Noob School - Real Estate Mastery & Making a Difference: Melissa Morrell's Path to Success and Community Impact

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

In this episode, top real estate agent Melissa Morrell shares her journey into real estate, how her upbringing shaped her path, and the strategies that have propelled her to success with C. Dan Joyner in Greenville, SC. She also highlights her upcoming event, Bourbon for Boobs, a social fundraiser supporting Bon Secours’ Pearlie Harris Center for Breast Health. With about 50 tickets left, this is a chance to join a great cause while enjoying an unforgettable event! Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. Welcome back to the Noob School. Episode 136, did we say? I like it. Okay, 136. As long as there's a six. A friend going back till, let's see, 24 plus 4, 28 years? Yeah, 1996.

That's pretty cool. Melissa Morel. Welcome aboard. Thank you. Did you ever go by Missy? No. No. My mother literally, like, told people never, ever call her.

ever, ever call her Missy. Good. So I was named after my great-grandmother, Melissa. So I love my name. Now, people sometimes shorten it and say Mel. It's just certain people do it. Yeah. I don't really love that either because I don't think I'm a Mel. I think of a Mel.

I'm fine with it. So Melissa's prettier. Plus I have a song. I think we've covered everything now. About my name. We've covered all the names. Okay. But Melissa, besides having an interesting name, is the number one agent, I believe, in Greenville.

Number one agent for the number one company. See, Dan, you're in her company for 13 years. Correct. And hopefully for our 14. Well, how's it looking this year? It looks good, actually. It looks good. You know, but you never know.

I have some great colleagues that are killers in the business, too, but tracking well. I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you. So you have made a career out of selling real estate in Greenville, but more specifically in what part of Greenville? I would say my wheelhouse is more in the suburbs of Greenville. Just because my husband and I settled in Simpsonville and three kids later.

And you know, you kind of grow from where you live and go to church and go the gym. and so forth. So, Simpsonville, Greer, Greenville, but you'll see me pop up in Taylor's, Powdersville, Augusta Road. So it just depends. I remember a while back, I don't know how many years ago, maybe 10 years ago. I called you as my longtime friend. I said, hey, hey, my son's moving back. You know, can you help me find this little, you know, small house for him, whatever? You ask me where, and you're like, I think someone else could do a better job. Yeah, and that's the thing. I'm definitely honest. You know, on the listing side and the buying side, because if I'm not 100% comfortable with something, I know I'm not going to do the best job.

Meaning you don't know the cops and things like that. I mean, real estate is very much, you know, street by street, school by school. It's, you know, you just can't go off of what you see on Zillow or Realtor.com. You really need to know it well. And I just think it's a disservice to a client or a potential client if I don't really know what I'm talking about. And I won't do a good job. Well, or as good as I probably could. You're clearly doing that.

I mean, someone could be number one, one year, but not 13 years and not be doing, getting references and referrals and things like that. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So we've established that you're crushing it in real estate, particularly in Simpsonville and suburbs. And a lot of people would like to do what you're doing. A lot of salespeople would like to have their own business, which you do, right? and you're selling real estate for the best company, Ced and Joyner.

Absolutely. And you know, I know a new Mr. Joyner going back to when I was a kid. Yeah. And I know Beth and Danny and some of the other ones too. Yeah. David Craigler. Yeah.

David hired me. Did he? Yep. He was the broker back in 2003, and I just immediately felt comfortable instantly with that company. They're great. And they're family. Absolutely with my family.

That's correct. Well, I know they're glad you're part of the family. That's for sure. So let's talk about your story and how you got there. And along the way, any like sales lessons or things you learned that you did right or wrong that helped you kind of get. Yeah, me too. I mean, get what you want it. And I'll give you something I did wrong one time.

Okay. I was just out of school and my dad, you know, my dad, you know, was a great business guy in Greenville and I was just kind of trying to figure out what to do. And he says, well, I know this guy. You know, he's really good. He's like 35. He's a salesman who's tech company.

I mean, everything that I would want to do, right? Sure. And so I called him up. Hey, my dad says, you know, just, it was so bad. But he says, yes. He goes, yeah, yeah, okay, I'll talk to you. He goes, I like to maybe have a breakfast meeting. And I'm like, oh, all right.

All right, sounds good to me. I like breakfast, you know. So, because when we meet about 7 o'clock, you know, up at the Bojangles or whatever it was. Yeah. I said, okay, okay. So the next day I woke up and looked at the clock, it's about 10, 15. Oh, God. I mean, literally, didn't just barely miss it.

