KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Values-Driven Success in Real Estate.

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Hey, everybody. I'm Kathy Burns, and I'm here with Real Estate Riches, and I'm so excited to have my guest, Carl Christian, today. And I think he's a man who lives by his last name. Good morning. Good morning, Kathy. It's so nice for having me. I'm like, I'm honored to be part of the show. And I'm so grateful that you're here. So we were talking a little bit before the show, and I said, boy, I did a little background on you. And you had a mission statement and a value statement. And it really struck a quarter. me, I went right away, sat down, and wrote my mission statement and my value statement, because it was so impactful. I wanted to do business with you. Wow. Thank you. It is very important to me that people understand their set of values. It's like somebody that says, oh, I have a lot of integrity, but your best friend, Robbanks for a living. We have a problem. And sometimes people are not paying attention to their values. So my rule is this. I have seven values that I live by. If you do not share

more than three of them, we are down. I'm not, I can't be in it with you. That's it. How do you have that conversation? Oh, I basically tell people, like if I hire an agent, the mission statement that you see, it's actually on my wall. And the minute I stopped, I thought talking to them, I say, everything is good. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. And I'm like, for a minute, please read this. And they read, of course, everybody's going to tell you, great. And I'm like, this is the only time of my life that you will ever see me judge you. By you missing those values. If you bypass four of them, that's it.

And really, I had to fire two agents in my entire career. And it was because they violated those values. And I want to tell you, at the nice agent, we do. have a value award. So every year, the person that respect those values and everything they do, they receive an award at the end of the year. Oh my goodness. I just love this. This is all about empowerment. That's what's on my, the license plate on my car. It's about empowering. I love this. I just want to, I tell you, I like to write away before we even met just because of that. What made you come up with a nice agent? What was that about? That's a funny story.

All right. So when I was hired by my first broker, his name is Brad Capuzzo, I owe him everything in my career. I'll give you the story so you know how it started. I read on the flyer that if you become a real estate agent, this guy can make your millionaire, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, sure, I got my license and I went to him. And he said to me, Carl, you are a tiger. And I'm like, what does that mean? He said, because when you latch on something, you never let go. I'm like, I heard that about myself. But, But how do you know that? Because you just met me. He said, no, I know you're going to be very successful. And I said, well, we have a problem. He was like, what's the problem? I don't have a car. Kathy, the man I just met 15 minutes ago,

put his hand in his pocket, take out his house keys, and says, go make money. At that moment, I know because I'm Christian, I'm not supposed to say that, but I did sell in my soul. At that moment, because I needed somebody. to believe in me. I was alone here. My parents are in Haiti. My brothers and sisters are in AD. I'm alone and somebody believed in me. And at that moment, whatever this guy says gets done. So he asked me to train the other agents and that's what I was doing. I was training the other agents. And guess what? One of them called me the nice realtor. And I'm like, well, I don't know

if I'm going to be able to stay for my entire life. I want to be a sports agent. So let me call myself the nice agent just in case I leave real estate. And 22 years later, I'm still in real estate. Wow. That's a wonderful story. I love it so much. I paid it forward. I actually hired him to train my agent. Now he's on my payroll. Oh my goodness. Look how life goes. You know what I heard in that story there was first of all, someone was trusting. He had a gut about you. He believed in you. He empowered you. and you were grateful. Always. Grateful.

Oh, I'm a big believer in gratitude. And so you gave your heart and soul to prove that his trust in you was worth it, right? Yes. Yes. That's a rare man right there. I like him too. He is. He's a great man.

I'll be honest. And one thing, he was not selfish. It's basically the way you go on a computer and you hit download. He downloaded everything he had in his. the head and put it in mind. And this was 22 years ago? Yes. Well, I've got to tell you, that was not my experience in real estate because for me, everybody

just kept their doors closed. They didn't share anything. And I promised him. I promised him I wouldn't do that. And I've never done that with one of my agents. And I'll be honest with you, one of my agent, he's going to probably listen to this one day. For me to pay it forward, I had to wait for somebody to be in the need of a car.

and for me to do that. And I've done it. It took me 17 years, but I've done it. And he needed it. I'm like, yes, of course, don't worry about it. This is that. Do what you have to do. Boy, I love this story.

