No Broke Months For Salespeople - The Fusion of Real Estate and Travel- Katherine Friedman

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Katherine Friedman worked at Marriott Hotels for almost a decade before becoming a Realtor in NYC and starting a travel business in 2019, forming "Habitats by Kat." which is a travel agency laying the groundwork for what she calls "The Modern-Day Travel Agent" while also selling Real Estate under the same brand.   In addition to handling real estate deals, Kat manages corporate accounts and believes in supporting local businesses and fair trade. Kat is a passionate entrepreneur who welcomes connections with like-minded individuals. This episode, Katherine will share about The Fusion of Real Estate and Travel - the next big thing in the real estate industry! 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

Most people travel more than they buy real estate. Travel is a common perk or promotion that people are looking for. Maybe people don't travel all the time, but I'd say most people are looking to go somewhere every year. And I think COVID was a huge reminder of how important travel is. And I would argue that offering your day-to- be a perk like that is just a nice lifestyle. It's a way you can offer them something that perhaps another agent within your marketplace isn't offering them clothing. Welcome to the No Broke Months for Real Estate Agents podcast.

Working as a real estate agent can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating if you aren't making the money you deserve. So if you're ready to end the stressful cycle of working hard for no results, then get started with a proven step-by-step system so that every month is no broke months. Catherine Friedman worked at Marriott Hotels for almost a decade before becoming a realtor in NYC and starting a travel business in 2019, forming Habitats by Cat, which is a travel agency laying the groundwork for what she calls the modern-day travel agent, while also selling real estate under the same brand. In addition to handling real estate deals,

Cat manages corporate accounts and believes in supporting local businesses and fair trade. Kat is a passionate entrepreneur who welcomes connections with like-minded individuals. This episode, Katherine will share about the fusion of real estate and travel, the next big thing in the real estate industry. My name is Dan Roshan. I'm the host of the No Broke Months podcast, which is a show for real estate agents to help you have no broke months. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the show. Today, I'm joined with Kat Freeman. We're going to talk about the fusion of real estate and travel.

How you, as a real estate agent, can add an added value to your consumers, to your customers, by helping them to get great deals on travel. And how you can incorporate some of these techniques and strategies into your business. Kat, now that I introduced you twice, welcome. Thank you so much. And thank you for, you know, the introduction and the warm welcome. I have to highlight, you know, the dates of starting my business. I didn't have the best timing. I started my travel agency six months before COVID-19. I'm based in Manhattan.

And so the real estate market in Manhattan did not see this crazy upswing like basically the rest of the country did. I found myself quarantined. I really couldn't show any apartments for a majority of that year. And I was trying to figure out a way of how I was going to start this travel business. I had ideas before COVID-19, and then it really changed the trajectory of my business. And I'm now working with agents really across the country. I talk to agents nearly every day. And there are a lot of agents out there that already have a passion for travel.

When you're getting to know clients, you naturally talk about travel and where you're going. And both industries are so customer service focused, right? It's all about giving back to your customers, building rapport, understanding their needs and their wants. And we're already doing that in real estate. And adding travel is just another way for you to monetize your data beat, especially if you have a lot of clients in between real estate transactions. So, you know, happy to dive into, you know, some examples of what that looks like. Before we jump into that, what caused you to want to work there? Working with Marriott Hotels before you opened your travel agency? Oh, you know, I had an internship my last year of college at a four-point Sheraton. I went to school in New Hampshire and I don't really know how I landed there. It was connected through

a friend of a friend and I loved being at a hotel. You know, I loved going into the hotel. I loved connecting with the different departments. I didn't want to sit at a desk all day, which probably led to my interest in hotels. That internship definitely helped. And then once I graduated from school, I applied for a couple jobs at Marriott, actually through the woman that I interned for, who I guess was a huge way of how I got in working for Marriott International. Got it. And so then what did you do there? I was always in sales. I started in their sales, a regional sales office outside of Boston as an

admin. And then I wound up at the Cambridge Marriott. And then I got into management at a courtyard downtown Boston. And then Marriott relocated me to New York and I worked at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. And then I wound up in above property sales. So I had a corporate account portfolio and I managed that on behalf of all Marriott and Starwood brand. So then what caused you to get into real estate sales? Yeah, that's a good question. I loved my job in above property sales at Marriott. It was one of the best jobs I had, but I was also at this weird phase where I wanted to continue growing

and I couldn't find a job or another career path within Marriott that was exciting me. And I guess to make a long story short, I always took on the role that Marriott, that was exciting me. And I guess to make a long story short, I always took on the role that Marriott that nobody wanted. Like the portfolio I had, nobody wanted it. It was underdeveloped or like the hotels I worked at were going through renovations. No one wanted to deal with it. And I was like, well, I took all the jobs that nobody wanted. I feel like I have thick enough skin to get into real estate and I already have all the jobs that nobody wanted. I feel like I have thick enough skin to get into