Like three hours later. Three hours. Let's meet for lunch, Joe Jankles. Did you say breakfast or lunch? So, yeah. 7 p.m. We're all going to make some mistakes along the way. Absolutely.

But go ahead. Tell us about your story. Well, so my story, because. weekends. Well, my mother was a real estate agent. Okay. So she actually got her license back in the early 80s. She was a former school teacher. My dad was a football coach and teacher. So I have a little bit of grit and grace. My dad is more like a kind of the old like 70s Dallas Cowboys type of football coach. I mean, he is mean as a snake. He's still alive. You know, an incredible football coach. I'm highly competitive. And then my mother. Where was that?

So he actually, my parents met in Kentucky and then moved to Charleston. His first job was at Garrett High School in Hanahan. And then he was hired at Fort Johnson, which is no more. Now it's James Island High School, but he won the 3A State Championship in 72 and 73. So that was a little thing. But incredible coach. My mom was a school teacher. and, you know, as life happens, sometimes they ended up partying ways getting to divorce,

but prior to that, mom had gotten her real estate license and just dabbled in it a bit, but knew she really liked it. They actually say that the best real estate agents are former school teachers. I think it's true that because I think you have to work with so many different publics, so to speak, as a school teacher, and you're also like super goal-oriented and deep. detail-oriented, so I can see why. So I definitely learned a lot through osmosis, just being around her, being in the car with her,

going to open houses during the 80s and 90s when we didn't have the internet of today. So, but I actually, my background was in journalism. I went to the University of South Carolina, knew I wanted to write, thought I was going to be, this will age me, the next Connie Chung. but realize quickly that, gosh, I don't know if I want to do broadcast journalism. So I thought, let me get on the other side of it and do public relations.

So fast forward 10 years, including working with you at a data stream and PR. I decided after baby number two, gosh, I don't know if I'm going to do this nine to five thing anymore. Going to work every day. Yeah. And just you not have that flexibility. to be at a, whether it's a dentist appointment or a school play. It was just so hard. So my mother encouraged me when I was pregnant with our first child, Ashley,

why don't you get your real estate license and just go ahead and get it and just hold on to it. You might use it one day. I'm like, okay, whatever. So I went to the Wyatt Institute here in Greenville and got the license while pregnant, working full time. And sure enough, that was in, Ashley was born in 98. So I got my license in 98, but then never actually used it until 2003 when I met a custom home builder here in the area. And met with him originally just to do his marketing.

Because I was doing a lot of freelance work, kind of left the corporate world and just said, I'm going to freelance right, started doing things, and connected with him. And from there, he said, well, didn't you say you have your license? And I said, well, I do, but I need to activate it. Well, you have to remember, like, what year this is. So it's at that point, we had met in 2002. It's 2003, and the market is just starting to, you know, do this. And I'm like, okay, so I literally walked in the door, having actually interviewed a couple

of places in town, went with David Kruegler at CDN Joyner. We were prudential CDN Joyner at that time. Okay. Met with him and sat down, was comfortable. and said, well, I have seven listings from this builder, which is very atypical. You don't walk in the door with listings. So I was very, very blessed.

Started with that company, and unfortunately, like many custom home builders, the recession was bad. We went out of business, not we, but the company. I wasn't part of it necessarily, but very much a part of it at the same time, was at Ground Zero in 2009 and looked at my husband,

who is my, you know, besides my mother who was passed, is definitely my biggest cheerleader. And I looked at him and I said, we're getting ready to spend a lot of money that we don't have because I've got to now establish my own brand. I had been so associated with that builder. And it was a beautiful relationship. We're still very dear friends.

He's actually one of my major sponsors for the event. We'll talk about later. And decided that, that, okay, I'm just going to create a brand, and we're going to go for it. And so Tony actually helped me come up with Greenville's agent 24-7 in 2009. Nice. So, and I think that I realized quickly,

because again, I had been so focused on the builder side of the business that I had never done general brokerage, so to speak. Just I was basically cultivating custom deals, selling the spec homes, which is real estate. It was just that now is kind of going down a different path. And again, we are deep in the recession. I mean, eight to really 12. I mean, it was awful.

