So a lot of people believe that it's the end of the world, but I think it's just the beginning in real estate. And I've got my friend Mike Hickman here, CEO of Seven Gables, a killer company here in Orange County, personal client and friend. Mike, the end of the world, you know, commissions are going away, agents are going to leave the business, no one's going to know what to say, we're all going to die.
Exactly. Am I accurate? You're totally accurate. Not the answer I wanted.
But I like it more to the Twilight Zone. You remember the intro to the Twilight Zone? The music, yes. The music, that's what this feels like right now.
Leave it to your imagination. Yes. That's what everybody's doing because nobody has any real guidance.
Yeah. Unless they're training on it, unless they're scripting on it. Yeah.
Maybe not even scripting, just having conversations. So as we filmed this, yesterday in California, CAR or whatever, or not, the- California MLS is SoCal one. I don't know if the rest of the state did.
California Regional Multiple Listing Service. There you go. So your MLSs are all live. So yesterday, your 500 agents could not show a house to their mother if she wanted to see it without signing a buyer brokerage agreement. And by the way, that's a really good script.
So what are you telling your agents the day before on Monday, yesterday, and what are you telling them today? Because I guarantee there's some agents that are still like... what do we do and how do we do it?
And what do we say? It's real interesting, Tom, because here's the deal. We've been training on this for almost a year. I know. Okay.
So that made a big, big difference. Yes. So the introduction of no commissions in the MLS, my CRMLS, our local MLS, was like, okay, well, you knew what to do. Right. And I'm not bragging about that.
I don't mean it that way. No, you got ahead of the curve, man. That's called leadership.
We had to. And it goes way back to a conversation I had with a group I'm a member of, and we were at the NAR headquarters in Chicago, sitting in their boardroom. I'll just tell you this really quick story. Yeah, please. Because then we get to the substance you want to talk about.
And the attorneys from NAR came in and talked to us about the settlement. And I raised my hand. I said, can I just ask you a question? I know a little bit about the law.
And I said, gee, are you guys in any settlement discussions? And they said, absolutely not. This is in April of 2023. Yeah. And at that point in time, I looked around and I said, they're going to lose this lawsuit.
And they're going to lose it big time because they have this mental attitude of we can win anything. And they didn't. Yeah. We began training at that point in time saying, this is what's going to happen. Smart.
Smart. You knew then the decoupling of commissions. Yeah, exactly. We are 110%. We're going to win this lawsuit.
I thought, oh my God, are you kidding me? I'm reading the briefs. I've read the briefs prior to that discussion.
Yes. And they were just absolutely out of their minds. Yeah.
So you can, you know how I feel about my friends at NAR. So my call with Kevin Sears this afternoon should be interesting. Kevin, if you're watching, I appreciate you.
I can't wait to talk. Kevin's actually a good guy. He is.
He is a good guy. And he's got a terrible job in front of him. Yes, he does.
He has a struggle. Or he gets to be the bison and charge the storm and lead 1.5 million people through. Because, you know, those big shoulders, man, you just go right through it.
Reestablish the value of NAR. Do that, man. Right. But it's all on his shoulders and he's a good guy. He's a good guy.
All right. So let's, let's role play. You're one of your agents and I'm a consumer. You ready? Ooh, okay.
I'm ready. I'm putting him on the spot here. Okay.
Give me a shot. And you're going to make this difficult. I know.
So go ahead. No, I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it easy.
Uh, so I haven't trained anybody on this yet, so let's do this. Perfect. Ring, ring, ring. Hello.
Hi. Uh, I'm calling about the property in Irvine Terrace over off, uh, Sabrina. And I was, I was hoping I could see that. Is that, is that available for me to see sometime today?
No. I've gone yesterday. I'm joking with you, Tom, just to get you because you were too serious. It's a role play.
I wanted to have fun with you. Yeah. Sure. It's available to be seen today.
Wonderful. What time would you like to see it today? So we're flying out tonight at six.
I would like to see it sometime before like three o'clock today, if that's possible. Absolutely possible. However, I do have to check with the sellers to make sure that we can get an appointment.
