The Real Deal Podcast
Unlock the door to success in the dynamic world of real estate with your hosts, William Gomez & Alfredo Madrid. Join us as we dive into the inspiring journeys of loan officers and real estate agents, sharing their triumphs, challenges, and invaluable insights. Your key to navigating the ever-evolving landscape of real estate starts here.
The Real Deal Podcast
#21 From Two Deals to Millions
Jamie went from a struggling rookie agent to a luxury real estate powerhouse. Despite early challenges, she cultivated strong relationships and stayed committed to her goals, ultimately achieving remarkable success in high-end property sales.
Her balanced view of success extends beyond professional accomplishments to include personal fulfillment. As she says, "If you're not changing, you're failing"—proof that adaptability and determination are key to lasting growth.
The first year you only closed two deals, correct?
Speaker 2:It was sad.
Speaker 1:Your second year. Did you ever think at all in your first year that you were going to like, like, maybe I need to go back to corporate?
Speaker 3:No, that's not my mentality, okay, so you were like tell us about that mentality.
Speaker 2:I'm always like a go-getter, like, if I take it back to like when I was playing sports. I played sports my whole life. I'm not like my boys, I was not like naturally athletic, but I always had this mentality that like, I can outwork you. I played tennis as an adult. Like I may not be the best tennis player on the court, but I will outwork you until I beat you. No, um, so I just kind of always all right, let's get to it.
Speaker 1:Jamie, welcome to the real deal. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Good Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm glad that you stayed, you know, a little bit longer, cause I was a little late, so I apologize about that.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:And um, so I've gotten to know you a little bit, I actually um, she's actually my neighbor. Oh really, yes, nice so uh, I think that's how we connected. So you became an agent in 2021 or 2022, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we went to coffee um really early on when you first started we did and then I actually think I was following you to the coffee place because it was like the first, my first meeting of the day and then, and then we just went to the nearest coffee shop. So it was really nice because normally people think I, like I live really far out there, so it's good to lenders do that sometimes.
Speaker 3:They'll stalk you. They'll follow you around right Right.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I was telling Alfredo, I was like, hey, so there's this girl. She's been in the business for about three years. Her first two years she was in a team and your first year you only closed two deals, correct. It was sad your second year. Did you ever think at all in your first year that you were going to like, like, maybe I need to go back to corporate?
Speaker 2:No, that's not my mentality, okay.
Speaker 3:So you were like tell us about that mentality.
Speaker 2:I'm always like a go getter, like, if I take it back to like when I was playing sports. I played sports my whole life. I'm not like my boys, I was not like naturally athletic, but I always had this mentality that like I can outwork you. I played tennis as an adult. Like I may not be the best tennis player on the court, but I will outwork you until I beat you. No, um, so I just kind of always had this mentality of like I can work harder, I can work smarter and I can get to where I need to be.
Speaker 2:And even in my life, working in corporate world for 15 years um, in marketing mainly, but a lot of that marketing was always business development and sales. I'm like, if you're not changing, you're failing. And so I think it's okay to fail and I kind of just I was at this place in my life where my husband and I at that point had been married for 15 years now 17, going on, 18 years and it's like I had worked an eight to five job, sometimes seven to six, every single day for as long as I could remember, with three little kids at home, and I'm like I've got to make this work, I've got to be able to take them to school. I've got to be able to pick them up, I want to be able to make my schedule around theirs. And I just knew I'm like if I just keep plugging away, it'll eventually pay off. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1:So I love that. You said that if you're not changing, you're failing. So but you said it's okay to fail every now and then. Do you think that it's okay to fail to remind yourself to maybe you need to change some things around?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think you're ever growing. I mean, if you're not failing, you're not growing. So, constantly looking at myself, like I don't want to compare myself to the next agent, but I want to compare myself to last year self and like how can I do better?
Speaker 1:How many people, Alfredo, do you think? See it like that, that if they're not failing, that they're not growing?
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people like to say things like that. A lot of people like to say I'm going to burn the bridge or I'm going to burn the boats or all these things, but there's very few people that actually play it out. Because just looking at your numbers and how long it took you to get the business going, I mean I think there's going to be a lot of people that we've been discouraged by then. Right, but since that was never an option for you, you didn't just say it, it just wasn't.
Speaker 2:And so in my wheelhouse to say no, yeah. And I've had countless times in my life where people are like you can't do that and I'm like watch it. I will show you that I can do it, and so it just kind of like drives me.
