No Broke Months For Salespeople - Golden Handoff Second Edition - Partial Handoffs

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Nick Krautter is the author of The Golden Handoff: How to Buy and Sell a Real Estate Agent’s Business and a top Realtor since 2006 in the Portland, Oregon market.  Nick is an avid golfer, writer, reader, talker, and still gets up early, excited about what each day holds. Join us this episode as Nick talks about the Second Edition of his book, Golden HandoffYou can find Nick by clicking these links below:The Golden Handoff WebsiteLinkedInInstagram To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

You know, the biggest hurdle I had in buying businesses, Dan, was I would talk to people and they go, that's a great idea, but I want to keep selling or I want to keep doing a little of this or a little of that. And my model didn't really have a place for that. And now we've got kind of three different pieces of partial handoff, three different ways to do it, main ways to do it. And I think that it's going to expand this opportunity to five times as many agents. consistent and predictable income. We reveal the new way to persuade human behavior by mastering the art of the teach-to-sell method. Get ready to transform your approach and achieve unparalleled success. Nick Crowder is the author of The Golden Handoff, How to Buy and Sell a Real Estate Agent's Business and a Top Realttor since 2006 in the Portland, Oregon market. Nick is an avid golfer, writer, reader, talker, and still gets up early,

excited about what each day holds. Join us this episode as Nick talks about the second edition of his book, Golden Handoff. Hello, friends. My name is Dan Rochon. I'm the host of the No Broke Months for Salespeople podcast, where you learn how to teach to sell, which is the new way to persuade human behavior. And when you teach yourself, you're going to unlock consistent and predictable income. You're going to strengthen relationships to achieve self-fulfillment, and you're going to avoid the number one sales mistake to never face rejection again and learn how to use normal linguistic programming to influence and handle difficult people.

Welcome to the show. My friend, Nick Crowder, who's going to talk to us about the Golden Handoff, edition number two, Partial Handoffs. And Nick is the author of the Golden H golden handoff that's this book right here i had to go uh over on my bookshelf right before we started talking to go grab my copy of it uh and you know hey guess what i got an autograph copy just saying thank you for that nick and um you know how to buy and sell real estate agents business and he's uh and uh top realtor he's been a top realtor in the Portland, Oregon market. Avid golfer writer. He's got a few different books out.

And I want to hear more about those as well. Talker and still gets up early and excited about what each day holds. Welcome, Nick. How are you? I'm good, man. Good to see you as always. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm glad to be able to do this. Nick and I have known each other for quite some time now, a few years, and become relatively close. And it's an honor to have you on here. So the golden handoff. So maybe, Nick, start to us what the golden handoff is. And then maybe we could transition into version two.

Like what caused you to write a second edition? And what's the difference between version two and version one? You got it. Great question. So like you said, I've been in real estate since 2006. And I worked my butt off 14 hour days, six, seven days a week for years to build up my client list from four people to 200. And between 2006 and 2010, I went from zero to 200 clients. And I was on top of the world doing great. And then the recession hit. So 2008, we get kind of walloped out here in Portland. And 2010, a lot of really good realtors start getting out of the business. And there's a woman next to me named Renee, awesome broker, works by referral,

good friend of mine. And she's getting out of the industry to get kind of a corporate job with benefits and like a quote unquote normal schedule. She had had her second kid and the work in real estate hours was just not working anymore. So I said, hey, I'd love to help you. And six months later, we start working together. And that's the first business where I adopted clients from another agent. So basically what happens is you find someone that is getting out of the business for whatever reason, retiring, changing careers, moving to across the country, taking a sabbatical, whatever it is. And the adopting agent, which is what I've been most of my career, jumps in and says, hey, I want to help out all your clients and I'm going to take care of them just like they're my own clients. And the retiring agent endorses you. There's a letter that goes out. You do social media, you do emails, you do all the things to let people know what's going on and why. And then you take over. So I spend

thousands of hours building up my client list to 200 people. And then in one day, it went from 200 to 500 because Renee handed me a client list of 300 people. She'd been in the business eight years. And so all of a sudden, this light bulb goes off. And I'm like, wow. Everyone says they want to work by referral. But the problem is you can't grow it enough. You can't grow it fast enough. Because you're thinking one referral equals one client. And all of a sudden, I basically did a referral agreement for 300 clients in one shot.

