Danielle Lazier, a top-producing real estate agent in San Francisco, shares her unique strategies for success in the industry. She discusses her early career, including the creation of San Francisco's first real estate blog, SF Hotlist. Danielle emphasizes the importance of avoiding common agent mistakes and finding ways to stand out in a crowded market. She introduces her pre-screening strategy for listing appointments, which helps determine if she is the favorite or the fool. Danielle also highlights the significance of authenticity in marketing and building connections with clients.
Takeaways
The Neighborhood Realtor is proudly sponsored by Treadstone Funding and Neighborhood Loans. For more tangible tips in real estate marketing, check out Matt's book, The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing available on Amazon.
🔑 Treadstone Funding: https://www.treadstonemortgage.com/
🔑 Neighborhood Loans: https://neighborhoodloans.com
🔑 Real Estate Marketing Guide: https://www.amazon.com/TAG-Tangible-Action-Guide-Marketing/dp/1698339747
📲 Learned something new, or have a suggestion? Message Matt Muscat on Instagram!
🏛️ Treadstone Funding propelled by Neighborhood Loans NMLS 222982 “Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee No. MB.6759826. neighborhoodloans.com/licensing/ For licensing information, go to www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org”
Danielle Lazier, a top-producing real estate agent in San Francisco, shares her unique strategies for success in the industry. She discusses her early career, including the creation of San Francisco's first real estate blog, SF Hotlist. Danielle emphasizes the importance of avoiding common agent mistakes and finding ways to stand out in a crowded market. She introduces her pre-screening strategy for listing appointments, which helps determine if she is the favorite or the fool. Danielle also highlights the significance of authenticity in marketing and building connections with clients.
Takeaways
The Neighborhood Realtor is proudly sponsored by Treadstone Funding and Neighborhood Loans. For more tangible tips in real estate marketing, check out Matt's book, The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing available on Amazon.
🔑 Treadstone Funding: https://www.treadstonemortgage.com/
🔑 Neighborhood Loans: https://neighborhoodloans.com
🔑 Real Estate Marketing Guide: https://www.amazon.com/TAG-Tangible-Action-Guide-Marketing/dp/1698339747
📲 Learned something new, or have a suggestion? Message Matt Muscat on Instagram!
🏛️ Treadstone Funding propelled by Neighborhood Loans NMLS 222982 “Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee No. MB.6759826. neighborhoodloans.com/licensing/ For licensing information, go to www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org”
(upbeat music) - It's another big thing here is that this is not about manipulation. It's about giving people a lot of agency and power and freedom to say no.
(...)
So I'm assuming that you're gonna do your due diligence.
(...)
(upbeat music) - Hey everybody, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. I think you guys are ready for a treat today. So we oftentimes have on agents from all over the Midwest. We've had a lot of people in Florida, a lot of people in Arizona, but today we're going to the hometown of one of my favorite TV sitcoms, "Full House." We're in San Francisco with Danielle Laje, with Viva Real Estate. And Danielle has sold over a billion dollars in real estate. It's such a big number that you have to put your pinky out when you say it, which is really, really exciting. But aside from that, Danielle has been doing some big things in the market and has a really unique personality and brand, both on her website, on social media, so Danielle, welcome to the show today.(...) - Hi, it's great to be here, Matt. Thank you so much for having me.(...) The "Full House" house was on the market a few years ago, but it was really fun to go see it. - I feel like I would ask if you sold it, but I feel like you would have already told me if you did. - I think that was all that. - It's okay. You know, real estate is cyclical. It'll probably be on the market again soon, and maybe because of this episode, they will choose to list with you. I think that can be really fun. - Certainly, it's the iconic painted ladies facade that you see all the time. It's what they do at the beginning of that show. - Oh, really? I mean, I feel like I never really dug into the history of the show other than like, I wanted to be in San Francisco and always wanted to go there after watching it. - Not that we're here to talk about that show, but. - I mean, we could talk about that, because I feel like everyone listening grew up with that, with Danny and Uncle Jesse. But a question I did have for you is, you started your career in a really unique way. And when I say a really unique way,(...) I think it was actually done before, and I want to know if you know who did it before you. So you started your career by coming up with San Francisco's first real estate blog.(...) And it was, what was it called?
