

Or things like that. So those can be automated touches. You don't have to necessarily be on the phone having that conversation three times a week. But you put a system in place for that. Exactly. Yeah. How did you develop that system? Oh, man.

I copy my way to success. So I'm surrounded by great people here at EXP, Avo, Aounisian, one in particular that I've taken a lot of his models from. Yeah. He had this playbook where we have automations built out. And we use a Flowdesk for, I don't know, six or eight touch points through each transaction, both prior to contract, after contract, and then after closing how we communicate for the next two to three years. And a lot of that's just automatic check-ins through there, small little gifts that some of the title partners have been sending me these coupons that then I go,

how am I getting this mailer every month? Yeah. And how do I build that in and make it a thoughtless for me? I'm not doing it, but a thoughtful thing that makes the client feel like, hey, he's still thinking about me. Yeah, I'm important. Yeah. I think that's really, I think that's really key.

So how long did you take to build and install those systems in your business? Way too long. Yeah. It's stuff that day. one you could be doing, but I would say really that change happens at some point around the one year mark. And did it take you 100 hours to build the system? Oh, it's always building.

Yeah. Yeah. So the initial footprints probably took a few days to work on tweak, everything like that, but I was pretty lucky to have templates to work from. But I know Morgan, my wife, my quality control went behind me and said, you've messed this up, You never changed this. You did. So there was a lot of help to get me there.

And now it's always what else can we add? So today a conversation was going on. How do we remove that empty space between, all right, we've got through the inspections. We've got through the Benzer. And now we might have two or three weeks still closing. And how do we fill that void? Or if you have a longer one, 60 days, 45-day close, and you're done with everything else in the first 15 days. How do you stay at touch? How do you stay engaged? How do you help them prepare for being a homeowner or for whether it's the first time, the fourth time, the tenth time, help with that process, help with contractors. Here's the list of people that might help you if you want to put in epoxy floors or if you need to go in and put a new water software in. So providing value throughout the whole transaction. This is one of the things that I love the most about how you approach the business, because I think you always ask purposeful and intelligent questions. You always

always ask that in rooms or if you're looking for help or if you're looking for a resource, but also you're doing that introspectively in your business. And I feel like that's where a lot of business owners, not just real estate agents, but entrepreneurs, small business owners, they miss that part. And that's the differentiator between transactional and relational. If all you're doing is filling out a contract and checking off a few milestones in the escrow process and getting to closing and collecting your check, then you're a transactional agent. but what you're building is a relational, repeatable system that's going to bear long-term fruit. And I asked you, did it take 100 hours to do that?

And you shared what I wanted people to hear. I found a blueprint. I asked for help. I followed the blueprint. I tweaked it. I put another set of eyes on it for feedback, all brilliant. And you rolled up your sleeves and invested a couple days out of your entire year. And you're doing a fair amount of business.

A lot of agents that would maybe say they don't have time for that or not, doing the level of business that you are. So I just really respect that that you've done that early in your career and early in your business growth cycle. And I think you're going to reap the rewards of that for a long, long time. As would anybody who follows your advice. Well, I say it again. I've been fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of great mentors.

And so guys that were two years, three years ahead of me in the business, what were they doing that made them so successful? And how can I copy that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. and then put my touch on it. That's a great thing about this business is that there's so many different ways to build it. And if you're going to be the PPC guy that's just hammering out calls,

if you're going to be the open house guy doing five of those a week, if you're going to be the guy that's doing weekly seminars, there's so many different ways. So the data in real estate is so clear on which avenue you choose. Here's what the market data says. You have to talk to this many people. you're going to close this percent of deals, you're going to do whatever, and then taking your average commission to backfill the pipeline. So you know what kind of business you need to make

to live the lifestyle you want to live, and then just find ways to make that easier for yourself. So I've been fortunate to make a decent amount of money these first two years, but one thing that I never focused on. And I think that's the big mistake talking to some of the newer agents that I talk to is I never focused on what is the commission per deal per transaction because the biggest thing I think new agents can do is get as many deals under their belt so they have as many potential referral sources as possible because those referrals are free. They're pretty dang close to it, right? And actually they're going to be the easiest conversions. They're going to be the I think the most rewarding transactions you do in general.