Oh, I think I, we need to stay connected for life because I really like you guys. I do have a book out there. So if somebody ever know, yes, they can go read my book. It's the nice life of call Christian. Oh, I have that. And it's on Amazon. Yes, it is. Yeah, I researched you, buddy.

I love that you did that. Because you know what? People need encouragement today. This is a challenging market. It is. And just to know that there's people that will support you. And that's my mission. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the goal of why I'm doing this.

So I'm 73. You don't look like it. See, I love it. I got in this at 55 and I was broke. And I did, I could barely, I had a car, but I couldn't afford the gas to put in the car. I would jump in the buyer's car and say, I'll show you around town. I'll be the co-pilot.

You'd be the driver because I didn't have the gas. You'd get creative, right? I remember those. Yeah. And people didn't even think twice about it. And but what you have, and I can tell with that tiger mentality that he was talking about, you have grit, integrative grit. Because my clients never knew that I was starving.

And I'll bet yours didn't either. No, you can't. You can't. Because if your values are where the client, you're serving the client, that's how you are successful. I grew up with a mentality. Take money out of every equation. Ooh, love this. Everything is going to play out and everything is going to work well. The minute money drops somewhere, it just disturb everything. And so for me, whatever I do, I take money out of the

equation. If I want to show your property, if it's an $800 rental, a $8 million mention, it's the same values, the same call Christian. Nothing changed. And that's who I am. I just love this. I asked Chad TPT to help me today. Because I really want, I want to serve people on this channel, this podcast. I want, there's a 40 plus age group that's challenged with two challenges, how to run their business like a business. And also the technology is very overwhelming to this age group plus, right? I've been a techie all my life. So it's not as challenging other than the fact that my brain's a little older and it takes me a while to absorb things. But I freaking love it. And what are your thoughts about how someone in the age group

getting into this business or been in the business but struggling in this market? What did you think that is important for them to do? A lot of people keep thinking they have to reinvent the will. You're right. It's like I always bring back McDonald and Henry Ford. Henry Ford invented the system

where you put the car, the assembly line, right? Right. And McDonald did not reinvent it. They just basically put the assembly line into burgers. That's all they did. And a lot of times people get in the business because they are older, they think they know better.

And what they're doing is they're trying to reinvent the wheel. I don't need to make call calls because, hey, there's social media now. Oh, I don't need to post this because this guy posted this and that word. Find a system. Adapt to the system. Do it until it works. Then you'll make any changes if you want you. But a lot of us, what we're doing is, no, I want to do it this way instead.

I don't like this guy. Look at his billboard. That doesn't make any sense to me. How do you know? He's probably making a million out of that billboard. then you don't know. And that's what happened when I'm training my agents. They fight me over that all the time because they keep thinking their ways better.

I love that. And what are your thoughts on technology like AI and tools like this? I am afraid of it because I feel that one moment it's going to take over. Our job is on the line here. But I'm going to tell you, I'm the kind of guy that when I'm scared of something, I run towards it. So right now I'm using Charg-GPT. I'm using Jim and I. I'm using them all.

I just bought a series of bots for my social media because guess what? The longer I fight it, the worst I'll be at the end. So I'd rather use it, make as much as I can today. So if they happen to come for my job, at least I'm rich. Very good. That's the way you do it. So yes, don't fight it. Just use it.

The only thing is the word you said, overwhelming. everybody has an AI box. Everybody's selling something about AI. Find one, stick to it, get it to it. Yeah, because you can go down a rabbit trail. I have a little squirrel here that I have to remind me to stop going off on all these different directions because we all have a tendency to do it and social media can do that. Technology can do it.

And it's very important to pick it, but be cognizant of different changes. There's an email that I get daily called Ben's Bits. And it's all these different AI tools that just came out today. There's hundreds that come out. Oh, my God. That's a lot. And so what I do is I see the summary that he's got in the middle of his email of the latest ones. I see, will that have any value for me?

If I don't see a value in there, okay, it just goes in a folder. Definitely. Because I don't know. Because the videos and the pictures, the box. the bots that capture leads and put them through a fun. You need them. Those are powerful. And I was with a client today.

She said she's got new construction home. She was concerned about the footings that went in because the cement guy, her husband stays out at the new construction house every day watching what's going. And so if I were the crew, he'd probably drive me nuts. Well, the construction was poured with only one load of cement. they didn't have enough to do it all. It's a big house. It's a multimillion dollar house.

