Jonathan Zadegan (00:00):
One, I'm young, I'm 19. So I mean obviously the industry in general, a lot of people are older in the business, more experience, some gray hair. I mean the only thing that I can really compete with is trying to provide value. I think at the end of the day, if I can provide enough value to the client, show that I actually know what I'm talking about. Age at the end of the day is kind of irrelevant.
Johnder Perez (00:30):
All right. Welcome everybody to this episode of Real Estate Strategies with RE/MAX Hallmark. And we are continuing our tech theme this time with a top 30 under 30 chairman club RE/MAX Award-winning realtor who's part of a Pinnacle Club award-winning team. You can look that up if you're not familiar with RE/MAX Awards and you'll see the production level that this fantastic guest and team has. Jonathan, Zadegan, Jonathan, welcome.
Jonathan Zadegan (01:00):
Thanks for having me.
Johnder Perez (01:01):
It's our pleasure. Jonathan, I know you were excited to get into this and you were wondering what this episode is going to be about, but are you ready to have an awesome conversation about how you got into real estate and what you're doing in the tech world?
Jonathan Zadegan (01:16):
For sure.
Johnder Perez (01:17):
Awesome. Okay. So let's start from a few years ago. So 2019 is when you remember you got unlicensed. And prior to that, you were in the entertainment and marketing industry. Tell us a little bit about your background before you got into the real estate space.
Jonathan Zadegan (01:36):
Yeah. So I was, what, probably maybe 18 or 19. Maybe, I think. 18 or 19, I was in university. I was doing this entertainment business on the side. I was also doing this marketing agency that was fun. And then I got into real estate. So I mean, first year in real estate was first year in university, I believe, which was about 18, 19. And I was doing that on the side of doing the marketing agency and the entertainment agency, and then also being in school.
Johnder Perez (02:15):
So tell me a little bit about what you did for the entertainment and for marketing and what you were studying in school.
Jonathan Zadegan (02:23):
Yeah, the entertainment stuff was fun. I mean, it was probably my main gig at the time while I was in school. I started that from high school. So it was probably grade 11, grade 12 is when we started to do little events, starting with an after semi-formal from school. And then we started to move into different types of events. So then we got into, once I was in university, we started to do ... We would fly in different DJs and different artists, and they would come and perform here. And we had a bunch of promoters, and we would promote the tickets, and we would sell them out, and we'd be there for a night.
Johnder Perez (03:07):
Yeah, so that's amazing. So you're very entrepreneurial from the start and doing your entertainment and marketing business. And so tell us, how did you get into real estate? What journey or what kind of path of discovery did you go through to get into to get your actual real estate license?
Jonathan Zadegan (03:27):
The easiest path. I think I was in entertainment and my mother's been in the business for 20, 25 years. And the entertainment business in general, I don't think she ever wanted me to be in that. So she's like, " Get your license, come here, let's build a team, and we'll do it as a family. "And that's kind of what happened.
Johnder Perez (03:45):
It's family business. Shout out to your mom, Larry Zeidegan,
Jonathan Zadegan (03:48):
Edigan
Johnder Perez (03:48):
Group and your two brothers as well. So there's three of you,
Jonathan Zadegan (03:51):
Plus
Johnder Perez (03:51):
Your mom, all in the business.
Jonathan Zadegan (03:53):
All of us in the business now. So
Johnder Perez (03:54):
It's fair to say that it's a family business. So starting out, I mean, you are top producing agent, you're fairly young, top 30, under 30, all these accolades. But starting out, of course, we're going to have listeners and watchers of this show thinking, okay, you're in a family business. Of course, that was a bit of an easy start for you. What did you go through? What kind of challenges did you face when you started out and how did you build up your business to where it is today?
Jonathan Zadegan (04:19):
Yeah, I mean, depends on the family business, but with our business, it was mother had a good book of business. She speaks Persian, obviously. I mean, not obviously, but I just don't speak Persian. So I understand Persian, but I don't speak. So a lot of her clientele-
Johnder Perez (04:37):
I didn't know you didn't. I actually did not know you
Jonathan Zadegan (04:39):
Didn't speak Persian. So a lot of her clientele was Persian speaking. It wasn't like I got into the business and then it was kind of a hand-me-down of here's a bunch of clients to take on. A lot of it was sitting in that RE/MAX Hallmark office and just making a bunch of dials. So I'd get in at 8:30, 9:00 in the morning, I'd leave at 10, 11 o'clock at night, and it was just sitting down and pounding the phones, and that's how I drove the traffic. At the beginning, it was a lot of social media stuff, so a lot of outreach on social media, trying to get people in. We were in the pre-con realm at the time. So I mean, pre-con, by the time I got in, it was what, 2019. So we were doing a lot of pre-con. So we were trying to get a bunch of people into a presentation center, sales center over the weekend and trying to fill out a bunch of worksheets.
