Ep026: How Real Estate Professionals Create Their Own Opportunities

Chris: Good morning all Chris McAllister, here with the Connect Practice, track and Grow podcast, where it’s my job to make your real estate business better and your life easier. I’m here today with my podcast partner, lacey LeBlanc, and today we’re recording the second in a 12-part series called Protecting the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. This second episode is titled Professionals Create their Own Opportunities. Good morning, lacey.

Laci: Good morning, Chris. Happy to be here.

Chris: I’m happy to be here too. So let’s dig into this. You know I’ve been thinking a lot about this the past few weeks, but a defining characteristic of the new real estate professional is the ability and the motivation to take care of themselves first. Because if you don’t take care of yourself first, you really can’t take care of anybody else. And you know, I feel like in my life I’ve learned that the hard way many times.

And adopting this mindset and God knows, I’m not perfect, I’m, you know, a recovering workaholic, I guess, is what they might say but this mindset ensures that your success, personally and professionally, is sustained over the course of, if not a career, a lifetime.

So you know, we can run ourselves into the ground, we can do everything that comes our way to help as many people as we can help, you know, whether that’s customers, families, clients, whatever.

But the fact is, if we don’t take care of ourselves first which is the whole essence of this 12 part series you emergency, they’re going to drop the oxygen mask and they always tell you to put the mask over yourself first, right before you try to put it over your kids’ faces, and all that. And there’s a reason for that, because if you can’t breathe, you can’t help anybody else breathe. So you know, in sort of broad strokes about this whole series, you know, taking care of yourself. It’s critical, it’s important, it’s part of your day, it’s part of your job, it’s part of your life, and it’s not just about playing defense, it’s about playing offense, but maybe it’s more about playing to win for the long term versus playing not to lose. There’s a subtle distinction between playing to win and playing not to lose, and we want our folks that are listening to this podcast to always be playing to win.

Laci: Isn’t it funny how, for a lot of folks, the motivation to become self-employed in any way, probably, but to become a real estate agent or, you know, to pursue this profession is part of the draw of that is this ability to be in charge of your own schedule, the ability to be flexible and to spend time with your current or future family.

Right, it’s the part of the draw to this and any form of entrepreneurship, I think, is that control over you know your lifestyle and your schedule and all those things. But then it’s the entrepreneurs among us, the real estate agents, you know, people like you and me, who end up becoming these workaholics and not setting the boundaries and not creating, as a result, our own opportunities. So I think it’s interesting. It’s something you hear a lot in motherhood. You can’t pour from an empty cup. You know you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others, that kind of thing. But it’s just so funny that the draw for a lot of people to becoming a real estate agent has got to be that flexibility, that you know entrepreneurship, the being in charge of your own, you know future. But then so often we stop doing that and really turn into 24-7, 365 workaholics.

Chris: Well, it becomes an addiction, right? I mean an addiction just means that you want to do more and more of anything that makes you feel good, and helping people buy and sell houses, getting to the closing table, putting money in the bank I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, we only do it because it makes us feel good. You know, there’s other ways to make a living that are easier. So if it wasn’t something that we enjoyed, we wouldn’t pursue it, sometimes to the extent of our own health and everything else. You know, there’s also this thing that always runs through my mind about taking time off and taking care of yourself. You know, in a lot of cultures, you know, that’s frowned upon. You know, and you know, call it a Puritan work ethic, call it whatever you want. But to even aside from the fact that, to even admit that you’re tired or burned out or whatever, is a weakness and to many folks, the fact is it still comes down to if you don’t take care of yourself, you know, long-term you’re just not going to be effective. And you know some of that again is playing not to lose, it’s playing offense, but you know, in such a way that it truly is in no way offensive and it’s nothing to feel guilty about.

And I think about, you know, the great real estate agents among us. And you know, I think, in broad strokes, they first master their practice, right, they get good at what they do. They get good at pricing houses, meeting with people at the kitchen table, getting them listed, marketing them, et cetera. So they master their practice. And as time goes on, you know, once they sort of get the basic skills under their belt, they start to identify and become conscious of the things that makes them unique. Right, you know, you could argue that listing a house is listing a house, but the fact is it’s like anything else in life. You know whether you’re a great athlete, you know a great basketball player has a different style than another great basketball player, a great listing agent has a different style than another one.

And you have to start to think and be conscious of what makes you unique and that allows you to, you know, craft a compelling offer that allows you to tell the world what you’re all about, and in such a way that it’s not bragging or anything like that, it just is. It’s almost self-evident, right? So you know, there is like three stages in that process I was thinking of. You know you get good at what it is you decided to do, right, you learn it. You know you start as a novice and you slowly move over time and you become an expert.

Then you start to get conscious of what your personal style is, what makes you unique, what are you better at in this process than anybody else? And then you take that and you craft an offer that resonates with the people you want to work with. So at the end of the day, that’s what we call connecting and that’s really what it looks like when I talk about that. Real estate agents create their own opportunities. It starts with learning. It starts with paying attention to what makes you unique, figuring out what you’re good at and then crafting a compelling offer that allows you to connect with other people so you can do more of it. And imagine that it comes back to connect, practice, track and grow.