And I was just like, holy smokes. Crazy opportunity. And it showed up in one shot. And I was just like, holy smokes, crazy opportunity. And it showed up in my business. We went from, you know, doing 12 million to 25 million in sales. And this is back when houses were $200,000 each. Reminder, you and I have been doing this a while. 25 million to 50 million, basically in today's terms, pretty much. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. In one year, just bang. It wasn't like you went from first year to second year. I went from first year to fifth year. And all of a sudden, I had to hire a bunch of people.

I went from having just an assistant to two assistants and a couple of buyers agents. Eventually, I had a team of 12. And so then I started buying more businesses from agents who are retiring. And I went from 200 clients to 2000 within about three or four years. And we went from, you know, 10 to 12 million sales to eventually we did close to 100 million. And so that's the kind of the first edition, like I was working with people who were getting out of the business completely. The huge opportunity, though, and I've learned this because I teach this. So for the last

nine years, I've been teaching all over the country, you know, main stage of conventions to mastermind groups, you know, everything big and small all over the country. And I keep hearing stories from people of like, oh, we took your idea, but I worked with someone who wanted to work in the summers and then travel in the winter. Oh, I took your idea and we made it work for someone that wanted to do a couple deals a year, but not really run everything. And so I started hearing stories of how people were doing what I call partial handoffs. And the second edition, and I'll show you guys this, this is the new edition cover. We updated it. I'm super happy with it. It's all about partial handoff. So it's got the same main plan for how to do the handoff and all the different is an opportunity that, you know, the biggest hurdle I had in buying businesses, Dan, was I would talk to people and they go, that's a great idea, but

I want to keep selling, or I want to keep doing a little of this or a little of that. And my model didn't really have a place for that. And now we've got kind of three different pieces of partial handoffs, three different ways to do it, main ways to do it. And I think that it's going to expand this opportunity to five times as many agents. And the other thing, too, is if you're going to sell a business, when's the best time to sell it? When it's most profitable. Right, when it's most profitable. But when do most realtors decide to maybe try to do something if they do anything at all?

Yeah. After they've been like, you know, sort of slugging for a couple of years and it's on a downward trend. Yeah, they're they're phasing out and phasing down. Right. So they're they're they're 50 million dollar businesses now, a 10 million dollar business. And they're frustrated because, you know, they try to get some activity with it, and a lot of their clients have moved on. So if you can connect with people before they phase out, and if you're thinking of retiring and you're thinking of your future, don't wait until you've already stopped marketing and stopped calling people and stopped working like you used to when you were in your growth phase. So the way I look at it is you're either in a growth phase or you're declining. And so as soon as you realize you don't want to keep pushing through the growth phase, then you need to have a plan.

And it's either you have built a team around you to take on the work you don't want to do. And for a lot of people, they don't want to do that and they're not going to do that. And so there are options to connect with agents who want to continue that and they're not going to do that. And so there are options to connect with agents who want to continue that growth phase after you want to stop and still stay involved. And that's what I'm so excited about with this new edition of the golden handoff. Let me go to the first edition. And I know this is included in the second edition, but you, you went from how long did it

take for you to get to 200? Remind me on how long it took you from zero to 200. How long did it take for you to get to 200? Remind me on how long it took you from zero to 200. How long did that take? Yeah, yeah. I think call it about four years. All right. And then from 200 to 2000, using this strategy of the golden handoff, how long did it take? Another four years. Okay.

So you 10X'd your business. Somebody give Grant a call, right? Like that's, you know, like I know, I don't think you 10X your business and you did that during the same, you know, the same time period. Would you have done that without, without taking on these strategies? I mean, you would have grown, I'm sure, but would you have 10X it? No way. And I think that a lot of people out there might be saying, oh, I've done that too. But if you're buying leads online and you're paying for Facebook ads and Zillow leads, those

aren't clients. I'm talking about people that trust this agent, that have bought and sold with this agent, that have referred this agent, is now they're being referred to you and this agent is endorsing you and telling their clients, hey, 100 clients, 200 clients, 500 clients that know and trust me, that know and trust you, Dan. Hey, I'm going to move to Florida. I'm tired of the winters up here. I've been doing this for 40 years. I'm ready to go fishing, but I didn't want to leave you high and dry. I got this great agent who's working their butt off. They're doing great work. I've been, and here's the nice thing about the partial handoff is, hey, we've been working together over the last couple of years and you might've already met them and now they're going to take over completely. These are not leads.