The property is going to be in... Perfect condition for you to see. And I also have to talk to you about another issue that's just recently arisen in our industry.
It's an industry-wide change. Perhaps you've read about it. I don't know. But the media has talked a lot about it. That whole commission thing.
It's more about commissions. But there's also a lot more transparency. So we've embraced the change at Seven Gables. And I really think it's a positive for the consumer. So what that means, though, to you is in order to see the house, I have to have an agreement signed, mandated.
okay have to have an agreement signed for buyer representation i can make it specific to this property i can make it exclusive non-exclusive but we have to have this signed in order to tour the property okay does that sound to you um uh it's it's it's all new for me i don't really care i just want to see the house but but just since you brought it up what is this what is this agreement bind me to the agreement It binds you to the fact that I would be representing you for the purchase of this property, should you choose to go forward with it. It also binds you to pay a certain amount of fees, should you and I negotiate that in a way that you would be paying me as your broker to represent you. It may or may not happen, depending upon if the seller is offering potentially any negotiable commission to the buyer's agent, and that would be me in this particular case. And I can adjust that with an amendment to what we call, I'm going to use an acronym now, Mr. Ferry, called a BRBC. And that amendment could state that if I'm getting paid by the seller by any chance, because that's fully negotiable now, that you would not owe me anything, potentially, if the amounts are the same amount.
Okay. How does that sound to you? I mean, it sounds backwards from what I'm accustomed to in buying and selling real estate. But, you know, I have read a lot of the not a lot, but I'm somewhat familiar. My sister-in-law sells houses in Florida, so I've heard some grumblings.
But, look Send me what you want to send me. Let me take a quick look at it, but I really just want to see the house. So if you can get me in the house, um, if I don't like the house, I'm assuming I can rip up the agreement and it's, it's like, it's non-binding. You know what, Mr. Ferry, I'll rip up the agreement for you. Okay.
That's not how I want to operate my business. It's not how we operate our business. So this is about following the rules have been mandated for us in the industry of real estate. Okay. We believe strongly that the customers.
first. We're going to place your needs first before anything else. So if you want to rip up the agreement, I'll rip it up for you. I'll do it with you. How's that?
The main thing is to get you in the property, right? To bring you and the seller potentially, if you're interested, together to consummate a transaction of business. Love it. Do I have to sign it beforehand?
Can I sign it when I meet you at the door? What's the process? I'm fine with you signing it when you meet me at the door.
Okay. But we do have to talk about the fees involved. Okay.
Because that is an integral part of this agreement. Because it will state it on the first page or thereabouts, depending on which agreement we're using. And in addition to that, we have to talk about the length of it, whether it's exclusive or non-exclusive. OK.
And for me, and based on our conversation, I would advocate for you just signing it based on a fee to be paid to me only on this property and only for today or in the future of this property. Yeah. OK.
Sound reasonable? Yeah. Yeah.
I don't want to tie you to me unless I've earned your business. I love it. I love it.
That was really good. And I put them completely on the spot. So this was fun.
By the way, Lisa Chinati said to me the other day that one of the things she's most grateful for in our relationship. beyond, you know, coaching and insight and accountability and all the fun things we do. She goes, it's the introduction to Mike Hickman.
She loves you. All right. So let's reverse it.
I'll share with you what I did yesterday with the Smith group. So the person, because you said so many good things, let's just compare and contrast. And I was kind of formal in my conversation, you know.
You were. I would probably be a lot more relaxed if I knew the person or that would be that way. But I wanted to be formal from the standpoint, you can always relax off that.
Exactly. As opposed to being relaxed and trying to be more formal. 100%.
Okay. So you're the buyer, you and Pam are out looking at houses, ring, ring, ring. Hey, this is Tom.
How can I help you? Hey, I want to see this house at 123 Banana Street. Wonderful. Wonderful. Tell me your name, sir.
My name is Mike Hickman. Mike. Very nice to meet you. Mike, is that H-I-C-K-M-A-N? Got it.
