Start With A Win - Getting Ready for What’s Next with Jared James

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Our guest on this episode of Start With A Win needs no introduction in the real estate world. Jared James came on the podcast to talk about practical ways that real estate and business professionals can set themselves up to have a presence in their marketplaces both right now and once things are back to business-as-usual. The first order of business is Jared’s urging for every real estate agent to start producing video content. Video is an underutilized form of communication because people are afraid to try; they don’t like how they look on camera, they don’t know what to say, they don’t think video makes a difference, etc. When you allow these fears and self-preservation to drive your decision to do or not do something, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow personally and professionally.This leads into Jared’s next point about having the right mindset when going into any business scenario. If you are not able to self-regulate or recognize when something isn’t right with you, you will not be successful in your pursuits. However, by focusing on what you can control, you provide yourself with a level of certainty that will lead to confidence and higher performance to help you reach your goal. Jared’s key takeaways for listeners are:Get rid of obscurity – Produce content. Get yourself out there. Be an option.Work on your proximity – Make a list of people you want to network with and work to make that a reality.Prioritize boats over fishing – Focus on your infrastructure before trying to pursue bigger fish.  Connect with Jared:https://www.connectwithjared.com/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to start with a win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. And coming to you from all over the place, it's Adam Conto, CEO with Start With A Win. In the virtual studio at Brand Viva Media is producer Mark. How you doing, buddy? Hey, I'm doing awesome. We have a special guest on the show, so I'm super stoked to talk to Jared James. I love it. And you know what? Nobody told him, but he thinks he's going to be on the Ellen show. So I don't know how this is going to go. So let's bring him in. Jared, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing good, man. I'm doing real good. Is this where I go into JJ based on our pre,

you guys went into a different mode. You're dancing around. I love it, guys. Very nice. Her ego, JJ. We were talking about this earlier because jared is is a big stage speaker uh you know prominent coach uh in the real estate space and teaches like thousands of people all the time how to improve their business but he gets this drug in his veins when he's up on stage and goes into this who is it like sasha fierce type beyonce? Beyonce. Is that what's her name's alter? Is that Beyonce? Yeah, Beyonce. Nice. I want some credit from the viewers that I knew what that was. That's good for you. I feel like I just need some kind of credit.

By the way, I'm waiting for the intro where one of you says, hey guys, we've got an average show for you today. Because everyone's always like, we got a great guest. We're excited. I'm waiting for the time that somebody finally goes, you know what, guys, this should be just about status quo. You're really going to want to miss this show today. If you're going to miss one, this might be the one. If you have nothing to do, maybe this is the one you put on in the background. If you want to listen to a podcast while you're showering, this is the podcast. If you need to hit your podcast quota,

this is the one. Thanks for joining us today on Start With A Whip. No. We barely got started and the wheels have already come off. This is going to be a good show, I think. Last time I was on Zoom with you, Jared, everybody had a beer. I think you had a white club. Not everyone. Not everyone did Adam. I had a ginger ale for the record. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was a fun thing by the way, guys, that was, that was a lot of fun.

We did the, uh, we did the happy hour with Jared James and you guys were kind enough to come on, you and Nick came on. And, uh, at the beginning of, you know, this whole thing we're in now, we just kind of talked about what Remax is doing and hearing from your perspective. And so I really enjoyed that. I enjoy all of them, of course, but I really enjoyed that one. That one was a lot of fun. Well, as did we. I mean, you're a close friend of the business. Nick and I have both known you for quite some time. And it's just great to kind of share ideas in our space with you. So how about we jump into a few ideas today? You down for that? Let's do it, man. All right. So the first thing I want to ask you, we've got a lot of kind of fun, interesting perspective going on when it comes to consulting in our space, in the real estate space,

in the entrepreneur space. And really what we're dealing with is entrepreneur framework in business. So it doesn't really matter if you're selling insurance, mortgages, real estate, whatever it might be. It seems like a lot of people disappeared during COVID. And I know that's something you talk about a fair amount, but talk to us about that. What should people be thinking about right now when it comes to their presence in the marketplace? Because it seems like things are starting to heat up again a little bit. Yeah, man. Well, look, whenever you're in the time of opportunity, you're too late. Let's just be clear. By the time you read about a stock in the paper, as if we're still reading the paper, but you get the example, it's absolutely too late. And someplace that you and I agree, I've heard you saying over and over again about what leaders do,

