the National Association of realtor settlement is going live in the US right now it may already be live in your Marketplace and today's episode is dedicated to the marketing mix that's going to move you your buyers your sellers your entire Marketplace and Community forward in the midst of new changes so welcome to this week in marketing every now and again when you host a podcast like this week in marketing you get a really special opportunity to interview a one-of-a-kind guest and what's more you get to interview them in their own office that's right today for this episode I have a super special guest the head coach himself Mr Tom Ferry thank you for coming on your own show thank you for coming to my office so actually thank you for coming with me what you don't know and you will see this is I hired another coach to work with me on branding not my business branding but on my personal branding and because I have so much respect for this guy I'm like Jason will you please come listen watch observe contribute help so thank you for being here in Orange County man thank you for I'm exed this now's with the settlement going into effect different markets have come live what settlement what are you talking about I think you know think the big settlement the one that's got some major changes and with those changes massive opportunities the conversation I want to have is with all the coaching sessions you're having with all the feedback from our coaches and all the sessions they're having with their clients we're getting real-time feedback from markets that are already going live and we're see folks are inating and adap and this moment in time to create a land grab toate more listings to also win better rapport with Buyers showcase their value proposition yet I don't know I scroll social media and I just see so much noise yes so much fear yeah and so the conversation I want to have today is from your perspective in a postsettlement world which we're all moving into that now uh depending upon when you're watching this episode what is the mindset what is the marketing what is the model I want to kind of jam around those three elements of winners who are going to embrace the change that is being changed in front of us right now sure so I think I think you need to start with what is your philosophy your your philosophy is like your personal belief it's your own ethos it's how you view the world some people might call your attitude um so you know you were by my side when the pandemic hit and I called you and said hey we're going to do this thing called pivot and look we don't know what this world is going to look like right we don't no like if you remember the we had no idea but we knew that things were going to change and we knew that our clients were going to have a different set of needs and we knew that we were could be a beacon for hope we could provide value and we said hey we're going to do like two shows a week and it turned into six shows a week a lot right and and what I mean by that is see this is a moment in time where you know when faced with crisis when faced with challenges with faced with disruption yeah my ethos is embrace it lean into it what's the opportunity here who can I serve how can I make a difference now you got to study you got to learn you have to understand you got to do your homework you got to dig in you got to not allow your biases to take over and and say well this is how it is right because I mean you know we sit in a world where we have to say well all 50 states are mostly the same but some are different right right and and I get access to every company's contract and they're all slightly different little and then you look at the MLS and the associations and they're slightly different and and you know one could Jason panic and many do one could freak out and we certainly have seen these emotional outbursts and and one could even write things in forums that they think are private and you and I both know you never write anything and you publicize it if you don't want it sometime in the future in the Wall Street Journal right in the New York Times or on someone's desk at the doj yeah so so I find myself and I I know you do too and I know the person listening does is that if you have the right mindset about this you understand that you are right now imagine um imagine you're out on a sailboat and you're trying to go from point A to point B and point a is where you stand today and point B is your goal it's the end of the year it's success it's whatever it looks like and inevitably the wind's going to change the tid's going to change and you might have some big waves you might experience some things that are uncomfortable but you know if you have a direction and in this case I hope the direction is do the best thing for the customer yeah if you just stay on do the best thing for the customer then you you don't find yourself in a panic yeah the Rough Waters might make you nervous yes the you know oh my God I got to you know pull this one down and I got to change this I got to make this course correct and we got to get ready for the wind you're going to go through all that stuff so I guess very simply what I would say to people getting started is um uh we've been talking about this we have since 2018 I know we really started talking about it in March of this year we've reached about 140,000 people between webinars and Live Events and everything else and and I think it's binary now I think there is a lot of people that are listening to this like n I'm going to pass because I already know and I love you for it and there's some that are like okay what do I need to do they just need a little more Assurance so I hope that today we can provide just a little more Assurance because here's what's going to happen by around October November this is is going to feel like May June July August September of 2020 during the pandemic because when you had to put a hazmat suit on and wear five masks and spray down everything and only let one person into an open house at a time and oh by the way did you have to sign new contracts oh that's right you did so we had process change we