And so how can you, even if it means you're doing a bunch of things, of rentals up front. If you're doing a bunch of, I closed, my second deal ever was a referral that I think I got paid 500 bucks for, you know, and now they're ready to buy a hole. I've done a few others. So don't put your need for money up front ahead of your need to serve your clients. And you're going to read the rewards from that two, three years on the road. How many deals can you get under your belt in that first three years? I guess there's probably pretty good statistics that says if you if you do 20 deals in that first year, here's what your expected success rate is and your career in real estate.

Right. Because you want to build that momentum fast and early. Well, there's a big difference to your point, between chasing checks or building business. And you invested in building a business from the start. Did you pursue the path that you thought would drive revenue the fastest when you started or did you intentionally choose things that you felt were aligned with you and how you operated and what would be a good fit for your personality and how you wanted to work in the

business. No, I had a lot of imposter's center at first. Being from across the country, moving out here, a lot of my sphere that I came into, a lot of people say, focus on your sphere first. My sphere was people with net worth of $10 million to a billion dollars working at the country clubs. And so it wasn't easy for me to call my sphere and say, hey, how would you feel about me listing your $2 million, your $4 million home? Yeah, I helped you walk again last year, but this year I want to list your ass. Yeah, I was working on your Bersitus a few months ago. And now can I be the listing agent or your buyer agent for your next acquisition? So I had a lot of imposter syndrome from that was trying to just build a case for why anybody should trust.

to me as a realtor. And a lot of that early on was first time old buyers or were people that had like an investor mindset with my background flipping a few houses, buying a few rentals. So I would say that I don't know that I leaned into what was the best ROI as much as I looked at how can I, how can I get as much experience as I can? And I don't really care where it comes from. I'm just going to put myself out there as many ways as I can. You wanted to build a foundation of credibility that you could grow from and build from. For sure? Yeah.

And now you are working with clients that used to be part of your PT practice. For sure. Yeah, unfortunately, I've got a great listing up there now. It's a $1.9 listing. I've helped two of them close deals on purchases. And I've got two listings up there. One's on we're negotiating on. So it's been a kind of a cool full circle moment.

And do you think that that was more, your own mindset shift and self-belief and getting over that imposter syndrome, or was it now I've established myself as I'm credible in this industry so they can trust me or would choose me? I'd say both. Okay. The first gentleman that hired me, he called me on New Year's Day and said, hey, we're looking at downsize it. But this is a guy that I've been treating for years.

he'd become... Wait, and called you on New Year's Day. That's a holiday. Yeah, I don't care. See? He did apologize, and he said, hey, go ahead. If you're with the family, I know you probably are, like, go ahead and apologize to Morgan for us, but we're looking to downsize.

We went and looked at a few houses over here. We have one that we really want your opinion on, and we'd like to kind of give you the chance to earn our business. Great call. It was a great call. Yeah. How much of that, did that take up out of your... day just out of curiosity.

Less than an hour. Less than an hour. Yeah. Goodly trying on that hour. I would say, I think that that closing was probably my best or was my highest commission so far. Yeah. Amazing. And then we are listing that's one of their houses is for sale.

And so that would be the second greatest commission. So yeah, ROI on that's huge. But you took the call on New Year's Day. I took the call. I'm not in door. I'm not saying people should. beyond 24-7 because I don't think that that's the right answer either. But I think that one of the top complaints in our industry,

whether it's from agents or from consumers, is people just picking up their phone and being responsive and answering and being accessible. What people think about is I left the, I stopped treating Kim two years ago, twice a year without fail. We went out to lunch. I was calling him, hey, let's go.

We're talking about this. I was asking him advice just because he ran successful businesses for years. So he's been a mentor to me for years. And he's been following my emails when my first set up a new email chain to send out my monthly newsletters, he was the first one after probably four months of sending them out. He said, hey, just so you know, 95% of people probably are getting this in spam because of the type of it was heavy email. Do you have too much graphics in it?