real estate and I already have all the sales experience and that's ultimately what led me to do it. And so then you get into real estate sales 2018? Yeah. So I got my real estate license in 2018, but I was doing it on the side. I was really nervous to leave Marriott right away. So I did real on the side. I did two rental deals and I closed one sales deal doing it on the side. And that gave me enough confidence to go into it. How long did you do it on the side before you went full time? Around eight or nine months. Yeah. that's not uncommon that's fantastic that's actually a really good that's a really good start some people never you know never make the transition in fact most don't um so for you to do that eight or nine months is incredible oh thank you yeah i

also experienced in new york city work with a lot of co-op boards. And I had almost had another sales deal, you know, go to the finish line, but the buyer was rejected by the co-op building. So I also learned, you know, dealing with really difficult situations during that time. I guess looking back on it, it makes it even crazier. I decided to go into it. Plus, why is the business so difficult? But it really showed me everything that could happen, which helped me feel better about jumping in with two feet. Okay. And so then 2019, you opened up your travel agency.

And was it intended to be able to sort of complement your real estate sales business from the get-go, or did that sort of evolve into you know into reality or talk us through that yeah so my initial idea was I I my whole network in Manhattan is related about the hotel business and I had great relationships with different companies and executive assistants and I had all these contacts and I thought to myself, I could go into different companies, small to mid-size and offer relocation, housing services, benefits that employers already have to help someone buy a home while also helping with hotel negotiations. So helping stores, group meetings and events, and also help with business travel negotiations.

So I always had that idea of having a full suite of services as an employee benefit that I was trying to do before COVID. Then COVID sort of screwed you up a bit. COVID screwed me up a lot. And it's like screwed both sides of your business up, really. Yeah, because my whole, my angle was going to be still remaining on the corporate side, right? I had really, I understood corporate and I really was confident in that. And then COVID clearly, I mean, again, I was in New York City, right? So like business travel stopped. No one was going into the office.

So yeah, I had to go back and figure out my next game plan. What was your next step coming out of COVID? So coming out of COVID, the market really picked up in New York City. Like 2021 was a huge year for the New York City market. So luckily, I mean, in 2020, I planted a lot of seeds. I stayed in touch with my clients. I had monthly newsletters. I was on social media. I was doing all the things, right? And on the same side, while I wasn't going to do corporate travel, I started getting into the leisure side of the travel business. And that's where I started seeing synergy between, okay, well, I can thank my real

estate clients by offering them a new experience versus with a material item, like giving them a nice bottle of champagne at the closing table. So that started to morph into something larger coming out of COVID, but I was lucky enough. I did, I got to like 11 million, I believe in sales volume in 2021, which was like my first full calendar year, which was exciting for me because closing a sales deal in Manhattan, it's not easy. It actually takes around three to four months. So I had some success, but trust me, 2020 was ugly. Excuse me for interrupting my own show. You are freaking amazing. And because you're amazing, I'm going to ask for a quick favor.

We'll just take you 30 seconds for you to leave a favorable five-star rating or review on your favorite platform. Then what I'll do is I'll enter you into a raffle where we can meet 45 minutes for a free coaching session. And I'll also give you a copy of the book, Real Estate Evolution, which is the 10-step guide to CPI consistent and predictable income. Oh, by the way, I'm the author of that book. So if you'd like for me to coach you, give you some nuggets and help you in your business, go ahead and leave a review and you can enter into the monthly raffle to win. So then you melded giving the clients an experience rather than something that's a thing to be able to cultivate either referral partners or closings or sphere of influence that you really wanted

to love on. Do I understand that correctly? Yeah. So I think my initial approach was I had the database of clients. I'd helped some of them close on their first home in New York City. What can I now offer them to keep them placed, to generate referrals, to have them stay in touch with me? And I did that through travel. So I offer my audience really cool deals for hotels, for short-term rental properties around the world with cruises. And they see these promotions. I also have global hotel discounts that I have a special link that I send to my network where I can still earn commissions on the back end, but I'm offering something a bit unique, something different.

