The Secret to Thriving in Any Real Estate Market

Mark Jones of Real Estate AF sits down with industry veterans Patrick Conway and Adam Hughes to reveal the secrets to building a profitable, sustainable career in any market. They cover the power of coaching, focusing on high-value "green time" activities, and implementing simple systems like the "15 & 1" daily goal to create a referral-based business that lasts. Learn to stop being busy and start being profitable. 


Key Points

* The Power of Coaching: Long-term success is attributed to mentorship and being truly coachable—the ability to execute without opinion.
* Better, Not Bigger: A smaller, more focused business can be significantly more profitable (e.g., from 19% to 68% profit margin).
* Green Time vs. Red Time: Maximize your income by focusing on "Green Time" (money-making activities) and delegating or systematizing "Red Time" (administrative tasks).
* Systems for Success: Implement simple, consistent daily goals like the "15 & 1" rule (15 calls, 1 warm lead) to build momentum.
* Referrals Are Key: The most efficient way to grow is to get one new client from every existing client by specifically asking for the business.
* Mindset Over Market: Individual effort, strong systems, and a relationship-based approach matter more than overall market conditions.
* Build Your Support System: Success requires a strong network, including professional coaches and personal accountability partners.


Chapters (Timestamps & Topics)

* 00:00 - Intro: The Power of Coaching & Relationships
* 01:52 - Origin Stories: From Title Reps to Top Producers
* 06:40 - Patrick's "Rookie of the Year" Success & The Roller Coaster Effect
* 09:25 - The "Bigger Isn't Better" Philosophy & 68% Profitability
* 12:20 - Adam's "Rock Bottom" Turning Point & Defining "Coachable"
* 15:05 - Green Time vs. Red Time: Calculating Your $660/Hour Worth
* 19:04 - The "15 & 1" Daily Formula & 6 Elements of a Great Call
* 22:15 - Building a Referral Engine: The "Just One Deal" Script
* 25:30 - The High-Trust Interview: How to Win & Filter Clients
* 29:40 - Why Market Conditions Don't Dictate Your Success
* 32:12 - A Personal Story of Resilience: The Power of a Relationship Business
* 35:00 - Final Takeaways: Embrace the Boring & Run the Play


Mark Jones
Senior Loan Officer | NMLS #513437
iThink Mortgage powered by Premier Mortgage Resources | NMLS #1169
Equal Housing Opportunity

All content on this channel is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to lend, loan approval, financial advice, legal advice, tax advice, or investment advice. Loan terms, interest rates, program availability, down payment requirements, and eligibility are subject to credit approval, underwriting guidelines, investor overlays, market conditions, and change without notice.

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Transcript

Get Better Every Day

SPEAKER_00 0:00

At the end of every day, look at yourself in the mirror and ask, did I get better today? Monday, get better. Tuesday, get better. Wednesday, get better. If you do that for five years, ten years, fifteen years, how much better will you be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the real question. And it all comes down to taking small steps. You don't have to accomplish everything in one day or even one week. Just focus on getting a little better every single day.

Meet The Hosts And Guests

Mark Jones 0:33

And welcome back to another episode of Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance, and I'm your host, Mark Jones, and we are powered by Lone Bot, Smarter Mortgage Matching, now available on the App Store and Google Play. And today I brought along a seasoned realtor and a seasoned lender to combat or to confirm some of the theories that I have about today's market. And these are what I call like the old dogs in the business, like myself, you know. So without further ado, let me introduce my guests. First guest, Patrick Conway. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:05

What's up, man? I never knew what the AF stand for.

Mark Jones 1:07

What does it stand for? And finance. Okay, cool. On here. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

That's awesome.

Mark Jones 1:14

So next.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

And you've been called old already. Okay, this is great.

Mark Jones 1:17

But I called Woods. And my second guest, Adam Hughes. Adam, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I'm doing great, man. Happy to be here.

Mark Jones 1:25

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I think I would be the oldest dog. Are you way much older than me?

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Yeah, because I'm 43.

Mark Jones 1:31

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Yeah, yeah. When you're 43, you can have froze now, if you didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah. Going back old school, curly hair.

Mark Jones 1:38

Looks good. Looks mad because I weigh less. So, guys, to kick this thing off, if you could, let's start. Who wants to go first? But briefly tell us about you, how you got in the business, and what you've done thus

Two Careers Built From Title Work

Mark Jones 1:52

far.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Man, you know, I'm originally from Chicago, moved here in high school, kicking and screaming at the world. Randomly stumbled upon an internship with Pulti Helms, and Pulti was the Mac Daddy builder. Yeah. So they had, oh my gosh, I think 60 something communities, 100 salespeople, and I was the sales intern, aka the B-word to everyone. So good start to learn because now all those people were scattered everywhere at all the different builders. So you've got all the builders, VPs of sales, division presidents that I was working with hand in hand. Right. So after having some experience in that, I finally decided to jump in and get my real estate license. There was a tad bit of time where I actually worked in the title business. Yeah. And that's where I met this man. He was my boss. There you go. Can I say the B-word?

Mark Jones 2:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

As long as you use it correctly. So he was my boss, and I was like his little title rep running around the hardest job that I ever had in my life. I was not a very good title rep. So all the title reps out there, wow, you guys have a tough job. So I was like his bitch for a while. Yeah. And then I became a realtor and started having some success right away. And shortly after that, he became a lender and he became my lender. So he's my bitch now, which is great. I love it.

Mark Jones 2:56

I love it. The turns have tabled. Yeah. Exactly right. So I want to come back to you in a moment because of something you just mentioned. But Adam, if you could tell us about yourself a bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, man. I've been on this journey. This year will be my 20th year in San Antonio real estate. And I started in June of 06, graduated from Texas State University, go Bob Katz. Outside of that, had an inside sales job, selling market research for a year, realized real quick that I was a big distraction because I couldn't stay sitting down in a cubicle for very long. And my A B D A D H D A F I got that whole all of those acronyms. And then it's our superpower, by the way. 100%. My mom has an escrow officer for like 23 years. She was in El Paso and she's like, hey, why don't you get into real estate into the title business? And I was like, Mom, I'm so sorry. I don't even know what title insurance means. And she's like, it's okay. All you have to do is go talk to realtors and convince them to use you know the Esker officer. So in in June of 06, I joined Title Company. I was there for seven years. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Elle was amazing, by the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Thanks. Good looking too. Thank you. I'm going to take all those. We don't even want to get his mom was an escrow officer as well, but we'll we'll save that for another podcast day. But after a few years, became a sales manager there. Hired this young man. He walked into my office, him and his full ego, barely could fit through the door. And after a while, he decided to leave and get into real estate. I was bummed about that because we'd become close friends. And then, you know, in order for me to grow in the title business, which again was my hardest job I've ever had, I was going to have to relocate or move. And at that time, I'd gotten married, and my wife's like, hey, I'm not moving. And if I wanted to change my income or accelerate my income, I was like, man, I'm going to get into real estate. And it was at that time she was actually put it in my mind and she said, Hey, why don't you become a lender? And I thought, I've never even thought about that before. I didn't even know how you got paid as a lender. And from there in 2013, I jumped in the lending business. And so I've been at the same company ever since. That's awesome.

Mark Jones 4:54

That's awesome. Good deal. Well, I and I mentioned I wanted to come back

Core Training And Early Breakthroughs

Mark Jones 4:58

to something. And that something is you, Patrick. You mentioned that you had pretty good success up front, right when you got into real estate. What do you attribute that to?