I remember, I'm not in real estate business, but I can remember, you know, when the music stopped and everything stopped. I mean, people were no longer doing construction. And then it was about maybe two years or two and a half years later. I'm riding around and all of a sudden I saw like, a truck in front of a house and they were like starting to fix the house and I'm like hey yeah they're coming back I know because it was a it was a strange phenomena you know I remember calling my

mother who was alive then and very much active in real estate I'm like I'm just I'm putting signs in the ground and they're like we're we're selling them before we're even at drywall and I what is a balloon loan and an interest only loan and she's like just roll with it just roll and I'm like okay So it was just very much a lender-driven marketplace, which of course, we all know crashed. So again, I learned a lot through realizing never put your eggs all in one basket. That was probably a key lesson for me. Never get too big for your britches. I think a lot of times people think as my career has, you know, grown and changed and evolved.

sometimes they won't call me to sell a $300,000 house, thinking that, oh, she's only missed luxury or something. I'm like, no, I'm not. And I kind of use the example of, I will sell $150,000 a house or a $1.5 million house. I do not care. I'm here to service you because when you sell that house, then I'm going to sell you the next one and the next one and the next one

and you're going to tell your neighbor and your babysitter and your grandmama about me. Exactly right. This is how the game is played. It's not a game, but that's how it's. That's how it operates. Yeah, and then their children start the same cycle over again. Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of folks, and I've told some of these stories, so to speak, to other agents within our company,

you know, they think this happens fast. You know, I've done this for 21 years. Yeah. And it doesn't happen fast. Right. And I also know what it feels like to go, how are we going to pay the mortgage and private tuition for three children? and keep this lifestyle. And so I definitely, and thank God, because I have the grit and grace in me,

I mean, I'm very competitive, mostly with myself more than anybody else. It's not that I don't care what other people are doing, but I usually compete against me more than anybody else. And I'm hard on myself, so I get after it. Well, what kind of things, Melissa, because everyone who goes into real estate would like to be the number one agent and make a certain amount of money. but what kind of things are you doing like obviously it didn't happen in year one it's been 13 years it happened like in year seven or year eight yeah when you finally broke through and for the number

one person what are you doing that other people aren't doing I mean honestly it just sounds so simple but it's just follow up and follow through yeah you know like if you tell somebody you're going to do something do it have I made mistakes? and falling short, of course we all have. You know, we're human beings. But I think that just treating people the way that you want to be treated is critical. It's just, what I do is not rocket science.

But I think if you treat people the right way, my mom said that, you know, she said, babe, at year 10, if you have done the right things, it will fall like manna from the sky. And it did, and it continues to be that way. Because at this point, while I do billboards and ads and direct mail and social media, at the end of the day, probably 80% plus of my business comes from referrals. And that's what I think you know that you've done the right thing. I don't think there's anything overly special about what I do, but I do think that people overall know that they can trust me.

and then I'm going to listen to them and I'm going to take care of them. I'm not there, and this comes from CDAN, Joyner, if you start immediately calculating your commission, you're in the wrong business. I mean, yes, we all want to feed our families and we want to do better in life and all of that. But if that's where your focus is, you will not last in this business and you won't be happy at the end of the day. Because it is not an easy business at all. Houses are, easy. People are not. It's hard. Right. And give us an example for those of us not in in your business, but you know,

I think about like when I bought a house. Yep. That, you know, well, you know, it was a little bit of negotiating through the, through the agent. Yeah. Okay, you know, this much. All right. And then they're like, okay, we're all done. And then you go to a closing and you brought a check and signed something. So how much more work is there? Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot. What else you're doing that makes my life easy?

Yeah, I think that it depends on which side you're on. If I'm listing a property, then to me, the greatest value I bring is in the preparation of the property. Because if you don't prepare it and if you're not honest with people, like if you don't walk in and say with a smile on your face, it smells like cat urine. And we're going to have to paint this room and we're going to have to change this light. Now, granted, what I suggest depends on what's happening in the marketplace. But even during what I call the COVID years, I still told people or encouraged them, paint that room, change that light, let's get rid of the cat urine smell. Because you may make more money on this house than you ever could have imagined. Why not do three or four extra things and we're going to get maybe four more offers versus, you know, whatever, too?

Because back then it was just pure insanity. So I think that number one is preparation. Number two, it's pricing strategy. I mean, if you don't price something right out of the gates, it can kill you, truly. And again, it's all about being you have to look at the numbers. You have to make sure your clients understand that you're coming at this strategically. Like this is why and running net sheets and showing them what they're going to come away with. I think a lot of times agents are too.

