Start With A Win - The Power of Genuine Connections with Angelica Olmsted

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Our guest on this episode of the Start With A Win podcast is Angelica Olmsted, a flourishing real estate agent in the Denver metro area. Angelica started her career in the real estate industry, working at Booj and creating technology products to assist real estate professionals before leaping into being an agent in 2020. During this big transition, Angelica says that she felt overwhelmed by the big learning curve, but she found success in setting a few small goals at a time. These milestones helped her break down her bigger goals into more manageable tasks. For example, she spent several weeks focused on building out her CRM system with her existing contacts before reaching out to them and starting to track her interactions. Her current project involves filling in the birthday of her CRM contacts. She focuses on two letters of the alphabet per week. An integral part of Angelica’s business is establishing genuine connections with people. She has linked her contacts’ social media accounts to their CRM entries. Before calling someone, she always takes a few minutes to review what they have been up to lately, both because she genuinely wants to know and show them that they are important to her. After every call or text, Angelica always adds a task for her next contact with that person. She follows up by sending them an interesting article, calling them back in a few weeks to see how their recent race went, or dropping a handwritten card and a lottery ticket in the mail for them on their birthday. Angelica tries to find a balance between promoting herself and sharing fun and personal posts on social media. She wants to give her friends and followers a glimpse of her personal and professional lives because if she provides them with insightful and engaging content, she will be top-of-mind for them when it comes time to buy or sell their next home.Connect with Angelica:https://www.angelicasellsdenver.com/https://www.instagram.com/angelica_olmsted/https://www.facebook.com/angelica.polen 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

Hey everybody, Mark, producer Mark here, and I'm excited for this month because this month of March, we are going to highlight successful women. It is Women's History Month, and so what better to kick off the month than with having a successful real estate agent who is new to the industry, but also crushing it. And so I'm excited to welcome Angelica Olmsted on the episode. Let's go ahead and get started. 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. Coming to you from Denver, Colorado, Adam Kato, CEO of Remax with Start With A Win.

Looking across the virtual studio, I see Producer Mark. How you doing, buddy? Yeah, that's right. I'm here. I'm doing so good. I love this episode. So we're starting a great month about great women, aren't we? That's right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, what I love, we've had Dave Linegar on in the past, and he's always talked about how that women were kind of put to the side when it came to the real estate industry back in the 70s. It was kind of like the man's world or whatever. And he was like, nah, we're going to build this company with really great, successful women. And I love that that's kind of the history of Remax. Dave and Gail Linegar is founders of Remax. And so it's cool that this month we're going to talk to all sorts

of awesome women who are successful in different spaces and industries. And so I'm glad that Angelica's here to kick it off. Awesome. Yeah, we've got an incredible guest on today's show. I've known her from the technology industry. She actually started working at a company called Booj, B-O-O-J, which stands for Be Original or Jealous. It's a real estate technology company. At Booj, she was responsible for implementation and training of new technology. So basically working with a whole bunch of people and getting them excited about using these new technology products. So in 2017, we at Remax acquired Booz and their exclusive technology. And of course, Angelica came along. She was instrumental in helping us

really develop this new rollout program for REMAX agents under the Booge platform. And Angelica is an amazing personality, a great human being. She's spoken at conferences like Inman Connect, REMAX conferences, numerous other real estate events. And I mean, just all over the place, throughout the country, virtually, things like that, sharing all of her insights. And then she went into real estate as a REMAX agent, and she's freaking killing it in real estate. And I mean, she's one of those people you can drop her any place on the planet and say, go do awesome in this. And she would through her personality, her intelligence, her drive, her passion, things like that. So we're super excited to have Angelica Olmsted on today.

Welcome, Angelica. Thank you. That was quite an introduction. Oh my gosh. I'm blushing over here. Awesome. I love, well, you know, you're a fun person. We love having you around. Um, hello to Tyler. Uh, the, you know, Tyler plays second fiddle to Angelica. He's her husband. Uh, great, great guy. Uh, and I'll tell you what, um, I, I feel his pain because my wife is an incredible human being as well. And I'm like, whoa, and a great agent as well. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So Angelica, let's talk about you though. Let's talk about you and how you build success in your life and kind of what's on your mind. So first of all, talk to us about your transition from building real estate tech to using that tech now as a customer of the product and selling real estate. Tell us

a little bit about how do you make big transitions like that in life? Yeah. I mean, I think, first of all, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I'm just so excited to be here bright and early. I think, especially when I made the move over to becoming a full-time real estate agent, I was overwhelmed like every other agent is, you know, I think you start and you, you have an idea of what you're going to do. And that's the, even coming from the technology side and being involved in real estate, it was very different than I anticipated. And I like very, a lot of agents was, I was really overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. You know, I'd been, I'd spent nine years telling people where to start and I didn't know where to start. You know, I'd been, I'd spent nine years telling people where to start and I didn't know where to start. Um, so I think I had to kind of take a step

