YAPClassic: Ryan Serhant, Close More Deals with These Proven Sales Strategies

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0:01:10 (upbeat music)
0:01:21 Hey, young in-profitters.
0:01:23 Do you have big money energy?
0:01:25 I know I certainly do.
0:01:28 And if you do too, you’re gonna love today’s episode.
0:01:31 I’m replaying episode 59 of the podcast
0:01:32 with Ryan Serhant.
0:01:35 Ryan is one of the most successful real estate brokers
0:01:36 in the world.
0:01:39 He’s the founder and CEO of Serhant,
0:01:40 a brokerage at the intersection
0:01:43 of media, entertainment and technology.
0:01:45 He’s also an entrepreneur, best-selling author
0:01:46 and star of TV shows,
0:01:49 Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York
0:01:51 and Owning Manhattan on Netflix.
0:01:53 In this episode you’re about to listen to,
0:01:54 we go deep on sales.
0:01:57 Something that Ryan is incredible at.
0:01:59 We learn the power of the follow-up
0:02:02 and Ryan shares the secret sauce to his sales success,
0:02:03 his three Fs.
0:02:05 Following up, following through
0:02:07 and following back with clients.
0:02:10 In fact, Ryan once closed an $8 million deal
0:02:13 just because he kept following up.
0:02:16 Ryan really opened my eyes in this conversation
0:02:18 and helped me reframe how I think about sales
0:02:22 with ideas like sales is the transfer of enthusiasm
0:02:25 and showing up is 75% of the battle.
0:02:26 He’s so good at what he does,
0:02:29 I can’t wait for you to hear this.
0:02:31 If you want more from Ryan after this,
0:02:33 check out my second conversation with him,
0:02:35 episode 281, where I spoke about
0:02:37 his three-part strategy to branding.
0:02:39 I’ll put the link in the show notes.
0:02:40 For now, I can’t wait for you guys
0:02:42 to learn from Ryan about sales,
0:02:44 so let’s jump right into it.
0:02:50 – Hey Ryan, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:02:51 – Thank you for having me.
0:02:52 I’m so happy you’re here.
0:02:56 It’s not often that I get to interview a fellow New Yorker.
0:02:56 – Oh, really?
0:02:57 – Yeah.
0:03:01 So tell me, how did you decide to start living New York
0:03:03 and starting your family here in New York?
0:03:06 – Oh man, why New York City?
0:03:08 I graduated college in upstate New York
0:03:12 and I came here in 2006 with the little money saved up
0:03:13 ’cause I wanted to do theater
0:03:16 and I had never been to the West Coast really,
0:03:17 so I didn’t want to go to LA
0:03:21 and New York seemed like the best place to do that.
0:03:23 I got an apartment with two of my roommates
0:03:26 and we made a one bedroom into a three bedroom
0:03:30 on 66th and first and now I’m just still here.
0:03:32 – Oh, so it’s just my chance that you’re here.
0:03:34 – Yeah, I mean, listen, New York is,
0:03:35 and I say this all the time,
0:03:38 like I owe my life to New York City.
0:03:40 I mean, I owe my life to my mom,
0:03:42 but second to my mom, I owe my life to New York City
0:03:44 because without New York,
0:03:46 I wouldn’t have had all of the different opportunities
0:03:49 that I had ’cause I went from being like in the same city
0:03:51 on the same exact block.
0:03:55 I was passing out flyers, hand modeling,
0:03:58 modeling pants, doing a free piece of theater
0:04:01 and renting apartments at the same exact time
0:04:03 and meeting really, really, really interesting,
0:04:06 intellectually curious people across the street.
0:04:07 And you can do it all in New York City
0:04:09 because it’s a melting pot.
0:04:11 Everybody is here and there’s unlimited,
0:04:14 unlimited opportunity in this city.
0:04:16 So I thank New York every day.
0:04:18 – Yeah, New York is amazing, land of opportunity.
0:04:20 I totally agree.
0:04:22 You started off your career in New York City,
0:04:25 like you mentioned, you were a real estate agent,
0:04:29 only because your acting didn’t really work out right away.
0:04:33 I know that you got killed off of a soap series,
0:04:35 and you started off as an actor,
0:04:38 and then you went into real estate in your 20s,
0:04:41 and essentially you got this casting call
0:04:43 for a million-dollar listing, or you found out about it,
0:04:45 and you ended up auditioning for them,
0:04:48 and you got the part amongst thousands of other people
0:04:49 who tried out, right?
0:04:52 So tell me about that point in your life.
0:04:54 What was it like leading up to that point
0:04:56 where you got that information about that audition,
0:04:59 and how did you just take the plunge to go do it?
0:05:01 Even though you were just starting out,
0:05:03 you really weren’t an established real estate agent
0:05:05 at that point from my understanding.
0:05:07 – Oh yeah, no way.
0:05:08 It’s funny, right after you graduate,
0:05:12 you kind of don’t feel like you’re an adult yet.
0:05:15 It’s like this extended summer job that just keeps going.
0:05:17 And because I didn’t go to grad school
0:05:19 or go get a real job,
0:05:21 you know, I was just living off of savings,
0:05:24 which I’d done for the past four years in college anyway,
0:05:26 and I was making ends meet by doing odd jobs
0:05:31 and doing the soap opera for 500 bucks an episode type thing,
0:05:35 and it never really felt like, oh wow, I’m grown up,
0:05:36 I’m an adult, and now I’m in New York City,
0:05:39 and I have to pay bills and taxes and have my life.
0:05:42 Like it all just sort of slowly happens.
0:05:43 But I put acting to the side
0:05:44 because I just wasn’t happy anymore.
0:05:47 The business of being an actor in New York City
0:05:50 is brutal on your mental well-being, you know?
0:05:52 It’s just hard, like in you,
0:05:56 and I would see actors who were twice my age, you know,
0:05:59 in their 40s and 50s and 60s
0:06:01 who were still trying for their big break,
0:06:04 and they were still waiting tables or bartending
0:06:08 the same way they did when they were 19 or 20,
0:06:10 and it just, life goes on, you know?
0:06:13 And you get comfortable with that monthly budget you got,
0:06:14 and you get comfortable with that job,
0:06:18 and then, before you know it, 20 or 30 years flashes by,
0:06:21 and I was so terrified that that was gonna happen,
0:06:23 that I said, you know what, I gotta make something happen,
0:06:25 so I’m either gonna go to law school,
0:06:27 which I tried and totally bombed the LSAT,
0:06:30 or a friend told me, get your real estate license.
0:06:31 It’s basically acting.
0:06:33 You just have to turn it on with everybody,
0:06:36 and you memorize information about buildings and apartments,
0:06:38 and then just walk into apartments,
0:06:41 talk about how awesome they are, and that’s basically it.
0:06:43 I was like, that sounds stupid.
0:06:45 And so I got my real estate license,
0:06:46 and I was just doing rentals,
0:06:48 and so I put acting to the side,
0:06:50 even though I’d trained to do it my whole life,
0:06:53 so it was kind of like, oh man, failure.
0:06:56 Now I’m a rental real estate agent in Koreatown,
0:06:59 in New York City, like, is this why I went to college?
0:07:01 And then there was a casting call from a new listing
0:07:02 that said they were looking for the best real estate agents
0:07:05 under the age of 35, come to an open call,
0:07:08 basically at the Hudson Hotel in Times Square,
0:07:10 and I went with 3,000 people,
0:07:12 and until I went to that audition,
0:07:15 I basically was kind of treating real estate
0:07:19 almost like my make ends meet business.
0:07:22 I wanna be able to figure out how to pay rent,
0:07:24 and not be stressed about money all the time,
0:07:27 and make my own hours, and I was still,
0:07:29 I was kind of like in a limbo period, I guess I could say,
0:07:31 up until I got cast on the show.
0:07:35 Yeah, set the stage in terms of how successful you are today.
0:07:37 Let’s talk in terms of numbers.
0:07:42 I don’t know, I work 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
0:07:44 I don’t know if that’s really successful,
0:07:45 or if that’s terrible,
0:07:48 because there’s a big price to pay, right, with success.