SPEAKER_04 5:07

So when I was a title rep, as a title rep, you're chasing good lenders like yourself for the refi business. You're chasing builders to try to get them to close with your title company. And you're chasing awesome realtors for their listing business. And I noticed that some of the greatest lenders and some of the greatest realtors that I was chasing at the time were all affiliated with the same program, which is the core training. And I was like, what is this? And some of the lenders took a liking to me and they were like, hey, we train really simple tactical things to realtors. But the problem is I need the realtors to show up to my training. So you, as a title rep, if you can get a bunch of people in the room, I'll train them up. And if you can do that, I'll send you my refines. So I'd put a bunch of people in the room. I would listen to awesome lenders train up simple tactical things. And I was like, that's where the light bulb went off for me. I was like, I could probably do this and go out and make some money doing real estate. This would be really cool. So I had some really good mentors out of the gate, got involved in the core training. And in my first year, I just paid attention to some of the very simple little tactical things. Yeah. Helped 43 families for about 10 million in real estate volume. And I was Keller Williams rookie of the year for the nation, which isn't saying much because rookie agents aren't the greatest.

Mark Jones 6:15

But that's still a great accolade.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Yeah, pretty cool stuff. And from there, the mentor said, Hey, just take care of somebody like you're taking care of your own mom, which meant just absolutely white glove service, really pour into them. So those first 43 families started taking really good care of them. They started referring me. And year number two, we helped 106 families.

unknown 6:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

For about 26 million. So the first two years are like just crazy. Yeah. It was awesome. Then through the core and through some of the mentors, they taught me how to hire a team concept. And the only reason that I've been something in this industry is because I've had the right people that have worked for me. I've had some like huge, big hitters that have worked with me help out, boosting up tons of business. I used to have this ego that Adam mentioned, probably not so much anymore, but I always thought bigger was better. I was like, how big can I get? So I think at a height of big, probably 2017-18, we helped like 346 families, but it was more of a brokerage model. So I had like 24 people working with me, some unbelievable big hitters. And it was good, but bigger's not always better. Better's better. So since 2018, I've been trying to slim down and figure out like how can I take better care of the client myself instead of delegating those relationships. So if you want to get into the nuts and bolts of things, obviously we're all business people, and I think a lot of realtors and lenders don't even treat it like a business person. Agree. So when you look at a PL, uh, if you know anything about a PL, it's profit and loss. I didn't even know what that meant probably in 2018. I was like, PL, what does that stand for? Patrick and who? Who is I don't know? So PL stuff, I was profitable by 19% in that big year. Okay. And the last couple years in a row, we've been averaging 68%, which is way, way different. Wow. So we can do like half the business for double the money, right? So it's been crazy.

Mark Jones 7:53

Wow. And that's impressive because um, like for myself, I I didn't learn about the core until maybe six months into my career. And after early, yeah. I mean, it it is. Yeah, but I getting into the industry, I had no idea, I had no agents known, no one knew me, so I leveraged social media, had a great first six months, and then rolled over the next year and it continued to snowball. But I didn't uh invest in the core, I didn't have a coach, I didn't do those things. But I was quietly watching and listening to all of the people that were in the core. And we'd get a hold of some of y'all's stuff and we go, oh, so this is what wait a minute. So this is very basic tasks that people are just not doing.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Everybody knows what to do, everybody has access to do it. Information's all free. Right. But the accountability is so for me, coach coach equals win. Like you ever talk about any good coaches that don't win? No. No, it's like, oh man, that guy won a bunch, so he's a great coach. So coaching equals winning. And everybody knows exactly what to do. Everybody knows how to execute a play. Like the great coaches are like, here's our playbook. Yeah. But it's all about the accountability and the execution of that play consistently over time.

Mark Jones 9:04

Absolutely.

Getting Coached Without An Opinion

Mark Jones 9:05

Now, Adam, for you, and before we get into our actual topics, you had some pretty solid success as well. What do you attribute that to? Because you had already been known in the title industry and you leveraged the hell out of that as you jumped into lending.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Right. You know, for my journey has always been, I've always admired how Patrick works because he's always quick to act. Yeah. I'm always slow to act. I'm the overthinker. I'm the guy that's like has trouble keeping it simple. And so I was like, you got to dumb it down to me. And then I would still be coach, and then I'd be like, ah, I'm a dum dum about that.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

I think for a few years we switched roles though, because I was like pretty slow for a while there.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I think it was 2016. I became a lender in 13. In 2016, I'd gotten to myself, I've gotten I'd hit a highlight in my career where I had closed the most loans that I'd ever done in one month. And it was in the end of 2015 in December, I'd closed 18 loans at that time. 17 were for me. Boom! In January, I closed steak dinner. I only closed three loans the very following month. And then in February, I only closed two loans. Okay. My spending was going like this. Oh, yeah. And then my loan volume was falling down. And I had hit a crossroads in that March, and I had uh, this is where coaching really turned around for me. And I hit a point where I couldn't pay off my credit cards.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

And I had one-on-one meeting with one of my mentors. You know her, Miss Nikki Salter. Got to give her a lot of street cred out there. I said, Hey, I'm in a pro I'm I'm in a spot where I can't dig myself out of this. What do I do? And she was like, I think you should maybe not be a loan officer anymore. And I was like, cannot believe you just told me that. I invested my whole entire life career. There's no plan B. My wife's at home with the kids. Yeah. This is gonna work. Sounds like it's something you needed to hear. Absolutely. And so she was like, Is that the ultimate takeaway, Gloves? Hell yeah. Yeah, I could have left there. You know what?

Mark Jones 11:02

Let's just pack it up.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Pack it up. I could have quit, but it put the like perfect chip on my shoulder because she was like, Adam, if I told you you'd make a hundred phone calls this week, you would find the best excuse to not do it. Everything is an excuse of what's going on and why you're not doing the work that's assigned. And it was at that point that I defined being coachable as the ability for somebody to tell you to do something and not have an opinion. The minute that you can do that, and I think a lot about the Spurs, we're all in our Spurs gear today. Go Spurs. And I think about that, like when egos get checked at the door, right? And it's like you don't tell, you nobody ever told Popovich, like, no, I'm not gonna do that. You know what I'm saying? It was like you go and you do it. And it was at that point where I think my career really accelerated. And I was like, oh, this is what it's like to be mentored. This is what it's like to be coached. And I've taken that from here on out in my personal life, my spiritual life, and you know, therapy to have a better marriage and everything and the people that we surround ourselves like with. It was a great idea, grabbing all of those different things. Absolutely. Because there is a great solid group of real estate professionals and other professionals in our industry that are killing it despite whatever market conditions are, despite what anyone else feels. Absolutely, there are still people running great successful businesses despite whatever the market tells us.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Can I back you up? Because that was so freaking gold. What so what's your definition of coaching?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

The ability to being told to do something and not have an opinion until after you've done it. You said that, yeah.

Mark Jones 12:39

You you said that, and I immediately thought of my son.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah.

Mark Jones 12:43

Everyone and raising and coaching and mentoring, sports, life, situational, etc. It's like end the opinion. You you hit it on the money.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

So if you walked into a real estate room full of realtors, blenders, insurance, title people, and you said, Hey, do you feel like you're coachable? Probably 99% of the room is going to shake their head, yes. But what does that like truly mean to be coachable is totally different. Right. Like if somebody said, Hey, you have to do this no matter what, and you take your thoughts out of it and just accomplish the task. If we can do that every single day, it would change our lives. Now, the the kicker is that we have thoughts and choices. Sure. So we start off our day with thoughts and choices. And the thoughts and choices that we're making today, right now, are either going to sabotage or make our life better in the future.

Mark Jones 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

With every decision, with whether I'm drinking water or coffee or whether we're going to sleep and you know, getting nine hours of sleep, whatever the case is. So that's kind of how I

How To Choose The Right Coach

SPEAKER_01 13:44

thought about it.

Mark Jones 13:44

It it it prompts another question that you mention of how do you know if you have selected the right coach? Because to have to be coachable, like you're saying, and essentially to follow this advice without any opinion or or pushback or anything like that, it's got to be the right person that gets you to do that. In your case, Nikki was the right person at the right time. Right. Said the right things that went, okay, time to snap out of it. I can do this shit.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah.

