E17: YMI Talking to Cliff Lewis from the Cliff Lewis Experience

Coming in at #2 in the country, the Cliff Lewis Experience is not just one of the best realtor groups in the Lehigh Valley...they're one of the best in the country.

Cliff Lewis is the man leading that group and has taken them to where they are today.

In Episode 17, we sit down and talk all things real estate, growing a business, and creating a culture of winning.

For more info on YMI insurance visit our website at ymiagency.com

Or give us a call at 610-868-8762 to see how we can better protect your business and family.

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Think of us more as a resource when it comes to real estate I've helped out people, you know as far as I'm buying my mom's house So there's no realtors involved but just have a question or hey My neighbor's going in foreclosure kind of what happens to the you know, the process so we're really resources for the community That's that's really the big thing. I'd stress, you know, we live here. We play here. We love it here You know, we're always out and about there's there's always a huge number of us somewhere. I always say So just think of us any real estate questions anything we help you out with, you know Again, it doesn't need to be a sale for us. It can just be general knowledge. We're here to help All right. I am here and we are starting. I cannot wait to dive into this episode You know him. I know him I was driving with my family recently and saw his face staring at me on a billboard and I'm super pumped I mean this guy Cliff Lewis has sold 167 houses in one year He has been had the number one team at Coldwell Banker in the last two years. He has been number two in the country Cliff Lewis and the cliff lewis experience is truly a staple in the Lehigh Valley. So Cliff Thank you so much for coming on very excited to have you here. My pleasure. My pleasure Thanks so much for having me. So let's start there with the cliff lewis experience. What is it? What does that mean? Sure Yes, so um it's a it's kind of a funny story kind of you know, the We started off with the idea of I knew I wanted to build a team So my last year as a single agent I sold 167 homes to some great great people But I was literally working 20 hours a day Killing myself trying to get it and I started getting nervous about customer service and about you know I might do a number of what's right for the clients. So we brought on a couple additional agents to kind of help us kind of make sure we're doing what we need to do and I had a gentleman that I sold a house to that said, you know This is just really been a great experience and I wasn't his main road at the time we were the cliff Lewis team quote unquote and I kind of thought about it more and more and I thought how can we kind of separate separate herself because for us It's truly about the consumers experience You can pick look there's 3,000 rotors in Lehigh Valley So you can pick a lot of people that are great at this job to help you buy and sell a house But we want to make sure that you have that extra that at the experience that you remember You know that above and beyond customer service that we call six gold stars, you know Five gold stars is good six full stars is what we shoot for And we want to make sure that they're happy in every aspect of their transaction So what does that look like when you pull it out? How do you get that sixth gold star because I I would think personally I can get five but that sixth is that that extra Mile, what are you guys doing to get that? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean that's that's that's a good point. We we kind of start from scratch So the very very first thing you do is every one of our clients I would say you get two realtors automatically for the price of one. So you're gonna get myself or Nick who's my manager as well as one of our other agents on the team in this market We're currently in super competitive, right house of selling multiple offers very very quickly You need to be fast and a lot of times we hear from people that say my realtor is not available It happens sometimes because of personal stuff sometimes already booked But it's the worst feeling in the world When you don't get to even a chance to look at the house that you want to buy because your realtor is busy So we knew we had to fix that that was like my number one thing So having two at least two realtors on your side at no additional cost to you Prevents a huge part of that from happening I mean, it's one of those things that immediately you can see the difference because very very rarely do we say to you Hey, unfortunately, we can't get you in the home On the team my team now currently has 60 agents or 55 agents Excuse me We we have even people that that's all they do is just show houses for our realtors if they're jammed up And what that does is that puts the consumer first? Which is such a huge part of this process, you know, we always say you guys have the keys We're just here to further for the ride meaning that maybe it takes you six months to find that perfect house Maybe it takes you six years. Maybe it takes you six days But we're not gonna push you into