0:07:54 I would say that I sell about 2.7 to 2.8 million dollars
0:07:56 worth of homes every day.
0:07:59 We do just about a billion dollars a year,
0:08:03 and that’s between residential homes and commercial sales.
0:08:05 I lead a team of about 64 people.
0:08:09 We sell majority of our real estate in New York City,
0:08:11 but we do a lot in the Hamptons, Miami, Chicago,
0:08:14 Boston, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles.
0:08:16 We do some stuff internationally,
0:08:17 but it’s super complicated,
0:08:19 so I try to keep things based here.
0:08:21 That’s amazing, congratulations.
0:08:24 So let’s take it back to your time,
0:08:26 you just started on a million dollar listing.
0:08:29 You were an inexperienced real estate agent.
0:08:33 How did you use acting to boost yourself confidence,
0:08:35 to make sure that you had the right skills
0:08:36 as a real estate agent?
0:08:38 How did you use your previous experiences
0:08:41 to then become a professional real estate agent
0:08:43 or sales person, as you like to say?
0:08:46 – Big money energy, like that’s kind of what I call it.
0:08:49 Like I didn’t have the experience,
0:08:51 but I knew I had to be confident in a room,
0:08:54 even if I didn’t feel confident, you know,
0:08:56 and that all comes down to the energy that you have.
0:08:58 So like when I went into that audition,
0:09:00 I told them what they needed to hear,
0:09:03 and I wasn’t uncomfortable, I wasn’t nervous.
0:09:05 I wasn’t like, oh man they’re seeing right through me.
0:09:08 You know, I walked in there as if I was somebody
0:09:10 who was in an audition, right?
0:09:12 When you go and go to offer an audition,
0:09:14 you know, you’re 22, but you’re gonna go audition
0:09:16 to pay a millionaire real estate broker
0:09:19 or an investment banker.
0:09:21 You put on a nice tie and suit and you go in there
0:09:23 and you read the lines and you’re a confident
0:09:25 investment banker, so I did the same thing.
0:09:27 Like I wore my best suit and walked in there
0:09:29 and said I’m the greatest real estate agent
0:09:32 that’s ever lived, I’m 25 years old.
0:09:34 I don’t know why you’re still looking.
0:09:37 They’re like, wow, this guy’s maybe too confident.
0:09:38 And it just sort of went from there.
0:09:41 And then I, you know, Bravo and NBCUniversal,
0:09:46 basically it was like a metaphorical shotgun to the head
0:09:48 where they said, you’ve got to sell real estate,
0:09:51 otherwise we are gonna shame you to the entire world.
0:09:52 (laughing)
0:09:53 Since you had to do well.
0:09:55 If you fail, you know, at listings and everything,
0:09:58 then we’re gonna put you on TV as a failure.
0:10:01 And so that was, you know, like fear is a real thing.
0:10:03 So the last thing I wanted to do
0:10:05 was be a loser real estate agent
0:10:06 who couldn’t sell anything.
0:10:09 So I worked my ass off to sell all that stuff.
0:10:12 That first season I lost like 10 pounds from stress.
0:10:13 Running around the city, cold calling.
0:10:16 And all that changed was the fear of shame.
0:10:18 But I sold a lot.
0:10:20 And from then I’ve used that as like my wall,
0:10:24 my fear of public failure is really what drives me, I guess.
0:10:27 So something that’s stuck to me when you were talking
0:10:29 is that essentially you had an affirmation
0:10:32 like I’m the best real estate sales person, right?
0:10:34 So how important is the law of attraction to you
0:10:36 in terms of your success
0:10:38 and ensuring that you hit your goals?
0:10:40 I’m a big believer in positive energy.
0:10:42 You know, that’s why I said big money energy.
0:10:45 I think that there are two types of people in the world.
0:10:47 There are the people who get into a car
0:10:50 and look out the window and see rain and clouds.
0:10:51 And there are people that get into the car
0:10:54 and look out a window and see sun shining.
0:10:56 And even if it’s raining, you get excited about the rain
0:10:58 because you know, it makes things grow.
0:10:59 And I’ve always been one of those people like
0:11:03 life is just too short to be negative and to be upset.
0:11:04 Like you can have bad days.
0:11:05 I definitely have bad days.
0:11:06 I get stressed out.
0:11:08 I get angry all the time.
0:11:09 But at the end of the day,
0:11:11 those are fleeting emotional moments that I have
0:11:13 that are in response to certain things
0:11:14 that are happening to me.
0:11:17 But I am super pumped that I’m alive today, right?
0:11:19 I don’t have coronavirus.
0:11:21 Everything’s gonna be okay.
0:11:23 You know, like life is gonna go on.
0:11:24 And we, I live in New York city.
0:11:27 I sell $20 million homes for a living.
0:11:29 Like what, like, I don’t, I’m not a roofer.
0:11:31 You know, I’m not working on the ranch.
0:11:36 I’m not in a country where my rights get taken away from me.
0:11:38 Like life is great, life’s okay.
0:11:40 So I put out that positive energy as much as possible.
0:11:44 And selling is the transfer of enthusiasm, right?
0:11:46 Like I don’t sell homes ever.
0:11:47 I don’t think I’ve ever actually sold a home.
0:11:51 I think the homes that I sell are the skeleton
0:11:54 around the excitement that I transfer to people.
0:11:57 So my enthusiasm for a home is really what I’m selling
0:11:59 because you’re gonna buy a house anyway.
0:12:01 Like you’re looking for a house, right?
0:12:03 And so I’m gonna show you homes
0:12:06 if you’re on the buyer side with me that I think are great.
0:12:09 And this one that you like, I like it too.
0:12:09 This is awesome.
0:12:10 Let’s imagine you living here
0:12:13 and your kids’ baby footsteps are gonna be here
0:12:15 and your dinner parties and blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:12:16 And let’s talk about the deal
0:12:17 and you’re gonna get a great deal.
0:12:20 That’s excitement and you get excited about that.
0:12:21 And that’s when people open up their wallet.
0:12:25 It is very hard for me to negotiate with someone’s wallet
0:12:27 but I can negotiate with people’s feelings all day long.
0:12:30 – Oh, I love that, selling your enthusiasm.
0:12:32 – Yeah, sales is the transfer of enthusiasm.
0:12:33 That is all it is.
0:12:34 – Very cool.
0:12:35 So let’s talk about your work ethic.
0:12:38 Previously you said you work 16-hour days.
0:12:40 I think you wake up at like 4.50 a.m.,
0:12:43 you go to sleep at 11 p.m., something like that.
0:12:45 Or you keep working until 11 p.m.
0:12:47 if I remember correctly.
0:12:48 Where did you get your work ethic from?
0:12:52 Because I read that you didn’t really grow up poor
0:12:52 or anything like that.
0:12:54 You were upper middle class
0:12:56 and oftentimes I was the same thing.
0:12:59 Like people think that you don’t have a strong work ethic
0:13:01 if you didn’t grow up poor.
0:13:03 So tell me, where did you get your work ethic from?
0:13:04 – My dad, for sure.
0:13:07 He made me do, me and my little brother,
0:13:09 we had to do manual labor jobs
0:13:11 since the day I can remember.
0:13:13 If we wanted anything, we had to pay for it ourselves.
0:13:14 There was no allowance.
0:13:17 You know, my first video camera I had to save for
0:13:19 on my own, like, and literally, you know,
0:13:21 what he would say is you can make money doing anything.
0:13:23 You just figure it out.
0:13:25 And so I would do like the smallest things,
0:13:27 like he paid me to pick up sticks, right?
0:13:30 We in outside Boston, there’s a lot of trees.
0:13:31 And, you know, instead of getting,
0:13:34 hiring a yard guy to come and rake up the yard
0:13:36 and rake up all the sticks and branches,
0:13:38 I would do that and pick it all up.
0:13:39 And he paid me per stick.
0:13:42 And I just knew, I was like, wow, there’s endless sticks.
0:13:43 Like I could pick up all these sticks
0:13:44 and my dad will pay me.
0:13:45 And I can’t remember what it was.
0:13:49 It was like, I don’t know, 10 cents a stick or something,
0:13:50 but it added up, right?