Laci: Always. I think a good point too is like, if you’re a great basketball player, right, you’re good at everything. Right, you can shoot, you can rebound, you can pass, you can, you know, play defense, you can play offense, but you can’t win a basketball game by yourself, right, you can’t play a basketball game against five other players by yourself and win I mean, maybe, lebron versus a high school team. But you know like it takes teamwork to make the dream work. So I think that even when, like you know, you said you become good at all these things, right, but then you have to find the point where you have to not do it all anymore.

Chris: So I just thought that was a really that’s a great point because that gets us into the growth phase. Right, you know you can take the whole thing back to connect, practice, track and grow. You find somebody to work with, you hone your craft, you master your practice, you start to pay attention and track what worked, what didn’t, what’s your great at than somebody else, and maybe your three-pointer is better than anybody else’s in the game. It doesn’t mean that a fantastic, unique listing agent with a compelling value proposition isn’t good at everything, but it means that they just happen to be good at one or two things. That is just enough to set them apart. And when you wrap that up with your team and the people in the support system around you and the people that want to protect you right, because you’re the one laying the cold eggs then it comes back to growth.

So that’s kind of a long-winded introduction today. So thanks for bearing with us, but I just want to remind everybody while we’re here. You know I think you’re going to find inspiration, timely lessons, tips, tricks, habits and mindsets that you can use in your business to generate more leads, book more appointments, write more contracts, close more deals, earn more referrals, make more money all that great stuff. So welcome to this episode you and I can talk about is sometimes it’s easier to figure out what works, what’s right, what makes sense, by approaching the problem from what doesn’t work, what’s not right, what doesn’t make sense. So I was thinking about that today. So, when you think about it, what do great agents not do right? What do the new real estate professionals never do or protect themselves from doing when it comes?

Laci: down to making your own opportunities. What is it that they don’t do?

Chris: Yeah, oh gosh, I think this goes for every profession as well.

Laci: I think about this from so many perspectives, but I think that’s a great place to start A lot of times, where it’s easier to identify that side of it. So what don’t they do? What do professionals in real estate not do?

Chris: I think that the really great people that have staying power right, the first thing they don’t do is let market conditions distract them from creating value, right? You don’t hear the best among us ever complain, much less even talk about interest rates or the economy or inflation or anything beyond their control. You don’t hear LeBron James. I’m not a big basketball fan, but I don’t think you hear LeBron James complaining about what’s happening in the front office right of the team or what’s happening in the league. You know he may be aware of those things, but nothing gets in his way of what he has chosen to do on that basketball court.

So I think that’s one thing that when you focus on creating your own opportunities, you focus on creating your own opportunities. You focus on creating your own opportunities and you don’t let anything get in your way, unless you’re looking at something that’s happening in the world as something that you can latch onto, leverage, fix, solve whatever. There’s just no good reason to get distracted from the reason you’re there, and if the reason you’re there is to help people buy and sell houses, nothing else matters. You’re going to find a way around. You’re going to create your own special sauce, so to speak, to make something happen.

Laci: Which is perfectly applicable right now, I guess, with everything that’s going on with NAR.

Chris: Well, and I think that’s another thing We’ve still got a lot of people out there in the world that are selling a ton of houses this spring. So that is something else that you don’t hear professionals complain about. You know they don’t complain about the fallout from the NAR lawsuit, right, and this is a huge deal. But you know they’re accepting the reality of what’s happened, of what’s you know going to happen I guess it’s been pushed back to August now that the new rules and so forth but you don’t hear a true professional in it for the long term, you know, pining about the old days or looking for ways to roll back to the post-NAR world. Right, they accept the reality, they adapt to the reality and they move forward.

And it’s not an easy thing. I mean, you know we’ve been struggling with this, talking about it, for a long time now. I mean I’d like to think, fortunately we’ve been talking about it more than most people. But you know you and I, lacey, have talked about there’s it’s still, you know, there’s still days where you know it’s like we’re rolling through the the five stages of grief, right, anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But so what do you do? Mainly depression.

Laci: I go back and forth from every other stage into the depression stage. No, but I think that there’s again this comes up a lot I feel like and I mentioned it a lot but it’s that abundance mindset, it’s that you know the idea that, no matter the circumstances that are beyond your control, there’s enough to go around for anybody who’s willing to work for it. I feel like.

Chris: Yeah, I think there is abundance in the world. There’s abundance in this business. You can’t, you know, hide from the fact that the business is changing, but you still, you know, you need to be willing to accept the fact that there is still abundance. It just may not be in the form that you’re used to. I guess that makes sense. So one of the things that I’ve been trying to do and maybe it’ll help some people listening is, when you think about creating your own opportunity in this new post-NAR world, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about is get back to the root of what we do, get back to first principles and, if you sit down and start thinking, start breaking down the processes, the action steps, the thoughts that people go through when they decide to buy or sell a house, right, when you think about all the little things that have to happen on the person who wants to buy or sell a house, right, when you think about all the little things that have to happen on the person who wants to buy it. Talk about a buyer, right? You know what is it that a buyer thinks about? What do they experience when they decide that it’s time to buy a house? How do we put ourselves in the mindset, in the mind wear the shoes of a new buyer? How do we get back to that? You know what it was like when we were doing it, what it’s like for these other people, and I understand that’s hard, but you know what does a buyer want, what causes somebody to decide to buy a house?

