Super Agents Live- Selling Real Estate

Todays guest is steven ross an expert in persuasion.  Persuasion is one of my favorite topics because everyday in multiple ways we play persuasion games.  According to game theory everything we do is an act of persuasion---we do this at work, at home, with our kids and with our partners.  For most of us---trying to get another to see the world as we see it is the most important thing and that is never truer than in business.  Whether its on our instagram or on facebook we are trying to persuade others to see the world as we see it or the way we want them to see it.  I would make the argument that persuasion is the single most effective thing we can learn to master in order to shape our lives in a way that we are ultimately happy. Persuasion starts with our body---our facial expressions extends to our tonality and pace of speech and ends with the content we are delivering.  Often we get into sales pitches and deliver our pitch perfectly only to walk away with a blank contract-------why?  Effective persuasion is part psychology, part sociology and to be effective we need to understand both game theory and be able to be an illusionist knowing what to reveal and when.  Today I have Steven Ross on the show and if you havent heard our first interview a few years ago I would encourage you to go back and find the episode I think its number 276 we get into doublespeak and subtle words can effectively put people into a more receiving state---we also talk about how to use the power of touch.

Today on the show we bring on Tyler Whitman of the hit show Million Dollar Listing.  We discuss why you need to be a hyper local expert in your market.  We dig into the type of expertise you must develop to differentiate yourself and why differentiation is the difference between winning and going hungry.  

Getting rich is rarely about being the smartest person in the room nor, is it always about taking gigantic risks and betting it all on black.  More often than not, its about being in the right place at the right time and recognizing that the world is shifting beneath your feet.  That's why the "luckiest" entrepreneurs often have a very diverse group of friends and  interests.  Today's guest recognized there was gold laying in plain sight.  

Whether its from government intervention or tech innovation the way realtors have typically made a living are about to change.   Some of the changes that have been proposed are small and relatively unimportant.  A rule that was enacted across the board was that buyers agents could no longer advertise that there services were "free" and that agents could no longer "not" show a property due to the low co-op fee.  Those seem pretty reasonable and were enacted by most MLS's across the nation. At the heart of the REX initiated DOJ antitrust lawsuit that seems to be most confusing is that they are arguing that buyers should pay for their own agents services and the seller should pay for their agent.  This may benefit a company like REX but, it seems like it would create a larger barrier to first time homebuyers and stifle the overall market.  Today we discuss. Please visit our sponsor issuu.com  We all have creative ideas but, how do you take your idea and turn it into a digital asset?  Issuu helps creators, marketers, designers, and really anyone who wants to make content that stands out. Taking our ideas and transforming them into a marketing piece that can be used on all of our social media can be maddening.  This is why large teams have a dedicated marketing person doing nothing but, creating and reformatting content for use on all of our platforms.  Issuu solves all of that in an easy to use make it once and distribute everywhere tool.  Make it once and distribute it everywhere.  You can try it free at issuu.com and if you want premium features like analytics or SEO help to make your content more discoverable you can get 50% off when you go to issuu.com/podcast and use the promo code superagents.  That’s I s s u u .om /podcast and use the promo code superagents.

When you are stuck how do you breakout?  What separates the average performer from the super successful?  Dr. Hank Seitz and I discuss these issues along with various other topics including mental mapping and how we all may be cut from the same cloth but, just haven't yet realized it. Our sponsor is issuu.com. Issuu helps creators, marketers, designers, and really anyone who wants to make content that stands out.  Make it once and distribute on all of your platforms.  Go to issuu.com/podcast and use the promo code super agents to get 50% off