buying something or going under agreement to try to pull out a commission So we've really really tried to make this seem and feel that okay We know this is competitive market. We know that the offer you have to write is not gonna be fun You know moving is stressful if no matter what it's always always stressful. Let's try to make this as best as we can for consumers So then the next thing we did of course is we brought in house title company in which then I've now purchased So now we have an in-house title company right with the team that allows us the ability to Pull all your docks for you do all your deep prep do all your final water your final sewer your payoffs Kind of take care of all that stuff that people go. Oh, I forgot to there's nothing worse than buying a house and forgetting To change over utilities and now you own a home and you're sitting in the dark with no water kind of makes it less less fun Yeah, so we really really try to kind of take it to that nether level You know with helping people when it comes to the actual transaction I mean that sounds like six gold stars if I'm being honest, that's awesome And I say this all the time like I feel like insurance agents Lawyers Accountants realtors. There's four million of us. It's it's hard to separate yourself, but it sounds like you guys Recognize that pretty early on and have done everything you can to make sure that you stand out from the crowd Yeah, I agree with you I mean we I've done business to your family and you guys have always done a phenomenal job and and we really try to kind of mimic the same kind of ideas and Cultures that you guys have in the sense of the fact of you know, we know that there's a billion of us We know that everyone's best friends brothers mother sisters cousin Twice removed is a realtor that they want to use instead, but they're also full-time You know, whatever it else it is and they kind of do real estate part-time and in this current market look in this environment I mean with technology with how fast things are changing with everything that's going on. The rules are moving so fast It is so important to be full-time and up on the rules and what is going on It is just a dramatic dramatic difference and we try to help people get that experience We try to we try to say look, you know, we might not be your brother's mother sister's best friend's cousin but this is all we do we do it every day day in and day out and we're really freaking good at it and we really really strive to make sure that the Experience you have you go home saying you know what that was for as stressful as moving is that was as least stressful as a Possible. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a second because you're right Every I feel like everyone's mother's brother sister is a real estate agent But you hear only what 20% of them are really the ones doing deals What does it take to be a successful realtor? I you you are the person who has seen it So, I mean what what does it really take to be that? Yeah So you're exactly right so there's To put it in some type of perspective on the average month and we have Valley. Let's say roughly 700 houses sell There's 3,000 realtors. So you're talking you have a minimum of 2,300 people that didn't get paid that month And that's a very very common thing and I think the rule these days, you know, you're still always be 8020 Like you said these days. I feel like it's 90 You really just have 10% of the realtor population doing 90% of the business because of how It's just how different it is and just the speed of which things are moving right now You know, you don't have the ability to you know Be a part-time person that can only show houses twice a week because your clients gonna miss so many opportunities or if you if you're a listing agent and you put the house on the market and then you don't have the ability to Review the 27 offers that came in on that property and you do a bad job That could cost your clients tens of thousands of dollars because you had to go back to your job doing whatever it is you do It's so so common to see and so it and a very unfortunate thing Then we talked to sellers or buyers and we say hey, you know I really thought you would have got more for your house And so I was like, oh that's that's all the only offers that came in and we kind of look back and go Yeah, no, you really didn't do what they should have done So just staying up and all that kind of stuff is really it's so important I mean it really is you know I say I work seven days a week because I love it But also that's what it takes in this business to be effective and to get people where they need to go Yeah, and do you carry that culture into you know, the cliff Lewis world like do your realtor sort of buy into that same mentality? Yeah, that's a that's a great question so every Realtor we have so we have about 30 Agents on the team that are 100% full-time And then we have about 10 agents on the team that do showing specialists that are showing assistance They're really kind of service the full-time people and then we have do have some part-time people And the part-time people generally speaking have some type of niche which they do We have one girl who