GARY GRIFFIN

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Welcome And Meet Gary Griffin

RUSSELL 0:14

Welcome back to NWA Beyond. I'm one of your hosts, Russell King. And

CARTER 0:18

I'm Carter Clark.

RUSSELL 0:19

And today we get down to business with our patriarch, Gary Griffin. Gary- The

CARTER 0:24

founder

RUSSELL 0:25

how are you, buddy?

GARY 0:26

I'm doing great.

RUSSELL 0:27

Well, we wanted to have you in here and talk about your origin story and how you got into business, and just tell some stories and have fun with you.

GARY 0:35

Sounds good.

CARTER 0:35

Thanks for taking the time to come sit down with us

GARY 0:38

Absolutely. Glad to do it.

CARTER 0:40

Well, why don't you kick us off. Tell us about where you grew up, what you did before real estate.

GARY 0:45

Okay,

Selling Jewelry Then Moving States

GARY 0:46

sounds good. Well, I was born and raised in Little Rock. Stayed there, most of my life, and went through, UALR, graduated. Came out and, had to seek some employment. I knew I would like sales, so I, sat down with a phone book one day thinking, "Now what would be a good company to go with?" And, I thought, "Well, jewelry business might be good 'cause it's a high ticket item, and if I can get a salary plus commission, I think I could make some money." I went down through the Yellow Pages calling and just saying, "Do you need somebody? I'd like to be a manager trainee and get in the jewelry business." I ended up, calling Gordon's. They said, "Yes, come down. We'll talk to you." And sure enough, they hired me, and I was with them for five years.

CARTER 1:38

Awesome.

GARY 1:39

And during that time, I became a store manager, then went to, Monroe, Louisiana as a general manager

CARTER 1:46

done there.

GARY 1:47

General manager of three stores, and I was there about a year. And, lovely place, but I was glad to get the opportunity to transfer to Dallas-

CARTER 1:55

Yeah

GARY 1:56

where I, was general manager of seven stores. Was there a couple of years, and I decided the jewelry business wasn't for me, so, I quit and moved up to northwest Arkansas, 'cause that's where my wife and, her parents' families live, and my family lived not far from here. And, got in the real estate business.

Launching A Brokerage With Jan

GARY 2:20

Started with Schultz and Taylor. Kerry Schultz had a, Commercial brokerage, and, I was with him about 11 months when he decided to, move into the EJ Ball building, and on the fifth floor, and just do appraisals.

CARTER 2:38

Yeah.

GARY 2:38

So I went to Springdale, found a small building, very small, about 800 square feet, and, opened up my own office.

CARTER 2:47

There you go.

GARY 2:48

What year was that? Oh, that was in 19, '76-ish, '77, somewhere right in there.

CARTER 2:56

Gotcha.

GARY 2:57

And, my wife answered the phone, and I was the only agent. And so, I just set out about trying to, find some business.

CARTER 3:07

That's awesome. So where did you and Jan meet?

GARY 3:11

We met while I was in the jewelry business here in, northwest Arkansas. And, Wasn't long, within I think six months, I was fortunate enough to get her to agree to marry me.

CARTER 3:23

Oh, there you go. Best sales job you ever did.

GARY 3:25

That was what I thought. And so, that's how we met, and it wasn't very long after that that I got the promotion and asked to move to Monroe.

CARTER 3:38

There you go.

GARY 3:39

Yeah.

CARTER 3:39

Congratulations. We're newly married, we're going to Funro, Louisiana.

GARY 3:44

Well, that was a unique experience.

CARTER 3:46

So when you started, what was your idea? Where did you think that this would be? I mean, we're a whole different animal than where it began with you and Jan in the office in- 800 square feet Ferndale in 800 square feet, Mm-hmm now four offices and 230 agents and- Mm-hmm all the different things. So when you started, what was your, like, "I got this big dream," or were you just going, "I'm gonna keep it small?" Like, where did you, where did you start off?

GARY 4:18

Well, like I said, I left, Gordon Jewelers after five years with them. But immediately after getting out of college, I got my real estate license and, thinking that I'd like to get in, but of course it took a little while, you know. We had to set aside a little bit of money and, but all that came to a head when I, quit Gordon's, and I just said, "I'm just gonna go for

CARTER 4:41

it."