And again, I've gotten better at it with age and experience, but when you have to start talking numbers and compensations and commissions, it can get real awkward, real fast. But, like, why are we there? Like, I'm at your table and your breakfast room to sit down and, like, let's talk about this. And this is your biggest investment that I'm going to help you sell and potentially go and help you buy something. So preparation, price, and then certainly gets into the negotiation.

side of it. You know, we've all gotten, I think, me included sometimes complacent about not making a phone call. I can get so much more out of people if I pick up the phone. Versus texting with another agent or even with a client. You've got to get in front of people and really understand where they're coming from because everybody's got baggage. Everybody's gotten burned.

And a lot of times with agents, You can really find out a lot more than you can through a quick text message and work together to get there. And obviously represent your client's best interest, but also I'm going to be working with those real estate agents a lot longer, most likely, than that potential client. We're going to be around each other in this community. And that's on the listing side of things. And then buy-ins side, certainly it can be a quick, sort of quick. sort of experience where, oh my gosh, I'm coming into town and I've got to find something in 72 hours and you're just, you know, running and gunning and hoping, depending on the marketplace,

you've got inventory, you're making good decisions and you're not being hasty. And I usually have told my clients, I'm going to probably come across like Debbie Downer. When I go into a house with you, it's super easy to look. Oh, my God, look at the quartz countertops and the new light. I can see us here. I can see us here. That's easy. But then it's like, no, I'm going into the crawl space.

We're going to walk around the lot. I'm going to see if it smells funny anywhere. I'm going to look at the floors, look at the ceiling. I'm going to try to find the things that they're probably not going to see. Either they don't want to see them or they simply don't have the experience to see them. And it's a lot of, you know, smelling and seeing and just knowing things from having done it this long. and I had the luxury of working for a custom home builder. So I come at it from a different, I think, lens, so to speak.

And then you have those clients that you've had for three years versus three days. And you have to stay in touch and figure out, okay, why can't we find what you want? How do you do that? What is your system for staying in touch with your prospects? Yeah, I mean, I basically every single week, and it depends on what's happening with that transaction. with that client, and this sounds so old school, but yes, I have a lot of things that are more techy, but I love to have like a legal pad and I write things down. I remember things because I write them. That's how I studied. I was not an auditory learner. I definitely had to see it,

write it, and that's how I can remember things. And every single day, I have a to-do list, down to when I'm going to shower, when I'm going to work out, when I'm going to be able to eat lunch. It's that specific. I also do it for safety reasons because I want my family to know where I am beyond like 360 because I could get kidnapped and be taken into somebody's basement. But I'm very much every single morning, every single night, I'm going through every single prospect, every single current client, current upcoming listing, current closing, and just making sure. that is everybody okay where they need to be?

And where do you, do you track those in a spreadsheet? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of it is, again, it sounds old school, but it's like handwritten and typing and just updating constantly. Are you, I mean, obviously, I'm a fast typist.

Some of those people you'll call, but a lot of them will just send an email or text too. Yeah, an email or text too. You say, what's going on, how you do? Yeah. Yeah, about Clemson and how about Carolina. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just staying in touch.

And my, and I don't, I'm not a, I've never been a cold, call girl. I've never been going after expired listings, withdrawn. Again, that is a beautiful business model for somebody. It's not for me. It never has been. I just, I also farm neighborhoods and go after certain places where I know I've had success and can capture those listings because, again, I was trained by my mother, by a CDN joiner in that company that if you control the listings you control the market and and I also want to have a life you know a marriage community service our children if I if I can stay at like 70 30 70% listings 30 buyers it's a beautiful ratio now granted that could flip real fast because you

suddenly have four they go under contract and they need houses it could be 50 50 real fast but this requires a lot more your time it does when you're I mean because it you know the buying size you could just spend hours upon hours in the car weekend after weekend week after week after evening after evening and it's part of it and it makes you a better agent and that's why I love to sell things from 150 to 1.5 you know here they're there because it makes me know what's happening in the marketplace and it also when you're when you're working with people that are a different like a first-time home buyer it always sharpens my skills it helps me know that like

gosh, I haven't said it like that in a while. I need to make sure that this is clear and concise and confident because you can get real. To me, it's like, you know, when you talk to doctors sometimes, they start using acronyms and language you don't understand. And that drives me nuts when other people do that. So I try to always make it just really simple or use things that I think that they'll relate to if they're into football or if they're into hiking or whatever. just relate to them. Well, I have a, I do a, I still do a weekly sales class. Yeah.