Okay. And you want to see 1234 Banana Street. Outstanding. So that property is by appointment only. Um, what's your sense of timing?
Cause most, most properties like this, we need to give the seller at least 24 hours notice. I could probably get some wiggle room, but I'll need to make some calls. What's your timing? Well, I'd like to see it tonight before the sun goes down. Oh, that is beautiful.
Okay. Um, so Mike, uh, you're calling me on your cell phone. So I've got it in my phone.
This is the best number to reach you back at is the very best number. Just, just in case what's your email, la la la gmail.com. Wonderful. Are you by yourself or are you coming with somebody else? I'll be bringing somebody with me.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah, me two of us.
All right, sir. So, so Mike Hickman plus one and you want to see it at the sunset. That's going to be seven ish to see the house. Seven ish so we can spend some time there.
Okay. And I want to enjoy the sunset because I think this has a great view. Yeah.
I've driven by the house. It's a spectacular home. It's a spectacular home.
Hey Mike, so I need to bounce and try and get ahold of the listing agent and who's in my office. And then I'm going to try and get a hold of the seller as quickly as possible to make this happen for you. Okay.
Just in case. Are there any other houses you want to see? Because I've got time this afternoon. Are there any other properties you guys are looking at? Well, no, not necessarily.
We kind of focused in on this one, but do you have anything off market? So that's why I'm bringing it up because I was in a meeting this morning with a bunch of the best agents in the office and we all sort of share what we refer to as these off market properties. And there's actually two. One is kind of a fixer.
One is new construction. but it hasn't, it's like it's early stage. New construction hasn't been listed yet.
But if I could walk you through and show you both those, would that be of interest? Fixer? No.
The new construction? Yes. Okay. So no, I can plan down the road too.
That would work for me. A hundred percent. Okay. So let me, let me work my magic, get this done.
And then I will call you back in hopefully the next hour, hour and a half. Is that okay? If you could call me back in that time period, it'd be perfect.
Perfect. Plan my day out. All right, Mike, let me get to work.
I'll call you back. Click. And I hang up.
right so now i'm calling you back ring ring ring hello this is mike hey mike i have great news great news number one the seller said fine there's only one thing her daughter's here for summer so she'll probably be in her room so you won't see that one room but you're going to see the sunset i'm going to make it all dialed up for you um so so you plus one seven o'clock could we meet because the real good news is the developer is actually going to be at the property at 630. Now it's, you know, there's sticks up, you know, there's a, so, you know, we'll, we'll be sensitive and we'll be careful, but like you can actually talk to the person that's building the house. Would that be valuable for you? Super valuable.
All right. Okay. So I'm going to, so why don't we say 630, right at one, two, three, four banana street, and then we'll spend, you know, 30 minutes there. We'll take a look and then we'll go over to the other property. Now I'm curious, right.
Do you, do you guys live in the neighborhood? We do. We're not that far away.
Okay. All right. So, so, all right.
So That's good to know. Anybody else coming? I know you said plus one.
Not at this point. Now that we got it dialed up, you can bring a couple people if you like. Not at this point.
Just the two of us. All right, cool. That's good. So being somebody in California, looking at a property like this, I assume you're a pretty savvy business person. You're doing something in your life because otherwise, who else is looking at $7 million houses?
I'm curious, how much have you heard about all the new rules for buying and selling real estate that actually just went into effect? yesterday in California. Well, I read a few articles, you know, about it.
But, you know, here's the thing, Mr. Ferry, you know, and Tom, I'll call you that. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You know, I've read it, but the articles seem really slanted.
Yeah. And they really don't describe what's really taking place. Right. It seems a little bit journalistic to me.
Yeah. And they're talking about commission and I think there's more to it than that. Yeah. I mean, so obviously Mike, you're a, you're a savvy guy.
You're, you're reading through the lines. Like there's a friend of mine says headlines do more to terrify than to clarify. And so I can tell you as a licensed real estate broker here in California for the last 15 years, it really is a language change, a process change and a contract change. So I'll give you an example. So if my mom called me today and she said, Hey, I want you to show me the same house you want to look at.