Mark Jones 14:15

You know? Yeah. Patrick, your thoughts on the concept of finding the right coach. Because you guys have been in the core for quite some time. Do they pair you guys with different coaches? Do they switch you around after a while? I can only imagine that should be something that they do, right? Crickets.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

So not not crickets, just uh biting my tongue for a second to make sure I don't say anything off uh color.

Mark Jones 14:37

I'm sure they won't see this. Maybe they will.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

So I guess what I want to say on that is I walked into this room and you were talking to me, and I was busy today. Yeah, I had some things going on that were a little extra. And you were like, Oh, that's funny that you're doing that, because I have some realtors that are closing 11 deals all year and they have assistance and all these different things to put on the show or whatever it is. I'm not saying 11's not great. I mean, if you close 11 at one market, it's a really good deal. I mean, the average realtor closes 1.6 deals in a whole year. So there's different levels of different things. So I think that number one.

Mark Jones 15:12

That's a good point. The average realtor closes 1.6 or so. Does an average realtor, I don't want to say the words deserve, I'd rather say need a transaction coordinator.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

In my opinion, depending on where you want to go. So I think when it looked, when you're looking at a coach, you need to understand where you want to be, what you want to accomplish. Okay. And so you need to understand your priorities, where you're going, what means something to you. So what could be outstanding for you is, man, I want to figure out a way to do a deal a month consistently. And that could be a game changer, life changer for you. Real estate could make a lot of money. I remember when I started in business and I was his uh title rep, I was thinking about jumping into real estate. I was like, man, if I could just ever figure out a way to do five deals a month consistently, I understand there's some spend according with that. I think that if I could figure out a way to make 200 grand taxable income, that would be the end-all be all.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

And I surpassed that like in year two or something ridiculous, which was great. But I just thought that was like a five-year big vision. So if you pair it up with the right coaches, they can raise the glass ceiling for you too. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. Like push yourself, but don't. What is good for you? So I could look at somebody and say, Man, they're doing 20 deals a month. How do I get to that point? But if you're doing not even one, you can't go from one to 20. So sometimes you got to take your baby steps there. So that's making sure that you're aligned with the correct coach. And then there are also coaches who are like, Oh, I've done 11 deals this year, so let me become a coach and teach all this stuff. So I think you can be a mentor, you can share some of the things, but if you really truly want to coach, you got to find like the Nikki Salters of the world who she can meet you where you're at. Yeah. So at that time, she's just crushing Adam every day. Right. But she met him where he was at and able to boost him up because she's a fantastic coach. So I think you just got to really look at who is the coach, where have they been? Have they coached other people? Uh, the people that have come through them, have they grown other people? Yeah. So I think as a coach, you're winning for sure, but you have to have a lot of leadership. And leadership to me is influence and influence for growth. Yeah. I think those are some of the key things when you're looking at coaches that you need to keep in mind. I think you nailed it. Yeah, for sure.

The Roller Coaster Problem In Sales

Mark Jones 17:11

And and what you were talking about earlier, Adam, was the concept of the roller coaster effect that loan officers tend to have. Realtors may have it, but more so loan officers because we're out getting deals, then we're in putting the deals together, and then we're monitoring the deals, and then, oh, wait, I gotta go get more deals again.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Yeah.

Mark Jones 17:30

And until you put some type of mechanism or some type of process in place, and that could be people, it could be systems. As we fast forward through life these days, it could be an AI agent that does some of those things. Right, right. But at the end of the day, you can only do so much as one person. And I kind of live by the uh Gary Vee uh saying that you only add people when what you're doing is already working. You don't add people to solve the problem. You you you essentially add people to grow more because what you're doing is already working. Yeah. Is that kind of something that you incorporated?

SPEAKER_01 18:09

You know, man, I I don't want to get all up in the feels, but I'm probably like a little bit on the on the deeper side of it now because I'm at a different phase in my life. And it's funny, we were joking around talking about, hey, what is it like to be in your 40s and in real estate and have been doing this for a long time? Can I be 39 with you? Yeah, anytime.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

All right, anytime.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

You look like it. I love it. We know the recipe. Yeah. Okay. We know that we can make a certain amount of calls, have a certain amount of meetings, have a certain get a certain amount of leads, have a certain amount of conversion equals a certain amount of deals. We all know these. Yeah. But whether we do that or not is up to us. And I think that we're all in different phases of our lives. Like back in the day, 15 years ago, when we were starting all the work together, we were out networking all of the time. I mean, we were uh the the old stoneworks, the Regionas, and I say we're locally San Antonio right here. I've got three little humans that I take care of now. You know, I want to go and spend that time with them. So right now, when when I wake up in the morning, I haven't even shared this with you yet, but I hired a coach that's now doing my life coaching. Okay. So I have my business coach, but right now I'm trying to figure out what is exciting about this today. And comparison is the theft of all joy. So when I see, hey, Mark Jones is doing awesome, and I'm like, he's incorporating AI and he's grasping it and he's doing great. And then I compare myself to that, that might not be meeting on where my I'm at mentally right now because I know the recipe. I know we got to incorporate AI and I know we have to do all of those things, but I'm thinking of like, hey, what can I rally around that's going to get me excited to get me where I want to go and and and why do I want to do it? Like, what is my subconscious commitment to repurpose to go through doing it? Sure. Yeah. So my vision has slowly been changing, and I'm seeking those mentors that can help because I always think of things a surface level a little bit, and I need some coaching, some guidance to be like dig a little bit deeper and figure out hey, what's the best use of Adam in this season of his life to get him where he wants to go? But do keep in mind, I'm gonna do $100 million in loans, which has been my my big, big deal. And you know, I'm still fighting to go and do that in my 40s. So I'm gonna be one of the OGs that still hits 100 million loan volume. Yeah. So anyway.

Mark Jones 20:25

And it's still possible. Yeah, definitely is still possible, and that is a great segue to our topics today.

Green Time Vs Red Time

Mark Jones 20:32

Can I add can I please add something to that?

SPEAKER_04 20:35

So I think you were you were kind of asking me a question, and I asked I answered the coaching part of it, and I didn't answer the second part because you were asking about assistance, and then you kind of jumped in for assistance. So I think that when you actually have some success and you're trying to get to a certain point, you can't do it on your own. So you have to have help. So I had a coach in my life that I think when was your really good year or your really good month? You said 2015, you closed all these deals. Right, right, 2000. It was it was around the same time for me, so it's amazing. So we closed like 20 deals in one month, and it was the first time we ever did that. And it was probably 2015, 16, something like that. And I had a coach in my life who was like, wow, what a great month! And whatever it was, I I ended up making like six figures in one month. It was crazy. I've never done that before.

Mark Jones 21:19

And sucks at the same time. Been there. I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna frame this, but then wait a minute.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

So as you're talking about paying attention to the right people, somebody told me about a book that I was embarrassed that I hadn't read yet called Raving Fans. And I was like, Well, let me read this book. So I read the book, and the concept of the book is great. It's one of my favorite business books of all time. Let us know what you want, know what your client wants, and then deliver that plus one percent. You can get unbelievable raving fans, more referrals. That's right. So I was reading that book and I was like, How do I get one percent better? So after this 20 deal month, my coach called me up. It's the following month. She's like, What are you working on? And I couldn't even remember, but it was somehow to get one percent better. Okay. And she was like, Are you an idiot? I go, what do you mean? I just read this book. You told me to read the book. I'm not an idiot. She's like, Yeah, but you have some staff that need to help you get that 1% better. So are you the executor or are you the visionary? And I said, Well, I have a vision for this. She's like, Yes. So then you have staff to help you do that stuff. She said, Hey, we've been working on your calendar. You had this big, huge month. So how many hours did you work last month? It was something like 55 hours a week or something I was working. So we added it all up, and I divided the amount of money that I made by the amount of hours that I worked in that entire month. And it came out to 660, which means $660 per hour is what I was worth in that month where I closed 20 deals. And she was like, Who makes that? Do brain surgeons make that? Like, this is crazy. So, how did you make that money? And I said, Well, I was having appointments, I was seeing referral partners, I was asking for business, I was showing houses, I was going on listings, all those things. She called it green time activities, right? Money needle moving activities. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, okay, so she's like, What are you doing now? Are you making any money right now, trying to get 1% better? I said, Not really. Well, I can't remember exactly what it was. No, I'm getting your concept. Yeah. So she's like, Well, you have all the staff. Why don't you share the vision with the staff and have them execute it? I said, Okay, that sounds good. And she's like, What can you do today to go make money? So I boiled that down a little bit more. And I always talk to Adam about this every single day. Like, my main job as a realtor, it's tough. You have so many people pulling you in a million different ways. There's a lot of things you could say yes to. There's a lot of events you could go to, there's a lot of people you could see. It's like, what should we be doing?

