Start With A Win - Pursuing Personal and Professional Development with Jay Pitts

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, Adam talks with Jay Pitts, broker-owner of RE/MAX Premier Properties in Louisville, Kentucky. Jay says that it was a no-brainer for him to end up in real estate, considering that his dad and uncle were both RE/MAX agents in small-town Kentucky while Jay was growing up. From them, he learned all of the aspects of the business since small-town real estate agents do so much more for their communities than manage home sale transactions. He started his career in finance, but he knew this wasn’t a good fit, and he got into real estate before long.During the Great Recession, when so many real estate professionals were struggling and even failing, Jay drew from his entrepreneurial spirit to adapt his business and bring in consistent income by doing about 20 BPO orders per week. He also invested a lot of time and energy into prospecting, getting his name out there so that he was top-of-mind when people were ready to buy or sell. Eventually, he was so overwhelmed by calls from the signs he had put up that he pulled one of his good friends into the business with him, and they went to work. The brokerage now has about 30 agents, and they have sold over 2,000 homes, so their setup is producing excellent results.Jay says that even in 2021, many agents don’t know how to get themselves out there. He recommends doing content marketing through videos on social media, showcasing behind-the-scenes videos such as documenting a personal real estate investment. He also says some very successful real estate agents have never experienced a down market because they got into the industry after 2010. When that time comes in the economy, these agents will need to learn how to sell availability and educate their consumers. An avid proponent of coaching and mentoring, Jay emphasizes the importance of caring about the development of the people around you as well as your own development. He says that the accountability provided by mentors and coaches is unlike any accountability you could give yourself individually and that these folks are a treasure trove of information on situations you might be facing. He encourages listeners to be intentional about mentoring their employees and providing them with growth opportunities.Connect with Jay:http://www.jaypitts.com/http://www.resourcepodcast.net/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaypittsrealtorhttps://www.facebook.com/LouisvilleKYHomesandRealEstate/https://www.instagram.com/jaypittsrealtor/?hl=en 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. You know, 2021 didn't make us any better dancers, Mark. No, it didn't. You know, it's like I see all those TikToks and things like that. I'm like, man, I wish I could do some of those moves, you know, those pops and locks. Well, last year we had Twitch at our convention and I introduced him and I'm up on stage just like, hey, let's see what you got. I'm like, whoa, wait a second here.

Because that guy was a professional dancer. So I don't, I'm not getting any better by doing these podcasts though. But you know what? It's all about having fun, moving your body. It is. And, um, you know, speaking of having fun and just being around great people, we have an amazing guest today. I'm, I'm super excited to, uh, to introduce one of our longtime friends and amazing broker owners in the REMAX network. Jay Pitts has been the broker owner of REMAX Premier Properties since 2015. This guy has sold over 2000 homes in the Louisville, Kentucky area. I mean, he started during a great recession and worked his way through 2008, 9, 10, things like that. Great leader, great mentor to so many, great broker owner, investor.

I mean, the guy's been in mortgage. He's done so much. So we are incredibly honored to have him on the show today. Jay, welcome to Start With A Win. Thanks, Adam. Appreciate you having me, man. Excited to be here. You bet. And Jay, you see challenges. And I've known you for a while. We've been through some masterminds together, things like that. And we're really excited to have you on here. You look at challenges as opportunities. And that's really what I want to talk to you about today, because you help a lot of people find opportunities in their business

and everything from the consumer to agents, to team members, to, I mean, tell us where do you come from? I mean, we were trying to build, let's build a foundation for your success here. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I appreciate you asking again. I appreciate you having me. And it's fitting that you would ask that question because I don't know if everyone knows, a lot of people that are around me close know that I'm kind of a REMAX legacy. My father is a longtime REMAX agent in a small town about an hour south of Louisville. Elizabethtown is my hometown. Jim Bramlett is the longtime broker owner in Elizabethtown.

He is my uncle. So I grew up at the knee of some longtime, very credible REMAX real estate professionals. So I like to say that small town real estate people do it all, right? They're the developer, the property manager, the investor. I'm kind of like the car dealer's kid that works in every department growing up. So it was kind of destined for me to be a REMAX broker, to be fair. But yeah, that's who I am. And I've kind of seen a little bit of all facets of the industry. I love that. So I mentioned the Great Recession, 2008, 2009. You did some pretty good numbers in real estate. As everybody else is sitting there going, oh my gosh, my business is drying up and

dying here, but you made some adaptations. What were you thinking? Did you go, hey, the economy sucks, the housing market's crashed, I think I'm going to go head on into this. I mean, what were you thinking at that point? Well, we talk about my dad. I was raised to be an entrepreneur. I was raised to be self-employed. That's how I was taught. And I was always taught that it's better to rely on yourself for your own income than from someone else that would give you a job to earn an hourly or a salary, what have you. So I had a pretty good gig. I was in the mortgage business originating for a lot of agents that I knew because I was close to the industry. And it just wasn't right. It didn't feel right. I was recently married. I was married in a year or so

before. And my wife and I were just trying to figure out what our life was going to be like. And I just didn't love it. So I went in and I gave my notice. And as they do in the finance industry, they don't take notice. They said, okay, you're done. And so I had a real estate license that I had gotten kind of on the side, and I knew that's where I was meant to be. So I got started kind of before. I mean, obviously, if I wasn't so young and naive, I probably would have saw the signs coming of the Great Recession that was coming.