These are client referrals. It's a warm process. I was nervous the first time I called Renee's database because I was thinking, what are the clients going to think of this? I can tell you overwhelmingly people were so happy and they felt so honored that they didn't just get ditched and they didn't have to go interview a bunch of other agents and go find another agent again because they liked Renee, right? They knew her, they trusted her. If she said that this is the roofer you want to work with, or this is the home inspector you want to work with, or here's the lender you want to work with. That's who they wanted to work with. And so when that became me and I was the agent she was referring, I wasn't competing. The clients were happy to hear from me.

I almost never competed on a listing with those people because it was like I was helping a client I'd already worked with. Hey, excuse me for interrupting my own show, but this is really important. Do you want to know how to teach to sell? If yes, I invite for you to visit www.nobrokemonths.com. That's nobrokemonths.com to be able to get your exclusive electronic swag bag when you pre-order my upcoming book, Teach and Grow Rich. In Teach and Grow Rich, you're going to learn how to increase your influence,

avoid the number one sales mistake, you'll learn about that when you read the book, and get what you want. And when you get the book, I'm going to give you that swag bag, which is going to include 11 ways to be able to believe in yourself. If you've ever had doubt before, this document is going to show you the scientific way that you can then believe in yourself. The swag bag is also going to include to you a document that's going to show you how to get people to call you back. How to get people to call you back guaranteed will show you the proven strategies to make sure that that call gets returned. And my good friend Janine Driver, who is a New York Times bestselling author and a body language expert, is going to give you a chapter of her book, You Can't Lie to Me, so that you can sharpen your BS detector so that you can learn to be able to understand truthful emotions and the difference between that and deceptive reactions. bunch of other cool stuff in the swag bag. So visit now www.nobrokemonths.com. That's

nobrokemonths.com to be able to pre-order your book, Teach and Grow Rich. Nobrokemonths.com. And I look forward to helping you. God bless. Yeah, I've got a buyer I'm working with right now. Really high-end buyer, you know, over a million dollars, was referred to me from a lender from out of state who I'd never met before. And the lender had researched me and then had some confidence in me. And so I had a conversation with the lender first, of course, and then had a conversation with the prospect. And when I was talking to the prospect, they said, Dan, we trust you already because Laura, who's the lender, this is the third transaction we're doing with her. And we only trust her. If she says you're OK, you're OK.

Right. So I've been sort of on the receiving end of that. Literally, we just put that in our contract two days ago. And so that's the type of experience you have when there's a handoff. Maybe that's aligning with your you have when there's a, when there's a handoff, that's, maybe that's, you know, a line aligning with your partial handoff there. the other piece, right? You have to show up and do the work and earn it. And also honor the person that referred you to make them look good. Because if you drop the ball, then they look bad. Now their trust is broken. That's why referrals, that's why a lot of people don't want to refer because if it doesn't go well, it does reflect back on the person that referred. You have to do the work. So you've got a really great referral. You've got this great starting point for your relationship with this

client. You're doing your job. And imagine if, if, if this lender referred you 300 people, that's what we're talking about. It's that same experience. Now, the difference is this is someone that needed to buy right now. And if you got, you know, when you get referred a client list and when you adopt a client list, you know, nine out of 10 people aren't going to do anything this year. But one out of 10 probably are. I'll take 30 new clients this year for sure. Absolutely. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. And so you just.

Those are, those are more, those aren't, like you said, those aren't Zillow leads, Rollthrough.com leads. Those are like the client that I'm working with right now. The first conversation is I already trust you, Nick, because Jane had said that you're so great and I trust Jane. Yep. That's exactly how it goes. And with the majority of the people in that database, that's your starting point. And it's so nice. You know this, too. When you get a client you've already worked with and they say, hey, Dan, you helped us buy our first home and we're ready to move up.