Speaker 1:So in your second year you were still with the team and you uh, uh, over doubled your business, two to six deals, right. And what did you think you did different? Or do you think it was just like maybe, all the hard work that you were doing, which I? I want to point out that, um, one of the things that she told us was that and and we just, we just uh, interviewed a new guy, that's, you know, completely new into the business, and we always emphasize on COI Alfredo but I feel like people don't really listen to that, like they just goes in one ear and out the other, and you said that even before you got licensed in October.
Speaker 1:How many thank you cards and gifts did you send to your COI?
Speaker 2:Every single person I could think of.
Speaker 1:How many was it? Just give me a rough number.
Speaker 2:Probably 170. 170. So then, what I did over? So I literally hand wrote a note to every single person trying to really figure out who is my COI. But people kind of knew me as like this corporate business woman and I'm like I needed to change the narrative to let them know like, hey, this is what I'm doing now. And so those first notes definitely were a little bit more sales minded, and I'm not, I don't think of myself as a salesperson, but I'm like how am I going to get in front of people to just let them know that this is my new career and this is how I can help them? So it just started with that and then, over the course of 18 months, it was like, okay, who responded?
Speaker 2:I did like video texts to people and I took a video and like I sent it out and I'm like, okay, who is responding to this? And then I slowly figured out like who's supporting me in my business? So that center of influence, like who do I think is going to be my major referrals, and really focusing on those people, which is goes back to the basics. Like word of mouth is your number one marketing tool and I've known that from the very beginning and you got to think. When I started in marketing, people were still advertising in the newspaper.
Speaker 2:And so, um, just keeping the basics and staying in front of people, and then that basically turned into just being more genuine with people, and then conversations would naturally happen.
Speaker 3:I think people wait too long when they get into this business, be it real estate or mortgage. They wait too long to take the gloves off and really pursue their circle of influence, because we all have that thing in us, that's we're like well, I don't want to bother my friend and sell something to him because I don't want to damage that relationship. And I think that people wait too long to. They're probably a little more desperate where they're like well, I'm not getting any business. I've been in the business six months. Okay, now I'm willing to do that. Well, it sounds like you just did it right out of the gate. Yes, and so what advice do you have? Somebody that has that insecurity about reaching out to the? Well, how can they change their mindset or frame of mind to be okay with reaching out to anybody and everybody, whether it be your cousin, your brother, your best friend? I think a lot of people hesitate because they don't want to make people uncomfortable. How do you change that? How do you shift that mindset?
Speaker 2:It was hard for me. I'm not going to lie, because while I had this circle of influence with people that I had known, that I worked with, when I looked outside of that bubble, I'm like who do I really know? Like I was not going to church mop programs with preschool kids because I was always working. My kids were going to daycare, you know, my kids weren't involved in sports at that time. I'm like, who do I really know? And so I started joining networking groups and I started playing tennis, which sounds so cliche, but that put me in front of more people and more people, and more people. And I think you know, if you just are genuine and you do the hard stuff, it gets easier.
Speaker 3:So act one is reach out to as many people, get involved, to where you're building new relationships, and I think this is the second thing people struggle with how do you turn that into business? How do you turn those new relationships into business? What conversations are you having with your circle of influence? How do you convert?
Speaker 2:I started going to lunch and coffee with random people, people I knew but didn't necessarily have a big relationship with, because I had always worked this eight to five and was never involved or in playdates or whatever with kids. And so I would just start taking them out to lunch or taking them to coffee and the conversation was about them, it wasn't about me. And you start having these conversations in those meetings. But then you know kids get older and you're at this event or this event and you're like how was your day? What do you do for a living? And that usually starts the conversation of was your day, what do you do for a living? And that usually starts the conversation of oh, what do you do for a living? I'm like, oh, I do real estate. And in the beginning I would be like, oh, I didn't always do real estate and I had to change that narrative to be like this is what I do. And like not even dwelling on the fact that I came from this other background, because people are like you're crazy, you changed careers completely. And in my mind I'm like it's not that different. I'm in the business of building relationships, I'm in. The difference was I was selling a service of a hospital, a clinic or whatever medical product. Now I'm just selling the service I provide and giving somebody a great home that is building their dreams, it's building a foundation.
