In this episode of “Keeping It Real” host Frank Klesitz discusses how you can transform real estate and CRM goals for 2022 into real-life results with special guests Brendan Bartic and Todd Tramonte.

The Importance of New Year’s Resolutions and Actions in the Post-pandemic Real Estate Space

The world has changed drastically because of COVID-19. Many major changes have taken place in the real estate industry. Learn how you can take concrete steps and decisive actions to adjust to the post-pandemic changes through the New Year’s resolutions and actions of Brendan and Todd.

Culture First: From Resolution to Action

Brendan shares what he learned in 2021 after he and his real estate team initially built on the wrong fundamental structure by focusing on productivity: “Culture first… The big thing I learned this year is: If you don’t have the culture, you can have the best, most aggressive agents on earth, you’re not gonna get very far.”

As a result, he and his team now resolved to prioritize culture moving forward. He emphasizes their new goals: “We follow our three Ps: People, Progression, and Philanthropy.” He applies these principles by changing which attitudes and behaviors they allow and don’t allow among their team members. He also provides more creative options to both buyers and sellers so they can find a suitable solution for their needs.

Brendan educates himself to become a better leader so he can inspire his team to become better real estate agents.

Voice of Reason: From Resolution to Action

Todd shares what he learned in 2021: “How absolutely overwhelmed our client is.” He explains that he observed that many people felt confused and exhausted after hearing different messages from different sources during this pandemic in the real estate field and beyond.

That’s why he and his real estate team aim to be the voice of reason and clarity in 2022. He plans to achieve this goal by tailoring their message to give clients reassurance and reliability. He offers simple, straightforward solutions to their real estate needs amid the overwhelming factors in real estate transactions.

Todd also realized the power of onsite work interactions. He fosters mutual trust in the company by working shoulder-to-shoulder with his team every day.

His resolutions align with his overall work inspiration: “The only reason I’m building a business is to have a life of purpose and impact. A life that actually matters, that I’m proud of.”

Transform Your New Year’s Resolutions Into New Year’s Actions With the Help of Real Geeks

If you want to transform your New Year’s resolutions as a real estate agent into tangible actions like Brendan and Todd, you can partner with a competent IDX provider like Real Geeks. We offer an all-in-one real estate solution so you can grow your business in the upcoming year. Level up your real estate venture through our custom IDX real estate websites, web design, drip system, and CRM services.

Here is a full transcript of our conversation: 

Frank Klesitz:

... you're watching this. You're watching Keeping it Real provided by Real Geeks. Thank you so much. My name is Frank Klesitz. I am your cohost. We're using a new little service today so hopefully it's coming well for you. We're going to talk about our new year's resolutions for 2022.

 

Frank Klesitz:

A lot's changed, well not changed... Well, things have changed not so much in real estate. It's accelerated a lot, but the world is very different now post COVID and a lot of accelerations have taken place that were probably in place already, but just sped up in 2020, and 2021.

 

Frank Klesitz:

We rounded up some of the sharpest minds in real estate for you today to reflect on the past year or two since the March [inaudible 00:00:38] 22 when COVID hit to make sense of everything that's going on in real estate, make sense of the appreciation of home prices, and the low listing inventory, and just what's going on with technology, and all the different services and products that are out there now competing for a homeowner or a buyer's attention.

 

Frank Klesitz:

We're going to talk about what our new year's resolutions are for 2022. What we're going to sit around thinking about over the Christmas break if you will before New Year's writing our business plans for 2022, what we're going to do differently. What we're going to change.

 

Frank Klesitz:

What we're going to alter based upon more or less a SWOT analysis, a little strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats about what's going on in the industry, what's going on with our own businesses, some changes we're going to make. We have some familiar faces here. I'm Frank Klesitz. I'm your cohost with Brendan Bartic. Say hi, Brendan.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Hey. Welcome, or thank you for having me. Not welcome. Glad to be here.

 

Frank Klesitz:

If you have a chance to go watch one of Brendan's shows that we've done it's really powerful. Go check out keepingitreal.com, or you can go to our YouTube channel Keeping it Real, and go search for Brendan. He did a wonderful, wonderful show that will stand the test of time regardless of whatever comes out here today on buyer and seller lead followup.

 

Frank Klesitz:

When the leads come into your Real Geeks site, or your [inaudible 00:01:52] site and someone opts on your website to want to learn more about buying or selling a home, what's the process to get them engaged and to respond to you, and to talk to you so you can actually set an appointment and do a deal? Brendan went through his entire process.

 

Frank Klesitz:

It is excellent. Go watch that recording. It's available. I also want to bring up Todd Tramonte, many of you probably know. Say hi, Todd.

 

Todd Tramonte:

What's going on everybody? Frank said to say hi so I'm saying hi. Hello.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yep. Good microphone Todd. You sound wonderful. He has his own setup and he's actually hosted some of these Keeping it Real shows, does a wonderful job and has been a guest from time to time. You can go back on the channel and search for Todd. Todd, what would you say is your most popular show that you've done? Which topic should [crosstalk 00:02:28]-

 

Todd Tramonte:

Well-

 

Frank Klesitz:

... go watch?

 

Todd Tramonte:

... I have to be careful how I answer that because I did the very first one with Jeff years ago [crosstalk 00:02:35]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

You were the first guest weren't you?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Well, remember I was begging him to do them for years, in the early days of Real Geeks and he didn't want to deal with it. Then he bumped into you and you're like, "Look. I'll just run it for you." Then we started them. I did the first one but Jeff titled it in a very sensitive way, How Todd Tramonte Gets, blah, blah, blah commissions.

 

Todd Tramonte:

That's been super popular, how we get higher fees and things, but the one I get the most contacts about now is like How Todd Tramonte Gets 1986% ROI On Internet Leads, or whatever the exact number was. It was basically our followup system and how we got great ROI on home search leads so-

 

Frank Klesitz:

If you have a chance-

 

Todd Tramonte:

... [crosstalk 00:03:12].

 

Frank Klesitz:

If you have a chance and you're watching this go back and watch those replays. You learn some really great stuff in depth, nothing to sell you, on how to sell residential real estate well. We have some bright minds in the room.

 

Frank Klesitz:

We're going to spend our time here today, is we're going to go through and say, "What have we learned over this past year given maybe some of the changes if any in the real estate space, and what changes are we going to make in our businesses for 2021?" This is our panel, so let's get started. Brendan, give everyone just a little bit of an idea of your business, of where you're at in your production level to set the stage.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah [crosstalk 00:03:47]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Tell us what you've learned in 2021.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Oh, boy. I learned a ton. Yeah. We have a team. We have 24 agents, five support staff, and then four virtual assistants. We'll do probably about 130 million in sales volume this year which sounds crazy for as many people as we have, but we really went through a restructuring on what our goals were and we learned a lot about how we're going to move forward into the future.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I also own a real estate brokerage that has 256 amazing agents here in Denver, Colorado. Then I also have a coaching company. Those are the three things that occupy the most of my time. I would say the thing that I learned the most this year, and it seems very simple, is culture first.