don't bury your head in the sand. I can't remember. I think I shot you an email or a text or something. And I heard a clip and you were basically saying exactly what I've been saying to our people. And I shot you a text and I said something like right on, like, that's exactly the message we need. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like that because I was proud and happy to hear you talking like that. Because during these times, you know, it's funny, the difference between real estate people and just about any other sales job in a community is that furniture sales, car sales are not expected to be community leaders. And real estate people are expected to be community leaders. And yet, what you found during this time is you found out really who likes reading Instagram

quotes, and who likes actually living those Instagram quotes. And so right now was the number one time when people really needed to step up, be visible, be a voice in their area, be a break or an alternative from the news where we're not just trying to get ratings. We need to actually talk about what's going on while also realizing and noticing the realities of what's going on. Don't downplay that either. I've just been a big advocate for people of content, content, content. That camera that you bought, that lighting you bought to make you feel like you were going to finally start doing video, if you're not doing it now, I don't know what the heck you're waiting for. Now's the time. Step up as a leader. Educate people. Be visible. It's easier than ever. People are watching their

phones and their computers more than ever, and they're It's easier than ever. People are watching their phones and their computers more than ever, and they're looking for a voice. And some people are either going to plant their flag in the ground. Remember the old days, that's how you claimed a country. You'd get there first, put a flag in the ground. It's an absolute land grab right now. And they're either going to go and they're going to plant their flag in the ground and say, I'm the community leader. I'm the one you listen to, or they're going to follow the people in their community that did it for the next 20 years. So you got to make a decision about who you are. Do you know how every now and then we go through these cycles, all businesses go through these cycles, economies go through these cycles,

countries go through these cycles, politically, things like that. And you look at it and there's this, you know, you've got this little group of early adopters, which are the people who have been out there creating video, being present, delivering value on a regular basis, call it since probably at least mid-year last year. Early adopters, because, and tell me if you think this is correct or not, but I just read somewhere that only 25% of businesses have actually been taking advantage of this opportunity when it comes to delivering value via video, being present, things like that. Does that sound about right to you? Or do you think it's more than that?

God, that sounds high. You're telling me one in four? Now, look, I always think about, just like macro, micro, I always think about in real estate, out of real estate, because the truth is I'm a very entrepreneurial guy. So the stuff that I teach or I train or whatever comes from an entrepreneurial perspective. I just make it relate to real estate people so that it contextualizes. But when I look within the real estate industry, I've definitely been happy with the number of people that have stepped up and do video. But there's no way one in four agents right now are creating content on a regular basis like they need to It's like this uphill battle where we're pushing pushing pushing and little by little by little

Some of them are stepping out and more of them are stepping out and this has caused more and more to step out But by far there's still more than 75 percent of agents that are not consistently creating content I mean, I just did a zoom the other day with god I don't know a thousand people on or something and I and I literally because you can see people I'm, like how many of you watch my youtube content on a regular basis or my instagram content on a regular basis or my face? Or whatever it is all these hands go up And i'm like how many of you are uploading at least one video a week on your own youtube channel or on your own? Instagram and you would have thought the sound went out, you know, like people

People love to consume but they're not acting they're not marketing in the same way that they're consuming. And that's been an issue. That's been a problem for the last 10 years, maybe even before, but this has helped. It's made people get comfortable, right? It's made stay at home. Moms are on zoom meetings, doing happy hours daily, you know, like they've had to get used to stuff that they haven't before. I don't know if it's 25% though. Like that sounds, that sounds if I round it up to the nearest 25. So you're, what you're saying is there's this huge opportunity still, but I think people are trying to rationalize a way they're trying to go.