(...)
- SF Hot List. - The SF Hot List. And so I know one other billion dollar producing realtor who also started her career in a major city by creating a hot list of, in essence, like big moves in an area. Do you know who I'm talking about? - I do not. I'm way here with that.
(...)
- Way before you, Barbara Corcoran got her start in Manhattan real estate by creating like the New York, like hot moves list of like what real estate was moving and shaking in the high end price range. And I know when we had her in as a guest to talk about how she did it, that was her big thing. And so I'm fascinated that you did it, but also that it works. So I guess like my first takeaway for anyone listening is like, if this does not exist yet in your market, it worked in the eighties. It worked 20 years ago for Danielle, like try something like that. But can you walk us through what that was and how you did it, how you got inspired to do it and what it led to. - Yeah, no, thank you for mentioning Barbara Corcoran because when I first got, when I was first getting licensed in my early twenties, and I really knew nothing about real estate. And I knew no one in real estate and had very few contacts in San Francisco because I had just moved here after college(...) and did not grow up here.
(...)
Her memoir was one of the first books that I read and it's probably still on my shelf over there. And now that you say that, that rings a bell.(...) And I'm a big believer in there is no original thought.(...) And so I don't remember exactly how I came up with it, but I know that I was reading a lot of books(...) and I was diving into a lot of like top producer interviews. I've always loved listening to other people and like what they did.(...) And I do recall, certainly there's nothing original about the idea of a hot list, right? So I remember reading that and hearing it in different places,
(...)
but it wasn't something that I didn't even know I was blogging because when I did this, there was no such thing commonly as a blog. It was friends used something called LiveJournal. - Oh my God. - As close as I knew what a blog was. - I remember LiveJournal. I had a girlfriend break up with me in ninth grade. - Okay, you're not as young as you look then. - Yeah, I had a girl break up with me in ninth grade because I posted about her relationship on LiveJournal. I mean, if she's listening, I apologize. I was probably not a nice boyfriend back then, but LiveJournal was the original blog website. I mean, one of the OG social media sites.
(...)
- Totally. - You were an early adopter in San Francisco, which is kind of crazy because you're in the techiest market in the world and you were the early adopter in real estate marketing for, I guess, online content. - Well, I think that's probably true, although I had no idea that I was doing it at the time,
(...)
but I had a friend make a one page HTML website for me. And then I had another friend do a little graphic design cartoon. Like if you go to the Wayback Machine, you'll see it, that had a cartoon of a blonde girl,(...) like young woman, I guess,(...) standing in front of an open house sign. And that was the SF Hot List.(...) And I would go around. From a coaching program, I'd heard of this idea of talking about other people's listings when you don't have your own listings.(...) And so what I would do is I would go around to other listings that I liked, but instead of writing about the listing itself, I wrote more about the lifestyle around the listing(...) and would write just a few sentences. I said that it was not my listing, but that I was a real estate agent and a member of the local MLS.(...) I would write those sentences on this one page HTML with no photos, no address. I had like neighborhoods and price ranges. I think I had little like codes for different types of property that were all kind of snarky and sassy.
(...)
Like I would say, if it was a fixer up or it would be, are you a contractor or sleeping with one? This might be the place for you.(...) Or you can roll home from the bar in your Manolos to get back to this condo. This is also dating me if you don't remember Manolos anymore.(...) But, and then what I did with that is I put it on, believe it or not Craigslist with no photos, no information except these like four sentences. And then it would say, for more information, visit sfhotlist.com. But very few people were doing that. So it wasn't crowded the way it is now. And then kind of to my shock, I started to attract young tech professionals
(...)
and I remember one of my first clients when he eventually came in to meet with me for a consultation,(...) he was my age, he is my age. And he was like, oh, I had no idea how young you were.(...) So it was kind of like a funny thing, but that's how it got started.
(...)