That was the end of 2017 or 2007 rolling into 2008. And truthfully, three months in, I thought I'd made a big mistake because I went from a very substantial business that I'd worked three or four years to build to starting from scratch. And the sky was falling. Financial institutions were closing up shop, closing their doors. And there was a day or two where I was unsure of the decision I'd made, but I did what I always did. I put my head down and I worked hard. And soon I figured out that the only listings that were moving were REO properties. And so I was a really good prospector. I was pretty relentless on that. So I just got on the phone and I started wearing out these asset

managers at banks. I did BPOs for pay, $40 a piece. I did 20 a week just to kind of keep some income coming in. And before you know it, I got a listing from it. And then two, and then four, and then next thing you know, I've got 100. So it was quite interesting times. Wow. Yeah. I remember there were these different agents, you being one of them, where you'd start to see people ordering at just a ton of signs and you're going, all right, this person's found their niche in getting those listings. Yeah. Then there's Jay Pitts signs all over the place. And we've always said the person that owns all the listings owns the market, right? I mean, what happened to your phone ringing at that point? Because your phone number's all over the neighborhoods. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I remember vividly who's actually a good friend of mine who was the first agent I brought on my team who is now a REMAX broker owner as well here in Louisville.

His name is Eric Scroggins. He was working in banking and he and I played college baseball together. And I always knew, I don't know if other broker owners have this, but when you meet someone, you just know that they would be great in real estate. Eric was a friend and I knew he would be amazing. And he is. A decade later, he's killing it. He's doing amazing. But I called Eric and I invited him to lunch. And I took him back then it was like the 1-800-IVR-PROQUEST-TECHNOLOGIES kind of thing, not to give shout outs or anything. Sorry about that. But I just remember having text message after text message on my phone where I could just scroll. And they were all sign calls. And I said to him, I said, man, you just have to get

into real estate. I've got so many leads. My phone doesn't stop ringing. I need help. And he left his job to his credit and jumped in and the rest is kind of history. Wow. It's foundational for the success that you've continued when you think about that. I mean, so many agents are like, when you walk up to an agent, you go, what do you want? And they go, I want my phone to ring or I want leads or something like that. You went out and created them. So I want to, I want to dig into that a little bit because, you know, I get the calls, you get the calls. We, we deal with this quite a bit, not just in real estate itself, but in sales in general. And it seems like people are afraid to go out and create a customer base. What, what do you see in here and what are your recommendations for how somebody, I mean,

let's take real estate, for example, because if you can get real estate customers, you can sell these people anything. What do you recommend when it comes to that mentality? Well, I mean, you've got to have a bit of an edge, right? I mean, we understand in real estate, we're sold to the general public and, and, and homeownership is foundational to the American dream, right? So, you know, but I think that just the sheer magnitude of that idea takes a new to the industry professional or someone struggling, it kind of blows their mind a little bit, right? They don't know where to start. You've heard, I'm sure, how do you eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time.

It's take the first step, get in action. We can't wait for all the lights to be green before we hit the gas. Pick something that you think might work and do something. It's all about proactivity. And then from there, it's like any good real estate coach would tell you, you track and measure, track and measure. If what you did doesn't work, we'll try something different. I mean, for me, it was taking BPO orders for $40 a piece for three and a half hours worth of work, just so I'd have a phone number to call and hassle somebody for a listing. Right? And I joke, I wasn't really hassling them, but I was asking and I was asking repeatedly. So. So you basically deconstructed where you wanted to get to and went back to the very beginning of

that. Yeah. A part of the story that I left out was I took, I sold six houses in my first two months, all of them sign calls, all of them buyers, small price points, didn't make very much money at all. And then I took five listings off leads that I had nurtured from the sign calls into listings and not a single one of them got a showing in the first month. I mean, the market was tanking. And so that's when the epiphany that nothing that wasn't distressed was really selling at that time. And I had to get into that business. So identifying where you needed to go, that niche market that you need to be in, and then taking it all the way back to the basics and starting from zero with all the humility, right? Like you have to be able to be willing to be told no. Okay. So fast forward to 2021. We're talking about some of the challenges that agents were

facing then in the great recession, seven, eight, nine, 10, whatever it might be until things started picking up in 11, 12. So fast forward to now, we have a market that's on fire across the US and really across North America and in so many countries, people are like, I don't want to live where I'm at. I want to move. I mean, I probably know a dozen people who have moved recently. I know you know way more than that. But I mean, what are the challenges an agent is facing today? Because there's no inventory and we had an abundance of inventory then. So what are the biggest challenges you see an agent facing right now in your leadership in real estate?