So that's what it turned into along with me bringing on travel consultants. So other entrepreneurs that were looking for ways to, you know, monetize what they already do. A lot of people already give travel advice and help with planning. So I started onboarding other contractors and helping them get things. Give me an example of a client that you gave, you know, access to these benefits. Walk us through like, who were they? How did you know them? What did they do? Where do they go? Walk us through, walk us through that, please. Yeah. So I have a client that works in a startup tech company in New York City and I helped her buy, you know, her first apartment here in

New York. And we had connected through a friend of a friend. So she also is an event planner in New York for her company. So she's familiar with the hotel sourcing, what I had also previously done. And so, you know, we went through the whole thing of helping her buy an apartment. I had explained to her my travel business. I also work in that helpless build before. And then when I get to the closing table with a client, I have a gift that I usually give somebody as like a thank you for working with me, blah, blah, blah. And then they get an email from me that drives them to a link that I have that I don't share

with anybody. It's lost. And it gives them really cool global discounts. And she ended up going on a girl's trip to a hotel in New Orleans. I believe it was like three months ago. And, you know, thanked me because she

found a really great deal. And it was the hotel right in the French Quarter was where they wanted to be. And she got a great rate. And you know, it was through my branded site. Love it. Love it. And so how can an agent use that, you know, to be able to benefit their clients? I would say, you know, it can be a strategy, a way to build rapport, but it also depends

on the agent. It has to be authentic to who you are and what your personal brand is all about. I always want to say that first, right? It makes sense for my brand. I worked at Marriott. It was a huge part of my life. But if you, you just need a way to stay in front of their data. Think about who you email on a monthly basis and who's just kind of sitting there that hasn't engaged with you. How can we wake those people up and offer them something? And most people travel more than they buy real estate.

Travel is a common perk or promotion that people are looking for. Maybe people don't travel all the time, but I'd say most people are looking to go somewhere every year. And I think COVID was a huge reminder of how important travel is. And I would argue that offering your day-to-day a perk like that is just a nice lifestyle. It's a way you can offer them something that perhaps another agent within your marketplace isn't offering them clothing. Okay. So if I wanted to do that with my clients, for example, I could go to your website and then I could find a link there. Talk me through that piece if you could. Yeah, so if anyone's interested in learning more, if you go to my website,

you can either go to our YouTube channel or you can schedule a consultation directly with me on my website. What's the website address? It's habitatsbycat.co. Habitatsbycat.co, that's K-A-T. Habitatsbycat.co habitats by cat.co that's k-a-t habitats by cat.co love it that if you could share with us what's been your um i'd love to hear about one great success and one great opportunity slash failure of your real estate career start Start with the failure, the learning opportunity rather.

Yeah. Wow. I know the exact situation. So it wasn't a failure in the sense I was able to get the certain deal closed. That was really brutal. It was the toughest deal I have ever encountered to date. And, but the way I failed during the deal was I didn't manage my emotions in the most effective way, truly, for, you know, like my mental health during that time. I got so wound up and so invested in that deal. And I was working with a very difficult agent on the other side. And I let her get the best of me. And I really did. I only have myself to blame for that. And the amount of energy it took for me to close that deal, I could have closed like five, right? But it took so much of my time and energy because I was putting myself through that because of this other agent where if I could go back in time, I would have had better skills to

lead myself in that scenario so that I didn't exhaust so much of my energy into that one transaction. And I think a lot of real estate agents and probably a lot of entrepreneurs can think of times like that where they were like, man, I just shouldn't let that get to me. What skills would you embrace today? If that happened to you today, what would you have done? I would try, I am not perfect. So I'd probably be a little stressed out today if it was just a difficult person I was dealing with on the other end, but I would remain calm and I wouldn't add any fuel to the fire. And I would just strictly focus on the deal at hand and how I can get that deal closed and block out all of the other toys. And if that means that

everything has to be via email or if there's a phone call, follow up with an email so that there's no confusion with what conversations are being had over the phone. I find that happens a lot in difficult negotiations where you have a call with somebody, back it up with an email. So you have a timestamp of an overview of what you just talked about is how I would manage. Good advice. I find that as you're approaching the difficult

conversations, if you recognize and you remember, we don't get paid to be right. We get paid to facilitate a transaction to the closing. And it helps me when I'm at that weak moment of, you know, thinking that somebody, you know, a cooperating agent on the other side isn't doing their job or is making a transaction more challenging, more difficult than what it should be, then I remember and say, you know what, I don't get paid to be right. I get paid to make this, to figure out a way to make this get to closing, so who do I need to be? What do I need to do to make this, to figure out a way to make this get to closing. So who do I need to be? What do I need to do to make that happen? And that's what I found that's been the least helpful to me.

A hundred percent. Like here, we're an attorney state. I, you know, luckily I have great attorneys that I've done deals with. So like lean on the attorney to really help you figure out how to get this deal done and go down the path of least resistance. Because you said, nobody has to be right or wrong. It's about getting the deal done. And that's it.

Easier said than done, but that's the advice I would give myself, and I would handle it much better today. You already know, 87% of all real estate agents fail in this business. And you also know it doesn't have to be that way. If you're a real estate agent and you're looking for consistent and predictable income, I invite for you to get your free copy of Real Estate Evolution, the 10-step guide to CPI, consistent and predictable income for real estate agents. And you can do so when you visit www.therealestateevolution.com. I'll share with you your book that I authored to show you the way. Thanks.