- So I think you said a lot of things there that I think we need to unpack because I don't want listeners to gloss over it. So something you said at the very beginning that is a write this down moment for everybody is that when you're a new agent, you don't have your own ammunition, you don't have your own listings. You need to find ammunition from other people's listings and from other things happening in the real estate market. And I think that's where a lot of agents get stuck because they never get the ball rolling because they don't have their own listings. So they have nothing to talk about. They have no content to post and it gets really boring really quickly and they get out of the business or they wait for their cousin to sell three years later. - And you have to do it consistently. People do that now on Instagram.
(...)
You know, this is not like you could replicate this now but I was doing it three times a week, every week.
(...)
- So you started by using other people's ammunition and then you kind of came up with a really unique voice and brand and a different spin on the boring marketing that every other realtor was doing, right? So you know, the example of like, you know, the Manoa Blahnik in your listing marketing or the contractor you're sleeping with, like that's not only funny, but it's on brand for the market, for your personal market, which attracted other people that were like you. So number one, great way to attract people that you're actually gonna enjoy working with. But like when I go on Facebook or Instagram, TikTok or anywhere, like a magazine, a newspaper and I see most real estate marketing around the world, it's always like a picture of the front of the house, a really boring description that at this point is probably written by Chad GPT. And there's nothing unique unless the picture of the house has like a urinal in it or something exciting. So I mean, that's the second part for anyone listening, like come up with a way to describe your properties in a way that's gonna stand out or use a photo or some type of filter or something, that's just gonna make it be the one that someone decides to click on. I absolutely love that. So how long after you started doing that, did it take for things to start popping in for your, you were new in town for your business to kind of get to like level one, I guess.
(...)
- I think that it was a combination of luck and timing and hard work, but I did well that first year,(...) mainly through the blog. And I think I did 12 deals or something in my first year, all buyers,(...) which in San Francisco is more than, like three times more than the average agent.(...) - Average agent's doing like what, one deal every three years right now? - I think it's like two or three. But so I was working for, I was being mentored and I was working for an individual broker. So it was also different. So I was in this office building downtown and on like the seventh floor of a very boring
(...)
Class C office building. And so there wasn't like open house opportunity or floor time or any, and there wasn't around other agents, which I actually think was one of the keys that allowed me to be creative.(...) Because during that year, I got to meet agents from other companies by work by selling their listings. And by the end of it, enough people had been said to me, "You're gonna make it in this business. "You should really come to a more well-known brokerage."
(...)
And my mentor was focusing more and more on pre-foreclosures. And this was in 2002. So I actually did a nine months short sale, my first year in the business.(...) You know, obviously years before that was a commonplace activity. But she was really focused on that niche, which was not where I wanted to focus and grow at the beginning of my career. So it was the right thing to do to leave. But the irony being that once you're around other agents is where you start hearing all the bad habits and the quote, best practices that can lead you astray. So I think it was to my benefit that the first year I was really on my own.
(...)
- Yeah, so let's talk about that. So you've seen a lot, it's now been 20 plus years. You've seen a lot, you've seen agents come and go, you've seen agents kill it. What are some of those traits that you made a conscious effort to avoid? Because sometimes it's not about what you're doing, it's about what you're thankfully not doing.
(...)
- Real estate has a lot of contracts. I want our podcast to have a social contract as well. Here's what I need from you. If you're listening to the show and you get something valuable out of it, or you hear something that you think, that's awesome, I want you to send me a DM on Instagram, or if you find my email, send it that way. The more feedback that I get helps me to put together better shows and attract better guests. - And that sort of leads into why you reached out to me in the first place. - Yes.
(...)
- Because it took me a long, it took me a number of years to realize that I was going down what I think is the wrong path(...) in terms of attracting clients and building a sales business.
(...)
So I think, well, one thing is in the beginning of my career, I charged a full fee. And in the beginning of my career, I used buyer-broker agreements. And so we're talking about, again, the early 2000s. And as a young 20-something with no contacts, I was charging 6%.
(...)
And I was using buyer-broker agreements.(...) I stopped feeling like I could do that once I was around other top producers and other agents who were taking me under their wing and telling me something, like, no one does that. How are you gonna do that? And I felt like, okay, well, to compete, maybe I shouldn't do that.(...) And so that was, I think, interesting.
(...)