back and figure out how do I get started in my business? What do I need to do and set little goals for myself? Because it's really easy to get overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. So I just tried to focus on the first few things, accomplish those, and then set a couple more goals for myself. So baby steps. I started just like everyone else did. That's a great success plan. Let's not be unrealistic here. I mean, this is a hard industry to go out and be successful in, especially somebody who's been as successful as you in such a short period of time. So can you kind of walk us through that transition of, okay, I've left the corporate world and now I got my real estate license. Now what? I mean, how did you figure out what to do, where to go when it comes to those

baby steps? I mean, because like you said, it's overwhelming and it causes a lot of people to get scared and a lot of people to chase too many rabbits and catch none. It's true. And I think, you know, coming from the technology side and working with agents and amazing broker owners and, you know, just awesome people in the industry, I knew how important the relationship was to being an agent. I knew that from the beginning. I've always preached that that is the most important part of an agent's job is having relationships. And so I knew that my focus needed to be on my sphere, the people that I knew. I needed to lean on those people. And so I spent a lot of time really nurturing that, reaching out to everyone I knew, letting them know I was making the transition, letting them know I was available to help them if they needed, you know, assistance in anything, buying or selling, if they needed vendors. And I really leaned on the people I knew and it, it worked for me. You know, I think I was very fortunate to have amazing people in my life that would trust me with the real estate transaction early in the game. And I proved myself. And from

there I got referrals. And from there, my sphere saw that I was being successful. So building my CRM database was something I spent three full weeks, eight hours a day on. I mean, I just focused on that and I knew that would help me in the long run. And it has, I mean, if I wouldn't have spent that time in the beginning, I'd really be focused. I'd really be frustrated trying to get all that information into my CRM now while I have deals going. So spending that time in the beginning really helped me. Let's break this down a little bit because there's a lot of people that listen to the show that might there. We have a lot of people in real estate. Obviously, we have a lot of brokers and we also have a lot of people who are in general business. And we know general business is building relationships and cultivating those into

transactions. Right. So let So let's talk about, you mentioned you reached out to everybody and said, hey, here's what I'm going to be doing. How can I help? What did that look like? I mean, is it a sales call or what went through your mind when you were reaching out to those people and how did they react to that? I mean, to be honest, I was really overwhelmed in the beginning because i didn't want to make it salesy that's not who i am that's not my personality so it was really important that it came from a point of i just want to check in and let you know what's going on in my life and what's going on in your life um so it really took that approach you know i never started with hey

i'm getting into real estate you want to buy or sell with me it started with you know hey adam how's it going how's kelly how are the kids kids? How are the dogs? What's new? How is how is quarantine treating you? What have you been up to? Picked up any new hobbies? And so really starting the conversation, asking other people about themselves, because I generally I really do care about that. And I want to know how people are doing. If I picked up the phone and called you, it's because you are an important person in my life. So I made sure that I led with that. And then I just, you know, it naturally transitions to what am I up to? And I just let them know. I said, yeah, you know, I'm making the switch over to real estate. I'm really excited.

If you ever need anything from me, don't hesitate to reach out. But I made sure that it was a personal connection and I made sure it was a phone call or a text. You know, my generation, everyone wants to text. So you call, they don't answer, you text. But I had to be okay picking up the phone and making those calls. It couldn't be an impersonal email. It couldn't be, you know, just something that wasn't a personal touch point. It needed to be something that people were excited about and wanted to talk. So that's why it took eight hours. I mean, I sat on the phone for six, seven hours some days with people learning about what was going on in their lives. And I think that was a huge part of my success is that I really genuinely cared about those people I was calling. It wasn't a sales call

and it never, we never really talked a lot about real estate, to be honest, in the beginning. But after that, they saw my social media, they saw my follow-up campaigns, and they were reminded of the real estate transaction. And I think that was a big part of my success. You said a lot of words that really resonate with me here. The first one is personal. So you did not just have a script in front of you. You actually went out and researched everybody and made sure you had their information right, it sounds like. I know just knowing you, that's how you operate is you talk about Kelly, my kids, my dogs, things like that, which are all extraordinarily important to me.

I mean, what did you... And you also said CRM. So that's an integral part of this whole process, I'm assuming. Tell us how much time do you spend researching somebody before you pick up the phone? Quite a bit. I link all my social media profiles in my CRM. So when I talk to someone, I've linked their LinkedIn, their Facebook, their Instagram, everything. So I can quickly click through those, see what's going on in their life before I call. So I can, you know, hey, I saw you just went on this trip or hey, you got a new dog. How's the dog? I think, you know, I love when people remember personal things about myself. So why wouldn't I do that for other people? Why wouldn't I go out of the way to really research that? Sometimes I can go down a rabbit hole and I spend 30 minutes looking at their social media before I call.