We want to change school districts. Would you please come over and take a look at our home? Tell us what we need to do. You're not selling Dan Rochon, right? You're not selling your team. You're helping the client. And that's what we all love doing. If you could spend 99% of your time just helping clients, effort in to get to that stage where you get to do that piece of the job, where you get to really help someone find a home for their family or find an investment that changes the trajectory of their life and gets them in a great spot for them and their family and their future. I mean, that best job ever. But finding a client sucks.

Right. Like that's over and over and over again. I hear that now, not from everybody, not from the top producers. Right. But from the average agent, that's the comp. That is a very, very common conversation to have. And so you're, you know, you're basically a couple of conversations away. I would encourage everyone listening to do this. Take time today.

Take time while you're listening to this to write down the names of three agents whose businesses you admire that you would love the opportunity to work with their clients and adopt their business. And then make sure you read the book. It's not complicated. It's basically, like I said, the simplest way I can describe it is you're getting a referral for someone's entire client list. So instead of a referral for one client, you're getting a trial run. You can say, Hey, why don't you, you want to work on all the listings. You don't have a buyer's agent. You're, you don't want to work on the weekends. I'll help

the buyers on the weekends and the evenings. Just give me that to start. Let me help those people. And you can focus on the stuff you love and work on the time, the amount of time you want to work as the retiring agent or the senior agent. And let's, let's try this out. And what you'll find, I, I, I included a bunch of interviews in this new book, Dan, too, is really fun. I got to talk to some really great people who are all utilizing different types of partial handoffs or complete handoffs. And I really, I have details of like their deals and their structure. And, and I asked every single person, what's your best piece of advice for someone else who's going to try to do this. And one of the best pieces of advice was do a trial run, you know, make sure it's a good fit. And that goes both ways. Cause

one of the ways a partial handoff can work is just because someone has a team and they're a big producing team, it doesn't mean there's someone else on their team that wants to take over. That's what happened to me. I had a great team. We were doing incredible business. I kept trying to convince my agents to become the leaders. They were like, Nick, that sounds great, but we really love being the agents. We don't want to have to do the stuff you do because it looks tough and it doesn't look as fun. We want to do the fun stuff. We get to help people

all day buy and sell houses. That's the fun stuff. Running the business and paying the bills and managing payroll and paying for all the services and tools and systems you need to run a business. I don't know if I want to do that. And so I ended up selling my residential business two years ago to a different team where they were willing to take on the responsibility and the risk of taking care of a client list of close to 800 people. And they're doing a fantastic job with it. The clients have been super happy, but it took a team. I've got three core agents and there's a fourth agent that helps out now so that they can do a good job staying in touch and call the folks every year, every six months, make sure they've got the bandwidth to

meet people when they're ready, that they're not overwhelmed and, oh my God, I'm so crazy. It's so busy. Be careful if you're telling people you're busy all the time, they'll try to help you by not referring you or by not working with you. Because if all you do is talk about how busy you are all the time, they think you don't have time for them. And so you, you got to be careful about how you show people you're successful because you don't want them to not call you because you're too busy. So one of the things, um, so I mentioned before that I, uh, was grateful to get an autographed copy of this book, golden handoff, the first version from you. And as I hold it up, I'm seeing on the back of the cover. Uh, so if you're listening to this on audio you just have to uh you just have to

understand this so i'm looking at nick crowder right now um age whatever it may be which is a far greater age than the back of the book here so i'll hold this up and you guys can look at the uh you guys if the ones that are watching this on video you can sort of see the difference uh i think that's sort of uh that's just, it's just beard or no beard. That's the only difference. But one of the things that I did, and this is before I met Nick. So I met Nick maybe, I don't know, four years ago, something like that. Yeah. Four or five years ago when we started an author group.

Yeah. And I got your book maybe seven, eight years ago. I don't know if these timelines make sense or not, but it was before I met you. Yeah. And when I did what I did was I got my I got 10 books and I would go and I would meet with agents who had been around for, you know, 15, 20, 30 years and just go grab coffee with them. And literally my recruiting, not recruiting, but my I guess it was recruiting, recruiting to find somebody to sell me their business. It was I would hand them this book, you know, at the end of coffee. I'd say, hey, listen, here's something I discovered. It's a pretty good book. It just I don't know what you know where you are in your business.

