In this episode we take "An Inside Look at How Todd & Jason Built Their High-Producing Teams" with Todd Tramonte, Ian Daniels, Jason Simard, and Jamie Wicks. 

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In this mastermind session,  the Todd Tramonte Home Selling Team and the Sims Realty Group, share the systems and processes they’re using to achieve a high ROI and convert leads at a high level to produce amazing results! 

What makes this episode so unique is that Todd and Jason both interview their ISA’s and dive deep into the tangible results of their follow-up campaigns, agent workflows, maintaining production, lead sources, PPC lead generation, and much more.

We want to thank all our guests for sharing their knowledge with us and the real estate community!  

Here are some timestamps to help you navigate through this episode:

00:00:00 Introduction 
00:00:52 More than ISA's
00:03:29 Build foundations with empathy and create real relationships 
00:08:12 Genuinely check up on your sphere of influence 
00:09:20 Core principles and adjusting your approach
00:12:15 Tweaks made during Covid that have helped to thrive and can be used moving forward 
00:21:39 You have to look at your role as a business
00:22:41 Don’t have your first automatic text go out within the first five minutes
00:27:04 Initial automatic text examples
00:31:30 What it looks like when you register on Todd’s site
00:37:48 What’s working
00:39:31 Surround yourself with good people
00:43:15 Recapping the 3 most important points
00:49:45 Track your prospects in your pipeline who are six months or less away from selling
00:56:12 How to be prepared for the next major thing
01:00:20 Don’t be overtly dependent on one source
01:06:03 Q&A
01:14:04 Tell your client success stories 

Here is a transcription of the entire discussion:

Kevin McCarthy:

All right. We're alive with the next, Keeping It Real. This one's going to be awesome. It's called An Inside Look At How Todd and Jason Built Their High Performing Teams. So you might notice that we have a few more faces on today. That's because we have from Todd's team, we have Ian Daniels who is ISA on Todd's team. And on Jason's team, we have Jamie Wicks who performs a similar role on Jason's team. So in this session, Todd and Jason's two teams are going to share the systems and processes that they use to achieve a high ROI and convert leads at a high level to produce amazing results. So I think it's going to be awesome just seeing you guys brainstorm and kick ideas back and forth and it's not super structured, but I'd just love to see where this conversation goes.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, I'll jump in real fast, because I know Jason wants to do it too, but both of us would be failing miserably if we limited these guys descriptions to ISAs. We.

 

Ian Daniels:

Would just leave the team [inaudible 00:01:06].

 

Todd Tramonte:

Just to get it out of the open. I've heard Jason for a long time. Now talk about how amazing and impactful Jamie is. And obviously I feel very similarly about Ian. These guys are leaders in our organizations. They're impacting lives of our clients and our team members in a big way. That's a totally fine description for email and for an introduction, but just out of the gate, we both value these guys tremendously. So we'll have a little back and forth. Jason, I'll let you kick off too, but I knew it was important just upfront to mention that.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah, first of all, I mean behind the leader is a stronger, is a stronger army of people that support them in their vision. Jamie is my business partner in every one of my businesses. He's been instrumental in our success. I couldn't say enough amazing things about this guy. And I'm going to say this, if you're listening right now and get your notepad out, get a pen and a notepad and have it ready to go, because we're going to pour so much value into you today that when you leave this, I believe it's impossible if you came into it with an open mind that you're not going to be this much better, at least when you walk away. We're going to give you at least one or two things and we're not going to hold back. Anybody who knows my philosophy, I'm an open book. I'm happy to help. I'm here to help. And I don't see the industry this as this adversarial type industry. I see it as a collaborative one. If we work together and Jamie and I and our group have proven that if you work together, you can move mountains.

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie and I have completely transformed our personal family lives through business together, and we've helped do that with many other people. So we're super excited to share. Ian and Todd and Kevin, thank you guys for being on this with us. So I'm excited to mastermind and like share some of our playbook together. Again, if anybody's listening right now, get your notebook out. Let's go [crosstalk 00:02:52].

 

Kevin McCarthy:

I'm taking notes.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, I always do. So I've already got some questions I'd love to throw at Jason and Jamie, just to get their perspective. Just for folks that are tuning in, that was the goal of this. When we came up with the idea, it was a collective of like, "Hey, let's both get our A-player team members on here let's just like pick each other's brains and share it with everyone. We'll take questions from the audience." So pepper us with questions, but I know we've already got a few for each other.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So Jason, you and I have been ... We do this a lot. Jason and I do that dual threat podcast thing and pick each other's brains a lot, but bringing Ian and Jamie in is a whole new element. So I know you guys have been in a big way tinkering and working in the laboratory as it were with your followup and your contact rates and conversion. So we could talk for three days about that, but what's maybe one or two quick tangible things people can take away that you guys are really proud of that you're working with clients and your own team on?

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie. Why don't you kick start us buddy?

 

Jamie Wicks:

Well, first of all, one thing that we did in our client care department, there's a few of us that are doing, it right off the hop, we looked at the messages that we had going out with our automated templates and things like that,, when people first initially sign up on the website, text messages that they start receiving some of the emails that they start getting over the next couple of days. And we wanted to really change that just to be a little bit more fitting to the obviously sensitivity of what's going on. People are signing up on the website, but they would commonly be like, "Well we are in a pandemic." So we wanted to focus on having our message more geared around like, "Hey, thanks for signing up. We're here actually connected to the website. Actually we've already started customizing your website to send you the right properties going forward, but I just want to let you know, I'm working from home. I'm here to connect with you anytime. Let's talk about it a little more."

 

Jamie Wicks:

So just changing the message from being a little bit more direct like we would have been a few months ago and making it a little bit more softer, sensitive to the situation that we're in right now. So we started going through all of our little text messages that go out over the first couple of weeks and emails and starting to change the wording in it a little bit, not groundbreaking changes, but-

 

Jason Simard:

So basically what we decided to do when the pandemic hit and we thought, "Man, this is impacting a lot of people." A lot of things had to shut down immediately. It was scary times. We said, "Well, let's stay proactive. We're going to keep our foot on the gas pedal." We're not going to take it off, but let's shift our conversations to an empathetic conversation, which is, "Hey Kevin, how are you and your family doing?" More about them, really just like, "Are you guys okay? How are things with your employment. I'm going to be going out and doing groceries later this week. Can I get you anything?" But maybe shifting more towards that versus real estate. Then basically asking the question, "Hey, are you one of these people that sees opportunity in this or are you really panicked and fearful?" And depending on how they answer that question, we could navigate towards a real estate conversation.

 

Jason Simard:

So if they were like, "Well, you know what? I actually see opportunity." Because there are a lot of people that these sort of situations as a time where they can make moves. So what we started realizing is there were some opportunities that we could do by asking that question. But if somebody was telling us that they were worried about their job and paying their bills, did we ever bring up real estate? Heck no, we made it all about them and how can we help? And made sure we understood the stimulus packages that were available and just came from a place of value. But by asking that question, we were able to shift to some real estate conversations.

 

Jason Simard:

What started happening is while we watched all of our competitors pull back, we kept our foot on the gas pedal and we stayed very proactive. So the message that we had to everybody was, "Look, all of our commission checks have been delayed. So just look at it that way. Okay. So commissions that you maybe would expect that in spring, they might happen now in fall later that year, who knows. It might be six months to 12 months, 18 months, but there's still going to be business and there's going to be further business. So let's just stay proactive. Let's keep our pipelines full of people that we're having good conversations with. And let's just come from a place of empathy." Well, Jamie, what started happening after April, when things started slowly opening back up? What did you notice in our department?

 

Jamie Wicks:

Things just started booming. I think that the benefit to it all is like obviously we don't want to always delay our commissions because that's how we support our families and stuff, but having this happen also created a longer period like nurturing period for just naturally with our clients, which I think in the big picture is creating more of a lifelong relationship. When you're there by your client's sides through this, when they ... We had clients that were really gung ho, ready to buy a house, take the foot off the gas and really take a step back and want to evaluate things and having us there doing that with them and keeping a focus on them and showing them compassion and showing them love and doing all those things, it really built a foundation of a lifetime relationship that we're going to have with these clients. So it was really good for that.

 

Jamie Wicks:

I think by doing, taking that approach and really putting a big focus on not only the people that we're looking to do business with, but our past clients over the last couple months, we've been getting a ton of referrals. We've been getting ... It's just been crazy. The month of May was nuts. So it was the way we were looking at what we wanted to accomplish has really been coming to fruition by the efforts we put in.

 

Ian Daniels:

Let me add something too, because similarly on our team, we've been asking that same question, Jason. But we extended it out, "Hey, this is one of the easiest phone conversations you can make to your sphere right now is to just call them and ask them how they're doing. If you're somebody that gets a little worried about calling the people that you know, and asking for business, don't worry about that right now. Call people that you maybe haven't spoke to in a long time. I spoke to people during this whole COVID-19 thing that I hadn't talked to for three or four years, but they're still in my phone book. We're still friends. We've just moved in a different direction over the last few years. It was such an easy phone call to make, "Hey, how are you doing? Are you safe? Is your family safe?"