You know, sometimes it's just a quick five or 10. It really it depends on the person. It depends on my relationship with them. It depends on a lot of things. And it's unique for each person, because if you try to put a formula together, it won't be personal anymore. It will be it will be very strict and it will be a sales call. I'm just blown away by this conversation because I sit there and I listen to the challenges that agents have and they're like, I'm prospecting and all they're doing is

surfing Facebook. But you're truly actually finding information about people to talk about, which I think is really, really cool. And then you're, you're annotating that in, in your conversation. Do, um, do people find that creepy at all or anything? I mean, it's, it's, I mean, and I'm friends with you and I know how you approach these things. You're like, Hey Adam, how's, you know, how's Kelly today? You know, I saw she was out doing, you know, working out or whatever, you know, I'm like, oh, great. You know, but, um, it's people always agents always tell me, oh, that's creepy for me to look at somebody to stalk them before I call them. I'm like, I think you're just

caring. Isn't that a big part of what you do is care about people. It's a huge part. And I think if you, if it doesn't feel comfortable and you're forcing it, it's going to feel forced. I, you know, I grew up my dad was in the Air Force. I'm a military brat. I've traveled. I've moved three to four years every single, you know, my whole life. I've lived overseas. As you mentioned in my intro, you can plot me anywhere and I will become friends with the people around me. And I think that that is just a genuine part of who I am. And so it didn't no one was was off put by those calls. Everyone was just kind of, oh, yeah, if I saw you, this is what you'd be asking me anyway. So it was just a natural conversation and it felt very comfortable. You know, I think if you're you can there's two ways to handle it.

Right. So if I see someone, let's say I see that someone on Facebook went to Hawaii, I can call them and in Hawaii. How was it? I love Hawaii. Tell me about your trip. That's, I'm asking the same question, but I'm asking it in a way that genuinely wants to know how was their trip. That's, I mean, sincerity, I guess is the best way to put that. I mean, it's, it's super cool. The, you know, just that those little bitty tweaks that you make. And then you, you went on to talk about, then they start noticing you on social media and the campaigns use the word campaigns.

What does that look like to make that transition from? Okay. And by the way, how often do you go back to picking up the phone and going, Hey, Adam, just wanted to see how you're doing. And I, obviously that happened a lot during the pandemic when we were a lockdown or, or came out of lockdown, whatever. But give me this ebb and flow and what do campaigns look like where those aren't salesy either or do they get salesy? You know, I think part of the job is you have to mix in the salesy. You do. But it shouldn't all be salesy. You need to keep the fun in there. You need to keep the personalization in there. So on social media, you know, I don't have a formula that I follow. I just, I try to post some fun things every day.

And I try to post some real estate related things every day. And sometimes those real estate things can be fun. You know, there's a lot of really cute memes out there talking about how avocados last longer than a well-priced home. That resonates with people. People understand that whether they understand real estate or not. So being able to give people kind of a glimpse, I'm a dog lover, I'm a Peloton rider, I love to run. I post about those things all the time, but I'm also posting about the market and I'm

putting it in terms that anyone would understand. So I'm not just throwing market stats out there. I'm explaining, hey, this means it's still a seller's market. And if you're a seller, you're in a really great position. So I think, you know, bringing that information in a fun and informative way reminds people that I'm in real estate, but doesn't shove it down their throats. So when they're ready, they'll reach out. And I still pick up the phone and call people all the time. You know, a piece of advice that someone on my team gave me that I

still think is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received in real estate was never close out a contact in your CRM without adding a task, your next action to do. And sometimes that's easier than others. Sometimes that's, hey, I found out that they are also a runner and there's a big race coming up. I can follow up with them next month when they do the race. Sometimes I have to get really creative on what that follow-up looks like. But I always try to do that because it always gives me my next touch point. I'm never falling out of sync with those people. I always have something to follow up with. I think that tip right there could make people a lot of money, do a lot of business. I mean,

right there, just that one piece. So can you repeat that tip for us one more time, please? Yes. Never close out a contact record in your CRM without adding a task, your next task. So that can be anything. That can be following up with a random stat. It could be sending them a listing that reminded them, you know, you of them. It could be following up on a life event that they have coming up. It could just be reaching out in a month and saying, Hey, I was thinking about you. How are you doing? Um, it can be that generic, but it should be something you actually care to ask them because it will show in your question. It will show how you follow up. Awesome. That right there, listeners, if you wrote one thing down during this, don't crash your car if you're listening to us trying

to type there, pull over and write this down, but don't close out your CRM without adding a task for that person. Because so many people just spend this time, they go on their phone and they flip through their contacts and call people, hey, how's it going? Oh, just checking in. All right, on to the next one. But it's very strategic how you're handling your growing your business. So I wanted to ask you then, as far as calling somebody a new agent, let's call you an extraordinarily experienced new agent here because you've done a ton of business over the last year and huge congratulations to you and to your entire team that you work with. I mean, you guys are killing it in the Denver Metro area here.