GARY 4:41

Went to the bank, got a small loan, and went from there.

CARTER 4:46

So e- how'd you start growing? So then y- you, you start off with just you and Jan, and then how did you begin to go, "All right, I'm... I kinda got this figured out"? But when did you start hiring folks and start seeing that you had a system that would work for others?

GARY 5:01

Well, actually for a few months, like I said, I, had about a 11-month period with, Kerry Schultz and, so I had a little bit of training for him. he was a commercial broker, and that sounded really good to me. And, but after that time, I, we, we started. I'd just go to the office every morning, so would my wife. She'd answer the phone, and I'd hit the road, trying to find somebody that had a real estate need that I could

First Deals And Early Prospecting

GARY 5:27

fill.

RUSSELL 5:27

Yeah. do you remember your first sale with your own brokerage?

GARY 5:31

I really do. I figured you did.

RUSSELL 5:33

sold- I knew it.

GARY 5:33

been

RUSSELL 5:33

through these

CARTER 5:34

trainings.

GARY 5:36

I sold the Fayetteville Speedway down, in South Fayetteville behind the country club,

CARTER 5:41

down the hill?

GARY 5:41

Yes, down next to the airport in Fayetteville. My second sale, however, and third, were the same house.

RUSSELL 5:49

Oh, wow.

GARY 5:50

I sold it to a, a young man, and, at closing, kind of got cold feet, and says, "I don't know if I want to do this." and so I said, "Well, look, go ahead. I'll add my commission onto it, and I'll resell it for you." And sure enough, he bought, and that was my second sale, and my third was-

CARTER 6:10

Selling

GARY 6:10

Selling it week or few, a couple later, yeah, was, when I sold that. So, and off and running. Don't ask me my third or fourth or fifth sale. But those two were quite important.

CARTER 6:22

Yeah.

GARY 6:23

And so-

CARTER 6:23

two mattered.

GARY 6:24

But as far as growing, I was just concentrated with doing a job by myself, to get started.

RUSSELL 6:31

Mm.

GARY 6:32

the growth didn't, really occupy much of my time. Obtaining listings, meeting people, getting people to know who I am and what kind of business I do, and, that was the entirety of my daily efforts for quite a while.

Hiring Partners And Building Culture

GARY 6:49

After a few months, an individual stopped by the store. His name was Dick Keel. bless his heart, he passed away last month. However, he just said, "I'd like to come to work here if you'll hire me." He had been a teacher. And, he was a very personable fellow. And I said, "Well, I've got one desk, or one other desk here." Yeah. It was a pretty small office, yeah. and, over the next, oh, few months, two or three other guys came on board and did like he did, just asked if, they could get in the business. And, I said yes, and so, we ended up, Just coming to work every day, going out and prospecting.

CARTER 7:31

As Bill Scavone says, "Suiting up and showing up." Getting, sh- showing up and doing the work that it takes to be successful, right?

GARY 7:38

Absolutely.

CARTER 7:38

So when did you and Philip become partners? How did that come about, and, like, when did that partnership begin?

GARY 7:46

He came on board I think about three years later, and, I realized, hey, this fella's serious about the business, and he was hardworking and, put in the same amount of time I did. And I just said, let's be partners and move this thing forward."

CARTER 8:02

Awesome.

GARY 8:03

And, he agreed, and it, first couple years, now the business s- supporting both of us was a little bit of a challenge, but, made it through fine. And during that time we started taking on some more agents and, continued growing. one of my favorite agents, is still alive. She just retired about, two years ago. Her name's Nettie Everett. Oh, yeah. She had 40 years with us, which, was, a, an awesome thing.

CARTER 8:32

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. She was in here the other day and, and then, Russell went out to lunch with her and sister afterwards.

RUSSELL 8:38

Yeah.

CARTER 8:38

Yeah.

RUSSELL 8:38

All, all they ate, we, you know, we trade, onion ring places- and we went to Mama Z's and ate, like, four big plates worth of onion rings. And I think that was it.

GARY 8:46

Oh, my goodness.

RUSSELL 8:47

I love Ms. Nettie.

GARY 8:50

She's a, been a great example and she came on board and, she took a while to, get up and going as everybody does.

CARTER 8:57

Yeah.