Yeah, too much graphics. and the text block didn't come in as a text block. So it didn't show up as any right to most email providers. So he sent that to me and I was able to make that tweak. And so he's been engaged behind the scenes watching me. So then when he made that call, then he said, hey, here's what we're looking at. Here's what we're thinking about. What do you think about this price, everything?

It's not like I didn't give him anything. He wasn't the only one giving me the opportunity. We ended up securing that deal for $35,000 less than what they were willing to pay. and then got 50,000 between closing costs and concessions, as well as then leading them through the inspection of process, what were their rights, what were the rights after closing and going through and walking them through the 10-day inspection afterwards, finding the fact that when the wind blew,

there was a gas leak that was blowing the fumes back into the garage and how to deal with that warranty problem. So it's one of those that if this same scenario presented two years ago, And he took that chance on me. I don't think that would have been prepared. I would have known what I know now. So staying in touch, building that relationship. I didn't realize that at a time, but that was kind of that sphere connection.

Yeah. Well, you nurtured the relationship and built a relationship even before you're in real estate. And I think that probably anybody that's stepping into real estate or starting out, or even if they've been in it for a while and they need to kind of reset and rejuvenate their real estate business. just being genuinely interested in people and caring and then having the desire to grow and to learn is such a differentiator. Yeah, I don't know that it feels like work to me

to have the conversations and to connect. What's tough for me in this industry is remembering to focus on the business aspects. So when you say, what do you have to build the systems for? It is the making sure I reach out and call. But when I'm on the phone, I love to chat. I love to hear about their family.

I love to dive into all that. So that's natural for me. But the intentionality of making sure I have a process behind it and it not feeling fake is the hard part. Yeah. I think the system in the process is key because none of us are great at a multitude of things. Most of us are great at a few things. And if part of your greatness is connection with people and genuine curiosity and it brings you fulfillment and it brings you joy and that's

part of the business that you love. There's probably some other area like there is for all of us that you're not great at. And so systematizing that or outsourcing it or having leverage or putting those things in place to make sure that runs. Just because it's not our strength, doesn't mean it's not a necessity of the business. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's been exposed to me 10 or 15 different times and I'm a slow learner, but I'm getting there. And so, every few weeks, the systems that I've been building, it's one of those like, oh, crap, you haven't made the progress unique towards that. So how do we revisit it?

And you're always going to be tweaking stuff. I know, I mean, I'm going to be tweaking stuff until the day I retire, right? But early on, I think the biggest thing is don't be scared to try something. Take that chance, take that risk, because that forward momentum is going to propel you a lot further than waiting until everything's perfect. Yeah, great advice. This has been an awesome conversation. As we close out, what does the next level look like for you?

Oh, that's a tough one. We've been building some more listings, so I'd like to get more consistent with having two or three listings going out of time. But I really enjoy the volume that I'm working at right now, four to five clients, close in a month at least and everything like that. But I think the next thing is how do we? take that level. And I think this whole industry has to have this recognition is how do you stop just being a realtor and how do you take that and really encompass being the full advisor?

We've got the contractors. We're going to coordinate this care for you. We're going to coordinate all this so that we can remove all that stress and that headache from your plate. And so we're really focusing on building that out right now and making sure that even after close, even after our agency agreement ends that for the next 10 years, whenever anything goes wrong with the house, then they call me. And that's been a tough pill. I had, I think my seventh, eighth deal. They weren't super thrilled with one or two things after.

But always taking the call, always being the guy that gave them some advice and some resources. I'd much rather be the one that can be the solution. Yes. I can't troubleshoot every problem in advance, but how can I continue to be a solution for the next 10 years? Yeah. So we're trying to build that out. I think organically, I don't need to grow any bigger than where I'm at these last five or six months transaction, but how can I provide an elevated level of service? Yeah. Well, you are, and I know you'll continue to lead in that and continue to evolve. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. That's a wrap for this episode of the next level agents. I'm Kevin Kaufman, and we've just draw some serious heat.

with my crew to level up your real estate game. What does the next level look like for you? Subscribe to the podcast now so you don't miss a single strategy and head over to next levelagents.com. Check out our events tab so you can find out all the information on our next virtual and in-person mastermind calendar. Let's keep this momentum rolling.

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