Online for noobs, for even people that aren't even salespeople yet, like who want to be salespeople. And I do it for that same reason. Part of the reason I do it is because I keep seeing that there's new things they're asking about. The market's changing. Oh my gosh. I certainly don't do it the way we used to.

And so it keeps me fresh with all that. Plus, of course, I like doing it. I like helping people. Yeah. Yeah. I think it makes you, because I mean, everybody can get sort of, you know, what do you do for a living? I'm a realtor. You know, you can get, you know, and I tell my kids the same way, if you cannot find joy, joy. And it's different than happiness. And that's different from, I don't know, whatever, the word, I can't think of it right now. But I think you have to find joy in what you do. And yeah, I've had those days and months where it's like, I'm having a hard time finding the joy. But, but. I think you have to find joy in what you do. And yeah. I've had those days and months where it's like, I'm having a hard time finding the joy. But that's when I really have to sit down and go, why? It's not because of them, it's because of me. And that's when I go to a class or I just do something in the community

just to try to reinvigorate myself because life is short and you want to be joyful and you want to be happy and not look up and go, well, that was fun. I don't want to be, I always tell my children, I'm like, do not put on my tombstone, she was one hell of a real estate agent. Like, I don't want to be known as that. I definitely want to be known as something more than that.

I'm more than my job. But my job has also been able to allow me to meet so many different people and experience so many different things and learn so many from other people. It's so much fun and listening to their stories. We did some coaching on that very specific thing. you know the difference between who you are and what you do absolutely and so many people get so wrapped up in what they do it defines you i'm like when it was when it's over it's just like oh it's just yeah what do you do yeah no i don't like that yeah at all yeah i think a lot of people like oh my god

how do you do all this and you know because it's just me i don't have a team i have i have one person a dear person who helps me behind the scenes with more administrative stuff she's not a licensed agent but I just thankfully have a lot of energy and thank God and I but I also have systems you know like you have to just and my systems may not work for somebody else and other people may think they're weird they work for you they work for me and if you're consistently working your system whatever that is and I have numbers in my head of like I always have to have this many in the pipeline this many coming and if it's not happening what can I do to make it happen? happen because it'll drive me bananas if I'm not busy. I hate not being busy. Was there somebody

like, I'm just going to make it simple, Simpsonville is where you live and it's kind of your primary market. Was there something? And you are definitely the boss over there. Was there someone who was the boss before you that you knocked out or did you just take a mantle that wasn't there? I don't know, to be honest. Okay. But it took you a lot of work to get there. My point is, once you got there, then as long as you don't stop working, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Because you already have this big lead. Right, right. Right.

Right. Yeah. And it certainly has changed a lot. I mean, COVID did a number on our industry. I mean, I haven't checked today, but roughly there's more than 5,000 real estate agents that are licensed with the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors. That doesn't count Spartanburg or Western upstate, okay? Yeah.

There's a lot of us. When the recession hit, we were coming out of that, there were 1,600 of us. So I think there was a massive opportunity that in hindsight, I didn't even recognize at that point where, like, I could really make my mark because there's less of us. And yes, we were sitting on so much inventory because it was a buyer's market. And I just, like you, very persistent, just, I don't care if you tell us. me no over and over again. I'm like, let's just keep trying and trying and having to sit sometimes with listings, and I'm not exaggerating, for upwards of 24 to 36 months back then. I'll never forget in 2010, I had 36 listings on the ground. Wow. That's a lot of listings because we were in the

complete opposite of where we are now. We're still in a strong seller's market. It's not, we're teetering on almost a little bit over three months of inventory. Not in every price category, but it's starting to happen to where we're getting a little bit more balanced. People can get a second showing. They can breathe for a moment before they make a decision on which house they want to buy. There's still a lot of people from outside, from other parts of the country coming here. Absolutely. Yeah. It's not the same influx that we were seeing from mid-20 to about mid-23.

And a lot of that has to do with the interest rates, certainly. And they're starting to fall a bit. But I try to remind my buyers and younger agents, or even just agents new to the business, not necessarily younger than me, that what I was always told is anything less than a double-digit interest rate is just fine. Yeah. You just got to figure out what you can afford. Yeah, historically. You know, historically speaking, it's just that prices are high here. You know, we've gotten a whole new benchmarks here in Green Bull than we used to.

