How to Be a Successful Real Estate Agent in 2023!

Happy new year. Welcome back to the podcast today. We're talking about how to be successful as a real estate agent in 2023. So buckle up. We've got a bunch of different ideas. I got my brother, Patrick Ferry in the house. Patrick, what's up, man? Just rocking and rolling. So we were reflecting back on the last couple of shows we've done all with huge numbers, lots of value. There's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace right now, right? There is interest rates, inflation, geopolitical, local politics. There's so many things. And, and, and, you know, recently I had Patrick bed David on my show. Did you catch that one? I loved it. And he's like, home prices are going to go down by 20% as long as these horrible things all happen. Every person listening knows there is going to be a market inside of every market. There was a market in 2007, eight, nine, 10 for people that were willing to find the market. There was a market in let's just call it post nine 11, which really shocked the real estate industry. There was a market in 2001 when the.com bubble exploded, there was a market in 1989 after the stock market crashed in 1987, there's always a market. So Patrick, we want to talk about what the person listening right now can do to really make sure they knock it out of the park next year. You got a bunch of ideas. I got a bunch of ideas. Who wants to go first? I'll go first. My, my thing with what exactly what you said is the agent today has to have a good plan that they got to double the amount of opportunities that they generate from their lead generation initiatives to be able to make the same amount of money and income. And I think we saw, let's break that down. So the hypothesis is, yes, let's let's say of last year, if I looked at all my numbers and all my marketing and all my referrals and all the leads that I In order for me to make the same money, I have to double all those numbers. I got to double the lead generation. I got to create more opportunities. Right. So, and because, you know, if we really look at it, you know, we're going to see the number of sales go down a little bit, right? So the, the total number of transactions is going to go down the, you know, the 2.5% interest rate where everybody wants to buy, everybody wants to sell. Everybody wants to trade up that that's gone away. We saw that in 2022. Yep. So I just want my clients and all of our friends to be mentally prepared that we do need to generate more opportunities so that we can actually close those ones that have to buy, have to sell, which is exactly what you said. There's always a market in every market, right? So in December, I had myself and David Childers from keeping current matters. And we actually looked at a slide that was basically the MBA, right? Mortgage business versus NAR versus Fannie versus Freddie. And the median prediction average prediction was 5.1 million individual units sold right in 2023. Now that included new construction. Nice. That included new construction. So 5.1 million individual units sold is still a big number. Certainly better than what we had this, you know, this, this last year in 2022. So, so again, give me the hypothesis. I'm going to have to talk to more people or I'm going to have to generate more leads. I'm gonna have to double the number of appointments, make it more clear for me. What, what do I need to do more of? Well, let's, and you and I, you've been coaching for a long time. I've been coaching for you for a long time. And what I realized was in, in 2021, we were hustling so much, right? Every client that we got, it was very difficult unless it was a listing to sell. Yeah. Right. And so I found a lot of my clients and including myself by the end of 2021, we were kind of burned out for sure. And so in terms of our business plans, our lead generation plans, as I was going back and reviewing all of my plans with everybody, I was like, wow, you kind of just kind of chicken scratched a plan and it wasn't really that good. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm just challenging everybody. This is not the year to do that. This is the year that your business plan and your lead generation plan needs to be specific. It needs to have a math equation. It needs to be on point. This is not the year to just go into this thing saying, Tom, I'm just going to be consistently making my calls. I'm just going to be more consistent with doing video. Like, I don't want to hear that. I want to, I want to know exactly what we're going to do and go all in on double down on where the money's going to come from and where those opportunities are going to arise. So that's kind of what I'm saying. Like, this is what we've got to do. We got to go deep. This is not the year. So, so let me throw one for the listener. I literally just finished all of my personal conversations with all my clients, basically setting the tone for what we want to do this year. And you know, some are a little bit behind when they compare 21 to 22, certainly because of the rates, you know, somewhere ahead, everybody's forecasting a more productive 2023. And when we looked broadly at what everybody was focusing on, there was basically, let's call it three primary goals. So if you're listening to this right now, even if you've already set your goals, even if you've already written your plan, I'd like you just to consider the following. When you have more than three goals, the old line is one, two, three, too many, like too many things, too many distractions. And there's already enough distractions in your business. So I would want to see three primary goals up and visual in your office, probably on your bathroom mirror at home every single day. So you can review it in no order. It would be number one. What's your volume goal? What's your transaction goal? What's your gross commission income goal? And what is your profit after taxes goal? So that would all be number one, right? So, Hey, I want to do 8 million in volume, or I want to do $800 million in volume, whatever that number is. The number of transactions closed, right? You can break down buy side, sell side. That would be a really good idea. What, what your expectation for gross commission is and what your profit's going to be. That's number one, that should be very clear. And it needs to be, as we say, smart, right? Specific, measurable, et cetera, attainable, realistic, attainable. Yes. And have a timetable on it. And then of course the second goal that the vast majority of my personal clients have have set their intentions around goes back to some of the early data that we saw certainly in early days of social, but really it got put on steroids during call it 2020, 2021, 2022. And that was whoever put out the most content and content could be email. It could be text. It could be direct mail. It could be a billboard. And of course Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, it's all of that. Basically they position themselves not just for no like and trust, but mostly for like, they want to be the most likable brand in the marketplace and the marketplace is their own past clients and centers of influence, right? Their own database, their own areas that they're serving, whether it's geographic farm or an entire city or entire town or entire County, right? So the second one really would be brand, right? I want to be the most likable, most called upon agent, my marketplace. And the third one, and the one that kind of playing off your point, the reason I'm bringing it up is I believe in 2023, an agent today that doesn't