I'm seeing more people out there. That's because you're spending all day surfing with your thumbs on Facebook and you see all these videos and you're like, oh my gosh, I see all these people on video. That's because that's what you're looking at, right? Well, agents love to do two things. They love to say two things, all right? Agents love, and this comes from the coaching side now, okay? All right. Coach away, my friend. Yeah. Agents love to say either, I don't want to do that. Everyone's doing it. Or they like to say, I don't want to do that. Nobody's doing that in my area. And when you say those one of two things, where, let's just bring it back to your podcast,

where is the win? Because one of those two things is always happening. So like, where's the win? It's we justify these things in our head to make us feel good about the fact that we're not doing something, not because we're bad people, or we don't want good things for our business, because they don't work. And so if we can rationalize in our head that it doesn't work, then we don't feel bad about ourselves for not doing it. That's much easier to do than to just say, boy, I sure am lazy and not doing what I should be doing. So it's self-preservation. Fear. Yeah, man. Of course it's fear. They're rationalizing excuses. Why not to do something? That is 100%

fear, isn't it? Of course it's fear. And by the way, in many cases, it's justified fear. Someone said to me the other day, I was on another call with these agents and they said, what about people that are nervous about doing this or nervous about whatever? And I looked at the host. There were so many people on and I said You might have been nervous about starting today, right? Starting this off hitting record hitting live doesn't stop you Nerves aren't a reason to not do something if anything if you've done your due diligence And you know you're headed in the right direction nerves are the reason to move forward because those same nerves are what keep everybody else From doing it. That's how you separate right? So you can't expect different results from everybody else if ultimately you're doing exactly what they're doing

So if you learn to change the meaning and you take those nerves and instead of using them as a reason to stop you use Them and when they start to click in you change the meaning and you go. Oh shoot I'm about to push forward ahead of everyone else now nerves become a positive thing instead of something that holds you back That's what drives performance is nerves, dude If I stop doing something every time I had nerves, I mean, I'd just have a life full of regrets. You know what I mean? It'd be a life full of unfulfilled potential.

Nerves are a part of... I have an issue with people who are doing things every day and are never getting nerves. What are you doing? What are you doing with your life? Seriously. If everything you're doing is so freaking easy that you have no nerves, what are you doing with your life? Seriously. If everything you're doing is so freaking easy that you have no nerves, what are you doing with your life? I won't go on that. I could go the next 30 minutes just on that, but it's the truth. Nerves aren't a bad thing.

They're a good thing. It's interesting. I was talking to a big group of brokers this morning and we were talking about what holds you back. And everybody starts defaulting to business going, oh, my business is suffering because of this. And you're talking about nerves. Nerves are a physiological aspect of the human mind and our psychology, how we think, whatever. And I said, take a step back, folks. If you're not right, your business is not going to be right. Right. And we see a lot of that going on right now with COVID and things like that, where people are, you know, we talked about fear. People are taking this fear, turning it into anxiety and then just

beating the heck out of their bodies and their minds with that anxiety. And they're not getting things done. Give us a little bit of insight. How are you coaching people through or what is your perspective on the fact that a lot of people are kind of messing up themselves, which is what's messing up their business? Mentality, man. I say it all the time. I've been saying it for over 10 years. I'll continue saying it for the next 40 years. Number one reason, top 100 salespeople in the world. The number one reason they did a study on this is not management. Sorry to say, I wish it was. I manage people. It's not coaching. It's not all of these things. They're all awesome, right? It's ability to control, ability to manage your own state of mind.

You can never win the battle out there until you win the battle in here, period, okay? And as soon as you've lost in here, you've always lost out there, right? And so when you look at all of this just fear-mongering that's going on, you know, fear, when you look at it, anxiety many times comes from a lack of certainty. You know, when we're not certain about things, we're like, oh my God, oh my God. Like even if you're in a relationship, what's he going to say? What's she going to say? Oh my God, anxiety. What do they really mean by that?

It's all a lack of certainty, right? So it comes from a lot of things. It comes from controlling what you're doing every day and starting to take control over what it is you're focused on. You can actually control because it gains certainty. Okay. When you have certainty, you gain confidence. That's where confidence comes from. That's where a lack of confidence comes from. So it doesn't come from burying your head in the sand and just kind of sitting back and going, what's going to happen. I hope the tornado passes, you know It doesn't happen from setting up in the basement and waiting for the tornado to pass. You've got to start to put things on your schedule on a daily basis. You've got to focus on things

that absolutely give you certainty. Because when you have that certainty, now your confidence comes back. Your anxiety goes down. Your state of mind gets to a place where you're able to perform again. And because there's all this uncertainty, a lot of times when a market drops or people's production drops after a time like this, they look at it and they point to COVID and they go, well, of course it did COVID, you know, whereas we know agents that actually have gone up during this time. And so, yes, you can point to it and say COVID, but I'm just as quickly going to point to it and go state of mind, your state of mind dropped, you see? And so you might've had an external excuse, but we all did,