So you know, I think that, especially in this post-ANAR environment, you know we jumped to well, they’re not going to have representation anymore, right? And yes, we believe representation is a good thing, but I don’t think anybody who wakes up, gets married, has a kid and decided it’s time to buy a house is the first thing they think about is how do I get representation? The first thing they think about is home, right? So you know where does that process start, what happens, you know somehow I guess Zillow’s involved that, mom and dad’s involved in. You know, being excited about the future and being in love and all the things that home means, right, the emotions and so forth. That’s really the initiating factor for people. They don’t wake up and think, oh my God, I got to call Chris and I got to tell him what I’m thinking. See what he thinks about it.

Laci: Right and they don’t even know what’s happening with the National. Association of Realtors.

We’re hyper aware you know, we need to step outside of ourselves, and I think that’s a really interesting point too is that when you’re so close to something, it’s especially true for marketing, right, we work so hard on messaging and but those messages if you don’t, they hit different, right, like all of it hits different if you’re not in the industry. If you’re not, you know if you’re passing through as a buyer or a seller or as a renter or you know. Which is why I think it’s so cool that you’ve got the shelter business kind of mindset, because then that is what you’re constantly thinking about and it’s from every perspective. So for every buyer, you’re thinking about the seller, for every you know property owner, you’re thinking about the renter, and vice versa. So I think that’s really cool. Thinking from the perspective of who you’re trying to help or who you’re working with is a really easy and good way to get out of your own head and just stop focusing so much on again these things you can’t control.

Chris: Now, when you do that, you start to see new opportunities. I think is my tip, and I’m, you know, I don’t mind saying I’ve struggled. On certain days I go back and forth between the struggle to stop filtering my worldview through the lens of being a realtor right, and the realtor code of ethics and clear cooperation. You know, all that is the stuff that got us in trouble anyway. Right, and it’s very hard when you’ve grown up in this business, you know five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years more some of us, and you just see the real estate business through that lens and now that lens has, you know, disappeared. So you know, and I think it comes down to and this is a hard thing, I think, for a lot of us to hear, and maybe you know some people aren’t going to like this, but I’ve really been consciously, you know, thinking about what does it feel like to, in effect, abandon what has been an agent-centric approach to this business? And how do I push myself and our company and our agents towards a customer-centric approach? When you think about as a broker, a broker is really a B2B business versus a B2C business, and what I mean by that is there’s the business of brokerage and there’s the business of being a real estate agent, and it’s always been my job, and still is, to support real estate agents. But if real estate agents suddenly are going to have to, of course, create their own value propositions which we will help with and so forth but have to articulate their value, and it becomes far more of an effort than it was. When you represent a buyer, you get 3%. You’ve got to start thinking about.

Okay, what I need to figure out is how does our company become as attractive directly to buyers and sellers as we’ve always pushed to become attractive to agents? I feel like I’m talking in circles, but there’s a sea change going on and when you take the old ways clear cooperation, and they are, and so forth, out of the picture and you realize that this isn’t about us anymore, and it are, and so forth, out of the picture and you realize that this isn’t about us anymore and it really never was. But it’s truly about what’s in it for the buyer and seller. I think that’s a way to start to create opportunities and it’s not an easy process, but it’s something that I think we’re all going to have to go through one way or the other and decide how we’re going to move forward or not move forward in this business. You know, I think there’s for a lot of people could be 30 percent of us. You know we’re going to be doing something else by this time next year.

Laci: Yeah, this is my favorite part of the conversation, because this is when we start to get down to. You know how the relationships building the relationships are the key and that’s what you know you focused on all along. The relational approach to real estate is what’s going to for lack of a better word save, and whether it’s the broker’s relationship or the agent’s relationship, but it’s always been about relationships, it’s always going to be about relationships, there’s no question about it.

Chris: And the one thing, amidst all this doom and gloom and I apologize for being doomy and gloomy today, but here’s what’s going to happen you are going to have a lot of people leave, the business, Commissions are going to be compressed, but let me tell you what else is going to happen the 20% of the real estate agents that are driving 80% of the business today. Their income is about to go through the roof. So the opportunity for people who have always focused on relationships, the opportunity for people who have always taken the long view, have looked for ways to create a compelling offer, to add value year after year, their income level, their attractiveness and so forth, I’m telling you at least it’s going to go through the roof. So what else do these folks do that are going to, that are succeeding now or are going to continue to succeed? One thing that they do is they make what are invisible opportunities to most of us become visible right. So they see things that we can’t, and one of the ways great agents do this is they don’t wait for an opportunity to be handed to them. They look for opportunity in everything they do.

Nobody who has made a mark in this business, who has made a great living, who has helped hundreds of people, has just sat around and waited for the phone to ring or an email to come through from the website right, or waited for Zillow to call or text or whatever right.