Speaker 2:But those conversations eventually, when the right opportunity presented itself, I would say you know, you know, I'm a realtor. If you were to ever buy or sell a home, or if you know someone that is needing to buy or sell a home, do you have a realtor that you would refer them to? And most of the time they're like no. Or I had a realtor six years ago but I can't even remember their name and I was like well, if I stay in touch with you and I'll put you on my marketing list and I'll do pop buys to your house, would you like to refer clients to me and just come across genuine, like that? And then I started building relationships and I would touch base with them every other month or every quarter, whether that was taking a little gift by their front door. It doesn't have to be extravagant, Just oh, it's Christmas, Give everybody gingerbread houses if they had, like a family at home. Or it's Easter and we're doing cake balls or whatever. And just keeping connections and keeping in the forefront of people's minds.
Speaker 1:So, out of every 10 people that you you talk to, how many of those are you having that conversation with?
Speaker 2:Probably about 30%, because I want to make sure it's genuine. Okay, I don't want to just come out of the gate saying, can I be your realtor?
Speaker 1:And that normally takes about what would you say three interactions slash meetings two to three, for sure, okay, one thing that you said, alfreda, is that people like exactly what you said, that people don't want to go after the coi um until they're kind of desperate. And one of the things that you said is that when you sent all those thank you cards and gifts were, you still felt kind of selsie.
Speaker 1:So imagine how somebody like feels, like or actually comes across six months after you've been like, well, shoot, I still don't have any days close. Let me hit up everybody at my church, everybody at my gym. That's gonna sound like really, really seltzy, because, like, because if you're not proactive, then like that's whenever like things are just gonna, you know, come back and invite you there. But the one question I had for you, too, is you said thank you cards and gifts. You said you sent it to 170 ish people. Estimate actually two questions within that this, this was before tennis, this was before all this other stuff. So who were those 170 people? And then, also, give me a rough estimate of how much money you spent, because a lot of people are very like Whoa, like this is a new thing, like.
Speaker 1:I just I don't have money to spend, and marketing or whatever, right, um, but so yeah, those two questions I'm curious on.
Speaker 2:So out of those like 170 ish people that I initially wrote, hand wrote notes to people when I started doing what we call in real estate, like pot buys, and getting in front of people and delivering stuff to their doorstep and following up with a text message which is key, like, if they're not there, text them. I probably delivered 75 gifts and that was every quarter. And they don't have to be expensive. Like gingerbread houses you can get for like eight to $10. But a couple of years ago you'd get them for five or six bucks.
Speaker 2:You know Christmas time I'm a baker and so like I will sit there and crank out like handmade Christmas cookies for everybody. So it's my time involved. But then you know you can go to Bath and Body Works on a sale and get like a nice like hand soap and lotion and put it in a like a little white bag that costs you 10 cents and put your little logo on it and hand deliver it for spring or whatever. You know there's tons of ideas online that you can do, but I try to keep those gifts like five dollars a piece. I mean some of them are 10, yeah, um, but it doesn't have to be expensive. But I will say in the beginning. I'm like I'm spending three to five hundred dollars on this not knowing that I'm going to get anything in return and I'm not making any money. You know, but you got to spend money to make money, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. Um, so this last year you did 12 million and that was in 14 deals 16, 16.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right 13 million and 16 deals. You definitely definitely made your money back, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You jumped straight into that higher end consumer, the buyer, right. How did you do that? Because I think everybody assumes you got to start, you know, with lower first time home buyer. You jump straight into that. Is that a mindset? Is that a strategy? How did you get right straight into that? Because I'm assuming you're still in that market?
Speaker 2:I am I'm blessed number one, like very thankful for that.
Speaker 2:I did kind of strategize Like in the beginning I worked open houses every Saturday and Sunday if I was available.
Speaker 2:But I didn't want to do a $200,000 house, I wanted to do at least a $500,000 house for an open house, thousand dollar house for an open house, and so I had a broker. One of our brokers at McGraw was like, absolutely do open houses that are 900,000, because that $900,000 open house that could be a $700,000 buyer, because what we find in real estate at least my experience the people coming through your open house, they can't afford a house at that house that price point. They're usually lower. But I also think it helps when I started building connections and I started getting a couple referrals or closing deals that were $800,000 plus. It's easier to attract that clientele or you pick up leads off of that listing and that kind of just snowballed. But even still to this day, like I'll do open houses whenever I'm free if it doesn't interfere with my kids stuff and I'll certainly hold my own listings open house houses, but I try to aim for open houses that are more in the luxury market.