0:13:51 You pick up enough sticks.
0:13:54 You can make some real money.
0:13:56 And that’s kind of the same idea that I have now.
0:14:00 Like I look at people like sticks.
0:14:01 Like when I go out into New York City
0:14:03 and I see millions of people on the street,
0:14:06 like, man, if I just picked up 10 of those, you know,
0:14:09 my dad will pay me, except now it’s not my dad.
0:14:13 And he was always, I like, he made me write an essay
0:14:16 on the power of not being lazy when I was 10 years old.
0:14:18 Like he really, really drilled into me
0:14:20 the power of hard work because he,
0:14:22 my dad had his first baby when he was 18 years old.
0:14:24 His mom died when he was 13.
0:14:27 His dad died, sorry, his brother died when he was 21.
0:14:29 He raised his family basically on his own,
0:14:33 put himself through college, figured out finance,
0:14:35 got himself a job, put himself through everything.
0:14:38 And if he could do that, like anything is possible.
0:14:39 Yeah, you’ve got it easy then.
0:14:41 I totally have it easy.
0:14:42 That’s awesome.
0:14:44 Hard work is literally a talent, I think.
0:14:45 So kudos to you.
0:14:47 It’s hard to teach, you know.
0:14:49 So there’s a very popular saying that reminds me of you
0:14:52 that showing up is half the battle.
0:14:54 Can you talk to us about the lessons you’ve learned
0:14:55 in terms of showing up
0:14:58 and how that’s helped you become so successful?
0:15:01 Yeah, you can’t do anything if you’re not there.
0:15:03 I tell that to my team members all the time,
0:15:04 my agents who come to me and they’re like,
0:15:05 well, I need more business.
0:15:07 I’m like, I haven’t seen you in two days.
0:15:08 What have you been doing?
0:15:09 Like, oh, I’ve been busy.
0:15:10 What have you been busy with?
0:15:12 And I like will really drill into it.
0:15:13 And people get embarrassed and nervous
0:15:15 because they haven’t actually been busy.
0:15:18 Showing up is 75% of the battle.
0:15:21 The other 20% is luck.
0:15:25 And the other 5% is you’ve got to be there.
0:15:26 You got to be in the room.
0:15:28 You got to be part of the conversation.
0:15:29 You got to put yourself out there.
0:15:31 People have to see your face, hear your voice,
0:15:32 shake your hand.
0:15:35 Like that’s what the world is all about.
0:15:38 The deals that I do today are based on relationships
0:15:41 that I started by being in the room 10 years ago.
0:15:42 And the room that I’m in today
0:15:46 will hopefully open up doors for me 10 years from now
0:15:49 when I’m 45, you know, I’ll look back to 2020
0:15:52 and say, thank God, I actually went to work that day.
0:15:53 Yeah.
0:15:54 You know, like I went to a meeting yesterday
0:15:57 as an example, and I didn’t really want to go to it.
0:15:59 So I was like, why am I going to this meeting?
0:16:01 It’s like for some tech thing platform
0:16:02 and they asked me to come.
0:16:05 And so a couple of people on my media team are like,
0:16:05 hey, let’s go.
0:16:07 I got so much other stuff to do.
0:16:09 I just want to like clean email.
0:16:10 And I got to make all these calls.
0:16:12 But I went and at the end of the meeting,
0:16:16 I was like, holy shit, but I take back not wanting to go
0:16:17 because I met three other people there.
0:16:19 I got connected to two other people
0:16:21 that are looking to buy apartments.
0:16:22 The CEO is actually somebody
0:16:25 that I definitely, definitely should know.
0:16:26 I just didn’t pay attention to it, you know?
0:16:29 And I feel like people pass those opportunities
0:16:30 by all the time because they’re like,
0:16:33 either why should I go and waste my time?
0:16:34 Or I don’t know, it’s not for me
0:16:35 or oh, it’s not going to work out.
0:16:39 So I put myself in as many different positions
0:16:40 to have opportunities as possible
0:16:42 because you never, ever, ever know.
0:16:43 You never know.
0:16:45 – That reminds me of something that you talk about often
0:16:47 and it’s some of your sales advice
0:16:50 to have as many balls in the air as possible.
0:16:51 But you actually have a lot of rules
0:16:53 when it comes to these balls and the ball throwing.
0:16:57 So could you just share this analogy with our listeners?
0:16:59 – You did the book, “Sell It Like Sir Hand”
0:17:01 was initially called “Balls Up.”
0:17:03 I sold it to the publisher as “Balls Up.”
0:17:05 And then once they bought it and we were writing it,
0:17:08 they came to me and they’re like, listen, we need to talk.
0:17:09 I don’t think these are the times
0:17:11 when we’re going to put a book on the shelves
0:17:13 that says “Balls Up.”
0:17:15 But the idea is it’s kind of like my game theory
0:17:16 for sales, right?
0:17:18 Instead of spending all of your time
0:17:19 on trying to do one deal,
0:17:21 sales is all about having a pipeline.
0:17:22 It’s a volume business.
0:17:23 I’m selling things right now
0:17:25 and I’m sitting here at this table with you
0:17:27 because I figured out how to leverage myself
0:17:28 and how to continue to sell things.
0:17:30 And I sell lots of different things now.
0:17:31 But you want to have as many balls
0:17:32 in the air as you possibly can
0:17:36 and then figure out a system, an actual system, right?
0:17:38 A system for follow-up, a system for discipline,
0:17:40 a system for your daily routine
0:17:44 that enables you to catch as many of those balls as possible.
0:17:47 That way, when balls fall, which is like a deal dying
0:17:49 or you don’t get that job
0:17:51 or that interview doesn’t happen,
0:17:54 it’s okay because you have 16 others in the works.
0:17:55 And if you do that,
0:17:58 then you’re always driven by positive momentum.
0:18:00 And then you’re living in the river, right?
0:18:02 And it’s like, like I grew up outside Boston.
0:18:04 There are running rivers that are great.
0:18:06 And then there are these stagnant ponds
0:18:07 that are gross and smelly
0:18:09 and have like dead things in them.
0:18:11 You know, that’s what you are
0:18:14 if you don’t have things in the fire
0:18:15 and if you’re not in constant motion.
0:18:18 And so that’s kind of how it works.
0:18:20 And there’s a whole system for it.
0:18:21 – Let’s hold that thought
0:18:23 and take a quick break with our sponsors.
0:18:27 – Young and Profiters, buy low, sell high.
0:18:30 It’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do.
0:18:31 For example, high interest rates
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0:19:01 Again, you can diversify your portfolio
0:19:03 with the Fundrise flagship fund
0:19:05 at fundrise.com/profiting.
0:19:10 That’s F-U-N-D-R-I-S-E.com/profiting.
0:19:12 Carefully consider the investment objectives,
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0:19:18 This and other information can be found
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0:19:26 Yeah, fam, if you’re anything like me,
0:19:28 you didn’t start your business
0:19:30 to spend all your time managing finances,
0:19:33 budgeting, invoicing and tax prep,
0:19:36 not exactly the fun part of entrepreneurship.
0:19:40 My CEO, Jason, on the other hand, is great at finances,
0:19:41 but even he doesn’t want to switch
0:19:43 between five different apps for banking,
0:19:46 expense tracking and contractor payments.
0:19:48 We wanted a tool that could just do it all.
0:19:50 And guess what, we found one.
0:19:53 And yes, it’s called Found.
0:19:55 Found is an all-in-one financial tool
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0:20:57 Hey, yeah, bam.
0:20:59 Launching my LinkedIn secrets masterclass
0:21:02 was one of the best things I’ve ever done for my business.
0:21:04 And I didn’t have to figure out all the nuts and bolts
0:21:07 of creating a website for my course.
0:21:08 I needed a lot of different features.
0:21:12 I needed chat capabilities in case anybody had questions.
0:21:14 I needed promo code discounts.
0:21:17 I needed a laundry list of features
0:21:20 to enable what I was envisioning with my course.
0:21:21 But here’s the thing.
0:21:24 All I had to do was literally lift a finger
0:21:25 to get it all done.
0:21:28 And that’s because I used Shopify.