have a goal set for the number of appointments are going to go on. Doesn't have a plan, right? If you can't tell me my current percentage, and I'll give you just, just some examples, right? So if you said easy math, I want to have 24 closed transactions in a year and I want 12 to be listing sold in 12 to be buyer sales, just playing out the easy math, right? Um, let's actually go 10 and 14 to make it even easier, right? So I want 14 listings sold and I say, all right, well in this environment, you're probably going to have to go on three appointments to get to, to have one cell just saying, just in case, just be conservative. And if they all sell winter, winter chicken dinner, right? So I got to go on three to get one to sell. So what's three times 14? I think that's going to be 30, 42, right? So I need 42 listing appointments. I'd make the argument too. In the past, if you had a buyer consultation and that's the only appointment I'm referring to, I'm not talking about showing appointments. I'm talking about straight up. I'm going to talk to you about selling your house or straight up. I just showed you a property and now we're doing a buyer consult or I'm doing a buyer consult, and then I'm going to go show your property. Most would argue you're going to convert one out of three, right? And, and the reason why that number, it could be one out of four during the pandemic times, because it was just impossible to get offers to get accepted. So if you know your numbers, you're like, no, I'm one out of two, or I'm one for one, like coach Elisa Ashley, right? Big shout out to Alicia. She would say, no, I'm one for one. If I do a buyer consult, they sign a buyer brokerage agreement. They're absolutely getting into a house with us, right? Whatever that number is, whether it's 10, is it 15? Is it 20? You need to know that number because last time I checked the only leading indicator to a closed transaction is an appointment. So I'm going to make the argument that if I walked into your bathroom mirror, I'm going to see your transaction goal, your volume goal, your GCI and your profit goal, profit, profit, not, Hey, I, I grossed this much. And then you live in New York or you live in California or you live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 62% tax, right? Like just straight off the top. I don't care about your gross though. I care because it's a measurement. What I want to know is how much do you want to profit at the end of the year to pay off some debts, to save some cash, to make some investments, to put your life in a better position, why you worked your face off for that profit. Then your brand goals will get more in depth on that. And then I want to know how many appointments you're going to go on. I have multiple people I'm working with. Stephen Cohen, big shot, Stephen Cohen, New York city. I just made him a $10,000 bet. I said, I got 10 grand says you can't go on 150 listing appointments in a year. And I said, and if you lose, you got to pay me in shekels. I want them straight from Israel, right? Like, like just, just making some fun of it. Now, Steve, if you're listening, the odds are, he's not going to do it. Sorry, Steve, right? He's so competitive. He's gonna be so pissed that I even said that, but here's the deal. The odds are, he's not going to do it. Cause maybe this year he went on 80. So to go from 80 to 150 is a big jump, right? But what happens in your mind? What happens in your experience when someone has a big monster goal like that with a little accountability, what happens? They always perform. They're more focused, right? So, so the worst case scenario, he's, he goes on 142 and has his absolute best year of his career because whoever goes on the most listing appointments is going to win the most listings period. End of story. So that's my first big point. What, what's your, what's your next big point for people? I just want to make this year the best year. Yeah. I just want to reiterate something incredibly valuable that I, that I personally dismissed and it was a huge mistake and I'm pushing not, I do it myself now and I do it for all my coaching clients is the up in visual goals is the single most important. It's just weird when I, when I have a coaching client that I'm not even sure why I hit the gong, but in case you're listening, that was the gong for good points, you know, they're distracted, they're unfocused, they kind of lose track, it's usually just because they just don't remember. So like the bathroom mirror up in the office, like they've got to just look at it every single day. And I know that as soon as I implemented that productivity went through the roof and it was like, surprise, surprise. Tom's been doing this for 20 years. Like, you know, why is he so successful? Cause he's reminded every single day of exactly what he said he was going to, he was going to do and keep some focus and keep some accountable. So it's like, it's how you move it from a business plan to a part of your life, a ritual, a routine. Um, you know, when Kath and I first got married, we were like on our bathroom mirror, how much debt do we have? How much savings do we have? And literally we tracked as we paid off all of our debts and our net worth went up and she's still to this day, it's like 30 years of marriage. She still talks about the power of that. And that's why if you come to either one of our houses, all of our goals are always there. I see it every time. The only, the one other thing I want to add to that too is, and we've talked, you've talked about this nonstop. You say marketing is math. And then this year I was like, okay, I want to see more math equations on your plan. So, so, you know, you've got your appointment goal. That's great. So now let's go into lead generation pillars. So your past client center of influence. Yes. So I got some stuff that here's, you know, so one of the, the, the first and foremost, like first and foremost, I want to see every single one of my great coaching clients and friends out there do the purchase anniversary equity review. Right. And, and, you know, shout out to David Caldwell and all the great people in Tom Ferry ecosystem and talking about this kind of evolved from the CMA a day. And then too many of our great clients have too many past clients. So CMA day didn't make a lot of sense. We really needed to move it to a purchase anniversary. I agree. The counterpoint there was a lot of people absolutely took a, a ton of listings by doing CMA a day, but it's a way to operationalize it if you have a big database of past clients. Yeah. So I like in the, in the fourth quarter of 2022, we got everybody to do the CMA day, then set up the CRM, set up the tasks, set up the system for 2023. So what does that, what does that anniversary look like? What's the deliverable for the consumer? Yeah. So a couple of things in, I've had to deal with a lot of clients. So they're like, should I do a cloud CMA? Should I do a full extensive CMA? I do these, you know, two page long spreadsheets. I was like, look, the bottom line is we want, we want your past clients to know that you put some thought and attention into this and it needs to be significantly better than like anything they would see on Zestimate, whatever. I said, so it's just a matter of making sure that the perceived value is there. And then I said, look, Hey, base, by the way, we're all supposed to be looking at the hot sheet every day anyways. So we're just looking at the hot sheet of your past client. Right. And that's going to keep you in tune with the market in tune with your pricing. So there's a lot of value