So congratulations on that. But let's say there's a new agent coming in or an agent that's kind of struggling. What advice do you have? And I think you've probably given it already, but what advice do you have for them to go and pick up the pieces of their business and start going again hard to make results? Baby steps, set baby steps and goals for yourself. I still do this with my CRM. So right now my current baby step is to have birthdays for every single one of my contact records. That is a huge feat. I have over 400 people in my CRM. And I'm not going to get that done in one evening or one day or one week or one month.

So I have all the alphabet written down on a piece of paper. And every week, I complete two letters. And that is still enough for me that, you know, some of those J's are long. There are a lot of people with J's. D's are very long as well. But it's for me, that's a small, tangible goal that I can fit into my weekly schedule that makes a big impact. Because if I complete that for the full year, now every single one of my contact records has a birthday and every new person, I'll just make sure I include it as well. So those are 400 touch points. And every Monday I sit down and I write birthday cards for all of my CRM. I handwrite birthday cards and I send a lottery ticket and I get great feedback. People love it. It's personal. It's fun.

Everyone loves to get snail mail. So why not? And I, I, you know, I, I look forward to people's birthdays. It's fun to celebrate birthdays. So why not? You know, that, that's my advice is baby steps. What are those small things that you can do to make your business better. And it's okay if that's a small task. It's better than no task. Amazing tip there. Now, on the flip side of the coin, what tip do you have for buyers or sellers? Pick an agent that cares about you. Choose someone that actually cares about you. When I am going to listing presentations or buying presentations, I highly, highly encourage people to shop around for other agents. I know I'm good at what I do. I know I care about the people that I work with. So I know that they'll come back. And if they

don't, then it wasn't the right fit and it wasn't meant to be. So shop for someone that actually cares about you and is going to take care of you and have your, you know, what's important to you first and foremost. Oh, wow. I mean, that's a big one because, you know, there are agents out there who jump into it for the transaction instead of for the relationship. And if they care about you, they're in it for the relationship. They want to, I mean, they'll end up doing more business with you over time because you guys have the ability to set expectations, to work your way through challenges, things like that. And a real estate transaction is challenging, especially in this day and age. It's super high velocity

and there's a lot to think about. So find yourself a great expert like Angelica. Angelica, where can our listeners find you on social media, your real estate business, things like that? Yeah. So the team can be found at teamdenverhomes.com. And then I have my own website, angelicasellsdenver.com. So those are my websites. And then social media, I'm not as creative on social media.

So it's just Angelica Olmsted on Instagram and Facebook. And Angelica, I have a question I ask everybody who comes on Start With A Win, and we get some amazing answers. And I know, I mean, you've got a lot going on in your life. You're like this Peloton warrior and your life with Tyler and animals and all sorts of fun stuff. I mean, you guys are like big time adventurers. How do you, Angelica Olmsted, start your day with a win? Well, it's funny you brought up the Peloton because that is a big part of it. I have to move my body. I have to do something. And some days that is easier than others. But I always, at least 15 minutes of movement that can be yoga, that can be Pilates, that can be bar, that can be a walk around the block. But I just have to move, you know, and I think that for me is is how I calm my mind.

It's crazy in here. So, you know, having the ability to just stop and spend 15 minutes on myself, sweat it out, really just resets my day. And sometimes that's how I end my day too, because there is too much going on and it's just chaotic. And so I need that, that downtime. And I try, I'm probably, I, I am not as good as this as I want to, but I don't beat myself up if I can't get it in. Right. Because we all really want to work out every day, but sometimes life happens and you can't. I just really try to not beat myself up and do something that night or that evening or another time. So just move my body because then my brain's ready to rock and roll too. Great answer. Move my body because my brain's ready to rock and roll also. That's awesome.

Angelica Olmsted, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all you do. Thanks for being such an amazing woman leader in our industry and at Remax. And thank you for starting with a win. Thank you for having me. Such an honor. That's right. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you're listening to this right now, we appreciate you being here.

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 on iTunes and subscribe, write a review and rate the show. And for more great content, head over to StartWithAWin.com, follow Adam on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, Start with a win.