had contract change and we had language change and you know what you did you adjusted that's right and and guess what you will do cuz now we have a contract change and a process change and a language change and you will adjust so and so with the consumer the consumer adjusted before with you and so the same's going to be true here 100% did you see Christy jenss on the uh the two Thursdays ago show we did I missed the show but I caught up with her we had a long phone call talking about it OMG she did a case study of like three clients and and of how they're getting buyer brokage agreement signed they're in Phoenix Arizona it live August 1 right New Jersey went live August 1 my son Stephen just put a deal together in escrow and I was like did you get a buyer broker agreement he goes I thought that started on I'm like no it started he's like well the good news is I'm writing the offer we're going to get inside like I mean we're all going through it everybody's going to be okay you with me on this everybody's going to be okay so stop panicking think about the client acknowledge the three changes and just move forward that's my mindset I love that and when you think about the client respect the fact that they're going to want to move forward too and in fairis that was August 1 when my son did that so it was okay he wasn't bringing any law my son's like whoa you're throwing me out the bus it was the first day it's okay he got it signed and he got an offer that's right everybody's compant everybody that's right okay so I want to have a conversation mostly centered around the marketing aspects what are you seeing agents doing and I want to share some ideas and I want to brainstorm with you about what you're seeing that's moving the needle marketing wise that's going to help you you talked about this a second ago like you referenced when we pivoted during the pandemic and I can think back during those times and what I saw for the clients who really leaned in and figured out okay let's roll up my sleeves let's do the work we saw geometric growth unbelievable amounts of repeat and referral business unbelievable amounts of new client attraction because they were on the front line talking about the new rules and how to do it and that it's okay and they all leaned into we can do it safely we could save you time I could probably save you money and most importantly I'm going to get you the security you want which is the new home and you lean into the values that matter most to people no matter what's going on that's when people are like oh he gets me yeah she understands okay I want to move forward so yeah and I think from the consumer standpoint so I would say before or you can just start throwing marketing at a consumer you got to really take the time to understand the consumer and what they're feeling big time they probably have limited information and insight about what the settlement hey what is all this settlement news I hear about but you also have to consider the fact that for the last several years they've been struggling with affordability they've been struggling with in many cases low inventory or now there's not low inventory in certain markets and so not in every not in every Market not every Market Market it's it's polarized it just depends on the marketplace um so I guess the opportunity is to use this moment in time to really be I think the person who's speaking truth to what are the opportunities and what makes sense so where would you start if you're an agent today in the wake of the settlement where are you going to start with your marketing so I I think about the great Steve Harney uh you know calm down sit down think plan act right so so here's the good news if you're watching this and you're in the US there's I don't know 400 million people in the country like whatever that number is right if you're in Canada it's typically 10% of that if you're somewhere in Europe and you're watching this you're like I'm just listening to you crazy Americans of what you guys are dealing with all my friends in you know Mexico Latin America Australia Etc if you're in the US right here's here's the the way I would frame this is we're going to do about 3.9 million individual resale units this year right plus call it 8 900,000 new construction so we're going to get roughly to about 5 million transactions remember buy side sell side so you know that's the just just following the most recent n findings we could see an uptick we know in 2020 in an election year we're you know nine out of the last 11 years we're going to see an uptick but here's my point so let's say 5 million people right times two 10 million out of 400 million are going to buy and sell this year yep the rest of them don't really give a about it that's right they only care about it when either a they're about to start to transact and you may have got a phone call from someone that transacted with you a couple years ago saying do I get my commission back you know am I going to sue you now like I've literally heard that from clients right some of them they're past clients and it's kind like I sold them nine houses and they're like do I get all my money back because of this lawsuit like you know that stuff it's antidotal but it's happening so the first thing I would tell you is if I was thinking about social and I was thinking about marketing I would I would be very mindful of who is the audience that I'm messaging to so if I'm messaging let's say for example in email in text in phone calls to my followup to the X number of buyers that didn't didn't buy because the rates were too high and now they're coming down and I'm trying to R nurture them that's going to be a very different message like has anybody taken the time to share with you the new rules has anybody explained to you the importance of i' I'd be doing a lot of like educational helping them understand right because because huge they're in market right they're on Zillow they're on realtor they're on homes they're on whatever site they so like they're like they're active in the game and even if they by the way sales Cycles have increased dramatically we're doing a whole