for them to actually commit this time. So make, and then craft a really good email and let everybody know what you're doing, that you're doing this for everybody, that you're committed to this process of being their advisor and doing this annually. And some people need to make this announcement now. Yes. They need to tell everybody, Hey, I'm committed to doing this. It sounds like putting your butt on the line. So people are like, Hey, where's my. Yeah, correct. I love it. And you know, the, so there's accountability once you make this announcement, right. And the one thing that I find with a lot of my friends and this, and this is, you know, shout out to Tom Ferry and your guys company every year, the biggest companies always announce new features and services to their business, trying to improve the quality of the service that they provide their customers. So we're just making an announcement. Hey, God, Hey, past clients and good friends this year, I've decided I'm going to add this new thing into my business to provide more value, more service to my great friends and clients. And here's what I'm committed to doing. I want to be your resource for anything regarding home value. So let's set the stage up front for that and announce it with pride. Not we're like, Oh no, like I haven't been doing it for five or six years. Great. Make the announcement and be excited about it. Right. So that was a couple of things I had to deal with this last year, just trying to get everybody to implement this. Then I think. So, so I want to go back there first before you, before you jump. I actually think if you go back to, I want to be the most trusted, most likable brand in my marketplace. It it's hard to argue against now, you know, your brand, you know, your clients, if it just shows up in an email, it's another email, right? If it shows up in an envelope with a handwritten note, right. That's a different experience. If it shows up in a box and it's beautiful and it's well packaged, that's another, thank you very much. That's another experience. If you took seven photos of their house when it was for sale and you added those photos in and you, you just, if you just go back to plussing enhancing, it's Mike Vance 101, right? Like, can I add scent to it? Can I add visual to it? Can I add taste to it? You throw in a couple Glenda Baker, you know, cupcakes inside there. I mean, I know you might be saying, Oh my goodness, this sounds like a daunting task, but before you go, I want to, I want to remind everybody there's only two questions on the mind of every homeowner right now. How much is my homework today and what's it going to be in the next year? Yes. And all we're trying to do is answer that at scale and deliver the value that everyone can see and deliver value, deliver that. What do I want? I want to know what's my homeworth and what do you think it's going to be worth based upon what everybody's saying in the future? Let me give us a couple of simple things on that customization. So shout out to Zach Nelson in Denver. One of my great clients, him and his marketing person took this concept and really knocked it out of the park. And so one of the things that he did is he said, Hey, you bought a home with me in this, you know, month, this year, you bought it for X dollars. And I remember one, two, three, four, five. So he put in that kind of custom information, which made it feel kind of more relevant, more valuable, like, you know, and then he said, then after looking at all of the current, you know, what's going on with the market, the here's kind of the range. If you haven't done any improvements, you know, I look forward to reviewing this with you. Let me know if you've made some improvements and we'll talk a little bit more about that, you know, blah, blah, blah. Yep. Right. So then it's the, you know, for me with a lot of clients that have a lot of past clients, it's going to be, we gotta be efficient. So it's email. Then it was the text. Hey, I sent you something. Then it follows up with the phone call and let's do the phone conversation. I do love, uh, David Caldwell with the annual equity review face to face. Right. So, you know, there is, even if that's on zoom, yeah, zoom. So, you know, we all have, we just have to figure out what's the right plan for us. And then a lot of my coach, you know, coaching clients this year were like, they're still overwhelmed with that project. And so I said, would you please just download every single one of your past clients out of the MLS and let's look at the date, the price let's, and then let's just go through that list. Let's create a spreadsheet, let's print it out and let's just check them off. Like, let's just build a system that we can get it done now. So here's what I'm noticing in terms of results. And let's go back to math equation. So a lot of my clients will write on their plan. It'll say, you know, annual equity reviews be consistent with my past clients. I was like, yeah, no, no, no. How many? Yes. And they're like, well, how many addresses do you got? Okay. So it's 110. And then, and then I'm saying to them, Hey guys, I'm noticing that at least if, if you're an okay agent, one out of 10 of these that you do, you're generating an opportunity. Yeah. What's an opportunity. I get like, Oh, Patrick, I just got an amazing referral. I just did the CMA. Great. What happened? Well, I was talking to Tom and he said, Hey, Patrick, you need to talk to my neighbor. They're thinking of selling. I was just talking to Tom and he said, Patrick, you need to call my son, Michael, he needs to buy a house. So the opportunity just came through that conversation and they're introducing them to these referrals and is literally one out of 10. Now we know that a referral from a past client has a very high conversion rate. So conservatively we can say 50% conversion. So, wow, here we are one out of 10. So here's the math equation. You've got 110 clients. That means in general, we're probably going to create 11 opportunities and at a 50% conversion, that's five to six sales, right? So I would want to see that on the plan. Yeah. That's real and that where I can, I can hold them accountable, but the actual plan now holds them accountable. Well, and what I love about this is now, you know, I know we're going to get to, you know, what are your seven daily actions? Like what are the, every single month when you, when you walk into your business, like I, you know, I can walk into all my businesses and I can essentially say, show me the health of the business, right? And I see 15 numbers on my main business and I go on track, off track, on track, on track, on track, off track, off track, on track, on track, on track. Okay. Who do I need to talk to, to get all those other ones back on track? Yeah. And I guess the argument, maybe, maybe we need to back up. I'm looking at you right in the eye. And if you're just listening only, we're making the assumption that you want to make a lot of money, that you are committed to your practice and you wouldn't already be listening to this podcast unless you weren't that person, but, but be clear, he started this by saying, we're going to have to do more in 2023 to get the same or better results. So, so we're talking about a lot of stuff here. They got to have three goals. They got to go deep with their database. You got to have visual tracking of everything. Should they be tracking how many annual home reviews they do? Absolutely. For sure. Cause wouldn't it be nice to know I did 178 of them in the first, you know, six months and got 29 referrals from that or took seven listings