GARY 8:58

she became successful, dependable. She threw in her efforts, and, grateful for it. And one by one people would come. We didn't really recruit or didn't go out and recruit a lot, just concentrated on business, and people saw what we would do and how we treated them, both customers and agents. at least in the first few years, it was people would come and pick us and ask us. Growth

CARTER 9:23

You're attracting good people to come work with you.

GARY 9:26

Yeah. And we had co-broke deals with agents, and they, saw something that they liked and came on board. So one of the proudest things I have is not just, Nettie, but over the years we've accumulated quite a few people who, came on board and have stayed, for decades.

CARTER 9:49

Right.

GARY 9:49

That, I don't mind mentioning names. Brenda Haythorn was one, came on, to work with Philip and I, and I believe she's in her 37th year with us now.

CARTER 10:00

That's so awesome.

GARY 10:01

And, has just been a, a helpful backbone to us doing business, and grew up around here. Paula Imes in the rental department, she's on, her 27th year. we've had, Stephanie Hyde in our closing department, and she was with us 32 years- When she retired when she decided to retire. Yeah. And, to me, that's like the greatest compliment that anybody could give, is that they wanna be here, and they come, and they contribute, and, it really helped. And, I have agents that, have also done that. We have, some agents that are 20, 25 and, and more years.

CARTER 10:43

Yeah.

GARY 10:44

And that kind of stability, is something that I think has really helped us generate business throughout the years.

CARTER 10:50

Absolutely. It's one of the greatest compliments there is. Yeah. It shows that, that what we have here is a great place to work. It's a great place to show up every day. There's a lot of pride and, and- Mm-hmm you know, we talk about it all the time, the The hardest thing to have is culture, and the easiest thing to lose is culture. So as leaders- Mm-hmm you know, that's the thing that you work on every day, is continue to keep a positive culture and a culture where people wanna be there and, and succeed. And you obviously did it for a very long time, and super appreciative of that. We're just trying to carry it on, man. Just trying to keep it going with a positive place where people wanna keep working. And man, we got such a great group of agents and staff, and everybody here right now. It's, it's unbelievable. It's fun

Training Habits And Consistent Outreach

CARTER 11:32

to see.

RUSSELL 11:32

I remember when I finally earned my own private office, and I had just hung up, I'd hung a picture of Cortes' stuff, right in my office. And right after I hung it, Gary walks by my office and he, he saw it and he said, "What is that?" And I said, "Gary, I'm in real estate full time and I'm burning the ships and, you know, no looking back." And he, and he said, "Maybe don't burn the dinghy," and then walked off. And, and I just remember th- I was like, "Well, wait a minute, I'm fully committed. Doesn't he, doesn't he get it?" And then, and then I just... It spoke to the wisdom of like, "Hey, what are your options? And make sure you, you weigh out all the details." You know, what you were encouraging me to stay in real estate, but it was also like, apply wisdom to everything you do. That's right. And, it's one of those things I, I just, I, it, I appreciated the, the patriarch of it, of like, "Let me, instill wisdom into you." It wasn't just, "Let me teach you a sales trick." It was like, "Hey, ev- everything you do, you know, number one, be a godly man," you know? Mm-hmm. you know, all the prayers that we do, at our meetings and stuff, it just meant a lot to me of like, this is who Gary is. You know, there was no, there was no faking it, and, it just meant a lot to me to help grow my business. But w- how did you develop all that?

GARY 12:42

I just want to thank them for, their consistency. They're coming in, they're working every day and helping us grow, to the point we have. Yeah, for sure. 'Cause we couldn't have done it without them. Sure. And, at the risk of, I'm not gonna say who, only because I know I'm bound to miss somebody- Oh, yeah. Yeah. Of course and I don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings. 100%. Yeah. I just wanna just have pure gratitude to the agents.

CARTER 13:06

Yeah.

GARY 13:07

in regard to training, It's imperative. Real Estate Commission and, National Association of Realtors are big on training, and we have to do a certain amount of that every year anyway. so it was just an accumulation of what's been working and what isn't. And, truthfully, you have to have people that are dedicated to the business. It's their business, it's their livelihood, and they need to wake up every day saying, "Okay, I've got some daylight hours today, and I'm gonna make the most out of

CARTER 13:39

them." Yeah.