case study on this this year at the summit DJ and Lindsay the original one we did like we're looking at literally here's a client we just sold him a house we just put him in escrow they came in a azilla lead eight and a half years ago wow we called them 74 times we sent them 1100 email like it's just like we're like breaking it down and and I and I don't want to do the gram reveal but if they didn't follow up it's millions of dollars in commissions lost because most people are so immediate right now if they're not ready to do something now I'll get to them later and they never do so so back on the point if I'm thinking modality modality like where am I if I'm in market then that's going to be very educational and I would always as you would to go video first y then in text a lot of has anybody taken the time to explain the new rules has anybody shared with you the advantages you know how as a buyer if you've met with another agent were they able to articulate how much money they save you and if they haven't I want to share a case study of a recent buyer that I worked with uh Tom and Kathy I was able to help them negotiate in Market we're selling properties at 101% I was able to get them 99.2 saving them 1.9% differential which totaled $11,000 I was also able to you know negotiate this savings that savings this savings that savings and I find myself as a negotiator on my client's behalf averaging about $21,000 in savings on every trans action I do now why do I bring that up because everybody talks about value but how do you demonstrate it well the first thing you can do is show them how your negotiation skills saves them money right and wouldn't that be easier to say to somebody I charge Three Bananas four bananas eight bananas whatever you charge in terms of fees or structure to say let me share with you first how I save you money let my share with you for how I save you time let me how I make it more secure let me share all these things with you and if somebody hasn't taken the time to if someone is just going to show you houses yeah you know I don't know that's probably in the range you're going to be mad when I say this that sounds like uber fees right but if someone can articulate that they save me a lot ofone so again in Market modality I love that how are you gonna save me money How Are You Gonna Save Me time has anybody taken the time um has anybody if you're very analytical would you like someone to walk you through the contract has anybody showed you the opp options of depending upon your state because everyone's different you know a one party show agreement a one- day show agreement uh no risk signing an agreement like all these different options to to remove the barriers and make it easy right so so modality would be my first one thinking just followup so let me get your take on this do you think it's a good practice for an agent right now they've got their database they've got sphere of influence contacts they have past clients and as to your point before only a fraction of people are in market right now and so if you're really in Market you're not really paying attention their social feeds aren't as inundated with the news about the settlement as ours are they've heard little you know wonderings and little headlines about it and that's about it would you go on the offense would you reach out to your database your past clients and so forth and say you may have been hearing news about a settlement and I wonder if you be open-minded to a conversation about what that means for you in the event you choose to buy or sell down the road so so my hope is that everyone's already done that okay right I mean we talked about that very ear in March Alicia IG she she's like you should call your 25 to 30 best clients the ones that refer you a ton of business bought bought and sold you multiple times and you should just text them and say do you have two minutes for a business conversation and they're going to go yeah what's up you call and you go hey Jason just want to let you know um news is recently released and here's what's going on and this is what it means what questions you have now if you haven't done that you should do that I would say even if you did do that when it goes live is the okay the thing I told you about it's here now and so it's an opportunity to prime a conversation and make sure people are in the loop y I think another one too is never underestimate the power of surveys never underestimate the power of polls right like on Instagram and everything else um I look I I look broadly at let me res say this I am I am shocked by how many people create content in a vacuum based upon their biases versus asking their C what's on your mind like do you ever read the zeist you know it's an actual publish book right so so if you read the zeist it's kind of like uh I would liken it to maybe for my generation Mad Magazine maybe for your generation it could be South Park right like both those were the Ze guys they they Walt Disney studied Mad Magazine cover to cover because it was telling him what kids were thinking about as he was then creating products and services and solutions and and you know Parks right and park today as funny or controversial as that is for you once again it is pointing out the obvious stuff that's happening in our society that you're like oh that's what's going on well surveying is a maybe an easier way for you and I to to reach out to your clients do a survey monkey and just say have you heard about the recent lawsuit la la la settlement in real estate yes or no and then the next day you can say so I just published a survey and I asked 1400 of my clients would it shock you to hear that 82% of them had not even heard about the settlement I think the reason why and you tell your opinion about it I think the reason why is there's 4 a million people or whatever the number is in America and guess what only 10 million of them are actually in market so the vast majority of people you know what they're thinking about their lives their kids what's going on for summer what am I going to do on Labor Day do I have enough money you know what's who's going to be