does only flips for her and her family. We have another girl that just does Her family is a really big investor in the Allentown area. So she just does those kind of people But everyone else we have they kind of live by that same motto So I stress that they have to take one day off a week because in this business you're burning yourself out if you don't So other than that though these guys all kind of know that, you know I always say come March 1st kiss your family goodbye I say we'll see in September and then you just go like hell and then of course it slows down in the winter months And then you can go see your kids again How do you make that culture happen? That's something I struggle with like you have a vision, you know what you want How do you get that? Communicate that to other people and make it happen and see it in action. I Mean so unfortunately some of it is you know The carrot in the stick and the carrot works. Well a lot of times, you know rewarding the the behavior you're looking for But sometimes that's me to stick, you know There's people that I've worked with me that are great people that could be great realtors, but they just didn't have that commitment level You know, we tried to all of our agents We try to run some type of sales competition or some type of you know, hey whoever gets the highest Score because we do surveys out to our clients Whoever gets the the most stars in the next 30 days wins something So rather than trying to push just raw numbers and raw data to try to push sales through we try to push it through on Hey show your clients. It's amazing experience make them fall in love with you Make them want to come back and work with you again And we're gonna reward that behavior versus they were just another number we did business with now they're gone. Yeah, have you been in sales your whole career? Is that something that you've done? Consistently or is this something you just found in real estate? No, yeah, I've never had a real job. My whole time My mom and dad loved to remind me of that My last real job was I was a bartender and when I was in college since then I've never had a real job So this is kind of I'm not good at most things in my life But for some reason sales and real estate has just been one of those things that I've been a keen to do Yeah, that's great. And and you've made it I mean work with the organization Whatever. It's the carrot or the stick is clearly working Just Tell me a little bit more about the team and their successes It's I feel like it's moved past you selling 167 in a year to now their successes Just walk me through that a little bit Yeah, absolutely. So last year we sold a little over 600 homes And we sold homes as I think the cheapest home we sold last year was a piece of land for 17,500 and the most expensive home we sold last year was a little under 2 million So I would say we don't discriminate it doesn't matter You know, we might show a million dollar home that same day show a hundred thousand dollar mobile home. It doesn't really matter to us It's really what the consumer wants, which is what I love All my agents, you know if a lead comes in or they call a lot of times We try to partner an agent with when we have a conversation with the consumer I have a internal internal sales department that kind of talks to the consumer It's a better idea of what they're looking for who they are kind of gets a little bit of a bio about them And it says you'd be a great fit for this person Because we try to really try to match so the consumer again gets the best experience possible I have agents on my team that have been with me for seven plus years that sell You know a hundred homes a year themselves and I've agents that are brand new that are still doing 13 14 units a year But they're all in it with the same idea in the same kind of culture and mindset I'm a big big believer in Learning so we do at least twice a week. We have some type of class that are as open to the agents All my agents have to take at least one class per month If they're seasoned agents of the new agents It's has to be three classes per month and that can be anything from a 10-31 exchange to you know A better way to service a buyer to how to stage a listing more effectively But we I'm just a huge believer in education I think that's the best way to kind of stay up with what's going on in the area and in the market So we really really focused on that and my agents are pretty receptive the whole entire thing Yeah As far as on a consumer on the consumer side It works out because the other big thing I believe is I'm a big believer you have to spend money to make money Mm-hmm So when we go to list a house I'm not a guy are just gonna drop a sign in your yard grab my cell phone snap some awful pictures and say okay When it sells I'll call you like we really really try to you know, we use professional photography professional videography You know, we really kind of go up above and beyond we use a copywriter in house that writes all of the scripts for the house So it gets a good description We pay to get all types of promoting done on the internet and through digital media and all that kind of stuff to kind of go from there, so we really really