Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Ed and Ken's mini podcast. I hope everybody's having a great week. Ed, how are you? I hope you're having a great week as well.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Dude, it's. It's awesome. Yeah.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: We are in the thick of the spring market. And the crazy thing about right now, for me, I don't know how it is for you, and I know. I know it's. It's got to be this way for the agents is making sure you're still doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, even though the business is now kind of running the show, so to speak. Like, you know, I got. We have activity coming in. It's awesome. Blessed, you know, but we got to keep doing the things that got us here. And. And that's. That's been my message to a lot of agents over the last couple of weeks, is that, you know, you can't stop doing the important but not urgent activities. And to me, this is one of those incredibly important but not urgent activities that if we're not careful, we just. This won't get done, you know? So appreciate you. Appreciate you showing up today and making sure that we're doing. Holding me accountable, too. To the important but not urgent activities.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, baby.
You want me to comment on that?
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And what I'm. What I'm using, literally. And again, it just. It's so simple, dude. It's so simple. It's only taken me almost six decades on planet Earth to. To break this down.
And. And number one, it just comes to identity, like, I, to thine own self be true, Know who you are. Know what that gift is inside of you. And 10 exit, just 10 exit.
So what that means how it breaks down into doing the things that you need to be doing It. It may not be that. It may be, who's the person that can do that?
Who do you need to hire to do that? And I'm talking, you know, a couple hundred bucks a month. Simple. It still blows me away. How many agents don't have a contract to close. Transaction coordinator blows me away. So until they find that. Who they're. Because they're stuck in the weeds of stuff that, number one, drains their energy. Number two, they suck at it.
And then it's the. The real estate drama. I'm so busy. I'm.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Well, you know what else? Let's be honest. They don't want to give up the money. They don't want to give up the commission. They don't. They, you know, And. And and this is something I had to learn too for, for the first 12, 15 years of my career it was like, this is my money, I earned it. And I. But then you realize like, okay, well this is it. I hope you enjoy it because that's as much as you're going to make until you start to realize, all right, if I start to actually allocate resources to this support I can grow. And that's the whole idea of scale. I have, I have a full time loan officer assistant, Andrew, who is the friggin man. I have someone who's responsible for managing my lead log, making sure that leads to come in, get touched as soon as possible. And I have a virtual assistant that helps me with things like this. So you know, the way I look at it, yes, I make less per transaction than I used to, but I'm only able to do these things because I have reallocated those resources to make sure that happens. And I'm not good at that other, some of that other stuff.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: And this is, it just is becoming so much more simple to me. Agents think they're going to go to that training, to that guru and they're going to be able to pick up what they're saying and go do it. And, and I've simplified it that no, you need someone that can walk you through that. Whether it's your broker, your manager, a coach, a ment, and taking the time to do that. Then that way you never have to think about it again. We over complicate this so much and it's so fricking simple.
But because we are in a, in a industry that gets caught up on stuff that wastes time, it doesn't matter. Here, here's the reality. And all we have to do is look at the production of the 96% of the agents, 96% of human beings that hold a license in the real estate industry are around or below poverty level.
So the reality is they're just not professionals. They haven't made a decision to be a professional. When you decide to be a professional, that's when we step up and start doing these things. And what I mean by that is I just checked out at Publix down here, which is like you're giant.
The person working behind that.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: You're not even from around here anymore. Now it's my giant. I guess it's my acne too.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: You Philly people.
Water. Who says water? No, I'm just kidding you. I'll always be a Philly person. That woman was a true professional.
How are you today, sir. Did you have any problems finding anything? No. How's your day going so far?
Great. You know, I like that shirt. Like that's a true professional. It doesn't matter where you are, what you do, you're either going to decide to be a professional or you're going to be a non professional.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It's a great segue into what I want to talk about today, which is, you know, what, what agent showed like the market right now. Like I said, yes, there's business to be had if you're doing the things you're supposed to be doing. There's this to be had. But there are a lot of people, there are a lot of agents that are still not approaching things the right way. The ones that are busy right now are doing a couple of things.
I'll, I'll speak, I'll speak to the loan officers and what the loan officers are doing right now, the busy ones, okay. Number one, they aren't just relying on just the pre approval. Okay, here's your letter. Go have fun. Right. They're explaining the process. They're spending time with their borrower. So the borrower understands, here's what your payment would be if you buy something at 400,000. But you know, the second most important, important number that you need to explain to your borrower is here's what your payment would be at 410. Now why is that important? Because chances are they're going to be in a situation where they might see a house at 400,000 or negotiate up to 400,000 and cut it off because you set the knowledge and they don't know what their payment is going to be above that number. And they might walk away from a transaction not realizing that, that their payment may have only been $50 more per month. I would say that's the second most important number that a loan officer has to explain. Is $10,000 above what you pre approved them for so that they understand the magnitude and lack thereof. The second thing that loan officers are doing right now is calling listing agents.