from that. Exactly. Cool. Yeah. And you don't have the spreadsheet. Just have a spreadsheet and go down the list and you and have it in order. I mean, it's fine. And, or if you're fancy, put it in your CRM as a reminder and you need to look at it once. The problem was sometimes with the CRMs and these reminders is I find a lot of agents kind of avoid it. Yeah. So if you're really not pro with your tasks and reminders in your CRM, then please print it out. This is super important. Let's talk about the script. So there was three questions to have on that conversation. Question number one is probably my best question I ever designed in prospecting, which is, do you have any questions about values in the neighborhood or with what's going on with the market? Give me the question one more time. Do you have any questions about values in the neighborhood or with what's going on with the market? I love it. Okay. That question, what's up there with your, has anyone taken the time to show you X, Y, and Z? No, no one showed me that. Has anyone reviewed with you all the off market opportunities to see if any of those are good fit for you? That one's going to be amazing in 2023 guys. But so that question, number one, that opens up a great conversation. We just sent them a CMA. Let's talk about it. That gives all my clients an opportunity to practice their ability to present the market and to field good questions for your next housing market video that you're going to do as well. So it's good practice. Then question number two. Hey, do you guys have any plans for your property in terms of upgrades, you know, solar ADU, you know, a remodel that I could maybe, you know, refer you or help you out with, give you some good advice. Question number two. Then question number three is, Hey, right. Do you have any, any thoughts about buying an investment property in 2023, 2024? Good idea, right? Do you want to buy a vacation home this year? Good idea. Or, you know, second home or anything. Is there, do you, are you guys thinking within the next couple of years that you're want to start planning now for this next thing, kind of alluding to one of the great questions, which is, you know, in the door knocking script, there's a great question, which is within the next two years, have you had any thoughts of selling? Yes. It takes a little modification to the Tim Smiths in the next two years. Yes. That's great. Cause it kind of takes all the pressure off people. So, so someone is going to say, I don't know if it's you, but someone will say, you know, Patrick, I don't know. Like, you don't understand. Like I know my customers, nobody's moving. Right. Every, no one's going to move there. And then I say, uh, death, divorce, diplomas, diapers, diamonds, and distress. Yeah. The 60s, relocation, the 60s that drive the market all three location. Yeah. Seventies three location. And, and I don't, obviously we don't wish that on anybody, but like when people say to me, no, no one's I'm like, tragically, someone's going to die. Uh, someone, I mean, in the state of California, 60% of the people get divorced, right? Not you, not me. Right. Here we go. That happens. Someone's going to get a diploma and want to move up or some kid's going to move out and they're going to want to downsize as an example, diapers, babies, right? Diamonds, new relationships and distressed, which we're watching the numbers in, in market by market. You're seeing some distressed assets or opportunities start to show up. Those are all opportunities that will continue to move the market regardless of interest rates. Let me just give an example. So, so I got, uh, Zach again, Zach Nelson in Denver, shout out to him, executed this right away and within the first 30 days of him kind of doing this, getting back on the horse, he was like. A past client was like, you're not going to believe this. We just got a job transfer. Yep. Okay. So the job transfer, another one said, I want to keep this property and keep it as a rental and buy a new one, right? Genius, right? Keep your low interest rate, buy a new one. Yep. And then the third one was a referral. Yeah. Hey, Zach, you need to talk to such and such. That's what happens in this. So, you know, those plus all these other opportunities. Okay. So my friends just do the thing and I promise you it will work. Give me the three questions one more time. Do you have any questions about prices in the neighborhood? Talking really fast. And this person's writing it down. Do you have any questions about prices in the neighborhood or with what's going on with the market? Right. Such a great question, because they're going to say, what's going to happen with the future? Where's it going? I'm reading the national news. It all sounds horrible. What's question two. Hey, do you have any plans for your property? Do you think about me making some upgrades, making some improvements, any maintenance? You know, any, any kind of solar, anything that I could help you with or anyone that I can refer you to. Yeah. Right. Which we'll talk about the home service Rolodex strategy. One of my favorite. Oh yeah. Right. Okay. Then it's summit 2020. That was a big trend. And then number three is the, you know, is there any other future plans? You know, buying a vacation home, you know, buying investment property and, or, you know, making a move, considering, right. So, you know, I would start with the other two first because they're easy. Right. Yep. And fun. And everybody should be buying an investment property. And we all should be talking to our clients about buying investment properties and building wealth with real estate. So let's start there and then let's move to the final. Right. So those are the three questions that'll make it super productive. And then everybody, trust me, we'll get. I mean, I would imagine, so the good agents who have a really strong brand and like, like kind of overdo the service and everybody loves them. I would imagine it's one out of five. Yes, I agree. Maybe for some of the newer agents who haven't talked, you know, kind of, you haven't talked to your past clients and you don't, you haven't really established a quality relationship with them yet. It might be one out of 10. Yeah, that would be the worst case scenario. So we can, we can create a math equation right now for total number of sales from this one strategy in 2023 right now. So I'm going to make the argument for the person that maybe is listening. Maybe there's maybe someone that just got into real estate in like December 2019. Yes. And, and you've had a little run, you've sold 18 homes, 36 homes, 40 homes, whatever the number was, right? Six, nine, 7,000. It's hard to argue against right now. Also calling every person you saw the home during the pandemic. We've talked about this on multiple shows. We know that 25% of consumers that were surveyed that bought a home during the pandemic basically said, I hated the experience. They didn't say they hated the agent. They just said they hated the experience. It was a bad experience. But the more important number, the one that stood out was 80% of consumers said. I compromised on the home purchase. I didn't get into the school. I wanted the school district. I didn't get the bedrooms. I wanted to get the space I wanted. I didn't get the zip code out. There were so many compromise because of the velocity of the market, the number of offers being written, right? So it's hard to argue against the same exact strategy being, Hey, Patrick, I'm just calling you and Carly, you know, August 15th, 2020, you guys bought that brand new home. I was so honored to work with you guys. I just wanted to find out, how's it going? Check in. But the question is, how's the home working out for you? Right. You just shut up. How's the home working out? And then they go, wow. And that's, and you say, well, would, has anyone shared with you that 80% of consumers about a home during the pandemic actually said they felt like they compromised on the home, but the good news is you paid X. It's now worth right. Why massive? Why have you guys had any thoughts of trading up, making an adjustment, you know, like, what do you guys want to do? That's an easy, the number of people that have texted me, DM me, sent me emails. I see them at events and they go that one thing. I just called every single person I transacted with and just said, how's the home working out? And you get the, we love it. Thank you so much. We totally appreciate it. Then you get asked all the questions about the market or they say, and that's, you know, there's an opportunity to serve. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. So let me, let's talk about past clients sphere. One more thing on that point, right? Yeah, good. So, and I experienced this too, cause I, it felt like when I got in and started selling houses, it was that kind of typical, you know, I spent 90 days with them, six months with them. And then it was like, Oh man, I kind of like, I ghosted them. Right. And, and I noticed that for even, you know, even me, I've been, you know, I'm trained in this business to not do it. And so I was like, what's wrong here? What's missing. And I needed a little bit of an ingredient that I figured out. Okay. So here's the ingredient. And this is my challenge to all my friends. And this is the question I'm asking on my coaching clients. I'm like, Hey, I just bought a house with you. I bought a $2 million place with you, Tom. You made 50 grand roughly. Yeah. Right. Okay. So you met 50 grand. I hand you the keys. Right. And then, or whatever. And, or you hand me the keys and I say, Tom, what should I expect from you now? I really enjoyed spending the last six months with you. I really like you. This is super fun. I'm a business person. I know you are, but how's this going to go from here? And when I'm challenging my clients to be able to answer that question, because if you can't answer that question, that means you really don't have a marketing and communication plan for your past clients. So can we say, or a long-term relationship strategy for your best customers? Yes, correct. And so what's this relationship. So our, Hey, I'm going to check in with you. Hey, you should call me when you have things like this, I'm going to send you, you know, emails and I'm going to be focused on things like the housing market and tips and strategies. Maybe some, I have some clients that need some help. I'm going to be, you know, orchestrating a couple of different events throughout the year to just try and get, you know, clients and friends together and maybe introduce you to some other people. Right. Just try and, you know, provide some value, you know, in appreciation for you. Yeah. Right. Now there's a line that kind of worked for me on this. There's two lines. Number one was welcome to my real estate family. Ooh, I like that. I loved this line because I couldn't figure out the relationships. Some of my clients, I was like, I don't really want to talk to you guys ever again, but I would love to talk to you about real estate and some of my clients. We have cocktails and, and, you know, and I'm inviting them over for, you know, whatever sports games, the world cup. Right. So some of them, it's like, we're like best friends. And some of them are like, I would love to still talk to you about real estate if you, if you needed that. So how do I do this? Welcome my real estate family. And then I wrote the second line, which you're like, and some family I spend time with and some family, I don't. So the second line was, I want to earn the opportunity to be your realtor for life. Ooh, I like that. I want to earn the, I want to earn the opportunity. And let me, let me change that to be your real estate advisor for life. I want to earn that opportunity. So when I put those two phrases together, it gave me permission to go, all right, what are all the real estate conversations that I do want to have? Yes. And how do I define this? And that really opened the whole world up for me. So now I tell all my clients, okay, cool. After they, you know, purchase the home, I want you to, you know, I love the big, the big strategy of like, get them some food on move-in day. That's a great move. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's genius. Why didn't I think of that? And then, you know, a good John Jay out in Palm, Palm desert, you know, cause they have a high turnover rate. He prints out the transaction and he puts it in a branded binder and he delivers that. Now we had like the little USB chip, but I was like, wait a minute. This is a perfect sequence, right? So I, I buy the food for the move-in day. Then a couple of days later, I bring the binder in the binder. I can just write out my past client VIP plan, everything I'm committed to, and then present it to them. Yes. Right. And then inside there, I might have my list of referrals and references, home services. And that's just a good experience that we can just kind of at scale. Right. We can build that system. I like that even more so when someone's moving from one part of town to another or transferring in, oh yeah, never lived in San Antonio before relocation stuff. Help. Yes. Right. Here's like top 10 restaurants we love. Here's all stuff that they could Google. I know. But it's coming from my, my real estate advisor, right? Who's letting me know, here's the fast track. Here's the things you need to know, et cetera. Love that. Last thing on this point is what I call the permission script. Okay. So here we go. So everybody wants more referrals, right? I do find the term referrals. Cause you know me, I'm very meticulous. I'm super analytical. When I think of the term referral, the average person may or may not totally understand what that means. Yes. So I was like, well, what do we really want? I want more introductions to opportunities, which is where I like the, the rumor script. Yeah. Have you heard any rumors of a, someone thinking of selling? Yes. And then I want more opportunities. Hey, Hey, Patrick, you need to talk to my neighbor because right. We all know if you door knock and you do good door knocking, they tell you the rumors, right? So why don't we just use that in our scripting? Have you heard any rumors of someone thinking about selling? Then the other thing I want is recommendations. I, okay. I love the rumors line. Cause everybody, you know, like the vast majority, they get that. I mean, if you're any rumors of anybody thinking about buying or selling real estate and it's a huge opportunity. So remember in 20, in 2020 and 2021. We had to go the extra effort for our buyers. And then as we move into 2023, you know, what we're going to do for our buyers and our value proposition is going to be very powerful. And we'll talk about that on a, on a next episode. Right. But you know, so if I say to you, Hey Tom, by the way, you know, I do have a lot of other buyers. Is it okay with you that I check in with you? If I have a buyer that's interested in your neighborhood or community, just to see if you've heard any rumors of someone thinking of selling, I want permission for that up front and they go, Oh, of course, no problem. The second thing is I have to say, I just heard a stat. And