Mark Jones 23:22

All the while you have a full team dependent on you to support them.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

That's exactly right. So the more green time you have, the more leads that you bring in, the more leads you convert, the more job security for everybody else.

Mark Jones 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

So you got to stay in that green time activity as much as possible. But every single day I go to work and I'm like, I just need to capture one warm lead. I can capture one warm lead. I'll get 30 warm leads in a month. 30 warm leads, and a warm lead would be like a good referral. So if Adam was like, Oh, my buddy wants to sell a house, Patrick, go to them. The odds of me converting that are very, very high because we're buddies. We know each other, we're referral partners. He's already set me up and queued me up the right way.

Mark Jones 23:59

In addition, you've already calculated your conversion percentage. You know what you need to do in order to increase those at that point in time, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

So warm lead conversion for us is 52%. So if I get two leads, I'm closing a deal. There you go. So one warm lead per day is the goal. That'd be 30 warm leads in a month. That would be like 15 deals. That's plenty. It's crazy. But you can't do that if you are worried about the red time activities or the stuff that's like not the $600 an hour work.

Mark Jones 24:27

Paper pushing.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

Yes. So the formula for success is when you find yourself doing three plus deals per month consistently for three months in a row, you have to have a support person. So in my very first year of business, when I jumped in and I helped 43 families, it was like the first three months were zero, zero, and zero. And all I was doing out there was chasing people for referrals, chasing past clients, chasing referral partners. Just what can I do? Can I do an open house? All I was doing was green time activities. I didn't have any red time activities to do. Make sense? I didn't have any deals. Right. And then in that, so it was January, February, March, zero, zero, zero. In April, we closed six deals. Okay.

Mark Jones 25:04

And I was like, I'm rich, bitch. What's up?

SPEAKER_04 25:07

And then, of course, in May I closed zero again. Why did I close zero? Well, I had six deals, and all I was doing was red time activity. I was like, title company, lender, where's the check? Where's this? Let's negotiate the option. Let's figure out how to schedule the closing. Oh, the survey company can't get in because the fence is locked. Oh my gosh. Like all these things were happening, and I was covering all that stuff where I could have easily paid somebody $20 an hour to do that. And if I had somebody making $20 an hour doing that stuff, then I could have continued with what got me there.

Mark Jones 25:34

Now let me ask you this. Had you never experienced what all of that encompassed, would you still value the concept of having support staff?

SPEAKER_04 25:48

Does that make sense? Does that make sense? For me, yes, because as Adam said, I have three kids as well. And it's like, man, I also like to have a fun time. So I love work. I mean, and I love coaching. I love doing some real estate, but I could list a hundred things that I'd rather do. Right. So I'm not the guy that's going to work 80 hours a week. I mean, I will have a little bit of a season where it's like, I worked a bunch this week or next week, but then I'm going to take some time to go do the fun things that I want to do. So it's present with kids. I have a good time with myself, and you can't do it all. I'm just coming out of a season of life that was probably the hardest 17 months of my entire life. I had a heart surgery, had health issues, had team issues, had rebuilding issues, had romantic relationship issues, had I'm not in San Antonio, hardly ever issues. And when you're in real estate, you got to be live and local. So there were just so many things that were going on. Welcome to your 40s. I know, right? This is 40. Yeah, that's right. In this rebuild season, I've been working my tail off in terms of hours, but I've been doing all the red time stuff because I had to revamp things. So sometimes there's a season where you got to work your tail off to get it done. That's why my eyes are a little glossy because I've been working too much. I thought you were stoned.

Mark Jones 26:51

Yeah, that's I'm like, yeah, me too. Sure, your core guys will love this.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

But you can't do it all alone, right? So the formula for me is for a real estate agent, if you are consistently doing three deals or more per month, you got to have some type of assistant. And immediately they're like virtual assistant. I'm like, no, they're not going to take good care of your client. So you need somebody who works with you face to face, live every day. You can come in, you can have a meeting, you can talk about the leads, you could talk about the deals, you could talk about how to take extra better special care of everybody, and it just makes more sense. And then you are freed up to continue that green time activity, which is all relationship-based for me.

Mark Jones 27:30

I mean, great answer, totally, totally agree with you. But the concept, let's reverse it. Let's say would a realtor that uh is not doing the three deals a month that uh incorporates a partner, a transaction coordinator, anything like that before they've even hit the three deals, do they tend to not appreciate that assistance because they never really went through the weeds like you are talking about here.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Does that make sense? Yeah. Depends on their why. Uh, I think most realtors get into business for money and freedom.

Mark Jones 28:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

So they start making a little money and then they want to take more freedom.

Mark Jones 28:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

So if they hire that assistant to free them up and not do the actual activities that we were talking about. Yes. And the activity that we're talking about is relationship outbound sales.

Mark Jones 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

We are a salesperson, and the definition of a salesperson to me is acquire and retain clients. That's it. So if they discontinue that by hiring an assistant so they can go mess around more, that's not good. But they have to have some kind of minimum metric that they're hitting on a weekly or daily basis.

15 And One Prospecting Framework

SPEAKER_04 28:38

For me, I just every day that I'm at work, it's 15 and one for me. I already told you the one is one warm lead, 15 is 15 excellent calls.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:46

And not just like, hey, Mr. Smith, your appraisal came in. Like, I'm prospecting for business. So I've got six elements of a great call that I can give you. The first one is the hardest to measure, it's enhance the relationship. So if I call you up and I take you through Ford or Frog, which is an acronym for family, occupation, recreation, dreams, and goals, and we're talking about those topics, we're enhancing our relationship. Absolutely. And then back in the day in 2018, when we were 346 deals, it was like if I was talking to Adam and he's like, oh man, my son's struggling with this or that. I'd be like, okay, cool. Well, hey, do you know anybody that wants to buy or sell? Did you even listen to what I say? Right. So part of that enhance the relationship is ask three questions. So if you brought up something to me, I'm going to make sure that I ask three questions to go deep. So that's the first topic that I'm trying to hit, enhance the relationship. Number two is give more leads. Yeah. So I think every single one of my buyers uses Adam for loans. Every single one of my sellers uses my title company for title. Yeah. But outside of that, I don't do a good job. Like every single person should be getting their grass cut by my grass guy. Everybody should go to my favorite Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Like I got to refer more and the law of reciprocity will come into play. Number three for there is get a lead. So if I'm on the phone with somebody and they give me a lead, it doesn't get much better than that.

Mark Jones 29:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

Number four is find a need, fill a need. So I'm asking enough questions if you have a need and I can fulfill that, then I become valuable to you. Yes. So that's an unbelievable great conversation if I'm finding a need, filling a need for them. Number five is set an appointment. So the best appointment a realtor can set is a listing appointment, followed by showing a house or meeting with a referral partner. But I don't care if it's, hey, mom, we're having Sunday brunch. Can you make it? Cool. Or hey, I'm doing a happy hour on Thursday from five to seven. Can you make it? Cool. Right on. I set an appointment. And then number six, which no realtors ever do, they can say they do, but they don't. Specifically ask for business.

Mark Jones 30:29

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

So I think that the specific ask for business for me is always extra favor specific. I always finish every conversation. Hey, is there anything extra that I can do for you? Hey, I got a big favor to ask. Hey, can you send me one just one buyer or seller before the end of the summertime?

