John Mikesh: Mastering Real Estate w/Insights from Industry Leaders

Summary

In this conversation, Shane Kilby, John Mikesh, and Duane Murphy discuss the evolution of the real estate industry, the importance of coaching and masterminds, and the necessity of simplicity in business practices.

They share personal experiences of navigating market disruptions, building strong foundations, and the value of mentorship.

The discussion emphasizes the significance of consistency, relationship-building, and the psychological aspects of success in real estate.

Keywords

real estate, coaching, masterminds, market disruption, simplicity, business growth, mentorship, success strategies, networking, leadership

Takeaways

Masterminds and coaching can significantly impact business growth.

Simplicity in business processes is crucial for scalability.

Navigating market disruptions requires adaptability and resilience.

Building a strong database is essential for long-term success.

Investing in coaching can yield high returns in personal and professional growth.

Real estate is fundamentally about building relationships and trust.

Consistency in daily activities leads to success over time.

Understanding your audience is key to effective communication.

The market may change, but the fundamentals of real estate remain the same.

Leadership requires learning from failures and adapting strategies.

Sound Bites

"Lead with value, value, value."

"Burn the boats and go all in."

"You have to talk to people."

Chapters

00:00 The Power of Masterminds and Coaching

03:25 Evolution of Real Estate Systems

06:30 The Importance of Simplicity in Business

09:33 Building a Strong Foundation in Real Estate

12:42 The Journey of John Mikesh

15:34 The Role of Coaching in Success

18:41 Overcoming Challenges in Real Estate

21:19 Transitioning to a New Market

24:38 The Importance of Identity in Business

27:22 Learning from Failures

30:31 The Value of Consistency and Simplicity

33:31 The Psychology of Success

36:24 The Future of Real Estate

39:26 Building Relationships and Networking

42:28 The Importance of Adaptability

45:19 The

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Transcript

Shane Kilby (00:01)
you know, not too often anyway. Yeah. We just, we just got back from, the Chep Black, mastermind in Tahoe. Yeah. It was, it was, it was, it was an awesome event and very awesome event. know, his, his, his, his style is, is, you know, straight to the point and, and, and then your face, you know, that football coach style, but you know, that's, that's what, that's what is so effective.

John Mikesh (00:08)
Yes, all you guys were traveling, man. That's awesome.

think it's awesome,

man. Like I remember the first time I heard Shepak was in 2012 at a Kinder Reis event. And I was like, holy crap, who's this guy? But you know what, man? Like if you follow him, like he's been super consistent the whole time. Like he's never changed to become like what's cool right now. And

I don't know. had like a similar experience of what I feel like it would be like if you were to coach with him with Lars. Like I knew I needed Lars at the time I needed him, but I didn't really want to do it because I knew it was going to be painful. And I feel like that's how it would be to approach Shep Black. It's like, you know, this is going to get you uncomfortable, but it's probably the thing that's keeping you from the next level.

Shane Kilby (01:07)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I agree totally. it's like, I cause I, I mean, I, I suck up all of his free stuff and, and we catch a lot of Maverick events and stuff like that. And, those guys have really built something amazing, like all of the different pieces. And, and when I had this conversation too, like, man, back in the day coming up, like if you'd had access to each of the pieces that these guys have created, like.

I mean, most of us don't need that. You don't really need, we did need everything that these guys offer and all of the different programs that they have available and sort of a Alicarte type off the buffet. But you know, now like looking back, like if we could have picked certain pieces, like these guys have got operations dialed in, they've got the entire, you know, Legion and Prospect. They've got all these systems and things and key critical aspects of, of

Duane Murphy (01:53)
you

Shane Kilby (02:12)
scaling real estate, dialed into a science. And, and although you look at it like, it's from now looking at it's like, this is a significant cost. But if you didn't have all the costs that you already invested in today, it would be a bargain and all the money that you spent time you'd saved.

John Mikesh (02:27)
Totally.

Duane Murphy (02:28)
yeah, to

unravel the organizations we have now and all the pieces and all the tech stacks and just all that it is, to roll under that umbrella would be painful. It just would make me cry just thinking about it makes me shudder. But like Shane had said with what they have built, I I look at this like, shoot.

John Mikesh (02:43)
Totally.

Duane Murphy (02:55)
you know, 18 years ago when I got into this, 19 years ago when I got into this, to be able to build off those, you know, those systems, those processes, you know, it's such a different world of real estate now than truly than what it was. know, teams didn't really exist back then, right? So that was a new frontier for most. you know, and then just, you know, you, right, you have, you know, the, the levions and the places and, and, you know, all those different

John Mikesh (03:09)
Totally.

Duane Murphy (03:24)
systems like that and organizations that are, you know, that are just, you know, it's just, it's just, it's a different game. I mean, even when you look at, right, even, you know, like with EXP, you're right. Not, not to give a shameless plug for, know, for them or, or whatever, but you know, the EXPs, LPTs, know, the different organizations that, know, that have the internal masterminds or have the, you know, the sharing of stuff across the board, way different than some of those.

the way the big box brokerages did it back in the day. Right, it's the best comparison.

John Mikesh (03:57)
Yeah, I mean, the truth is today you

can get all the information and all the coaching that I paid for 15 years ago for free and probably better, a better version than what I was paying for then. but back then it was just kind of like everybody had their cards held tight. You know, I think it was more like what you might find on the commercial side of things today. Like people are running their own businesses. They're figuring things out, but they're not sharing anything. And, yeah, I think, I think there's been a lot of change over the last decade or so.

I kind of get excited about it because I feel like when I was on the come up, it was that change in market conditions of 07 that really paved the way for me to be able to carve out a space in this real estate game for myself. And if it hadn't been for that disruption in the marketplace, I don't know that I would have gotten to where I got to.

Like it was that was the opportunity and I seized it and I went all in on some things that allowed me to like just move away from my competition in a way that let me, you know, build something amazing.

Duane Murphy (05:01)
Yeah, think all three of us were in that same timeline of surviving that most disruptive market in history and the Great Correction. And I think we're in a pretty good one right now. so, no.

Shane Kilby (05:05)
Thanks

John Mikesh (05:15)
Yeah. And most agents haven't been through that, right? So like they're coming

on their first, their first speed bump in the road. So it's, it's cool.

Duane Murphy (05:26)
Yeah. Yeah. I was, oops, sorry. was going to say I can, I can remember, right. There's so many, you were talking about the knowledge that's out there and the ability to, to gain so much information that, that people put out there now compared to what it used to be. Like right back in the day, there wasn't, there wasn't much out there for free content. know I scraped and stole and reused and remarketed and whatever, Borrowed, borrowed everything, right? That any.

Shane Kilby (05:26)
Well, we're.

Borrowed, borrowed, borrowed.

John Mikesh (05:54)
It was all about being

rad, man.

Duane Murphy (05:56)
that any a right, but Jake and your Mike Reese back in the day, everything that they put out like, like, right. was, I was scraping and borrowing and changing and tweaking and, whatever. And you know, and they led with a lot of value right before that sale. And there wasn't really a lot of people back then doing that. Whereas now that's become a, you know, almost the model right to follow is lead with value, you know, value, value, value.