the next they're thinking about all that other stuff right so it's I think it's just understanding that and you and I know you can go really deep but I would survey like no more than three questions and I would go into chat GPT or Tom Ai and I would say I'm looking to do a survey of my past clients in sphere and I want to find out what they know so I can create interesting unique content right based upon interesting and unique questions about the lawsuit what do you recommend do you know what I like about that so one of the things that's a super popular technique on Instagram right now is the green screen so you see a lot of videos where in the background there's a news article and then you have a realtor reacting to it and and you and I both talk about this as a very good uh piece of content for your mix on social media sure the challenge is that we're only ever reacting to the news right what if we created our own news so what I like about your idea here is you have an endless source of insight that really is on the minds the minds and hearts of your actual people in your database and if you just ask them questions and then reacted to it the channels are the channels it's going to be email it's going to be text it's going to be calls it's going to be video and by the way with the news that's going on I don't know the answer in terms of in your database how many people have or haven't heard about the settlement I have no idea and and you don't either I you know what I love about that like that just immediately my mind just goes to think about the the next time you got in your preview property and you're like okay I looked at 15 houses right whatever the number is or you could say the last five houses that sold between 450 and 550 all of these three things in common right and the ones that are sitting on the market all these six things in common and it's it's more like you could create to your your own content that's I mean that's look look at what news does beyond Wars and crisis and all that all the nonsense stuff what are they doing they're like well we sent a reporter out to go figure out why do people put dice on podcast tables and we discover that 84% of all podcasters now have a die on their desk and that's their news new right because you have to fill the void of 24 hours a day seven days a week so so that's a really good Insight on your part that they should be creating news and again you could do it vicariously through what you do every single day well I give the credit back to the idea of the survey I believe it should be a I mean research and development We Now call it ripoff and duplicate but research and development is a standard part of any business and so I would wonder and I know I know that folks are busy and there's a lot going on and there's a lot of noise and it's hard to know the information from the disinformation I understand that but I think it would be a lot of clarity for maybe your business your solo agent your a team to cond your own survey of your own cents and form your own conclusions based what they're telling you and your own experience in the field because I think a lot of people like hey tell me what to say what do I do about this what about this well that depends have you talked to your people so here's another one ready why don't you take this is again we're just brainstorming here this this is actually not a brainstorm I've taught this for years and I only know a few people that have done it and they've all killed it so I'll give you two one is every buyer presentation you go on right every every C every time you show houses or every buyer consultation picked both yep what were the insights what were the questions that they asked at the end of every showing what were the insights or what the questions that they asked after every buyer consultation so all of a sudden you're 1520 deep and you've got this list of notes and you put it into Tom Ai and you say what do they all have in common and they're like they all ask eight these eight questions well wouldn't that then give you eight pieces of content wouldn't that alter how you open and create attention in your buyer consultation I know you want to talk about buying your home today and your dream upon I want to let you know though I've gone on 73 buyer consultations the last 12 months there were eight things that stood out for every person 1 two 3 four five six like and now they're like whoa and you do the same thing on listing presentations right and the the point is like the the content is everywhere now I got to give you a shout out are you are you the one that gave Jackie the Insight on Tom AI in the news feed to then say what what content do you want to create with this it was a collaborative act it was collaborative between us okay you'll see this in the future so Brandon ready you're on Tom Ai and it's like you know one of the one of the left tabs is like here's what's happening in the real estate news right so you got all these news articles in front of you and it's local and it's National but then the Insight was want to use one of these to you create content right do you want a social post do you want and I was like that's because that's look if you want to be the knowledge broker you got idea action idea to action yeah you got to fill in the gaps I would also say going back to and you're just making my my brain turned a little bit here again the folks in your database aren't looking at settlement news headlines all day every day they're not in fact I'm willing to bet they're more concerned with the issues that you truly support them through they're dealing with affordability they are dealing with uh that's not my dream home and working through the normal steps of buying or selling a house and so I think if you really pay attention to your last point about what are the questions they're really bringing up I'm willing to bet that they're not bringing up the settlement to the frequency they're bringing up other issues that are much more common and and there in lies the like again if you're not surveying your clients and and getting just insights did you see the listing leads um uh