 

Ian Daniels:

Then it almost always leads back to, "Yeah, we're doing great. How are you guys doing? Remind me, what you're doing for work right now? How is business?" It always leads back to that and you ended up being able to have that conversation. Now I'm not being a dirt bag and saying that's the reason for the phone. No, no. The reason for the phone call is to genuinely see how you're doing, but it is a way that you end up pretty much knowing that you're going to be able to have some form of real estate conversation too.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Let me, let me point out a couple of things that would matter outside of a pandemic here that are just core business principles that are really smart. We talked about this on a lot of our coaching calls and that includes our team and other coaching clients. It's the same philosophy, no matter what. Historically, a lot of people look at a followup call or a prospecting call, or even to Ian's point sometimes a spear call just straight go for business, which is dangerous thinking anyway, but it's a one lane road. We were really encouraging and coaching a dual element. That first piece is like, Jason was saying, "Hey, how are you doing? What's going on in your head right now? Are you like me and you're working too much and overreacting to that it? Like, 'I got to fix it.' Or have you sunken down and given up? Where are you?"

 

Todd Tramonte:

Then they'll let you know if that second lane is open. It's like, "Well, we were thinking about buying. We don't know if that's okay anymore." "Okay. Well, I can tell you that it is still okay." But to back away from that and just say, what's the principle that we can all put to use for the rest of our careers, whether or not there's a pandemic is just the ability to adjust and to not get stuck in how we do things. And Jamie referenced it like, "Hey, we got into some of our automated followup." I think you've talked about that.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah.

 

Todd Tramonte:

And made some changes. because it's easy to say, "Hey, I'm going to change what I say on the phone. If someone doesn't respond well," but being willing to say, "Stop, let's retool the system here," that's what it takes to be successful over the long haul. I was doing this in 2006, seven, eight, nine, when things went crazy with foreclosures and short sales and the mortgage crisis and it was similar. If you weren't willing to start communicating differently and think about different timelines and care for people in a different way, you were either hustling short sales or looking for a job. A lot of people did that and then came back when it got easier. And that's just in my opinion, a really volatile way to look at business. So I just want to make sure people that are ... We're not here to spend our whole time today talking about COVID-19, but that's, what's been going on for awhile now. So it's certainly painted with a brush what's going on. So it sounds like-

 

Ian Daniels:

Well, just to give an illustration to what you're saying too, because we talked about this on the team, in coaching to it, think of it as an airline pilot, that you're going to get from point a to point B. Throughout the course of that flight, you're making very minor adjustments to be able to get to where it is the destination is that you want to get to. But sometimes you're going to have to navigate through some turbulence or whatever that looks like. They're not major shift changes. They're very minor changes, but it says to Jamie's point, we changed some of the wording that we're using on a template text that we're sending out. We didn't completely revamp our business around this. We changed one small element of it to be able to better impact the people that we're trying to serve.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah, exactly.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Let's go what feels like the opposite direction just for a second, if you guys are willing, but it's not. But we actually found that some of those tweaks led us to be more profitable than ever. After April, we were almost 51% off of our goal pace. We were still profitable, which was a beautiful thing, but we didn't do what we wanted to do. And since then, we've a little bit more than made up for it. I think some of those shifts have allowed us to be as if not more profitable than ever. I don't know if you guys experienced that and if so, why or what we can share with other people that would be valuable for them?

 

Jason Simard:

Well, number one, so with me stepping out of production last year in May to build our coaching company my whole point of doing that was to help elevate the industry, help my business partners the people that have helped me build Sims real estate group have diversified income streams. So what we've been able to do over the last year is we have seven different lines of income now that we've created. We made a broker shift from a traditional brokerage model to the XP model that's created two new income lines for us. Then we've created several other income streams for our families. But the key is we've pivoted. We've been able to pivot and we're looking ahead. What does the industry look like a year from now, five years from now?

 

Jason Simard:

So we've built our businesses so that we can literally run them from a laptop from day one. All of our technology tools that we've invested in are all things that have thrived during COVID. Because what I've been finding is a lot of the coaching clients that I have that are doing old school methods of like door knocking and going to kiosk in a mall and different things like that, they've they literally lost their ability to earn income. So they're having to discover new things. Well, for us in our group, we've been pretty modern. We've been investing in lead generation online and really focusing on mastering conversion on that. We've been focused on social media, how to build a strong mind share and presence. We've been really focusing on building a strong repeat and referral business.

 

Jason Simard:

You know, you work so hard to get all this new business in the door and then agents do a terrible job after the transaction, keeping those relationships. I know Todd, that's an area that you guys really excel in as do we. We've put some systems in play that we can still statistically see that we're way out performing the market when it comes to people coming back and doing business with us again, when they go to buy and sell. To me, that means that we're doing the right thing. So we're able to pivot and add a diverse group of income streams, which everybody in our group is benefiting from and I think that's been key.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Yeah. A couple of quick notes. If you're watching and you don't have seven lines of income, don't let that intimidate you. Obviously the goal is for that to encourage you potentially towards that in the future. I'll comment just specific to real estate sales. We we have a coaching consulting business as well. Ian's actually really pivotal in that side of the business with me as well. But specific just to individual agent small midsize, big team, whatever brokerage modeling real estate sales, technologies have been a piece of it, but just the shift in mindset and the openness from the client to look at things differently.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I think as business owners, and even if you're on a team, you are a business owner, you operate your income. Taking advantage and not in a negative way, but taking full advantage of people's willingness to think about something differently is crucial. I think we have a short window here of an opportunity to rebuild our businesses in a way where we can be just exponentially, more efficient. We have a marketing specialist on our team. It's what most people call listing agent, who will close, I think, 13 listings this month. For some of you that doesn't sound like much. For some of you, that's huge. For us, that's a really good month for one individual agent listings only. That's the most he's ever done probably by 30 or 40%. He was out of town for like two and a half weeks of the last four or five weeks and that's what he'll do this month.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So much of that had to do with a willingness to lead a client towards a more efficient process without some of the stuff that's always been done that is valuable, but isn't essential that we were able to replace with more efficient, even more valuable stuff. Some of that is as simple as Zoom or a phone. Some of it is where the team was able to leverage some of the efforts of that agent so everybody can benefit. The principle that I want to challenge people to think about for the sake of profitability. So you don't have to kill yourself by just do more, more deals, more clients, more deals, more clients, is to think about with this window of opportunity to do things differently where clients and prospects are more open to that.What could you do to be more profitable and add more value to each person so you don't have to just do more? We're finding some really cool ways to do that where our agents are making more money, our clients are happier. Our team is actually operating better, but we're not having to just do more, more, more, more of everything.

 

Ian Daniels:

We had talked to some people in another state where even before all of this happened, like they were doing a lot of, I think all of the consultations virtually. They would never go into the property and doing that. We were always pretty intrigued at how do you do that. What are the ways you do that? How do you maintain the relationship? We'd had conversations with them and then all this happened and now you're forced into doing a lot of that stuff. We realized pretty quickly, that's not too bad. There's definitely things we can do in keep that we don't want to go back to the old way of doing it.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Absolutely.

 

Ian Daniels:

Now there's going to be situations and circumstances where we will, but that doesn't have to be an every single time type of thing. We had always done appointments in the office a lot of times, had people come to the office instead of going to their home. Well, doing it via Zoom is even more efficient than doing it via the office. It opens up, I think more windows for people to be able to jump on a Zoom call, as opposed to having to get in the car, travel to the office, spend time and then travel home. This is just more convenient for people and they're more receptive to doing it now more than ever.

 

Jamie Wicks:

I agree. I agree.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Are there any questions on that?

 

Jason Simard:

Can I touch on that? Can I touch on that, Jamie? And I think I want you to chime in. We've found the same thing. You know, this whole reset I call it has allowed you to test some things out that you normally might have been cautious to try and it's forced you to do it. Then you realized, "Oh my God, this is so much better." So for us, we're doing buyer consultations and listing consultations through Zoom for the last two and a half months, because we couldn't get into people's homes. Not only do we have an increase in the amount of appointments that we've had, our conversion rate has gone up. We've seen a higher conversion rate. So I mean, I'm like, "Man, there's something to this Zoom." I've literally been listing properties and I am not meeting the sellers in person. I'm doing it through Zoom.

 

Jason Simard:

Now I'm old school and I love the relationship business and getting in front of people, but this is really convenient. I think about for myself, if my profession said, "Look, you can be in your pajamas. I don't even care if you're wearing any pants because I won't notice on the Zoom call, but literally from the comfort of your home, we can talk face to face like we are right now," I'm like, "That's pretty convenient because I don't want to be stuck in traffic or driving across town." I think about like the efficiencies that are being created through this COVID thing and Zoom is one we're using. Jamie, I mean, how many successes have we had with Zoom calls? Share some fun things that we're doing.