John Mikesh (06:00)
Thank

Shane Kilby (06:04)
Thanks

John Mikesh (06:20)
Yep.

Duane Murphy (06:26)
Right? then, you know, if you have a hook, set the hook, but, you know, it's lead with value and people will see your worth.

Shane Kilby (06:32)
You know, the funny thing about, you know, Chep Black is it's like, I mean, what you see is what you get. There's no smoke and mirrors there. You know, it's like every day in this business, there's, mean, I know for me, I've probably blown, I'm embarrassed to say a couple of million dollars, maybe more just in that easy button or that next, you know,

10X scalability or whatever. then you go listen to this guy and like you said, John, his messaging has resonated from the beginning. I'm sure like I wasn't connected to him back in 2012, but I'm sure like people then are like, man, this guy is like, this can't be like there's too much moving and shaking. There's too many nuances about the business to be that simple.

And man, every, every message I've heard him say, every, every message I've seen him write, every, every zoom I've been on with him, every, every event I've attended, it's, it's, it's simple solves the complex, man. And we will, we will kill ourselves trying to find a simple way to do things when we're standing on top of it. That's the, that's the wild thing.

John Mikesh (07:48)
So one of the things

that I say all the time, and this is what I love about Shep Lac, is I feel like two people looking at us from the outside, like I'm as different of a person than Shep Lac is like a person can be, but we say the exact same thing. And what I always tell people is I say, look,

What are we looking for in our business? We're looking for the people that like I gravitate and I resonate with like I like progress. So when I get around other people that are dreamers and they they they want to achieve a lot for their family for themselves for their business for their team, like they're progress oriented. If you're not progress oriented, like you're probably just not even going to like be in the same world together. But what I always say is this simple scales and complexity fails.

And simple doesn't mean easy. It's actually very difficult to be simple. There's genius in what Steve Jobs created with Apple because it's so simple and intuitive, but to build it was very difficult. But here's what we do as agents in business is we try to make the simple easier. And in our efforts to make it easier, we inherently make it much more complex. And that brings you.

Shane Kilby (08:51)
Hmm.

Now you nailed it. Like, like

look at any of our Google drives or any of our OneDrives or any of our Dropboxes. Like we've been, we've been creating simple for the last 20 years and it's, it is a hundred gigabytes of Google docs and sheets and spreadsheets and formulas and codes and passwords and logins and acts and scrapes and

John Mikesh (09:25)
It's crazy, man.

Duane Murphy (09:25)
Right,

and you, right, just to re -quote that, right, simple scales, complexity fails.

Shane Kilby (09:27)
Ahem.

John Mikesh (09:33)
Yeah, simple scales and

complexity fail. So when I see an agent who gets stuck in like that difficult 20 to 50 deal per year, you know, which would be according to Nara top producer, right? But we're looking for guys that are wanting to scale to 100, 200, 500 ,000 deals a year with their teams and they get stuck.

And I believe the reason they get stuck is because they lose sight of this idea that simple scales and complexity fails. And they get all these charts and grids and accountability plans and different lead mechanisms. And all of sudden they can't scale because they forgot that it's a simple business of getting an opportunity, converting it to a sale, and then building your database one person at a time.

and all that complexity weighs them down from going to the next level. So show me somebody who's at 50 deals a year who's stuck. And I bet if I start to pick in and ask them questions like, hey, what's your cost of, you know, client acquisition? What are your lead costs right now? What are your top three lead pillars? I bet they couldn't answer the simplest questions about their business because they got too much chaos going on because they've tried to hit the easy button by hiring out this, by buying that.

Shane Kilby (10:38)
Okay.

John Mikesh (10:50)
and they've chased a bunch of squirrels that have made their world inherently complex and now they can't move beyond that. But show me somebody who's crushing sales at the highest level, not for a year, for year after year after year. And what you'll find is a simple business where prospecting happens daily, where they have a strong database, they get 40 % or more of their clients from repeat clients and referrals, and they executed a high level of the simplest things every time.

Shane Kilby (11:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. That's, that's gold. That's pure gold. That's, that's, that's fire nuggets that, know, I mean, whoever listens to this or watches this or downloads this, that, like rewind that and listen to that again, rewind that, listen to that again, write that down, write that down, write that down. you know, I think that, you know, he kind of bouncing back to chip like is like, like he drills it in your head, like work, work, stop handing everything off.

Right? You know, do the work yourself. You've handed so much of this stuff out. You don't have any influence on it. You have no, no, you're lost touch with reality. And it's like, no wonder it fails. Like everything, keep handing everything off. So yeah, it's, it's funny. And I have the same conversation with agents all the time. And you're right. It's not that one year it's at two, three, four years down the road. Cause everybody, there's always that one hit wonder. They have a lot of contacts, a lot of resources and a lot of folks that you should be in real estate. You should be in real estate.

And they come in there, dump all the contacts, they sell all the contacts and then they fall flat. then they, you know, sometimes they hang around most of time they purge out. but it's always, you had the same conversation about building, you know, helping build those pillars. And, from where we're at the business, like we see that ahead of time in someone, especially if we've known them, you know, from, from pre -licensed to post -licensed to, to, you know, going live in the business. Like, I mean, you, you know, this, you can observe, you can observe anyone's habits.

You know, for, for 30 to 90 days, especially as an agent and you can predict the rest of the next five, 10 years in the, the industry. Right. And a lot of times it's just, you see where they're going. You sit them down and you go, let's, let's put some structure around this. Like, like you are a rare breed, but you also dance that dance that if you don't, if we don't get you some, some processes and structure around there now, instant, some stability, some way to manage all of it, then, then you're going to go.

off the end of the tracks, off the rails. And that's where you burn out or you just fizzle out and just quit, right? So no, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. Great insight. So let me pick your brain a little bit. So we've been friends now for quite some time. Now it becomes like an annual visit out there at your place. Beautiful, beautiful. Bozeman, Montana. I do believe that was God's final.

Duane Murphy (13:32)
GORGEOUS.

Shane Kilby (13:33)
Yeah, I think that's, think I always, I always feel like that's where God finished. said, all right, one last masterpiece is going to be Montana. And then I'm out, right? It's the most beautiful place on planet.

John Mikesh (13:43)
Keep it

quiet, man. Don't tell too many people. It's already getting crowded. I think North Dakota is prettier. You might want to go check that place out.

Duane Murphy (13:45)
Yeah, nobody knows how beautiful Montana is. I mean, you can just tell by your guys' prices of homes.

Shane Kilby (13:49)
Thank

like nine people in North Dakota.

John Mikesh (13:56)
Yeah,

go there first.

Shane Kilby (13:59)
Yeah, I think Yellowstone fixed that quiet secret for Montana, especially Bozeman. So tell us a little bit about your backstory, John. So we've known each other, I guess, I don't know, 10 years now, something like that, plus or minus. But you haven't always been in Bozeman. You haven't always been in real estate, have you?