Mark Jones 30:43

And that is that is such a smooth lead into asking for referrals. A lot of times I'll speak to realtors and I ask them, hey, Jess, referrals? We you crushed it. We crushed it on this one. Yeah, I plan to after we close. What are you doing? You're wasting all of this opportunity right now when they are hot to trot and you're they see you as the best thing right now. Get in there and ask for those referrals right now. Matter of fact, ask for them the day you meet them. Why? Because you're there to show value. And if you can extend that value to anybody that they know, you're you're missing out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

The greatest tactic for a bunch of business. I'm hogging the mic now. So to review every day, it's 15 and one. Okay. So 15 great conversations based on those six elements. So the six elements enhance the relationship, give a lead, get a lead, find a need, fill a need, set an appointment, or specifically ask for business. And what you're talking about is like a slam dunk. I think the easiest way to double your business, the most efficient way to double your business would be get one client from every client.

Six Elements Of Great Calls

Mark Jones 31:43

Amen. Spiral of effect.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

We moved here from Chicago, and my mom is in the title business, as we talked about. So we'll transition to my mom so you can tell the story.

Mark Jones 31:50

So I've got a question for Adam. Finish your once Patrick is now on my thing.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I'm good. So she was in the title business and she was her name is Betty. She was an old lady assistant and then she retires. But she lives off Brookhollow in 281 in a two-bedroom, two-bath, like hot, awesome house. Okay. So she stayed in touch with my mom forever. So Betty ends up like calling mom. Hey, do you think Patrick could help me on my house because I want to buy this Dell Webb property? So she already picked out the spec home, Syntex, Dell Webb, whatever. It's a 350 house. She's got her house off Brookhollow in 281. It's a 300 house, but it sells like in a heartbeat. So she calls me up and I just take for granted as 80-year-old little Betty. You know what I mean? So I meet her. She's like, You're already on the new deal. Just sell this house. It's a slam dunk. My mom being in the escrow business, she does a courtesy close, so Betty can close on both homes. So we close on both homes. We're walking out. I'm walking towards the door. She walks towards the seating area of the lobbying and I'm like, Betty, we're done, done. You own both homes now. She's like, Oh, I know. But my friend uh is gonna be my neighbor now. She bought the house next door. So we're gonna take the fence down, the dogs are gonna run back and forth. I was like, oh, that's cool. She's like, she used to be my almost neighbor. She was five houses down on Brook Hollow. I was like, oh, that's cool. So she must have already had a realtor. She's like, no, she didn't. We just didn't want to bother you because we know that you were just doing your mom a favor with my little tiny baby deals. I see. Now on a 350 house and a 300 house, that sounds like 18 grand to me.

Mark Jones 33:10

They all add up.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

So I left out 18 grand because I was too stupid. So every time I go to a listing appointment as a realtor, my number one job is to get that listing. Sign up with me. Can I be a realtor? Sign here. And the second that they're signing here, I say, hey, now I got two main jobs. My number one job is you. We're gonna sell this house based on the game plan that we just laid out. But my number two job is to find people just like you. So do you know anybody else that's looking to buy or sell? And if you do, please introduce them to me. It will help me focus on my number one job, which is you.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

And if I could have given that 30-second thing to Betty, I would have had her friend and I'd be 18 grand richer.

Mark Jones 33:39

Yeah. And and I don't think you were stupid. I think you were lazy. I think you were comfortable. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And in that instance, you thought, I've got this in the bag. I don't need to go through my normal processes because I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

System and structure beats everything.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Everything. Yes, sir. To add to what Pat said to help land the plane for like real life, that what he just described works across any industry. Yes. You are insurance, financial planner, whatever it is that we're doing. Some there's people that are struggling that are listening to this today. That's a struggling realtor trying to figure out how to get a deal. A lender's trying to figure out how to get a deal, a financial planner. Dude, are you gonna I'm no Mr.

Mark Jones 34:22

Miyagi, Mr. Miyagi needs to come on with it. Smack it. I don't know what it's on your finger. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's sucking your blood. Sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

On your finger, you can't even get him.

Mark Jones 34:32

Come on, man.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Wide view, wide view.

Mark Jones 34:34

I'm in my 40s. You got the mosquito guy. So keep going. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

No, no. So, you know, if I was out there struggling right now, I'd be like rewinding and listening and writing down what Patrick just said, because there's a lot of folks out there that are like, I don't want to have sales breath. I don't want to come off like a salesperson. What he's describing is basic human behavior reaction. Yes, sir. People want to help you, Mark. Yeah. Whether you like it or not, if you're walking down an H E B aisle and you meet somebody where they're at, they want to help you. A person's natural behavior is to want to reciprocate and do something nice based on obligation. If you went and helped them and you opened up their car door, that person subconsciously feels like they owe you something. You know what I mean? And so I don't think it's ever a bad thing to come back and be able to say and get that built into your mind, a consistent process for asking the referral. It can completely change your entire business just by saying that. And one small thing, which is actually a big thing that Pat taught me a long time ago. I had a list of very important people in my life that I relied on for referrals. And I used to rely on them by saying, Hey, Mark, would you use me as a lender? You would reply, Hey, I love you, Adam. You're great. Anytime I think about somebody, I'm going to refer them over to you. That worked for a few years with very little success. Okay. But Pat one time was like, Hey, dude, why don't you change the script? And instead of saying, like, hey, can I be the guy? Just ask for one. Give me one name. Just one deal this year. Like, you've got 365 days this year. Can I count on you, Mark, for at least one family that I can help find their dream home? Just one. Yeah. And it's like, when that list went from 20 people to 25 people to 50 people. That's all transactions that are there, including my coach at the time when I was talking to him about this, said, Hey, so who's your number one person on your list? And I said a random name. And then he was like, No, dum dumb. That should be your wife, dude. And I was like, What? He's like, Yeah, your wife. And then so that that time I told Bridget, hey, you're responsible for one deal. So we'd begin to like September. And I'm like, hey, where's my deal? You know what I mean? It's awesome. Like, you know, so staying top of mind like that had really, really helped just by being friends and showing people that you care.

Mark Jones 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

It could, you know, totally change your business. Oh, those are great points.

Mark Jones 37:04

Truly great points. So well done.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

Scotty Bowman.

Mark Jones 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

Coach of the Red Wings, two different dynasties. Unbelievable. We talked about winning as a coach. I mean, he's like probably the best NHL coach. He's up there with everybody. And he had the greatest coaches. So I had an opportunity to talk to him and he gave a little talk to us. He's a horrible speaker, by the way, but it was cool.

Mark Jones 37:20

And maybe you made him nervous. Yeah. It's like, damn, this guy's good.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

We were like, hey, what questions do you want to ask? And I said, you know what? You have all these dynasties. You had some great players, but man, you just did it like three times in a row, really, with three different teams. And I was like, if you had to chalk it up to one successful thing, like one specific thing that you could just align, like, why did you have that continued success? He didn't even miss a beat. He didn't think about it or anything. It was like one second. He's like, Oh, my wife, I have the most supportive spouse. So I think it's like having Bridget as like your number one is that's huge. You got to have somebody that like home base, grounds you, elevates you, not necessarily puts you on the pedestal, makes you a little bit better, knows when to push, knows when to back off. And I think Bridget does an unbelievable job of that.

Mark Jones 38:03

Yeah, huge fans for sure. So switching gears just a little bit, we haven't even gotten into the topics. We'll probably just fly through these towards the end here. But do we have to go off the genetic? Can we just keep doing what we're doing? Yeah, I like it. So for you, Adam, because of the dynamics of our market today. And I've been preaching

The Referral You Lose By Assuming

Mark Jones 38:24

this quite seldomly for new uh loan officers when I speak to them, because I'm I'm talking to loan officers across the country for loan bot and stuff like that. And for me, I attribute my quick success in when I'm jumping back into it to the high trust interview, the high trust value add call. I feel as though the newer to the business loan officers have not even experienced that or didn't have the time to learn what that was. How important is that for you in your business?