(05:40):
And that was my first kind of getting my feet wet in real estate. It wasn't leases per se, it was just going straight into pre-con.
Johnder Perez (05:49):
Right. And so we'll get more into the cold calling because you started doing cold calling for other things, and that's what you kept bugging me about in terms of doing this aspect of your team. So stay tuned for that if you're with us. So describe a bit about your processes. So you went through the whole cold calling thing, which is you're a brand new agent, you're young. And of course, the logical way to do it would be sweat equity, which is just pick up the phone and do cold calls. How did you use your entertainment and marketing background to sort of shift from doing that, building up a database of business, leveraging social media and digital marketing so that got you into pre-construction sales. So it was quite a bit of a journey. So explain that in a bit of detail.
Jonathan Zadegan (06:35):
Yeah. So I think since the beginning it was like, one, I'm young, I'm 19. So I mean, obviously the industry in general, a lot of people are older in the business, more experience, some gray hair. I mean, the only thing that I can really compete with is trying to provide value. So how do we provide value? I think at the end of the day, if I can provide enough value to the customer or to the client, show that I actually know what I'm talking about, age at the end of the day is kind of irrelevant.
(07:15):
But in terms of outreach, a lot of it was ... I did a bunch of LinkedIn outreach campaigns. So I find people who worked for different companies had solid jobs, and the whole pitch at the time was, how do we get you into our email newsletter? Get them into our email newsletter, provide them a little bit more value through the newsletter, and then hope that they click on something and trying to give them value over time. That was the basis of how the business, I think, was built from the beginning. And then over the years, we went into a bunch of other stuff, lead gen and so on and so forth.
Johnder Perez (07:59):
Right. So I mean, purely going from cold calling, going into digital marketing, but still cold outreaches. And I mean, fair to say you built it one by one over many years. So for those of you seeing Jonathan for the first time, I've seen him since he was a baby in this business working under Steve at our Bayview Village office. And so I can say that he may appear very modest and humble and very soft-spoken here, but he's a hustler. I mean, in terms of how he built up his business and his database, especially with the marketing behind it. So Jonathan, you built this business up, you started generating a good amount of revenue income from your business. What were the next steps in terms of you started cold calling agents and you kept bugging me about, okay, how do I recruit? How do I do this?
(08:52):
Is it worth doing this model? So why don't you explain to us your transition from the mindset of building an individual agent business to ... Of course, your mom was in the business, Ari was in the business, and then your brothers entered the business, but you always had this leadership capacity where you knew that if I leveraged and if I led others, they will also help me build up my business. So explain your transition and mindset shift into becoming the leader of a team.
Jonathan Zadegan (09:25):
Yeah. I think the big thing was at the time, first it was a bunch of the outreach and then the lead gen that started to come in, we were getting really an abundance of inbound. So the need to bring on more people was obviously more apparent. In terms of the transition, we started the team, we rebranded to the Zadegan Group in 2021, I believe. We were under Ari's name at the beginning. And then in 2021, we rebranded, and then that was the point in which where we brought our first agent. And then that year, I think in the first two or three years, we brought on, I think, 75 people altogether or something in that realm. And what did that look like?
(10:23):
It was a ton of outreach. So it was just like at the beginning, it's like, well, how do you build a real estate business? I think how to build a real estate business, just making sure that people know who you are. And once we got into the team business, it was, okay, how do we get in front of agents who understand who we are? And it started with the database, having a big database and how do we solicit through there and how do we provide more value? I think that was the biggest thing is I think whatever realm we're getting into, whether it's selling pre-con or taking massive market share on assignments or now going heavy into resale, it's how do you provide more value to the customer, whoever you're serving at that time period, and build a big enough base that you don't rely on only one or two people, because if that one or two people don't end up buying or selling with you, you're left with zero.
Johnder Perez (11:20):
Yeah. So it sounds pretty familiar, right? So if you heard Jonathan's story so far, he started building up his first book of business through simple cold outreach calls, messaging out, building up the team through cold outreach. You'd be asking me for names and lists, and what was your famous line? Do you have any struggling agents that I can help out? Every time I would get a call from Jonathan, I'm like, I look at my caller ID and it's like, okay, I know what he's going to ask me for. But surely enough, that built up a pretty solid base for a team. And of course, if you're a real estate agent and you're a solo agent and you're sort of very busy at this point and you're very good at lead generation and marketing, you realize that at some point you can't do it all by yourself.