But if you know, if you're thinking about anything in the future, it's my gift to you. And if you want to set up another coffee, let me know. And I'd love to be able to discuss more about how maybe we can work together, how I can maybe help you to sort of slow your business, and help me to ramp my business up because, you know, I was, it had to be more than seven or eight years ago, because I know at the time, I was still ramping my business up and, um, you know, we had some success with that. And so that's one of the reasons why, when our mutual friend, Justin Stoddard had said to me, Hey, Dan, I want to introduce you a guy named Nick Crowder. I'm like, huh? I've heard of this guy before. And I realized I was already using your methodology before I even met you successfully.

And so it works. And if you're listening to this, yeah, get his book, but get 10 of them because it's a way that you can be able to use his book and then use that as collateral to be able to give that to the retiring agent and grow your business. My name is Dan Rochon, and I have coached thousands of business owners with the Teach Yourself Method. And this method, it works.

As a real estate agent, my team and I, we have been consistent top producers in our marketplace. And one of my proudest accomplishments is my track record of having no broke months since 2008. And all along the way, I've been paying attention. Which is why I have written down the step-by-step path for you to follow in the book, Teach to Grow Rich. Increase your influence, avoid the number one sales mistake, and get what you want. And I invite for you to claim your copy of Teach to Grow Rich when you visit the website, www.teachtosellnow.com. That's teachtosellnow.com and get your copy. That's perfect.

I mean, that's a big piece of how I use it too. You know, it's a really easy way to start that conversation. And, you know, if you're okay, I'd love to share the script I use when I'm reaching out to people. So if you're thinking of- Probably better than my script if you're okay, I'd love to share the script I use when I'm reaching out to people. So if you're thinking of... Probably better than my script since you're the author, but let's go. You're pretty good at this stuff too.

So if you're looking to adopt businesses and you've written down the names of some people, and if you haven't, if you're just tuning in, write down the names of three people whose businesses you really admire that you would love to work with those clients and eventually own that business. And so when you reach out to someone, and again, this might be someone you're very familiar with, so you might want to tweak it if it's someone that's a mentor you worked with for a long time in your office. But either way, Dan, thanks for taking my call today. I've admired your business for years, and I know we've done a couple of deals in the past. I just was watching this great conversation on this podcast that I follow, and it's about this thing called the golden handoff. And I was curious, what are your plans with your business when you're done selling? You want me to role play that with you? Sure.

I'm going to Florida, man. I love it. My parents live down there. They love it. It's sunshine, fishing, golf, all the good stuff. Watch out for the alligators. I got you. You know, a lot of people in real estate, when they're done selling, they just kind of walk away from their business. And I'm sure you've got just boatloads of clients that love you and trust you and, you know, really rely on you to help them with their, all things with their home, whether that's a plumber or roofer, when they're looking to move or invest, or when their kids are looking to get their first home, you know, what are your plans with how are you going to help all those people when you're in Florida? I mean, I guess I was

just going to do some referrals and, you know, just take the phone calls and refer them out. I hadn't really thought about it, but can it with you? Yeah. You know, that's what a lot of people do. And I think the problem with that is that all of the clients we work with already know five other agents. And I'd argue our job every day is to show up and convince our clients we aren't already retired and that we're here and ready to help them and want to work with them.

Would you be open to meeting with me? I'd love to talk to you about how you could get referral fees from these people, make sure they've got a great agent and make sure that, you know, you get something for all this decades of hard work you've put into building your business and building trust with all these people. You have time for coffee. I'd love to bring you a copy of this book and just share quickly with you how we can work with you. I've helped a couple of other agents do this and they've had really good success. I'm happy to kind of share what their experience has been. And I'd love to talk to you about this. I think it could be a huge help for you to have a more profitable retirement and make sure your