Well, it's certainly very different than what I broke into. I mean, we have agents now that have never seen a down market and have had long, successful careers by this point, right? Seven, eight, 10 years worth of success and really never saw a down market and I've had long successful careers by this point, right? Seven, eight, 10 years worth of success and really never saw a bad market. So that's, you know, understanding that I think is important. Right now, I tell brand new agents to sell availability, to sell speed because it's what it takes. we're at a one and a half month supply market right now. We ran, you know, 2000 and, you know, 17, 18, 19 at three months

supply, which is, which is still low. It's still a fast paced market, right? But now we're at half of that. That's what the, that's what 2020, what impact 2020 had on us, more sales, less listings. So one and a half months supply presents some challenges. I mean, you have to educate the consumer and understand that they need to be ready to move the second they see something that might work. And agents, to an extent, some new agents that can sell availability and willingness to be available are going to use that to get ahead. But if you're an agent with 70, 80, 90 transactions per year, that's a different story. So it just depends on where they're at in their business.

Okay. So what recommendations do you have for agents getting themselves out there? We used to say, go set, put your laptop at Starbucks and say, have a real estate question, ask me, you know, that type of thing. But I mean, you can't go sit at Starbucks right now, but I mean, what, what are you recommending to agents for how, how do they go and turn the contact into a customer? Yeah. So, you know, social media is still the best way to connect with the consumer. The consumer is not on social media to find real estate, but real estate consumers are on social media. So building a brand through video, building a brand through

podcasting is something that we do. I produce a podcast. We produce multiple, you know, different kind of video media programs. We drive the content to the consumer. We like to talk about things that they find interesting. I encourage all of my agents to invest in real estate. We're in a market that is very, very good for that. So I tell them to document themselves. It's kind of like you'll hear a lot of the influencers say it's about documentation versus high level production. Document yourself investing in real estate. That's something that a lot of people aspire to. And by the way, if you get to have a conversation with them about investing, there's a good chance you might get a chance to have a conversation

about listing their personal residence. And so it's a bit of a Trojan horse there, but things that the consumer find interesting is a really good way to get your foot in the door via social. I love that. So you mentioned a few things here. I want to touch on those. Your podcast, what's your podcast called so everybody can go out there and subscribe to it? Yeah, sure. Sure. It's called Resource, Real Talk About Real Estate. Resource, just R E S O U R C E. Okay, cool. So everybody makes sure you go out on, uh, iTunes and, um, subscribe to Jay's podcast. Make sure you like, and review it. If you haven't liked and reviewed, uh, start with a win since

we're on this topic, you know, There you go. Yeah. I don't know if clicking four stars works on there. It's the only button you can hit is five, right? Something like that. I don't know, but it's greatly appreciated. But yeah, be sure and check those things out because these are nuggets of gold here. Great information. Jay, what about your videos, social media, things like that? Any particular channels that they should be looking for you on? Well, yeah. So you can find me on all the regular channels. Just a name search is the easiest way to find us. JTPits and Associates is the team Facebook page. We're at about 30 agents now, so we have a ton of activity there. I encourage all of my agents to have their own individual pages. One thing that's been quite interesting,

I've been producing a lot of content for us, right? We call it JTP University. A lot of it is kind of our training and onboarding, but we've made it available to the public. And what I've found is consumers are very intrigued and interested in how agents talk to one another. So I don't know if you're a mentor or a team lead, but you might consider producing some training content. I've seen a lot of the behind the scenes kind of stuff come out from several influencers, but that was a unique one for me. I didn't see that one coming. That's a great point. And everybody's going, oh, well, I don't have a training class or whatever. You know what people want to hear? They want to hear what you think is important right now. I mean, that's

really, if you were to write a little news article, it would, here's the headline and then here are the important points. Put your content together like Jay's talking about and push that out there and go check out what he's got going on here because it'll be a great example. And a lot of this stuff, you can just use information from your marketplace. Relatively similar concepts. I mean, real estate is, other than the contractual changes state to state or locale to locale, conceptually, buying and selling real estate is relatively similar. So some great ideas come there. So thanks for that, Jay. I want to dig into another thing that you mentioned though. You talked about coaching.