 

Brendan Bartic:

We had had a real estate team over the years that was much more built on just straight, flat out hunting and production, and crushing deals. It didn't work so I came to a point where I was at a kind of of a cul-de-sac. We were doing deals each and every year and some people would be like, "Well, that's great," but I couldn't get past it.

 

Brendan Bartic:

It was just really frustrating me and it was because it was built on the wrong fundamental structure. The big thing I learned this year is if you don't have the culture right, you can have the best, I don't want to say best, the most aggressive agents on Earth. You're not going to get very far. You'll get far, but you won't get to probably where you want, and the way there probably won't be as enjoyable as you'd like it to be.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. That is so intangible for most to understand what the culture difference is. Can you-

 

Brendan Bartic:

That's right.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Can you give us the most tangible differences you learned of culture, of what that means of the changes that you'll have to make? Give me the most tangible things that you've realized that the culture is what drives it all, specifically these things you have to pay better attention to.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. What you allow and what you don't allow, I think that's probably the easiest way. We used to allow certain producers levity to be A holes if I can use that word.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. That works. That's a real word.

 

Brendan Bartic:

That wasn't right. There was a culture there of certain things that just didn't resound. Now we have a culture where it's not kind of, it is we follow our three P's: people, progression, and philanthropy. We first designed the entire business to be more about everyone that was philanthropic.

 

Brendan Bartic:

With philanthropic you can identify. If you don't have people on your team that want to give back naturally... I have people on my team that are brand new that are barely making any money. They're the most philanthropic people I've ever seen. Then I used to have people on my team that made over 500 grand a year and wouldn't give a nickel to somebody.

 

Brendan Bartic:

That type of personality of, "Give me everything and give back nothing," I think was really killing us, so we rebuilt it. First thing, philanthropy, and then progression. We had to really build this around if you're not wanting to get better and improve every single day, meaning we're big like book club, life guru, meditation type people, then you're not going to like it here and that's okay, right?

 

Brendan Bartic:

People, just making sure we were taking care of everyone. I think that phrase is easily said, but it's very difficult especially during COVID and other times to make sure that everybody was okay during this challenging time.

 

Frank Klesitz:

In 2021, we'll go deeper into this, but you really learned culture-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Big time.

 

Frank Klesitz:

You learned it by immersing in it, that you had a couple different ones in your company?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Oh, yeah. I-

 

Frank Klesitz:

A couple different cultures were going on.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. I said goodbye to 150 units a year in transactions between three agents that just weren't a cultural fit. People were like, "How do you do that?" I go, "Think about if you're doing 300 deals, that's half of your production walking out the door." It had to be done though. It had to be done for me to show up every day and want to continue to be excited about this.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Then to be honest Frank, I had to change a lot. I wasn't the person that I needed to be to lead so I went to tons of leadership training. I went and studied cultures to see what was working with people and what wasn't. I had to learn a lot. I had to become a lot better.

 

Frank Klesitz:

I love that.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I'm still on that journey.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Okay. Todd, I want to hear from you.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah-

 

Frank Klesitz:

If you take 2021 what did you learn dude? What did you learn this year?

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'll give you a quick download on that. I just want to comment on something Brendan said because man, if I'm on his team I love the last thing you just said which is like, "Look. I had to go become better to attract better," is kind of what I heard you saying right?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah.

 

Todd Tramonte:

If I'm filtering it a little bit. If I want to work with the kind of people that want to build a business... The way we say it in our team, in our coaching group, is the only reason I'm building a business is to have a life of purpose and impact, a life that actually matters, that I'm proud of.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I've got friends in other industries that do literally hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions, billion dollar deals, and they're like, "Dude. It doesn't matter. What I do doesn't matter." They envy us, and I feel like, "I'm selling houses. What am I doing?" But what I heard you say is, "I had to be the kind of person that would attract the kind of people that I want to work with."

 

Todd Tramonte:

Then it's not selfish to say, "I'm building a business so that I can live a life of impact." I want to build a business with people that are all wanting to live a life of impact right? One of the greatest things we did luckily long ago for culture was to be really clear on our core values, our company values, and not like a, "Someone else told me I had to have this vision statement," thing, but what are our values?

 

Todd Tramonte:

We have them on the wall. We show them to every client. We show them to every agent we interview. We're unbelievably selective because we're just not a values fit for that many people. When you are so much of the rest of it just becomes easier. Anyway, I'm already off the rails, Frank. You knew that was going to happen.

 

Frank Klesitz:

[crosstalk 00:10:26].

 

Todd Tramonte:

But I got my-

 

Frank Klesitz:

It's good.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I got my pen and paper. I'm taking notes and learning too. For me I would just say one of the big things we learned this year is how absolutely overwhelmed our ideal client is. Our prospect, our leads, whatever you want to call it we refer to that as our ideal client, our ideal prospects.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We only want to work with ideal prospects, which by itself was one of the greatest leapfrogs forward for our business years ago. But they're just overwhelmed. They're getting a thousand messages from a thousand different directions and they're honestly kind of sick of it.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We felt like in 2021, and man I would love to know if people are watching, I don't know if we have a chat or whatever, just how many people felt this, that everybody was just sick of it? Like, "Dude, half the time I don't know what to think because this sounds legit and so does this," and they're completely opposing opinions whether it's on health, or freedom, or real estate, or investing, or career.

 

Todd Tramonte:

"Tons of people quit their jobs this year. Yay for them. Why am I celebrating that? I don't know. I'm so conflicted about everything." We from a marketing perspective, that's kind of how my brain works, it's like, man. The people that we are trying to talk to are completely exhausted, so how do we talk to them differently? How do we help them solve that problem, scratch that itch, achieve that goal differently than we used to because they're feeling different than they used to right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Frank and I nerd out offline on copywriting and direct response marketing. It's like the goal of a copywriter is to enter the conversation that they're already having in their mind, right? I'm not trying to create some new opportunity from the ground up. I'm trying to help someone that already needs what I have for them.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'm trying to enter their mind and go, "Hey. We can help you with exactly what you're already thinking you need." Now, I can't help everyone, but I can help you with that. This year we had to tweak how we got that message to that person because of overwhelm. Does that make sense?

 

Frank Klesitz:

Well, I'll tell you. I'll just jump in with what people are doing right now because of that very issue Todd are seller workshops, specifically more to an older audience, maybe lived in their home for 20 or plus years.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Basically like, "Are you confused? Are you sick of the calls, and the letters from investors, and the real estate agents, and the open door? The offer pad? The ads that pop up on selling your home this way, and that way, and this way?" "Do you just want to step back and help understand all of your options?"

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yep. I would say that lines up perfectly. I would say what we... Historically we've done a lot but what we were doing this year very deliberately, you could call it a seller workshop but we're doing it in everything from a 30 second radio spot to a one hour radio show, to eight minute YouTube videos, to email followups, to actual live events, educating the client. Educating the ideal client, the ideal prospect through this process of overwhelm.