And amazingly, it has to do with quality of life and kind of how you, I spent a lot of time working on a listing presentation and trying to get better and better at my presentation,
(...)
which I have now thrown out the window.(...) - Well, yeah, so let's dive in. So you published an article and I reached out to you, right? That's how we met. And your article is, "Wanna Quit Listing Appointments? Try This Prescreening Strategy." And you really hooked me, like, I get all these articles every Monday and I save a bunch and then I read a bunch, but you really hooked me because you wrote that if you're a fellow top producer, you become tired of the dog and pony show competing for listings against inexperienced agents. You share all your time, you put a marketing plan together, a pricing plan, and then they use their idiot brother who has no experience and you, in essence, were the fool and they chose their favorite. And that sucks. And I think every agent listening who's been in the business for a little bit and who knows what they're doing has felt this and probably doesn't wanna feel it again. So you go into talking about how you solved it and I'll let you, in your own words, talk about what your whole theory around this is. I mean, you could have fooled me into thinking you were a psychology professor with this article, but I thought it was extremely well-written and just an original take on going to market and how to handle listings, to be honest, or buyers for the matter. - Thank you. Thank you.
(...)
Yes.
(...)
I'm sure, actually, a lot of your listeners and the majority of agents would read that and think that I have completely lost my mind and that this is an incredibly stupid and foolish thing to do.(...) I was just listening to a fellow agent and coach talk about her marketing and sales class and this is an incredibly successful agent(...) and I'm sure it works really well. I just suspect it's working really well for different reasons than they may realize, but it's all about the listing presentation(...) and having people think to themselves, like, what if you had gotten that list? Think back on the listing you didn't get. What if you had gotten it?
(...)
How much more money would you have made? Things like that. And my whole take is,(...) think back to that last listing you really wanted
(...)
and imagine if you knew in the first 15 minutes that you weren't gonna get that listing. How much stress, brain space, time, money, energy, and general angst would that have saved you?
(...)
So basically, this is like, I wanna give credit where credit is due. I learned a lot of this from Chris Voss.
(...)
He has a concept called favorite or fool and he's the FBI negotiator that they used a very good clickbait title for the Inman piece, but the idea here is that people have a bias before they pick up the phone to call a salesperson. They're leaning in someone's direction
(...)
before they start doing listing interviews.
(...)
And if at first that is not something that you wanna believe, because I wanted to believe that I was smart, I was hardworking, I had the, on paper, the resume, I should be the one they're hiring, but it didn't always happen. And if you look in your market, most markets, the average agent sells very few homes.
(...)
And so if that's true, then most sellers are hiring not on a meritocracy,
(...)
which is kind of a bitter pill when we're in such an entrepreneurial business where there really is no limit.
(...)
And so it made sense to me. And part of that is like, okay, do you call the salesperson first, like before you do any of your own research, before you talk to friends, before you look at what your neighbors did? We all have our way of making decisions.
(...)
So I'm kind of wandering in circles. Am I following me so far?
(...)
Okay. - Yeah, absolutely.(...) So the idea is, is that people are already leaning in a direction. They will not admit it. They will say, well, I've never sold a home before. We don't have any idea what it's worth. That's why we want to talk to you, et cetera. Some know that they're leaning in a direction. Some are pretty sure that they're going to hire their old buyer's agent, or they're pretty sure they're going to hire their cousin, or there are a lot of cases, it's like a family member's agent.
(...)
But this is a major financial investment for most people. And we have done this to ourselves. If you were to Google how to hire a real estate agent, what do you see? Interview three to five people,(...) right? And so almost everybody-- - It's the same lending side. - Yeah, it's even worse on the lending side. - You have to learn the process.
(...)
- And I think it would work on the lending side too, for sure. I mean, I want to kind of expand this because it's true across the board. So you're either the favorite or you're the due diligence. That's the bottom line.
(...)
And I heard about this in about 2018.
(...)
And I was like, this is it. This is the missing link. This is what I always suspected. Because I used to go out of these meetings going, I guess they didn't like my shoes.(...) Like it seemed so arbitrary. - Because they were known. - How they would make these choices. So arbitrary.
(...)
And often so not based on anything that made logical sense.
(...)