 

Jamie Wicks:

One of the things I would say, that's actually been really nice about everything that's happened recently is everybody's using Zoom now. So with that, I've been able to get a lot more people committed to doing Zoom meetings earlier in the process than where they would have felt comfortable coming in, meeting in our office before. So particularly first time buyers and people like that that are a little bit intimidated by the process. Until they've been out with an agent, looked at houses or had things like that, sometimes they're a little bit more stand backish with their whole thing. They need somebody to guide them, but they just haven't really presented that opportunity to somebody. So having Zoom, I've been able to get a lot of those people willing to have just from there their house, let's just connect on a Zoom, share a few things on my screen that you'll be able to see and we can go through a few things. It'll be well worth the 20, 30 minutes we spend together. That has a game changer.

 

Jamie Wicks:

I think another benefit out of the Zoom thing is you guys that are more constantly working through deals with clients and that where a lot of times I have been just a phone call and you guys would definitely connect on the phone before. Now you're doing more face to face stuff where it's like ...

 

Jamie Wicks:

... Definitely connect on the phone before. Now you're doing more face-to-face stuff where it's like, "Hey, let's get on Zoom, and let's actually talk about this offer, and see each other face-to-face, and have that extra level, that extra layer of connection", that you wouldn't have previously had, even doing it on the phone. Right? Unless you're going into their house and meeting them in person. So I think that it's been a couple of things that I've really noticed where it's been a big benefit to us.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. In a lot of ways, we've wanted to do some of this stuff for years, but people were uncomfortable. So to your point, Jamie, people are comfortable now, whether they wanted to be or not.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yep.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Kevin, are there group questions before we keep peppering each other? Okay, cool.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

No, nothing coming in.

 

Jamie Wicks:

One thing, Todd-

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, go ahead.

 

Jamie Wicks:

I was going to say, one thing, Todd, just because you mentioned when you're kind of talking about the listing agent and that being their business, and the different roles being their business, I'm sure Ian will agree with me, when we started building out our client care team, one of the first things I said to anybody that came through our team and joined into this role with me is, "You have to look at this role, even, as your business. This is your business." So you got agents on our team that handled their business and they look at it that way, when you look at Sims Real Estate Group, our team, and you look at that business.

 

Jamie Wicks:

But even from within our role, we have to look at it as a business, right? And we're always looking for the efficiencies. We're always looking for the ways to improve. And every one of those things that we're doing is going to impact the businesses of everyone within our collective company, right?

 

Jamie Wicks:

So I just wanted to touch on that. That's a mindset that I've always had, and I've always kind of shared, that I focus on this and treat even this inside sales agent role, client care role, as its own business, right?

 

Jamie Wicks:

So I wanted to mention that.

 

Jason Simard:

For those that have their notepads out, you ready for a golden nugget? Don't have your first texts go out in the first five minutes. Wait to the six minute mark. Because we've been playing with this in the lab for years, and this might be different than what you guys are doing, and we'll debate it, but we've been testing this in the lab. So, Jamie, what did we find when we were doing the one or two minute response time with texts before? And then why we moved to the six minute mark, and talk about the differences.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. Well, I mean, we're always trying to call as quick as we can anyway, but what I noticed is that, over time, just kind of continually going into profiles, when we had those text messages going out in the first two minutes, a lot of times that's right where it would end, their browsing session would end, as soon as they got that text message, it would distract them. They would sometimes be like, "Okay, well I'm out of here." And they wouldn't come back to the website.

 

Jamie Wicks:

So I wanted to just give them a little more time to be on the website, looking at some properties, seeing the value in what the website has to offer. Because it's so nice, the way it's displayed, we get compliments all the time on how easy it is to use. So I just wanted to give them a little more time and see what happened with that. And I found that, after we did that, we were still getting great conversion with our text messaging and getting lots of responses with it. That didn't really change. But I did notice that people stayed on the website and came back more often by having that little bit of buffer time to just kind of stay there.

 

Jamie Wicks:

And then once they had been on the website for a few minutes, poking around, and they get the call from me, or the text message, if they're not answering their phone, I noticed that they were very, very receptive, because they're already starting to see the value in the website before they're getting that first initial text from us.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. That's why that was my very first question out of the gate today, was like, "Okay, what are you pulling out of the lab, man?" That's great. I love that.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So the response to your auto text is the same. It's not any lower. You're just delaying it to the six minute point?

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. And actually I would say, honestly, it's increased recently, and I'm not sure if that's because of those changes directly or just because we changed the wording as well, or just a combination of both. But yeah, the amount of responses that we're getting to those automated texts is phenomenal right now. And I just think maybe both of those things are contributing to it, but definitely what I am seeing visually, though, by going into the profiles, is I'm seeing that once people have been on the website before they got a distracting text or a communication from us, they got a little more value on that visit and have stuck around more.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Love that.

 

Ian Daniels:

That just reinforces what we were saying earlier, right? Everybody that is watching this now or later, you're all doing things that are probably working, and then all of a sudden it's going to not quite work as well as it was working. And so you have to begin to try and tweak it, and that's going to take some testing of things, trying different things out. And that's okay. But you've got to make sure, like Jason, I'm sure you didn't test this for a week, and, "Oh, it didn't work, so we're going to do something else." You've tested for a longer period of time. You have to give it a chance to work, whether that's six weeks or a couple months, whatever that looks like, but you have to make sure that whatever you're changing, tweaking, make sure you give it a good amount of time to actually be able to get some results so that you can begin to quantify whether or not it's worth it.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah. I agree.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Jamie, what does your auto text say? What's in there?

 

Jamie Wicks:

So we hit them with three texts.

 

Jason Simard:

Do you want me to pull it up, Jamie?

 

Jamie Wicks:

Sure. Yeah.

 

Jason Simard:

Hold on. Let me just see here, I can ... I just got my one monitor.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. So we hit them with three texts. I just found when we had the one auto text, it just didn't get nearly the kind of response as when we changed it to three.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

So you wait six minutes first and then you send one text, and then you wait ...

 

Jason Simard:

I'll read you the text.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Cool.

 

Jason Simard:

I'll tell you exactly the sequence. Right? So get your notepads out.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

I got it.

 

Jason Simard:

All right, hold on. Just pulling it up. Right. Here we go.

 

Jamie Wicks:

I got it here if you want me to get going.

 

Jason Simard:

Can you throw it up on the screen even, Jamie?

 

Jamie Wicks:

I'll just read it, because I just don't want to put people's personal information on here.

 

Jamie Wicks:

So it says, "Hey, thanks for signing up on our website, simsrealestate.ca." I always make sure to include your website link on that, just so you make it very easy for them to come back to the website, just by clicking on that text when they come back to it. "Our team is working from home as much as possible right now. We have the time to set up the website to your preferences very easily, and I'm starting to customize it for you already."

 

Jamie Wicks:

So that's the first message. So it's not really even a question, so much as it's like, "Here's a little bit of value for you. We're already starting to customize the website to your preferences. Thank you for signing up."

 

Jamie Wicks:

The next one kind of goes on to explain a little bit more about [crosstalk 00:27:42].

 

Jason Simard:

It's one minute later, just so you know.

 

Jamie Wicks:

One minute.

 

Jason Simard:

So there's a six minute mark, and then one minute later, so it looks like we're sitting there texting you.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah, exactly. So the second one, "We're setting up a safe search for you that will send you your daily listing updates, matching your preferences to save you time. We're connected to the website all day to answer questions, gathering, phone coordinate, whatever you need. I'm born and raised here on the island. I've lived here my whole life. Are you local to the island as well?"

 

Jamie Wicks:

Right? So we give them a little more value about what we can do and how they've basically just signed up on a website where they have all kinds of support. But then we finished with a question on the second one, and it's just a little bit to find out if they're from here, tell them that we're local, we know the area, but, "Are you from here as well?" Because we have a lot of people on there that are looking at the island from all over Canada. It's very common. So it's a really good engaging question there. You get people often saying, "Oh yeah, no, I'm from here. I've lived here a really long time," and you can have a really great conversation with somebody just off of that alone.

 

Jamie Wicks:

But then the third text, which goes out one minute later, is very simple. One quick question, "What kind of properties are you looking to find as you search?" [crosstalk 00:07:47].

 

Ian Daniels:

As you're sending these out, and you're checking responses, do you know which of those texts is getting the most response?

 

Jason Simard:

Always the third one.

 

Ian Daniels:

Is it a simple answer? "Yes, I live on the island", or is it the one to do with, "What am I looking for?"

 

Jason Simard:

Always the third.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Usually it's the third one.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. Occasionally, there is times where people will answer us on the second one, and say, "Oh yeah, no, I live locally." They'll give you a short answer. But then you get that second question through that comes through right away, and then they're already talking to you. So we get a lot more out of that next one. They start sharing what they're actually looking for.

 

Jamie Wicks:

So that's what goes out on day one. What I do personally is obviously I call them, right? If I can't get them on the phone, and we do the double dial, can't get them on the phone, they've got the texts messages, usually what I'll do is I'll pop in their profile and look a little bit more at what they've been actually doing, what they've been looking at on the website. And then I'll send them even another more customized personal message.