 

Todd Tramonte:

The single factor that is always the filter in my mind, especially this year, is to be the voice of reason, to be the voice of clarity right? If everybody is constantly like, "I don't know who to listen to. I don't know who to trust. I don't know what's real," just slow down and say, "Hey, look. I get it."

 

Todd Tramonte:

This is Dallas, Texas right. Dallas. Phoenix. Atlanta. Some of the most absurdly overwhelmed communities in America. Denver's not that different. Look, if there's venture capital to back an idea let's go try that in Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta. Everyone is here offering everything via every media, every technology.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We're just slowing down and saying... Look. If people have been watching or listening to me for a while they know who Tony and Laura Hernandez are. Those are our ideal clients. We want prospects that are like Tony and Laura Hernandez. I bet you there's people watching that could chat like, "Yep. I knew who that was when he said it," because I say it all the time.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But when I'm talking to a prospect if I'm picturing Frank in my mind I'm literally talking to Frank. It's like, "Hey. I get it. You considered moving across the country this year because this market was so insane. You had a lot of..." You know what I mean?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Those of you that don't know, Frank literally moved across the country this year, but the point is you're speaking directly to the frustration and overwhelm at a pace, at a tone, with deliberate messaging that's like, "You know what? This guy gets it. I think I can trust him. I'll take a next step with him but not at warp speed."

 

Todd Tramonte:

If you're a buyer right now in most of our markets everything is at warped speed. We're just saying, "Hey, it's okay to slow down. If you miss a house we'll find you. We'll find you some inventory that other people don't know about. Just take a deep breath. Let's get a game plan together before you go out there and get steamrolled by some greedy dirt bag seller that thinks they can get whatever they want from whoever they want without having to care for you. Slow down."

 

Todd Tramonte:

We're offering free strategy sessions every afternoon in the month of January. We'll sit down. We'll buy you a cup of coffee, a Coke, water, whatever the case is. We can do this by Zoom. We just want to hear what your frustrations are, hear what your goals are, understand your life and your situation, and then we'll put a game plan together to figure out what's best for you.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It's going to be okay. We can do this on your terms. Now, there's some boundaries in the market we have to respect, but let's just slow down and then we can go speed up and we can win for you. I want to communicate that confidence. We will win for you, but first it is okay...

 

Todd Tramonte:

We're speaking to that overwhelm because we realized in 2021 the vast majority of our ideal prospects are just like, pissed off because of the constant overwhelm. You know?

 

Frank Klesitz:

You know Todd, you basically just gave a wonderful radio ad. It was like I was hearing the radio ad. You'd start the radio ad off. You probably just heard a real estate commercial and you're probably going to hear another one in this ad.

 

Todd Tramonte:

If it's a good radio ad it's a good voicemail. It's a good email. It's a good-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. Exactly.

 

Todd Tramonte:

... text. It's a good-

 

Frank Klesitz:

It's the message that-

 

Todd Tramonte:

... YouTube. Yeah.

 

Frank Klesitz:

... resonates to helping them calm down, slow down, and really helping them understand all of their options. I will throw this out here guys and gals. If you go to Eventbrite, just go to Eventbrite and type in seller workshop you'll see the copy. You'll see it.

 

Frank Klesitz:

You'll see a whole bunch pop up. You can also go to sellerworkshop.com, which is an agent that does this out in Twin Cities, and see the copy. But the goal here for a lot of marketing is to get upstream from people before they build a relationship with a realtor, or a relationship with someone to make a decision with, to help them understand the buffet of all of their options.

 

Frank Klesitz:

To slow down and understand everything and then hold that relationship throughout the process so that agent stays inside of the transaction. Todd, thank you.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. Let me just pop in and feed off of what Frank's saying because he's sending you to good... I haven't been there but I'm sure it's super useful, swipe and deploy copy. We did one... We don't do everything well. There's no doubt about that. But one thing I think we did as a team, therefore...

 

Todd Tramonte:

We do coaching and consulting but it's basically like look over our shoulder at what we're doing for our team members. We don't teach anything we're not actively doing full out. When COVID hit and everyone freaked out, we freaked out too. We didn't know what it was. We didn't know what the future was, but we just began to communicate about eight times more than ever before to be clear.

 

Todd Tramonte:

To what Frank just said we tried to get upstream. We tried to get ahead. We tried to get into the zone of clarity. This year, 2021 one of the first things we did... Every February we do a little educational workshop and we did one on wealth building through real estate. That's really what the goal of it was was let's just get an accurate lay of the land.

 

Todd Tramonte:

What is actually happening in home ownership? Buying? Selling? Short term vacation rentals? Longterm vacation rentals? Short term flip? Longterm flip? I wrote a book years ago called The Two Year Flip which is just longterm flip tax savings.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We just slowly and methodically wen through it and it was really successful. Then a lot of our coaching clients just replicated it. Just as a quick tip for people, all you need to do that well is to know your stuff that you already know as a good real estate agent, drop it on Zoom, and invite your database.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Now, you can get more complex than that but you don't need to. We did four parts, four main things: short term flip. Longterm flip. Short term rental. Longterm rental. Then of course we took questions which was, we left half the time for that and it was wildly successful. I want to make sure we give people actionable, cool, really good tips so I thought I'd throw that in.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Brendan, let's go back to you. Thank you Todd.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yep.

 

Frank Klesitz:

You said one of your big realizations in 2021 was the need for you to step up as a leader to make sure there's one clear culture of everyone shares the same values in the organization. You learned firsthand that that's not the case, and the pain of letting the money go, and the people that don't fit the core values right?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Absolutely.

 

Frank Klesitz:

100%?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. It was absolutely... I think it comes down to, even hearing Todd talk about it, just what kind of business do you want to run and what kind of business person do you want to be? The word ethics is used so loosely. What kind of moral compass do you want to have and what kind of ethics do you want to have?

 

Frank Klesitz:

Those are big questions.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. Those are tough because I came from a Mike Ferry based system where it was call, call, call. We didn't really focus on past clients, or the Hernandez's.

 

Frank Klesitz:

The values there are money and recognition.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Well, that's it. Gosh, did you nail that on the head.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Money and-

 

Frank Klesitz:

It's a money and recognition value system.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I remember being at one of his seminars and he was talking to somebody in the audience. One of the [inaudible 00:20:56] spoke to was like, "I'm not that motivated." He was like, "Well, here. Do this. Go buy an Aston Martin and you'll be more motivated." She went and did it, in the audience live.

 

Brendan Bartic:

She went and bought this Aston Martin during this weekend retreat. It was part of that culture. It was like, "You want to go? Go get a Ferrari." It was like, "Yeah!" It's hard to deprogram yourself from that. That was a challenge. It was.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Well, and our industry's been bombarded with kind of the frat bro mentality right? Who can grind the hardest? "I woke up earlier than you. I made more..." At the end of the day who promised your wife and kids that you were going to win that trophy?