but that's when leaders step up. You know, like I can't, I can't stress this enough. Like this is when leaders lead. Everyone's, everyone's a great salesperson when all you have to do is write up a contract because the market's so strong. Everyone's a great leader when everything's fantastic. Everyone's great at controlling state of mind when everything in your life is positive. But all that work you do on mentality, all that work you do on the state of mind, they're not for the good times. They're for times like this. This is when you exercise them. Every soldier has to go to war. At some point when a soldier is just sitting there practicing, practicing, at some point, as much as we don't like war, they need a war. They need every athlete

has to go from practice to the game. And every business person who's working on this thing, their mentality, at some point, the best ones, the entrepreneurs, there's something about this. While it's not a good situation, it's terrible and it's sad, but something inside of you starts to smile because you go, this is when I strive. This is when all of those fake drop off. This is when, right? And so you got to think about all the work you've done. And if not, start putting it in and then look for the opportunities to exercise those muscles when the competition is sparse. Let's dive into a couple of key takeaways here for the listeners. Three action items that people in real estate and just in business can be doing right now. Give me three short, concise, key things that people can be doing right now, Jared. All right. So simple. If I were to break them down to three, I've got a million things in my

head right now, but I'll break them down to three. Okay. Number one, the number one thing that agents struggle from, and they have an opportunity to beat that right now is obscurity. Obscurity is the number one thing that hurts your business. Okay. You've heard me say a million times visibility trumps ability. Okay. So obscurity is the number one problem that people have. It's the idea that people don't know who I am.

They can't make a decision about you if they don't know who you are. The idea every day is not to get more yeses, it's to get more no's. You only get more no's when you're not suffering from obscurity, okay? And that's what content and those kind of things do, is that it takes your marketplace and it allows you to not suffer from obscurity. You need to be an option. And the beautiful thing for everybody watching right now is that your marketplace is not like me. It's not the world. Okay. You don't need tens or hundreds of thousands of views on your videos. If you get 17 people that watch your boring ass real estate videos, you're winning. It means that somebody could have watched Netflix and they watched you.

So obscurity, get content out there, get content out there. The next thing I would tell you that we need to look at is proximity. We have in our field kind of forgotten how important proximity is, you know, not to get too personal, but you're where you are because you got to know Dave Linegar and then you worked your butt off. Okay. But that proximity to someone in that position in this specific company and then the work you put in as a result of that proximity is what led you to where you are today. I don't believe that people are understanding how important proximity is and they're not understanding how important those relationships are in their area. And right now they need to

slow down and they literally need to make a list. Who do I need to know? Who are the movers and shakers? Who are the people that I need to be friendly with in my local area? No different than I do. Luckily, you and I really like each other. But there's some CEOs and whatever that I've gotten to know a little bit simply because they're on my list. And it's like, I need proximity to these people because it better helps me effectively

fulfill my calling on this planet. I can't sit back and just hope hope hope i've got to create Proximity. Okay, and then the third thing I would tell you is the the thing that I tell people The number one reason agents struggle the number one mistake agents make whether they're year one or year 35 Is that the number one reason that people struggle in real estate or the number one mistake they make is what I call boats over fishing. They don't understand that our industry is boats over fishing. And you're like, what? What the heck is boats over fishing? Well, when you look at it, if you're a fisherman and you want to catch fish, you throw out a line, you've got one line, that's fine. You want to catch a lot of fish, you might need a little boat. You want to catch even more fish, bigger fish, you need a big boat. You don't go shark fishing in a canoe, right?

And so the point is, is that the infrastructure, the boat has to come before the fishing. If you try to go catch that shark and you don't have a big enough boat, you're going to go down as somebody who got eaten by a shark. You see what I'm saying? And so on the flip side, when it comes to real estate, everybody gets into our industry and they fish, fish, fish. How do I create leads? How do I create leads? How do I create leads? And they don't spend enough time on the infrastructure, the boat. You need to right now use this time to be working on the boat. Work on your infrastructure, work on your CRM, work on your systems and processes, work on getting a good TC, a transaction coordinator. Prepare yourself for the surge because Because when the surge hits,

and it's going to, you're either going to be prepared to do more business in the next two months than you've ever done in six months, or you're going to come out of this like a bear coming out of hibernation, not be prepared, and you're not going to understand that this is your opportunity to get it right. So number one, obscurity, get rid of obscurity. Number two, proximity, work on your proximity. And number three, finally get it right. So number one, obscurity, get rid of obscurity. Number two, proximity, work on your proximity. And number three, finally get it right with boats over fishing. That is the formula for our business. Wow. Great information. It's like a mini masterclass here on putting your business back together after COVID.