Speaker 3:That's awesome how much of your business is buyer and how much is seller.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wish I had an exact number for you.
Speaker 3:Just if you were to guess of those 16, how much were of each? Um well I think it's pretty half and half.
Speaker 1:If.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at what I have coming in the pipeline um for 2025, it's mostly buyers, but those buyers create listings. You know. I got to find them a house in order to list their house, you know. But I had a mutual friend of a client that I've sold their house and bought them a new house. I had stayed in front of them because I knew they were looking for a house.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I do is, if I get a hint that you're looking for a house, I don't try to sell you on using me. I just kind of ask you questions to find out what you're looking for and then I'll set up a search in the MLS for what they're looking for but send it to myself and it'll say Joe Bob, you know looking for this, and it'll send me an email. When it comes through, I'll send them a text saying hey, I saw this house and I thought of you. I might have to send that to someone six times before they even respond, and those are people that I'm like staying in contact with for sometimes two years before it even comes to fruition. Like I just closed, a deal from people from people from Colorado took me three years before I even showed them a house.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so, but those deals turn into other deals, right?
Speaker 3:How are you tracking all that? Spreadsheet just the old fashioned way, old school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I keep a spreadsheet of for the current year of like who I think most likely will buy a house in 2025. And I actually put them with the quarter that I think they're in so I can see what's coming next. Because I'm a person of like, you know I have a closing on Friday and I'm like I don't have anything pending. What am I going to do? But then I'm like all right, who have I not texted? Who have I not followed up with? Did I drop the ball on someone? Like my brain it's constantly working and that's what like school pickup line is for. When you have kids at school, just sit there and text like 10 people.
Speaker 1:What's the most expensive house and the cheapest house that you've sold or or helped someone to buy?
Speaker 2:Most expensive one is right over 1.8.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Buy and sell. Okay, so double.
Speaker 1:So I mean could we call that one 3.6?
Speaker 2:Good 3.7, if you want to be exact. What's the um 200 most economic?
Speaker 1:one economic one, yeah oh man, I feel really bad for you, um, okay. Well then, this is going to defeat the next question.
Speaker 1:I had what I was thinking, but anyways, my my question, my question is do you think it's easier to refer a lender you know most people listen to this are either realtors or lenders. Okay, do you think it's easier to refer a lender to a lower end, like in in your case? I don't know if I would say lower end, like in your case, two, 50, 300 or a higher end buyer, oh, and if it's easier or harder. Why you know? Why you know from what you've seen over the last three years.
Speaker 2:What I tell people is the $300,000 client is just a heart of a deal as the 1 million plus client, because I feel like people are like oh, you're selling luxury homes but you're not selling as many units. Those deals I work just as hard on as the $300,000 house. And someone buying a $300,000 house I generally think of like as a first time home buyer or like maybe they don't have the best credit score or there's multiple situations that fall into that, and then you have this luxury home buyer that like might need a jumbo loan or they're like more difficult personalities to deal with sometimes, and so I wouldn't say it's more difficult. It's just different personalities, different stages of life.
Speaker 3:Where do you feel that most agents miss the mark, Like you're? You're still fairly young in your real estate career, right Like? This is only your number, technically four for you, right yeah? And where do most agents miss the mark in that first couple of years of their business?
Speaker 2:They get defeated, they get complacent. I think the worst thing you can do is be complacent. I think you constantly have to be moving and you don't have to be salesy, but just, I mean, my family would tell me I would never shut up. I would talk to a brick wall or I'll make a friend wherever I go. Like I would talk to a brick wall or I'll make a friend wherever I go, and I just think, being your true self and not giving up and realizing that good will come if you're putting the effort in, and I do think that's the result of 2024 for me. Like I worked my tail off for the first two years and I started thinking I've got to pay for groceries for my kids. You know, like when we looked at our finances, we're like I've got it. I want to make sure I can afford their extracurricular activities and I've got to put food on the table.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that was like the goal. And then I think you have to be driven, and I'm just a very driven personality, I'm like, I think, most people. Once they get it going, a domino effect will occur.
Speaker 1:But you have to keep pouring into it. You can't forget the basics. You can't like just sit back and hope that the phone's going to ring. How, um, what do you do whenever you have those moments where you're just kind of like maybe those thoughts are coming in and you're like, like the first year especially, but even the second year, it's like man, like I know, I don't, I'm not going to give up, but like this is way harder than I thought. Like what, what do you do to get yourself out of that?