John Mikesh (14:03)
you

Yeah, so I got into real estate in 2002 in upstate New York in the Hudson Valley area, which at the time when I got in the real estate, it was really just kind of like a quiet, sleepy little valley, you know, up by the Cascade Mountains. The cool thing was is that and still is, is that we were a bedroom community to Manhattan. So we had 10 million people that were looking for an escape from the busyness of the city every week that would come up and buy houses for.

you know, weekend purposes. And that's where I started my business. did really well out of the gate. And, you know, my wife and I, we met in high school and we got married in 2006. And I said, Hey, let's, let's go somewhere new. Let's just like carve out our own path and like have a new start. And we decided on moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.

And we were excited about that because I was looking at the transactional volume down there compared to the market that I was in. I was coming from an MLS of 700 agents to an MLS of 20 plus thousand agents. So just a whole different world as far as real estate was concerned. But I was confident, maybe naive at the time, that I could just go down there and do more business than I was doing in New York where I knew everybody and I knew the market. I knew the area like the back of my hand. And I landed in Charlotte in late 2006.

And we all know what happened in 2007. So that was, that was a fun time. Newly married. Yeah. Trying to make it in real estate in a market that I knew nothing about with demographics, like families and car seats and things that I had never dealt with track home communities. What is that? so that was a, it was a tough time for me.

Duane Murphy (15:36)
Good timing.

John Mikesh (15:51)
to get a footing in this business in a new market as we go into that 2007. I was actually working three jobs at the time. But I've always sort of taken the struggle head on and embraced the challenge because I think that with that mindset, you can overcome anything. And I was just trying to make it, right? So what I ended up doing is I ended up burning my boats. I got rid of the other two jobs that I had and I went all in on real estate because I just looked at the landscape and I was waiting tables at night and I looked

looked

at what my future would be like there and it wasn't it wasn't a good one. I was working for this other company that was more of a corporate thing where like I had some responsibilities that I did and they were pretty flexible which I mean was cool but I was like there's really no path for me here there's certainly no passion here and the only thing I was passionate about was real estate and the opportunities that it could provide for me so I burned those boats I went all in on real estate in 2007 I got my first real estate coach

I moved from the mom and pop that I was at where I was supposedly getting leads, but I was getting, you know, the short end of the stick really. And I took that plunge and went into the remax model, which was scary for me because it was like I had to pay monthly desk fees, but I was committed. And it was on the backside of that commitment when I said I'm all in on this and it's sink or swim that all the magic happened.

And that's when, you know, I just followed my coach to a tee because I needed this to work. And I started to get traction and I started to get momentum and I was committed to becoming an expert at that time. was short sales and foreclosures. I was like, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And I was looking at all the top agents in our market and I was like, these guys are talented, but they're unwilling to do the hard work of short sale and foreclosure. It's like beneath them. And I spot.

an opportunity. And I just started going after that business. And guys, like, you know, you've been around, like, I didn't like it. But I loved real estate. And I love the idea of like carving a path for myself. So I did what I had to do. And I remember this conversation I had, like it was yesterday, I was seeing this chiropractor who was also my client. And I go in to get adjusted because I'm like driving for dollars. And I'm like, I'm like killing it in the car, right? All day long, I'm in the car.

And I had this little Honda Accord at the time and like the seat was awful and it hurt my back. So I'm getting adjusted. And as I'm getting adjusted, I noticed that the chiropractor, my client Jen looks at me with this like sincere level of concern and empathy. And she goes, John, how are you doing? And at this time I had gotten the traction already. I was following the coaching. had a daily prospecting plan and I was killing it. And I looked, I looked at her and I said,

Amazing. Like I have 10 closings on Friday. And I think when I verbalized that, like she was like, is this guy going to close anything? Like, is he going to be able to provide for his family? Like the real estate sky is falling. That was the perception of everybody, most agents included. And when I told her that it hit me, like, I figured it out and now I just got to stay the course and I can build an amazing foundation. And it was out of that.

Shane Kilby (18:59)
Thank

John Mikesh (19:10)
short sale foreclosure as we kind of pulled ourselves out of that in the Southeast into the 2010 era that I was able to build, you know, the number one team at my remax, which was the top brokerage in our market to then go on and build my own independent brokerage. And really with the idea of the reason that I'm leaving remax isn't because I'm upset with remax or unhappy with them. It was actually a fantastic place for me to build my team, but I had a vision for something more.

And my vision, guys, was that at Remax, it was the Mike -ish team at Remax.

And I was like, one of the things I think I've always been good at doing is like understanding this concept of WIFM, like what's in it for me and putting myself in the position of my agents. And I had this really good team of agents that would follow me anywhere and they all followed me to my independent brokerage. But the reason that I wanted an independent brokerage is because I wanted my name out of the equation, which was kind of outside the box at that time. Everybody that was starting a team was starting a team with their name.

Duane Murphy (20:11)
Mm

Shane Kilby (20:15)
Mm -hmm.

John Mikesh (20:15)
But I was

like, Hey, if I'm an agent and I'm a top producer on this team, do I always want to be in the shadow of somebody else's name and somebody else's lights? And for me, that answer was no. So I set out to create an independent brokerage that would still operate as a team because I was committed to the team model for profitability, for leverage, and also for all the benefits that I could provide to my agents. But I wanted to run it under the guise of an independent brokerage.

so that they could have the anonymity to build themselves up under that name.

And that's what we did. started in 2014. It was wildly successful. You know, in Keller Williams terminology, I became a seventh level business. Like I literally took myself out of the production and ultimately out of the day to day that business and, you know, kind of to bring the story home. That's what enabled me to travel the country full time with my family. We were on the national park circuit. We left North Carolina in 2019. You know, my business is selling hundreds of homes, several hundred homes a year. I'm not

there,

it's still highly profitable. And what ultimately happened is COVID. And when COVID happened, I said, Well, I don't want to go back to North Carolina of everywhere I've been, where do I want to plant my flag next? And we ended up relocating to Bozeman, Montana. And

Shane Kilby (21:35)
Yeah, Bozeman's

a tough sale too. mean, know, mean, any, many, many, yeah. Yeah. I think we'll stay in Bozeman.

John Mikesh (21:43)
The toughest part was wrapping my head around the prices out here. was like, geez, man, I'm like a real estate guy and this just doesn't even make sense to me. But

When you when you look at the nature and that the outdoor activities and the seasons like we love cold and we love snow. We're kind of weird like that. All of our friends want to go to the beach and we're like, can we go to Iceland? Like we just we've always been drawn to the mountains and the cold and just the coziness of that for us. And so so we knew we wanted to be out in big mountain territory. And Bozeman just felt like a full time place that was also like a vacation destination.

We're like, weren't going to move to Aspen or Jackson Hole. Like it just didn't feel like a place where we could raise our young daughter. And yeah, so it's been great, man. We've been here four years. When I landed in Bozeman, you know, just assessing like, what's that next step look like for me? And, that's when I, I guess, I guess you could say that one of the challenges of growing a successful business is that in the process of doing that, a lot of times your identity becomes attached to that thing that you're building.