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Man, it's it is a it is mandatory in my life. Mandatory. You know, in our world, there's an online lender and there's the loan consult. Okay, you know, and so for me, I I've known I'm known as the feeler in my office. So there's a lot more people more logical thinking, you know, I'm not afraid to cry. I used to be afraid to cry for a long time. Like, I'm just gonna cry about it. You know what I mean? Not afraid to show my emotion on that piece, but that's a huge can I love having the connection with the client experience. And either they're gonna like it or they're not. Right. And if they're not, they're not gonna be a client of mine. That's like a good point. Yeah.

Mark Jones 39:42

Matter of fact, you can you can attest to this, you can feel it by the end of that conversation. 100%. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

And when we're when we're talking with loan officers that are just getting in the business or are not doing a lot of deals, they hang on to that deal. And I've been there and I've done that. And it's like they put their time, their effort, their emotions, they carry the weight when they go home on that one deal with that one client that's never was their client from the beginning. Right. So, you know, we say punt and punt often when we feel like that's not going to be the client that's gonna follow our process.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

But the loan is so hard for me to do.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

I think I I will say, Man, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 40:27

But I need to do more of that.

Mark Jones 40:28

Yeah, but at the same time, I will say it is very different when dealing lending and real estate, only because everybody loves talking to realtors. Why? Because you guys sell the sexy, you sell the you you you are the sexy, let's be honest. That's right. Yeah, the tangible. We sell the intangible, we sell the thing that people don't want to talk about. They don't go and tell their friends about how their credit score needed to be fixed before we actually needed to move.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

They're not, hey bro, I'm about to go do a loan console and I'm so excited and pumped up about that, right? No, you're on the money. No, they're about to like walk into a room with their clothes off and feel naked and be like, okay, you're about to judge me on what's going on.

Mark Jones 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

And so I think of it as uh we're not at all like a church or anything like that, but it's it's my job to say, hey, I got you. Yeah. And I'm I'm gonna meet you again where you're at. Yes, and make whether this is a time for you to buy a house or not. Yeah. And sometimes it's not. We were just talking, I was just talking, I've had two clients recently that it's not the right time. Now, I have to protect his paycheck because we're the realtors relying on the lender for them to get paid. Correct. But at the same time, doing those types of things can gain us those so many more referrals from that client by just saying and showing them that you cared. So the loan consultation in the face, I think it it's it's two different dynamics in our world. There is a spot for the online lender, and that'll be there, and that is never going to go away. Right. So it's at that point where we have to be like, hey, the strong consultative

High Trust Loan Consultations

SPEAKER_01 42:02

types of people to help win business.

Mark Jones 42:04

Yeah, most definitely. Now, if a realtor, for those listening, if a realtor can begin to incorporate a high trust, high value conversation up front, you're only going to increase the level of your business. You're only going to increase the relationships with your clients. And if you want to learn more about it, just go to Todd uh Todd Duncan is the one that kind of preaches that concept. But we've all had different variations of the high trust. I'm sure the court talks about it, probably uses a different word for it, but it's the same concept of I'm here, I am the expert, I am going to listen to you. And everything that you tell me, I'm going to use to be able to shape my advice, my recommendations, all of that. Why? Because you just told me and I was listening. You know, that it's super simple. But yeah, okay, moving on. You guys want to get into some of these questions? Buyers have more leverage again. Why? Do you think that's true in today's market? So let's let's back up a second. Myself, I January 1st jumped back into production hardcore. I put all my systems back in place. You probably guys probably see me more on social media, etc. I'm not Spurs games, I'm out and about, maybe. Watch out, y'all. And the idea came from what has happened in our market, truly. I've had loan officers leave. I've had loan officers go and open their own branches. More power to them. I'm proud of that. But now getting to deal with what they said they were dealing with all the while. I'm still not seeing it as an impossible market because we're still closing loans. What are you guys seeing out there? You guys are both practitioners.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

You've helped, you know, raise quite a few realtors that are that are killing it.

SPEAKER_04 43:58

So to say, hey, is it Does the buyer have more options now? Do they have a little bit more leverage? The answer is yes. But I think that even a huge, like let me ask you guys as lenders, if you target a huge top producer realtor, how many units are they closing? Uh still not a ton. Okay. What's up a good amount? Four a month, five a month? What's good?

Mark Jones 44:19

I'll be honest, I don't target realtors. Okay, cool. There's that.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Yeah. I mean, I think it's I think it's I think it's spread out. I think the realtors that were maybe doing great a couple years ago in the hard market are maybe doing less now in some cases. And some are doing, some are doing awesome.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

What would you consider a top producing realtor? How many deals a month? Right now? Three. Three deals a month would be like, oh, you're great.

Mark Jones 44:39

You're doing great right now.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

So there's some off-market deals. There's not everything in MLS, but MLS is suggesting there's about 2,500 sides in the San Antonio area per month. Okay. So I'd argue there's more because I think 20% of the houses are selling off-market. We have private MLS. There's a lot of things that are not there. So I'd argue there's like 35,000 sides a year. In addition to the new construction that don't go in MLS. True to that. Yeah. So there's just tons of opportunity in San Antonio. So I'd argue, just for the sake of easy math, let's say there's 3,000 opportunities a month of just buyers that are buying something, sides in the MLS. Well, if you're a top, you just told me that a top producer would be what, four a month, five a month, something.

Mark Jones 45:16

234 right now.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

So if you talk to like on the lending side, I think it's a little different from real estate. Correct, correct. But even so let's say you take a lender who's doing 20 deals, which would be huge. 20 deals a month. Well, there's 30,000, there's 3,000 opportunities a month and 20 deals a month is your market. Not even 1% of that. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? So when you talk to one individual realtor or lender and you're like, oh, is the market affecting you? It's not. Right. So let's say there's 3,000 sides a month and we are affected, and it's a horrible market. If a horrible market happened, we drop 20%. That would be ridiculous, right? That would be horrible.

Mark Jones 45:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:49

Well, that's still 2,400 sides. Like that's good. So when I look at that, it's like your outbound activities, your efforts, your relationships. Are you asking for business? Are you motivated to go out there? Do you have some systems? Are you doing some of the things that you're supposed to be doing? And if you do that, it does not matter what the market says. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

That's a great, great point. And that's where we go back to like, hey, what's the definition of coaching? And do they, do you have a mentor? Do you have somebody that's holding you accountable? Is it your wife? Is it your colleague?

Market Reality And Hidden Opportunity

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Is it you, the branch manager, whoever? I think that's what's so important. Because if as you surround yourself, this is an old topic, but it's like as you surround yourself with those people we talk about in our office all the time, creates a standard. And when a lot of people are winning around you, that standard starts to get elevated more and more and more. And probably one of the reasons we've stayed friends for over a decade is because most of our conversations aren't around a deal. They're around what are we doing today to make ourselves better? I love that. You know what I mean? What are we doing to help push us forward? Because we're all have this roller coaster times in our lives. And sometimes we're shitty in our businesses and sometimes we're doing great and we're winning. We need to hear that from other folks around you.

SPEAKER_04 47:01

I think we push each other for sure to hold ourselves accountable to what we're supposed to be doing. But I would also argue that our relationship's tight because we don't shy away from conflict.

Mark Jones 47:10

Amen. Yes. And I've noticed that just within these interactions today. You guys are not scared of conflict or conflict resolution. A matter of fact, it's almost as if you're playing off of each other to find that higher level of I'm gonna make you better. No, I'm gonna make you better.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Jones 47:29

You can feel it, just so you know. Yeah, it's kind of cute. It's kind of cute.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Conflict's good, man. Yeah, you can grow so much from conflict. And I I I for a long time don't even didn't like conflict, but many don't. 99% of people they shy away from it, shut down completely. Well, I I'm a true believer. Again, getting back into the feels is that that is where most growth happens. And most people don't try to get themselves to a point where they test it and see how they're going to react with conflict, with doing hard things mentally, with doing hard things physically. Like when can you put that on a measuring scale and measure it and say, I push so hard to mental failure? It's very hard to see. So that's why I picked up ultra running. That's a whole other topic. But getting to those points where you get to that, that is where your growth happens. Yeah.