GARY 13:39

Yeah. you know, there's so many things you can do, but y- one of the biggest things is consistency. Mm. You wake up, you realize, "All right, I used to work 40 hours a week or more for certain companies. Now I'm working for myself. I have two, there's two people involved here, me the boss, and me the employee."

RUSSELL 13:59

Yep.

GARY 13:59

And you've got to motivate yourself and look forward to, getting out there and, and ac- accomplishing some goals. For example, somebody needs to know who you are and what you do.

RUSSELL 14:13

Yep.

GARY 14:14

And I would train, all kinds of ways that you can grab a handful of cards, which you much, must do, and everything you get involved in throughout the day needs to somehow be guided by yourself to what you do for a living, who you are, and ask somebody a very important question. "Know anybody who wants to buy or sell any real estate? How about yourself?" And so doing that, you'll be surprised, yeah, you'll get a lot of people, "No," but I rarely had anybody not willing to take my card, 'cause I'd follow that up with, if it was a no, "Well, here's my card. I'd be glad to help you in any way I can should you have a real estate need."

CARTER 14:57

Yep.

GARY 14:58

And, that seemed to work. And, from then on, we seemed to just try to add ways that help us do that very thing.

CARTER 15:09

Yep.

GARY 15:09

You know, you the boss, it very important to you the worker to do what it takes. It's very easy in this business to get distracted. But there's, Just imperative you put in the time.

RUSSELL 15:24

Yeah.

GARY 15:25

The world needs to know who you are and what you do for a living, and you're the one that can go out and convey that. And ask them a question that will get them to say yes to one way or the other.

CARTER 15:37

You said a word, consistency. And as management, that's what our, our, our word of the year has been intentional consistency, being consistent and intentional about what we're doing to try to help our agents continue to grow. And we're trying to pass that down to everybody where it's that intentional consistency. and what's so unique about this business is it hadn't really changed that much. You know? Yeah. It's still relationships. We're in the people business first. We're selling a product, it's a house, but really it's all relationships and it's people business, and that's the, that's the ultimate test, right?

RUSSELL 16:11

Yeah.

How MLS Changed The Job

GARY 16:12

Well, I think i- in regard to change, I thought about that a little bit when you wanted me to talk and, I saw, heard what Brandon Long said when he did his comments, and, that there were at one time three different multiple lists.

CARTER 16:27

Yeah.

GARY 16:28

That's the

CARTER 16:29

beginning of change.

GARY 16:31

Yes, that's right. And, but w- so what, what did we have to do? If you had somebody who's looking for a house, you have figured out what they wanted, what size, what their budget was, you had to get in your car and drive up and down the streets- Mm to see what's listed out there. And you'd either look on the newspaper and call other brokers. And, back then it was kind of interesting in that, okay, I finally have somebody, I found five houses, I'd call the brokers. Now I gotta go get all the keys.

CARTER 17:02

You gotta go to office by office.

GARY 17:04

You go office to office, pick up the keys, get your customer, and, you go about starting to show the property. Many times the broker himself would be there, not only to tell you things about the property you may not know, which was good, but also sometimes they had suggestions of other listings they had. and you'd find yourself, going with that broker to look at a couple others because it's what your customer needs.

CARTER 17:31

got a caravan of real estate just going around-

GARY 17:33

looking

CARTER 17:33

at

GARY 17:33

And, then at the end of the showings, you had to go back to each office and take the key.

RUSSELL 17:39

Mm.

GARY 17:40

So the multi list was such a blessing. And, literally maybe 20 pages, and that included pictures and information. And, You know, it, it grew.

CARTER 17:51

How often did they print that?

GARY 17:52

I think it came out more than once a week, maybe once every two weeks, 'cause everybody needed the consistency, and,

CARTER 18:00

Yeah

GARY 18:00

the properties that went in there would sell fairly quickly, and so, and it was a, also a listing tool.

CARTER 18:07

Yeah.

GARY 18:08

Hey, folks," you know, "we can expand. We can do things that are just an individual homeowner can't do. We can put this in," and every broker in the area would know that, we've got your home on the pro- market.

RUSSELL 18:20

Do you remember the price point when you had that book?

GARY 18:22

Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, I told you earlier, I had a sale the first, and, my second and third sale, it sold for $12,000, and the Allendale edition. And when I Relisted it, put it on I think at about 13 nine or 14 five- and it sold again.