Speaker 2:I text myself. I know it sounds silly.
Speaker 2:Like um, like I will sit there and say like, oh, I'm going to have a notebook and I will write stuff down. Like I can't keep it up. Like I keep it all up here, which is crazy, but I have like an ADD brain and so, like my mind is like going 90 to nothing in a million different ways, and so every time I think of something I text myself and it's like whether it's following up on a client or taking someone new to lunch, and when I'm not busy, like you said, I'm like defeated. I'm like is there somebody that I should be reaching out to?
Speaker 1:Oh, so they're not like encouraging text messages to yourself. I thought, that's what you need to do what I need to do. Oh, I thought she was. Is that where you thought she was going?
Speaker 3:I didn't know where she was going, but I liked it already.
Speaker 2:I mean I liked little little nuggets.
Speaker 2:It's just like, you know, I'm very busy with three kids and a family, and so it's like I'll send myself reminders so that, like by the end of the day or the start of the next day, you know, at 7 am, I'm like, ok, this is what I told myself I needed to do yesterday to get momentum today.
Speaker 2:And I think you know Facebook's a good tool Like it still tells us when it's somebody's birthday, right, like reaching out to those people when it's their birthday or when it's their kid's birthday, or if there was like a death in the family, like it doesn't take much effort to like send a note and send flowers just to say that you're thinking of someone. And so that's what I tend to pour into when I'm like not busy. It's like where can I connect and where can I grow? And I listen to a lot of podcasts, which I think you guys do too. I spend a lot of time in my car, so I listen to a wide range of podcasts and when that sparks an idea, I text it to myself so that I have it and can you know, Go back and reference it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think people think it's crazy that I don't listen to music in the car.
Speaker 1:I don't either I'm either calling people listening to podcasts or Audible, and so actually I'm curious. You know, alfredo has been doing this for 20 years and there it's just trying to crack the code of like how to try to like truly, truly help people? But the first thing, because as soon as you started talking about the text message, I thought of what I do. What I do is I literally do Siri and I'm like hey, remind me at 3pm. I do that for literally everything, like that to charge my woof, to do whatever, like everything when it comes to business. If I have something, I email myself or the team like right away.
Speaker 1:But I think I mean it sounds like we're doing the same thing but just in different ways. But I think people that are not doing any of that, they they start thinking of like oh, she texts herself, but but there's this other new way that I could do it, and they kind of like talk themselves out of doing that Right, so like what, what is the? Do you think that they just should listen to what she's doing and then just just do that, whether you're like I don't want to text myself or other dudes that you know, whatever, just just to like what do you think is going to get people to actually do something?
Speaker 3:Like what motivates them to actually. I mean, like I said, at some point you either find humility or it finds you. And in this example, what I mean by that is like at some point you decide that you're going to take a page out of somebody else's book that's successful Um, and not just on what your own wisdom and what you own have and you're going to do it. You either have to choose to do it now or, I promise you, you're going to choose to do it when things are starting to get difficult and desperate and whatever, and at some point, when you're finally going to be palms up, you're going to say okay, how does Jamie do it? Tell me again what you said six months ago. I wish I would have done what you told me to do, and so I don't go ahead and implement things and um work off of what other people already have proven to be true.
Speaker 2:Well, and you don't have, you don't have to make it hard. You know, like I ran social media for other people, but for me to like post social media for myself, it was like it was weird for me I'm not going to lie, I joked with Will. I'm like I'm just getting older, like this is like I'm not in my twenties, like it's social media is getting harder and harder. But I think if you just tell yourself like hey, I'm going to have three lunch or coffee dates a week, I'm going to text five people a day, I'm going, if you want to write notes, like I'm going to do 10 of those. That's kind of how I started in the beginning. And now it's like okay, I sold almost $13 million.
Speaker 2:Next year, would I love to sell $13 million again, and possibly $15? Absolutely, and so it's like I need to get back. I think we also have to remind ourselves to get back to that Like, okay, am I having the interactions face-to-face? Face-to-face is important, but also touching them. You know, you also have to think the older people in your COI, like how many of them are engaging in other ways. You know, and I had a lot of people in their fifties and sixties and so it's like they really appreciated that handwritten note.
Speaker 2:And it's crazy you can't forget that they really appreciated that handwritten note, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1:You can't forget that.
Speaker 2:So are you saying that you did get away from doing the basics when you?