 

Jamie Wicks:

So that's a little more hands on. So if you're there and you're working on this person, you're engaging them, I can see what they're doing and say, "Okay, well, I noticed so far from what I was trying to set up for you, is that you're looking at detached homes primarily, and in this area. Am I on the right track? Or what else should I be considering?" And I'm just continually asking them questions, but showing them more and more that we're really already digging into this, and trying to help them and get things set up, and really coming from a place of value. And I'll just keep chipping away. If I don't get an answer to that one, I'll ask them another question. "And maybe you could share a little bit more about what kind of price or price restrictions we should put on what we send you in the future. I don't want to waste your time." Right? And just kind of keep plugging away. And you'll find that if you don't get something from those first three texts, which work pretty good alone, by doing that extra little dive in, you'll get a lot more responses from those next couple texts.

 

Jamie Wicks:

But those are manual and there's no way to really automate those next ones. That's you getting in there and getting in their profile and really making an effort.

 

Jason Simard:

Can I just quickly summarize something? This guy right here alone, just himself, sets up about 110 sales a year from internet leads. Okay? So basically, to me, this is like the Michael Jordan of lead conversion. Okay? This guy knows his stuff. So if you're not taking notes on this, and you're struggling with conversion, please take notes. Because this is a gift to you to help you. This is our playbook, you know? And most mega agents in the industry won't open up their playbooks. We're about abundance. We're opening up our playbooks. So I'm going to flip it over to you and your team, Todd. I want to hear your playbook. So what does it look like when I register on your website? Walk us through your process.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'll give you that as fast as I-

 

Jason Simard:

Or Ian.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, Ian or I, we're happy to share it, and I'll give it to you as fast as I can, because there's a lot of other stuff I want to cover. I don't know how much time we'll have.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But we're doing our first text faster than that. So I love that note, and I think we should absolutely test it here as well. Obviously the other thing to think about is different stuff works in different markets at different times, with different tones and price points, and it depends on what type of leads you're generating, and all that. But same thing goes, as we said before, don't be stuck in your ways and unwilling to test. So I think we will immediately.

 

Todd Tramonte:

The two notes I had on that are, we're going to test a slower first message, and then I really like the second text as just a personality trust builder. Even when you know that's not really there to get the most response and it doesn't always get the most response, but it's helping that third text get more response, right? It's like, "Hey, [crosstalk 00:32:26]."

 

Ian Daniels:

I really liked that first one too, because we talk often on our team, you have to be out offering value to people, right? It has to be a constant thing. And so I love the idea that, from the very beginning, and we use it in our phone scripts, but I like it from the very beginning that we're just saying, "Hey, look, I'm already customizing your website for you."

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah, we're already doing it.

 

Ian Daniels:

We haven't emailed any of those out similarly, but I like the idea of that just being in a text message that people are going to receive.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:32:52].

 

Jamie Wicks:

And it's very assumptive. It's like, "We're already doing this. We've already got started. So you'd have to kind of stop me now. Or you can just kind of go along for the ride with me and give me the info that's going to just make this much better for you." And who wouldn't want that? You just signed up on a website, have a person here personally reaching out to you, trying to connect with you and trying to make this a good experience for you. You know, you do get objections, not to say that that's not going to happen, but most people are like, "Oh, this is great. Oh yeah. Okay. Awesome. He's already doing it, so [crosstalk 00:33:24], right?"

 

Ian Daniels:

Well, if anyone's out there that might be thinking, "Yeah, but are you really doing that?" The reality is, yes, is the answer, because from the moment somebody signs up on the website, they're now put into a customized search, they're going to receive customized emails. So a lot of that stuff's already happening for everybody, but it's on the back end of Real Geeks. So it's not a lie to say, "Well, it's already been customized for you", because it is based on what it is that they were asking for.

 

Jason Simard:

[crosstalk 00:33:49] Right, yeah. And that's the beauty of Real Geeks, you know, is the fact that it does set up a safe search, and the most powerful drip campaign on the planet is a safe search.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Properties. Properties.

 

Jason Simard:

It's a property search.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie, that property search function that Real Geeks has has helped us so much. You have no idea. That is the most powerful ...

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Jason Simard:

Everybody's trying to, "What email do I send?" 90% of those emails you're going to send out are going to go to a junk filter or are going to be garbage, not even read. But I can tell you, if you have a safe search that's in line with what people are looking for, and you do a good job of initially setting that up, you're going to have a lot of people that come out of the woodwork. And so what we notice, is when inventory starts hitting in our marketplace, our inquiries on showing requests and people coming out of the woodworks goes through the roof.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:37].

 

Jason Simard:

So maybe you can touch on that, Jamie.

 

Ian Daniels:

[crosstalk 00:34:38] Well, something I want to add in, just to go back to some of the stuff that we're doing that's working really well in our market right now, is that, along with that phone call, along with that text message, just sending an email with just a really simple subject line of, "A good time to talk?" And then you're saying, "Hey, so glad you jumped on the website, thanks for doing that." You know, blah, blah, blah. "When would be a really good time to talk?"

 

Ian Daniels:

And I've had great responses recently from that. I don't know if it's just because people are stuck at home right now, they're on the computer, they've got their email pulled up, they're not out and about doing as much stuff, but I've been really surprised at the amount of email response that I've had. Text message has been good too, but just these last few months, email response, that simple question, whether that's from an inbound lead on Real Geeks, or whether that's from a sell evaluation, or just whatever the source is, it's been a really, really good question to ask. And I think people are opening it because, right now, people want to talk, right? People are fed up of not being around other people and they want to have conversations. And so when they realize, "Hey, I went on this place, I'm getting an email that has, you know, there's some sort of link to it", and just saying, "A good time to talk?" And I'm seeing the open rate and I'm seeing the response rate is really good.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say too, is that let's talk about some things we're doing that are different, so that people can get more nuggets.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I mean, pretty much every Real Geeks user ever has our lead followup system. We gave it away for free for like nine years. And recently we beefed it up and we'd sell it super cheap now. But if you want that, just email me, todd@toddtramonte.com. Everybody's welcome to it. Most of you already have it. But that did not used to work. I've tried that a lot, because of course you're just being super direct. You're like, "Hey, when's a good time to talk?" But right now that's working fantastically well.

 

Todd Tramonte:

And I think it's working in other avenues as well. If someone's favoriting a property, if someone's responding with a question, whatever, instead of staying on text or email, just saying, "Hey, when's a good time to talk?", we're just seeing people be much more receptive to that. And also, like Jamie was saying, our conversion rates are off the charts.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Now, historically, we take a little bit more time and obsess a little bit more on conversion, and slightly less just massive, crazy drama, and more conversional quality. But especially our marketing specialist right now, conversion is nuts.

 

Todd Tramonte:

And one thing I'd like to talk about before we finish, we don't have to right now, is just fees and value. Our goal was not to back off of that because the market's crazy, but to offer more value and stand firm, and that has played out to be absolutely the right call. And so again, agent income and team profitability has remained really, really strong at an otherwise tough time. And again, that's relevant in the future outside of a pandemic. Anytime there's a shift in interest rates or buyer seller demand or building supplies or whatever.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So all kinds of really cool stuff going on, that's working. So what else is working really uniquely for you guys, that's worth sharing with folks?

 

Jamie Wicks:

One thing I would say, just with what Ian was talking about there with the just very direct email, what I find is, in our drip campaigns, we have a lot of value added email. So Jason's done a lot of area videos. So he'll go into particular neighborhoods in our community and do a focus video, and we have a lot of original video content that we hit people with. So our email drip campaign isn't so much to gather communication back and forth. It's more to fulfill people with value.

 

Jamie Wicks:

But we do put in there, every few weeks, we have just a quick one liner, just like what you mentioned there, just, "Hey, I just had a few questions. Just checking to see how we're doing with the listings. Is there anything that you need from us, any questions you've had? Or, "Hey, when's a good time to just kind of reconnect about your search and how it's going lately?" Those types of things, I find if you're trying to send somebody an email that you're actually trying to engage a communication, or get a response from, you do have to keep them simple. They can't be long and they can't be stuff that people need really to click on and all that. It's got to be just like a boom, a message, right? Just like a text message would be.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Jamie Wicks:

But it's kind of in a combination of, in order to have people continually responding to those along the way, three months from now, six months from now, you got to make sure that, in those other times that you're sending them the value added emails and your drip campaigns, that you're actually giving them things of value, things that are engaging; interesting articles, the original content videos, things that help them understand their home buying process or home selling process a little better with what's going on. Right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Jamie Wicks:

So having value things, and not making it always about, "Hey, I'm trying to connect with you", and stuff like that, with those particular emails. And I don't know, that's what we've found, having that mix between [crosstalk 00:39:31]

 

Ian Daniels:

Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff that's being shared here, right? And the reality is, no matter where you are in the country, there's some elements of this that's going to work for you. We've got coaching clients that are up in Buffalo in the North East, or in North Dakota, which was just incredibly hit by oil prices. They're implementing things that we're discussing and still finding that it works. So if you're in some market where you feel like, "Ah, but this isn't probably going to work for me", give it a go. Take notes on all of this stuff and begin to implement those pieces of it, and figure out, "Which of them, for me, is going to work in my business, and where I am with it."