So he came back a couple days later when they dried and put it on top of the dry cement. So he's imagining this may not be good. I said, let's go ask chat GPT. And I used four. And I said, I put a prompt in there, who it was. It was a structural engineer. It was a cement guru. And I said, and I placed in, here was the story that happened.

What would be the consequences? What should I look for? Should I have a structural engineer come out? And what would the structural engineer look for? Boom. Gave it to me just like that. I shot it to her. And I said, here's your comfort zone.

And I did that on my phone while we were sitting in out at a coffee table. And that's comforting. You have to use it. Yes. You have to. If you don't, you're going to be left behind. Right. And look how I just leveled up in my client's eyes because I solved her concern immediately.

And I said, now, this is just the first step. I think you need to have a heart to heart with the contractor. I wouldn't go in like a fool. I'd go in, come, say my husband can't sleep at night. He feels like the whole house is going to crawl in. I said, this is a start. This will give you a comfort zone. You can get that structural engineering.

You can find this out. One thing, sorry to cut you up, but you know, one thing that I hear you said, it's your value, you cared. You know how many people, that she would say that to and they were like, oh my God, oh, wow. And they go about their business. Right. You cared.

That's to me what people are missing nowadays. They don't have values. Yes. Yeah. See, that's why I think you and I get along. You really empowered me yesterday. I'm freaking loving this. So, okay, great.

What about, because my mission is to really empower that age group only because I was honored to speak last week in Cabo, Mexico, in front of 900 agents. and my thing was to tell my story because I started much like you, nothing, moved to a new state. Wow, a new country. I was broke. I knew one person. I think I had one up on you, it sounds like. I knew one person.

And I didn't know what I was even going to do for a living, but you figured out, and then I got into real estate, and that was a blessing for me. But I see all these people in that audience, especially, that were 40 plus. and they're struggling in this market. And I had one man walk up to me. He was 65 years old. He said, Katie, you changed my life. I said, what? That was exciting, right?

He said, I really didn't see myself doing anything more. And he was a team owner, a team leader. And he said, I was kind of stale. He goes, you empowered me. And that's what I really want to do for a whole generation out here, that there's a lot of opportunity. there's people that can learn from our experiences and we can level them up. That's for sure.

And one thing that I want to push on people is coaching. A lot of us, we keep thinking that it's not necessary. We don't need it. I do believe in coaching because obviously we went to school because we didn't know much. Right. Imagine that you went to kindergarten and they tell you this is black and you said, no, it's white. And they left you like this. Problems would have started everywhere.

So this is something that I want to really push on people that find a great mentor, find a great coach, and stick to it. Because a lot of times we don't stick to things. Like Les Brown always say that. You were like at the one yard finish line and you turned back. Like I refuse to walk away from the one yard line. That's me too. I love him. He started preaching in an area that I lived in him from the Detroit.

area and I would go listen to him all the time. Love that man. I love that man. I love his passion. Right. Yeah, well, you're passionate. I'm passionate. We all click. Well, that's wonderful. I really appreciate you being on here and sharing some of those nuggets. This is called real estate riches. And that's exactly what I'm looking for. I know that in the beginning, a lot of agents don't have the money for coaching. I didn't myself. However, I figured out ways where I I would learn. Thank God today, we have you too. You can go get nuggets. A lot of these coaches give away a lot of stuff in the beginning. And then now you're starting to profit from it, right? And now you can afford to hire them. And you can do it in baby steps. And I think that's the important thing. Don't get so overwhelmed that you can't do something. You can.

And read a lot too. If you can't read, listen to Audible, read a lot of books because there's a lot of information. like one of my favorite book that changed my life, the In Meth Revisited. That's the one that literally changed the way I was working because I was that my broker used to call me the flea market agent. What is a free market agent? You get paid $5, you spend $4 and you struggle with that $1. I mean, that's a free market agent, never changed.