CARTER 18:43

1995.

GARY 18:43

it was incredible,

CARTER 18:44

And now where the average sales price is $450,000. Exactly. You know, it's just a whole different world.

GARY 18:50

Oh, yeah. Back then, I don't even know how much attention we paid to getting the square footage. Yeah. They either liked it or not, or it had the right number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and, they could

Rentals Development And Long-Term Wealth

GARY 19:03

afford it.

CARTER 19:03

So as you, as you developed in your real estate career, you've done a bunch of different other things, right? So you've had rental properties. You've- Mm-hmm done construction. You've done- Right real estate development with Philip, and, and you- Right have done a lot of things together. So how did some of those things come about? We don't have to dig into all of them, but I'd love to hear from your side kinda how you parlayed what you were already doing in the real estate business into adding other ancillary incomes, and other opportunities that came from just being surrounded by real estate stuff.

GARY 19:39

when, you're in business for yourself, you've got to plan for the future. one day I was canvassing, going door to door. Back then you could. as I was going door to door, I saw a gentleman at the last house on the street, and, he was sitting on the front porch. And I thought, "Oh, dang it, I don't know if I ought to go address him." And, but, sure enough, I did walk cr- across the street, and I said, who I was and what I was doing. And he says, "Oh, wow." He said, "I was sitting here thinking I need to sell, three of my properties." And I ended up listing, not only listing three of them, but ended up buying all three of them.

CARTER 20:20

Oh, did you?

GARY 20:21

Cause he was willing to, he wanted just more income and no headaches, and I wanted, some, some income from rentals, also. So, but any- anyway, As we grew, I mean, it w- quite a few of the agents would pick up rentals now and then, pick up a house that they could turn into a rental. And, usually had to put some money into it to make it a little nicer. And, you can get enough to, make the payments, pay the taxes, and at least if y- you make a little money, if not much, you're still paying the place off.

CARTER 20:56

Yep.

GARY 20:56

So-

CARTER 20:56

So those first three, did he just owner finance all three of them for you?

GARY 21:00

And, and he only wanted, oh, I don't know, I think it was about 1,000 down a piece, and, that was a little difficult for me. So, we started with one and, he said, "Oh, I'll just, just give me 1,000 and I'll finance all three." That's awesome. And so- So you

CARTER 21:14

bought

GARY 21:15

your

CARTER 21:15

first three rental

GARY 21:15

properties- Yeah, yeah

CARTER 21:16

with 1,000

GARY 21:16

bucks. And, had them for 20 years. They paid themselves off. When I sold them at that time, I got, four times the return or what I, for the entire house. It paid itself off, like I say. And, it was just, A good deal.

CARTER 21:31

Yeah. That's one thing that it's always inter- and you said it just a second ago, is, you know, I think a lot of people when they get into thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna buy some investment real estate," they think that investment real estate's gonna be their job. Really, anybody that's done this for any amount of time or has investment real estate of their own, it takes a whole lot of them for them to cash flow a lifestyle. Mm-hmm. But it's a, the greatest asset appreciator, it's the greatest tax advantage. There's so many great things about owning investment properties, but I think it's like an expectation shift that my goal is for this c- this building to get paid off by somebody else paying

GARY 22:09

it.

CARTER 22:09

Versus this is gonna be my income stream for, for a long period of time, and you, and the best place starts with one. You gotta, you just gotta start. Absolutely.

GARY 22:18

Yeah, there's a lot of times we, didn't take home any money, but we were building a base, and it's just as easy to manage 10 properties as it was two or three. And so, it kept going and growing, and it was, a long-term commitment to, to our future. And fortunately, after 46 years in the business, we have properties, a lot of them paid off, and, that's where the income's gonna come from in the future.

RUSSELL 22:49

There you go.

GARY 22:50

And, that's pretty exciting when you accomplish that.

RUSSELL 22:53

right, I wanna shift a little bit. We've heard in Carter's origin story, but when y'all, before y'all joined forces, what was your take when Carter walked in the door?