They’re actively looking for opportunity in everything they do and they know that every relationship they invest in could be the source of their next big opportunity, and that’s why they’re alert, you know, to what their clients are telling them. They’re listening and they know what their clients want, because they’re curious, right, and they know why they want it and how they’re going to go about getting it. So you know, in other words, professionals pay attention and that’s exactly what you know. I’ve been really doubled down on the past few weeks and months and what I’m urging my team to do as well. You know, going forward, we’re not just building the business based on what’s good for us as NAR members. We’re going to build this business forward based on exactly what buyers, sellers and investors want, and that is a different mindset. As simple as that sounds, Does that make sense or am I just talking in circles this morning?

Laci: No, I think it does. I think anybody who’s looking at this from the right perspective is going to understand. I think if you’re not looking at it, I think if you’re looking at the what’s going to change like, looking at it from the perspective of what’s going to change in the next 10 years, you might not get it. But if you’re looking at it from the perspective of what’s not going to change right, which is a great way to prepare for anything that you’re about to do what’s not, what’s going to stay consistent for the next 10 years or 20 years, or what’s not going to change, then this is all. It makes perfect sense, right? So that might be a shift some folks need to make from away from oh gosh, you know, things are changing, what’s going to be different. Moving forward and maybe focus on oh gosh, things are changing, what’s going to stay the same, that I can leverage and you know, and increase or exponentialize moving forward.

Chris: So how do you get into the, to the headspace, into the mind or the thoughts, how do you read a client’s mind Right? And one of the ways to do that is and I’ve talked many times on this podcast about Dan Sullivan and strategic coach. But you know, one of the things that Dan came up with years ago that has always been helpful to me is what Dan calls the R factor question and the S conversation. And the R factor stands for the relationship factor question and it goes something like this If you’re sitting down at the kitchen table and you’re meeting with a seller goes something like this If you’re sitting down at the kitchen table and you’re meeting with a seller, it goes over a buyer or whatever. But it goes something like this If we were sitting here a year from now and we were looking back over the last year, what has to happen with this home selling experience for you to feel great about it?

It’s about framing a question for a buyer or a seller that gets them to articulate what it is they want out of this experience. And it’s never going to be about what they want out of their relationship with you. It’s going to be what they want to have happen in their lives, right? So you know if you’re talking to a buyer, you know if we look forward, you know a year from today and we have a conversation and you look back over the past year. If we look forward, you know a year from today and we have a conversation and you look back over the past year. What does this experience, what does what has to have happened for you to feel great about buying a house? And then you start to get into, you know, you start to hear things like well, it really is about, you know, growing their family. It really is about a different neighborhood. It really is about a school district. It may be about things you don’t even know, right, you know, for some people it may be that, you know, this is the second time I bought a house and the first time I really screwed it up, right. It may be that there, maybe there is a fear that they might get transferred and they want to make sure that they’re, you know, not upside down that they bought something wrong when it comes time to move for the job.

The point is, we don’t know. So we have to ask questions, we have to be curious, we have to get people talking and then we have to pay attention and we have to take notes. So asking these questions and figuring out the message and the answer is a skill that can be acquired with practice. But I would tell you, you know, 80% of us don’t have it, but the top 20% of the people do, and it’s one way that they achieve success and longevity in this business.

And it’s sometimes it’s really hard because we get in our own way right. We’re really good at this, we’ve done it a thousand times. We know what works, we know what’s best for you, and it’s not that we don’t know, but you know, at the end, paternalistic or maybe we even mansplated or something that no, this is how it’s going to go blah, blah, blah. And we just, you know, run right over whatever it is these folks, you know, really have on their mind or what they want out of this. So it is a skill to sit back, ask the right questions and just listen and not inflict, you know, our own preconceived notions of right or wrong.

We may know how this is going to turn out, but this isn’t what this is about. We don’t know. We may have an idea from our experience and so forth, but that is not what these folks are looking for. They’re looking for you for advice and counsel, and when the time comes, they’ll expect that, they’ll ask for that. But when it comes time to sit down and figure out the motivation and why and what they want from a house going forward not necessarily about a real estate agent going forward that’s all that matters. I don’t think anybody ever gotten up in the morning and said, my gosh, I got to hire a real estate agent. You know, I wonder what they need from me. I wonder what I want from them. What they think about is my God, we’re having another kid, I got to get another house.

Laci: Yeah, I think there’s a do no harm element, right, so you certainly wouldn’t want to withhold any information you think might make a difference. But I was watching a reel on Instagram the other day and it was an interior designer. I’m not sure if that’s not really my algorithm, so I’m not sure how I got there, but somebody had asked her to come in and redo a space. They had started doing it on their own. They became overwhelmed, right, they needed help, so they went to a professional, like this is exactly how these things usually go. But there was. She made a comment about how the person said the TV has to stay on this wall and she said a lot of interior designers would say you know, nope, you know the TV would be better on this wall, or even this wall would say you know, nope, you know the TV would be better on this wall or even this wall. But she said but I always respect, regardless of.

You know, people have their reasons. I respect their reasons for wanting the TV to stay on a certain wall. It does limit some of you know our options as far as where we can put the sofa or seating, but that’s you know. They have their reasons for wanting the TV to stay on that wall, and I just thought that was so refreshing. Like where you know, like somebody came in and they’re the professional and like because it is possible, you know it’s possible to respect your professional, your doctor, your real estate agent, your interior designer, your marketing person, but disagree and have another motivation, another reason to want something a different way. And I just thought that was so. It seems applicable here, like that’s what professionals should be doing, right.