clients are cared for. Would you like to do that? You buy them? Absolutely. All right, let's do it. Love that script, Nick. Yeah, it's important. And this is something that came up as advice from one of the agents I interviewed. It's all about being respectful and honoring people, whether you're calling on buyers or sellers of homes or whether you're talking to agents whose businesses you want to acquire. It's really about respecting who they are and the work they put in. And the thing too now that I think is really just going to really make this such a bigger opportunity for everyone listening and everyone in the real estate businesses, Dan might have said, I'm going to spend the winters in Florida,

but I'm going to come back every summer and I'd like to work with a handful of people. But we all know you're not going to be on your grind like you were when you were in growth mode. And so you don't want to make people feel like that they've aged out or they can't keep up with the technology or they're not moving fast enough for the world these days. You want to create a space where, you know, Dan, you've earned the right to work on the stuff you love, but don't let the opportunity of all the other stuff that comes to you just go to waste. I was just thinking, Nick, you didn't call me old once.

I mean, I've only called you old once during this conversation. You haven't called me old at all. I appreciate that. I know. And look at the gray in that beard too i know it you're not far behind me we're all we're all going to the same destination so uh but yeah so i think the cool thing now is that there was honestly a lot of really great people i talked to who wanted to hang on to part of what they did. And I just didn't really have a great way for them to do that. And so I'd say, okay, well, here's the best thing about it, right?

It's not like you're selling a house, right? You don't have to sell all of it. So maybe you want to work with your best friends in the best neighborhood that you live in on the properties you like on just listings. That's fine. But is that 100% of the business you could be doing? Absolutely not. So Dan, why don't you work on the million plus listings in your neighborhood with your friends and neighbors

that you will hang out with all the time anyway. But all of the other stuff, all the first time buyers, the sign calls, the people you haven't talked to in a couple of years, why don't you let me try to engage with them? Let them know I'm gonna be calling, let them know'm going to help out and that we're working together. Let me help in all that and give you referral fees on it. Because the truth is, if you're not calling them, they're going to work with someone else. Yeah. I love it. I love it, Nick. How do I get

a copy of your book? So it's on Amazon now. So check it out. So the new second edition of the golden handoff, um, there is also a workbook edition. Uh, we're going to be updating that to include more about partial handoffs, but if you have both of them, you can absolutely put it together. Um, so Amazon's the best place to get it. It is also on Ingram. So you can get it at your local bookstore. If you prefer to do that, just takes a little bit longer, but same books available both places. And always, we've got a lot of really great resources at goldenhandoff.com. So if you can't find it where you're looking, just always go to goldenhandoff.com. We've got some free resources where you can get

the scripts, the dialogues, the contracts, the letters, all the tools I've used. And you can download and have editable formats so you can put your face on it and your info and tweak it and change it to fit your needs and get a running head start into this thing. I love it. Nick, thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate your time. And listeners, viewers, check it out. I mean, I wholeheartedly endorse this technique and this strategy because it works. And I know it works because I've done it. Right. So this is like this is a testimonial, right? A celebrity. Well, whatever endorsement we're going to say that's that's better than that's better than the rock. I think that's better than the rock endorsing you. Don't you think, Nick? I think so. You're a real realtor. He doesn't know anything about real estate.

So I'll take your celebrity endorsement. And thanks so much for sharing this with your tribe and all your people. And always great talking to you. My pleasure. CPI community, thank you so much for listening and watching today. Until next time, have the best day of your life. Be grateful. Make good choices.

Go help somebody. And get your copy of The Golden Handoff. God bless you. Thanks so much for listening to the show. And I want to tell you about Teach to Sell, the new way to persuade human behavior. Because I'd love to be able to meet you face-to-face. And because I want to be able to help you unlock consistent and predictable income,

I invite for you to join us for one of our free trainings upcoming. And to be able to find out details, go ahead and visit www.nobrokemonths.com. That's nobrokemonths.com and find out how you can have no broke months. Hey, I just had the best 45 minutes interviewing Dan Rochon. He's from Virginia, right outside the DC area. He's been in a stable market for a long time. Within 18 months, he created so much success where he was actually able to buy the brokerage as a real estate agent.

Dan is a leader of vision focus and passion his enthusiasm is truly infectious he just came out with a book for real estate agents to kind of help people pivot we went through and talked about how to succeed in adversity some of his big traits out there