Speaker 1:did have a when I got busy this year I did Okay, that's interesting, I wouldn't have guessed that. Yeah, and then the question I have for you is going back to, you said that you do this, pop buys and all this stuff is how do you track that? Like, do you have a system and a process? Because, like, it's not just about you know, somebody listening right now might think I'm going to go do that right now, but then they just never do it again.
Speaker 2:Well, when I was on a team, we had something that tracked it and so I would know exactly who I delivered pot buys to. Now, every pot buy season or whenever I have an idea, I have a list in my phone and I'm like these are the people that got Popeye's. And then I follow up with a text message and then I see how they engage and then usually, if we're engaging via text, like it opens the door for me to say please, let me know how I can help you in real estate this year, or if you need any referrals for a contractor, a painter, a plumber. You know I have a whole world of X of people that I can send your way to help you, Um, and so I also try to be top of mind that way.
Speaker 3:You said that you hold yourself accountable in one of your answers. How do you hold yourself accountable?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember what I said.
Speaker 3:Just when I think we asked about mentorship and you said you're your biggest mentor. Oh, absolutely, you know. And so speak a little on that. Love to hear kind of your thought process on that. And then also one of the things you mentioned is that you hold yourself accountable, You're always listening to, you know ways to get better and things like that.
Speaker 3:But I'm curious to um, I think that's one of the things that people struggle with the most Like. We all love structure, we all, we all listen to a podcast like this and go man, I want to do those things that Jamie does.
Speaker 3:It's hard to implement, but if you don't if you don't add a layer of accountability to it, it just won't happen over time. Right. So to be self uh regulating and self have some self accountability is kind of difficult, to be honest with you, because the one person we let down the most is who, Ourselves. It's ourselves. That snooze button in the morning or that thing you promised you'd do for yourself, or that you know those kinds of things we let ourselves down the most, and so it's really easy to justify, like you just said. What'd you say a while ago when you said you didn't do the thing, the basics? You said I was too busy.
Speaker 2:I was too busy.
Speaker 3:It convince our own self that we're not too busy, or those kinds of things. But you probably wouldn't do that to somebody else that you promised you'd do something for right.
Speaker 2:You probably keep your work. No, I'm like on it, right.
Speaker 3:But to ourselves, we do it. So that's what I'm saying is like, how is it that you manage your own accountability? Like, is it a reset that you try to have? Is it? How do you do it?
Speaker 2:I have a routine every morning and I think, um, also people, I think people overthink it and I did this with the reels. You know, like trying to be perfect, like you don't need to be perfect, you just need to jump in and do it, um, because otherwise you're too late to the ball game essentially.
Speaker 2:But I, for my boys, are almost 10. So for 10 years I have gotten up at 4.30 am, 4.45 am, and I go to the gym every morning at 5 am. There are some days I don't make it, I'm just getting older. But you know, it starts my day with the right momentum. And so, like now, I leave my house at 7.20 to take kids to school, but when I walk in my door at 6.55, they're now old enough, they're getting themselves ready for the day.
Speaker 2:I sit on my fireplace every morning for 20 minutes and I look and I'm like who can I email, who can I text? And I'm texting. I'm emailing first thing in the morning and then the second. I get home from dropping those kids off, it's almost eight o'clock and I'm like eight o'clock, it's time to text people. And so I think having a structure in your life of like okay, from 7 to 7 30, I'm going to do this. From 8 to 8 30, I'm going to do this, and then it becomes a habit, and I think habits build success in a lot of ways. Um, if you ask me if I worked out at noon or three and you asked me to go work out at 5 am, I'd be like no, that's, you're insane. Yeah, but I also think if I don't get up at 5 am and I don't go to the gym, I feel like my day's wasted and people are like you're crazy, it's only 7 am.
Speaker 2:I'm like no, but my day got started at 7 am as opposed to 5 am yeah, and that's the rut I fall into sometimes.
Speaker 3:That I think even a lot of people do is, if the stars don't line up perfectly, I just don't do it at all.
Speaker 2:No, just do it.
Speaker 3:Instead of just doing it.
Speaker 2:It's the old Nike slogan man just do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like if, if I'm going to start running now, I'm like, well, I can't start running because I don't have the right shoes yet.
Speaker 2:So then I get the right shoes and I'm like my biggest competitor because there's room for anyone to do real estate, there's room in this market for anyone to become a lender. But how can you get better than what you did last year? Like I don't care if you sold more than me. I don't care if you sold less than me, but like how can I do better?