And in looking back over my career, I think that that was probably a stumbling block for me. Like I had a very strong identity to what I had built. And because of that, I had a lot of blinders on to like what else was out there. So was like, I built this great independent brokerage and like I net a ton of profit every year. And I'm not like I was attached to all that.

But the time and space that being on the road for a year and a half gives you and the perspective of that and then moving across the country allowed me to kind of like reset and remove my identity from what I had built to look at like what's the next best step for this brokerage.

And if I wasn't going to go back and all my transactional liability was falling on my shoulders, all the financial liability of everything that we had overhead wise there, it just caused me to look outside of that and be like, is there a better way or a next step for this business? And ultimately what I decided to do for me was to bring that business into the EXP model.

because it could give me a lot of things that I couldn't offer as far as a career path to those agents. But it also helped, you know, remove that transactional and a lot of that financial liability of running the brokerage and allowing them to run the brokerage, which to me is really just kind of like brain damage. So I could run the sales team.

And I love I love sales. I love teams. love accountability. I love growth. And for me, I just saw an infinitely scalable model again with that idea of let's keep it really simple. What am I good at? What do I like doing? Let's do more of that and less of the stuff that just gives me a headache.

Shane Kilby (24:25)
Yeah. So I want to, I want to, I want to dice this up for a second. That is powerful, powerful testimony, powerful statement. And I knew that this is exactly the way that you would bring it, but I want to go back for a second. Cause for the listeners, I want you to digest for a second. If you heard a lot of things you heard that he started, you know, right before the kickoff party of the real reset.

And then you also heard in there that he cut his teeth by the most painful transactions that money can buy. You know, all the REO stuff, the foreclosure, the shortstop.

Duane Murphy (24:59)
$25

BPO is one at a time. How many could you, I could still, I still have probably nightmares in the evening, waking up going like looking at this map going, okay, how can I, how many BPO is, can I route into one stop of dropping off like foreclosure notices for banks and doing drive -bys and BPO is at 25, 35 foot. I don't know what they were in your market, but in my market, they were 25 to $45 a piece.

John Mikesh (25:02)
my gosh.

Yeah.

Duane Murphy (25:29)
I

think going, if I can knock out like 20 of those today, right? Try to map them all out. You know, it's like, man, that's going to be a good day. And you know, and then in between there trying to do normal real estate stuff, wherever is available, right? And calling your sellers and talking them off the cliff. And I mean, wow.

Shane Kilby (25:39)
But -

But remember

this though, remember those 40 and $45 ones, those were sketch. Like, those were like.

Duane Murphy (25:52)
Always.

John Mikesh (25:52)
Yeah, I actually,

I actually went out and got my first handgun because of doing those BPO's they'd send me, they sent me to these places in Charlotte that I didn't know existed. And they were like, you know, back when they used to build a street that was like a dead end, it was like just a stub route. And I remember going into this one property, and it was supposedly vacant, but there was like all these cars that were on like 30 inch rubber rims and rubber band tires. And I called my wife and I said, Hey,

Duane Murphy (25:57)
Ha

John Mikesh (26:21)
I'm going into this house. If I literally, if I don't call you within 10 minutes, here's the address call 911. Like I thought I was going to get like jacked in the house. Like here's this white guy. Back then I was like pleated pants and loafers and a button up shirt. And I don't know what I was thinking, but that was just my, my, my get up at that time. And I'm like, they're going to kill me in here, man.

Duane Murphy (26:31)
Yeah.

John Mikesh (26:45)
And and I was like, I'm getting a handgun. At least I'm going out with a fight. And did. got one the next month. But it is crazy, man. It was a crazy time.

Duane Murphy (26:49)
You

Yeah. My, my BPO career came

to a, came to a quick close. wouldn't say quick close, but I started getting a little bit more particular when you you walk into the houses that are vacant and they're not right. And you got the, the people squatting in them. You know, the ones with the, the car hearts and the mannequins with ketchup squirted all over and with like the sign, you know, spray paint over the walls of your next with a knife stuck in them. And then the shotgun, the shotgun, the shotgun pulled on me with the guy walking out of his garage and going you from the bank.

John Mikesh (27:16)
Hahaha!

Duane Murphy (27:22)
I'm like, Nope. And I'm like, you can point, you don't need to point that at me. Like, you know, and it's like, all right. It's like, okay, I'm gonna have to figure out this real estate thing real quick. Cause my life expectancy is blinking really fast doing the, doing it this way.

Shane Kilby (27:23)
Nope.

John Mikesh (27:25)
Wow.

Shane Kilby (27:36)
Hey, one thing about it...

One thing about it, agents today when they're role playing and they're developing and growing and learning scripts and it's like, this is so painful. This is so painful. I'm like, no, it's really not. Here, let me walk you back through time and explain to you how easy it can be to learn scripts. Let me introduce you to this thing called BPO and the high paying BPO. Let me introduce you to those, because those will really make you learn scripts and really teach you the art and value of prospecting right here in a 70 degree environment, most definitely.

John Mikesh (28:10)
Yeah,

right. Yeah, I think. Yeah.

Shane Kilby (28:11)
So John, let me ask

you this. So you touched on something that was golden also. You said very, very early on in your career path, I heard you say you invested into a coach. Was that correct? So tell me about that. I mean, some of the listeners out there may be new agents, maybe seasoned agents, maybe anywhere in between. But I mean, in a lot of us that will listen to this know all too well about coaching and the value of coaching.

John Mikesh (28:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Kilby (28:41)
Oftentimes when you come in as business is as a, as a pre -licensed instructor myself, and I want to have this conversation with agents. They're like, what do you mean? What do mean? Like a coach. And then you get in the conversation about the cost and the levels of coaching and stuff. And then it's like, my God, I could, why would someone ever pay that? I'm like, you see Tiger Woods, you see Conor McGregor.

You see these champions like they don't become champions by themselves. They have to have someone in their corner that's always watching them grow, learn and develop and give them that feedback and observation and advice of the mistakes that they're making and how to capitalize on those mistakes. So take us through that experience. That was pretty wise for you to do that early on.

John Mikesh (29:22)
Yeah, I mean, well, we're human, right? So no matter how much motivation, self -drive, discipline we have, we're only going to take ourselves so far, which is why everybody who's ever come through any sport, who's ever done anything at a high level has had one or multiple in many cases coaches.

get them to get more out of them than they can get out of themselves. So it's just about putting yourself in that environment. Darren Hardy wrote an amazing book or Benjamin Hardy rather wrote an amazing book called Willpower Doesn't Work. Because if we're only relying on our willpower, we're only going to get so far, probably like 40 % of what our potential is. Not that I knew all this back then. My coaching story is kind of funny, but it is what it is. I had three jobs at the time, like I said earlier.

Shane Kilby (30:01)
you

John Mikesh (30:09)
I was working at a mom and pop brokerage and a guy walks into the sales meeting one day and he's got tickets and he's like, I'm going to this super conference. Do you guys want to come? I got two extra tickets, their buddy passes and they're only $500 and I spent a lot more than $500 and I'm driving so you can ride with me.