Today I talk with Matthew Ferry.  Matthew is a long time and prominent coach to Wall Street folks, Fortune 500 CEOs and he even coaches someone in the royal family but, he doesnt divulge names which I can so very much appreciate.   I bring Matthew on to talk about his brand of goal setting which he calls enlightened goal setting.  Its a term which he has probably coined and I suggest you drop any preconceived notions about what it is and whether it will work for you.   The reason why Matthew coaches people at such a high level is that successful people gain mastery in the basics, time management, goal setting, delegation, etc. but, often its when we reach all or most of our goals in life we become stagnant not knowing how to break through to the next level.  Sometimes we cant even envision a next level and we can feel stuck, stagnant and sometimes having the outward appearance of massive success but, on the inside feel like frauds--I certainly have felt like that at many points in my life and career.  Most of the times I have felt like that its been because money alone has stopped being my primary driver.   Its in those times that I need to stop and find a higher purpose---I need to find something larger than myself to aim toward.  Heres my conversation with matthew Ferry. Download his free workbook here https://matthewferry.com/optin-497351461626468565047

 One thing that has really improved in this industry is technology--technology used to be your CRM now its the ability to send targeted ads to age groups, specific geography or category.   One thing that is going to get better and better is predictive analytics.  All kinds of companies are developing new predictive models.  If companies better predict buying or selling behavior we can get in front of the seller sooner.    Its going to be a while before these things really get sorted out so Im not worried about this in the short term.  I do see a few threats on the horizon and some of these you probably should be aware of.   First--are you familiar with the lawsuit between redfin and the DOJ?  Redfin was suing for more transparency around buyer broker commissions.  Redfin wants to fundamentally remove the ability for buyers agents to work for a buyer and get paid by the seller.  They want buyers to pay their agents directly.  That means that when you take on a new buyer you will have to negotiate your own buyers agent fee upfront.  No more will you help a buyer find a house and get paid by the seller at closings.     While this sort of transparency is always good it will undoubtedly effect commissions in many markets.  Here in San Diego where the average price is 850,000 dollars a buy side commission is roughly 25,000 dollars.  I think a lot of buyers are going to experience sticker shock.  We will have to see what this ends up looking like over the next 18 months but, I think this is a call to action whereby agents particularly ones focusing on buyers that they up their game.  You going to have to up your game and really get clear on what value you add to a transaction.     I might do an episode on that----hit me on twitter if that sounds interesting my handle is @superagentslive

Krista has been a top agent for a very long time.  I ask her what she has learned from coaching top agents as well as, what agents are getting wrong.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Hey everybody--I hope you are crushing it.  Todays I bring on Gregg Sugerman.  Gregg is a coach that focuses on mindset.  We discuss how to identify your unique competitive advantage.  Where people get stuck in their businesses and lives and how to break out of those barriers.  WE discuss why you should develop your own personal board of directors. And we talk about the things that hold people back from achieving the life of their dreams and why sometimes we are our own worst enemy.   A quick word from our sponsors: If you want to turbo charge your business you absolutely must call myradioexpert.  They are the premiere media company for realtors.  They are experts at identifying and isolating the perfect demographic and theres nobody better at writing copy that moves the needle.  Radio is the one thing that is necessary if you want to dominate your market in listings.  Go to myradioexpert.com and fill out the getting started sheet---they will give you a free 30 minute strategy call and find out if radio is right for you We are brought to you by exp realty.  Im happy to be a part of exp.  I love that they empower every single agent by giving them their own professional website, a crm and virtual transaction management software and on top of all that they offer the best training in the industry.  If you want to know more about exp, their tools or their unique revenue share program send me an email.  If you want to make more money faster I want to talk with you about joining my team at exp realty.. Send me an email to superagentslive@gmail.com