Well, I think you get a lot more customers if we could figure out as a country legal immigration. Because I've got the most wonderful guy and family down in Ecuador that works for me, you know, remotely full time. Yep. And, you know, he's got a degree in computer science. His wife has a nursing degree. Absolutely. And I did all I could to get him here, but it was going to cost like, you know, 30 or 40 grand. Plus take two or three years.

Yeah. And they don't want to wait that long. Right. So guess what we did? We went to Portugal. And Portugal said, we'll do it, which is a great country. Yeah. I've never been there.

All we have to do is prove that he makes more than I think it was $60,000 a year, which he does. Prove that he has housing and prove that the kids have a place to go to school. Yeah. Three things. So just get that done. You're done. It takes two months and you're in. Yeah.

So we would get all those kinds of people because he would love to come here first. Yeah. But anyway, we'll get it eventually. You'll get it done. Yeah. I mean, a lot has changed. You know, it's difficult for, you know, I think about our oldest children are almost 26 and 22. And, you know, they're going to be buying home soon.

And it's really hard to find something that is affordable. Right. Because of, you know, we won't get a political and talk about all the economics of things. It's crazy right now. It's absolutely crazy. But again... Are you using any AI or artificial intelligence in your business? I am not...

I mean, the closest thing I probably do to that right now is virtual staging, which has come a long way. Ten years ago, it looked like my kid drew it. Now it's come a long way because oftentimes you have homes where they might have already moved out, and it gives people an idea of scale. Because a lot of folks cannot see... Is that bad going to fit in there? I can't.

can and I can start drawing it out for people but many many people cannot see it and so many people make decisions like this on their phone about a house and your first showings happen on the internet not when they come to your front front door so it's the people where I always tell them you know if we're not getting showings it's because they didn't like it at their first showing on your on their phone or iPad so that's who we need to capture and some sometimes the virtual showing is the virtual staging is really helpful. What is your personal, most popular social media for promoting your business? Instagram.

Instagram. Everybody. Yeah, I think Facebook is, I mean, basically the story will go from Instagram to Facebook, so I get some exposure there, but Facebook post, it just is not translating anymore. Nothing. And candidly, I have tried TikTok, and I just, it is just so, not for me easy to use because my eyes are so bad and so much that step is so small a lot of times I try to do it and then I'll give it to one of the kids or our youngest is still at home.

I'm like Ty, can you help your mother? And then of course I'm trying to find out what's the trendy song and I'm and I stay up on a lot of that. But I don't know. It's important though. I mean it's definitely a way to reach people gloating for all of the world. And I because of my marketing background, I just try to help. hit on all cylinders, whether it's print, direct mail, billboards, social media, networking,

open houses. You just got to keep grinding until you get it done. Yeah. And at the end of the day, it might just be price. Yeah, it might be. It doesn't matter what else, how much money you spend. If the price and the condition are not right, it's not going to work. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you're trying to find a real match, right? Yeah, absolutely. A match where people find what they want. Yeah, I walk into a house that doesn't have any furniture and I'm like, oh, I can't see anything. My wife can see it very well. You know, Todd Lorbach is in investment banking now. And he's got a sale going on with a virtual staging company.

Oh, wow. That's awesome. He's trying to help sell their company. That's cool. He says they've just grown like crazy. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah. But I haven't used AI to write my remarks for my listings.

I like to write those myself because I have been in the home. I can feel it. A lot of times I find out from the seller, what is it about you? What do you love about this home? And the neighborhood or the community or the area and just make it more, you want to emotionally pull people,

pull them in if they read. A lot of people they don't read anymore either. Let me ask you a couple of quick hitters here. Okay. Favorite book? Oh, God. I mean, John, this is terrible, but I am not a reader.

Okay. And that's honesty, it's right there. That's fine. I don't even know the last book I read. You know what? You're too busy selling. I literally, and I know, the thing is, I love to learn. I mean, I love to go to, you know, classes that my company has.

Sometimes I'll walk in. They're like, why is she here? But I can always get a little nugget or think about how I can craft something different. But I'm terrible. I don't even know the last book I read. Listen, most of us don't sit down and read whole books anymore. It's important, though. I wish I did.