 

Frank Klesitz:

Those are the values of a sales culture. It's going to be a hardcore sales culture. That's the values. But as you start building a business and more of a larger enterprise is those values start expanding, which you're finding Brendan right-

 

Brendan Bartic:

[crosstalk 00:21:49]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

... the leadership stuff? Yeah.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Big time.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Brendan Bartic:

It's a learning lesson everyday.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Let me ask you again. Values and leadership you learned a lot in 2021. I like how Todd answered this question. What have you learned about the market? What have you learned about the needs or the messages that buyers and sellers respond to in 2021 that you're going to have to really double down, update your marketing or your messaging strategy around these pain points and these needs in 2022?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. I think [crosstalk 00:22:22]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Is your messaging going to change?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. For us what we learned is you have to have more options. Options. Options. Options. When we're talking about seller options: cash. Fix in list. Guaranteed seller program. Trade-in programs. We really worked a lot on this year of saying, "We have this menu of items that we can help service your property with," because there's not a one sized fit all.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Before we were just like, "I get it," so we trained to be like, "Look. We do this. You give us this commission, and that's it. High five and I'm out." You based your success on if you were good enough at handling objections and shoving this package down that sellers throat.

 

Brendan Bartic:

You were kind of glorified if you could crush that. Now what we've realized is sellers want options especially in this market. Then the second big thing is buyers need the most creative options that we've ever seen at this point, especially buyers that don't have straight up, just a boatload of cash on hand.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I think the big lesson we learned is how to answer those questions and provide being on the front side of it, some of them not even knowing that they needed it, that these programs existed, and then communicating that so we can get on the front side [crosstalk 00:23:39]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Brendan, that's the seller workshop man-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. That's [crosstalk 00:23:42]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

... is going through all-

 

Brendan Bartic:

I'm taking notes just like [crosstalk 00:23:44]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

... of these things-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Right?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Understanding all of your options. [crosstalk 00:23:49]-

 

Todd Tramonte:

I like that a lot. I'll make one clarification just because I feel like I got a pretty good read on who our audience is on these keeping it reals. You don't have to be able to offer every one of those things that Brendan just said.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I think the more you can offer the more resources, and options, and clarity you can offer a client, but there is a risk in trying to do 100 things if all you've ever done is one right? I think it's important, especially in a market like mine where they're getting that message from every one of those VC backed internet based companies, and those companies are spending millions of dollars to market in a deliberately misleading way.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I don't think they're horrible, big bad corporations but look. There's some deliberate slight of tongue there in, "We'll make you an offer based on full market value." Well, all offers are based on full market value but they are not making you an offer at full market value unless they messed up their algorithm, which some of them did.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I think the point Brendan's making which I totally agree with is the more you can have options to help them find the perfect solution instead of trying to cram everyone into one size fits all the better. The risk in that I think is you having 27 options and you're not super effective at any of them.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'm sure we would all agree that the more you can provide the better, right? If you're in a market where you've got these big I buyers and you can also say, "Look. If what you really want is a cash offer on your home we can get you one in 24 hours. But that's rarely the best option for you so that's typically not what we lead with. But if that would be helpful to you of course we can do that also."

 

Todd Tramonte:

"If you need a little bit of help getting your property ready for market to maximize value in this market we've got some options for that too." But again my idea, my big major push is to say that in a way that is calming, and soothing, and building confidence instead of barking-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. You're doing a consultation, a needs analysis.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Right. Right. That's where Frank says that's a great thing to share in a workshop instead of what could sound the opposite. "We specialize in this. This. This. This." You can't specialize in 27 things right? But what you might be able to do is analyze someone's unique situation and offer customized solutions from these 16 benefits we can offer a seller.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I think for the first time in a long time, or maybe ever that I saw especially on the buy side, this ability to front people cash to be able to buy a home to be competitive. I would say this year was the first year that I really saw that, and maybe a little bit of last year, that this whole system came into existence where we're loan sharking money on the front side to give somebody a position state so they can compete if you're in that kind of market.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I think that was a really interesting market change that is changing real estate from the future on, that we're loan sharking people money on the front side so they can have a more attractive offer. [crosstalk 00:27:02]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Call them power buyers, the buy before you sell. The [crosstalk 00:27:05] some words.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Fascinating.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Right.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Fascinating.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We started doing something new that people might want to hear about Frank in that regard to help our buyers have more success. For years, and years, and years we have offered the buyer agent on our listings a five day, four night cruise for two at closing. What we started this year was we would give our buyer a five day, four night cruise for two to offer the seller with every offer that we made.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We submit an offer. We're throwing a cruise in on top. Now, I know how gimmicky that sounds. The fact is the cruise part is totally legitimate. I've been on them. Agents, team members have been on them, but in our market it was so absurd that we couldn't even get a call back or a text reply on our offers because sellers legitimately would have 15, 20, 30 offers sometimes.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Wow.

 

Todd Tramonte:

You couldn't even get a response to figure out how to be strategic with your offer. It didn't always win the deal for us obviously, but it almost always got us a call or a text reply like, "Dude. What's up with this cruise thing?"

 

Frank Klesitz:

Who's the vendor for the cruise provider?

 

Todd Tramonte:

I've got a vendor, and I can share it with folks. It's a travel agency out of California. Just email me, todd@toddtramonte.com.

 

Brendan Bartic:

[crosstalk 00:28:26]-

 

Todd Tramonte:

I don't mind sharing.

 

Brendan Bartic:

... like you just said, but you're putting something creative to still get one more layer down. Like you said, whether you win or not it brought attention to yours and I love that. There's things like that where it's like, "Here's the problem. We have our buyer's agents out there getting destroyed because they're putting in offers with 30 other offers. Put that on the whiteboard. How do we solve that problem?"

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yep.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Offering a cruise, I don't think even if I would have had a three hour mastermind on this it would have ever came up but I love it. It's that. It's that kind of creativity that's so cool.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It was not my idea, right? We've been doing it on the seller side for years. I never thought of it. One of our agents was like, "Hey. Would you let me offer one of those, the reverse like from buyer to seller?" I was like, "Hold on. Let me think through the restrictions on this."

 

Todd Tramonte:

I came back a day later. This was at a team meeting in front of everybody. He was like, "If I could do that I think it would help." We came back and I was like, "Absolutely, and I'll cover it." Boom. Off to the races we started and we saw immediate results. Again, not 100%. We don't always get those offers accepted, but we're virtually always getting a response and we definitely are getting some accepted that we otherwise wouldn't have.

 

Brendan Bartic:

That's awesome.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Frank, you guys asked us three things that we wanted to improve in our business for next year.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. Cool.

 

Todd Tramonte:

You want me to share one or two of those?