 

Jason Simard:

Can I say one thing really quick. There's a little nugget of value; surround yourself with good people. You can be an individual agent and that's cool, but surround yourself with great people. They don't have to be directly on your team. They could be people that you mastermind with. But when you have challenges and problems, talk about them in a group.

 

Jason Simard:

So we had one of our agents, he's like, "Man, I've got this guy that I had a really good connection with a couple of weeks ago, but he's not responding to anything I'm putting out there." So we collaborated and we came up with this idea. He went on this really cool nature walk. And this guy that he knows is going to be moving into our market. And he took a little video and he sent it to him. He said, "Hey, I just did this nature trail." And he showed him on the map where it was, and he said, "I just did this nature show walk. And it was amazing. And I was remembering our conversation from a couple of weeks ago. And I knew that this would be a place you'd need to check out when you come to Nanaimo." Guy responded, and they had an amazing dialogue.

 

Jason Simard:

Come at it from a place of creativity and value. And the mastermind is the most powerful thing on the planet. Todd and I talk about that a lot. Surround yourself with other people. You don't need to know everything. Just have people around you, you can brainstorm and you can come up with such great knowledge. I don't know everything. Trust me, there's a lot I don't know. But I know a lot of really smart people in different areas. And we collaborate all the time, and that's the beauty of building this business up.

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie and I constantly will reevaluate things. So when I was in production and I'd go on a listing, and if I didn't get the listing, Jamie and I would sit down and we'd break down my process, and I'd go through it, "Okay, what was the process that I followed, Jamie? Where can I tweak?" And we'd find one thing that I could tweak and then I'd quickly try and get another appointment, and I'd go out and then I'd have a success usually. And Jamie and I, we do that in the lab and we have that collaboration. Him and Joe, and our team, and Sarah, and our inside sales agent team, they're constantly collaborating and coming up with creative stuff.

 

Jason Simard:

So again, you don't have to be on a team. You can be an individual agent. But just find some people to mastermind with. You're not at this alone. And I realized that, you know, it's pretty lonely when you get into real estate in a lot of environments. Find an environment-

 

Jason Simard:

It's pretty lonely when you get into real estate, in a lot of environments. Find an environment where you get support and collaboration, that's the biggest thing I can give you. You don't have to figure it all out on your own, there's a lot of people here that will help you.

 

Ian Daniels:

Yeah. Todd and I have conversations daily on different aspects of the business and where can we grow? Where do we need to change little things? Who do we have on the team that can perhaps jump in and lead out in a certain area? And we were just talking about this on a call last week, where we just challenge people with the question of like "Hey. What's your weaknesses, and who do you have around you that will stop your weakness from becoming your absolute failure?" Was essentially the question. Because if you know your weaknesses, but you don't have anybody around you that can truly help with limiting how much that's going to hurt, it's going to hurt bad. So, you need to make sure that you do surround yourself with people that can sharpen you.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. It's one of our big company core values. It's on the walls everywhere, to share your strengths and diminish your weaknesses with other people, surround yourself with those people. And Jason and I do this pretty much every single week, one to one, and we record them and share them, usually. But I've got three notes I took while all of you were talking, I just want to share them with everybody real quick. One: Jamie was mentioning, if you're going to have automated follow-up, you've got to add value. And we do a ton of video in that regard as well, you can't be trying to convert on every single touch. Now, the phone is a little different, the phone is your best conversion strategy unless you're face-to-face in my opinion, but those texts, emails, physical mail and newsletters, that you've got to add value, you've got to lead with a giving hand.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So, we do a ton of the similar YouTube stuff. The market reports and Real Geeks are super helpful too, especially if you're in a state where you can get sold data. And then the emails you were talking about remind me of one of our strategies which we call a nine word email, which I borrowed, I think, from Dean Jackson one day. It doesn't actually have to be nine, but it's just that short and sweet, you can see it without scrolling, you could probably see it in the preview of the email. Every so often, you've just got to be clear, direct, not offensive, not kick the door in, but just ask for what you're looking for, still leading in a valuable way. Some great emails like that are, "Hey Jason, are you still looking for a home in Nanaimo?" You might add, this year. "Hey Jamie, how are we doing on finding the right houses you're looking for?" "Hey Jamie, are you ready to go see some properties yet?" "Hey Jamie, have you zeroed in on your budget?" Just simple stuff like that. They can answer, yes, no, or tomorrow, whatever.

 

Ian Daniels:

And then you were telling that story about one of your agents or clients or whatever, and it reminded me of one, it was really funny actually on a coaching call we did the other day. We have an amazing coaching client, she has high end real estate in the Sacramento area, and she was just talking about how super frustrating it was to be getting crappy offers from some of her buyers lately. Because in that market, people had just lost confidence in property values. And it doesn't really matter what the strategy was... I think Ian shared something with her for three minutes, and on the next call, she was like, "I put four deals back together that fell apart, because I just started thinking differently about what it means for a buyer to make a lower offer."

 

Ian Daniels:

So, we can talk about the strategy, but to Jason's point of being around people that will lift you up and pick you up and give you a tip, it's essential. But it doesn't mean you have to build a team if you're a solo agent or you're a newer agent, or you're independent and happy to be independent. It really just comes down to, even if you're great, knowing that you don't know at all, and that there's other people that can help you. And they might be less experienced or less productive than you, and they can still really help you. But by all means, there are some generous people out there that might be more successful or productive than you, that are still willing to help. Maybe they're a coach. Maybe they're a broker. Maybe they're just a generous person that will swap stuff with you. Go ahead, Jamie.

 

Jamie Wicks:

One more thing I wanted to say about that too, is just what you're saying, is having people around you, thinking about things differently. We talked about it before, but you have to be willing to skin your knees a bit, and it's okay to try something and have it not work. You have to be okay with the fact that you're going to put something forward and give it a go and it might not go how you're hoping it goes. But be okay with that, be okay with trying, and just always be focused on action. That's the one thing that we preach here all the time.

 

Jamie Wicks:

You're always coming from a place where it's like, "Okay. Is this something that's helping my clients or helping us achieve our goals?" Because if not, then you're probably spending your time worrying about something that you shouldn't be worrying about. Whenever anybody comes in and starts training, doing some of the client care stuff with me, I always tell them, like, "This is your business, and you have to be willing to just get to work. And you have to be willing to just be okay with knowing that when you start making those calls and you have to start having conversations and asking questions, that sometimes it's not going to go well."

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Jamie Wicks:

On to the next one, right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. I think to your point about skinning your knees and mistakes, people are starving for something positive and someone trustworthy. We joked for a second about politics before we get going on this, we will not talk about that. But really, people are craving something positive and people who are trustworthy. So, whether it's a coaching client or a buyer or seller client or any of the environments that any of us are in, if you can be that calming voice of authoritative positive leadership, and it doesn't mean you're just blindly optimistic. Like, "Every day is a great day to buy real estate." That's annoying.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But if you can be that voice of reason even in that environment, Jamie, it's like, look, entrepreneurship is about making a bunch of messes and then deciding which ones to clean up. It's never easy. It's never super simple and direct. Even if you have a coach or someone to lead the way there's always tweaking, that needs to be done. But I just believe that our prospects, whether they're home search leads or radio leads or direct mail leads or referral sources or whatever, especially right now, they're starving for something positive and someone they can trust and believe. Regardless of those technical strategies, if we can keep that kind of focus, really, really, really good things can happen. There's a lot-

 

Ian Daniels:

Yeah. We've been talking a lot about that on the radio show that we do and just sharing good news, sharing positive stories. People are reaching out to us and calling in and just asking really simple questions. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to get my house." Or "I just don't know what this market's going to do to us. I just don't know about this." And then you can turn around and share like, "Hey. Can I just share with you how our team has been doing over the past month?" "Hey. We've got 26 closings that are set for June right now. We've got 17 sellers. We've got nine buyers. We listed 12 of 16 homes in may, 12 of them went under contract the first weekend over asking." Those positive stuff out there.

 

Ian Daniels:

And when you begin to share that with people, it changes their whole mindset around real estate. It's all of a sudden they've gone from only seeing negative stuff on real estate on the internet, and on TV, and on the news to now hearing an actual story about something positive that's happened. And that actually really, really opens up and lowers their barriers to want to have that conversation. And then you can jump in and begin to talk more with them.

 

Jason Simard:

Can I say something? So, if you're in real estate right now, I want you to think about this, okay. In your pipeline at this moment, how many people do you have that are six months or less from buying or selling potentially, that you've had good connections and conversations with? And if you want to get to doing a deal a week to two deals a week, I'll give you a little tip. If the number's not 25 to 30, then you need to add more people to your pipeline. And so, if you want a simple, easy metric, get a spreadsheet out, use your CRM system or the Real Geeks, whatever platform you use, but track your prospects that are six months or less, looking to buy and sell that you've connected with, and really nurture that list. And make sure that at all times you have a minimum of 25 to 30 people on that list.