0:21:30 (bell dings)
0:21:34 Shopify is the easiest way to sell anything,
0:21:36 to sell online or in person.
0:21:39 It’s the home of the number one checkout on the planet.
0:21:41 And Shopify is not so secret secret as Shoppay,
0:21:44 which boosts conversions up to 50%.
0:21:46 That means way fewer cards get abandoned
0:21:48 and way more sales get done.
0:21:50 (bell dings)
0:21:52 So when students tell me that they can’t afford my course,
0:21:55 I let them know about payment plans with Shoppay.
0:21:57 It is a game changer.
0:21:58 If you’re into growing your business,
0:22:01 your commerce platform better be ready to sell
0:22:04 wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling
0:22:06 on the web and your store in their feed
0:22:08 and everywhere in between.
0:22:12 Put simply businesses that sell more sell with Shopify.
0:22:14 Upgrade your business and get the same checkout
0:22:16 we use at YAP Media with Shopify.
0:22:19 Sign up for your $1 per month trial period
0:22:23 at Shopify.com/profiting and that’s all lowercase.
0:22:27 Go to Shopify.com/profiting to upgrade your selling today.
0:22:30 That’s Shopify.com/profiting.
0:22:32 (bell dings)
0:22:37 How do you ensure that you always have
0:22:38 like a stream of opportunities?
0:22:39 What do you do?
0:22:42 I meet five new people every single day.
0:22:44 At least minimum, that is my job.
0:22:45 I am not a real estate broker.
0:22:47 I don’t sell homes.
0:22:48 My main job when I think about it,
0:22:52 like what’s my job today is to meet five new people,
0:22:55 get their contact information, put it into my phone.
0:22:56 That’s it.
0:22:58 So those five people will then get my newsletters.
0:23:01 I will follow them on social or they’ll follow me.
0:23:02 We will follow up with each other.
0:23:04 We’ll see how we can make different opportunities
0:23:07 together for each other ’cause the world is short, small
0:23:09 and we’ll see what happens and you never know.
0:23:12 And five times 365 times the last 12 years
0:23:15 is a lot of people and I’m not going anywhere.
0:23:19 And so those people and oftentimes it’s more people,
0:23:21 but if I haven’t hit five because I’ve been stuck
0:23:22 in the office all day or something,
0:23:24 I will literally like go to the deli
0:23:28 and just meet two new people or like go to Starbucks.
0:23:30 And I will literally tell people,
0:23:32 hey, I’m a real estate broker.
0:23:33 I have a personal quota that I got to meet
0:23:34 five new people every day.
0:23:35 I’ve only met four.
0:23:37 Can you be my number five?
0:23:40 And when you say it, when you’re dead honest with people,
0:23:43 people are like, sure, I guess, weird.
0:23:43 Why do you do that?
0:23:45 And then it opens up a conversation
0:23:46 and now you’re talking to somebody
0:23:47 about your work ethic and this and they’re like,
0:23:50 oh, actually my son is doing up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
0:23:52 Do people recognize you now when you go up to them?
0:23:54 Now it’s slightly easier, but no.
0:23:56 Not all the time.
0:23:57 Sometimes halfway through a conversation,
0:23:59 people will be like, you look familiar.
0:24:00 I’m like, yeah, maybe.
0:24:02 They’ve seen Million Dollar Listing
0:24:05 maybe on like a jet blue flight five years ago.
0:24:07 They’re like, you kind of look like that guy
0:24:09 kind of from that real estate show,
0:24:11 but you also kind of look a little bit like Tom Brady,
0:24:14 but not really, I don’t know, did we date?
0:24:17 I’m like, no, we definitely did not date, dude.
0:24:18 That’s funny.
0:24:20 Well, at least you still are like approachable enough
0:24:24 and you can still approach people randomly on the street.
0:24:25 So from what I remember,
0:24:28 you actually were a very shy child, right?
0:24:32 You grew up with a little awkwardness, social anxiety,
0:24:33 a little overweight.
0:24:36 I have some younger listeners who listen to the podcast.
0:24:39 What’s your advice in terms of getting out of your shell
0:24:41 and becoming the confident person that you are today?
0:24:42 Like you’re super confident now.
0:24:44 How did you change that?
0:24:46 Yeah, big money energy.
0:24:48 I mean, I’m a big believer, like I said,
0:24:52 in the power of positive energy and like a vision board.
0:24:54 So who do you want to be?
0:24:55 What is that image of?
0:24:56 Even maybe it’s somebody you know,
0:24:58 maybe it’s that cool kid in school
0:25:01 or maybe it’s an actor or someone on YouTube,
0:25:03 like print out that person’s face
0:25:06 and put it by your bed or in your journal
0:25:09 or in your locker or in your car
0:25:12 and just imagine like you can be that person
0:25:14 or you can be even better than that person
0:25:17 and position yourself out there just that way
0:25:19 and know that no one cares.
0:25:21 No one cares about the way you feel.
0:25:22 And if you are uncomfortable,
0:25:25 and so for me, like I was overweight,
0:25:27 I had really, really bad skin.
0:25:31 I had premature gray hair from when I was 16 years old
0:25:34 and I was super pale to combat the gray hair
0:25:35 because I was really embarrassed about it.
0:25:39 I would dye it and then dark brown hair dye
0:25:41 from the pharmacy is actually black.
0:25:45 So I’d be like super white with really jet black hair,
0:25:47 you know, riddled with acne, you know,
0:25:49 with my little belly running around.
0:25:51 And what I realized later on
0:25:53 is all the things that I was nervous about,
0:25:55 no one else was paying attention to
0:25:56 because all they were caring about
0:25:59 was I paying attention to their crooked teeth.
0:26:01 I’m nervous that they were paying attention to my skin
0:26:03 but they’re concerned that I’m paying attention
0:26:06 to their really bad haircut that they got yesterday.
0:26:07 And to me, I just mentioned to you,
0:26:09 your hair looks great, I don’t understand.
0:26:12 And so, you know, it’s remembering that no one cares
0:26:13 and what’s the worst that can happen?
0:26:16 Something my dad told me that really opened me up
0:26:17 when I was growing up
0:26:19 so I was too nervous to ask out.
0:26:21 Girls or anything is like,
0:26:22 are you afraid that any of these girls
0:26:24 are gonna punch you in the nose?
0:26:27 And I was like, I mean, I don’t think so.
0:26:29 He’s like, okay, that’s probably the worst thing
0:26:31 that can happen is someone punches you in the face
0:26:34 ’cause that’ll physically hurt or try to like harm you.
0:26:37 Are you afraid any of these girls carry knives?
0:26:39 Like, no, it’s like North Shore Boston,
0:26:40 none of these girls carry knives.
0:26:43 He’s like, okay, so what’s your problem?
0:26:45 Just ask, what are they gonna do?
0:26:47 You say no, at least you know, right?
0:26:49 And then move on, there’s lots of other people.
0:26:52 And that’s what the sales business is for me today.
0:26:54 Like I ask everybody, can I sell you a home?
0:26:56 No, okay, great, I’ll keep you posted.
0:26:57 Next, like it’s–
0:26:58 That’s solid advice.
0:27:00 Yeah, what is like there’s,
0:27:02 the worst thing someone can do
0:27:06 is punch you in the face or send you to jail, right?
0:27:09 Or kill you, like those are the three terrible things
0:27:10 that could happen to you.
0:27:13 Everything else doesn’t matter, no one cares.
0:27:15 Like you carry yourself with the confidence
0:27:18 of the person you know you can be, it’s inside you.
0:27:21 You have it already, just pull it out there
0:27:23 and people are gonna be excited about it.
0:27:24 Put a smile on your face,
0:27:26 sell enthusiasm for who you are
0:27:28 and people will be attracted to it.
0:27:31 Okay, so let’s move on to your sales methodologies.
0:27:33 You wrote a whole book on sales you mentioned before,
0:27:35 sell it like Sir Hunt.
0:27:37 And you currently run one of the top sales teams
0:27:41 in New York and in the nation, Nest Seekers.
0:27:44 Tell us how do you effectively run that sales teams?
0:27:45 Like what are your general principles
0:27:47 to be so successful with them?