I cannot. show my mother that house without her first signing an agreement. Could you imagine that?
No, no. It seems ridiculous to me. But that's part of it.
I mean-So that's part of the new way business is done. That's part of the new way. So it's a process change, right?
And it's a contract change. The language change, and this is where it gets unique. And this is really what, do you have a couple of minutes? Can we talk about this now? Sure, please.
Go ahead. All right. So, cause I got everything dialed up, right? It's one o'clock, we'll see each other at 6.30. So the first thing is I need to send you an agreement.
You can sign it. You know, when I meet you there face to face, you can sign it back to me in a doc sign, whatever you want to do. But, but it's kind of like Mike, I liken it to, um, you can go to the airport, but you can't get beyond the gate unless you have a ticket. Yeah.
And this is now the ticket, if you will, to see a property like it's, it's crazy, but it is what it is. So I'm going to send you that we'll sign it. There's two things inside this agreement that I want to point out to you. One is.
We now, when you're hiring a real estate agent, you're hiring them to represent you, right? To do the best possible transaction, to save you money on the deal. And we're also negotiating our fees. Now, what's interesting is yesterday I pulled a report of the MLS and 98.2% of every home listed for sale currently has a concession.
We would call it a commission paid to the buyer's agent. That would be me in the event that you guys wanted to buy this house. So you're going to see the agreement and the percentage that I charge that is based upon what we know is the market and based upon what I know is inside 97.8% of every property available for sale. Does that make sense? Makes sense to me.
But what else is in this contract? So, so one thing is, is how I get compensated, right? The second one is the terms of it. Okay. So, so I keep it really simple because Mike, you know, I'm a local guy.
You're a local guy. We haven't run into each other. We don't know each other. I don't have a relationship with you yet.
I got you a great property to see. I opened some doors. So here's what I do with my clients.
Even in the very beginning, I say, if my mom called me, I would say, listen, mom, you're going to sign an agreement. It's going to be for this day, for these two properties. And if you buy one of those two properties, then I get to represent you and I would get paid for representing you.
Does that make sense? Sure. That makes sense.
So here's the way I work. At the end of today, no matter what, I mean, if you guys decided to buy the house, wouldn't that be a dream? you guys would be excited. I'd be excited.
We would negotiate a deal and everybody's going to get what they want in the, in the event that you guys don't. My standard policy is I rip up the contract that day. Sounds good.
Why do you think I do that, Mike? Well, there's a number of reasons, but I'll leave that up to you. You tell me the simple truth is I haven't earned a relationship with you yet, right?
You don't know how much I do. Like I can tell you that in the last 13 transactions I've done. I have saved my buyer on average 3.97% of the purchase price.
And that is one of 26 things I negotiate for my customers when they buy a house. But that's, I'm getting ahead of myself. All you guys want to do is see the house. So can I stop you for a second here?
Because I want to ask you a question. Are you also going to represent the seller? No, no.
The seller, this is a listing inside of my office here at Banana. And so no, I will not be representing the seller. I'm only representing you. Does that make sense?
That makes sense. Cool. That's what I'm looking for.
So, so again, I don't want to bore you with all the details, but I do want to make sure you understand that it's for this property and the other property. Okay. And you're going to see the commission percentage that I charge, right? I know the developer is going to pay it unless he's changed his mind.
And I knew yesterday in the MLS, there was a concession available for someone like myself. And that's the number I put inside the fee. Does that make sense?
It makes sense. But I still have a couple of questions. Fire away. So what happens?
If I, if you and I negotiate a fee, okay. And we put this in this so-called contract you have, which I don't know anything about yet. I probably want to read or have my, have my attorney read.
Sure. Sure. And then, and then the seller is offering less money through some sort of compensation to you than what I'm obligated to pay you.
What happens then? You say to me, Tom, go negotiate your fee. Okay. That's good.