Chris: I think that’s interesting. But we can become so passionate about, you know, wanting to help people and making sure they don’t make a mistake, and but sometimes it’s almost like that passion is misdirected or it could be perceived as being misdirected.

Laci: Yeah, it’s not my marketing. Like with marketing, like I want it to be successful, right, like I want what we do together to be successful, but it’s not mine. I can’t, I don’t own it. I’m here in a consulting, you know, position like my, my role and I, just as long as I understand my role and I can cause you know, position like my, my role and I, just as long as I understand my role and I can cause you know like I could come up with the best marketing plan in all of the land. But if it was something that no one would ever do, no client would ever do that, you know we’d never get the follow through, we’d never get the buy-in. So even if they did it, it wouldn’t feel sincere or it wouldn’t feel, you know, then it’s not going to be the most successful. So I think it’s just realizing that as your consultant, more than anything and you’re consulting through this relationship.

It’s not. You don’t own it. You don’t own this house buying or selling process.

Chris: At best you’re a coach or a facilitator.

Laci: Exactly.

Chris: Right, and I think what you said is very profound. I love the story about the TV, but you know, the trick here is to put your expertise and service to the ends that your clients want to accomplish what they want to achieve. Right, and it’s subtle, but it’s very profound and you know, there might be 10 different places where you, as the expert, would put the TV, 10 different places where you, as the expert, would put the TV. But the person you know, buying that house, designing that room, they want to live a life where the TV’s on this wall and you know what we need to make that possible for them and really that is our job.

Laci: Yeah, as trivial as it seems, you know like leave the ultimatums and harsh conversations for families.

Chris: I know we talked about playing to win, you know, as we opened this up, but I want to revisit it here for a second. You know, again, there’s a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. And there’s nothing wrong with playing a bit of defense and being deliberate about, you know, committing to achieving new goals right, you’ve got to be thoughtful. You want to go in with, you know, open eyes, et cetera. And thoughtful, you want to go in with a, you know, open eyes, etc. And. But you also don’t want to get stuck in analysis, paralysis, right, you don’t want to never sell another house because you know you can’t quite figure out how to go about it in the new world order. At some point you’ve got to. You’ve got to commit to going forward.

And, and professionals, you know, once they do commit to something, they go all in, and I just want to reiterate how critical it is that they go all in for the long term. Right, professionals play the long game. It’s a marathon. For the best among us it’s never a sprint and at the end of the day, there’s always more time to figure it out than you think there is. But you know, it’s that whole mindset that we’ve talked about so many times, that it’s about playing the long game.

You know you might sprint like hell to get started, you know. But once you do get traction, it’s critical to step back from time to time, recalibrate, you know, think about balance, boundaries like we talked about in the first episode, boundaries like we talked about in the first episode. You know winners, true professionals, anybody who succeeds in the world, whether they’re CEOs, real estate agents. You know movie stars, sports people. You know there’s always periods where regular rhythm, where they sprint like hell, get traction, find some success, or maybe not, but they always, you know, make sure there’s time and mental space to step back, think it through. Recal not, but they always, you know, make sure there’s time and mental space to step back, think it through, recalibrate and make a new plan going forward. And that’s what we have to do, especially in times like these.

Laci: Yep. And now I’m ready for this next part. Like I’ve mentioned before, I get to look at the notes, and this is the part of the conversation that I have been anxiously awaiting for this entire half hour so far.

Chris: Well, you know again. So we’re talking about creating your own opportunities, right. You’re talking about, you know, making invisible opportunities visible. And the number one way that the best among us do that is is that professionals are market makers, and I know we’ve talked about that before, but it is the only thing that matters going forward, and I’ve got some pretty strong feelings about this. One of the great skills of the best among us is the ability to bring buyers and sellers who are already in their database together to make their own markets right. So you’ve attracted people that you’ve been educating over time that want to buy a house at some point in the future, whether it’s right now or, you know, a little bit later on. And at the same time, you’re constantly talking to potential sellers and it’s our job at the end of the day to put them together.

And you know I don’t know that a listing agent worth their soul ever goes on a listing appointment and in the back of their mind, doesn’t have at least one prospective buyer for that listing right. I mean, think about it if you’re, if, if you’re in the business at all, if you’re in it, you know, you know somebody who wants that house. I mean, we can’t help but drive by houses. You know, when I was actively listing and selling all the time oh my God, I know so-and-so. They would love that. That’s exactly what I heard them talking about, or whatever. It’s just how a professional mind works, right. And what professionals don’t do this goes back to what they don’t do is they don’t rely on the mobile. I feel so strongly about this, and more so than I ever have before. I never thought that what a seller wants from us is to sign a contract, agree to pay us thousands of dollars, and then have us stick a sign in the yard and just sit back and wait for somebody else to sell the house. I mean, when you think about it, that is the nuttiest thing in the world, but that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for years and years.