I literally, I'm skipping. I could go like we could do this for eight hours. I love it. I love it. Hey, Jared, I know you have a ton of information out there. The thing I love about it, and I'm a big follower of yours, and obviously you speak at our major events and to so many of our agents around the world, but ultimately, where can somebody go find some of this information that you have? Because I know you do give away a lot of this value for free. Yeah, man. So our main site is jaredjamestoday.com. But the truth is what I'm doing right now with people is I'm really, just like I'm telling agents, come from a place of service, just serve, serve, serve. And this is an opportunity to exponentially grow your brand

because of visibility. I would tell people to go to connectwithjared.com. We made it simple, connectwithjared.com. It's got all of my links there to my social profiles. I do a ton on Instagram, a ton on YouTube, a ton on every platform, Facebook, whatever. It's got my podcast there, the whole thing. I would tell people to go check that out. Get as much free information as you can right now to try to get to a place where you're ready

to take advantage of the surge that is coming. So connectwithjared.com is probably easiest way. Send me a message, guys. Say hello. I batch it throughout the day. I answer every single one of them. It's never somebody from my office faking to whatever. I literally look at my job. I don't just say this. I look at it to serve the industry. And that means part of what I've done is I answer every single one of those and talk to people when they're coming in, when they have questions. And I think a healthy real estate market, a healthy real estate community is good for all of us. And for those of you that also want to add some accountability, we all need to add accountability to our business and to our

daily processes and to ourselves really. Jared has one of the top coaching businesses in our space. So don't forget to check that out. And we talked about a lot of these things coming for no charge from Jared, but I got to tell you, honestly, you can go consume stuff all day long, but until you pay for some of these things, they really don't cause you to take action as much. So keep that in mind when you're sorting through that and it might be time to sign up for a coaching course or something of that nature. So think about that. Jared has all of that available to you. Jared, I do have a question that I do ask all of the leaders that we have on the program. You and I have known each other a while. I know you have a great answer to

this. So Jared, how do you start with a win? No pressure. I know you have a great answer. You know what, man? Here's what I would tell you. Obviously, I believe in things like morning routine and those kinds of things. I mean, I teach that. I get it. I'm all about what's your great... I'm sure you guys have heard that a million times, so I'm not going to do that today, okay? Obviously, I also believe that I focus on one thing that needs to get done for the day, one win that's got to happen. Look, I'm not sugarcoating these things. I'm just sure that you have heard those things a million times. My real answer to this is probably that when I really, as you just said it,

I make sure that I'm set up for losses. And what I mean by that is when you don't stretch your talent, when you don't stretch your skill, when you don't have things on your agenda that are difficult, that are going to potentially be a loss for you, they're not just going to be the easiest thing you've ever done, you're not going to grow. You're not going to stretch. When a marathon runner goes out and says, hey, I'm going to run two miles today, that doesn't stretch that marathon runner at all. We all need to look at where we are specifically, where our talents are, and make sure we have items on our agenda that are potential losses, meaning someone's going to say, no, this may not work. I'm trying to sign a company that is a difficult one. I'm trying

to get whatever it is. I make sure that throughout my day, I have potential losses. That's how I win. I love that. I've taken a whole bunch of notes here today. I got a lot of things that once we get off this recording, I am going to go do myself. So thank you so much, Jared, for being on Start With A Win. Everybody, make sure that you check out Jared on all the social media platforms. I know you got something amazing out of this.

Here's my task for you. Go do something with it. Jared, thanks so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all you do for our industry. Seriously, man, thanks for having me on. I'm glad we can make it work. My pleasure. Take care, buddy. Thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all you do for our industry. Seriously, man. Thanks for having me on. I'm glad we can make it work. My pleasure. Take care, buddy.

Thank you so much for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question or potentially be on our next episode, give us a call and leave us a message at 888-581-4430. Don't forget to go on to iTunes and subscribe, write a review, and rate the show. For more great content, head over to StartWithAWin.com, follow Adam on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, start with a win.