I hope you are killing it at the game of life.  Every week I bring on someone that i think can add something to your business and life.  Its a strange market out there and the people who are winning are the ones that are adding the most perceived value to the market.  Heres a fact---most realtors look and sound the same and because most  realtors look and sound the same consumers see them as a commodity.  Whats the difference between shell gas and arco gas?  Isnt gas just gas?  Or is there something special about the Shell gas---oh yeah---its shell with techron.  I dont buy arco gas----I pay a little more the the Vpower techron gas.   At the end of the day-----maybe gas is just gas---I dont know if Techron is even real but, that hook has hooked me on the Shell brand for years.    Does your business have its own version of Techron?   let me take a step back.  Right now----almost every realtor in America is facing the same issues of inventory----which is really astounding that right now the country as a whole has more buyers than sellers.  In the past We have experienced the opposite.  In the great depression of the 1930s and the great recession of 2008----during those times we had more sellers than buyers.  I dont think we have ever seen a time of more buyers than sellers.   And in a time like this we as realtors lose some of our power---some of our glitter.  Now all of the sudden the seller doesnt need your fancy marketing---he knows he can price higher than the last house sold-----doesnt need to do any repairs and is likely to ask for a reduced commission.  Seriously---why does this seller need you?  What do you bring to the table?  What value do you add to the process?     This is something I ask everyone that I hire and you might not be shocked to hear that most people really havent thought of it.  They never asked themselves what value they add to the deal?  I wonder what your answer might be.     What value do you bring?  It cant be something generic or some kind of commodity.  It needs to be something unique to you.  What is your Techron?  Thats what we are going to talk about today

Hey everyone--- today on the show I have Greg McDaniel.  Greg has run large teams in the bay area and he has a podcast named real estate uncensored.     Ive spent a fair amount of time talking with Greg and I enjoy listening to his ideas on how to build a business.  He has a unique and straight forward approach to listing and selling houses and wanted to have greg on as this economy opens up.     Theres no question that real estate is on the minds of most people in business as its a very direct indicator of a healthy market.  For the last year there has been a large push upward on prices and equity.  By all measures the upward thrust in price appreciation has been largely artificial.  Artificial in the sense that halting foreclosures and evictions has put a stranglehold on inventory.  This stranglehold is set to release very soon and it will be interesting to see what happens.  It may break loose all of the sudden or it may come on gradually.  It really doesnt matter----all that matters is that A)  Its going to break loose in a matter of months and B) that you have positioned yourself to take advantage of the inevitable onslaught once it happens

Hey everybody--today I bring on Michael Reddington.  Michael is the founder of inquisitive and is a forensic interviewer.  If you dont know what that is----I didnt either.  Michael teaches CEOs how to apply investigative interviewing techniques in their roles as leaders in order to reach their vision and exert  influence. Michael says the cognitive processes that drive interrogation suspects to say “I did it”, is the same process that drive customers to say “I’ll buy it” and employees to say “I’ll do it” are all nearly identical. Ive had the chris voss the head of the fbi hostage negotiation unit on this show covering similar topics.  I want to know what strategies or tactics I can use to uncover a prospects hidden needs or desires and I want to know how to get them to say yes.  How do you get them to the edge and then over the edge and into yes.   Before we get to the show I want to tell you about myradioexpert.  Theres one marketing method that all top top producers have in common and that is that they are reaching the right consumers at the right time and there truly is no better way than radio and myradiexpert does it all---they identify the right station with the right demographics.  They negotiation rates and build each client a custom schedule thats within their budget and they write all the copy.  All you have to do is pick up the phone and go on listing appointments.  If you want a listing business----you must do radio. Go to myradioexpert.com or send me a text to 619-301-0823 this may be the thing that changes your business and life.  

This is a wobbly market and our way ahead is still uncertain from an economic perspective.  Wall street is getting a little more nervous  as inflation heats up and the biden administration today has proposed increasing capital gains which will be a forcing function to encourage wealthy people to move cash into tax deferred investment vehicles and there are agencies like the consumer finance bureau that are calling for a continued moratorium on rent and mortgages----all of this points to continued pressure on inventory. If that's the case there will be more qualified agents competing for the same amount of inventory.  How do you get ahead or differentiate yourself?  I brought on the CEO of BombBomb to talk about how what he thinks is the most compelling way to do this. A quick note---I say it all the time---the best way to get listings is to reach them at the point where they intend to sell and the best way to do this is radio advertising.  I love the new stuff you can do with fb advertising and funnel building but, there is nothing better than radio to dump ready to list homeowners than with radio.  If you want to know more goto myradioexpert.com and fill out the getting started sheet.