And again, I’m not talking about the 20% among us that you know have always led this industry, but I’m talking about, you know, sadly, somebody of the rest of us who, you know, just completely relied on clear cooperation to make a living, right. I mean, no seller hired an agent to sell their house, expecting somebody else to actually sell it for them, and I think one of the things that gets in the way of or has gotten away in the past is, you know, being a market maker isn’t just about double dipping a listing for the commission check, right, it’s not about that. That might be a well maybe less so now, but in the past that might’ve been a nice outcome, but the way the business was structured, I think a lot of us felt guilty about it. Right, you know I’m getting it twice, I’m going to represent both sides, whatever, and it’s just. I just feel like, excuse me, it’s a load of crap, right?

I mean, if you’re a listing agent, you put a sign in the yard, you have an obligation to find a buyer for that house period. And if you don’t find a buyer for that house and somebody else brings a buyer, great. But to go into that listing with the attitude that you don’t have anybody for that house and you don’t expect to find anybody for that house and you’re happy to have everybody else in the MOS sell it for you, that’s not the mark of a professional. It’s certainly not the mark of a professional in the new environment. So, again, it’s about doing the job they hired you for and the person who signed that listing agreement hired you to sell their house.

Laci: Yeah, I’m here to abscond you of all guilt associated with being a market maker. I think that has always been the best case scenario for buyers and sellers. I mean, what is the if you could show up to you know a listing appointment and say, oh, I already have, you know, potentially one. What is the if you could show up to you know a listing appointment and say, oh, I already have, you know potentially one, two, three, five buyers for your home? That’s best case scenario for a seller, right? If somebody comes to you looking to buy a house and it’s you know, then if and you have that house, but then you also have maybe four other houses that they could be like, it’s best case scenario for a buyer.

So I think that the guilt has always been the guilt associated with it, or the double debit, or, like the judgment maybe is better. It’s been associated with, it has always been misplaced because market making has always been the best thing for buyers and sellers. So it’s one of those things that is not going to change. Moving forward, regardless of you know whether you’re going to get compensated on both sides or how you’re going to get compensated, it’s still the best thing for buyers and sellers, which means it’s still the best way forward. So I am, I’m here to, you know, just really support with a resounding vote market making for all agents, brokers, buyers, sellers, everybody. I do think that’s the thing that’s not going to change, which is exciting because you know there are absolutely systems in place to make market making easier and you know Roos does it not just Roos, but you know people do it.

Chris: No, I mean, that’s the number one way we will support our agents in the future. It will help them build and maintain a database so that they can become market makers. I mean, that’s our job at this point. Going forward is we have to coach the agents that you know choose to affiliate with us, that hire us. We’ve got to teach them, show them, give, give them the tools, facilitate being market makers and and that is the way forward again for any of us that are going to thrive in this business and it’s the way forward for our brokerage well, and when it’s relational right, when you’re focusing on relationships, it’s it’s natural.

Laci: It’s a natural thing because it’s not just you, don’t? Most people don’t just buy a house or sell a house. One time right, you’ve got your first roost, you’ve got your. Next roost, you’ve got your. We didn’t say final roost, we didn’t want to say that.

Chris: We call that forever. We don’t like final roost. That’s bad marketing.

Laci: Yeah, not the right connotation there, but you know it is. Most people don’t just do this one time, so it’s just like getting your hair cut right, Like have a relationship with the person who cuts your hair. And you know, some people do go to somebody different every time, but most people go to the same person every time because they know them, like them and trust them right. They’ve got, they’ve guided them through this beauty process multiple times with success. Why wouldn’t they go back? It’s the same for your real estate agents.

Chris: No, I agree a thousand percent. So again, chalk this up to what professionals don’t do. They don’t get an exclusive right to sell an agreement signed and then wait for somebody else to sell it for them. They go in with ideas about who might be a buyer for that property within their database and the relationships they have. So let’s talk more about creating own opportunities. And the next tip I have is professionals look for untapped niches. However you want to pronounce that, they mine marketing niches visible to them that others miss.

And my favorite and most profitable niche for me has always been working with attorneys. So why is that? I don’t know. I think it’s just the way I’m wired. I actually enjoy the discipline of the law.

I often think that if I hadn’t gone into this business, that I might’ve gone to law school because I just I hesitate to say I enjoy it. I like the way you know attorneys think and I find what they do interesting and over the years you know many of my clients are have become are attorneys, right, I’ve worked with many attorneys. And the other cool thing is for me I appreciate the fact that they understand the value of investing in real estate and you know they’re versed in the legalities of it. So that makes it easier for me. The other thing is, you know attorneys are great referral partners because you know they always need estate appraisals done right and they need opinions of value for divorces or bankruptcies, tax cases, mergers, acquisitions and so forth. And I’ve, you know I’ve been fortunate to work with some great attorneys and have had long-term relationships and I still do estate appraisals for a handful of attorneys from time to time and they’re just wonderful clients. And we, a lot of our not a lot, but a handful of our property management clients happen to be attorneys too.

So once I realized that and I started to double down on it, you know I, you know significant amount of my business, you know, came from you know four or five attorneys and over the last 20 years I’m begged a lot of money that way. So find a niche, find an untapped niche, but I can tell you I’d never met another real estate agent who focused on working with attorneys. So you know there’s a niche. So what else might be out there? You know every parent of their kid’s soccer team, right? Maybe that’s your niche, right? If you’re, you know, got younger kids and they’re in activities and sports and so forth. You know, gosh leverage that you know everybody.