And I was just sitting there in the corner of the sales room and I was like, man, like I need something to change. So I, you know, didn't have $500, but I called my mom and she's like, I'll spot you. And I was like, cool. So I borrowed $500 from my mom. I told my wife, I was going to this conference with this guy, with these two guys in my office. And I was like 20s at that time. And these two guys were like in their fifties and sixties.

Shane Kilby (30:36)
you

John Mikesh (31:01)
So it was a little awkward and a little uncomfortable and I'm riding down and we had to go from Charlotte to Orlando for this conference and we get there and we pull up to the venue and it's like beautiful. It's at a JW Marriott and I'd never even been to one of those before and I'm like, wow, this is like super nice conference hotel.

And Jerry, the guy who drove was like, yeah, we're not staying here. So he just wanted to show us and kind of get the lay of the land of where we were going the following morning. And so we go to our hotel. It's literally on the other side of the tracks. There's there's two beds. There's three dudes like this is like a very low time in my in my life. And I'm like, crap. So like, I think that there's power in being in a low place.

Shane Kilby (31:23)
you

John Mikesh (31:43)
And for me, the only way to go is up. And I show up at the conference the next day and I'll never forget it. Like they're checking people in and then like I'm walking around the lobby and there's all these people with different color, like lapels hanging off their name tag. And those different colors represented different levels of income, which I quickly realized. And I was like, holy crap. Like I didn't like.

you have to stretch your mind and it's like once you stretch it, it'll never go back to the original shot size. And I was like, there's people here that are making money in real estate that I didn't even know what was possible. So like, and then I'm here in the conference and everything they're saying is making sense. They're literally giving me the answer to every problem I have.

And I'm like, I need this. The problem was I had no money. So I call my wife at the lunch break and I'm jacked out of my mind. And she's, you know, at home dealing with, you know, being pregnant and just like everything. Right. And she's not a fan. And she's like, honey, we're broke. So I don't know what you're so excited about, but if you buy anything like we're divorced when you get home. And I was like,

Shane Kilby (32:29)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (32:45)
You

Shane Kilby (32:46)
Thank

John Mikesh (32:53)
dang she's never said that before like this is really where i'm at so so the way my mind works is probably a little different than most but i'm like i just heard something that i've never heard before that's very scary like there's two things that i don't want to end up in prison or divorced and i'm like dang so i go back into the conference and i'm like now i need it even more because if the d words already coming out

Duane Murphy (33:01)
you

John Mikesh (33:19)
That's about that's a that's a tell to where I'm at in my business career. So I'm like, got to make this work. So I go to these people at the conference and I'm like, hey, I need this thing is coaching that you're selling. I was like, can I like, get it now and pay in 90 days? Because I was like that committed that they had the answers and I was going to be on my way. And they were like, yeah, we won't charge your credit card for 90 days. I'm like, will you put that in writing? And they're like, yeah, we'll put it right on this. You know, they had the old like white, yellow, pink.

Shane Kilby (33:48)
Yeah, knuckle buster.

John Mikesh (33:49)
No, you press hard.

Duane Murphy (33:49)
Triplicate.

Yep. Triplicate. Carbon copy.

John Mikesh (33:50)
Yeah, so they wrote it on there and I was like, I was like good for me. And once I knew that they were willing to do that, I just stayed in the back of the room and I got the coaching, I got the technology, I got the 800 numbers, I got the classified ad system, like everything that they were selling, I was buying. And in the next

Shane Kilby (34:07)
OG,

that's gangster stuff back there, classified ads, 800 numbers.

John Mikesh (34:10)
Dude, I

was like, if I'm gonna end up divorced anyway, I'm gonna go out with a fight, right? So I buy all this stuff and I remember going back in the car with these two guys. And I'm like, literally, I'm having like an out of body experience. I'm already like a multimillionaire. And like, I just left this conference.

And these guys are in the front seat and I'm in the back and they're talking about, you know, we got this other 800 number service that we're going to use. We don't have to get the one he's using. And I just remember it was like the last thing I said, the whole nine hour ride home. was like, Hey guys, we're all broke and we're all idiots. You're an even bigger idiot than I thought. If you think you're going to do it your way. I was like, I'm going to do it their way. And I did. And both of those guys are out of the business and I'm here.

And I made more money in the next 90 days than I had ever made in a year before. And it literally like I've been coached ever since. I have a coach today. Like I've never gone a month without being coached at least by one person. And I've coached with a lot of people in real estate, a lot of people out of real estate. Right now, my coach is not a real estate coach. He's more like a mentor or a guide for me, somebody that's much wiser than I am, that's been around a lot longer. And he just helps keep me on track.

I don't think you can put a price tag on coaching. You know, how do I put a price tag on a $500 event that changed my life that allowed me to go on and make seven figures a year, year after year after year after year? Like, how do you put a price tag on that? Other kids are going to college, right? And they're spending hundreds of thousands taking on massive debt to be indoctrinated, both politically and personally and professionally.

into who knows what, right? I mean, go do your own research on that, but they might go in one party and come out the other party after four years. And they're coming away from that with debt and to try to get a job, right? In most cases, a job where I can make more in one month in this business than they can in a whole year. Or in Bozeman, Montana, I can make more on one sale of the average sale price than a teacher or police officer can make in an entire year.

I'm not saying that it's better than that. Those are noble professions. I'm just saying understand the game you're playing and what the value is because it can literally change your life and have a ripple through your whole family tree.

Shane Kilby (36:37)
Man, that is absolutely like, ladies and gentlemen, like this is not scripted. We had a script. We just went out the window because when you're rolling and you're dropping bombs and you're bringing fire, just let it run. Just let it run. And every bit of that is absolutely point on. Just talking about burning the boats and just being resourceful. That was a pure...

Duane Murphy (36:47)
on.

Shane Kilby (37:04)
life example of being resourceful. sat down, I've got a, I won't disclose their name, but I've got a really, really awesome agent that he was in one of my previous or recent pre -licensed classes. And he's awesome, awesome individual. And not to disclose too much, he's got a very high profile athlete son that plays some very good college ball. anyway,

from here to there, we're sitting there. So he's covering the family's expenses, man. He's stretched, he just knows that gold, man. He's gonna bring so much value to the marketplace. And we've had several conversations over the last seven, eight weeks as he's transitioning into real estate, as you know, it is an arm and a leg to get into the business once you get a license.

And so he's working through that transition. Cause I mean, you know, the cost of living these days isn't the cheapest it's ever been. and so he's, he's being methodical. He's got a wife, he's got kids and you know, he's got kids in college and stuff like that too. So, you know, the wife's like, Hey, watch this, watch the spend and watch the spending. Right. And so he does, he does Uber. Which I looked at and we had this conversation like, man, like, do you understand? Like, like when I see someone transitioning into real estate in Uber or door dash or any of these.

you know, you know, you know, jobs like this, these opportunities to make some ends meet. I'm like, man, if that is so such a gateway for someone trying to get in this business, cause he was going to, he was trying to save up and trying to figure out a way to exit that and come into that. don't do that. I to me, I'm going to go, I'm going to work shifts around the airport. If I'm in Uber, right? One people, you know, I don't, I don't care. I'm gonna pay what it takes to get to my room and get back forth. But what brings you here?