the letter Jimmy yeah the you know I recently asked all my clients their their the cost of their home is now up 26% y in the last 12 months or four I I don't want to you know whatever you know but like that email I was like Hey Cath how much is it I immediately turned to my wife and I'm like this is a company that I own and I'm like that's like it was provocative I was like man if my costs have gone up 26% to maintain my home and I'm like my income's not up 26% and we know inflation is real we know that everybody people are dealing with this and we know it's a wide variety of pain points for people around the world so I'm not making light of it but it was a real like that's a tapping into the Zeitgeist yes right everything is more expensive is it time to cash out so could we say it like this like that was it was insane if you're doing regular research of your own database about their needs and understanding The Mad Magazine so to speak understanding what's happening within your own sphere your own database what they care about then marketing is simply using channels to talk about that and giving insight and instruction those channels are it's social media it's video it's Direct Mail doesn't matter which one it is so long as you have the ability to inform and influence an audience about what they need to know should they decide they're going to buy or sell or invest or refer I love that idea can I make a recommendation yeah I think you um I would I would encourage and I would even challenge you to start talking about distribution okay distribution so so you know I I've listened to like I don't know 175 uh podcasts by David senra and what I look broadly at every business I've ever started every business I've ever invested in so David senra Founders podcast big shout out to David like when I listen to all these like incredible businesses they all have a bunch of things in common they all have a great product they all have a great management methodology they've all figured out an addressable Market figured out product Market fit but none of that matters if you don't get distribution right right like I'm involved in this little wine company if we don't have distribution doesn't matter how good the juice is got 99 on four years back toback on a Cabernet no one knows about it we just signed a distribution deal everyone's going to know so think about your marketing as distribution how do you get the word out so so in the wine business we talk about um points of sale POS right so how many points of sale do we have we're like I'm so I'm literally talking to my partner who's like a genius in this industry and I'm like so Chris that's our meeting today at five o'clock by the way um okay Chris so so how many P's do we have right now and he's like well we're at like 2200 for the tequila and we're at like 4,000 for the bourbon and we're like 15 for the wine I'm like 15 we're never going to sell any wine like you have 15 points of sale for your business you're never going to generate any leads you're never gonna think points of sale is every house that you you could Market to that's a point of sale yeah right but we talk about channels we talk about you know uh prospecting phone calls open houses doing Instagram doing Facebook doing meta doing and and the audacity for people to think that they could be myopic and say but I only like one two or three I want to lovingly grab you by the shoulders and say good squeeze the stress ball squeeze the stress D are you open openminded because I don't care how the person finds me I just care that the person finds me so I'm not going to have any biases so so I think just distribution you the way mind works like if you start thinking like broadly distribution and the way every other industry does distribution why why does every major real estate company have an office why why does anywhere have seven different brands right distribution why do those brands have hundreds or tens or thousands of offices sometimes in comp distribution why do they want to have 300,000 agents distribution why do agents want to have an email database distribution it's the whole game I think we almost need to stop talking about marketing well I'm kiding I think a witty respon we to that this week and distribution this week in distribution I can't wait to see the logo for that so I've been thinking about this I've been thinking about uh the difference between an audience and ads and that might sound funky but a lot of people a lot of marketers they'll just CTA The Living Daylights out of an ad like there's so many how do I frame this a lot of people have a Yellow Pages mentality Y where if I can just put my big sign that says I'm over here hire me at 555 5555 then I'll get my conversion ratio of whatever that number is and make sure you do a AA cuz then you're the first of that that's right absolutely there's G to be someone that's like 30 who has no idea no idea yellow page is huh as far back as I go as the yellow page is but when you're cultivating an audience if you think about your sphere if you think about your database if you think about your farm if you think about your email list if you think about the people who've already opted in to listen to your perspective because they see thought leadership and they're subscribing to that those are the people that you're going to distribute your your knowledge to so when I think about distribution what's being distributed yes I would argue you're Distributing your knowledge and insight about a Marketplace because you're providing a service that helps guide people into Mak the smartest decisions about buying and sing and a lot of agents and I'm being a little bit this is probably a little bit too snarky but a lot of folks find themselves in a position of I just want to work with buyers and sellers where are they at come to me but that's not how it works God I wish it I wish it was easy I wish it was easy like that but you don't just print buyers and sellers instead you win them over you can you just pay 35 to 42% off the top yeah and you have to have immediate Rapport if if you're lucky enough to get the account yeah yeah yeah and