(12:05):
And so Jonathan through his team leveraged the idea behind that, built up a team. But Jonathan, what was the most important thing in choosing ... Over time, you and I had these numerous conversations, sometimes over lunch, sometimes here at the office. And there's always been a challenge in terms of when it comes to real estate agents, because many of them have different mindsets. And real estate is one of those things where technically you don't have a boss other than you. So
Jonathan Zadegan (12:35):
You
Johnder Perez (12:35):
Decide to wake up at 5:00 AM or at 12 noon, it's up to you and whatever business you generate is your business. So what were the challenges that you found when recruiting agents and what resulted in the turnover? And you said you grew as big as 75, that was the biggest, right? So-
Jonathan Zadegan (12:54):
We were never 75 at one time period throughout those three years, four years, we had brought on and off 75. So total was 75 from ones that we've let go of, but that's what it would look like over three years. But I mean, I guess the question is what makes a good agent or a great agent? Yep.
Johnder Perez (13:18):
Yeah. When you noticed there's turnover in your team, so when you noticed the ones that did succeed, because there were some that did succeed, others who failed, the ones who succeeded, what made them different than the ones who didn't succeed in the business?
Jonathan Zadegan (13:33):
I think two components. One is the consistency, but second is understanding that first of all, we're in a market, regardless of your age, regardless of anything, we're in a market that you're competing against 70,000 agents. If you don't know what you're talking about with Claude, GPT, with online, more often than not, a consumer will know more than you do. So the first thing that they will pick up from is if you actually know what you're talking about. So the ones who have done really well are the ones who are able to take whatever is online that's already in the consumer's brain and help them understand it a little bit more, or even over on top of that, just provide them more value that they didn't receive by going online.
Johnder Perez (14:26):
Exactly. And this is that constant challenge of what will replace real estate agents in our industry. And you see these articles about, "Oh, this person bought a house with a ChatGPT or with AI." But the realization is, regardless of how much information that anybody has, it's agency, it's responsibility, it's the negotiation skills, and it's work ethic and mindset and attitude, which brings us ... I mean, this is a perfect tie-in. So you almost read my ... Well, you practically read my mind in terms of how I wanted to talk about your tech venture, because as entrepreneurial as you are, starting from your university days, getting into real estate, building up that business, building up that team, you build something up that helps real estate agents now take their business to the next level using technology. So let us know what that is and sort of what was your ... And it's called Get Homsie.
(15:23):
You had me playing around with it and I gave you some of my feedback. So tell us what that's all about and what it's intended to do for real estate agents.
Jonathan Zadegan (15:31):
Yeah. I think the idea came from about two years ago. We grew our database from probably about 500 to a thousand people to about 80,000 people. And what we were struggling with over the years is, again, that value component is how do you give a consumer who's not in the market today enough value to continue to remember you over the years? Now, software providers in general have solved that with the buyer IDX websites. Now, we were mainly into the listing space, so listing more units. Now, there's nothing that really solved for that. It was, "Hey, you know what? Go on our website, request a free home evaluation." Well, that's if you're ready today, but if you're ready in four years from now, I still want you to hear from me. I don't want you to unsubscribe from my emails. That was one component. The second component was I own property and I'm an agent and I have no idea what my properties are worth at any given time, which is obviously a problem.
(16:42):
I love to log into WellSimple and see my stocks, but I can't log in anywhere. I got to log into a spreadsheet just to see what my last quarterly input was for the value. And the third problem was I called the land registry about two years ago and I was like, "Hey, listen, at least 80,000 people, can you sell us an API? Can you sell us an API that would connect with our system? And I can tell out of 80,000 people what percentage are homeowners, how many properties they have, how much equity they have, and all that kind of stuff." But at the time they're like, I mean, even still, they're like, "No, we can't do that. " That's privacy, that's private information. So we said, "Okay, so how do we build something that incentivizes the consumer and solves the pain point of the consumer, which is, hey, I don't want to always speak to an agent about the value." How do we give them that with an AI powered value and et cetera?