try to Push through that next level of consumer care for over. Yeah, let's talk about marketing for a second Like I said, I saw you've got a billboard. What what is successful? I feel like the world has changed a lot for you for for everyone in terms of marketing And so I'm curious what have you found successful and what do you spend your money in? Yes, so So the billboards good. I like the billboard. I don't consider that to be marketing. So I discriminate branding and marketing Okay. Yeah, so I don't I don't get a lot of calls from people that don't know me from the billboard It makes my mom happy But I get a lot of my you know, a lot of friends or people that I've done business with say hey We see you're out there. We see you know that we let's awesome. I love him I'm sure that we you know, some people see us and it kind of builds that brand recognition now that the billboards are running right now currently on 476 and in the landfill area because we're in the process of opening up a landfill location So we're really trying to get our name out there doing a lot of consumer community events In the Lehigh Valley we do a ton of community events I think that's a great place to spend money Rather than just buying online leads or just you know, kind of throwing some money out there and hoping somebody clicks a link We really like to try to be involved because we all live here. So everything from local local neighborhood yard sales to We do I love animals. I'm a big dog guy. So we do a lot of stuff with Lehigh Valley humane society and just trying to you know, that's where we really really try to focus all of our branding efforts It's just on local kind of stuff on the flip side, of course the marketing stuff We do a lot of swag sweatshirts hats that kind of stuff things people kind of hold on to And really just try to put it where our biggest return comes from not a sale today, but a relationship tomorrow Yeah, so, you know, we're not gonna go out and buy a cold lead that and then just try to call them once then They're not work out. We'd rather try to build a relationship something go from there. I'm writing that down not a sale today a relationship tomorrow I thought that was good But you're right. There you go. We and I try not to talk too much we spent a lot of money in, you know, Google leads and and investing heavily in there and What we found was it wasn't worth the spend. It's those it's a contact sport, right? It's those relationships and yeah for every dollar we spent there. It's not a relationship. It's very transactional They just want the lowest price. I'd rather develop a relationship so that I know you I know your Specific needs and I can cater to that and be there in the long run Yeah, yeah and the difference the difference always is In my opinion, you know, it's harder It takes more time to cater to the relationship than it does to buy the lead, right? So if you look at it and say I can either spend money or spend time to try to get leads The real thing to do is spend time but because Americans don't love to do that so much We say well communities buy some stuff and that'll just do our job for us and it doesn't work. You're 100% right I mean, you know, we we always try to keep in contact with our past clients to say hey, who do you know? It wants to buy or sell. Hey, are you interested in you know doing stuff? Have you thought about investing in properties? You know, we work with a couple financial advisors and we always try to say hey If you got a client high net worth that wants to buy some investment properties, you know We can try to build something from there But it is easier just to buy the cold leads and say oh we tried and they didn't like us because you know This guy was $5 cheaper. I mean we bump in the same stuff in our world Yeah, so you have seen ups and downs of the market I guess walk me through when did you start and and sort of where are we now in the real estate market? So I started about 15 years ago is that right around 2008 Yeah, so I think 2007 was my first year. So I got in Maybe 2006 damn so yeah right before the crash. I'd like one good year one and a half good years and then the crash Yeah, you know, I was the king of the world. I was the richest guy was me It was Bill Gates than me so that I mean, you know, that's that's kind of how I felt And then of course, I was mid 20s live in life. It was fantastic and then poof it all kind of goes away the the funny thing is during the Let's call it market downturn. I didn't really kind of fall off as much as other people did but I definitely felt that my business There's no question about that and kind of where we're at today As far as if you look at the sales cycle is we're locally in the Lehigh Valley now Not nationally nationally is completely different but locally at Valley. We've kind of hung on to a still very very strong sellers market Mm-hmm. So this is kind of the weird quandary because it doesn't really make sense But that just shows you how deprived of inventory we are It is a fantastic time to be a builder if I could do it all again I would do houses all my builder friends right now or you know They're buying bigger boats than than you've ever seen your entire life