you have to have immediate Rapport and high conversion skills and be ready for a lot of okay can I can I challenge you on that you're saying you know I'm Distributing my message I I think distribution so I think that's messaging I think that's marketing right distribution is is every way that I get to their house so the channels that I get in front of their eyes right it's the reason why if somebody calls me and says hey like I'm I'm really successful in my Marketplace I'm thinking about Billboards I'm like yeah you should do it right like really I'm like yeah by the way do people go to movies in your town like I know it's not as cool to go to movies anymore I wish it would come back because I'm a big movie fan but like and now they finally have comfy chairs right all the drinks and food and Sushi which I don't know about sushi to whatever but that's my own why they hold out right but but even like going to the movie theater and seeing a really compelling interesting ad with a QR code for a real estate agent I'm like yeah the fars do that far group Northwest they run movie theater ads so that's a that's a point of sale that's a point of distribution right now now the message that's the content that's the marketing that's bu so so I'm talking about like distribution broadly is like all the ways that you can get in front of customers all right so I'm going to geek out for a second so there's a term in marketing called integrated marketing integrated marketing means when you're working your marketing message through all the different channels that there's an alignment between the channels correct so you don't feel like it's multiple different story lines that are completely disconnected so it needs to be connected distribution y we've talked about on the show before one of podcast in Psychology there's a term called The Frequency illusion yeah and what the frequency illusion says in a marketing context is that when a customer sees your messaging in an email on Facebook and then they get the postcard and they receive it across multiple different channels that it creates an illusion that they are seeing and hearing from you more frequently than they really are and so people ask me the question pretty often hey what's the number one marketing channel to invest in and I'm like well by only investing in one channel you're actually making that one channel cost more than it would if you if you invested in multiple channels so I think when you're talking about distribution it's almost this encirclement element how do I encircle the Mind chair of my Marketplace so I can really have influence right on what they need to know that would give them information to make informed choices go and I think I think in terms of ctas if you take the time to do the research and find out what do your people care about where where are they at and then you're like well I know how to solve that I know how to mitigate that you just found your CTA because you can solve that Gap you can close that gap for them and that becomes whatever your email is and your postcard is and everything is and so I guess my big takeaway which I wasn't intending on getting here today yeah but if you invest was there an agenda mindset model marketing okay that's right I was just I was like I'm talking to Tom Ferry we're gonna go wherever we go yes I think if you take the time today to say I'm going to not be defensive and reactive to what's happening in the landscape of the lawsuit and I'm going to be openminded about how many opportunities are going to exist because if everybody else who's being defensive and reactive MH and I'm going to instead of being worried I'm going to listen to the needs of my customers and if I can just understand where they're at and what they care about and then I can solve those problems you're going to crush it what are you writing I have two thoughts first I have to say um I am so proud of you you are so smart you I mean you're so no but I mean you're so well vers it just just thank you just thank you thank you thank you know what I mean like for the community like I don't know if there was a way for everybody on the podcast to to clap just thank you thank thank you um there there's a like button and a subscribe button you can hit that there we go there we go um but but but it made me think while you were saying that was like think about this the the pain point if you look at your buyer brokerage contract if you look at your new listing contract there's going to be two or three things in that contract that are going to cause buyers and sellers to pause and say what does that mean yeah like that to me feels like an opportunity to create a real spicy piece of content that said you know to again modality I'm going back to all the bu all the buyers I'm working with or just you know leads or even at an open houses I would literally be like you know hey if you're thinking about you know sign you know buying a house today or whatever the opening is La La but what I want to get to is like but the thing you really need to be cautious about is number three s and 12 if the agent can't properly explained 37 and 12 just ask him about it I I'm even something like that that like would cause people to be like what's 37 and 12 you I mean like tell me more about that like what is it like and and there's probably and you'll figure out like five better ways to present that but like I just think to myself like there's just something about someone that gives me insight and Insider scoop Insider baseball like you know avoid this right or hey just be cautious number three is kind of spicy like make sure you really read the details you with me like I think there's something there and and wouldn't it be cool if an agent actually went live on meta or YouTube and said today I'm going to read you the new Texas buyer brokerage agreement I love that and I'm going to go through it with an attorney my attorney over here and my escro officer over here and we're going to unpack because there's some parts that even I don't understand and I've been selling real estate for 38 years and you literally do live show and then the clips that