so I don't know if this is entirely accurate, but I, I trust the source. Uh, he told me 40% of every transaction in Highland park, right. Where I kind of live near Dallas, right. All sold off market and all sold friend to friend. Yeah. You know, broker brokers helped him agents help them. They're like, uh, Kelsey wants to move. She wants to sell. Like I'll make an introduction. Let's get a deal done. We want you as enabled 40% of all the transactions, right. Whether that was 10, 20, 30 or 40, we know like he, it was a substantial number and I trust the source. But I was like, yeah, it's all about the rumors. Yes. It's all about the stories. It's all about figuring out who do you know and what's going to happen next. And, you know, let me go over there and see if I can help on my geographic farm, which we're going to talk about next. The, I have a buyer letter is the most successful cam direct mail campaign that I, in my opinion that I think exists when it's real and it's clear. Yes. We'll talk about that in a second. The ice piece. Yeah. So let's at the end. So this is kind of what I said to Zach. All right, Zach, do your, do the presentation. Hey, here's what you can expect from me moving forward. And then to say, may I ask you a big favor? Yeah. There's two things that I want, right. And they're like, is it okay with you? If I occasionally check in with you to see number one, if you've heard any rumors of a neighbor thinking of selling or anyone that you think that needs help with buying or selling, just ask for permission and then they will say yes, of course. Right. So if we just do the permission script, then all of that weirdness of the referral conversation goes out the door. And you know, when you do that, when people say, thank you, of course, when they say, thank you, you say, Hey, will you do me a favor? People will say yes. Pat, thank you so much. You're like, no problem. It's what I'm here to do. Will you do me a favor? They say yes. 1000% of the time. And you could literally say, I want your firstborn child, right? They just say yes automatically because you have done so much delivered so much gone the extra mile for them, solve the problem, slayed the dragon, got the deal closed, got the, you know, got the mortgage done on time, everything worked out and they're like, thank you. Thank you. That's when you ask, will you do me a favor? Yeah. And I, so what I noticed too, and for a lot of my agents out there, a couple of times at the end of a buyer transaction, it gets wonky and so there's a weird, awkward, maybe 24, 48 hours where it gets a little strange, weird things happens, not our responsibility, but we kind of take it on as if it was our responsibility. So that's why I thought the, the, the gift card or the food delivered on the move in day kind of breaks, breaks that apart. And then that next touch of the transaction. And now we're, now we're into a new phase of this relationship. So there's a lot of agents that kind of where, you know, one out of four transactions, a little wonky at the end. So this strategy will kill it for that. Yeah. Okay, good. All right. Let's jump into a geographic farm. You ready? I'm hell of a hit. I'm ready. You're on fire, man. Yes, of course. This is like the easiest podcast for me. Okay. Here, here's the tea. Here's the golf club. Go. Exactly. So geographic farm. I got a couple of things that I just want to, are you advocating for geographic farm in 2023? A hundred percent. I mean, a thousand percent. And let me, let me give us some backstory because I think it's helped for a lot of the people out there that are kind of newer, the Tom Ferry show or new for newer to Tom Ferry, right? I was not a geographic farm guy, right? Coming from our history, your history. And then when I came over to work with you, you were like geographic farm. And I was like, I don't even understand why this makes any sense. And so it's taken me a long time to really deconstruct what does it take to be a successful and a Jerry farm and what a powerhouse. So I'm making it absolute. You have to have a geographic farm if you want to coach with me. Period. Okay. So I'm going to back up with the person that's listening. You could probably go back. If you're on my YouTube channel to just type in geographic farming, there's got to be 25 videos on it. The first thing is the size of the list. How many homes could you manage financially or sweat equity? That's number one. Number two is what is your association to that community? Do you know that the developer, the builder, do you live there? You take your entire database of past clients and sphere, and you run them into Google maps and you realize I have 38 relationships in that 2,500 home subdivision. I've got leverage. That's a good idea. But the third one is, is there turnover, right? If your sales price is north of a million dollars, you can have a turnover of four, three and a half, and it makes sense. Three and a half properties, you know, three and a half percentage of the total properties sell on an annual basis turnover. But if it's a lower sales price, it probably makes sense to be six or even seven. And Lido right here in Newport beach, there was a time, but it was trading at 10%, right? People were like, Oh my God, we're so excited to live here on the water. Then they open up the window and they touch their neighbor's house. And they're like, maybe I want a bigger lot. Right. And that was one of the reasons for the turnover. So one is list. Two is leverage. Three is turnover. Four is who is the dominant agent and how dominant are they? Right. So here's what most people are going to see when you do the research. Sit down with your title rep, by the way, and you can do this super easy. And your China reps love to do this is typically in a community of 500 halls, Irvine terrace, right? Right now there is not a single dominant agent in my old neighborhood in Newport beach, right? There's a dominant agent in the high rise. I live in, in Dallas, right? Two gals from compass seem to get the majority of all the listings. Big shout out to they're not, they never listened to my show. I'm gonna have to bug them about that. Maybe they're listening right now. They're like, say my name. Nope. Not going to say it. All right. But here's the thing. They do the vast majority of the listings. So it looks like this. Hey, there was 12 transactions, five were done by Missy, right? And then it was one, one, one, one, one, one, one. And when you do the research, you'll see all the one-offs that got a listing in the marketplace. The vast majority of them aren't even in the city. Yes. Right. They live at a town. So, so you got to beat them and for how am I to beat the dominant agent, but I'm sure we'll get into some of those. I've got, yeah, I've got a strategy for that one too for that. Just, just want to clarify for the person listening, like it's, it's all the money is made in the prep, in the selection of your farm. Agreed. And then the fun number that I like to look at on top of the turnover rate is as I'm like, all right, let's get the average sales price. Yeah. Let's, and then let's take the total number of sales. Yeah. Let's get the total sales volume and then let's multiply it by 0.5% because there's a buyer and there's a listing. Yeah. And when we look at, and this is why I said, you're like the total addressable commission opportunity is, or let's say it even more painful. The total amount of commissions paid to a real estate agent last year was, and then they're like, this morning, Tim in, in Virginia, he's like, there was a million dollars paid to agents last