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yes.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We're going to add a couple of agents, and we're not typically like just a grow, grow, add tons of people. I didn't give my numbers before so real quick, we've got six agents on our team. We're not trying to build a massive team. We have about 12 total people though so we have a lot of support, and staff, and marketing, creative.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Very much by design we'll sell about 200 homes this year for about 85 million, but we'll do about three million in GCI. You can tell there's some skewed numbers there and it's not our purchase price. It's our commission rate, which most people that know that, on the listing side our fees are a little bit higher.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We can talk about that later but that's really right, kind of sweet spot where we want to be. We'll grow a little bit next year so we'll probably add one agent in each of our offices. We have an office in Fort Worth, and an office on the Dallas side. But the thing I'm really fired up about right now is what we call our pirate score which is hilarious.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It's our ARR, our active referral rate. We jokingly, ARR, A-R-R right? But that's how many referrals we get from our active clients during the transaction. Before we've closed and funded, and now they roll into past client territory, that to me is a really great realtime score of the world class value we're delivering to our clients or not.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We have a bunch of scripting and a bunch of systems that support that, but we want to improve that even further. We're a lot more excited about that than we are about new leads. Look. I love marketing.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I love new people and new relationships but we're really only after new people to expedite the process of building unbelievable, phenomenal world class relationships where people want to come back and tell their friends. We're obsessive about growing that number even higher, our active referral rate, or we jokingly call our pirate score.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah, because you set up the request for the referral right when you first meet with them to get the contract signed. You state that that's an expectation right at the very beginning.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It's part of our initial consultation. It's part of our-

 

Frank Klesitz:

It's not something you bring up-

 

Todd Tramonte:

... scripting.

 

Frank Klesitz:

... "Oh, by the way," at the very end.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Right. Yep.

 

Frank Klesitz:

The expectation is set up front.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. We tell them straight up, "Look. My goal is you're going to introduce me to a few people before we get finished with this thing. If you don't the feedback I'll take from that is that we're really not knocking it out of the park for you. Now would it be okay if I use that as my measuring guide?"

 

Todd Tramonte:

"I know that sounds a little bit presumptuous, but my commitment to you is I'm going to deliver that level of value. Legitimately world class, that's what we're after. If you're not telling two or three friends, family members, coworkers about us, my read will be that I'm not delivering the kind of value that you want to tell people about. Does that seem fair? Does that seem okay?"

 

Todd Tramonte:

Then we build off of that for the rest of our lives, but certainly the rest of the transaction. Our goals is that we would get at least one. Our backend internal goal is at least one before closing and funding.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Todd, with that we do the same thing and we've framed it in a technique called The Promise. You meet with a client and you just say, "Our promise to you is that we're going to provide you with the most exceptional real estate experience on Earth. When we deliver on this promise I'm going to ask you to do two things for me.

 

Brendan Bartic:

"One, I'm going to ask you to give me a five star review on my Google business page," or whatever you're trying to attract reviews for, "And two, I'm going to ask you to provide me with a referral of anyone you know that's looking to buy or sell real estate." Then the real catch of this is that you have to then explain to them that, "During this transaction we're going to check in with you to make sure we're delivering on that promise."

 

Brendan Bartic:

We do three check ins: After inspection, after appraisal, and the day before closing, or the day before closing. What we've found that's been so powerful is it's not only gotten us more reviews and referrals, but it actually puts out a lot of fires because we're checking in and saying, "Hey. Can we help deliver on that exceptional... Or how are we doing on delivering the most exceptional real estate experience?"

 

Brendan Bartic:

If they start screaming at us we're like, "Well, okay. How can we fix it," instead of waiting until the closing day and getting blown up on. I think for those agents out there that want that pro tip yeah, exactly like Todd said. That's a huge piece but you have to present it right on the front side.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. I love that you mentioned reviews. My third big growth thing is we want to get to a thousand reviews. The last three, two and a half years we've gone from-

 

Frank Klesitz:

That's incredible.

 

Todd Tramonte:

... 41 reviews to 580 something.

 

Frank Klesitz:

In how long?

 

Todd Tramonte:

In two and a half years, two and a quarter years. Something like that.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Is that on Google?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. I was never sold on Zillow reviews. I'm not saying that I was like a fortune teller. I felt like I owned that. I controlled that content even less than Google, and that Google was less industry specific and less likely to try to murder me, but anyway.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We leaned on Google early. We were super, super early to Google Local. Our team and a lot of our coaching consulting clients have benefited massively from that. That's a topic for another time, but we very seriously want to get to a thousand reviews. Actually that was one of our topics at the Real Geeks User Conference this year.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But going from 40 something to 580 something has absolutely changed our business almost entirely positively. There are some negatives by the way. Like I have a radio show and we run radio adds. Now people still go to Google to check us out. Now sometimes Google has found a way to make me pay them for a lead I already paid to create.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But long story short, I love that you included the review piece. We do as well, but a lot of people don't. They want the referral. They want the referral. They want the referral, but they haven't fully calculated the lifetime value of really amazing social proof, third party endorsement online in a place that you don't have to drive the traffic to.

 

Todd Tramonte:

You should be, but Google is spending billions of dollars to do that. We built a whole new course for our coaching group this year called Social Proof. We could come up with a much better name but marketing through those third party endorsements. Google reviews are one of the absolute best ways to do that so-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Well, it also, Todd, it changes the culture right? If you're teaching your agents to deliver exceptional service?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Before, this was years ago we were like, "Just get to the finish line and keep it moving." Now the culture has been based upon its exceptional service. The other approach Frank that we learned is to make sure you're compensating your TC staff based upon the receival of the referral and the five star review.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Before we used to just say if you close the deal you get a bonus. Most agents pay their TC, "Hey. You get a base salary and then every time you close a deal you get something." But once we changed that bonus structure to be all about obtaining that referral and that review we went from 20% rate of getting a five star review, to now we're at 75%.

 

Brendan Bartic:

75% of every closing we receive we're getting a five star review, meaning actually in the system. That was huge for us to go to 20% to 75%, but we just started focusing on it and the incentivizing the people involved in that process to make sure that they were all on high alert.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Great. What are some of your things that you're going to focus on for 2021? 2022. Sorry.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. What I wrote down is... We do a process called the 10 25 90. Every 10th of the month we do a client giveaway. Every 25th of the month we do a business spotlight on a local business spotlight with video. Then every 90 days we do a client appreciation event.

 

Brendan Bartic:

We call it the 10 25 90 Your Combination for Success. With that in the next year we're going in a deeper dive on this. Our giveaway, we just had one yesterday, when we do these client giveaways it's such a great, non threatening way to interact with our database. We get a ton of referrals from it. There's a script that goes along with it. There's a whole buildup on how you do all of this. I had to learn from some other top agents across the country.

 

Brendan Bartic:

We're really wanting to take a much deeper dive on that. One of my mentors said to me, he goes, "Brendan." He goes, "How much are you spending on internet leads, or leads in the general?" I said whatever the number was. At the time it might have been like 10 grand, 20 grand, whatever. I go, "10 grand."

 

Brendan Bartic:

He goes, "All right. Think about this. What if you did a giveaway to all of yourself and your agents' database and you didn't give away 10 grand but you gave away something nice? Like let's say you spend a thousand dollars a month on something really cool that people would want to call in and possibly win."

 

Brendan Bartic:

The light bulb went off in my mind where I was just like, "Wait a second. Instead of just buying leads third party I could actually generate interest to myself?" That gave me that doorway to do it. That was a big thing. We're taking a deeper dive.