John Mikesh (38:50)
Yeah, exactly.

Shane Kilby (38:56)
I'm here in business kind of bit, you know, so I'm just opening that conversation and having that discovery. And next thing you know, I'm to help this guy locate some property, right? Or he's going to be another connector, not besides just, you know, making good, you know, extra revenue to, you know, cover your expenses while you're in the business. So long story short, he was trying to figure out he was considering going to work with Amazon, you know, at night and doing this at daytime. said, I said, it's not, I don't want to tell you what to do with that, but, don't, don't build too many boats. The more.

boats you build, the more safety and security you have, the more stability you have and the less that you're going to be able to swim in water when it comes to burning the boats. said, but I would, would hold onto the Uber opportunity because you can clock in and clock out whenever you want. You want to work at night, go work at night. You want to work strictly around events, you know, but he's golden. And so it was, and we got to talking about coaching and I've shared some coaching with him and he's already in the coaching mindset because his son plays for USC.

John Mikesh (39:42)
OS

Duane Murphy (39:42)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (39:52)
So he's like, he's all dialed into that coach and he's like, I didn't know that that was a thing. I'm like, yeah, man, it's like to get, to get from good to great and great to greater. Like you must have that, that, that individual that's been where you want to go. They can give you that, that stone cold advice and input and observation that maybe it's no, maybe the people that's closer to you are not going to tell you the things that the coach is going to tell you. Right. So it's very impactful.

John Mikesh (40:16)
Totally. I was telling somebody about

Uber, man. Like I think that's such a like, like my version of Uber when I was getting started was waiting tables. Now you're now you're at something from 430 in the afternoon till you know, 1112 o 'clock at night. That's a huge commitment. And it's tough, right? Like you said, Uber, you can turn it on, turn it off. So I'm having this conversation with this new agent starting out and I'm like, dude, you should Uber and until you get your business to where you can really go all in, like I understand you got to make some money.

Duane Murphy (40:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

John Mikesh (40:46)
And this is an interesting dialogue that I had with this person because, and it's going to lead to another thing I want to share with you guys. So the person's like, yeah, but if I'm, you know, my car is this. And if I'm Uber and, I'm trying to get real estate clients out of that scenario, just like you said, Shane, they're, they're going to say, well, I'm not there. I'm not going to work with this guy. Like he's not a player. And, and I just like, I just felt so bad for him because I was like, bro, you already lost.

Like, and I share and I and he's like, what do mean? And I'm like, let me share something with you. Like a big part of being successful in this business that they don't talk about that they don't teach is you've got to be able to build rapport and read your audience. I was like, maybe you're not the guy for everybody, but you can't be a one script pony. Like imagine you go to the airport and you pick up on a nice couple.

and they're going to the least expensive hotel, their suitcases are all ratty and old looking, and you ask them why they're there, and they're like, we're thinking about relocating to this area. You're their agent, bro! Like you were gonna work with them, they are not gonna prejudge you by your car or anything. I said, but contrast that with this. You pick somebody up at the airport, they come out.

Shane Kilby (41:58)
you

John Mikesh (42:07)
on their phone looking real buttoned up. got to me luggage and they go to the most expensive, you know, resort hotel in your area. When they start talking about, yeah, we're looking at investments or like whatever this area, then change your boy. Hey, let me tell you about my, my agent Shane. He's been representing me and my whole family. He's got the number one brokerage in town. This guy, like you will thank me after you talk to him. And you know what you do on that one? You collect a referral fee.

I said, because you're right, you're not gonna get that one, but you will get the other one. So you gotta know your audience and be adaptable. But the reason that my heart sank for this guy that I was talking to, I was like, we either choose to have a victim mentality or a victor mentality. And I was like, this person's already chosen to be a victim of their circumstances. And the likelihood is, unless there's a whole lot of new input that comes in, they're always gonna be that way.

When I landed in Charlotte, I was like, I'm gonna be successful. I don't know how, I don't know what, but like it was in me that like I was going to win. And I don't know where that confidence came from. It came from God, it came from the way my parents raised me, but I've always been confident even on the verge of being arrogant and it served me very well. Now,

This whole story isn't rosy, right? Like you guys know, like building a business is tough. There's ups, there's downs. I've made a ton of mistakes.

Shane Kilby (43:29)
you

John Mikesh (43:36)
I've railroaded people right out of my business. You know, I've been like my way or the highway and true leadership is influence, right? And I haven't always been a true leader. Becoming a leader requires a lot of failure along the way, but I'd like to think that I'm a better leader today than I was 10 or 20 years ago because I've learned these things. but you know, over my career, it's like,

I've made a lot of mistakes and I've made a lot of mistakes in leadership. I've made a lot of mistakes in administrative and how I've managed people. I've made a lot of mistakes as a technician as doing the real estate. So like one of the books that's always been super helpful to me is the E -Myth by Michael Gerber because it's so simple, right? It's written as a fable. It's this lady who's got a pie shop, but it's this understanding that in any business, for any business to be successful, real estate or otherwise.

there's gotta be three different hats worn. The hat of the technician, the hat of the manager, and the hat of the entrepreneur or visionary. I've always had the entrepreneurial kind of like stuff in me, but I had to learn how to be a good manager. And I've always been a good technician because I love this business and I love the doing. Like I got in the real estate.

because I went through this long journey of like I grew up I wanted to be an architect. I was fortunate to get to do an internship in architecture and I realized real quickly I didn't want to copy and paste my whole life. And then I was like well I'm going to be a contractor and I went out and I did that and at the very high levels of luxury contracting in St. Simons Island, Georgia and I was like man this is great and then I got into interior design and then through that I was introduced and invited to come into the real estate space and I'm so thankful I did because

It's taken a lot of my interest and passions and it's allowed me to be a good technician because I have the interest. If you have zero interest in houses and you just want to get into real estate to make money, like I promise you there's a better way for you than this business. Like it's like when I get new agents and I'm sitting across the table from them, I'm asking myself, would I buy a house from this person?

Shane Kilby (45:35)
You

John Mikesh (45:44)
If you have zero interest in houses and decor and like styles and, and architecture and like how things are built and why this is better than that, like don't do this business because it's not a money grab. Like go into financial services if you just want a money grab, but this business requires a level of passion and dedication to the product, which is why I never got into the commercial side of things because I love the product of residential real estate.

And I think that that will allow you to build something great if you're coachable and you're willing to put the work in.

Duane Murphy (46:17)
John, I'm sorry not to cut you off, but I I had a quite, I guess a deeper dive. You had mentioned some different fails along the way, right? Things that you had to learn, things that you had to grow through, that you had experienced. If you had to pick like the biggest failure in business, what would you pit as your

Shane Kilby (46:17)
Man, that was just, just, no.

John Mikesh (46:30)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (46:47)
as your biggest.