Mark Jones 48:26

So that's right. That is exactly in my opinion, in my experience, you're on the money. I I've never grown in my comfort zone. I've never grown without conflict association. I I've always preached conflict is a great thing. Conflict without resolution is horrible. That is just completely like if you're having a conflict about a situation, especially real estate, that goes unresolved, probably stop working with that person, or you need to look in the mirror. That's okay too. Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

So if there's no resolution, that's okay too. You can move on.

Mark Jones 49:00

You get to move on.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

80 20 rule that 20% of those people, they should just move on from punt and punt often.

Mark Jones 49:05

That's right. I mean, it takes up so much of your time. I feel as though as we progress in time and speed and everything else, 80-20 is becoming 90-10.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Agree. What do you feel right now for you, now that you're back in production in this year? What's your what's your feeling for the professionals out there that are trying, that are working to have a solid business or meet their goals? Do you feel like they're totally capable?

Mark Jones 49:32

I think anybody is capable of something, but I believe that it is up to them. They are going to be the ones that either hold themselves back or push themselves to be better. And whether that is hiring a coach or digging deep to get to the point where you can hire a coach, specifically, I think people, loan officers, that's what we're talking about here, need to understand that the market is catering to those that could not buy in 2020, 2021, 2022. Why? Because they would have bought. Rates were super low. Never more than likely is not going to happen in our lifetime again. If it does, great. But a lot of lenders are not understanding that that customer that you talked to, they can go to the credit union, they can go over here and do whatever they want. We call them bullets. They're bullets, they can do whatever they want. So, yes, definitely focus on them, but do not spend 90% of your time on them because the ones that really need your help are still out there waiting for you. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 50:41

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So I played high school basketball. I could shoot the ball really well. Okay. Could never find, let's say we're barely walking bubblegum, but he can shoot. We're at the Frost Bank Center, and it's me and Julian Schimpenny. Okay. And y'all can bet on who will win the three-point contest. Okay. Who's your money on? Champagny all day long. Same? He's going to kill me. He'll crush me. Yeah, that's right. He will crush me. Now Shimpenny has 15 balls and I have 100 balls. Whoever makes the most wins. Now who's your money on?

Mark Jones 51:08

Now my money's on you.

SPEAKER_04 51:09

You're definitely going to make 16 out of 100. For sure. That's right. Don't go 15 for 15, unguarded for sure. I'll go 16 for 100 at least, right? Yeah. So it's the more opportunities. Absolutely. So I think it goes back to green time. It goes back to taking care of your relationships, asking for business. If you have more leads to work with, then you're not pigeonholed the lead to work with that horrible client. You can punt and you can punt often. You can have more like it's all about the opportunities. And there's plenty of them in San Antonio. You have to go out and go get them.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

I agree with that. Yeah, I think that you you feed what we found is that after COVID, everybody was kind of doing their own individual things. And we've we are seeing a lot of people come together, whether it's realtors, whether it's lenders coming together, building upon each other, using the camaraderie, building, using each other's resources. That I think has helped a lot make sure that we're in the right mental mindset to go through all of these things. I mean, the mind is a crazy, crazy thing. And especially when you're in a hundred percent commission business, it can be super volatile. So I think when I'm looking at social media and I see some of those posts, and I feel for those folks who are like, hey, struggling to get the deal, where do they find it? What are there some side hustles? I think all of that, you got to do what's necessary for you and your family. But if you're in that spot where you're unclear on what is the path to the quickest dollar for you to earn, man, we have so many great resources. It's true. It's true. And people that they and so many people are so willing to share what is the path to the quickest dollar. And all they have to do is just go do that one thing. And it's not easy, but it's there with mentorship, with you know, working with teams and things like that.

Mark Jones 52:50

I'd actually go as far as to say that some of the stuff that we do is easy, and it's almost too easy to the point that it becomes monotonous, if that makes sense, only because we those that know that those needle moving activities, and what I like to say is embrace the boring. Yeah. Why? Because you're gonna have to be consistent at that if you want to find some type of success in this, and and that's with anything. But when I see and I see those same posts, where are you guys, where did your last deal come from? Where are you guys getting business from? Well, I can tell you that jumping on social media, jumping in a group of peers is not where you're gonna find transactions. The idea is you're not doing the boring stuff, the things that it takes to actually capture clients, to meet.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Let me let me and one piece to that, if we're going and we're talking to realtors and lenders, and maybe you could relate to this on the realtor side, is that there's this big stigma and fear of prospecting. Yeah. And it's like,

Make Prospecting Less Scary

SPEAKER_01 53:51

who am I gonna call or where are we gonna do a cold call? What am I gonna say? Let me tell you one thing that's changed over the last year that I would encourage anybody to do, whether you're a lender, realtor, financial planner, whatever, is form your little prospecting group. You know, with what we try to do is at least two days a week, same time every week. We get together and we do what I call it locker talk. Okay. Sit down for 10, 15 minutes amongst a group of people, realtors, lenders, some other outside industries. We sit down and be like, okay, we're about to start making some cold calls. We get everybody all jazzed up and like, hey, what's the worst call you think you're gonna hear today? You know, what's your script? Who are you calling? Okay, I want to have seven talk-tos, 12 talk-to's. We're gonna break for one hour. Everybody breaks away, goes and makes the calls. And what's cool is we come back and we have 15 minutes of locker room talk and be like, who was the biggest asshole? You know, what was the worst call you got? You know what I mean? What are some of the wins? And, you know, we've studied this over time and we found that it's like easier if you can do that amongst people because it takes away that fear of saying, hey, I'm gonna out go and make some cool calls and things and that. And let me tell you what of every time that we've done this, every single week, multiple times a week, guess how many people have died? Zero. Zero. Guess how many people were like bleeding and stuff? None. None. Nobody died, everybody was great, and I'll tell you what, everyone felt better after it.

Mark Jones 55:13

And truly what you did is made boring fun. Correct.

unknown 55:19

Yeah.

Mark Jones 55:19

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, 100%. Let's make it a game, let's turn it into something that isn't so boring. Yeah. Is it difficult? Absolutely. It's difficult. But to a certain point, it becomes not difficult. Then it becomes boring.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah, and monotonous. And it's like after that third call, it's great. You know what I mean? It's like they go through and and you know, realtors, be be kind to your lenders out there when when that lender's calling on you and stuff like that. Be kind. That's all. That's all I'm asking.

Mark Jones 55:50

There you go. See, that's why I don't call on them.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Patrick's great, just talking crap.

Mark Jones 55:56

No, it's awesome. So I'm realtors either. The truth set you free. No, no, no, no. My wife's a realtor, so I have to like them. The idea. Okay, so we've talked about a lot, guys. Matter of fact, I don't even think we need to go any of this. Let me see if there's anything. It says spicy questions to use. Are buyers waiting for lower rates? Are sellers still overpriced?

SPEAKER_04 56:18

We have spicy topics in the in the dome, yo. We're good.

Mark Jones 56:21

Yeah, you bring you guys bring one to the table. What's the next one? Because if not, I'm gonna ask you how I'm like storytelling and y'all just overpriced.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

So you were mentioning easy versus difficult and all that stuff is it's not easy. So I think the the right word is simple. Like everything we've been talking about is pretty simple.

Mark Jones 56:35

Matter of fact, I just said that, what was it, last week on a podcast, somebody was interviewing me, and he said the easiest way to build wealth, blah, blah, blah. And I said, no, no, no, no. Let's stop saying easy. Let's say the most efficient way, or let's say some nothing's easy if it's worth doing it.