 

Brendan Bartic:

The business spotlight, one of the things we wanted to do was build our affiliated business network so on the 25th of the month we feature a local business. At first we just started out with a cellphone. Now we've got like full on camera crew. It's next level.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Nice.

 

Brendan Bartic:

They love it. Then we're sharing it on all of our agents' social. They're getting all of this referrals. A lot of times we'll tie them into the giveaway so they'll even donate us something for the giveaway. We'll play it off of that.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Then every 90 days just that client appreciation event which has been difficult because of COVID so we've looked at ways of making that in smaller groups but still as powerful. That's what we're really focusing on is diving deeper into that. My goal is to get away from any, not any, but reducing my outbound lead cost where I'm purchasing a lead from anyone else, even pay per click, to where I'm producing it myself is my real goal for 2022.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Man, that's powerful. Leadership values, and then essentially you're really going to have to build your own database as opposed to be charging a toll for access to someone else's?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Completely. I'm so sick of agents, and me being sick too of my agents going, "This lead from XYZ company sucks." We know it's a numbers game. It's like of course you coach them. It's a for every 10 out of this. But if they're invested in it, and like yesterday we had this huge session for getting everybody to call in for the giveaway and all of this stuff. We get 250 people calling in. Out of that we pull 15, 20 referrals from [crosstalk 00:40:06]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

What was the giveaway?

 

Brendan Bartic:

An espresso coffee machine that makes this really fancy... It's like the gold version. [crosstalk 00:40:13]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

You just call it, and every call you get a ticket?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah.

 

Brendan Bartic:

It's from 12:00 to 6:00. You call in. You put your name in. We do a drawing. There's a whole system in this whole thing. Every piece matters. That I'm more than happy to talk about on a later date, but it blew my mind. That switched the gear of going, "Stop being dependent on someone else and generate it yourself, and have fun doing it."

 

Brendan Bartic:

It's a lot more fun this way than giving Zillow X amount of dollars or whatever. No offense Zillow. Just the goal is how can we generate ourselves?

 

Frank Klesitz:

You have any giveaways Todd?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. We have a-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Well, give away a cruise.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We're obsessive about our Raving Fan Club. We don't do them quite the same way. I've seen the call in thing work really well. We've actually never done it quite that way and I've said for years I'm going to, so we need to try it.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But we do four annual events with our Raving Fan Club. Then we do a couple of giveaways. We do some contests. Yeah. That's a goal every year. That wasn't on my top three but that's a goal every year is just to deepen our level of relationship, connection, fun, trust with our Raving Fan Club and our database as a whole.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Our events also had to change a little bit this year with COVID. We didn't do our minor league ballpark deal. We did our back to school ice cream. We did our pie day. We did the February workshop that I had talked about a little bit earlier that we're planning for this year as well.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But we do one for a quarter. It gives all of our team members a perfect excuse to reach out and touch every single person in the database because they have some valuable to offer. That's why we do it quarterly. We do some surprise unsolicited giveaways. We have a really developed Christmas card campaign that is happening as we speak for most of our team, and a bunch of other stuff.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But yeah, that's on our list every year is to deepen the level of connection, to further recognize the lifetime value of a trusted, excited past client vendor partner, advocate. We're trying to bridge the gap between one to many media like radio, like YouTube, like pay per click. Again I said earlier the only reason we do any of that is just to expedite the process at which we deepen relationships with people.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I actually don't love truly referral only, database only businesses, but I also do not love purely marketing only, one and done churn businesses. I think there's real maturity, stability, longevity to businesses that do both really well.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. I always say if you're going to build a business think about it like a restaurant. You can't only have a restaurant where you feed your friends and family. You've got to get new customers in the door somehow, some form or fashion. I think it's the connection of those two.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Then I think Frank the other thing I wrote down here on my page was the big thing that we're going to go deeper on, is I was just at a mastermind down in Austin for top team owners inside of our company. The moderator asked a question. He said, "What's the biggest problem that all of you are facing as team owners?"

 

Brendan Bartic:

The number one thing that came back was the cost of talent, the cost of salaries right now. The use of virtual assistants, I was probably one of the late adopters on the VA adoption scale. Now I'm like the spokesperson for it because once I understood it and understood what they can do and the leverage that they can provide still utilizing our current staff...

 

Brendan Bartic:

Have one TC and then four virtuals that assist her in doing all of this other stuff, and the four virtuals are still half the cost of another human being, once we learned that process it changed everything because it gives you more money to be able to do more to help your agents, to help your team if I'm not having to pay another, I hate to say it, another [crosstalk 00:44:24]-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. It's very expensive to live in America.

 

Brendan Bartic:

It's very expensive. Yeah.

 

Frank Klesitz:

If you're going to be hiring positions that are probably somewhere between maybe upwards of 20 an hour, used to be probably maybe 10 to 15, but maybe up to 20, you're going to have a lot of turnover because it's very hard to make a living at that pay. If the position pays 15, 16, 17 an hour and you want someone there that can consistently do the job for longterm they're probably going to come to you and say, "Brendan, I got to make more money."

 

Frank Klesitz:

You're going to go, "Well, I can't afford to pay you more money," and they're going to leave. You're going to have turnover, whereas if you go around the rest of the world, especially now people have been brought up in English, brought up in technology and culture, you could probably find those positions for somewhere between maybe six to eight dollars an hour-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Exactly.

 

Frank Klesitz:

... and doing pretty much just as well.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Now Zoom changed everything.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. And there won't be much turnover because the pay in those countries, that's top tier talent so you don't have the turnover issue. What you probably will see, one of the big trends going into 2022 is a few very well paid managers in the States, like a few very well paid managers on your team, very probably low footprint for office space, or lowering your office footprint, and then lots of specialized roles in foreign labor reporting to the highly paid managers overseeing everything.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Beautifully said.

 

Todd Tramonte:

You guys want me to be the contrarian?

 

Frank Klesitz:

Sure. Go ahead.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Always.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Let me be clear up front. I don't disagree with anything that anybody said. I think that's the trend. I think there's wisdom, and efficiency, and cost savings. I think you can do it with integrity and without losing much of anything.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I just, from a style perspective and from a longterm strategy perspective, am a huge fan of onsite, interpersonal connection, relationship, back to the kind of culture value that Brendan was talking about. We love doing battle every day shoulder to shoulder with our people.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We have built into our model a willingness to factor in the cost of that, right? Because I think it's an investment in the longterm where-

 

Frank Klesitz:

Well, because your whole thing is getting six, seven percent commissions.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Right.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yes.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Or higher.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Higher. Yeah.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Again that's part of it is that it's a different model that requires more trust building and connection, and that's who we want to be. For a lot of people that sounds really risky in a market where they believe there's commission compression, technology competition.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I think the opposite of that. I'm not wired that way. I'm a contrarian in nature but I also, as a strategic business thinker I'm going, "Hey, look. Picture your worst case scenario where some big billion dollar tech company comes in and wipes out the majority of people. I want to stand out from that crowd as the local, with a footprint, with onsite folks that know people, have relationships."