Share a success with us. I think one of my biggest successes was I had been soliciting a seller who had been trying to sell a town hall up in Harlem for like two years. She had two different brokers that had tried to list and sell the property. It never sold. I was following up with her. I had caught her over the phone. She blew me off. But within those 60 seconds, I got her email address. So I had followed up with her for probably six months of just checking in, sending her market reports, texting her out of the blue, being like, hey, I actually have a buyer. Can I get access to show a client this property? Just like poking away at her. And oddly enough, one of those times she responded, she said, sure, if you really have a buyer, I'll let you have access. And that buyer ended up buying

property. And it was incredible because, you know, I hadn't worked with that buyer for that long of a time. And just the star of the line tonight, I had this off-market deal that nobody knew about, that no one really was getting access to. And I ended up, you know, getting the deal done. So that was a really, that was a great win for me. And I ended up, you know, getting the deal done. So that was a really, that was a great win for me. And I ended up building a great relationship with that client who had sent me other business through her friend. So it was a cool story. It's interesting because it's, it's curious because, you know, I coach, you know, thousands of agents and, you know, I help a lot of different agents figure things out. And one of the things that I've recognized is just be in action, right? Because when you say

the stars align, yeah, the stars align, but the stars did not just randomly align, right? Like you took action on both ends of that to find the buyer, to find the seller, to connect the dots because you were taking action. So the unfortunate thing in real estate sales is that you don't always know what action is going to produce a result. And sometimes the action that you take doesn't even produce the result that you want. But sometimes it produces a different result that's even better or, you know, or at least a positive. And so that's just been my observation of real estate sales. It's just like, be in action and the stars will align. That's such a good point because I now don't say this, but when those situations happen to me, I'd be like, oh, wow, I got so lucky. Look what finally fell into place. And my dad, believe it or not, he heard me say that enough.

He was like, okay, this is called planned luck. When you put out so much energy every single day, yeah, you get lucky. But like, to your point, when you're in action, things will fall into place. But you have to be in action constantly. So I can't tell you how many times I got a, a deal of listing a buyer from something that's just a random other, you know, I'm out, you know, I used to do broker price opinions. And I probably listed three or five properties from outside, taking photographs of a,

of a property doing evaluation for 50 bucks or $65 and just randomly having a conversation with somebody because they're like, oh, are you a real estate agent? Yes. And then that turns into a significant piece of business. And it's like, yeah, I just got lucky. But did I? No, 100%. The networking alone is how you can really generate leads. But it's a tough business. Being an entrepreneur, earning your own money is really tough and you got to work at it every day. Kat, if you were to share one piece of advice to 2018 Kat when she got her real estate license, what would you say to her?

Oh, that's a really good question. I would probably tell her, man, one piece of advice I would give myself is definitely to not rely on just your sales skills. Because coming into real estate, I had a lot of sales and negotiation experience. So that aspect of real estate did not scare me whatsoever. So I would tell myself, don't rely on just those skills you already have. I should have earlier on focused on more of the details and the operational components of being a real estate agent that I didn't start implementing until I got slammed in 2021. If that makes sense, I would have gone back and been a better planner in that way if I had known what I know now. Fair enough. Fair enough. Be a better planner. Yeah. And stay, you know,

all the things. I think a lot of agents struggle with this, but, you know, staying organized, having some of your follow-up automated, if you can utilize technology based on the brokerage or the CRM you're using, you know, it's so important to keep yourself organized because if you're not on top of whatever business you're working on, it's going to fall through the cracks. So it's a very operational job. You know, you're just out in the field networking and you don't have any follow-up when you get back to your desk, none of that's going to happen.

So to your point about action, you got to have action with your follow-up as well as action out in the field. Yeah, I appreciate your time today. Leave us, what final thought would you like to leave us with? My final thought is, you know, the market isn't easy right now. We're coming into kind of unusual territory and, you know, just to stay super consistent with your business and to offer, you know, make sure your service and what you do is highlighted because you're offering what you do is unique

compared to other agents in your market. So I would leave you with that tip. And I are filming this October 31st. Happy Halloween 2023. And when she mentions that we're going into some times that that might be a little bit tough. And I love your your your finishing advice there. And I would add to it for those of you right now that are scared, understand that you have an opportunity in front of you right now that is unprecedented. You have an opportunity in front of you right now that is really platinum because so many people are going to quit over the next 18 months. And those that are here, we'll call it 24 months from now, happy Halloween 2025,

will benefit from still standing and will be so much better equipped to do so much more business because you ran into the storm rather than letting the storm chase you. Cat, one last thing, www.habitatsbycat, that's K-A-T dot co. Visit that, Cat. Thank you so much for being with us today. God bless you.