And with Emith, it made me realize that I needed structure. I needed to know that my business has departments, And today we have a marketing department. We have an accounting department. We have a lead generation department. We have everything that we're supposed to have. And that makes it a true business, not a one-man show. Yes, that's powerful. I'm going to get that. I've listened to that years ago, but I'm going to get that back. That's good. One of my favorites is the power of consistency by Weldon Long. Really good. I haven't. I'm going to try that one. Yeah. And his story is amazing too because he was a criminal. in federal prison and how he turned him life around with personal development by doing books

just like that and getting on a path. I'll tell you my story. So you understand. And a lot of people, I'm just giving away part of the book, of course. But in 2005, of course, the market boom, 2004, 5, and 6. And I made a lot. I bought myself 14 rental homes plus my million dollar on high property, got my Lamborghini. I was doing great.

I was 25 years old. Oh, my. Like a not married, no kids. I'm living their life. And then 2007 happened. And from there, I had no idea what to do. And I'm going to tell you, I lost it all. The reality for me was driving that car back.

And then at that point, I'm like, whoa, here I am. And guess what? Why if you got pregnant, 2008? So now everything is going down. And I'm going to tell you, at that moment, depression came in, not going to lie. And I decided that it was my fault. Everybody was telling me it was the market. Everybody was telling me it was the market banks, but I decided it was my fault. So from there, coming from a background of a DJ, I decided to sacrifice music from my life.

I stopped listening to music for like probably two years. And we placed it with Les Brown, Eric Thomas, Jimran, and then And books, I did two years of that. And I'm going to tell you, even the way I spoke, change. Sure. Then the way I think, then the way I started acting. And then that was different. I love this story. Oh, my God. You're my kind of guy. But I admire what you're doing, though. I really truly admire it because when I hire agents in my office, I see the struggle. I do see it. After 40, the dream. The dream. is not the same because they don't want to admit it, but they do feel like, oh my God, why did I do in my life?

Yeah. And then because they're thinking that way, it's stopping them from doing anything. And from there, they need someone like you, someone like me to push them to make them understand that, hey, KFC started at 60 years old. Come on, we got this. Right? Oh? Yes.

I really agree. I had a sucker punch hit in the 90s where I got personally sued for fraud. by our best friend. And I was the innocent one. And I was so devastated by it. And after the attorneys got done with me, I believed I was the bad guy after seven hours of depositions. And I went from making $60,000 to $10.

Single mom with two kids to raise. I thought I was going to lose my house, my car. I didn't get child support. And I was scared. And but it was a gift. And that's what I look at. It was a gift, right? Turn my life around.

Kathy, if they asked me right now to go back to 2008, you guess what I'm going to say? Bring it on. I do not regret a minute of it. I want it back because the men that I am today, maybe if I go back again, I'll be 10 times better. So I'm in. So what I'm asking everybody that is listening to this,

if you're going through a hard time, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with that and you are not alone. Right. It's just getting out of it. Yes. One of the tips that they showed us was think of yourself like a yo-yo. You throw that yo-yo down. It's spinning.

And you can stay down there and just die, basically. Or you just tweak your little finger and you pop back up and you pick yourself up. You start on those personal development books because that's the path that I got on to. And I became a born-again Christian. I changed my whole walk in my life. Everything has been outstanding. So I see the sucker punches. Yes, I can get knocked down.

But I'm going to find that gift in there. I'm going to find it because it's there. Yep. That is great. I believe that. I love the fact that people have to understand they can get back up. And right now for me, it's not like I expect to fall. It's I have no problem falling.

Yes. And this is when you get into that mindset, everything changed. Like my agents will be called. like, oh, there's no closing for two months. It's okay. I did 14 months. You know, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just we got to find a way to tweak things and then get them better, get them better. And that's what it is. Yeah. You figure it out. You figure it out. You do it without anxiety. And it's doable. Yes, it is. It's, the anxiety is living in a past, living in the future, sorry. Anxiety is living in the future that you don't know what it's going to be. Depression is living in the

past that you refuse to let go. So the only way for you to find true joy, live in the moment. Yeah. That's it. Well, Carl, thank you so much for being here. Where are you at? I didn't even I am right now in Wellington. I'm in Wellington, but we do operate from Pembroke Pines, Florida. We cover Orlando, Florida as well and a little bit of Naples. Okay, great. I'm up in the Charlotte area, so we can be referral buddies. Of course, definitely. I would love that. Okay, great. Thank you again so much. Thank you for me. It's been wonderful. Thank you.