 

Todd Tramonte:

I don't need the majority of the marketplace. I need that remnant that's like, "I don't freaking care what XYZ dot biz offers. I want to look someone in the eye, shake their hand and do business with them." I want to dominate that remnant. I have a whole kind of teaching thing I do on this for folks that we don't have time for that, but the point is let's just say 90% of the residential housing market goes towards one super efficient, one stop shop technology.

 

Todd Tramonte:

That's not what you all are saying so I'm not speaking against what you're saying, but the extreme of that efficiency factor would be one website does it all. I want to be the thing that they're laughing at. They're like, "These guys have desks, and computers in an office with a lock on the door that people go to."

 

Todd Tramonte:

Like, "Yes. I will be the person that dominates that high end, high touch, high dollar, high value appreciative human relationship obsessive person." I want to dominate that remnant. Now, everyone doesn't want that, but that's where we are which is why we haven't gone that way.

 

Todd Tramonte:

That doesn't mean we don't have some efficiencies, we don't have some third party. We've been testing Conversion Monster, third party appointment setting service. Historically I haven't been a huge fan of those services but we've been testing one recently and we've seen some unbelievable awesome results with a sliver of our business we've tested that on.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But I just wanted to voice that for the people watching and listening that are like, "Hey. That's not my model. That's not my desire." That's okay. I'm all for it. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm say for where my goals, my values, my desires are we haven't gone that route, and there's room for both models to be really, really successful in a country as amazing as The United States.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. Well, where it came down to us Todd was my TC manager who's amazing and has been with us for a long time, it was getting to the point where the only way to continue her compensation scale for her to grow with what we had available to be able to do was for her to handle more.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Otherwise we had to bring in another person, and it was either, "Do you want us to pay you and you manage these people, or do we need to bring in another person?" I'm with you. It wasn't like we were trying to scale faster. It was, I was trying to get a valued person even more compensation because if I had to hire a second local person I couldn't have afforded [crosstalk 00:49:54]-

 

Todd Tramonte:

Well, and that's the [crosstalk 00:49:56] technology.

 

Brendan Bartic:

I needed to deliver another service. Right.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Right. It's the same argument for a technology. Look. I want you to grow in your income, in your influence, and in your enjoyment onsite. Instead of splitting up your job we're going to bring in an assistant. Yeah.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Right. Right.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'm not just saying that to sound good. I absolutely don't disagree with any of that. I wanted to point out for people that have different values and different approaches to business that if you're an onsite person there's ways to factor in that cost. There's ways to target a client that wants that...

 

Todd Tramonte:

There's rooms for lots of models. I think there's still going to be room in the future too. Some of these things are being squeezed. Others of them just require a more creative approach or the willingness for your business not to look like everybody else on the top 200 list or whatever the case may be. Hopefully that's an encouragement to some.

 

Brendan Bartic:

But Todd, you did say that this year you're now thinking about scaling more. Has that been a decision for you? Are you thinking about growing a little bit bigger than you have in the past?

 

Todd Tramonte:

Yeah. We're in a spot now where our primary motivator for growth is impact, right?

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It's not about more units or trophies. We've never really cared about any of that stuff. If we're going to add one or two agents we want our current agents to mature into their capability and the life they want to live, the business that will support that life.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Then we want one or two, maybe three at the most new people to have every opportunity to scale into. We'll grow to whatever level that is. Chances are, believe it or not, it's probably going to be to go from three million in GCI to four million in GCI without changing a whole lot. I think we're there, but-

 

Brendan Bartic:

What was your challenge then this past year? What was the biggest? Inside your organization what was hard?

 

Todd Tramonte:

To be honest it was an unbelievably fun, really, really fantastic year. But if we had a limitation I was we could have used one or two more people where everybody is slammed. Everybody is busy. Everybody would really like to take that vacation now, but someone has got to show these homes.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Someone has got to work these offers. Nobody died. Nobody threw a big fit, but it would have been nice to have one or two more really gifted people. We interviewed 20 or 30 people. We just hired one of them literally. He went from being on unemployment coming out of a travel job to having the best year of his life within an eight and a half month period which is incredible.

 

Todd Tramonte:

But we just didn't find anybody else that we felt really excited about jumping into business with. Every year I could give you the same answer. The limitation is incredibly talented, hard working, fun to be around, similar value people. We had plenty of silly problems and annoyances but that was the only significant limiter of our growth.

 

Todd Tramonte:

I say that so carefully because I used to be in that mindset that I wanted to hit this to prove something to someone. I wanted to hit something to impress certain people. I'm really grateful as a follower of Christ and as a more mature business owner, I still have plenty to learn, that those are just no longer our motivation for growth.

 

Todd Tramonte:

It's about, who can we impact? Honestly selfishly not growing would be easier and probably more fun in some regard where we don't have to change much. Just wash, rinse, repeat. Make great money, love on our people, and spend time with family and friends. And watch Baylor win another Big 12 Championship Frank, just as a little private school in [inaudible 00:53:34]... I'm just kidding. We don't have to do that now.

 

Frank Klesitz:

I want to give a little tip for something that I'll be working on with people that I think everyone can take here that works really well. Email is still as strong as ever.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yep.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Especially if it's like a personal message. I challenge everyone here to round up their database and all the emails that you have, and take all the emails you have from all your various systems, Brendan, and all the emails you have in your various systems Todd. Just sit down and write like a half page personal note, all text, that's a personal note that...

 

Frank Klesitz:

I'll give you a couple of ideas. First one is, "Hey, I just wanted to write you and let you know home prices are really up, and the stuff that you see online, for example Zillow, may not be as accurate considering that they got out of the business.

 

Frank Klesitz:

"I got a tool on my website that you can click here and find out what your home is worth. When you do do that it'll come back with a number. If you reply back to this email, if you send me some photos and we have a phone conversation I can personalize the number to what actually is probably accurate based upon comparable home sales and the features of your house."

 

Frank Klesitz:

"I can probably do it over the phone, or I can come to your home. But if you're interested in what your home is worth click here." If you just send that out you'll drive a ton of registrations back on your website to find out what your home is worth. Adding some value to have a personalized conversation afterwards. Got it? Another thing.

 

Brendan Bartic:

[crosstalk 00:54:53].

 

Frank Klesitz:

Yeah. Just writing up a little email saying, "Hey, if you're thinking about buying a home this spring you know it's going to be hard. There's not much for sale and it's very competitive, but there is something that you really need to look into right now is that you can get one of these buy before you sell thingamabobbers."

 

Frank Klesitz:

That's what you can say in the email. "Where you're qualified and you can buy it with all cash." Instead of having to have you offer a contingent on financing a new mortgage you can make an all cash offer, but you probably want to get qualified for that. If you want to apply for one of those right now, and want to see if you can actually qualify for an all cash offer when you do want to buy, click here and find out. If you have any questions about the process I'm here to help."