year in that 350 home farm next door to my house. Right. I was like, right, Tim. Right. A million dollars. It was paid out to agents. And you live in the neighborhood and you sell a ton of homes around there. They're like, oh yeah, I should, I should be farming easily. One of the greatest business mistakes I made was not implementing the geographic farm in La Costa Valley and in, in Carlsbad. Yeah. I just didn't understand. So I'm going to hit point number one. Cause every, every just goes, I just send direct mail. Yeah. And that is not it. This was the main thing that I didn't understand. I didn't understand that the event strategy is easily the best strategy that exists for geographic farming, mega open houses, Monica cars, ice cream. I mean, like there's so many people, big shout out to Monica car. I broke it down into three categories just cause I, you know, cause too many people, Missy and Eileen from compass in Dallas. I just, I feel so guilty. They're not listening. If you're listening, you let me know the next time I see you in the building. Okay. So there's you tip. Well, first of all, let's break down to the basics. Number one is a, this is, you're building a relationship with the community. And if you could be perceived as someone who is serving the community first, not a realtor first, Oh, you mean like a bowl? Yes. And so that is the number one thing. Now here's the thing. The reason why I want at least six events is because you literally will be talking to five, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 people per event. And those conversations are all about doing something for them that has nothing to do with real estate. And all I want is I want people to say, thank you, Tom. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for the Easter egg hunt, the shredding shredding, the junk removal, the garage sale, the, you know, Dave Robles and his, you know, book drive for charity. Like there's so many simple little things now. So, so, Oh my God, big shout out to Dave Robles. Did you hear about this? He presented at one of our crazy masterminds we did in team where he said, and what we did is in our farm, we published a letter to everybody and said, if you have a child that would like to win a thousand dollars towards their college, write us a letter, a blog about why you love living in this community. So I want you to think about it. If you get 20 or 30 people, their kids write a letter, why they love. First of all, those are all going to go on my website. Yes. I'm going to publish them all. They're going to be the best SEO on the planet. And, and for that, you donated a thousand dollars to one kid. And he tells the story when we were together in Dallas, he says, and by the way, I'm taking this $3 million listing. And the person said, and by the way, we just thought it was so fantastic. Here's my daughter. She wrote one of the letters and he's like, in his mind, did she win? Did she win? And the answer was no, that person didn't win, but they were so moved by the fact that they, it's that likable connection to our community and you serve somebody else. Even though my daughter didn't win. Here's a three minute hour listing. Dave, Dave is the inspiration for, to me, where I realized the event strategy where you are the person that's contributing to, he's the guy that I went, that is what works. Then direct mail is the most glorified drip campaign on top of, I really like that guy. Right. So look, he just made another sale. Oh, he gave me a market update. Oh, right. Exactly. Okay. Next, uh, Dave, David Caldwell doing the U housing market, YouTube advertising strategy, geo targeting hit their zip code. Yep. Brilliant. Monthly. The impression cost is literally 3 cents. So when we talk about a view, just to be, just to be clear, we're talking about he creates, you've, you've probably done this yourself. You create a video where you say, hi, it's Tom Ferry, banana real estate, giving you the March, 2023 real estate news. What's going on in home prices right here in nine, two, six, two, five. Exactly. And then you break down all the numbers. He does all that. And you know, Dave, if you're watching, Dave doesn't have like this outgoing presentation. He just kind of talks like a newscaster, right? Like something for, you know, I don't know, like something. I think he wishes he talked like a newscast, right? But he just, he's like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. But here's the difference. He then takes that goes into Google and he runs ads. So people that are in that zip code get fed that video over and over and over. And he's been doing this every month now for a couple of years. And it's always good for a boatload of transactions because he is the trusted source on pricing in his community. The YouTube advertising strategy in a geo targeted area is the cheapest and absolute best dollar you're going to spend. Yeah. Period. End of story. And, and thanks to, we were on a podcast and I was sitting there listening to Dave talk about it. Jason has been outlining this, you know, in the Tom Ferry show. So he's got a really good playbook step-by-step. And then when I heard Dave and I was like, Oh man. And I was like, okay, this makes sense. So I'm getting everybody on that. So literally it costs three to five cents per view and then an impression cost you nothing, but you got it. Yes. So you're getting a free impression. There she is. Now in a view, I forget what the metric is, but they have to watch 15 seconds or more, something like that. Can I see, is that right? As a view on YouTube? I think it's less, I think it's like three seconds. No, no, no, no, no. You don't get charged if they hit skip. Yes, correct. I think correct. Before 15 seconds. Yes. Now what, what I've been doing with my coaching clients, they're literally people are watching two minutes. So a two minute view cost you three seconds in a geographic territory where the housing market in their neighborhood. Right. That's unbelievable. Yeah. That is the cheapest, best advertising. He actually presented that at the very first legacy meeting for all of our team clients in Napa Valley. And you can just see everybody like, wait a minute. So for like a couple hundred dollars a month, I could blanket YouTube and have everybody that I want in that zip code or in that community to see, to see me over and over again, you can select homeowners and you can select renters. Then you can go over to life events and you can select moving soon. Purchasing soon. Yeah. I can select my geographic zip code and those four categories and it cost me three to five cents to put a YouTube video in front of those people. Hello. Okay. So we got to be mindful of time. Otherwise it's going to be the 11 hour podcast. Um, but I'm okay. Before you finish, uh, geo farming, I want to back up and say to my friend listening, first of all, thank you. Um, if you haven't liked subscribe and hit the notification button, please do so. Now, seriously, number one, 2023 is going to be an interesting year, right? It's going to be for some a slug fest for some, it's going to be a year of growth and expansion for others. It could just be, I don't know, one of their best years ever. One of their worst years ever. And I think it's all going to be predicated on your early point, which is we've got to double our efforts. You got to make it a math equation. I'm making the argument. You got no more than three goals, the number of appointments, how you're going to get your brand kind of talking about this YouTube strategy and this event strategy as an example, all of that, and then