Somebody in that audience is looking for their next house, you know. So you know. Think of ways to get out of the box and how you’re going to meet, connect, you know, with the other parents on the soccer team, former co-workers. To run your own business doesn’t mean that every co-worker that you ever had in the past, you know, shouldn’t be in your database. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be picking up the phone, you know, and say, hey, I just want to remind you. I hope things are going well. Are you still with so-and-so? Well, I just want to remind you I’m a real estate agent and you know I really enjoyed working with you at our time together and, by the way, can I add you to my database. So maybe there’s a niche to be mined there from where you used to work.

Investors, of course, is a niche. I mean there is an argument to be made that well, obviously there are many real estate professionals that focus exclusively on investors and they don’t work with individual buyers or sellers at all. It’s a fantastic niche and it’s a niche that we’ve done really well with when we focused on property management. Same thing with financial professionals, right, you know the best financial professionals appreciate the fact that their clients should have a diverse portfolio. Some financial planners will steer their clients away from real estate. Others understand that it’s a great adjunct to what they’re already putting their clients away from real estate. Others understand that it’s a great adjunct to what they’re already putting their clients into.

Maybe your niche is condos on the beach. Right, we’ve built out about a thousand names of people who are looking for, at some point in the future, a condominium on the space coast of Florida, one of the things that I’ve been thinking a lot about. We work in Ohio and we also work in Florida, whether it’s on the Space Coast or over in Fort Myers Beach, and I think there’s a niche that can be mined for people moving from Ohio to Florida. So you know that’s a niche that’s going to work for us because of what we do. But that’s the example that proves my point. Niches are things that are an unfair advantage for you. They’re exclusive to you, based on what you do, what you like, what you care about, what’s happening in your life, and to be aware of those and to figure out how to put those into service of your business is a way to create opportunity for yourself.

Laci: So yeah, I think that’s a great example of how many a lot of times your niche is completely natural, like you didn’t plan it, you didn’t map it out, you didn’t do market research, you didn’t. It just is something that came naturally. So for people who aren’t actively focused on a niche, they might already have one right.

Look at your past 25, you know sales and then, you know, like my dad has a car lot and they sell a lot of Jeeps. That’s just and he’s not marketing minded at all, he’s very smart and he’s definitely like a smart business person. But really what happened was they started selling Jeeps because that’s what he and my brother are kind of into, like that’s their toy cars that they play with. They started getting some of them lifted or they started adding accessories to some of them and then putting them on the lot and they just sold and sold and so they kind of that kind of became one of their little niches. And they didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. But the great thing about having a niche is, once you have it right, you, if you’re actively pursuing referrals, then you are so well equipped to deal with those high probability conversations between you know attorneys, or between financial professionals, or people who have condos on the beach, or you know people who love Jeeps and ducks or whatever people do.

Chris: Or wheelers in the mountains of North Carolina Exactly.

Laci: Absolutely so. If you’re really, if you’ve got a niche, there’s so much potential there for referral generation that it just multiplies whatever you’re already doing. So I think that this is a super powerful way and easy because, again, it’s just more often than not it comes naturally to you, like you said, based on what your interests are, what you know about, because you know, if a Jeep owner comes to my dad’s car lot just like if it’s somebody who owns a condo on the beach in Florida comes to you, the conversation that you’re going to have with them is going to be so sincere, so real, so exciting, so passionate, because you like, you know and you really do know and like the same things. So it’s just a more natural working relationship.

Chris: So I think that’s a really you get the chance to express who you really are deep down, the easier it’s going to be to connect with somebody else, right, and so I think that’s fantastic. I think the message here is that you will always make more money going deep into a narrow opportunity than you will dabbling in multiple opportunities at once. So go with what you know, go with who you are, go with what you like, go deep with professionals you relate to, and I think that is one of the best ways that we’ll talk about today.

Laci: I’m going to amend your statement. You’re always making. You will always make more money and truly enjoy what you’re doing right and have more fun. You always make more money and truly enjoy what you’re doing right and have more fun. You always make more money and have more fun.

Chris: It’s the best way to create a steady stream of opportunity, because you’re enjoying it, because it’s not work anymore, right, like you just said, it’s just more fun. So that might be my favorite tip of the day is, you know, find a niche, find who you are, go deep, find your people and, you know, establish your value proposition and market to your people. That’s probably the best tip of the day. So what happens right when? What’s it look like when somebody stops creating their own opportunities or or, you know, never gets off the ground with doing that? You know, we’ve heard a lot about a lot about coming out of COVID, about quiet quitting, but I think the moment a professional in any business just stops creating new opportunities and starts the coast, I think that’s what quiet quitting essentially is. I think that’s what quiet quitting look like. So if you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, then rewind this and listen to it again, I guess. But you know, what does it look like when you decide to stop creating opportunities? Well, I think you get lax about adding new people to your database. I can’t tell you how many people you know go through this wild sprint. That may last for years at a time. They build out their database and they get some degree of success, but they burn themselves out and they just coast the rest of the career on that first sprint and as soon as somebody stops adding new people to their database, they literally stop growing and at that point it’s just a question of how long it takes to retire. It also looks like you stop writing fewer and fewer personal notes, right, which means you’ve stopped looking for reasons to experience or share gratitude, right? I mean, that’s another symptom If you’re not folks who have decided to stop going forward, to stop creating their own opportunities. They stop becoming curious, they become less and less curious, right. They start to stop asking and learning and being interested in other people and you know it may not be conscious, but I think people they sense that on some level and you know, over time you become less and less attractive and you start to wonder why. You know somebody else is getting the listing that you used to get and I think, as all those things happen, you know they just become less and less motivated to add value to the world. But I think it’s interesting, you know, especially from a Connect, practice, track and Grow perspective, if you’re sitting there thinking about how you’re going to move forward and what’s going to happen next and so forth.