Speaker 3:So it sounds like you're competitive. So where do you see yourself in the next few years in this industry? Like what cause? You must have something you're striving for or towards, at least. Um, you know, I've heard people say go through goals, not two goals, but but what is it that you're looking to get to or through?
Speaker 2:I would like to get more involved with my brokerage. Okay, this is a topic for a whole other day, but all three of my kids, especially my daughter, is going through a lot right now and I think that took time away from my business and I think it will continue to take time away from my business in 2025. And so I think it's important to be like if I don't sell $13 million in 2025, was I there for her for every appointment and everything that she went through Then. That's still a success, and so I think that's important to look at. But I'm also like okay, how can I gain more people in my network?
Speaker 2:And so I'm very lucky that I had a repeat client over the last couple of years and I'm like, okay, how do I get them in investing? How do I learn more about investing? How do I learn more about the commercial side? When I first started, I was told oh, you can't sell commercial. I went to my broker and I'm like, well, why not? And so I'm like, okay, what classes can I take this year so that I am just educating myself more on the commercial side, so that I make it till you make it?
Speaker 3:right.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like the mentality of like, what can I do to spin my wheels of these clients? I already have to get into the commercial side. What can I do to learn more about new construction? New construction takes more of my time, but I enjoy it and I love it and I love walking that process with clients and so how can I tap into that? So those are how I would like to grow in 2025. But also like knowing like if you don't sell 12 or 13 million, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a failure. Were you there for your family and kids when they needed you Then? If yes, then you're a still success.
Speaker 3:That's really good. I was actually talking to Derek the other day and he had listened to this podcast and we were talking and this is going to be totally counter to the way you and I think we talk about setting goals all the time but he said that he was listening to a podcast and that guy pointed out that in all these biographies of these richest people like Elon and Steve Jobs and all these guys, they never set like number goals.
Speaker 2:I don't have a number goal Right. It was more like accomplishment goals.
Speaker 3:And that, to me, is just completely counter. And it's. Your answer was almost exactly the same as like you didn't go well. I figured I want to do 20 million one year. You were more like these are the things I want to accomplish.
Speaker 2:In the beginning I had not a dollar amount goal, I had a unit goal because to me, the more transactions I had, that was more experience. Because to me, the more transactions I had, that was more experience and we all know like every transaction is different. But I don't think we can judge ourself just based on the dollar amount or just on the unit, like there's so much more growth that can happen professionally and personally along the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's totally counter, but I mean it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Well, and I told Will last time we met I'm like, if I make it through the year and I look back, I'm like I only missed one soccer game. That's a win, that's a big W.
Speaker 1:Do you ever turn it off? Like just, I feel like I went through a good season or I don't know, probably like maybe a year or something, where, like in the weekends, like I wasn't doing anything and I wouldn't open my email until I got to the office. Now I'm back to, I mean, like I wake up, I do my routine and everything, but like I'm checking my email like right away as soon as I wake up and I know that like I'm kind of like trying to tell myself like this is a season where, like maybe I need to do that. Right, you talk about like turning up, turning down, but I think it's hard to put that. Go back to like hey, let me, because I feel like that did help, like have some sanity. Yeah, but anyways, you sound a lot like me to where you're like very, like I always tell people I'm the most disorganized, organized person you'll meet.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can relate to that.
Speaker 2:And so I'm just curious if you ever like turn it off or I haven't and I know I will get to a place where I'm like I need to just not work, right? Um, I talked to some realtors in the past that are like I don't work outside of the hours of 8 and 4 pm or I try not to work weekends. Now, on the flip side, I schedule everything around my kids' activities on the weekends. 12,.
Speaker 2:If they want me to go back to working corporate life and working eight to five and not taking them to school and not picking them up and working sometimes 60 hours a week, they would say no, we want you there for all the school functions. And so they understand that sometimes the trade-off is that I have to answer my phone on a Saturday and I want to be available for my clients, and sometimes my clients are only available on a Saturday or Sunday. But I've built a genuine relationship with them where they know like my family comes first. So if I say, hey, I really want to attend my kid's soccer tournament, can we do that on Monday? The answer is always yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll add one thing that really helped my business, Um, one time that this um top producer taught, taught me, and she just told me you can't bat a thousand, you can't make everybody happy. Because there was a large, long part of early in my career that I tried and I wanted to, and every time that I didn't it was devastating. If I heard that I didn't do a good job on one loan, it was just like the end of the world. How can we fix it? I mean, it was just like the sky was falling and when I was able to let that go, it allowed my business to grow because, um, and it allowed to take my life back a little bit. Because if, back then, if I would have heard, if somebody would have said, well, Alfredo doesn't always pick up his phone, that would have crushed me. I'd be like what.