Yeah. So what it sounds like to me, Tom, as a broker in the industry, is that everything's becoming a little bit more transparent, a little bit more negotiable, and there's no set fee. You're talking like a real estate broker right now. No consumer is going to say that. I know, I know, I know.
Darn it. And I do want to say to the person that is… What I'm trying to get to is there's no set fees, and it's all negotiable. Right. Because if we start inserting set fees into things, then it violates the mandate that we're stuck with.
Correct. But in the agreement, you could say, I charge X. Absolutely.
It could be a dollar amount. It could be a percentage. And so let's talk about this.
I had Leo Prejo, who's been a longtime friend now, CEO of eXp. I was an investor in his first company and he's very into this as you are, right? So we're having this conversation around, let's say I want two bananas and the only concession is 1.8 bananas.
He's like, what's the rule? And I said, look, I tell my people, you take the 1.8 and you move on. Right. And he said, you can actually rip up that agreement, rewrite a new agreement.
And I'm like, I am not comfortable saying that. And, and here's what he said, you got to know your state rules and you got to know your company policies. And then I was like, he's like, you got to know your own values. Like, what are you going to do? So, so it's a, it's a weird one, right?
Cause I know the person listening is like, I've, I've literally sat Mike with a thousand people in a room. 980 whatever it was in sacramento and i'm like in this scenario how many of you would go back to your buyer and ask for more and about a third of the hands went up and i said and how many of you would say i'm going to take those bananas and i'm going to run and the rest of the hands went up and i said so it's an individual choice but it looks like at least in the state of california i don't know in every state so know your own state rules know your own state rules that's really know your own state rules and your company's rules and he was talking on a national level he's talking on a national level um Love Leo. So it's funny, Gino, you, Leo, I got like five more CEOs I'm interviewing in the next couple of weeks just to, cause it's going to be helpful.
So anyway, you decide. Can I bring up a scenario for you that is a real life scenario that may be interesting for some people to hear? It may kind of shock some people or scare some people. So I have some friends over in Arizona and their brokerage.
One of the top agents comes in and says, Hey, I just closed an escrow. Okay. I sold it for 2.5 million.
I collected 3%. Buyer called me and said, I want to see this house. Showed him the house.
Became good friends, good clients. Closed the escrow. Collected the 3% that was being offered.
They said, I want to list my house with you. I want to list my house with you, Tom. And the agent said, great. They said, but here's the deal.
I'm not going to pay you a commission, but I'm going to give you $10,000 for marketing fees. You give me the receipts. I'll pay for that. Would you take the listing? So if I hear you correctly-And I'm not asking you personally.
No, no, I know. No, no, no. I'm asking the people out here.
Would you take that list? At zero fee and they cover the marketing expense. Yes.
There is, Mike, if I lined up a thousand agents out my door, you're going to find one that's going to take that deal. Oh, for sure. Because they're going to sit in-You're going to find more than one. Yeah. Well, you and I both.
Yeah. But there's a lot of people that would take that deal. Would I recommend that to a client? No.
Would I say to a client who- If they said, Hey, this is what's happening. It's going to sell in two seconds. I'm going to hold an open house and I'm going to arbitrage this. Like I arbitrage Zillow or realtor or homes.com meeting.
I spend some money to then make a return on the money. And they're like, I want to get it because if anybody else gets it, it's a dent in my reputation in that farm. Right.
I might say, yes, I might say yes, but it's going to be, it's there's circumstances, circumstances. The reason I bring it, it's my mom. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Right.
But if it's some, and it's a client that's bought 10 houses from me, you know what I mean? Like there's always going to be a circumstance, but I think the vast majority of the person listening right now, like I want to know in the comments, what would you do in the comments? What would you do in that scenario?
And don't just say yes, no. Right. Don't say, oh, fairy, you're saying discount. No, I didn't say that. I'm just saying, what would you do?