Let me share a few thoughts before we get to the episode.  one of the things to note about the current climate is the lack of inventory in every metro market in the united states.  I just read that there are now two licensed realtors for each home listed.  Those are unreal numbers and we need to consider the implications of the data.  The average shelf life of an agent is 18 months-----career start to finish a year and a half---those agents that do make it will only sell an average of 8 to 12 sides a year most of them on the buy side.   With super constricted inventory will we see that drop-----maybe the average agent will do 4-6 sides.  If that happens we will most likely see the shelf life shrink to less than a year ----maybe?  Will this give rise to larger teams or more teams in general?  One thing is for certain the middle is shrinking----there will be a divide of those crushing it and the rest just scraping by.     That story is just taking shape.  Will you be one of the crushers or will you get crushed?  The differentiator will be who has the best way to reach the most people at the cheapest cost per person.  For the last 10 years the people that crush it are on radio.  If you want to know more about what radio can do in your market go to myradioexpert.com  fill out the getting started sheet   

Today on the show I bring on a speaker, trainer and author.  We talk about her new book brand clarity.  we talk about what it really means to build a brand.  I get frustrated many times when people speak of branding.  Typically when people speak about branding they are talking about their logo or maybe they are talking about a particular ad campaign.  I particularly hear this when I see someone spend money on some useless form of advertising-----when it doesnt work meaning generate actual calls they will say its for branding.   Todays guest talks about branding as something more fundamental.  She explains how a brand is an authentic representation of your values and concepts.  She explains how to create your brand as well as, how once fully formed will inform all of your messaging---from the way one approaches a market to the type of people one works with.  I particularly resonated with idea that if my brand is authentic to my way of interacting with the world I will attract the type of people I want to work with and the types of deals I most desire.   This was a fantastic conversation---I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Before we get to the episode I want to share with you some of the thoughts Ive had on this market.  We spend a lot of time over here thinking about how this market is trending.  We of course want to help our clients skate to where the puck is going rather than doing what it feels like most people are doing which is skating to where the puck is.   Last year was impossible to ever get any sort of handle on the market longer than maybe a 3 month view and thats why the people that ran their business---- just kept on chugging along did really well in their and those that tried to time the market lost a bunch of time and money.  Ill give you an example--there are people changed their business model mid year because they thought or were told to begin prepping for short sales and foreclosures but, in reality we saw just the opposite.  We saw a steady and sharp increase of home equity.     I dont want to get lost on historical analysis but, I do want to briefly share my thoughts on the rest of this year.  In terms of real estate I think 2021 is going to be  somewhat of a mirror image.  The fed has indicated that rates will continue to stay super low.  Theres some concern about inflation and that may effect the 10 year treasuries which mortgage rates are actually based. And by May the Biden administration says there will be enough vaccines for everyone in america. So-- People will be back to work and if the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums work everything is back to normal except that homeowners got a giant boost in wealth from their equity.     If this is the path we still find ourselves in a very constricted market with limited supply of available homes.  So if this is the environment we find ourselves in and we believe this environment will be stable through 2021 what should we do?  How do we begin to shape our marketing?  Our messaging?  As we progress and this environment evolves I will continue to not only give you my thoughts but, you will see how my thinking shapes the conversations I have with my guests.   I will share this one tidbit---this last year has caused a fracturing. Large groups are fractioning into smaller and smaller subsets.  We see that in the LGBTQ arena with an ever expanding list of distinctions.  We see a fracturing in a political sense whereby the far right Qanon types are very far from the moderate republican and the AOC far left doesnt really resemble anything like a moderate democrat like an Obama or clinton.   We also see a fracturing in what is a business and who is an entrepreneur.  Is the lyft or uber driver any less of a entrepreneur than a broker owner?  The answer is no and some of the legislation forcing companies like Uber to offer health and dental insurance and 401k’s further blurs what constitutes an entrepreneur. I think we will see far more people entering the workforce as entrepreneurs.  A lot of people will create micro or side hustles and we will finally see an emergence of the “brand of you”.  Of course this will not happen overnight but, we are on a faster track than ever before.   If you follow my logic and can envision the path which I outlined you will see a need to begin cultivating the long tail of branding--your individual brand.   