And of course there are times when there are, you lose it to someone who has good on paper also. But there's something else. There's some other connection. There's some other thing. And I also want to clarify, I don't mean you can never get stranger business and be the favorite.(...) I have a lot of online content. I am often the favorite for people who are strangers to me before we talk.
(...)
But they have already gotten to know me. From all the things I'm sure you talk about on this podcast. That's why we do social media. That's why we blog. That's why we're out there. So people get to know who we are. So we're not just a name.(...) And then by the time they call you they're like, oh, Danielle.
(...)
- So let's cut to it. So with this, a favorite or full analogy,
(...)
how do you use that to then take to, I guess, show up to less listening appointments and waste less time? Like what is your strategy now that you are armed with that concept? - Well, I either do a 15 minute, 15 to 20 minute(...) phone call or Zoom.
(...)
And in that time I can tell who I am.
(...)
- And what is your tactic for figuring that out? You used a couple of terms in the article, I think. One of them was tactical empathy.
(...)
But how are you using that to kind of figure out, like how can another agent listening who maybe not everyone's gonna have your 20 years of experience,
(...)
how can they use this to figure out if they're the agent or if they're the favorite or the full? - Well, I'll give you my biggest secret weapon. If I had one.
(...)
Then I'll actually tell you what the language is. But first the philosophy of it. It is my belief. And I track this over hundreds of intakes over the last five years. And I would rank them between zero to five and my favorite or the full and I would see what happened.
(...)
And what I will tell you is that if you have the, if you can work on the right tone of voice and the right pacing,(...) meaning you sound friendly,
(...)
curious,(...) authoritative,(...) neutral,(...) open,
(...)
non-judgmental, not arrogant, not salesy, you know, what I call the NPR voice,
(...)
then the line in the sand of how far you can go in terms of how direct you can be is so much further than any of us believe.
(...)
Meaning you can be direct and confident and friendly at the same time.(...) And so the secret here,(...) and it took me, like I started with like just not going to the house anymore.(...) And so my appointments were still an hour, sometimes more on Zoom.(...) And this was pre-COVID by the way, I stopped going to listing appointments in 2019. Stopped going to people's houses. And I only go to their house once we have an agreement to work together.
(...)
But it started out as like a long process. And I've distilled it more and more and more and it really comes to this. You can ask them.
(...)
So you talk to them for a couple minutes to get a sense of why they called you.
(...)
And then you wanna hear them say to you why they called you. So first you're finding out about their situation, like what's going on with them. And then the second thing is instead of you saying, oh yeah, I sell a lot of homes like that or you know, it's good to sell yourself. You want them to say why out of all the real estate agents out there and in our market, there are thousands for less than a thousand properties that trade every year. Why they called you. And it's really important that they say it out loud.(...) And that's a big part of your clues, but you're also hearing why did they call you. And then as soon as you feel it's possible, and I'm telling you that it is a lot sooner than you think it is, you can just get right to it.(...) So, you know, Matt, I don't wanna be presumptuous. Am I wrong to assume that you'd like to work together and we should get started on strategy?
(...)
- I mean, yeah,(...) everything you said sounded great.
(...)
- So that is the way that people, I call it a truth serum.
(...)
This is not about everybody says yes to me. First they pause, because they're trying to figure out this no oriented question or like, wait, is it wrong to, but they tell you the truth
(...)
that they weren't gonna tell you.
(...)
That's really the big aha is that the answer is either, am I wrong to assume? No, you're not wrong to assume, Danielle. You know, our friends said great things about you. We like your work,(...) et cetera, et cetera. Like what's the next step?(...) And then you can go to the next thing. You can start talking about pricing, you start talking about marketing, start talking about timing, whatever you wanna talk about.
(...)
Or they say any other thing, which is often, oh, well, you know, we're just in the beginning stages right now. - Any excuse, any excuse at all. - And they're honest though, because you just gave them permission in a way to be honest. That's another big thing here is that this is not about manipulation. It's about giving people a lot of agency and power and freedom to say no.
(...)
So I'm assuming that you're gonna do your due diligence. And if you're not, you're gonna correct me. You're gonna say, I already did, I wanna work with you. I don't need, and the people who wanna work with you don't necessarily wanna sit through a two hour PowerPoint presentation.
(...)