for a reason It is an absolutely great time because inventory levels are just absolutely low and affordable housing is really really hard right now You know most the houses that are coming out, you know new construction starting at $800,000 is not feasible for 99% of the people Yeah in the Lehigh Valley So we are still in a very very strong sellers market Even with the higher interest rates that has not pushed off enough buyers to say I'm not interested in with the price to come down Now again, you don't even even as close as Philadelphia Philadelphia has kind of moved more to a balanced market But here we're still kind of holding strong at that sellers market I Think I truly believe that unless we can figure out a way to open up more inventory here This is going to be kind of the norm for the next 24 months The only kind of question we don't know of course going into a presidential election year is Does the current administration try to lower rates not because the economy is that strong just because it's a good way to buy votes In which case then everything kind of gets a little more goofy Locally Lehigh Valley and I know this sounds really bizar is we don't want lower rates If we get lower rates in Lehigh Valley It's gonna drive way more buyers back into the market and an already absolutely competitive sellers market Adding double the amount of buyers is not the position you want to be in So we're kind of whole hoping that rates kind of hold until we can start building up those inventory numbers in the inventory Where does it come from you mentioned builders? So obviously builders are great Is there a pipeline that you see coming online and are there other avenues to get that that up? Unfortunately, I don't believe so. I mean I think you know local municipalities have been very very challenging with zoning and Getting stuff approved and that kind of stuff and and that's I mean, that's just generically across the board I think we all feel the pressure of that So you don't have a lot of you don't have a lot of small-time builders that kind of stuff You got to have the bigger boys left multifamily homes are Challenged to get approved, but I think a lot of that would help kind of increase the inventory as well Generally speaking though new construction is what kind of as the area increases, you know, you just keep creating homes I do think we're gonna start seeing a push Out of the Lehigh Valley exit on the term fight up one more exit to that kind of Palmerton area And people are gonna be willing to live up there Even though it's a little bit longer to work because they can get a lot more bang for the buck There's a lot more housing opportunities and they're still affordable housing So I do think that you'll kind of start seeing a little bit of a push up to the north area Just because you're running out of places around here and if you go south it gets really really expensive Right, maybe west out towards Berks County. You might get some stuff But I do think that a lot of the local people that have been here for a long time are gonna start migrating out of The area just because the housing crisis. Yeah And you clearly have a very good understanding of the Lehigh Valley market and how it works How important is having grown up here to that knowledge base to your success in a contact relationship? Sure, yeah, I wish I was cool in high school So I had more friends So yeah, I went to freedom high school. I went to the sales university in the Lehigh Valley So I'm a Bethlem guy I lived in, you know, Whitehall, Northampton Allentown Kind of all over the place and now I'm back in Bethlehem. But yeah, I mean, I think it's great I mean, I think the relationships you can build here are fantastic. You know, I love the Lehigh Valley There's so many great things to offer that has so many great things to offer and the networks you can build and just the kind of Relationships that you can create. I mean, I think it's fantastic when it comes to that stuff I love doing business with people I went to high school with I mean, I think that's fantastic One of our bigger home inspectors actually I started doing business with your company because I lived across the street on Shandsboro Road Yeah, and I walked across I literally walked across the street and you were the first insurance guys I bumped into to store I was 19 years old about my first investment property and That's how I hooked up with you guys. So that was that was you guys offices across the street So, you know and that's that's a long time ago. Yeah No, that's great. Yeah, and I mean, yeah you you mentioned like the Lehigh Valley I saw you had an Iron Pigs video where you did a tour for a while there I don't know if you still do you were doing eats and experiences. Is that something you still do? Well, Covid kind of shut that down right so we stopped doing them because we couldn't get in anywhere and That that made a little bit more of a challenge because obviously, you know going to see a restaurant You can't get into no one really liked that video Then we kind of fell away from it Of course in the market was absolutely crazy and by the time we got a video done It was like already outdated. So I want to bring it back. We