I can stop right here because the sad fact is once I said branding Ive lost half of you.  Branding is one of those terms often means different things to different people.  I am going to shortcut the term and instead say “expertise” for ths particular conversation.   Each one of us has a unique expertise and its your specific expertise that will make a massive difference in an environment like the one we find ourselves.  As we experience of fracturing of identity, of politics and even economics people will naturally begin to look for businesses that cater to their specific brand of thought.  Once you start to look for this level of distinction you will start to see it everywhere.  I could very easily merge this into a different discussion but, for now I am going to stay focused on business and how you can use these trends to your advantage or at the very least you can know these trends so you dont get eaten alive.   Have you identified your unique expertise?  How are you reaching your people?  What platforms will you use?  What messaging will clearly define you and your approach?   I think over the next few weeks and months we will be exploring  this idea a bit further.     I can tell you that my personal brand has benefited tremendously from this podcast.  I have spun off a few businesses the biggest being our radio and television arm.  This podcast has opened up tons of new relationships and business opportunities that I would never have access without it.  I think every single one of you should start your own podcast.  Its cheap and massively effective.  I would be remiss not to tell you that for years we have had an offering just like this----I just never mention it.  If your interested you can go take a look at viralkast.com viralkast with a K.     In the next year there is certainly going to be a continued arms war with the top teams in the country spending more and more money on things like radio and digital specifically facebook.  It is this distinction that things can get a little blurry.   Without getting too deep into this topic let me briefly point out that advertising on something like the radio falls into the category of direct response advertising.  A 60 second radio spot is a lot like an elevator pitch.  I get to tell you who I am.  What I do and why you should care. Direct response ads are designed to attract sellers.    A facebook post or a sponsored post is more akin to a banner ad.  Largely speaking this falls into the branding category.  This is not to say that you can't blend the two if you're good at video but, I’m speaking in generalities.  In general direct response will target sellers and brand or impression marketing will target buyers. The problem with companies that are buying zillow leads or any kind of buyer lead at all is the fact that buyers are everywhere and having 500 buyers working with you doesn't mean anything if you cant find a house to sell them.     In this kind of environment it becomes increasingly critical to begin investing in the brand of you.  Its common knowledge in virtually every market in the nation that if you list your house for sale it will sell.  In some markets you might get 30 offers in one day in others it might take a week or two but, a decent house wont last long.     Now more than ever we need to be crafting our unique value proposition.  We need to find new and creative ways to get our messaging into the hands of an audience that will resonate.  Will you continue to play follow the leader and copy the people that are selling 100 or 200 houses or will you go out and forge a path that is uniquely your own?     More importantly I want to stress the importance of building out a business plan that is sustainable.  This is most easily done by trying to establish some parity between the amount of listing you have and the amount of buyers you have.  Whenever one side gets too heavy you need to rebalance.  If you have a portfolio of stocks and you built it out with 50% of the companies you own being in technology and the other half in retail.  If at the end of the year you see the technology side inflate to 80% of your portfolio value you need to rebalance.  There are some people that will take a look at last years stocks and say “Im killing it in technology and put all their money into this one sector.  Thats great until its not and often one realizes their error too late.  This is very similar to the team that spends all their money on Zillow leads and now find themselves with a bunch of buyers but, exactly zero houses to sell.  That person would have been much better off if they would have attempted to maintain a 50/50 or a 60/40 listing side business.   Everything in life and business is about proper planning.  All too often I see businesses get themselves into trouble and not realize it until its too late and by the time they realize they need to try a different approach are often too deep and cannot see the forest for the trees.   Ok---I meant this to be a simple intro into an interview podcast but, got carried away a little bit.  As this market changes I want to continue to evolve and adapt and im very much considering doing this podcast a little different than in the past.  Im not sure if I can carve out enough time but, I think I would like to put out a daily podcast.  Some of it will be whats on my mind and some of it might be commentary from sources like inman     Just like in the game of life-----you need to try new things and approach it from new angles if you want new,  different and hopefully better results.  If im willing to try --I hope that you will join me in reinventing the way you approach this new and wonderful world that is finally opening up. Talk with you next week.