 

Jason Simard:

When you sell one, you take them out. Something's happened and they're no longer buying, you take them out. But you're constantly keeping that list. And if you do that, you will have so much abundance in your mind that you're never going to be stressed out about one or two deals falling apart, because that's always going to happen in real estate, it's always going to happen. Things are just going to be out of your control, for whatever reason a person lost their job, they've had a life event, something's happened and a buyer falls out. When you have very few prospects, that's very stressful. When you have a huge abundant pipeline, you don't worry about that. So, one of the things that we focused on in our group is, how many people do you have right now that are six months or less from doing something? Because, if there's six months or less, that means that they're going to be doing something in the near future. So, you can work on value and helping them make that decision, but start evaluating your pipelines.

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie, right now, if you look at your pipeline... Now, you're an inside sales agent. We call it client care, we just liked the name better than ISA. So, when we need to say client care, it's like an ISA. But Jamie, right now, in your pipeline, just you, how many deals do you have that are six months or less out, buyers or sellers potentially?

 

Jamie Wicks:

... I would say anywhere from 50 to 100 prospects that I feel like could be people that could convert in the next year, as long as we're staying in good touch and in good contact with them, highly probable prospects rate.

 

Jason Simard:

Now, if we delve deeper, Jamie, how many do you have that are 90 days or less?

 

Jamie Wicks:

I would say probably, for sure... I don't have my boards in front of me in this room here, but I would say there's got to be at least 20 people that could potentially buy in the next 90 days.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Tell me if you guys agree with this number. I don't know if I do, but I've heard people say this for years. The number of contacts you make in a given week should round out to about how many transactions you do in a given year.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. That's interesting. I don't know if I've personally heard that but-

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. I just think it's one of those, like, "Eeh." It's a directional metric or whatever, but I like that. That's not one of our primary trackable... We have that data. So, I'm going to go pull it as soon as we're done here. But I like to look at 90 day timelines with people too. And that's what's you're chunking down to. There's a-

 

Ian Daniels:

We were just looking at them and I was just looking at that with team members, with agents this past week in one-on-ones. Where we're just saying... The question was like, "Hey. How do you feel like you're doing right now?" "I feel like I'm a little behind." "Okay. Let's pull up the data. Let's just pull it up right now. Let's see where you're at. See what's in your pipeline. Let's see where you're going to get to in the next 90 days." And every single person was like, "Oh. Okay. I feel pretty good." Like, "I feel good now." Because in your head, you start thinking, "Man, I lost this one to Jason's buyer. I lost this one." And at our office, we just say, "Hey. Look. Some will, some won't, so what, who's next?" That's the mindset. You're going to lose some of them.

 

Todd Tramonte:

... You have a big pipeline. That's what it is.

 

Ian Daniels:

Right.

 

Jason Simard:

It doesn't hurt when you have a pipeline. And that's the key. That's the key thing here, guys. Successful agents in real estate, lose deals just like anybody else. Now, their skills and the things that they've worked at, they probably have a higher conversion rate and they're better at pre-qualifying, yada, yada, that helps. However, they still aren't immune to it, it happens to everybody. So, the key thing to make yourself always have confidence, is your pipeline. And what gave us confidence through this last two, three months, is the fact that we were still working a big pipeline. And we just realized that some people were delayed. But in our company at all times, we always have irons in the fire. So, when you don't get that listing, it's okay because we have others in the pipeline. You're never going to have a hundred percent conversion rate. And anybody that brags about having 100% conversion rate, I can tell you, doesn't produce that at a high level. I'll debate anybody that wants to have that conversation. Now maybe-

 

Ian Daniels:

100% are the ones they want to tell you about.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. There you go.

 

Jason Simard:

... At my peak, when I was in production, I converted about 80% of listing appointments I went on. Which is pretty high, but that means two out of 10 people didn't list with me. And I felt like my skills are sharp and I was good at what I did. Jamie, my skills are pretty good when it comes to that. But I didn't get every single one, I was listing 130 homes a year, just myself. And of course I had amazing team working with me on that. But still at the end of the day, guys, you're not going to get every shot. And Michael Jordan never made every shot. What was his shooting percentage? Just under 50% for his career. Greatest of all time. That means he missed more shots than he made in his career, but he's the most clutch basketball player. So, just remember this things

 

Todd Tramonte:

Kevin wants to argue with you about who the best basketball player. That's a different... We're going to do it different [crosstalk 00:13:12].

 

Ian Daniels:

Let me add one thing, you're not going to be able to get a big pipeline or all this stuff if you don't practice. You better be practicing how to convert people, both on the phone and in person. Because it's not the easiest thing in the world do. Generating leads, if you throw money enough money, you can generate leads. But to convert those leads into people that you get to work with... First of all, you get to speak in front of... Not just on a phone call. But then once you're in front of them to become a client, you're going to be practicing at that stuff, because they're just going to waste a bunch of your time. So, if you don't have people around you, again, surrounding you, surrounding yourself with people that can help better you and make you stronger and sharpen you, you need to go find those people. Whether that's on your team, whether that's in the office that you work in, or just finding sharp people that you can trust their feedback, you need to make sure that, that's happening.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I have one other thought before we start thinking about wrapping up. I'll go as long as we want. But in light of what we've all... It's not over yet, we all acknowledge that. But this craziness of COVID-19 that we've been going through, I always think about, "Okay. Well, that's the insane thing of the moment." What could the next thing be? How can I be prepared? And on the one hand, sound business principles should theoretically help you be prepared for just about whatever's coming. And my philosophy is, the two most powerful things in business outside of relationships are cash reserves and longterm thinking. And by the way, a big pipeline helps you think longterm, and a big pipeline is a form of cash reserves too.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Anyone here, Kevin or any of you all, what would scare you? What would you think we all need to be prepared for as a potential disruptor down the road? And I don't mean open door, I mean something that could really, really shake things up. No one saw this one coming that I know of. But anyone have thoughts on that at all? I have a couple of significant things that would terrify me.

 

Jason Simard:

Well, obviously, a war in your own country and that kind of stuff, that's pretty terrifying. Nobody wants to deal with that. Civil war, that kind of stuff. Now, just keeping it more simple though, the biggest thing that that would scare me is if my mindset went from being, having an abundance mindset to a scarcity mindset. That would scare me as a leader, running businesses and having people's livelihoods, the minute I stopped thinking from a scarcity standpoint is the minute we start going backwards. And that's really important. In our culture, one of the thing is that we always have an abundance mindset. So, a lot of the things that we've been able to achieve and do are because we're always looking at possibilities, what's possible. And when you have that mindset you create and you make things happen.

 

Jason Simard:

So, on a simple level of scarcity is a big problem. And I see it a lot. When I talk to people, they're afraid to pour into an agent because they're afraid they're going to end up competing with them, for example. That's crazy. I always told my agents, I was like, "Look. If you ever get to a point where you want to go do your own thing, I will be your biggest cheerleader. And however I can support you, let me know." Because, I never want to come to work and be like, "Oh. My God. Are my agents going to lead me?" Because if you're thinking like that, your mindset is going to manifest that. So, on a basic level, that's what I would say. The you go scarcity, is the minute you start going backwards. So, always, always come from a place of abundance.

 

Ian Daniels:

We have an election coming up. That's going to be something that is going to have economic impact more than likely. And when that happens, it's going to have impacts in the housing market, some areas more than others of those. That's something that we need to be probably thinking about now. Is to like, "Hey. What are those potential impacts going to be? And how do we begin to navigate it through there? Because, it's an election year and it's coming up, and it's going to come up sooner than we probably think."

 

Jason Simard:

Jamie, what about you, man?

 

Jamie Wicks:

I agree with you, Jason. I think for me, it's mindset. Because, once you start getting in your own head, it can really start to weigh on how you perform. So, for me it would be mindset as well. If I can't...

 

Todd Tramonte:

That tower just [inaudible 00:17:37]. Every thing went off. [crosstalk 00:59:39]. that was a thing afraid of, being personally attacked. Go ahead.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. Just mindset. If I had a shift in my mindset and started getting my own head, then that's where it will take away from my ability to, I think, connect as well with people. Keeping a positive mindset, I think that's one of the things for me that really helps me do so well. And this is always coming from a place of positivity and feeling like there's nothing really standing in our way. So, it's maybe a blissful ignorance in a sense, where I just take that and bring that to what I do. And try and share that with our clients and connect with them well. So, if I was getting in my head in that regard, it would definitely impact, I think the way I would perform.

 

Todd Tramonte:

The one thought I have that I think is worth just planting in people's heads for a second is, it's easy right now to be like, "Look, what just happened. Technology was the solution." But one of the thing is that, I don't want to be overly dependent on technology either. Because, let's just say Internet's not possible for a six month period. I don't even know technologically how that would happen. But if that would happen, then what's my alternative.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Have I developed relationships? Am I collecting addresses? What are we doing to be impenetrable? And that's an extreme thing, but what if Google decides one day, "We're not doing advertisers with less than a $5 million budget. It's just not worth our time." Okay. Am I overly dependent on Google or pay per click? What if Facebook gets shut down because of privacy? I don't know. But the fact is, right now, most of us are responding and some of us are benefiting with a hardcore technology look, and it just makes me think, "Okay. I don't want to get overly vulnerable on that too." So, I thought it's just a worthy note for some of us to be thinking about.