SPEAKER_04 56:53

So it's we go with a ton of tactics and different things that we've all had some success with, and it's all simple stuff, and it's definitely not easy because it's easy to do it one time.

Mark Jones 57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:03

Like, oh, let me try that. Let me try what Adam said or what Mark said, or man, I heard Patrick say that. Let me let me try that one time. And that doesn't work. So if you do it one time every single week for like 52 weeks in a year, and then you're like, oh my gosh, it worked. Atomic habits. It's like the compounding effect of like the small little thing. It's not easy to do, it's very difficult. But if you have the accountability around it to do it, and I think that you would probably hold a bunch of people accountable. You hold people accountable. I hold people accountable all the time. So I think they need some kind of coach, some kind of guidance for sure. That's right. That's right. Talking about the, I just thought of the story. I was 15 years old trying to get a job. My stepdad ran JC Penny's in Chicago. So he's like, hey, you come to work for me. I'm gonna pay you commission selling shoes. So I'm 15 years old. He's like, put me in the shoe department. He's like, sell some shoes. If you sell shoes, I'll give you X dollars, he's gonna pay me out of his own pocket. That's awesome. Okay. So he's the GM of the store, you know. So I go there on a Saturday. I'm trying to sell shoes. I didn't sell shit. So he's like, How many shoes do you sell? I said, I sold nothing. He's like, Well, you get nothing. I was like, What? He's like, Sales is supposed to be easier than I thought you like shoes. I was like, I do. He's like, Well, you didn't do a very good job. I was like, All right, so he's like, Well, we'll go work again tomorrow. So Sunday he brings me to the office and we don't go to the shoe department, he brings me to the warehouse, and the warehouse is all taped up

Simple Is Not Easy In Sales

SPEAKER_04 58:08

with all this plastic everywhere and there's paint. He's like, Go ahead. I said, What do you mean? He's like, You're gonna paint this damn warehouse right now. I said, Are you kidding me? So I'm 15 years old painting the whole warehouse. I'm like sweating, physical labor, all crazy. He's done for the day, he comes down, I got paint everywhere. I'm like this worn out, I got boosters on my hands. He's like, How was that? I was like, that was hard. He's like, Yeah. He's like, that's your sales lesson from me. Talk about it. So I didn't really understand it, but I was like, Oh my gosh, sales is so easy. It really is simple thing. So then the next weekend I went, I sold a shitload of shoes and made some money.

Mark Jones 58:37

You did. And and I also bet that that lesson stuck with you for a while. And you have all 15 to 42.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

So yeah, a little bit of time.

Mark Jones 58:48

I wish that was something that we're in sales, we're gonna eventually teach our kids that concept, whether they go into sales or not. But I wish that they taught that concept in school because we would have a bigger separation of those that are going off to college for these degrees that don't amount to anything. They get out and they go, Man, where's all the jobs? And where's this? I went and got my degree. Well, uh, if somebody would have taught you early on that there is a different, there's two different types of people, those that are doing and those that that I don't know, whatever you want to call it, but both are necessary. There's no doubt that both are necessary, but there's two different types of people, two different types of paths that you can go down. And if kids, let's say you're, I mean, not as young as 15, but if they were, maybe they would start to think the the the future of what this means when they talk together and they interact in in with their friend circles, all of those things, because I can guarantee you that stuck in the back of your mind not just as a topic of reference, but more so as a playbook of this is life.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

Does that make sense? It definitely makes sense. Okay, I think we've been talking about a lot of the same concepts, and I hear overall messages from today personal production wins for sure.

Mark Jones 1:00:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

Have a coach and run the damn play.

Mark Jones 1:00:23

Run the play, execute the play. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

So if it sounds like I know that there's all different coaching stuff out there,

Core Locker Room And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

I'm advocate for the core, I'm a director of all the realtors for the core training. And for a long time it was hard to get into the core because it was how many times did you interview for the core?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

Three.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:36

Three, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

I thought it was way more than yeah, yeah. I think it was a major.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

I think it was seven. I'd narrowed it down. So the the barrier of entry was ridiculous.

Mark Jones 1:00:45

Sounds like a real estate test.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

Yeah, yeah. It was crazy trying to get in to our coaching program. So now we've got an entry-level coaching program. So if anybody's listening out there, like, man, where do I even start with the coaches and how do I identify this? You should definitely check out the locker room, the core locker room.

Mark Jones 1:01:00

Matter of fact, I'll put I'll put the link in the description, guys. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

Check that out. It is kind of an entry level to get access to some of like the greatest coaches of all time. And a good starting spot, that's for sure.

Mark Jones 1:01:09

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

But I feel honored to be sitting here hanging out with you. I appreciate you asking me about it. Yeah. I hate you. Yeah, sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

No, this has been fun, man.

Mark Jones 1:01:19

Yeah, no, this has been a great discussion, plenty of different nuggets for people to take and actually take to the bank in cash if they want to put in the work. I think overall, in all of the things that we're talking about here, putting in the work is a requirement. It's not a maybe, it is a must. I appreciate you guys for joining me. That was a very natural conversation. We didn't zero agenda stuff, and I love it. Uh that's how OGs do.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

That's the way you should make it happen.

Mark Jones 1:01:47

Amen. Guys, thank you for joining me. Truly. Stepping out of the comfort zone, both of you being very vulnerable. I appreciate that. And this is, I hope that it goes pretty far with and resonates with plenty out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

Definitely will, man.

Mark Jones 1:01:59

So if you guys want to add anything, go ahead, Adam, close us out with something and then Patrick.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Oh man, this has been great. You know, we've all been doing this a really long time. So it it's cool to see the history that's behind it. I would say for me, this is what it's all about in my world. I guess I do loans for a living, but it's awesome because I get to hang out with all of my friends. Yeah. You know, that's a product of what we do. So I feel like it's a true blessing that we get to do this every single day amongst all of you guys, man. So I'm super thankful for that. That's solid, Adam.

Mark Jones 1:02:34

Yeah. Patrick, anything? You've given us so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:38

So this time last year, I was told that I had a heart defect and I had to go through heart surgery, replaced a valve, replaced aorta. And I think for having a bunch of people in my life over the years and laying the seeds with all those people, sometimes it seems like, man, am I doing the right stuff? Because sometimes we don't get immediate results, especially in the relationship-based business. Yeah. But like we talk about atomic habits, we talk about doing things over and over again. So for all those years, I was laying seeds and I had to go away. So I was gone for like four months, not even working, but the business still ran and leads were still coming in. So I think that take some of these things, lay the seed, and we worked so hard for those times, right? Like sometimes there's urgency with the kid, or oh my gosh, I have to go into heart surgery and we'd be gone for a while. So if I wasn't doing what I should have been doing for years and years and years, the compounding effect of that made me go have surgery, made me relax. Business was still coming in. It was totally fine. I had people that were checking on me, praying for me like crazy. So it's like, man, we are in the relationship-based business. So pour into those, they'll pour into you when you need it.

Mark Jones 1:03:38

Amen. Continue to water those seeds. And for those of you out there, I hope this is a testament to the concept of like-minded individuals getting in a room and being honest, being transparent, being vulnerable, and seeing how much can actually come out of that no matter what team you play for. That's kind of why we have the Spurs gear on. We're all with different groups, different circles, but yet the same mindset, similar goals and similar attributes, because each of us want each other to succeed. There's no doubt in my mind on that. I appreciate you guys for joining for this conversation. And for those of you out there, thank you for continuing to listen, subscribe, sharing with friends. We are now at 54,000, knocking on the door of 55,000 subscribers on YouTube. And I truly have you guys to appreciate to thank for that, as well as the guests. Last time, thanks again, guys. For those of you out there, we will catch you on the next slide.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

Monday, get better. Tuesday, get better. Wednesday, get better. If you do that for five years, ten years, fifteen years, how much better will you be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the real question. And it all comes down to taking small steps. You don't have to accomplish everything in one day or even one week. Just focus on getting a little better every single day.