(17:37):
But then on the backend, how do we have more granular insight on our customer base, which is how much equity they have in their home, what's the year-over-year growth of their properties, how is their position changing, upsizing, downsizing, refinancing, and reinvesting in theory is all based off of insight. People upsize when they have enough equity, people downsize once they hit a certain age or they don't want to live in that house anymore. And then refinance and reinvesting is typically when people have enough equity to refinance and reinvest. But how do I be that first agent with the data so that as opposed to them logging into their CIBC app and seeing that and then saying, "Oh shoot, I should call Jonathan, how do I give them more value and call them right away and say, Hey, listen, you got half a million dollars in equity.
(18:23):
Have you thought about upsizing from a condo to a house?
Johnder Perez (18:26):
Right. Which is a pretty brilliant concept because you would think that at this day and age with all of the information, technology, dashboards, AI available, that I could go into something and say, okay, this is what my house is worth, except that the way this works is that there's some practitioners that you get the free market evaluation flyer that's been around since the 19, whenever real estate started or the door knocks or the cold calls. And there's nothing wrong with these because at the end of the day, all of these are designed to initiate conversations with the consumer, but you're just taking it a step further so that ahead of doing all that, not only do you capture their interests and you earn their loyalty because you're providing them with useful information, but once you have them, then how would they leave when you're the source of information amidst the noise that's happening out there, you're the one that's making sense.
(19:21):
So that's pretty amazing. So this is something that you didn't decide to keep for yourself. I mean, it's obviously something that you built up. It is benefiting your business because of the fact that it is helping your 80,000
(19:32):
Database. And that's a huge growth, by the way. I don't know how you could even manage that exponential growth, but that's why your team is producing at the level that it is. So now you're planning to execute this idea and to roll it out with real estate agents. So describe for us what a real estate agent would, what they would do with it, how they would interact with it. Of course, go to the website and find out more about it, but how would you recommend a real estate agent use this with their existing clientele with the existing systems that they have?
Jonathan Zadegan (20:11):
Yeah. So it's basically the concept of, okay, so the concept is it's a white labeled portal. So I mean, every agent has their own brand, but they're part of ReMax or whatever brand they're part of, or they have their own team and they have their own branding there. So the portal itself, what they're giving their client base is completely white labeled. They go on the website to gethomez.com. You can sign up for a free trial. When you sign up for a free trial, you'll go through the onboarding program and then that'll basically make you customize your own portal. But the way to use it is a couple of different ways. One, the way that we've realized is, hey, if we do a lead gen campaign or an ad campaign, if we get a hundred leads, we'll get 10 of them into a signed listing agreement, but the 90 of them maybe just aren't ready to sell today or they want to sell in four years from now, the market's not good or whatever it might be.
(21:10):
But how do we continue to give them value? And we do that through HomeZ. So they're going to get constant emails, updates from us every single month saying, "Here's the updated value of your home." So that's ultimately the way to use it. You customize your portal, you invite clients, now you can share it to social media. So as opposed to going to social media and not getting any insight on the customer base who's on social media, now you can get people to sign up to track their home value. It's value to them, it's free of charge to them, but then you get a little bit of data on who your social media base is. The idea is saying, okay, you know what? All these enterprise companies have granular data on their customer base. Why don't real estate agents? Why when we sell a property, it goes into the land registry and then we don't ever see that ever again?
(22:05):
How do we consistently stay in touch with the customer by consistently providing value?
Johnder Perez (22:09):
Yeah, which is amazing. I mean, it's a very simple idea, but I mean, if you think about how practical it is, I mean, literally just tracking the value of your client's home and being able to communicate that with them on a constant basis. And now real estate agents through you and your development team, because I'm sure you have a big
Jonathan Zadegan (22:27):
Team
Johnder Perez (22:27):
Behind this, have the ability to do that. So I mean, speaking of technology and in terms of what's happening right now with the industry, Jonathan, where do you see the future of a real estate agent, the role of a real estate agent, how technology plays a part with that, how AI plays a part in that? Is there a challenge to real estate as a business for new agents coming into it, or do you see great opportunities ahead?
Jonathan Zadegan (22:55):
I think the next 10 years of the realtor is really the agent is the advisor. We're in the consulting business, we're in the advisory business. With GPT and Cloud and all the other AI programs, at the end of the day, that gives them a base, but we're talking about people's biggest financial purchases or sales of their lifetimes, they're always going to need a human in the mix. Now, the agents that adopt technology and use it to get in front of customers twenty four seven are the ones who will ultimately win and take market share. The ones who don't, if you're relying only on manual processes, it becomes very difficult to compete. If you want to take a business to scale, if you want to take a real estate business to scale, and you want to do as a single agent, 20, 30, 40, 50 deals a year, whatever it is that you want to do, you have to have systems in place in order to take you to that kind of volume, or else after two, three, four years, you're going to burn out because there's only so much that you can possibly do on your own, right?