And I'm just bringing it up, Tom. What did you recommend in this scenario? It's individual.
totally individual and depends on all the circumstances there's so much context there is a lot of content and i didn't provide any of that to begin with that's fair so it's a tough question but the point of it was and the reason i brought it up tom is because those are the questions that are starting to show up that we didn't we didn't think about i mean i didn't think about that honestly yeah and we're going to see some of that okay because this was a very savvy business guy over in scottsdale okay and he was buying a two and a half million dollar house selling a two million dollar house yeah so he was willing to pay the selling broker 3%, okay, offering out 3%, not a problem. He saw the value of a buyer's agent, okay, but he also thought he could incentivize his own agent, who was a listing agent, okay, who took the listing, by the way, and got just shunned by their whole office, right? Of course.
Shunned. They were criticized like crazy, right? To try to incentivize her to sell the property herself.
Yeah. So that was the flip side of that. And it's something that's just interesting in our industry because I hadn't contemplated that kind of a change.
It kind of juxtaposes the whole situation. The only thing I would, again, you and I both know, it's anecdotal until it becomes the zeitgeist. Like if that becomes the trend, then I'd be really nervous. I would agree.
But I don't see that on the list side. I don't see that. You and I, think about like the 2021 summit, you know, you and I are like, we're both like, everyone needs to list more houses, like Mike's company in Orange County.
is a dominant, like 55, 60% of the businesses listing sold versus buyer sales. Right. So like, like that's the model for me. If I was a real estate broker, like that's the model. And it's what I tell my agents, you want to be 70, 30, right?
Control your destiny, control your destiny, list more houses. So I want to, I want to give you what I'm telling people. And then you, you tell me where I'm right, where I'm wrong. Give me feedback, make it better. So here's what I'm saying.
Number one, you get any lead, any buyer that wants to see a house, you can get a house. It's a two-step every time, right? That you go, Hey, great.
Let me make sure. Let me clarify. Let me see if there's more.
Do you want to see more? Can I find you a pocket listing? Always first.
And I say, unless you're just a baller, which most people aren't right. Don't get into the contract stuff yet. Show up on the second call. Could be 20 minutes later.
Could be 30 minutes later at the confirmation call. That's when you want to say, has anybody, Hey, I found you this. I also got you this. You didn't ask for. I brought you more value immediately.
And I followed up on time as promised, which most people don't. So you're kind of stacking in my mind, the cool, right? Of value. Then you say, has anybody taken the time to show you?
Have you heard about the new rules? And you go through a little bit of that. So essentially, what are you doing? You're listing a buyer.
1,000%. Because there should be a two-step consult with a seller anyway, right? So that's how I look at it. Okay. I think it's spot on.
The answer to the question is absolutely. I don't care what your sales price is, right? It doesn't matter. So I made this comment yesterday and it's, and there's going to be some circumstances where, you know, right off the bat, they just want to see the house.
So it'd be fine. For sure. The premier way or the best way to do it is what you just described.
And again, if you think about it in a two-step, it is, it is, let me get you what you want. What I told this group yesterday with the Smith group is you have to remove barriers. People will buy when it's easy, when you're saving them time.
Like this is the, like, think about like the seven principles of influence, right? Like. I want to remove the barriers.
I want to make it as easy as possible. I want it to be fun. So I try and remove all that stuff in the first call, right?
I got you. I'm going to bring you value. Second one, I'm going to show up, give you something you didn't already have, some insight, some knowledge, another property, whatever it may be. So I'm like, Hey, I did extra for you. not just what you asked me right so i'm going to go above and beyond then i get into the stuff right get into that has anybody taken the time to show you have you read about what have you heard i don't want to tell them i want to listen and then you know properly say hey it's these one two three things the biggest challenge people are going to have tom and you know this as well as i do is listening really carefully to what the buyer's saying to them i agree and then eliminating those objections and the barriers okay you're hitting on my second one you're ready okay ready so the other thing i'm telling everybody is I think every agent in America should document conversations and questions with leads, with buyer consultations, with people you meet at open houses.
So the next time, like if you're 15, 16, 18 and deep, and you realize every buyer I meet brings up these two things, then you now know those are the two most important things that you need to charge the storm with, go right out, out of the gate. Mike, I've met with 25 clients since this new legislation has come in, and it seems to be these two things are the biggest issues. I want to share them, but I'm curious if they're yours.