0:27:51 No man, just cry all day long.
0:27:52 Managing people is really hard.
0:27:56 What I would say is I don’t have an exact system.
0:27:59 My best system is I talk to every single person
0:28:01 who works for me every day.
0:28:03 Like that’s the simplest piece of advice that I could give.
0:28:05 And it’s not on the phone, some of them it’s on the phone,
0:28:08 some of it’s by text, some of it’s just by social.
0:28:10 You know, like an agent of mine posts a listening,
0:28:12 a double type comment.
0:28:15 They need to hear from me as a leader every day.
0:28:18 Where leaders make mistakes is they don’t touch base.
0:28:21 Like you have to think about everyone who works with you
0:28:24 in some way shape or form, like or any regular relationship.
0:28:28 Imagine if I went home and saw my wife every day,
0:28:30 but didn’t talk to her because I was just too busy.
0:28:31 Didn’t say anything.
0:28:34 But deep down I love her, but she would know
0:28:35 something’s up, something’s weird.
0:28:36 How come he’s not talking to me?
0:28:38 Same thing goes for all your employees.
0:28:39 You know, it’s a little bit different,
0:28:41 but it is actually kind of the same.
0:28:44 And it’s easy, you know, even just sending an email
0:28:47 like that says you in the subject line
0:28:49 and in the body of the email says are awesome.
0:28:51 Hope you’re having a great day.
0:28:52 People appreciate that.
0:28:55 It’s like, and then you’re good for like the week
0:28:57 with that person and then you can touch base the next day,
0:28:59 little things, you know, little comments.
0:29:01 Like it goes a long, long way.
0:29:02 And then on top of that, like I have great people
0:29:04 who work for me that manage,
0:29:06 that help me manage problems and issues, you know,
0:29:09 at the end of the day, like your issues as a leader
0:29:12 and as a manager are never dealing with good things.
0:29:15 No one ever comes to me with good problems, right?
0:29:16 Like if someone comes to me,
0:29:18 it’s because they couldn’t figure it out on their own
0:29:19 and it’s typically something bad.
0:29:22 So most of my day is managing 60 plus agents
0:29:25 and all of their bad issues, right?
0:29:27 And figuring out how to deal with it and keeping them calm
0:29:29 and staying calm yourself and trying to manage
0:29:32 and then trying to quarterback as much as I possibly can.
0:29:33 That’s great advice.
0:29:35 I think being a manager, like you said,
0:29:38 is all about like showing your appreciation
0:29:39 and enthusiasm towards them
0:29:42 and ensuring that they’re feeling great to do their job
0:29:44 and feeling appreciated.
0:29:45 And knowing too, and not to cut you off, sorry,
0:29:49 but knowing too that it is like you’re all in it together.
0:29:50 Like listen, if you’re the boss, right?
0:29:52 Or you’re a manager,
0:29:54 even if you have just one person underneath you,
0:29:56 they know that you’re the boss.
0:29:57 Like you don’t have to remind them.
0:29:58 Like they get it, right?
0:29:59 They know they work for you.
0:30:01 They understand what the pecking order is.
0:30:03 It’s up to you to remind them
0:30:05 that they work with you, not for you.
0:30:08 No one who’s ever worked for me has done a great job
0:30:12 because who wants to work for anybody, right?
0:30:13 Especially in sales.
0:30:14 Yeah, they want to be part of the team.
0:30:16 They want to be part of the process.
0:30:20 Everything that everyone underneath you does for you,
0:30:21 you make them feel like they’re doing it with you
0:30:24 and it’s together, they’ll work 10 times harder.
0:30:25 Completely.
0:30:29 I know you have a lot of stories.
0:30:32 You have a story that really showcases the value
0:30:36 of saying yes with Mr. X.
0:30:36 Oh God.
0:30:41 Essentially you followed this mystery man to Paris
0:30:43 to land one of your first and biggest deals.
0:30:45 Would you share that story with our listeners?
0:30:47 Oh man, how much time do we have?
0:30:50 I’ll try to make it as succinct as possible.
0:30:52 Like one of my first listings I ever got
0:30:54 was really, really overpriced.
0:30:56 It was a listing on the Upper West Side,
0:30:58 45 West 67th Street.
0:31:01 No other agent would take it because it was so overpriced.
0:31:02 So that’s probably why I got it.
0:31:04 It was worth like $6 million
0:31:07 and I listed it for eight and a half, right?
0:31:08 So nice and high.
0:31:10 But that’s how a lot of agents get business in New York City.
0:31:12 You’re the one who talks to a seller
0:31:14 and you’re like, yeah, all those other agents are stupid.
0:31:16 Eight and a half for sure, let’s do it.
0:31:18 And if you have no listings, you know,
0:31:19 like I did at the time, that’s what I did.
0:31:21 And then you put the listing online,
0:31:22 you put it on the internet,
0:31:23 you put it out there to the world
0:31:24 and our company’s always been really good
0:31:26 at marketing internationally
0:31:28 so that people could see listings all over the world.
0:31:30 And I got an email from somebody that said
0:31:32 they wanted to buy that apartment
0:31:34 and where could they send the money?
0:31:38 I was like, oh, this seems weird and scammy,
0:31:40 but I had no other business at the time.
0:31:41 I didn’t know what to do.
0:31:44 So I wrote back, well, that’s not really how we do it here
0:31:46 but happy to talk to you if you want to make an offer.
0:31:48 And then he called me and I talked to him on the phone.
0:31:50 So he had a real voice who sounded real.
0:31:51 I mean, he said he wanted to make an offer
0:31:52 and he can’t remember,
0:31:55 but he made an offer of like $8 million.
0:31:57 And I had no idea who he was or where he was from.
0:31:59 He definitely was not from the United States.
0:32:01 He said he was gonna send me a proof of funds
0:32:05 which showed up the next day as a DHL piece of paper
0:32:08 with a photo of his accountant on it.
0:32:10 That just said Mr, I call him Mr. X
0:32:11 ’cause I can’t give out his name,
0:32:13 but Mr. X does not commit to things
0:32:16 that Mr. X will not commit to.
0:32:19 And I was like, all right, good enough for me, sure.
0:32:20 I’ve been $8 million offer.
0:32:22 And I presented it to the seller.
0:32:24 And as a real estate agent,
0:32:26 you have a fiduciary responsibility to vet all your clients
0:32:28 and make sure you’re presenting real offers
0:32:30 and kind of went out on a little bit of a limb
0:32:32 and the seller was like, well, is this a real buyer?
0:32:33 I’m like, yep, yep, how do you know?
0:32:34 They sent me a proof of funds.
0:32:37 All checks out, all’s good, $8 million, we should counter.
0:32:40 So we countered, we got the deal done at 8.3
0:32:42 and I connected him to an attorney
0:32:43 at the whole while being like,
0:32:44 this is the weirdest thing ever.
0:32:46 Some random dude on the internet
0:32:49 from this other country just contacted me
0:32:50 because he wanted access to my bank account
0:32:53 to send me $8 million.
0:32:54 And now maybe he’s gonna buy an apartment.
0:32:56 This is what New York is all about.
0:32:59 And he signed a contract and then disappeared.
0:33:02 And I had no idea what happened until, you know,
0:33:04 everyone got really, really upset and really angry
0:33:05 and what happened to this guy?
0:33:06 Where’s the money?
0:33:07 There’s no deposit.
0:33:10 And people kept telling me, listen, this is what people do.
0:33:11 Right?
0:33:12 They take contracts out for properties in New York City.
0:33:14 They sign contracts and then they go
0:33:16 and they scam people out of money.
0:33:17 So they go to people in different countries
0:33:18 all around the world and they say, listen,
0:33:21 I got a $10 million apartment in New York City.
0:33:23 I have a contract for $8.3 million.
0:33:25 Give me $10,000, come in on it with me.
0:33:27 We’re gonna make tons of money.
0:33:28 And they do that to like a hundred people.
0:33:29 Oh, wow.
0:33:30 Right?
0:33:32 And they make a lot of money that way.
0:33:34 And fast forward like, I don’t know,
0:33:37 four or five months or so, I’m on the West Side Highway
0:33:39 and his attorney that I introduced him to calls me
0:33:40 and says, you’re not gonna believe this,
0:33:44 but I just got a wire for $830,000.