Hey everybody---My guest today is charles mylinsky--- charles was part of the original team that started jet.com and later sold to walmart for 3.3billion.  He is now  the chief product officer at OJO Labs.    I recently talked with Chris heller and found out that he joined ojolabs. Why would top talent like these two guys join a chatbot company?    I am always compelled to look deeper when I see something that looks interesting OJO labs started in 2015 and to date has raised 134M in venture capital.  How does a chatbot raise 134M dollars and capture top tier talent?  The simple answer is ---it doesnt---- not unless you have much bigger plans.    with the recent news that zillow recently announced they were buying showingtime for 500M dollars.  Zillow has made it very apparent that they are trying to be the bridge between an agent and a consumer. Looking a little deeper i found that OJO has a strategic partnership with wolfnet technologies which has 100Million property profiles similar to the size of zillow property database. They  acquired Movoto  which is a top 5 home search portal with about 20M unique visitors a month and coincidentally the the second-largest fully licensed online real estate brokerage in the US and realsaavy which is  a web development shop with a unique search function. and their whole business seems to rest on two patents around machine learning and distributed networks.  Machine learning or AI------ it needs tons of data for it to work..   Understanding that OJO’s mission to help people make better decisions through the fusion of machine learning and human intelligence?  Which is actually human assisted machine learning where humans are doing a lot of the sorting and matching as the machines  in the network learns.  Put in enough conversations and you hit an inflection point where a machine is conversant.  It can answer many routine and maybe non routine questions in a home sale or purchase. I dont actually know anything about what this company is doing or planning but, all of this seems super interesting.  Imagine You had a search portal with 20M uniques,, a zillow sized property profile database and you own a web development company and the only thing missing is millions of conversations for your AI to become conversant?   Imaging all those pieces together and what is possible is exciting.  I wonder how you might arrange them in order to capture, record and sort millions of conversations. You need an end to end marketplace---ebay, airbnb, etc.  The thing with marketplaces is that they are incredibly difficult to build---the good news is that if you can build it they are indestructible as long as both the buyer and seller are capturing value. The foundation of a marketplace is trust and the sad piece of truth about this industry is that there is too much agent turnover for most consumers to distinguish between a good agent or a bad agent. Good information or bad information. If agents would like to get qualified consumer leads it makes sense that the consumer would want a qualified agent lead--- could a personalized and customized technology solve both sides of the equation.  OK--enough of my rambling

Hey everybody whats happening-=--I hope you are crushing it as this new year begins.   The last few weeks I brought on some coaches---Im always interested in hearing what different coaches are advocating.  The last person  in this lineup was Bob Corcoran--If you dont know bob he is the guy behind the guy.  At the next conference you go to---- If you see a person on stage getting an award for doing 100M or 200M in production there is a good chance they are either coaching with bob or have been in the past.   I am releasing a conversation I recently had with bob------it was just him and I talking. This is not really an interview its just two guys talking about life and business and because of that we both get personal---I edited out some of them and stopped the recording at other times--heads up you might hear some of the editing.   I hope you can take something away from this.

Last week we heard from a coach that focuses on helping people break down small barriers that have large scale effects.  Today we are going to hear from a team owner--his name is aaron rian   Aaron has a very successful sales focused business.  I wanted to find out from him how he coaches his agents and how he gets his agents to become top producers.  I wont give anything away here except to share that he focuses on an agents built in talents and already developed sense of direction and discipline.  As you listen to this I would encourage you to ask yourself how you would perform in a very sales focused environment.     If I ask 100 agents what their biggest challenge is 90 of them would say that if they just had enough good leads they would be making a million dollars.  That may be true from some of us but, the reality is that most people just havent developed the sales skills necessary to be an actual closer.  Im talking alec baldwin “coffee is for closers” level.  I hope you enjoy my conversation with aaron

Sometimes you can't see the one thing that is holding you back or sabotaging your dreams. Today's guest shares how she helps people find a path to reach their goals in a way that is most authentic to themselves.