I wish I need too. But I mean, everyone I talk to, they're like, oh, you got to read more books. You know, if someone says read a book, I'll go to YouTube and say, book summary of something such. I like listening to podcasts. Okay. That's good. And like, especially anything that has to do with like, you know, serial killers or death or crime stuff. I do not know what's going on with you ladies and your serial killers.

I love that stuff. That's where you're thinking about getting in the basement. Yeah. Exactly. This is why I can't sleep at night. But for some reason, I just. get mesmerized by that stuff. It's terrible. So I know you like music. Favorite band? Band? Okay, so I have to say my favorite singer. Like, I love Whitney Houston.

Oh, yeah. My favorite song is I want to dance with somebody. I tell all my friends, when I die, you'll have to play that on loop during, like, I don't care. The reception, the funeral is over and over again. I'll be there for the, well, I don't know if I'll be there, but if I am there, I will be there. You make sure. No, all my friends know. Like, that's my favorite song. And then favorite word. Okay. I have two. Can I take, okay, too? Steadfast. I love the word steadfast. And hope. Those are my two, I think. Well, tell me, first of all, if someone needs help in the real estate business, what's the easiest way to get in touch with you? I would say, I mean, whatever works best for them, but I would say the fastest way to get to me is text me on my cell phone. Do you want me give you that?

Yeah. Okay. 864. 9181734. Very good. You can shoot me something because a lot of times I will respond to you, but I could be showing in a close, you know, doing something where I can't answer, but I would get back to people really fast. That's the whole premise behind Greenville's agent 24-7 because I tried to be responsive. But let's talk about the big thing you've been promoting and working for your nonprofit. So tell us about this.

Yeah. So I lost my mom. in July of 2014. So it's been 10 years from stage four breast cancer. And before she passed, we created Team Sammy. Her name was Sammy. She was the fifth of five girls, and she was the little general, S-A-M-M-I-E, named after her father, Samuel.

And so we'd already were doing a lot of things to rally around her predominantly doing fundraising around the race for the cure with Susan G.comen. And when COVID happened, I saw some changes with Comyn. They were consolidating everything down, removing affiliates. There was no more race for the cure. And I just kept hoping and praying and really striving that I wanted to create some sort of signature event in her name and honor and help people in our community. And it just wasn't working anymore with Coman.

And nothing against them. Amazing. My mom got certain drugs because of Coman's research. so I have nothing against them. And then here comes 2020, and I'm thinking, well, how am I going to raise money this year in mom's name? Because we had done it for years. And by then, of course, she's been gone at that point for six years and came up with the idea, literally at neat bourbon bar in downtown Greenville with my husband, the bar manager, who's a dear friend of ours, like a little brother to me, another patron. we were sitting there and we came up with bourbon for boobs.

Nice. Yeah. Nicely done. And I'm like, okay, this, I think this is good. This is good because obviously breast cancer and cancer in general, it doesn't matter what your skin color is, how much money you make. It's going to hit you. It's somewhere.

Somebody you know, somebody you love. And likewise, bourbon is one of those things where, again, it transcends demographic. financials, like you can have a cheap bourbon, you can have a very expensive bourbon. A lot of people like it. To me, it's a classic. It can be trendy in some fashion. We're certainly seeing more and more of it in the last 15 years, but it's been around a while. And I was like, okay, that works, because I always have to kind of think through the why around

things. And of course it rind, you know. Men like hearing the word as well. Yeah, they like those two things. And it was fun because I'm not a, you know, I'm not a corporate girl. Like I don't like boxes and I want to be able to do things that will maybe surprise people, shock them and maybe a little bit. And it's memorable.

And that's what you have to do in this life. So I reached out to Pearlie Harris, Center for Breast Health at St. Francis and said, I've got this concept and would love to, I don't know how this is going to go, but I'd love to give whatever we can to Pearlie Harris. And then I had the honor of meeting her several years back. And the moment I met her and grabbed her hands and I probably want to cry, I was like, oh my God, like I could almost feel my mother. I know that sounds crazy because Perley, of course, was a former school teacher.

And my mom was too. And Perley has this just like she's feisty. And she's gritty. Yeah. But she is classy and southern and calming. And that was so much like my mother. And I just said, Perley, okay, this is going to work. And so year one, of course, we're in COVID's.