GARY 23:03

we were very successful for quite some time, kept growing, and, I think we got up to about 150 agents. And, then the downturn hit, okay? and by the way, you know, I hear people talking about interest rates and them being high. In the early '80s, interest rates went all the way to 20%, but it didn't matter. Business stopped at 13. Mm-hmm. And Arkansas had a usury, cap that, you couldn't go over 10. with the interest rates naturally going, up, and the economy suffering because of it, the state started producing what's called bond money, and interest rates then, they helped supplement, so they make the interest rate in about the 8% range. But during the downturn, you have to do a lot of extra things. We had to work harder and, longer. And, in any case, eventually, the, interest rate or the administration changed and the interest rate got within a range. And, I've got to applaud Ronald Reagan at the time just because he was under tremendous, pressure to government subsidize interest rates. and he said absolutely not. The market will bear. The government's not gonna get into it. And consequently, rates went from 20% over the next tw- almost immediately, in range, eight or less. But for the next 27 years, it went down bit by bit to eventually a low of about 2.75%. Mm-hmm.

CARTER 24:49

And

GARY 24:50

So moving forward though, you mentioned that, about Philip. Philip and I, I made Philip a partner and, we started moving forward. he had, awesome abilities in that number one, he's from here. He knew everybody in the world and, people liked him. And, the, we started, bought a first piece of property to develop, five acres off of Magnolia Street over here. and, Built 21 properties, or at least developed the lots. And over time, that continued to grow. And, we ended up, I believe, doing, 33 subdivisions over the years.

CARTER 25:34

Mm-hmm.

GARY 25:35

one of them, the biggest one, was 450 lots in, in Rogers, which, was really good for us. So to ex- in regard to expanding and having other lines of income, 'cause that also created properties to list, selling lots to builders, relationships with builders, and, we, profited well.

RUSSELL 25:54

That's awesome.

GARY 25:56

During that time, we also bought property and would build rentals, apartments and things. And so, that too, went into the, the fold. And, we he and I both have, numerous units around the area or apartment complexes that, help and, with retirement income. And so it's just all the blessings that can come from being in real estate.

CARTER 26:18

right.

GARY 26:18

And, we can show you how to do it because we've done it for a long time, been successful, and have a great reputation. Matter of fact, right now, I believe we are working with third generation folks.

CARTER 26:32

Yeah.

GARY 26:32

We are. we see some of them.

CARTER 26:33

time.

GARY 26:34

Yeah. And so, that the parents, they followed, what their parents' experiences were- with us.

CARTER 26:42

Yeah. what do you remember about when we started our merger? What do you remember about how that

Surviving Downturns And The Merger

CARTER 26:47

came about?

GARY 26:47

We were talking about, there wasn't only one downturn. Another downturn came along in '07, '08, and '09. I think our most profitable year at the time was 2006. but it hit like a storm and, all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. There was no business going on. my wife and I went on a two-week vacation, came back, and the phones just weren't ringing. And, the only three years we ever lost money was '07, '08, and '09. which was, very, unpleasant. But during that time, we had a lot of agents leave the business, and as Clark and Law, it was in the same boat, we got to talking. I think Barry Graves was, one that, Introduced us- Yep and, and, was a catalyst in getting us together. And, we realized real quickly that we're on the same wavelength, and that, we're fighting the same problems. And, at the time, we had about 150 that went down to maybe 75, and you had about the same amount- Yeah, close that went down. And, when we merged again, we, ended up with 150. But, we had changed and done a lot of trimming on expenses, and that allowed us, By 2010, we were profitable again and have been ever since. Mm. And so, it's been a great merger and, I, I think we're very fortunate that both of us were willing and,

CARTER 28:21

Been the greatest blessing ever.

GARY 28:23

But anyway, it was a good merge.

CARTER 28:25

Yeah. What,

Advice For New Agents Today

CARTER 28:26

So if there's something, there's a brand new person out there getting in this business-

GARY 28:31

Mm-hmm

CARTER 28:32

and you got five minutes to give them, what would be the highlights to being successful? You said consistency already.

GARY 28:41

Right.

CARTER 28:41

You said, you just gotta make it a 40-hour week job. Do it like you're... Do it like you own it, do it like you're the boss and the agent.

GARY 28:49

Right.