just actually had a meeting about this two weeks ago Because it's I love learning about new businesses and going to restaurants and you know the whole thing and the Iron Pigs one You know Kurt Landes was absolutely fantastic. That's such a great organization And and there's so many good ones here in the Lehigh Valley that we've done and highlighted You just learned so much it and just about just kind of like this how people do business and it's fantastic That's I mean selfishly that's why I did this podcast. I get to learn about so many cool businesses and what's going on in the valley It's just been a great outlet for that Yeah, and and one of those businesses is notch restaurant notch modern kitchen and bar, I don't know if you're familiar but they are a sponsor of ours and Every segment every podcast episode we do a segment called kicking it up a notch And so I'm gonna walk you through it right now if you're ready I'm ready. Okay, so it's the end of a long week. There we go. Your team has sold a whole whole bunch of houses and And okay, you're ready to unwind you're gonna reach at notch They can make you a custom cocktail where you tell them what liquor is what mood and put it together But you're at your home. What are you reaching for? What do you grab? What is Cliff Lewis getting? My go-to cocktail would most likely on a Friday be An old-fashioned. Yeah, if I was gonna sit down and relax and unwind it would probably be a nice old-fashioned Probably basil hidden enough into I am nice thick piece of orange That's kind of my relaxation Notch has absolutely fantastic cocktails. I've been there. Yeah two times Great service and Yeah, that's that's probably my go-to. Yeah, what are your you just made me think I think you'd be the person to ask What are some of your favorite restaurants in the Valley? Oh God there's so many um Dear new I love Union Finch that's definitely up there. There's no question about that. The owners are absolutely fantastic You know Ed and his wife are just unbelievable. They're just great great people never had a bad meal there Apollo I mean Rachel's ridiculous. I'm that that restaurant. I swear it's on the restaurant gets better every year. Staff's always great. I love those two Those are usually my go-to, you know, yeah, depending where I'm at in the Valley and then of course Easton has, you know oak and Okay, the Italian place is down there. I mean, there's so many good ones even mr. Lee's noodles Yeah, we're on the road. Obviously as you can tell all the time So we constantly are eating and that's the reason why I'm as fat as I am I always say it's not my fault. It's all the good food here in the we have Valley So yeah, so we usually stop somewhere and grab grab food, but there's there's a ton of great restaurants Yeah, I mean you're right. This is a first of its kind podcast for me I've got you in the car and like I said as an insurance agent, I'm glad to see you pulled over first I wasn't going to but then you made me nervous and I decided I should. So I mean we're basically out of time Is there anything you want to hit before we wrap this up anything? You want anyone to know about Cliff Lewis the cliff Lewis experience that we didn't touch on The only thing I would say is that don't think of us as salespeople Don't think that you can't call us until you want to sell your house that day or you want to go buy a house tomorrow You know, we we talked to sellers sometimes 12 months before they're actually ready to sell their house and it's all free of charge And there's no commitment. We walk through the house. We get a better idea of you know, hey, let's move this Let's stage this maybe spend a couple bucks here You don't need to spend money here And we try to make sure we can get you the biggest value as far as listening your home and a lot of times things That you say you were gonna do we say it's not gonna change the price. Don't don't waste the money on it That's a very very common thing thing. It's more as a resource when it comes to real estate I've helped out people, you know as far as I'm buying my mom's house So there's no realtors involved but just have a question or hey My neighbor's going in foreclosure kind of what happens to the you know, the process so we're really resources for the community That's that's really the big thing. I'd stress, you know, we live here. We play here. We love it here You know, we're always out and about there's there's always a huge number of us somewhere. I always say So just think of us any real estate questions anything we help you out with, you know Again, it doesn't need to be a sale for us. It can just be general knowledge. We're here to help I mean, that's great because there is so many nuances to real estate and so many questions to just be able to bounce that off Someone is is very helpful. Yeah Yeah, absolutely. That's we're here to do awesome. Well cliff. Thank you again. I mean this was this was fantastic I learned a ton about you about real estate and about the Cliff Lewis Experience So thanks so much for coming on Well, thanks for having us and was looking forward to it and I apologize again for the car But I'm glad we made it. Hey we did. Absolutely. All right. Thanks cliff