Speaker 3:And I would have been like call me a minute, I'll answer. You know, like I would have dropped everything, I would have been in my kid's game and I would have tried to answer to prove them wrong. And now I heard that just a couple of days ago and I'm like, well, yeah, if I'm at my kid's stuff, if I'm at practice, if I'm somewhere, I'm just not going to answer the phone. And if that means I'm only capturing 80% of what I could have captured, then that's okay.
Speaker 3:And what's funny is that it ended up working in my favor because I was able to not be so uptight about every single loss and that it didn't. It didn't, um, paralyze me, it didn't like handicap me when it happened, right, uh, I think that really helped me out. It was Shayla Gifford one time, and, uh, I try to make everyone. When you try to make everyone happy, the only way to do that is to only work with a few people only a select few people. That's the only ways that that you can.
Speaker 2:I people don't realize and I probably shouldn't say this. I ignore people's calls all the time because they know everybody has a life. But it's not that hard to hit, ignore and say, hey, I'll call you back in two hours. Or like, hey, I'm at this, I'll call you. Or it's much easier to just say hey, um, I figured you're calling about this. I'm at a kid, the kid's school right now. I already have it in the works and I'll be in touch with you by 5 PM. Like gets me from not answering the phone but like keeps me present where I need to be present. But I'm still following up, letting them know. Like, hey, I saw that you called, I'll be back in touch and I try to give a timeframe with it so that they know that I'm not dropping the ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I, um, now this was really helpful to me, even I feel like I'm just kind of thinking through just everything. And I remember the first time I ever saw Shayla she's a loan officer or was, or whatever she is remember, um, she said it was a year where she like made over two million dollars that year and her husband was like making like 37 000 and he was like, and he was just so much happier than I was and like she started like just bawling and I was just like, oh my gosh, like, like.
Speaker 1:That's me like, because like it's never enough sometimes the way that I can compare. It is um, you know, I told you. You which congrats. You just posted our first video.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:And then she's on a podcast with cameras.
Speaker 3:I mean she's just trying to.
Speaker 1:But I told you, I said your first one. It's always going to be like you were a pro Good. Because people have never seen that, so they're going to comment.
Speaker 2:I mean it's much easier if I just have a face to face conversation with someone, as opposed to posting me talking on a video.
Speaker 1:So most people. Let's say you have 13 good comments and if I was to go in there and just say, hey, the uh spelling is incorrect on one of the captions. Or like, hey, you have something on your face. Like, who cares about? Like the 13? Or let's say you have 1300 comments that are good, you focus on that bad one and for me, I feel like that's what I mean. I've been able to adapt to social media with like I could care less, like I I really like especially youtube is the worst. Like if you go see some of my videos on youtube, there's bad comments like it, and then people are ruthless there because you don't really know who it is.
Speaker 3:So so like, hey, you need to. You need to do one of those Like who does it? Is it Jimmy Kimmel? That he'll read all the bad comments as one roasting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really care about this but but to me I feel like I've gotten a lot better, but I'm still very like, if I mean I mean I'll call myself out, I mean we tried to do something to where we took the whole branch out to bowling and we were just trying to have a good time and I was not having a good time and it was due to some. It was due to like my whole day was pretty good. I mean, I had just done a broker's open, we had over 50 people show up, like it was just, and then this one thing happened. That is just. It was that one bad comment that just like ruined your day. And so I just, I mean I I've even you know, it's been good conversation for me to listen to, but you got anything else.
Speaker 3:No, I mean this is. This is awesome. I think you have a lot of gold in there for a lot of new agents and some veteran agents.
Speaker 3:I think you're doing an amazing job with your business and I I feel like you're pretty humble and modest and so what you job with your business and I feel like you're pretty humble and modest, and so what you did with your business in 2024 is a big deal. It's a really big deal and we interview a lot of agents and you just don't see somebody breaking into that market and having that kind of year just like that on their fourth year. So congratulations.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Yeah, sounds good. This is Jamie.
Speaker 3:This is Jamie Calkins and she's