 

Frank Klesitz:

It will drive a bunch of people that actually want to buy a home that want to qualify for an all cash offer back to the landing page right. I could keep going on and on. I could say, "Hey. If you're looking to buy a home here are some homes that, there's not many, but I ran a search through my website of homes that are, I don't know, probably the mortgage payment would be less over 30 years than the rent," right?

 

Frank Klesitz:

"If you want a list of homes that probably the mortgage payment would be less than arguably a rent here's a list. I ran a lest through [inaudible 00:56:00] website. Just click here. Check it out." I will drive a whole bunch of opt-ins and registrations to probably get the pictures depending upon how you have your home site search set up.

 

Frank Klesitz:

What I'm trying to say here is doing a better job of bringing some awareness of how simple it is to slow down and write a half page little, direct offer you call it, to email to your list with something helpful and useful with a link they click driving back to a landing page to get something. It's a cheap, simple, fast, relatively painless way if you just sit down and do it versus slogging out cold calls or having to pay the giant referral fees, right Brendan-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Frank Klesitz:

... of sending some more direct offers to your list. I think that 90 10 25 thing, I forget the numbers-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Yeah. 10, 25, 90.

 

Frank Klesitz:

... perfect, is writing an offer to your database, just writing a... I use that in marketing language, not like a purchase offer to buy a home but like a marketing offer. "Hey. Apply to get a bridge loan. Hey, apply to get a instant offer on your home. Find out what your home is worth. Search for homes that are affordable."

 

Frank Klesitz:

"Hey. Here's a list of all the best investment properties I've found. Come get it." But more proactively sending out to your database those offers to drive clicks back to your website for opt-ins is really powerful. My wife and I run a little real estate investment business.

 

Frank Klesitz:

I was just sitting around. I was trying to make my wife a point of why I don't want to take out the trash. She's like, "Frank! Take out the trash!" I'm like, "Katy. I'm not going to take out the trash because the opportunity cost to my time is so [inaudible 00:57:48]." She's like, "Shut up."

 

Frank Klesitz:

I'm like, "No. I'll prove it. Watch." In the time it would have taken me to take out the trash... This is terrible for your marriage. I don't recommend this but it's a case in point like, "Katy. Come over here." I wrote a little email, "Hey, dear friends and family. You're in my database because you're probably interested in getting an offer on your home."

 

Frank Klesitz:

"If that's still the case we're still really interested in buying it. If you want an updated offer on your home click right here. Frank." That's it. Took all the leads, sent it out. I tell you in the time it probably would have taken me to put my clothes on in the cold here and take the trash out all the way down to the end of the driveway there were literally opt-ins coming in of people wanting an offer on their home.

 

Todd Tramonte:

You're going to get yourself in trouble Frank-

 

Frank Klesitz:

I know. This is a terrible-

 

Todd Tramonte:

... because this is so easy-

 

Frank Klesitz:

... terrible-

 

Todd Tramonte:

... to just send the email and then take the trash out while the results are coming in. This is a bad system.

 

Frank Klesitz:

And then I took the trash out afterwards. But what I'm getting at is that if we slow down a little bit and realize that you could sit down and craft a message, and just email it out. You can drive response just from doing that.

 

Brendan Bartic:

That's huge.

 

Frank Klesitz:

That's it. That's it. That's all I want to share.

 

Brendan Bartic:

Well, one of the amazing agents in my office takes that exact point but she just does it with a company called Addressable and does it with direct mail. They just make your letters look like you actually hand wrote it. She does the exact same messages you just talked about but actually sends it to her farm and her database.

 

Brendan Bartic:

She said the response rate is unparalleled and unbelievable. Now obviously email is a lot smarter, a lot easier, and a lot faster, and a lot quicker, but I think that what you're hearing there is just, yeah, you're connecting directly to someone and keeping the message so simple, and you're offering some sort of value. If you can do that it's [crosstalk 00:59:44]-

 

Todd Tramonte:

Well, one that we do this time of year, and I mentioned it a little bit earlier is it's just, "Hey, if you have..." You know, dear friends, family, whatever. "If you have any real estate goals this year at all I'm sure you've seen a million messages and are totally overwhelmed like everyone that we talk to. We've set aside every afternoon in January just to do some simple, free strategy sessions to understand your goals, help you set a timeline, get some clarity."

 

Todd Tramonte:

"If you want to buy or sell no great. Of course we'd love to help. If you're two, three years out that's great. We'd like to make sure the next two to three years aren't filled with uncertainty. If you'd like to jump on Zoom or swing by the office we'd be glad to buy you a drink. We'd love to connect either way even if you have no goals at all," right?

 

Todd Tramonte:

To Frank's point calm, no bull, even keeled. Like I said earlier the goal is just to connect, be the voice of reason, cut through all the overwhelm. Now there's better copywriting and there's better email systems, but if you'll just do something like that you'll build momentum rolling into next year.

 

Todd Tramonte:

That's why we use that, we've built out that January strategy session. Of course there's some layers to strategy but if all you did was just make the offer like Frank said, or the invite, and the more targeted to Brendan's point even better. But if you don't go to that trouble-

 

Brendan Bartic:

Todd what tech are you using besides Real Geeks?

 

Todd Tramonte:

I'll answer this with a little bit of a caveat. We have had Infusionsoft for like 11 years. If Real Geeks was as developed then as it is now we probably never would have added it.

 

Brendan Bartic:

[crosstalk 01:01:23].

 

Todd Tramonte:

But we've got multiple businesses built out in Infusionsoft so we still use it, but we use Real Geeks for everything front end. Once they're a past client we roll them into Infusionsoft. Then we do some coaching, consulting. Our radio show. Our publishing. We do some real estate agent publishing stuff over there too, but that's-

 

Brendan Bartic:

That's it. That's it.

 

Todd Tramonte:

... basically it, those two.

 

Brendan Bartic:

That's awesome.

 

Todd Tramonte:

We use some third party deals like CallFire and some stuff like that, but 99% of what we do is in Infusionsoft and Real Geeks. Primarily Real Geeks on the front end.

 

Frank Klesitz:

I want to thank you guys. I want to wrap this show up. We did a nice little predictions for 2021, 2022. Sorry. What we learned in 2021. What you're going to change in 2022 based upon what you learned this year. That was very helpful.

 

Frank Klesitz:

Then you also shared some of the major things you're going to double down know the needs of the market and where you're at in your businesses for next year to start planning. I want to thank everyone for watching this year the Keeping it Reals that we've done.

 

Frank Klesitz:

You can watch all the replays up on keepingitreal.com. You can also go to the Real Geeks Facebook page. I think we have these live in the group now. You can watch all the past replays. They're all there for you, searchable with write-ups to [inaudible 01:02:33] help you find the content that you want to solve the problems in your business.

 

Frank Klesitz:

We're going to take a couple weeks off. We're going to come back in the new year of 2022 with a whole new season. I want to say thank you so much for watching these and have a wonderful holiday and new year. Thanks everybody.

 

Todd Tramonte:

Merry Christmas everyone