 

Ian Daniels:

It is extreme. But if I were as to as have said to everybody in January of this year, "Hey. In March, no one's going to be allowed to leave their houses, for three months. You can't leave your house. Or if you do, you have to wear a mask and you have to be six feet apart, and you to be in groups of more than four." Everyone would have laughed at us. That is the most insane thing that I could possibly have thought of. So, it is a crazy thought to think, what if Google doesn't exist? What if the internet worldwide goes down? How relying are you on one particular thing does it absolutely rule your whole business?

 

Jason Simard:

I'll say one thing, have multiple sources of where you're getting your business. So, don't rely on one thing. So, for example, we do internet leads, we're big on social media and we're big on repeat and referral. Those are our three main pillars that we drive business from. So, some months referrals are going to drive business, some months it's going to be internet lead, some months it's going to be social media, but we have all three firing at all times.

 

Ian Daniels:

So, we have internet, radio and referrals.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah. Don't ever, ever in real estate, if you have the money to do it, don't take your foot off the gas pedal. Regardless of what the market does, you need to have that confidence in your business and in yourself to understand that even in the worst of times, for example, the great depression, which had 20% unemployment numbers, 80% of people were still working. Isn't that funny how you look at that? You could focus on the 20% or you can be like, "Well, 80%, eight out of 10 people still had jobs, and there were still sales that happen." Then right now in our marketplace, we saw 45%.

 

Jason Simard:

Happen then. Right now in our marketplace, we saw a 45% drop in sales the last two months. And yet our numbers are growing. Why? Because while everybody else pulled back, we kept our foot on the gas pedal. We kept moving forward with the people that we were going to hire because our business is not a one month business, three month business. We're looking at this, like, we want to be in business for the next 25, 30 plus years. Right? We're looking at the long game and there's going to be ups downs in the market, and you can't ever do strategy based on the market. You got to do strategy based on where you're at now. Does it mean that you might have to tighten up some areas? Absolutely. Did I tighten up any ... Some bad costs? For sure, but the cost I didn't tighten up on were people, because people are our biggest strength, and I didn't ease up on our lead gen. Why? Because I know that's going to be our recovery and guess what? We were able to come out very, very quickly.

 

Jason Simard:

In April, we put the least amount of deals together in a month, in a long time, but we built a massive pipeline. Then in May, it just exploded, and our May's stronger this year than it was last year. And our pipeline is huge coming up for June, July, August, which is exciting. So, just remember that while everybody else is pulling back, you have to have that confidence to go against the grain and keep moving forward. And there's some of you listening right now. And you're like, "Man, I wish I would have like followed my intuition here and maybe kept my foot on the gas pedal." And maybe you didn't, but just remember that as bad as things got in the great depression and we're hitting some pretty bad unemployment numbers, there's still a lot of people working and there's still opportunity, and you just got to work that much harder.

 

Ian Daniels:

When to that point, Dallas was similarly hit, right? Dallas was similarly hit. Their numbers were down on homes that were going active, homes going under contract. And it was big numbers. June will be our highest GCI month ever. And it's not even close, because we kept our foot on the pedal. We prospected, we followed up and stayed consistent and its resulted in April was not good because we were shut down for three weeks. We could not do real estate here. And June, it just has exploded. May was great. May was ahead of what our projections were, but June has just exploded.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. The one thing I would say is that when we kind of started going into this pandemic early and everything was getting locked down, my head was like, "Man, I'm going to be able to connect with people at a much higher rate than I usually can by phone." People are going to be at home. So I was thinking in my head, business-wise, this is great in that regard for making those connections. And the people that I talk today could be that person that we're doing our fourth or fifth deal with 15 years from now. Right? So, it's people do take that whole approach of like, okay, let's roll back right now, but you're thinking about your business for the long run. We're doing this for ... We're going to be doing this a long time, right? So yeah, you can't just think in the moment all the time. Continue to think, okay. Who am I connecting with today? And what kind of client could that be for us in the long run?

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Well, guys, I haven't been doing my job. We've got some questions coming in here that I got so wrapped up in the discussion, I haven't forwarded them to you. So maybe we can do a lightning round. I'll just throw you some questions. Quick answers. Jason and Jamie, how many agents do you have on your team working inbound buyer and seller leads?

 

Jamie Wicks:

[crosstalk 00:03:25].

 

Jamie Wicks:

So, the client care department is three licensed agents. So myself, Joe, and Sarah. So there's three of us. And then I think what is it? We have 11 of us that are ... I think, 11 are licensed total. We're all like we have our client care.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah, so we have ... Well, I count as an agent, but I'm pretty much out of production. So, seven agents in production, three agents in client care, and then two of those agents, by the way ... Three of those agents we hired in February. So right during COVID we hired them. So keep that in mind that there are people that are new and they're thriving. I will say that. They are thriving despite the pandemic.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Todd and Ian, how many agents working inbound leads?

 

Ian Daniels:

Every single one of our agents works inbound leads along with me. So right now we have six total working inbound leads. We have one new person starting in a couple of weeks and we are actively trying to find a couple more right now.

 

Todd Tramonte:

So five. Two marketing specialists, three buyer specialists, and Ian takes a ton of leads, but doesn't sell outside.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Got it.

 

Todd Tramonte:

No one else inside.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Todd and Ian, as a new agent, should you spend money on advertising or should you attack your sphere of influence?

 

Todd Tramonte:

That's a great question. And I do believe that one size does not fit all, but if you've got the budget and you can be disciplined, I don't think you need to wait to do some marketing and advertising, but I don't think you should ever be throwing money at a problem when you're not willing to work also. So obviously, you should work your sphere of influence, low hanging fruit, low cost conversions. I don't think this is a great business to get into totally broke, unless you are willing to bust your butt and if you are, you can make almost anything work. So hopefully that's a direct answer. I don't want to take up too much time.

 

Ian Daniels:

We talked about that with, with people often just saying, "Hey, are you really thinking about real estate as a business? Are you thinking of it as a business owner? Because you need to make sure you have a business plan, you need to make sure you know your budget. And if you know all of that stuff and within that budget, you can go and do some paid advertising, do it."

 

Kevin McCarthy:

got it. Jason and Jamie, I assume you agree on that one?

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah. I mean, I agree on that for sure. I mean, there's not a whole bunch more I can add to it, but other than if absolutely do it if you have the budget. If you're struggling to make ends meet, you might want to consider getting on a team that has systems that you can go and learn from to take some of that risk and volatility out. And you might realize that it's a great place to have your career. Not everybody needs to go and build a business. If you're somebody like us, Jamie and I, we don't have big egos. Nobody in our team does. We're all working together collectively. We all make way more money together than we would on our own. That's our belief for sure.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Got it. Jason and Jamie, earlier you were talking about using Zoom to do listing presentations and, and that sort of thing. How are you showing the contract and going through the contract over a Zoom so that people can understand?

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah, it's a good question. So you would basically, you would email the contract to the clients and then you can pull it up on Zoom in a screen share, and then you can go through it. Really simple. Just go through it with them just like you would in person.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

That makes sense.

 

Jamie Wicks:

And with our ... Same with our buyer guides and stuff like that, that we have prints in our office. We have the PDF versions and stuff like that available online. So I just pull those up on the screen and they see all of our faces on the side. There's a couple of us, because a lot of times there will be a few of us, and then we just share it that way and go through and discuss it as we're ...

 

Ian Daniels:

We're sending presentations to everybody by email and we're doing screen shares on the Zoom. Exactly the same stuff that we would be doing if we were face to face.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Oh, that makes sense. Jason and Jamie, you were going over some of your communication earlier with leads that come into the website and part of the talking points was, Oh, I see. You're looking at single family homes. I see you're looking at condos. One of our viewers here said, "Hey, I'm in California and people get freaked out if you say you're tracking them." Is that something that you've run up against?

 

Jamie Wicks:

Not a lot, really, to be honest. I very rarely ... I've had a couple of people be like, "Oh, are you able to see what I see?" And I say, "Yeah, I can see when you come on the website and properties that you're favoriting and things like that." It's actually one of the best features of the website that you can do that and know that I get to be alerted of the fact that you Favorited that property. And what I try and do is then just go from there. I see that you Favorited our property and I'll just go ahead and send you more information to your email on that property. So, it's one of the great interactive features of the website, right? And I just try and build value in the fact that we can do that.

 

Ian Daniels:

I was going to say, if somebody says that to you, that's a lay up opportunity, because you basically just say, "Hey, that's one of the most sophisticated things about our system is it keeps me up to date with absolutely everything that you're looking at so we can best serve you in the best way as possible for you, because we want to make sure that you're getting the most up to date information for the things that you want to know about and that you're not having to get a bunch of trash." [crosstalk 01:11:26]

 

Jamie Wicks:

We're your team, right? We're a team. [crosstalk 01:11:29].

 

Jamie Wicks:

When you hire a real estate agent, they're your team members. They're part of your team that you're assembling to help you find the best house. So you want them to have as much information as possible really.

 

Ian Daniels:

It's like when somebody complains about the fact that [crosstalk 01:11:42].