One, two. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking about. Great. Let me tell you how we do it. Let me solve the problem for you.
It's conflict resolution 101. What do most people do? They run and hide. I want to go right at it, but you're not going to know unless you start documenting. So you can, you know, stat, story, you know, give an example and then make a prediction or close, right? If you give them the stat, 37 buyer consultations in the last 45 days, 99% of them brought up this one issue.
That's right. I'm curious. I'm curious. is going to know this. We're not going to know this.
Okay. For a while. Yeah.
And here's, for example, here's what we did. Yeah. We have an information hub. Yeah. FAQs, videos, you name it.
They're all there in detail and they can go back and refer to them, which is really good. And I know that other people are doing the same thing. For sure.
Basic stuff. For sure. But here's what I wanted to do. Not necessarily. Well, if they're not, they should be.
Yes. And so, but if you're siloed as an agent with your team or an individual agent, how do you do that? Yeah. So they should take notes, but what they got to do.
What they really have to do is go back and collaborate with people on their same level. Right. And say, and I don't care if it's across company lines.
Okay. You don't have to share ideas, but you can share techniques and share what's happening in this industry because collaboration will absolutely be key. So we plan that. For example, the first week of September, coming back after Labor Day, we plan for our top, okay, individual group of agents, get together again and say, now we're going to share. Yeah.
What have we learned in the first couple of weeks of this? Okay. Because the anecdotal evidence that will, I think it's going to show up in a certain pattern. Right.
I just have a hunch because it always does. Right. So when that pattern shows up, now we can look at best practices. We can look outside what other companies are doing for not so good practices.
Yeah. Okay. And unfair practices and things like that. And then we can adjust.
Yeah. Instead of trying to adjust now, let's embrace the changes. I don't need to create my own forms yet.
Yeah. Okay. Because I'm looking at all the forms.
I've looked at every company out there in all the forms and they're all trying to do something special. When on national level, they have their challenges. But on our level, you know, just local Southern California, it's a whole different ballgame. So we're going to look at it piece by piece come the first week of September. And I think we're going to get some really good intelligence out of it.
So my advice to people, what I recommend is make sure if you're siloed as an agent or a team, reach out to other teams. It's okay with other organizations too. We're all in the same industry.
We need to share the best practices to make us all better. That's right. That's right.
I'm not Pollyanna-ish here. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna-ish here. I'm trying to be smart about it because who ultimately pays us? Right. The consumer.
The customer. The customer. Yes.
So we've got to pay attention to what they're telling us. Yeah. I don't know.
Here's my third one. Okay. Third one. I think, so think about your 500 agents. If they could look back analytically.
being the key on the last thousand buyer transactions your company has done. And if you looked and said, where did we save the buyer money? And you literally made up a list and you said, Tom and Kathy Ferry bought this property.
The list price was X. We got them 90, you know, they, they wanted a hundred. We got it for them for $97. Okay.
You saved me 3%. 3%. Right. You with me?
It doesn't matter if the property was overpriced or not. You saved me 3% from the list price. So if you went through the 26 points of, you know, contract negotiations for, you know, did they get the furniture?
They're not get the furniture. Like all that stuff, everywhere you save the client money, the smart agents, the best ones that I'm working with right now, they're, they're not leading with it, but they're saying, so Mike, one of the advantages of working with us is we're really good negotiators. And what it's shocking to hear that right now we're averaging five and a half.
percent in savings for every one of our buyer clients. Right. Let me show you how we do it. Here's the, here's the 26 points.
How do you prove you're a good negotiator? Get certified. Thank you very much.
Certified negotiating experts. Yes. Get it done. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. And more.
Yes. But, but even that little badge, the badge is going to be helpful, but just, but just as a conversation, yeah, it maybe does it. I mean, if it kind of, it's not going to hurt examples where it has. Yeah.
It's not going to hurt. People have selected an agent in our company because they're a master. They have a certification in that. Yes. They said, we want you to represent us.