- Neighborhood Realtor podcast is proudly made possible in the support of our sponsors. Treadstone funding and neighborhood loans. Two amazing Midwest mortgage companies that now have offices all around the country. If you're a real estate agent looking to partner with an amazing lender, DM me at DM, must be 88, and I'll connect you with someone in your market. If you're a lender and you wanna join the mortgage company at DM me, and I'll connect you as well.
(...)
- I mean, that's the most true thing you've heard. So I mean, like summing this up, this is such a great three step strategy. Like number one, find out why they called you and get them to verbalize that. And then you can, I mean, we teach our sales staff to like find that out and then to reinforce that throughout the process. Number two, I think a huge piece of it that I wanna make sure people hear and probably write down is asking the, am I wrong to assume? Phrase your question that way. Am I wrong to assume you're gonna work with me, you're interested in working with me, or you called so that you can work with me. And then three, give them permission to be honest. And if you do all of those three things, the call can be done in 15 minutes. And when you show up to their house, it's to put the sign in the yard. It's to do the little crossing the T's and dotting the I's type things. I mean, I think that's absolutely amazing. And so how did that,(...) go ahead. - I do wanna clarify that like kind of like Tim Ferriss, the four hour work week, I don't wanna be misleading here. If they're moving forward,(...) what usually happens is we schedule either a follow up zoom(...) with all the decision makers.
(...)
And I reaffirm again that I'm the favorite, that they're moving ahead with me. And then I go into all the stuff I need to know to actually have a good strategy for them. So it is more than 15 minutes. And if they are still doing their due diligence, that's fine too. I just give them permission about that. It sounds like you're still figuring things out and you're doing your due diligence.(...) What's your process look like? And kind of, and then making next steps based on that. - What are you, so let's talk about that. So obviously this strategy will help you figure out how much time you should put in afterwards.
(...)
Now many people say yes to you immediately, which is awesome, because you have a great reputation. You've sold a billion dollars in homes. For the people that aren't sure,(...) obviously you fall into the, you fall into the,(...) not the favorite, the full category on those. What is your follow up process on those? And I'm sure you still do end up reeling some in over time, but what does that look like? What is your follow up if they say, you know what, I'm interviewing you, but also like my friends, cousin or whoever, like what do you do then? How should you just handle that? - Well, first off, if you don't like the word fool, think of due diligence. And then if you are a top producer, think about who you would ask for an expert second opinion if you were getting a second opinion.(...) So it's often us who get actually brought in as that full character in the game.(...) But I will then kind of follow up to learn more. I want to find out how they know these people.
(...)
And again, it's being not afraid to ask. So if they're like, oh, well, you know, I'm talking to my old agent, I'm like, oh, the one who helped you buy the home.
(...)
You know, well, is there any reason you wouldn't work with them?
(...)
I'll give you an example. I had a call from a referral from a really good client of mine. We've done five or six sides together and they're very loyal to me and never interview anybody else when we work together.(...) And so a referral from them, I was like, wow, this is very promising. They get on the phone because I'm no longer like just assuming things and jumping to it, but I get on the phone with the wife(...) and I'm talking to her the way I now talk to everyone.(...) And within 15 minutes, the husband has chimed in from the background.
(...)
First, they've admitted that they've already had this other agent who's a very strong agent to their house twice.
(...)
And they've admitted that he was the listing agent of that house when they bought it. And they've admitted that they see his signs everywhere and that gives them a lot of confidence. And they've admitted that they have a process every time they make a big decision in that they talk to three different people or look at three different things.
(...)
So where do I stand in that?
(...)
And so they didn't wanna share any of that with me because they wanted me to come over. The first thing was we want you to come over, so-and-so recommended you, we'd love to talk to you about selling our house.
(...)
And I got them to say all that stuff. And at the end, I'm like, well, why,
(...)
he's a good agent. Is there any reason you wouldn't work with him? Again, it's no-oriented. Is there any reason you would not work with him?
(...)
And I'm not talking badly about myself. I mean, you could even say like, listen, I'm biased. I think I'm pretty good. But is there any reason you wouldn't work with so-and-so? And the husband chimes in from the background, well, no, not really. I mean, we see his name everywhere.(...) He knows this place. He's been over here.(...) And I'm like, okay, well, it sounds like you just really wanted to get some second opinions then. But you pretty much know what you wanna do.