Coaching. And I know you and I both are huge fans of that. Give me your perspective. Should an agent have a coach and why? I think that, again, that depends, right? I'm a big proponent of coaching, but I do believe that it more, more, more than coaching, they, an agent needs mentorship. And if, if the best way to find mentorship is through hiring a coach, then by all means, if the finances work, then by all means, um, you know, I've had a coach consistently since 2012, so four years into my business. I would venture to say that there probably were REO listing agent coaches back then, but I kind of had my own program. When I was looking to pivot my business from REO focused to more traditional as the market rebounded, that's when I went and found

a really solid coach. So yes, if the financing works, if the finances work, then absolutely. I find that as my career has progressed, it's less about them telling you something you don't already know and more about the personal accountability that comes with it. It's a workshop for me, right? So just don't think that because you're far enough into your career that you know most of the plays in the playbook that coaching isn't for you. I think coaching is still for those that have, really, really high heights. Great answer. And I've, I've had it put a couple of times to me this way that, you know, you, you go to training classes, you get coached, things like that, because we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed. And I, I, I think you hit that nail on the head.

So many, so much of what coaching is, is getting you to hold up the mirror. The coach asks you questions and gets you to say what you've been doing and they go, is that what you should be doing? And I mean, it's really a vulnerable situation, but it gets you off the dime. So you start going and doing the things that you were finding excuses for. So it's, it's fantastic. So, um, and what I want to kind of wrap things up with one final question here, uh, before we get into my big question that I ask everybody and, um, you and I were at a mastermind together and you brought some of your team with you. Yeah. Uh, I mean, you're, you're a good leader, man. I to throw props to you. Kudos to you. I'm sure the, you know, and I've talked to quite a few of the agents in your office. They love you.

So by the way, if you're in Louisville and you're looking for a great office, go check Jay out. But the reality is here, you care about the development of your people. Why did you take people to that mastermind? I mean, what were you looking to get out of that? Because you, you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, I have to go to training class, especially in this industry. You know, we get beat over the head with training and CE credits and things like that all the time, but they were there willingly. They were hungry and it was cool. Why did you do that? And what do you, what do you have to say about what a good leader does to develop people? Well, so, you know, it's pretty simple. I'm, I'm very blessed. I've been able to identify a number of good leaders, um, you know, have kind of come through my,

my team and become team leads. And, you know, we even talked about a broker owner that, that started off real estate on my team. It's something I've taken an immense amount of pride in. When Eric joined my team way back in 2008, it gave a greater sense of purpose because I was now responsible for his success as well. At least I felt that way. It's the same thing when I took Luke and Phil, were the two gentlemen that you met when we were at a mastermind together. And really, it's just because I recognize that I've been very fortunate to identify two phenomenal leaders that have chosen to be a member of my team, not just my brokerage, but my sales team. And they are leaders in their own right within our organization. We have about 30 agents. They both lead about 15 of them.

And I was looking for explosive growth. I was looking, I felt like we were on the cusp. I knew we were, of course, I didn't know what 2020 had in store. That was earlier, earlier in 2020. But, you know, the great, the funny thing about it is, is despite any setback that 2020 might have brought, we still achieved the explosive growth that I was looking for. We went from, we doubled in size, went from 15 to 30 agents. And that's why I took them, because I wanted to help prime them and get them ready to lead the charge for the growth that I thought was ahead of our organization. Awesome. Great answer. Jay, I have a question I ask every one of my guests on Start With A Win. And I know you're a super achiever,

man. So I mean, this is going to be good, I'm sure. But Jay, how do you start your day with a win? So you're right. I knew you were going to ask. So I've thought about this a bit. But it's probably a little bit of what everyone says, maybe. I don't know. Um, I, I am ruthless about adhering to a schedule, to a plan, right? So early rise, like, like, like a lot of folks, um, you know, definitely got to get your body moving, got to get that workout in first thing in the morning, but of late. And I, and I'll say this has changed over my career. Cause I used to be like feet hit the floor and I'm working. Right. Like that used to be me. Life's a little different.

I got three young kids now and I have to get some family time in first thing in the morning. So the time I may arrive at the office is a little later. I've done. I've already got my quiet time. I've already got my workout in, but I got I got to get some kiddo time. I got to get some time with my wife and just whether it's just breakfast, a bowl of cereal or helping my son with his homework, whatever it is, it's, you got it. You got to refresh and remind yourself why you're doing it. I love it. I, that is, I mean, that answer touches my heart. I amazing Jay Pitts, uh, broker owner in Louisville, Kentucky, Remax Premier Properties, and also team leader of J.T. Pitts and Associates. Thank you so much for all you do in our industry. Thanks for your professionalism, for raising the bar man, and thank you for being on Start With A Win.

Thank you, Adam. Appreciate you having me. Hey, and thank you so much for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question or tell us your Start With A Win story, give us a call and leave us a message at 888-581-4430. Don't forget to go into iTunes and subscribe, write a review, rate the show. It helps us get the word out, reach more people. And for more great content, head over to StartWithAWin.com, follow Adam on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, Start with a win.