would come out of that would be insane the the fact you'd put that on there like buyer beware watch this before you like there's so many things like you can just be creative and turn like this like the pandemic into what became prosperity and I know that could sound weird for many people but I'm thinking about the real estate market specifically not you know people that pass um but the same thing here we've got this crisis that you know this conflict this contract change right that could just create so much abundance if you just thought through what's on the minds of the customers how do I solve their problems how do I stop thinking about myself and just think about them well and I think if you operate from a position of okay what do I believe yeah I believe that I perform a valuable service in the scope of this transaction and I don't need to be worried about it yeah if I'm fearful I'm going to be eliminated that's going to show up and it's going to kill my curiosity I mean we could talk all day about this cuz I've had so many ideas just of the Curiosity I love the idea of looking at the contract and creating content around that my I'll be honest with you I'm imagining a green screen but I'm not sure that's copyright okay to I don't think that it is especially if you're in California it just heads up by the way it's not long enough because the contract's like 48 pages long SW swipe it's a carousel in God bless California oh fun times how much of this are we going to get into in terms of the mindset the marketing the model at Summit of the top performing agent going into the new normal of this real estate environment so this is going to be a very different Summit um I'm pausing because I'm not sure if I want to reveal everything but I'll give you I I'll I'll share with you there is a sub theme that that's sort of the underlying talking points of the summit and and here's sort of my hypothesis that having been in business now for like almost three and a half decades and having started a lot of companies invested in a lot of companies had a lot of winers had a lot of losers learned a lot of lessons the way you study marketing I study business right I'm I'm a huge history fan I like to understand the sausage making of why that product worked what was it going on at that time what why in the 70s or the 60s did Volkswagen literally start running ads saying like small is the new cool when every car in the 70s were like these big muscle cars and they were like compact is the new cool right 180 degree Theory exactly like I love that stuff so knowing the data points knowing that nine of the last 11 presidential elections we had a surge in transactions knowing that and I don't want to miss quote I think it was like seven of the last eight interest rates have come down and they already have started theyve started and and they will continue and if they get to anything near 5.99 the wheels come off right and and the reason why just to be clear my hypothesis is um every home seller that wants to sell is 200 basis points away from their existing mortgage to the new mortgage they're going to get okay and if I can if I can manage that Delta then I can take this massive Equity Rich situation and I can move to the thing that I want to move to that's right right so so you know whether it's 100 or 200 or 250 like time will tell um but I just believe that wholeheartedly and then if you look at the third slide from KCM which is the study of what happens post an election cycle to home prices they go up now now put in the mix the very real reality that we're already in a recession we've been in a recession for 18 months like is any is everybody clear on that like when you change the definition of a recession we're not in one but the actual definition we're in one yeah now I'm not judging politics they're just doing what they do like I really don't give a I made money under every president I will continue to do so because I pivot like you and I make changes and I serve my clients with that said you've got those three things and a recession if you go back and look at this the study of recessions um again KCM will have this go to tomferry.com or go to try ccm.com tomf or just go to KCM figure it out it's there and it's the study of the last six or seven recessions home prices went up except for two one was 1991 1992 right and so we saw like a 3% decrease across the country 3% is nothing right it's significant when you're a homeowner you're trying to sell I get it but it's nothing in in the grand scheme of it yeah and surprise surprise 789 20789 home price went down but every other recession home prices go up so so the message that I want to share with people is you can look at this one of two ways oh my God you know we're in a recession you know interest rates are still weird we got all these contract changes or you can go everything in front of me says I need to be thinking bigger right now yeah this is this is a time of prosperity this is a time of opportunity the the buyer pool is still what it is the seller pool is what it is but the number of Agents actually Selling Houses has compressed dramatically and I'm going to share all the numbers right now for all my Canadian friends you know it's hard to get the data with you guys Mexico forget it Europe Beyond forget it but the US for whatever reason we can access the data MLS by MLS yeah transaction count buy side listing side and when I reveal that data first a lot of our clients are going to be like this oh I'm actually doing better than I thought right like I I know I'm a loser and I only sold 22 houses and I'm like uh I'm hot stuff you're in the top 7% of your MLS congratulations right and and again this is not a knock on the people that are not as committed as you this is not a knock on the people that that you know this isn't their full-time thing or they it's their it's it's I retired and I'm just going to sell a house now it's not a knock on them but what we're seeing is this compression of the very best and their ability to move beyond the immediate and start forecasting ing for the 100 days after the summit for all of what 2025 can unfold now