If you are not calling the listing agent to introduce yourself and let them know that how well the buyers are providing documentation letting them know that you know, hey, I have an open line of communication. If everybody question, you're welcome to give me a call. Letting them hear your voice and your enthusiasm changes the game for that offer. And that's, that's how people are winning offers. So I would lean on those two things. That's what professional loan officers are doing right now. What are professional real Estate agents doing right now to win.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. What they're doing right now to win. Let's just talk with single independent agents that aren't on the team. They're just out there doing their thing. I will tell you what the ones that are doing who are losing is they are trying to figure it out without taking action every day, whatever that may be.
They are not working in their strength zone. It's the same old thing. They're going after the shiny object, they're AI ing themself to death, and they're not connecting with human beings. Let's just take a look at, at the majority of real estate agents, let's say the ones that just want to make a really nice living. Here is. I know I wrote it down somewhere. Here's the equation. Now it has to be in your strength zone. Two open houses a week.
I'm going to find this that way.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: I'll guess while you say, where did
[00:08:26] Speaker B: I write this down? Okay, here it is.
Two open houses a week for 50 weeks will yield 11 closings. This particular agent had access to realty realty.com online leads or Internet leads. Converting at 1%, that would be four transactions.
They have a database of a hundred people at an 8% conversion rate. That's going to be eight transactions. So that is 19, 23 transactions.
That is going to get them well over $200,000 a year in income. With an average sale price, I think of like 4 or 450, something like that, which is the markets we work in.
It's. It's literally that simple. Now what do agents do? They look at that and they're like, open houses don't work. I don't want to do them. Well, either does. Walk you on the treadmill one mile in an hour for a quarter mile, three times a week. It's not going to work.
Consistency.
I'm going to back up if that is not your strength zone. Dude, I just put together a diagram. Actually, I didn't do it. AI did it.
But it goes back to those like 98 Ways to Lead, Generate or Market for Business.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Pick three. That's one of my favorite pieces that you ever gave me.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Pick three.
That excite you?
This is not about the grind. This is not about the.
You just gotta do it. You know, if that's what you want to do, cool, go do it, man. But pick the three that you're like, oh, I could do that. Oh, I love writing handwritten notes. Oh, I love to do open houses. Oh, I love the cold call. Whatever it is go do it. It's that simple.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Action, Action is the answer. It's the antidote to all of it. And right now the market is rewarding people who are prepared and people who are taking action. And I think it's rewarding people not just in attention and eyeballs, it's rewarding people in your ability to convert a buyer or a seller into taking action. You have to be prepared to enter into that conversation. You have to know your market statistics, you have to know your options if something goes wrong. I have a great piece. 88 things that can go wrong in a real estate. In a real estate transaction.
I stole it from a coaching platform from 15 years ago. And it's still relevant that you know, you have to understand. Okay, what, what, what are the options if this goes wrong? What are the options that this was. It's not about being a pessimist or pre living the negative outcome. It's about just making sure that you're prepared. Because when, when it does go wrong, they are going to turn and are going to look squarely at you and say, okay, what do we do? And if you don't have an answer, it's not a good look. It's not a good look.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: I'm going to be a little hard on my, my colleagues who are real estate agents here. I'm going to tell you what we're dealing with right now.
There was this little thing called a lawsuit that happened a couple years ago, right?
Friend of mine called me and said, hey, Ed, I want you to look over this listing contract. I haven't signed it yet, but tell me what you think.
And I said, well, before I do that, did the agent explain to you about what has changed?
And I went through and he goes, no, he didn't mention anything that I don't. I'm not obligated to buy a buyer to pay a buyer broker. I'm like this listing agent and he's been in the business for a while now in the Harrisburg area.
I was like, dude, right there, do not hire this guy.
And then there was a whole, again, unprofessional, not taking the time. Now I don't know what the damage would be there. I don't think he would lose his license, but it would get suspended. Just, that's what we're dealing with. I mean, it's, it's, it's really bad, man. But here's the thing. I'm starting to work with like that 6%. I coach teams and whatever, blah, blah. I want to work with the Agents that wake up, they have a schedule, they want to get to work. They're going to hone in on their true strengths. They're going to know the market, they're going to know the law, they're going to know the changes. They're going to have the agents that are winning right now, dude, have it all. There is no room for good anymore in our industry.
You better know the agreement to sell. You better know the market, you better know staging. You better have a great team of vendors.
That's what the consumer is demanding and expecting right now. And again, we, I know we did this. These agents that go, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to recommend a lender or I'll recommend three. But no, man, the strong ones go, look, all of my business I do with Ken Jordan and Princeton Mortgage. This is why. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here are 10 testimonials from my past 10 clients that closed with them. You have the right to use anybody you want.
This is who I've had great success with. They don't have a backbone to do that. I know I'm picking on my brothers and sisters, but I want them to get better at what they do. Speak from strength.