0:33:48 You are officially in contract on 45 West 67th Street.
0:33:51 It’s like, holy moly.
0:33:54 We’re in contract on the biggest deal of my entire life.
0:33:55 This is insane.
0:33:56 The seller, they couldn’t believe it.
0:33:59 They thought this guy totally just disappeared.
0:34:00 And then he disappeared again.
0:34:01 So we had no idea what was going on.
0:34:04 Signed a contract and then sent money and then disappeared.
0:34:06 And so then we couldn’t close.
0:34:07 We didn’t know what to do.
0:34:09 And in New York City, you have to sign applications.
0:34:10 You have to do board packages, right?
0:34:12 To fill out applications to get approved
0:34:13 by the condo board and all that.
0:34:15 And he wouldn’t do it.
0:34:16 He literally wouldn’t respond.
0:34:18 And months and months go by
0:34:20 and I’m trying to figure out how to stay on top of them,
0:34:20 how to follow up.
0:34:22 And I sent him a BBM back in the day
0:34:24 when we all had blackberries.
0:34:27 It said something like, hey, I know you mentioned
0:34:29 you have a home in Paris.
0:34:30 I’m actually going to be there tomorrow
0:34:32 if you want to meet and go through the application
0:34:34 and schedule a closing date.
0:34:35 Not thinking you would reply,
0:34:37 but just like, just trying to find ways.
0:34:39 Anything, just like, dude, please respond.
0:34:40 Like, you’re my biggest deal ever.
0:34:41 I need this closing.
0:34:42 Why please don’t be a con artist
0:34:44 who’s stealing money from everybody.
0:34:45 And he wrote back right away.
0:34:48 He’s like, okay, that sounds good tomorrow, 8 p.m.
0:34:49 And gave me an address.
0:34:51 I was like, oh, shit.
0:34:52 I’m not in Paris.
0:34:53 I’m in New York City.
0:34:54 I don’t plan to go to Paris whatsoever.
0:34:56 And I have no money to get there.
0:34:58 So I scraped together like some savings
0:35:01 and figured out how to get to Paris literally
0:35:05 in like 18 hours notice by flying, what was it?
0:35:07 Like air lingus to Dublin.
0:35:11 And then Ryan air, I think it was from Dublin to Paris.
0:35:13 And I went to the location that he told me to go to,
0:35:15 which was a bar.
0:35:18 And then he didn’t show up for hours and hours and hours
0:35:21 and like crying into my bugget.
0:35:22 And I didn’t know what to do
0:35:23 ’cause I was leaving in the morning.
0:35:25 And then he walked in the door
0:35:28 with like an entourage of people that was just totally crazy.
0:35:29 And he didn’t want to talk about the apartments.
0:35:31 But so that at least I knew he was real,
0:35:33 but he was a bit scary.
0:35:35 And all of his friends were very scary people.
0:35:36 And he didn’t want to talk about the apartment.
0:35:37 He’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:35:39 He just wanted to see me drink.
0:35:41 Shot after shot after shot of tequila.
0:35:43 And I’m like texting my mom on the side.
0:35:44 I’m like, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you.
0:35:46 I went to Paris to meet a mystery man.
0:35:48 I met on the internet.
0:35:49 Now getting drunk.
0:35:53 I’m gonna be sold into slavery or I’m gonna be killed.
0:35:55 I don’t know what’s going on.
0:35:58 And eventually I got him to like look at the application.
0:36:01 He like scribbled some stuff down and then he left.
0:36:02 Somehow I got to the airport.
0:36:04 That whole evening is a total blur.
0:36:07 Came back, submitted the application sort of.
0:36:08 The board didn’t want to accept it
0:36:11 because it was like half done kind of,
0:36:14 but they had no choice because in a condo you have to,
0:36:15 you just had the first right of refusal.
0:36:17 So the condo board then either had to buy the apartment
0:36:20 from the sellers or accept it,
0:36:21 but then he disappeared again
0:36:23 and we couldn’t find him until one day.
0:36:24 And this is the end of the story.
0:36:27 One day early in the morning, he calls me.
0:36:29 This is like a year after that first email and call
0:36:31 and says to me, I’m in New York.
0:36:33 I want to close.
0:36:34 That’s not how it happens here.
0:36:36 But okay, sure, no problem.
0:36:37 Called all the attorneys.
0:36:38 Got everyone together, said he’s here.
0:36:40 I’m sorry, let’s just do this, do this.
0:36:44 And this was 2000, I want to say 2011, I want to say.
0:36:47 So the market was, or 2010, the market was awful, right?
0:36:48 We were in the middle of the recession.
0:36:51 So it’s not like anyone else was buying this apartment.
0:36:52 Today it would be a little bit different.
0:36:55 He said he’s at the Mandarin Oriental on Central Park.
0:36:59 I ran up there, waited, never came down,
0:37:01 waited for hours again, all the attorneys there.
0:37:03 Totally think that this whole thing is still a scam.
0:37:04 I’m like, no, you don’t understand.
0:37:06 I met him, I met him, I met him.
0:37:10 Finally, he comes down with a whole entourage of people,
0:37:15 a fleet of black, like bulletproof tinted escalades,
0:37:18 like flies, like literally out of a Michael Bay movie
0:37:20 out in front of the Mandarin Oriental.
0:37:22 He says, sorry, I’m late, let’s get in.
0:37:23 We get in, I’m like 67th Street Department,
0:37:24 you’re buying this right over here.
0:37:26 Do you want to go check on it in the United States?
0:37:28 We do walkthroughs, maybe a punch list,
0:37:29 like let’s get to closing.
0:37:31 He’s like, no, no, no, we go to JFK.
0:37:34 So I started texting my mom again,
0:37:35 and I’m like, I’m an idiot again.
0:37:38 Now I’m with that same mystery man in one of his cars
0:37:41 heading to JFK, we go to the back of JFK
0:37:42 where I’ve never even been before,
0:37:44 and there’s this massive airplane.
0:37:47 I don’t know what it was, like a 737 or something.
0:37:50 He gets out, signs papers, buys it, gets back in the car,
0:37:53 says, now we go close, goes to the closing,
0:37:57 pays in cash, gets a photo of me and him for his BBM,
0:38:02 and turns out that he makes like a billion dollars a month.
0:38:04 Wow.
0:38:07 And he’s in the energy business, I’ll leave it at that.
0:38:11 And he was drunk one night, somewhere in the world,
0:38:13 and thought it would be fun to buy an apartment
0:38:15 in New York City ’cause one of his friends had
0:38:18 and found the pretty photos and saw my picture
0:38:20 and he sent me an email and then called me,
0:38:22 and then he wasn’t really taking it seriously
0:38:24 until I followed up with him over and over and over,
0:38:28 and then he felt bad for me, and so he bought it.
0:38:33 And since then, we’ve done like 300 million together,
0:38:35 every deal is painful, it’s all awful,
0:38:38 but he’s very, very real and it’s worth it every time,
0:38:40 but that deal taught me the power of follow-up,
0:38:43 the power of follow-up and the power of valuable persistence
0:38:45 because I never harassed him, right?
0:38:48 I wasn’t annoying, I was always just checking in,
0:38:50 sending him information, hey, this thing closed over here,
0:38:52 you’re getting a great deal, hey, this is what’s happening,
0:38:55 this is what’s happening, and he also said later on,
0:38:57 he’s like, and I knew you weren’t,
0:38:58 you didn’t have plans to come to Paris.
0:38:59 Oh, he knew.
0:39:02 But you actually, I cannot believe you actually did that,
0:39:03 I was so surprised when you said you were there,
0:39:05 that’s why I bought that apartment.
0:39:06 That’s amazing, and so many other people
0:39:09 would have initially just ignored the email.
0:39:11 Today, I would probably ignore it, yeah.
0:39:13 Oh yeah, I’d rather than lose.
0:39:15 Yeah, you had nothing to lose, and you just,
0:39:16 Other than my life.
0:39:19 He just decided to say yes, and that’s super important.