your transactions, your volume, your GCI and your profitability up and around you everywhere, and the one I didn't get to talk about was create the guardrails for your goals, right? Like are we taking your kids to a bowling alley? And if there weren't those little bumper deals, they went to the gutter and they didn't feel like bowling anymore. But the second they put those little rubber, you know, bumpers up there now, so in the ball, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and it eventually hits the pins by creating structure. What we do now is we tell our friends, we tell our spouse, we tell our coach, we tell our manager, we tell a couple of our office mates that we're close to. It's up and visual around you. The more structure you create, not just for your goals, but for the discipline and the habit that you're looking to add on that corner, that quarter, that's how you really activate it. That's how I've been able to do this for as long as I know, just tell everybody what I'm committed to, including people that I know don't like me and want me to fail because they'll walk by me and go, Oh, Ferry, how's it going? Right. And I'm like, Oh, that's all the motivation I need to go out and just kill. All right. So I wanted to stress that. Then we talked past clients and sphere. Now we're talking geographic farms. I got, I got for my new agents. I want to help them with their geographic farm. All right, let's hear it. But then can I have a shameless plug for my YouTube channel? Church, Patrick Ferry channel. Yes. So come, come hang out with me a little bit over there. I think I have a total of. 2,600 subscribers. So moving up in the world, let's see if we can get that to 2,601 anyways. All right. So let's shameless self-promotion, shameless self-promoting over here. Did he pay for that? Yeah. Is there an advertising I saw in the contract earlier? It was his last name again. It was in blood. Okay. It was in blood. Little brother rules. Okay. So here we go. New agent, geo farming. Let's talk about new agent, geo farm. Couple of things. Number one is you talked about the other broke the out of area broker who gets the listing in your farm. Yes. I want every single one of my new agents on the phone that varies next day saying, congratulations, out of area broker, boutique broker, property manager, broker, Schmuckatelli, realty broker, right? Hey, congratulations. I live in the area. This farm is super important to me. If there was any opportunity for me to do an open house, I would be super grateful and I would be super respectful and I'd be a good salesperson for the community. I want everybody on those open houses, especially if it's vacant. And then let's get the buyer from that open house. And then we're going to turn around everybody and do not forget. You must do the, I have a buyer letter back into the farm. So all of my top agents who resist a little bit of doing the open house, I want you guys to get the buyer. Then do that. I have a buyer letter and let's talk to three or four new sellers. Absolute no brainer. Okay. New agents, my new friends. There's this thing on Zillow. This is a secret. I don't want anyone to really know about this, but I'm going to do it anyways. On Zillow, you can go to your geographic farm zip code and you can go to for rent, and then you're going to go over and you're going to unselect condos and apartments, and you're going to see townhomes in houses for rent. You're going to click on each one of those and you're going to scroll down and it's going to say either two things. Property listed by property manager, or it's to say listed by property owner. And so my friends in your geographic farm, I want you making friends with every single one of them. Yes. And let's take two listings this year. So I've been not under occupied. I've been doing the, I've been doing the analysis. Okay. So let's just go down the list. There's 10 and we look at each one. Maybe it's 30% our property owner. Maybe it's 60%. Maybe it's 1% or 10%. I don't care. Now, if we play that out. Okay. So now that's, let's say that there's six property owners that you can talk to per month. We'll play that out all the way throughout the year. We know for sure two or three of them would list and sell their property. If you approached them and just said, would you at least be open to a strong offer if I were to get one, right? Slam dunk, right? That's two to three listings in a geographic farm that you just broke into. That is a game changer for the track trajectory of your business. Yes. So everybody get that one done. The next thing too, of course, we're going to see some expireds and cancels show up this year. And so my friends, would we all please just have a protocol set up for that? I was even talking to one of my great clients this morning, amazing agent. And he's like, I don't want to call expires and cancels. I said, I'm not telling you to spend three hours a day, five days a week. You know, Wendy, please work the expires in your geographic farm. I'm like, so you're telling me that my client, Lisa in Laguna literally high didn't sell. That's all she had to do. They're like, Lisa, we knew we should have listed with you. And I was like, I mean, just, you know, stunning high-end, you know, real stage at Laguna beach, knocking on the doors at the expires at like five 30, six o'clock on a Tuesday. I heard your home didn't sell. I'm so sorry. Exactly. And every time Lisa, we knew we should have listed with you. Yeah. And if you do a good job on the farm, they already know you know, exactly. No, they listed with the cheapo with their sister-in-law who lives in five cities over, you know, with whatever they just, they, they made a bad decision. They didn't list with the right agent. So I love that. And good agents will get the call 30 days before it expires anyway. Exactly. So anyways, let's, let's do that. And then the open house Zillow for rent. And then at the open house, we have to pick up that buyer. Okay. Can we, do we have time for one more? No. Okay. We're already 15 minutes over. Why don't you come back and do their show with me? I would love to do another show. We do need to talk about the value proposition in 2023 for your buyers. Yes. And so we need to go back and, and do that again and spend some time on that. I agree. Has, has anyone taken the time? Yes. All right. You dropped some really good scripts today too. I really liked this. Um, so for my listener, make sure you check out Patrick's. Let's get him to like 3,000 subscribers, something like that. Maybe 4,000, 5,000, who knows? Um, really, really cool show. Uh, obviously they can reach you there. They can follow you on Instagram. Patrick Todd Ferry. Yeah. Patrick Todd Ferry, Instagram and Facebook. Down in San Diego, California. Big shout out to you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I love you as always. You're my favorite little brother. Exactly. Add the only little brother. All right. Thank you so much for watching. Give us some comments. What else do you want to see? What did you learn most from this show? And Hey, this is probably one of those shows you might want to share with a friend or two. Maybe it's a friend that it's a veteran agent that's been in the business for a while and they need a little resuscitation, right? Maybe it's a, a newer agent that just, you know, came into your office. You're like, Hey, I might want to watch this show. Here's some great insights and great scripts and great tactics for you and a lot of focus and concentration to make sure you win. So thank you so much. It's killer show. We'll see you guys soon.