Be prepared. Be a fricking professional. End of rank. Go ahead.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: One of the things we're pushing right now from an education standpoint is our first time buyer webinar. And this has really been a lot of fun. Every two weeks to three weeks we're hosting first time buyer webinars. But what I'm doing that's a little bit different is I'm actually giving individual links to real estate agents that's unique to them. It's a registration link that only they have.
And if anyone that they give the link to signs up for the webinar, that link that, that lead goes right back to them. In other words, we're protecting the lead source, but we're creating a place and a platform where they can send their people. Maybe their people aren't ready, maybe they don't. Maybe they don't have. They're not 100% confident in explaining the mortgage process. This is a safe way for them to send them to these webinars and protected so that they come back to them. It's we, we've had a ton of success over the last couple of months and it really just boils down to preparation. This is one of my lines. This is a KJ original. Preparation prevents piss poor performance. Now in this market, preparation prevents Poor decisions. Right. Preparation is the key. And I think that educating your buyers, spending the time with your buyers, loan officers, spending the time with your buyers and really explaining the process, help them. You, you, you've been through this before. We do this, what, 150 times a year. They do it once every seven years on average.
And if they're refinancing, once every three and a half.
Spend time, share that knowledge and that wisdom with your, with your borrowers and you're going to be better off for it. That's really what I, that's kind of my, my big push for the, for the loan officers and the lenders that are listening to this.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, the agents that are winning, they're doubling down on their true identity, their true strengths. Number two, they are to be a professional. That means that you are minimum two appointments a week, whether they're a new buyer appointment or a listing appointment. And this, and this is the one thing that agents have to get and understand.
It's already happened. It's already happening, but they're just not ready to admit it. If a real estate agent does not have a multi dimensional business, whether it's investing, whether it's revenue share, whether it's title or all of them, I'm telling all of my agents, invest in real estate. Make sure you're with a brokerage that allows multidimensional income.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Do some brokerages not allow it?
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Oh yeah, most of them don't.
Yeah, well, I'm sorry, what are you referring to, don't allow it?
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Well, you said make sure they allow multi dimensional income.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Oh yes, well, they allow it, but most don't offer it. Most just offer your sales business. And if you want to invest, that's on you. Investing in, investing in real estate.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: But if you're not, you're, you're way behind. But everything is right there. So I'll give you an example. New agent, newer agent. I said, what's your biggest challenge right now? They said, I just don't have enough leads. I said, great, Here's a system that delivers leads, literally a hundred a month.
But they're cold leads. I know, but if you go through a hundred, you're going to end up closing an average of 1.5. Well, I don't want to do that. All right. How else are you going to get leads?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: It's like the reality is send all 100 of those leads. Your link to the home buyer webinar. Right. And then who knows, maybe now you triangulate. They have two people that are working and rowing the boat in the same direction.
Yeah, I think we just came up with a nice idea there, Ed.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
All right, so let's talk. Let's go real quick, action item of the a week. What do we, what do you want to lean on?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Well, it depends who we're speaking to.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: For your eight for eight. I'm gonna say I'm gonna give my action item for eight for land use today. You give what's, what's your action item for realtors this week?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: My action item would be pick three sources of how you're getting business, build your plan around that and get to fricking work. Stop the drama. Here's the good news for real estate agents. You have no compet. Actually, I'm sorry, you have. Your competition is about 3% of the human beings that hold a real estate license in the United States. That's your competition.
In other words, you have none.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: My recommendation for our lender partners out there is go back and look at your consultation format. I would say go back and look at how do you deliver the information, what information do you deliver, what areas can you deliver a higher level of information and maintain your follow up. That's a huge issue right now. From the time someone gets pre approved to the time they actually go under contract, the conversion time is still very long. And you need to have systems that will keep you in front of them, but you also have to be able to reach out to them yourself. So you need to make sure that you're putting time in your calendar, in your calendar specifically dedicated to reaching out to those people that you've pre approved so that you can make sure that you're staying connected with them, not just in front of them. The system will keep you in front of them, but only you can keep yourself connected to them. So that's my action item. Look at your system, look at your consultation and see if there's areas that you can improve. And if you want some ideas, if you're an agent and you want some ideas on how to do better, give Edicol. If you have, if you're a lender out there and you want some ideas or you want somebody to take a look at, you know, I'd be happy to look at anything that you're doing, give you recommendations on how you maybe could adjust them. And that just that outside perspective, sometimes alone is, is enough. It doesn't make either one of us smarter.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: It's just a different perspective, like an umbrella over both of them. The thing that they all have to do, even if they've done it in the past, is find out who you really are. What of those activities is going to pull you.
What you love to do, what you get to do, not what you have to do. And if you can't wake up in the morning, grab your pen or grab your phone or grab whatever and start doing it, that's not for you.
It's just not for you.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Love it, man. All right, Ed. I'm gonna let you get back to it. You have a hard stop, so enjoy your day. And if anyone out there needs anything at all, we're both available. Give us a holler.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Let's rock and roll, boy. See?