CARTER 28:49

What would be the one thing that you would encourage somebody getting in this business brand new? I think there's a lot of people that get in this business think, "I like people. I like houses," but they don't know the work part of it. What would be the one thing that you would tell somebody when they're getting in this business to be successful, what they need to have the mindset

GARY 29:08

I've already mentioned a couple things, but truthfully, what you have to do is you just have to get out there and meet people, 'cause that's where your business is gonna come from, and introduce yourself and ask a, them a question that'll make you, able to give them service. And so by doing that, it's a slow job at times. you'll give out a lot of cards. but you need to make tracks. Mm-hmm. You need to go to, open houses to see what's on the market so that, you need to meet people wherever you ever find them. I used to have a training thing. I, I called it, canvassing at random on purpose. You walk around, you go into a store, you look around. Somebody says, "Can I help you?" "Oh, no, I'm just killing a little bit of time right now. but, my name is Gary Griffin and-" I'm just want know, would you be, do you own a home? Would you be interested in buying or selling a home? And I sell real estate, can I give you my card? and I was surprised that if you do that often enough, somebody's gonna say, "Oh, wow, I was talking to someone the other day," or, "I was talking to my wife and we decided to put a house on the market."

RUSSELL 30:28

Yep.

GARY 30:28

And if you're not out there being the one that's active, they didn't even know someone to call or to go to. And, to them, it was fortuitous that you showed up. For you, it was part of a plan. I gotta show up.

CARTER 30:43

Yeah. Canvassing on, on accident on purpose.

Semi-Retirement And The Core Mantra

GARY 30:48

Yes.

CARTER 30:48

So a few years ago you, sold out of the brokerage and you've still got your license, you're still working, you're still doing all the stuff, but it gave you some more time. What have you and Jan been doing fun in, semi-retirement? What has been the highlight?

GARY 31:04

Well, my wife will tell you, and like I say, I wouldn't have been, able to start the business at all if it wasn't for her, 'cause we were... I didn't have to pay her. She was just a beneficiary of anything that we, were able to put together. And, but what we do now or what we've done, number one, I think she'd tell you that, I... She would've appreciated if I would've retired seven years earlier. And, I didn't because I had goals that still quite, weren't quite met yet. I'm so grateful that the Lord not only brought us to, a successful, place, He brought you and Brandon, and your group to come to us, and it was such a good fit. I now had a, exit plan and, we worked 12 years together, and, that's when, we decided to, go ahead, and I felt comfortable the company can move forward, and, I don't have to be here- Yeah for it to happen.

RUSSELL 32:13

Mm.

GARY 32:14

And y'all have done a great job keeping it forward, and actually you brought the, Weichert, franchise with it. and, for residential sales, that has been a real boon- Mm and, because they're so well known and so well thought of that, It was a great addition for that reason. But to answer your question, how are we enjoying it? We're trying to, spend, a certain amount of time out there traveling and, just being. we get to spend more time now with family or relatives. We get, to make trips. We get to be spontaneous and, we can wake up one morning without any plans and leave and, by the end of the day have a plan to go somewhere. Mm-hmm.

CARTER 33:01

There you

GARY 33:02

And, for anywhere from a few days to a month. And, having been introduced at one point to Maui, Hawaii, that, is high on our list. We love it. We owned there for a little while and, that's all one of our favorites.

CARTER 33:17

That's awesome.

GARY 33:18

Yeah. If it's hot here, we like to go where it's cool and vice versa.

RUSSELL 33:22

perfect. That's good. I love it.

CARTER 33:24

roll up.

RUSSELL 33:25

Gary, thank you so much for just grabbing a few minutes with us

GARY 33:28

I'd like to give, one other thing for agents to, adopt, I hope, and that is, is that you realize that when you get into something and you're working for yourself, you're working for the company, you're working for your family, but you're working for yourself also, and the responsibility is on you to wake up and say... And here's the saying that I heard that motivated me for years, "If it is to be, it's up to me." And I think if you follow that and, if you believe it, follow it, and act on it, you will be successful. Real estate isn't for an- everybody because it takes, a lot of effort, but, a lot of successful people- Absolutely have made money in real estate.

CARTER 34:13

It's a great business. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time, and I just gotta tell you, our partnership has been an amazing blessing for all these years. Absolutely. The, the opportunity to work together and be partners together and learn from each other, and it has been just an awesome blessing for all these years, and I can't thank you enough for that opportunity and that partnership.

GARY 34:33

it's been my pleasure.