John Mikesh (46:50)
Yeah, when I think of that question, Dwayne, I think there's a tactical response and more of like an overarching response. Tactically, if I look at my real estate career, what was the biggest mistake that I made? It was that I constantly switched platforms early on.

I was like, Hey, we're going to do this. like switching a platform is very disruptive to a business that's run on a platform or a CRM. And I switched like three different times within 36 months early on in my career. And it was a real roadblock for me. Like it burned my people out. It like created confusion. It took me longer to get traction. Listen, get a system, whatever it is and, and, and learn that system and be great on that system. When I look back,

the system that got me traction like early on, I was running agent office. Like it was horrible, but it did what it needed to do. And I followed it to a T then all these new platforms came out like tiger leads and boom town and ultimately commissions Inc. and, and like, it was like, I had to go this one and then, no, this one's better. I have to go to this one. And it, and it really affected my growth early on. As soon as I planted my flag with for me, it was commissions Inc.

And I stayed with that platform. was an original founding member of them, an original investor and got to partake in that, which was amazing. But once I said, this is it, and I put my blinders on everything else, that's when we saw hockey stick growth in our business. So I think tactually, that was probably the biggest mistake that I was making early on. overarching, like as I look back as a, you know, almost 44 year old person today over my career.

The biggest mistake is that I made the business my identity. And because of that, everything mattered more than it really mattered. If I could go back and run my team today, I would have made it about each and every individual that was a part of that business. Because...

When it was about my identity, it was about the way I did things and everybody had to do things the way that I would do things. And that was just a mismanagement and it was a misunderstanding of what a true technician in a business is. What I've come to learn over time is that

somebody doing something their best way that's 80 % your way still captures the brand identity that you need to be able to make sure you're consistent at. But it'll allow them to shine. And I think if you can build your business that way, your people will be with you longer. And all of us who have run teams know that there's a there's an equation about longevity. Those that have teams with people that are with them longer do better over the long run than people that constantly have a robust

And I'm ashamed to say that my business was a revolving door for a lot of years. And I was able to make it work. But I think it greatly, it was a failure in my leadership over that time. So that's probably, you know, the way I look at it at this point. But if somebody is looking for something real tactical, it's like, don't switch things up in your business.

Find something that works and stick with it. Go really deep. Don't keep going wide looking. And it's what I started out earlier saying, we're always looking for an easier way and we're seduced into easy that we make changes and changes add complexity to what we're trying to accomplish. When you have an annual goal and there's a major disruption or you deviate from your rocks and your priorities quarter to quarter to go chase a new shiny squirrel.

it throws the whole business off and we, think we underestimate like the impact that that can have on what we're trying to accomplish.

Shane Kilby (50:48)
Gold.

Duane Murphy (50:48)
No, I think that's excellent

insight. There's so many different quotes on keeping it simple. And I know even in my business, I know I can pinpoint on a calendar, on a graph, and going, OK, we made a big change there. And then see what happens after that. you're hoping that production goes up, sales go up.

Right. But, oftentimes, right, there's that adaptation curve and all of a sudden, you know, all of a it's like, wait, what, why are we dipping? Why are we going down? Why are we, why are we going the opposite direction? And, know,

John Mikesh (51:22)
Yep.

Here's the lie you got to be careful for though. We're, we're considered older guys now. So there's, there's a young up and coming kid coming out of real estate school right now, you know, just full of ambition who's saying, yeah, but you don't understand it's different now. And it is, but that's, that's a nuanced thing. It's really not. And I would argue that there's nothing different in real estate.

Duane Murphy (51:36)
Yeah.

John Mikesh (52:01)
that's truly gonna be a game changer for a real estate agent career, there's nothing different. Because yeah, there's social media and there's YouTube and there's, you know, AI. Are those things gonna impact our business? For sure. But here's what I know to be true. You still have to talk to people. You still have to convert those people you talk to

to be people that are going to work with you and you still have to go out and sell them a home and then you still have to service them after the sale and create clients for life. So fundamentally the wheel of what it takes to roll in this business hasn't changed. The inputs are slightly different or modern or newer, but the trap that I see agents today falling into is they're saying it's different and therefore

Shane Kilby (52:46)
Thank

John Mikesh (52:57)
they're creating their own dark corners, their own dark shadows so that they can hide in obscurity and not do the things that are required to be successful in a business today. And that's what makes a coach like Shepplack so effective is he'll go shine the light on that corner and he'll be like, dude, I'm so happy that you're doing YouTube and you're a YouTube influencer overnight. Let me ask you something though. And this is what I would imagine you would ask how many contacts

Shane Kilby (53:19)
you

John Mikesh (53:25)
did you generate from that lead source today? This week, this month, how many people, because here's the things that I tracked in my business for decades. How many people did you talk to? How many people did you set an appointment with? How many of those appointments showed up? How many people did you actually sign to an agency agreement? And then of those people that you signed to an agency agreement, how many people have you followed up with this week and how many people are under contract? There's your wholesale cycle people.

change the inputs, it don't matter if it's YouTube, it's Google Pay Per Click, it's your SEO website, it's door knocking, it's open houses, none of that matters. Just pick three of them and stick to it. But when you know your numbers, then the world is your oyster and you can do anything you wanna do. And the other mistake I see people making, more on the side of us to them, is we're saying, hey, this is how I became successful.

Dwayne, this is your only path to success. Like I just want the coach that teaches the fundamentals of blocking and tackling. And I wanna be able to inject my own personality in my own way. Hey, if you wanna go do it through YouTube, great, be the best agent at YouTube, but don't lose sight of the fact that it's about contacts, appointments set, appointments had, agency sign, follow up and new contracts. And if you can't track whatever it is you're doing in that way,

and you're unwilling to put public visibility on that tracking with a coach, with a peer, with another agent group that you're in, you're probably not going to achieve much of anything.

Duane Murphy (55:03)
absolute, absolute gold. When it right. Well, look at when the market, look when the market had changed two, three years ago now, right? When it went from an order taking market, you had needed zero scale. You just literally had to show up, right? And you tripped over contracts, you tripped over buyers yet, right? It was, it was an order taking environment. And then in the second it switched, what did

John Mikesh (55:05)
It hasn't changed, right? Like everybody wants to think it's different.

Yep.

Duane Murphy (55:33)
every big box, every big real estate company, every real estate coach start preaching right back to the basics. And they just say, think was John John was always the one say, why do we ever get away from them? Right?

John Mikesh (55:44)
Back to the basics. The interesting thing about that statement, Dwayne...

The

interesting thing about it though is somebody told me this early on and it didn't make sense until it made sense. 80 % of winning in this business is psychology. When we were in the, like if you actually run the math, go back three years in the order taking days, right? And look at the math. We were at all time highs in real estate MLS participation.

And yeah, the contracts were up, you know, 40 % or so from where they are now. But I guarantee you there was 40 % more agents are close to it. So on an agent per transaction in each and every MLS, we weren't that different than we are today. And I would argue that we're going to be in a better scenario, a better ratio six months or 12 months from now, there's going to be more transactions per agents six months from now than there is today. Mark my words.