Johnder Perez (24:06):
Right. I mean, it's a very labor intensive and time business. And it's interesting you say twenty four seven because real estate is just that. I mean, you've got showings morning, evenings, weekends, you've got open houses, you have leads coming in at 3:00 AM. And if you don't have a system to at least tell the lead or that inquiry, "Hey, you know what? We're looking after you, " which
(24:26):
This day and age, that's more than possible. You could literally, with the APIs, with the IDX and Val data and the suppliers that you and I talked about, anybody could vibe code these things these days. And the amount of competition that lies ahead is the scary part. Nothing wrong with the traditional agent if you want to do your couple of transactions 10, 12, 20, but once you hit the 20, 30, 40, 50, it does become a challenge. So Jonathan, there's real estate agents that are listening to this or watching this. Some of them are brand new in the business. Others are experienced in the business, but maybe they're fearful about the changes, they're having a bit of a challenge because of market conditions in their local market or just stuck with systems or lack thereof. What's your advice to those who are watching and listening to you right
Jonathan Zadegan (25:21):
Now? For a brand new agent in the business, honestly, it's a beautiful market. Regardless of what market we're in, whether we're in an upmarket or a down market, there's problems to solve. And I think that's the beauty of this business is that people call us to solve their problem, whether that be solving their problem on being negative equity in their house, which is what's happening today or solving their problem on refinancing and reinvesting and it being happy time. But I mean, the doom and gloom of what you see on the newspaper or in the news or whatever it might be, there's a lot of agents who are taking considerable market share today. And I think for a new agent who's coming in, it's just a matter of how do I put my head down, call as many people as I possibly can, try and solve a problem for them, try and give them value over a period of time.
(26:16):
And if I can do that successfully, then people will remember my name. They'll know that I helped them out and they'll know that I run a good shop and I run a good business and I'm here to take care of them. And that's just the basis of the business. We're in the consulting and advisory business. So I mean, if you're not phoning people, having conversation with people, solving a problem for somebody, if we're sitting down and saying, "Oh, my pocket is empty and I got no money in the bank account because I'm not making any sales because the market is shit." Well, the market's not that crap, right? We're talking about a market today that an agent who is coming to the table to solve a consumer's problem is able to take considerable market share.
Johnder Perez (27:06):
There you go. I mean, it's simple and practical advice if you think about it, that no matter how many shiny objects or bells and whistles there are that distract real estate agents from the day-to-day, I love how you put it. We are in the consultancy and advisory business. Your job is to literally solve people's problems. And the problems could be they need to make a move because of ... I mean, some of these are ... I mean,
(27:30):
There's good problems or bad problems, but you know what? Everybody's got to move at some point due to life changes, due to things that are happening, need a bigger home, smaller space. But having that conversation early on and being able to serve the client is ultimately what will lead to a successful agent. And the team members that you and I had frustrations with while I was going through those challenges with you just didn't have that concept in their mind. The ones that succeeded put their head down and they just did their work. I mean, as simple as that,
Jonathan Zadegan (28:00):
Right?
Johnder Perez (28:00):
Yeah.
Jonathan Zadegan (28:01):
Yeah. That's just what it is.
Johnder Perez (28:02):
It is what it is. I mean, it's simple as it is. So Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to sharing your wins, your successes, and how you built up your business and for sharing with us Get Homsie. So one more time, Jonathan, how do they find out about Get HomeZ? How do they reach out to you if somebody wants to send a Toronto, Canada referral to you? What's your phone number, email?
Jonathan Zadegan (28:26):
Yeah, the ZadeganGroup.com. So that's where to find us and that's where to find our team. In terms of Homesy, it's gethomese.com. That's where you can see the software, but phone number, email address.
Johnder Perez (28:42):
Anything you want to share? Yeah.
Jonathan Zadegan (28:46):
647-389-6007.That's the phone number. There you
Johnder Perez (28:48):
Go. There you go. Awesome. Reach out to Jonathan. If you're watching, if you're listening, make sure you like, subscribe, follow, leave a comment, do everything to get this podcast into the eyes and into the hands of real estate agents who we are trying to help with these real estate strategies by RE/MAX Hallmark. Thank you, Jonathan. And thank you everybody for joining us on the show.
Jonathan Zadegan (29:20):
Thanks for having me.
Johnder Perez (29:21):
Our pleasure.