Okay. Take all that back. you should do it well no i'm not saying you're wrong no no no i'm not trying to be pollyannish but it does matter to some people yeah and where my mind goes is you have to be able to document your proof of how much money you're saving people and by definition that means you're a good negotiator so if you have it there you go you know what i mean like same thing we're on the same page right we want we want you to be more skilled and to be able to articulate the real everyone says bring value bring value bring value bring back how do you do it you open doors You showed up on time?
Turn on the lights? You had fresh breath? Yeah. Like what?
No. And you're really a good guy or a good woman? Yeah.
You're super funny. You took me to dinner. Thank you. Right? No.
No. Negotiate the best possible deal. Negotiate the best possible terms. Make this transaction easy for me. Make it smooth.
Make it enjoyable. Everyone focus on the... It's all the other stuff.
Right? So I don't know. Here's my... I'm not on a high horse. I just get excited about it.
No, you're not on a high horse at all. And that makes total sense, Tom. But here's my problem with value proposition.
Tell me. It doesn't take into account what a buyer values in their mind. Yeah.
Unless you ask the right questions. Everybody just starts spouting off of my value proposition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know your value proposition. Yeah.
I know your value proposition. Yes. Unless you can fine tune it to every individual buyer that's out there, it doesn't mean a darn thing.
Right, right. So you've got to find out through questioning. I don't care if you use some sort of Socratic method or whatever you want to call it. What's most important to you in this purchase?
Open enough, but it's a value elicitation question. That's right. Yeah. There's so many questions you can ask.
Yes. And people. we've got to we've got to stop what we've been doing okay we're gonna stop x company who just opens the door get you off the lead opens the door and says now i can get paid i don't know the first thing about the property the community the house or anything else i'm sorry you just no i love it no you don't think it you don't think it's like it's gonna be a year from now and you're not gonna be on a podcast again i'll be having a walk in the island or something and i'm gonna go mike agents are now pitching buyers the way they pitch listing preachers. They just pop the set in and go, here's what I do here. No, but like, but Hey, Hey, we do this.
We do this. We, I just sat with my, one of my financial planners every day. And she starts, she starts and, and, and this investment and it does this and it does this and it does this.
And she's all this language. I have no idea what she's talking about. I just sat there and I was like, Oh my God, agents in a year will be doing that with buyers and buyers love X's on their eyes. Yeah.
Because you're not paying attention to their modality, right? You're just doing the, here's my stuff. That's right.
You're just throwing up all over them with information instead of asking what they really value. What's most important to them? You have a saying, we all have a saying in our industry, know, like, and trust. I ask this group of people, wherever I speak all the time, what's the most important of those three?
And they go, well, trust. And I said, wrong. It's about knowing and liking.
You have to like somebody to get to know them, to trust them. Right. We get it all backwards. How do you, how do you like somebody?
You ask them questions and you build a relationship. It's so basically simple. I love it.
All right. So, so the world is not going to end. It's not going to end. It's going to get better. And a bunch of people are going to make billions.
And really everything you did is told him right here of my buddy, Jay Abrams, but getting everything you can out of all you got. So Mike, if they want to follow you, Mike Hickman on Instagram, Facebook, Facebook, are you still on Tik TOK and Snapchat? I'm not on either one of those.
I'm not on either one of those. No. And by the way, it was his birthday a couple of days ago. Thanks, man. Happy birthday.
Appreciate you. I can't wait to see you. Oh, dude, you know I love you.
All right. I'll see you next week. I'm waiting on Mushy right now on the podcast. Next week? Is it next week?
Two weeks from now. Two weeks from now. Two weeks from now. We're still doing that summit thing. All right.
That's right. Hey, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for watching. Connect with him on Instagram. If you need, like this guy is a wealth.
We could have been here for like five hours. And that still would not have even tapped into the top of the tip of the iceberg. All the real depth of Mike Hickman is down here.
All right. All right. Thank you, man.
Appreciate you. Enjoy the show. Give us comments.
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