could there be a Black Swan moment 1,00% but I would like to air on the side of ambition I'd like to air on the side of more I'd like to air on the side of being more opportunistic not pauliana I don't want to be the I want to be the center for the Lakers but I'm 54 and I'm six foot and I can't play basketball so like it's not that it's not like I'm going to go 20x my business no you know what I'm going to look at the addressable Market my area I'm going to look at the competition I'm going to look at my existing distribution I'm going to look at my existing marketing and I'm going to make three to five macro or micro adjustments they're going to get me more reach more message more appointments more appointments equals more contracts equals more satisfied clients winter winter chicken dinner I think 2025 not for all but for a lot Y is going to be a banner year not for everybody what do you think is going to be the difference it's it's going to start first with their mindset it's it's what we started with what's your psychology what's your ethos what do you believe to be true I was I'm not going to give you the numbers but I was texting with our our client Ken posac yesterday yes Kenny sh Kenny Ken is having an absolute record year he's having his best year ever best year ever no one told him that the rates were really high and inflation was here and interest rates were crazy and no I guess he didn't get the memo no he just wanted to serve more people and aler more value right and and so I I think that is you can call it Kool-Aid you can call it Hokum you can call it whatever you want but if you can't get your head into a space of seeing opportunity then you are blind to the possibilities of what could be in front of you because the reality is whatever you believe it to be and so if you're just saying oh well we saw compression on b side commissions already I saw the headlines yeah but what you're not looking at is what about how many sides what about how big it gets right by by the way commissions will go down yeah just not for you exactly right listen commissions will go down because weak agents who don't know what to say who can't say let me show you how much money I'm going to save you is anybody taking the time to show you Bingo they will do it for Less so so count on seeing the averages if we ever get that data again count on seeing that go down but that doesn't mean it's going down for you like I'm telling him my best he's like hey let's just again if you're listening to the audio my hand is in the middle my hand is dropping below the middle and my hand is going above the middle if you're watching on video I say you better very quickly realize what is the market Market average right because you're for it to be the average that means agents do it down here and that means some do it up here so there's always going to be the need for a Ritz Carlton in the market right and a Motel 6 and a Marriott who sits in the middle and I think marott actually owns all three of those companies they're a really Good's a lesson in that too right so so the question is you have to ask yourself who am I serving and what level of service am I going to provide and how am I positioning myself and I know you're going to talk about brand and you and I are about to go do a branding thing and brand is very much on my mind right now so if you wanted to ask me what's the other degree of separation those with a brand when they do their marketing it just gets Amplified like crazy people without a brand do marketing they're going to get a percentage but it's not as high it's just not as high so so I know we're gonna do a lot in the fourth quarter on brand I know you're doing a lot at your events with brand I'm going to start talking about brand way more and again we're not talking about like your new brochure it's way more than that it's your positioning it's your storytelling it's it's how you want to be the positioned in the market place as the agent of this area that area about these points about this whatever we're gonna get into all that stuff brand I love it brand I lost my point on the other idea well okay so I get too excited okay so we what happens when he just says hey I know we're in the middle of a meee you want to do a podcast like sure this is what happen do we have an agenda no okay my bra's like okay how do I align this yes okay so so the Summit is going to be awesome and it's going to be on August 27th through the 29th and Hey listen if you're watching this and it's not August 27th 28th or 29th it's not too late to get your ticket to Dallas uh we'll put a link in the description so they can jump over there it's going to be the event of the year it always is but this is going to be I think I'm gonna I'm going to dare say the most important Summit at least for as long as I've been with this organization which has been eight years because of what's happening right now and for all the people that don't like me that are watching this cuz they love you I'm only on stage for 6 hours you want to know why because when we sat in Jackson Hole with all these brilliant people we we looked at all of the problems that were happening in the market and then we picked experts for each one of them and I'm going to do my thing and then it's just expert expert expert expert expert expert expert but it has a nice theme to it like it's like a nice roller coaster experience it's not janky like when you go to some conferences and they just thrw on another person you're like I'm now confused from the last one they all connect it's kind of like integrated marketing oh kind of like that there people like I don't remember him saying that yes I remember that's when I was like he's smart yeah I just heard it in class one day somebody brought it up maybe I maybe I should have gone to class maybe I didn't think worked out that I never went I think it worked out too I think it I think it prepared you for an entrepreneurial spirit that is exactly right well Tom thank you for coming on my show on your channel we should do this more often we should do this more often until next week this is this week and marketting [Music]