My advice is to sit down today, get back through your database, look at your calendar for the past few days. Look for places where something happened, where it’s an opportunity to express some appreciation or gratitude. Write a note. Get back in the habit, think again about what your personal connection standard is going to be connecting the minute you know you’re less motivated to. You know you know, get out there, meet people, add people, write notes, make calls, do pop by, share appreciation, engage with the world. You know that’s a sign that you it’s time to snap out of it. Or I guess in some respects, it’s time to do something else. So you know you want to create new opportunities, you’ve got to engage and I guess, at the end of the day, lacey, that’s kind of what the message is today.

Laci: Yeah, I mean, I think everybody goes through periods of it right Of the of being overwhelmed or just. You know, life happens right. My kids have been sick, somebody in my household has been sick since like Christmas every week, you know. So I think that it’s important to note that if you’re going through this temporarily, then that’s normal. You know, if you’re now, if this is an extended period of time that you’ve just kind of going down and down and down, then it might be time to look at doing something new. But another thing is like if you’re surrounded by the right people.

Chris: Yeah, it might be time to be looking for another brokerage opportunity. It might be time to surround yourself with a different group of people.

Laci: Right, who can motivate you when you’re feeling unmotivated? Who can step in when you’re you know, when you’re dealing with life things, if you have a team, I mean, and this is we try not to be too self-promotional here, but you know, roos does a lot of this stuff automatically. They automate a lot of this stuff for agents, which is huge when it comes to just the monotony of it all and just trying to fit it all in, because it is a lot, right, managing relationships is a lot. But so, yeah, I think that it’s important to note that you know, everybody goes through this at some point, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. And if you’re feeling it permanently, then it might be time to change. But if you’re not, if it’s just if you’re still passionate for the business, if you still want to succeed, then you might just not be in the right place, surrounded by the right people.

Chris: I think that’s a great message and I appreciate you pointing that out. I, you know, I kind of knew when I was making the notes for this, you know for myself and that I knew this was going to be a meandering stream of consciousness sort of conversation. So, as we wrap up, I have eight points that I really want to kind of talk about, review real quick before we sign off today. And the first point is professionals prioritize their own well-being, ensuring that they’re equipped to consistently deliver value over time. So again, that comes back to the nature of this 12-part series is the best among us prioritize their own health and well-being first. They also hone their skills and craft continuously. They get better and better, they enhance their practice and so forth, and they craft compelling value propositions that clearly demonstrate their unique contribution to the market. That’s huge. But you’ve got to be self-aware. You’ve got to know what your skills are and you have to know what your clients want to do. That it’s not enough just to be great at what you do. If you want to be successful, you’ve got to be able to tell people what you do as quickly, succinctly and as obviously as possible.

The best among us don’t wait for opportunities. They could create them by staying alert to the needs and desires of their clients in the market. They ask questions and they listen. Professionals maintain focus on creating value and they don’t let external factors like market conditions and regulatory changes and NAR crap derail their goals period. There’s a strategic shift from playing not to lose to playing to win, and professionals commit fully to playing the long game in their careers. This is not about getting rich quick. It never was. It’s about crafting a career that you could be proud of. Successful professionals actively connect buyers and sellers. They create their own market dynamics. They don’t rely solely on how things were always done before. They are market makers.

The successful among us find opportunities by. You know finding and exploiting niches that other people overlook or just quite simply don’t have access to. You know they use their personal interests, their connections and they forge strong and profitable relationships. You know these. You know again I said it too many times today you know I’m not as down as maybe I sound, but the journey of professional does have ups and downs, right, but it’s also marked by continuous learning, adaptation and an unwavering commitment to excel and grow. And if you still have that commitment, to be successful and do well and help people in this field. I can tell you that, with the right shift in mindset, by surrounding yourself with the right people and making sure you’re getting the right inputs into your brain, this is going to be an opportunity for you to do great things in this business that you never thought possible before. So have faith and follow the rules, as my algebra teacher used to say.

Laci: I love your algebra teacher. I know I just love that your algebra teacher gets like almost a weekly shout out.

Chris: She does. Yes, follow the rules. It’ll all work out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out yet, you’re not at the end.

Laci: That’s right, that’s it.

Chris: All right.

Laci: Always a pleasure to hear your vulnerability and your personal stories. I think this was one of the best so far.

Chris: Well, I appreciate you saying that and we’ll see you next time.

Laci: See you next time for more peace, love and real estate!