There was a lot of restrictions and guidelines. We raised 15,000 the first year, 45 people. And the generosity from the Greenville community just, amazes me every single year because the original partners I've had, Maker's Mark, Society, Neat Bourbon Bar, the list goes on, Tray Francis. They have been with me since the beginning of this. Year two, I'm like, because I don't want to get too big for my britches.

I'm like, let's do it one more time in the same venue. Let's keep this thing small but go a little bit bigger. Okay, we agree to 125 on a Sunday when neat isn't open and we could do it, same venue. Year three, I said, okay, we're going to go for it. We're going to, it's going to get bigger. Yeah. So then it went to, it's called the foundry at Judson Mill. Yeah, I know the foundry, yeah.

So now we're at year three at the foundry. So we went from 15,000, 60,000, 85,000, 116,000. And the goal for this year is 126. So everything I do, the goals are always in sixes because my mom fought for six years from stage four. So that that's our angel number. So everything I do is in sixes. What I charge for tickets, the way I line things up, the number of tables, that everything that we do is in sixes.

So I would love to think that next year is year six. And I told Tony just the other day, I said, okay, we're going to go for 160 for sure in year six. And I don't know where this thing is going to go from here because we have over 325 people, the sponsorships, the, like, what's so beautiful about this is that my overhead is only about five grand. Wow. Like everything that we raise, it goes to them. So I'm not having to, because of the generosity of the people who own these venues, who play

the music, who give the food, and of course the auction helps us make a lot of money, we're able to give so much back. and then it helps people in our community that are either not insured at all, underinsured, or who simply do not even have the transportation to get the mammograms. There's two mobile mammography units that go out to mission sites, churches, more rural areas in the upstate. Because we know this is a wealthy community, but is a highly impoverished community as well. and that's really what I'm trying to do is stop the breast cancer before it's even become a problem. Let's be preventative and get it to people who need it the most in my backyard.

So what is the event? October 24th. October 24th. We are 30 days out. All the tables and booths have been sold. Do people still come? Yes. I've got 56 tickets left.

And when I say I have 56, that is all I've got left because... What do they cost? $160. That sounds like a good investment. It is. You're going to have food from society, sandwich bar on Coffee Street, a curian that's less than a year old, female owned and operated on Augusta. And so those guys are going to give us the food.

Trey Francis and his band are going to play. Maker's Mark is our signature bourbon. And so we'll have three different cocktails that people can try. and so you're going to get food, you're going to get bourbon. And for those of people that are not bourbon drinkers, and ironically, I am not a bourbon drinker. I don't like verben. It's a full cash bar.

So you can get a vodka soda, you can grab a beer, a Diet Coke. So it's not like you have to partake. Well, congratulations on that. It sounds like it's a great cause and it goes to the local community. Yep, absolutely. You seem to be a superwoman. You can do it all. I don't know.

You got a high energy anyway. A lot of energy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just hope I can, yeah, just keep trucking and stay healthy and, you know, just do what I got a lot to do. I'm like, you know, you read about people that start new careers that, you know, in their 50s. And I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm on like career number three or four-ish, you know, what else is to come? You know, I don't know. And look at you with this podcast and all that you're doing.

That's right. Well, it's awesome. I think a lot of us like-minded souls like to do things. Yeah. You just want to stay active in your brain and, I don't know, just, yeah, work out and get up in the morning and just have a purpose. I think without that, if you don't have a purpose and a passion, like. Then you find one. Exactly.

Find one. Figure it out. Like, you know, go and help somebody and get some. It also gives you perspective. You know, because you can, you have bad. days, but you also, I feel like if you really know what's going on other people's lives, you'd back up and say, wow, I'm pretty friggin' blessed. Like, I have nothing to complain about. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard someone say, if you're depressed or not feeling, go to the hospital,

volunteer to go to the hospital. Yeah, that's what I always tell my children is if you're feeling down or just get in your own head or, you know, so I know, there's a lot of people that are suffering. And, but I think there are ways, healthy ways to, I don't know, I don't, I don't, don't know, maybe just get a little bit better and feel a little bit better about yourself. I just, you know, so I'm not a psychiatrist or anything. Whatever. Those are just my thoughts. Well, thank you so much for coming.

It only took two years to get you here. I think two years,ish, maybe. Because I am not offering a closing document for you to look at. So you squeeze me in between a few closings, but thanks for coming. Oh, my God, thank you. It's great feedback for the people that are interested in selling. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully they learned a little something.

Thank you. Oh my gosh, my friend. Thank you. Thank you so much.