0:39:23 We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
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0:44:14 – So let’s stick on follow up.
0:44:17 I know that there’s three different kinds of follow up.
0:44:19 Follow back, follow through and follow up.
0:44:21 Could you explain that to our listeners?
0:44:24 – Yeah, it is basically like my secret sauce
0:44:25 because when I came to New York City
0:44:27 I didn’t know anybody, I’m not from here.
0:44:29 I grew up outside Boston.
0:44:30 So I knew some people there,
0:44:32 but like my parents aren’t helping me.
0:44:33 You know, I didn’t go to school here
0:44:35 and have all my school friends.
0:44:37 I knew like Midtown.
0:44:40 I knew where all the hand modeling castings were.
0:44:41 That was it.
0:44:43 So I had to meet new people every day, like I told you.
0:44:45 And then I had to follow up with them
0:44:46 to one day get their business.
0:44:48 And that’s what the system is.
0:44:51 So it’s called follow up, follow through, follow back.
0:44:53 It’s my three F’s and I do it every single day
0:44:54 and it’s in my calendar.
0:44:55 In the morning, first thing,
0:44:58 I follow up with everybody from either yesterday
0:45:00 or the week or everybody that I need to follow up with.
0:45:02 Hey, you said you were gonna do this.
0:45:02 Hey, this is happening.
0:45:04 Hey, just wanted to touch base.
0:45:06 Hey, there’s this listing, whatever it might be.
0:45:08 Follow through is doing what you say you’re gonna do.
0:45:09 So if I tell someone
0:45:10 I’m gonna send them something by noon,
0:45:12 you actually do it.
0:45:13 Something my dad taught me really well.
0:45:14 Like you’re only as good as your word.
0:45:16 And if you say you’re gonna do something and you don’t do it,
0:45:19 you are forever banned in people’s minds.
0:45:21 If you say you’re gonna be there on time, be there on time.
0:45:23 If you say you’re gonna be late, then okay.
0:45:25 And just be honest, be upfront
0:45:27 and follow through with what you say you’re gonna do.
0:45:29 And then follow back, which is really important,
0:45:31 is every day I follow back with past clients.
0:45:33 Clients I sold things to 10 years ago.
0:45:36 People I met last week who aren’t even interested.
0:45:38 Just touch and base saying, hey, what’s up?
0:45:40 Following back with deals that died.
0:45:42 Maybe I could put it back together
0:45:45 and that it is the lifeblood of my career
0:45:47 and the way that my team does our deals.
0:45:51 Nonstop, important, valuable follow up.
0:45:53 – Do you think the time investment
0:45:55 that you put into follow up is worth it?
0:45:56 – Oh my God, yes.
0:45:58 Follow up, it’s free.
0:45:59 That’s the thing.
0:45:59 We’re in a service business.
0:46:01 Everybody’s in a service industry.
0:46:02 So it’s all free.
0:46:05 It’s just, I’m gonna have a phone, email and a calendar anyway.
0:46:07 So it’s just putting things in my calendar
0:46:08 and then actually doing it.
0:46:11 It’s in sending an email, sending, especially in 2020.
0:46:14 Like sending an email, a text, a quick phone call or a DM
0:46:15 is all free.
0:46:17 You’re gonna do it anyway.
0:46:19 So it’s absolutely worth it.
0:46:21 Like the amount of money that I have made,
0:46:23 the amount of things that I’ve sold.
0:46:26 When I put some in the book too, like just from follow up
0:46:28 that deals that never, ever, ever, ever, ever
0:46:30 would have happened otherwise,
0:46:32 whether it’s the Mr. X story or people that I followed up
0:46:34 with for, there’s a deal I’m doing today.
0:46:36 I was just telling you about before we started the podcast
0:46:38 because the closing costs are so high, right?
0:46:41 All together it’s like a million dollars in taxes.
0:46:42 The deal is for $12 million.
0:46:45 I have followed back with them ever since I rented
0:46:50 their daughter an apartment in 2010, 10 years ago.
0:46:52 For $2,200 a month.
0:46:54 Just with the parents, just not, just touch base,
0:46:56 following up happy holidays.
0:46:56 I don’t have to.
0:46:58 I didn’t really deal with them before,
0:47:00 but I knew that one day maybe they’d wanna buy a place, right?
0:47:02 And they’d mentioned it to me.
0:47:03 So they dropped the seed.
0:47:07 10 years later, future Ryan is super excited.
0:47:09 I’m happy to sell them an apartment for $12 million.
0:47:10 – Wow, right?
0:47:12 – It’s amazing.
0:47:14 Just that little time investment can go so far
0:47:15 if you do it right.
0:47:16 – Yeah, little bits of time.
0:47:19 Like I, you have 1,000 minutes every day.
0:47:21 You have 1,440 minutes every day actually,
0:47:25 but like 440 of those you’re eating, sleeping,
0:47:26 go to the bathroom.
0:47:28 And so you have 1,000 minutes every day in your bank of time.
0:47:30 Like you are the CEO of your own bank of time.
0:47:32 What are you gonna do with those 1,000 minutes?
0:47:33 How are you gonna use them?
0:47:34 How are you gonna milk them?
0:47:35 How are you gonna get the most out of them
0:47:36 that you possibly can?
0:47:37 And how are you gonna make sure
0:47:40 that you spend them wisely as an investment
0:47:42 into tomorrow’s 1,000 minutes, you know?
0:47:43 – Totally.
0:47:45 – That’s what I think about every day.
0:47:46 – So let’s talk about salespeople.
0:47:49 Salespeople often get a bad rep, you know?
0:47:51 They’re known to be like very pushy.
0:47:53 Before you were saying that you sell enthusiasm.
0:47:55 So you obviously don’t take that approach.
0:47:59 What’s your advice to salespeople who are just too pushy?
0:48:00 – Don’t sell.
0:48:02 You don’t focus on the sell.
0:48:06 Bad salespeople are people who watch a pot boil water.
0:48:08 You know how they say a watch pot never boils?
0:48:09 Have you heard that?
0:48:10 If you sit there and you’re waiting
0:48:13 for the water to boil, it’s like it takes forever, right?
0:48:15 Don’t focus on the sell, okay?
0:48:17 I think that when you are selling,
0:48:19 no one likes to be sold.
0:48:22 Everybody loves to go shopping with friends.
0:48:23 It’s why people like internet shopping
0:48:24 ’cause they don’t want to be sold.
0:48:25 They don’t want to go into that store
0:48:27 and have someone force them to try on shoes.
0:48:29 But if they go into a store and someone comes up
0:48:32 and says, “Yo, that jacket’s awesome.”
0:48:33 You look great.
0:48:34 Let me know if you need anything.
0:48:35 Also the huge sale right over there,
0:48:37 those shoes are insane, crazy.
0:48:39 They were 200 bucks yesterday, today they were 125.
0:48:40 You’d look sick in them.
0:48:42 All of a sudden you’re like,
0:48:45 you’re kind of selling me,
0:48:47 but now I feel good about my jacket choice today.
0:48:50 So that was nice of you and wait, do you have a deal?
0:48:51 Yeah, I guess I could try those.
0:48:53 And then all of a sudden you’re in conversation
0:48:56 and then you’re finding things in common with people, right?
0:49:00 If you literally can be, you both hate the cold or damn,
0:49:02 you don’t have coronavirus, me neither, dude.
0:49:05 Let’s elbow, you know, like literally it’s just conversation.
0:49:07 It’s the power of improv.
0:49:09 That’s why I tell everyone to take improv classes.
0:49:12 You know, if you are gonna live life
0:49:15 talking to other human beings, go take an improv class.
0:49:16 It’ll help you open up.
0:49:18 Like that’s the biggest advice I have for, you know,
0:49:21 that other question you asked in terms of like how you go
0:49:24 from being a shy, overweight kid with really bad skin,
0:49:26 who didn’t wanna talk to anybody.
0:49:29 You take an improv class and you learn how to be a dog
0:49:33 on fire giving birth to your grandmother on Mars
0:49:35 in front of 20 other people.
0:49:37 If you can do that, you can talk to a stranger
0:49:40 on the street about the weather.
0:49:42 And that opens you up, right?