(...)
And they're like, yeah, that's right.
(...)
I said, okay, well, that's great. So, thank you so much. And if anything changes, let me know.(...) And it's funny because they sort of feel like I did give them some pre-consulting during that call. And I'm helping them clarify their decision-making, but I'm not chasing them anymore. Because what am I gonna really do differently(...) than that guy's doing other than lower my fee more or give a higher price more?
(...)
So, I don't know. And I'm not willing to do that anymore.(...) - Yeah, I mean, and I saw online, like you have young kids. I have kids around the same age. You wanna play some tennis. You wanna have some fun. But also, you wanna give your all to the clients who are all in on you. And I think that's the important thing for agents to remember. This isn't like a level you get to when you've sold a billion dollars where you don't wanna work anymore. This is a level where the people who have chosen to work with you deserve your everything. But in order to give them that, you do have to free up some time somewhere. And this is the way to do it. And I absolutely love this. So, a couple minutes left here. I wanna talk really quick. You've obviously, you've sold a thousand plus homes in the San Francisco area, which I think is like a dream, like that any realtor would love to accomplish in a career, you know, five times longer than yours. You've done it already, but I love on your website that you show so much support to all the organizations that you're a part of. And you have so much of your personality on your website, on your social media. So just tell me, just for a couple minutes about your overall strategy when it comes to, I guess, your internet marketing, because I think it's done in a really tactful way that seems to represent you well. - Thank you. That is very appreciated.
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I also, I just have to reiterate what you just said. It's a really important point, is that this is not about,(...) you have to be at a certain level to do it. This is about really conserving your time and your energy. Our business takes it out of us and saving it for the people, like you said, who are all in on you. It has made me a better real estate agent for my clients(...) and given me my life back. But I have to support my family. So I am not interested in not doing this to turn away business. It's just made me a lot more effective and better for the people who I wanna serve. So to answer your question,(...) a friend of mine who's a very high end agent, he was like, this is a couple of years ago, Danielle, you've been doing authentic since before authentic was trendy.
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And I laughed, but I was like, that actually pretty much sums it up. I just, I have the inability to not be myself.(...) So I just sort of leaned into it. And in the beginning of my career, I had a couple of people I respected,
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I used to have like really, I used to have pink hair and I was one of the first people to wear jeans around the office, which sounds so crazy if you say it now, but we weren't allowed to wear jeans to the office meetings. - It's a good thing you can't see what I have on below my voice. - I know. - It's definitely a good reason. - Now we get to dress from the waist up, so it's perfect.(...) But they were like, you don't want to be you. The more you stand out, the better.
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Because going back to what I said before, there's a recipe of why people work with, choose to have a trust us in their homes.(...) And a big part of it is that they connect with you.(...) So you do want to be yourself. And that doesn't mean you're going to be the right fit for everyone, but I don't see how else you can do it. I just don't think anybody can do the right fit for everybody.
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- Well, I mean, what you're doing is obviously working because you're the right fit for the people that have chosen to leave you 125 five-star Google reviews. Like most people have a bunch of negative ones and their yours were stellar. So what you're doing is working. And we always kind of end it with the same thing. So Danielle, if someone is moving to San Francisco, they got transferred there by their company, how would they get a hold of you? Do you want to work with them, assuming they choose you as the favorite and not the fool?
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How could they get a hold of you? - Yeah, so we love working with agent referrals. We do that a lot. And of course we're a very small team and we want to work with buyers and sellers who we feel like we can help and want our help.
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You can find me at DanielleLagier.com.(...) And it's also Danielle Lagier on Instagram.
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And I'm for better or worse, pretty easy to find.(...) - You're not a secret agent. - You're not a secret agent.
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- Awesome, Danielle, thank you so much for sharing your strategies with us today. This was amazing. Everybody listening, if you thought this was helpful, leave a review on the podcast store or your platform of choice. It helps us get amazing agents like Danielle to trust us and want to be guests on the show. So thank you Danielle. Thanks to everyone for listening today.(...) (upbeat music)