 

Ian Daniels:

It's like when someone complains about the fact that you call them three times in a row. Man, why are you calling me so much? Hey, I've made a commitment that I want to get in touch and stay in touch with you as quickly as possible. So if you don't want that from a professional, then I'm probably not your guy, but I've made that commitment. Sorry, Jason, I cut you off.

 

Jason Simard:

Yeah, no worries. No worries. You guys both have a lot to say, which is good. So do I apparently. To that person though, that said that, just remember this, okay? Out of 100 leads, if five, 10 people tell you to pound sand and F off, that's only 10%. That means 90% of people didn't. And so, because you're getting that doesn't mean that what you're doing is wrong. And so, I can tell you from coaching people in California and having expansion partners out there, there's nothing different about California than other markets. It's not like people are immune to being served and having people service their needs. You're going to have that type of response from people in any market. So, don't let a few people stop you from focusing on the 90%. You know what I'm saying? Just ... As we're sitting here, I've gotten text message after text message that I can see from our client care team.

 

Jason Simard:

Some are like, "Hey, you know what? We're just looking. Leave us alone" to, "Hey, thanks. Here's what I'm looking for." And everything in between. So you got to have a thick skin. You got to understand that the things we're teaching you are to help you incrementally improve your conversion. And we're a world class team converting at three to 4% with Google ad word and Bing ad word leads. That's world-class conversion, guys. So you have to understand that we face some rejection in that and it's okay. It's not the end of [crosstalk 00:10:17].

 

Jamie Wicks:

The way I see it as if I haven't been told to F off this week, I haven't been doing my job. Right? So you got to be okay with the fact that you're going to have people be vocally telling you that they're not happy with your approach, but some of the quietest people are the people that are the happiest, right? So you have a lot of people in your database right now, if you're using the systems like we are, that are not really saying much. And you may not have fully connected with them yet, but in their mind, they're already looking at you as their agents, right? So, it is a lot of times those quietest people that are getting the most value out of it and are just happy and are very comfortable in what they're receiving. So you got to be okay getting those messages and having people tell you to ... You have to be okay getting a rejection on the phone and having people hanging up on you. You got to be okay with that.

 

Ian Daniels:

Just to add to what you were saying, Jason, any drip campaign is going to get people that it's going to get messages from some people that it's just going to have pissed them off. Right? It just is, because, for example, we have an email that goes out. It's like, "Hey, do you have a house to sell?" Right? Real short, real simple email. [inaudible 01:14:21] I do have a house. I already told you I don't have a house. I already told you this is my first house. And we'll have our agents be like, "Hey, do we think we should get rid of that email?" And it's like, no, we get three responses a year from it. And I'm sorry if they all fell on your clients, that is frustrating. But there's so many people that are getting those emails and respond differently.

 

Jason Simard:

And we've done so many deals with people that initially were grumpy. I mean, look, I love my wife, but depending on the time of day that I talk to her, she might be very short with me or she might be very sweet with me. And I love you, honey, if you're listening to this, but that's just the truth. So it doesn't mean that she won't do ... She won't work with me later on. Same with the lead. So they're human beings. Maybe you caught them at a bad moment. They just got some bad news or they're stressed out and they gave you that initial reaction. But I promise you, if you're always coming from a place of giving and serving in everything that you do, you can't lose. Jamie handles so many smoke screens so well, because he knows he's coming from a place of service and there's not a single client that's ever, ever complained to me about Jamie once they get to know him. Not one single person ever. And that's pretty rare.

 

Jason Simard:

Because we're coming from a pure place. We genuinely are doing this because we want to help. And we want to understand your situation. And one of the things we coach too is we never, ever make a recommendation to a client until we fully understand their full picture first. And that we've recapped it with them. That way, you're never coming from a place of assuming anything. You're coming from a place of, "Hey, based on what you've told me, this is what makes the most sense." And it works really, really well. I have to go, I've got an appointment guys, but I hope that the audience is getting value from this. Gentlemen, I love that we got to do this mastermind. I look forward to doing more of it. If I can service you, or Jamie, or our group, we're here to help.

 

Jason Simard:

For us, we've literally dedicated our lives in this industry now to elevating the game and making us all better. And that's my why every day. I get up, how can I help our agents and the agents that we work and mentor with and that we partner with, how do we help them be more successful? And if any of this resonates and you want more information or you want us to give you some tips, reach out to us. My email, I'm sure, Kevin, you can make that available, but thank you guys. It's an honor. And Kevin, thank you for building such an amazing company that we have been able to thrive from. It's unbelievable the impact that your technology has had in our lives, and I couldn't be more grateful. So thank you. Seriously.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Thank, Jason. That means a lot. And we can go ahead and wrap up here.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Was there anything else on the list? If not, we can shut it down.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

I think ...

 

Todd Tramonte:

I have one other share, but if there's a question, we'll try to hit it first.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Todd.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I was just going to wrap up or if other questions come up, I've got a few more minutes, but I'll say one thing that's working unbelievably well for us relevant to the recent COVID-19, but also completely aside from that is telling tons and tons and tons of client success stories, right? So third party, social proof, testimonials, Google reviews, whatever you want to call that, all of those things are super valuable, but if you're not noticing the massive movement towards checking people out, reviews, trusting the third party, and to be honest in an insane way, over trusting total strangers, third party reviews, right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Whether it's videos or online reviews, Google, Zillow, whatever, if you're not noticing that you're missing in some ways a massive piece of the future of our business. I don't care where you're getting a lead or where you're converting it, a massive percentage of them is going and checking you out in other places. You can either be deliberate and position yourself and control some of that information and put some of that in front of them, or you can try to control every one of those third party environments, or you could just kind of tap out and hope it all goes well. But we're doing in our phone prospecting, in our emails, in our text messaging, we're providing third party, social proof opinions for people. And some of the best stuff we're doing is what other people might view as incomplete, where it's not a closed and funded transaction.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Hey, Kevin was amazing. We bought last year and he is incredible. It's like, "Hey, we just got through this portion of the process. And Ian was brilliant. It was amazing. He saved us a ton of money. We haven't even closed yet, but I'm sure it's going to be great." So I just want to encourage people even on the phone when it's like, "Hey, I'm not really sure if the timing is right." "Well, Hey, let me tell you a quick story about someone that I had the same conversation with a couple of months ago. They actually just moved in last weekend. Here's what happened. Here's the worst part of it. Here's what we overcame. Here's their family impact." And if you remember, and I make this mistake a lot, if you remember not to spend all your time talking about your process, the features of what you do, or even necessarily the benefits of what you do.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But if we talk to people about how their lives will be better, the transformational value of what we can do, our leadership, our advocacy, not our marketing and negotiation. That those are worthy of talking about, but big picture, what really moves the needle is how we can make their lives better. Their family can move forward. They can take a leap forward in their wealth building. They can find peace and security and safety. They can get away from this burden or this problem or this debt or whatever. If we can talk more about that, good things will happen. If we can have other people talk about how we can do that more, it's very difficult to stop good things from happening. So on the phone, in text, in email, we're doing it on radio, we're doing it in newsletters, we're doing that through what used to be a lot of live events, now it's some virtual events.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But I think that's something that everyone can do, even if you only have one or two or three, and then my last thought on that is they don't have to all be clients. An attorney would think about a character witness. If you have vendor partners and friends that can say, "Look, Kevin McCarthy is one of the most trustworthy people I've ever been around. Hey, Jamie Wick is one of the smartest marketers I've ever known. Hey, Ian Daniels is the most thoughtful, concerned friend." All of the above. That stuff in the current climate, in the ... What I see the future of the real estate industry is, that stuff is really, really, really valuable. And it's relevant to conversion and recruiting and retention and marketing and branding and all those things. So I want people to be encouraged. We've shared a lot of technical skills though.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Obviously take it and run with it. The scripts, the what day and how many hours and all that stuff. But some of that stuff, it's sort of like, I've got it, I've implemented it, now what? Give me more.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Others in this stuff is our principles and strategies that you can develop for the rest of your career. And honestly, that stuff is even more interesting to me than some of the technical stuff. And so, I want to encourage people with that to create that as a big piece of your business, and then never stop developing that, because I think the future of our industry is going to absolutely lock people out that don't do stuff like that.

 

Jamie Wicks:

Yeah. Always ask for reviews. We always ask our clients to do that for us, you know, and we get a lot of advocacy with it. So I agree with you 100%.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

Thanks guys. So, we ran over a little bit there, but it's hard to cut it off, because it's just so interesting. I'd like to thank Jason, who's now gone, but also Jamie, Ian, and Todd for sitting down and talking and sharing your secret sauce. Some of it really is secret sauce. And some of it is just doing the right thing. So I love hearing that stuff. And thank you so much.

 

Kevin McCarthy:

So, this episode will be sent out to everybody on our mailing list as a recording so you can refer back to it. If you want to get on our mailing list and you're not on it, you can go to keepingitreal.com. And if you go there, you can also see all of our past episodes. It's got a cool search. You can just type in a keyword. Anything we mentioned on the episode gets transcribed and you can pull up every one that mentions PPC, for example, and then go back and view those. So thanks again, guys. And we'll see everybody next time.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Thanks, buddy. We'll do it again soon.