0:49:46 Because no other situation is ever more ridiculous than that.
0:49:48 – Okay, so I wanna spend the next couple of minutes
0:49:50 just talking about the market in general.
0:49:53 How do you typically price a home?
0:49:55 What are the factors that you look into?
0:49:57 – I just pull a number out of a hat, really.
0:50:01 You, listen, you look at, I mean, there’s a lot of things.
0:50:03 First thing, you look at comparable sales.
0:50:07 What else like this home has sold recently?
0:50:08 All right, so that’s the first thing we look at.
0:50:11 So if your house is similar to the house across the street
0:50:14 and that house sold for $500,000,
0:50:17 your house, okay, just based on comparable sales,
0:50:20 probably worth plus minus $500,000,
0:50:21 not because it’s worth that,
0:50:25 but because no buyer wants to ever overpay.
0:50:27 And so your buyer is gonna look at that house
0:50:29 and say, well, that house sold for $500,
0:50:31 I’m not spending more or only spend a little bit more
0:50:34 because you did these value adds to it.
0:50:37 The next thing you look at is what is actively on the market.
0:50:38 So what else is my buyer gonna see?
0:50:40 That is like my house.
0:50:42 So if the house across the street sold for $500,
0:50:43 that’s great for them.
0:50:45 But if now the market’s a little bit different
0:50:47 and now there’s eight other houses on the same block
0:50:50 that are all on the market at 400,
0:50:51 you’re not gonna get $500,000.
0:50:54 You should have sold a year ago, right?
0:50:55 And then we look at condition.
0:50:57 Like, is this house moving ready?
0:50:58 Can someone come in today?
0:50:59 That’s valuable to people.
0:51:03 Not much paint costs and all that stuff.
0:51:04 Are you selling it fully furnished?
0:51:06 Like how much would that cost
0:51:07 somebody to fully furnish your house?
0:51:10 Maybe that’s a great value add.
0:51:11 Do you have a bigger lot?
0:51:12 Do you have a pool?
0:51:13 What are all the different amenities
0:51:16 that you get to offer that other houses don’t?
0:51:17 And then it’s lastly,
0:51:20 based on how people search for real estate these days.
0:51:22 And it’s all starts on the phone now, right?
0:51:23 Or at least on the computer.
0:51:25 It’s all about the search bracket.
0:51:27 You price in the bracket.
0:51:28 You have to.
0:51:30 If you price outside the bracket.
0:51:32 So if your home is worth,
0:51:33 I don’t know, it’s to be simple.
0:51:38 If your home is you think really worth $550,000, right?
0:51:42 You don’t price it at 650 to negotiate anymore.
0:51:43 That’s the way the world used to work, right?
0:51:46 With the hope of maybe getting somebody to make an offer.
0:51:48 ‘Cause that buyer who can afford that house
0:51:50 is not looking up to 650
0:51:53 because the bracket keeps them up to 600.
0:51:55 So you’re saying like in the app itself?
0:51:57 I always, you got to price within search brackets.
0:52:00 And so within the MLS, within the app,
0:52:03 within Zillow, Realtor.org, Trulia, all that stuff,
0:52:04 price within your bracket.
0:52:09 You want to be a heavyweight fighter in a lightweight fight.
0:52:10 Not the other way around.
0:52:13 If you overprice and if you’re at 650,000,
0:52:15 now you’re dealing with somebody who’s senior listing,
0:52:19 who’s forced to look at homes up to 700,000
0:52:21 because that’s the way the search brackets work.
0:52:23 And if you’re your home can’t compete
0:52:27 with an $800,000 home that then reduced to 700,000,
0:52:29 then you don’t want to be in that fight, right?
0:52:30 You’re going to lose every time.
0:52:31 And yeah, you might get people to come by
0:52:34 and come and see it, but they’re going to pass on you
0:52:36 because they’re just using you to shop.
0:52:38 You know, agents and buyers are going to say,
0:52:40 yeah, that home at 650 is nice, probably worth less,
0:52:43 but this house over here that I’m forced to see
0:52:44 is much, much better.
0:52:46 So that’s a really good perspective.
0:52:47 How about location?
0:52:49 Does location matter so much anymore?
0:52:50 Yeah, yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s part of it
0:52:52 with the comparable sales, right?
0:52:54 What just sold and what is currently on the market.
0:52:56 Take New York City, for example.
0:52:59 You know, if you are in Battery Park City,
0:53:00 as much as you think your home is amazing,
0:53:02 I can’t comp it to Tribeca.
0:53:04 It’s just a different neighborhood.
0:53:05 It’s close.
0:53:07 And if there’s no other apartments on the market
0:53:09 for some weird reason, then sure,
0:53:11 but there’s probably other homes on the market
0:53:12 and other things that have sold
0:53:15 and you have to comp within your own neighborhood.
0:53:16 And if you’re in a condo building,
0:53:18 you have to comp in your neighborhood, right?
0:53:20 And then you have to comp within your own vertical
0:53:21 neighborhood, which is your building.
0:53:22 Yeah.
0:53:25 You know, just because the building across the street
0:53:27 got a great deal for their 20th floor apartment
0:53:30 and you’re on the 20th floor of your building,
0:53:31 your building might not be worth as much
0:53:33 for the brand of that building.
0:53:35 So you have to keep all that stuff in mind,
0:53:37 but yeah, location, location, location.
0:53:40 So another question that I have in terms of financials
0:53:42 and buying a home.
0:53:45 For first time home buyers, a big question people have
0:53:47 is like, how much should I put for my down payment, right?
0:53:50 A lot of people say 20%, but then there’s some people
0:53:53 who say 10% or even 3%.
0:53:55 So what’s your advice on that?
0:53:57 So somebody who’s buying a home like less than a million
0:54:01 dollars, I know that’s not your ball game anymore, but.
0:54:02 Yeah, no, we do.
0:54:03 Listen, we are doing a deal right now
0:54:05 for $299,000 in Brooklyn.
0:54:06 We do everything.
0:54:08 I’m balls up, right?
0:54:10 I wanna do as many deals as I possibly can.
0:54:12 You wanna put down at least 20%, okay?
0:54:14 And if you can, you wanna put down 30.
0:54:15 Oh, wow.
0:54:17 30% is healthy.
0:54:18 It’s not about what you put down.
0:54:19 It’s not about the purchase price.
0:54:21 It’s about your monthly payments.
0:54:23 You live in your monthly payment.
0:54:25 That is your budget, that’s your bills.
0:54:28 It affects your Netflix budget, it affects your dinners.
0:54:29 You live in the monthly payment.
0:54:32 You don’t live in a million dollar house.
0:54:36 You live in a house that costs you $4,500 a month, right?
0:54:38 Or a house that costs you $2,000 a month.
0:54:41 And so, whatever way you can skin the cat
0:54:43 to get your payments the lowest possible,
0:54:44 that’s what you wanna do.
0:54:46 But you wanna be smart about it, right?
0:54:48 You don’t wanna over leverage yourself
0:54:50 because the payments are small,
0:54:51 but then you don’t know what to do
0:54:53 and you can’t sell it and then you’re stuck
0:54:54 ’cause you lose your job and what have you, right?
0:54:56 That’s what happened in 2008.
0:54:59 But you always remember you live in your monthly payment
0:55:01 and you always wanna put down at least 30%.
0:55:02 Yeah.
0:55:05 So something that we ask all our guests
0:55:08 is what is your secret to profiting in life?
0:55:10 My secret to profiting.
0:55:13 And it doesn’t have to be financial, it can be anything.
0:55:15 It’s the five new people every day.
0:55:18 Like that’s my whipped cream.
0:55:20 Like that’s my profit every day.
0:55:22 The deals that I do every day,
0:55:24 the time I spend with my family,
0:55:26 the workouts I have in the morning,
0:55:28 my connection to my own wellbeing.
0:55:31 Like that’s all, I’m gonna do it anyway.
0:55:32 Like that’s all part of my win.
0:55:35 Like I know when I wake up, what I’m doing that day.
0:55:36 I’m doing all that.
0:55:39 But going out and meeting those new people,
0:55:40 that’s what the world’s all about.
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