That's a fact. But we're like, I wish it was easier like it used to be then, but largely the only thing that was easier then was that the mindset of the people was it was easier. And because they believed it was easier, it was. I think it's easier now because yeah, we gotta do things differently. We actually gotta ask for the order. We gotta ask for agency. But you know what I realized when I was...

I've always run my business that way. So for me, I'm excited to, I've always preached this. Like we, get agency, we, we show our value proposition and we go out and serve clients. What I'm excited about is agents are going to find that when they ask to be their choice in representation and they do it and they, and they deliver a value proposition, clients are going to say things to them like,

wow, nobody else has shown me that before. You're the first person that actually explained that to me. And they're going to realize it's way easier than they think it is if they'll just allow themselves to believe that it's going to be a better way of doing business. And therein lies the future of our next wave of people that are going to come up through this business.

Shane Kilby (58:01)
Yeah, it's funny because, you know, in that Mastermind conference last week, like it's a room full of real estate icons. I mean, you know, it's just one of those conferences you just don't go to. It's not a Fufu event. Exactly. it's, know, and Chep, he asked everybody in the room, he said, he said, you guys know the...

John Mikesh (58:15)
Like attracts like.

Shane Kilby (58:26)
formula and he does this all the time. said, let me, let me give you the, the, the three easy, just do these three things every day. And then you have the rest of the day. If you do this, knock these three things out in the AM and then do whatever else you want in the afternoon. You hunt in the AM, you eat in the PM. Now you eat 39 30 prospecting and you know, recruiting prospecting in your, in your leadership database at nine 30, 10 30 in the trenches with your people, you know, in your databases, you know, hammering out.

You know, 10 30, 11 30, you know, inspecting the database, inspecting missed opportunities, inspect what you expect. And then, you know what, do with the rest, do whatever you want the rest of the day, which basically means like, you ain't gonna have any more time the rest of day. You can be booked till eight or nine o 'clock at night. But he always brings that message. And he asked everybody in the room. said, he said, let me see a hand, you know, see a show of hands of everybody that has followed that verbatim. Those three hours a day, five days a week for the past 90 days. And it's like,

Duane Murphy (59:18)
You

John Mikesh (59:20)
Monsters.

Shane Kilby (59:21)
Yeah, but it was it

Duane Murphy (59:23)
there was 200

of some of the best producers, best team leads, best, whatever's in the nation that were in that room and the root and the hands didn't go up. Right?

Shane Kilby (59:32)
Yeah.

John Mikesh (59:36)
But here's, okay, but I bet if you asked that room of people, did they ever do that consistently over time, most of the hands would go up. There's something else that we have to understand about this game. It's not gonna be a grind forever. Here's the three components of a real estate agent career.

Shane Kilby (59:55)
Mm -mm.

John Mikesh (1:00:00)
Get leads and opportunities. How you get them, I don't care. Just pick three and stay diligent with them. Convert those leads to sales. Get your 10 ,000 hours in on scripts and you'll be unconsciously competent for the rest of your life. I haven't sold a house since 2015, but I could get on the phones today and convert at a higher level than most agents who do it every day or supposedly do it every day, because I got my 10 ,000 hours. And then the third component, which is super important, is build that database and nurture that.

database. What a lot of agents do is, I've seen a lot of good agents do this. They get on the hamster wheel of leads and they squirrel away leads and they convert those leads at a high level, but they forget about the third component, which is building a database. The database is what's going to make, if you do it correctly, this business should get easier every single year. If you go out and slay it this year and sell 50 homes, that's 50 people that you should have served well that are in your database.

Once you build a database to 500 people, of people that you've served and taken good care of, that database, if you nurture it properly, is gonna produce 10 % or more of the total database in sales every single year for you thereafter. That's why Aruma High producers, because I believe they've done this, their hands don't go up anymore because they don't have to do that thing anymore. So if you're new listening to this, take assurance in, hey, it's going to be hard before it's easy.

Shane Kilby (1:01:14)
Mm -hmm.

John Mikesh (1:01:25)
But if you embrace the hard, it will get easier in any area of your life. Call it 75 hard, call it five to seven years of hard to have a lifestyle that I don't believe there's anything else that you can, or there's very few things that you could get into with no college education, where if you're willing to put your head down, follow a proven system, and I would encourage you to do that. Don't go try your way. Follow a proven system, work really hard.

Do a good job, love on people, and be a good human, and you can have an amazing life.

Shane Kilby (1:02:03)
Man, that was gold. That was gold. John, I mean, we'll put a bow in it right there, brother, because I know you got a crazy schedule. You just pulled it all together right there and just put it in a big fancy bow. That was awesome. John, for any of the listeners out there, how can they reach out? How can they make contact with you on a deeper level or just kind of connect off this call?

John Mikesh (1:02:27)
Yeah, right now our newest product is agentmarketingmachine .com. So that would be the best way to interact with me. Just a program that you can learn about there that we feel super, super encouraged by. And like, it's really been a passion project over the last year for me and my buddy Nick. So that'd be a great way to connect with me on there.

Shane Kilby (1:02:45)
Okay. All right, man. We appreciate your time so much. I know it's very, very tough to squeeze out a good hour like this, but I mean, this was absolutely phenomenally, massively gold, man. It was pure fire. I appreciate the connection today. Appreciate the friendship and connecting over all these years with you and who knows.

John Mikesh (1:02:58)
Awesome.

Yeah, hit me

up when you're coming back to town to go hunting.

Shane Kilby (1:03:09)
Yeah, yeah, well, might not get to hunt this year. had a little unforeseen circumstance that kind of put me in a bad mood last year with some vehicle issues. But nonetheless, we're still going to venture out to make our way out west this fall here.

Duane Murphy (1:03:10)
you

there is no

way that we are not coming back to Montana to hunt again. Like it's not, it's not happening. Life. Life is not almost worth living without that. It's that's, that's why the house was so much out there.

John Mikesh (1:03:26)
We'll look forward to it, guys.

Shane Kilby (1:03:26)
What's that for?

That's true.

John Mikesh (1:03:33)
Hey man, I just want to say this.

I love watching you guys from afar. I love the passion and the heart that you bring to everything you do. And I just want to encourage you guys to keep doing it. It's impacting a lot of people.

Shane Kilby (1:03:44)
We appreciate it. Likewise, my friend, likewise, know, birds of a feather. It's just that connections as relationship built along the way. And, you know, if it wasn't for this industry, if it wasn't for, you know, having the relationship with, with commissions, like we wouldn't be connected today. None of the three of us actually. So, that's, you never know where that connection is going to bring, but just being that big, that good human and just looking for the next opportunity to help someone else or just make a positive impact on their life.

Duane Murphy (1:03:45)
Good to have you.

Shane Kilby (1:04:11)
is where great relationships, partnerships, and even friendships begin. So I am forever grateful, forever grateful. All right. Thanks, guys. See you.

John Mikesh (1:04:16)
For sure.

Sweet guys. All right, take care.

Duane Murphy (1:04:18)
out. Thanks, John.

Peace.